Battle

[Az]

SilverDragon : yes your ideas sound pretty nice , but I think that my model of airpower is much better .

About your ideas of fights NOT to the death ,I disagree because when the army is beaten in a battle the soldiers usually disperse and try to reach HQ ... the other thing when fortified , MOST units will have the choise to withdraw when beaten , to an AI chosen destination , that means 180 degrees from the attacker's location. also that bombard choise in CTP is great .

P.S. Silver Dragon:
" Lights out !
Guerilla radio !
turn that **** up !"
-Rage Against The Machine

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Enslave the enemy .

[general_charles]

I think that all armies have to fight to the death, but I like an option that exists in CTP (call to power) that just tells some units to bombard, the unit does not move into range and just kills other units without having to be damaged or killed in the process. However, this presents some inacurracies, if a battleship bombards another battleship and kills it, it is not fair, the other battleship would have replied in real life.
This is why I proposed to haveseveral options: the one to bombard several targets with bombers with the risk of being shot down if there are enemy fighters nearby, and as for artillery and catapults, they should only be used as bonuses for the attacks, artillery fire never destroyed a whole army, and it is only close combat that kills the enemy, but with air and artillery support, troops should be allowed to strike quite hard on the enemy forces, even when outnumbered.

PS, personnal note for SilverDragon: you really live in Bethesda? I used to live there but now I'm stuk in Belgium... Do you know the NIH, the Montgomery Mall, Walter Johnson High School...? What is that comment about communitsts?

[OrangeSfwr]

Is the mall of which you speak in Pennsylvania, because I live close to the Maryland in Montgomerry county and there is the Montgommery mall 20 minutes from my house. Just wondering...

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~~~I am who I am, who I am - but who am I?~~~

[general_charles]

Yes, that's it, what a small world!!!!
I used to live there, go to school and all, this is so weird...

Well, to get back to business, I heard a quite good idea, how about just having an army and just giving them a task for the war, after all, commanders do not control the whole of their troops. Take for example the eastern front during WWII, Hitler assigned some goals to his armies, which was Moscow, then Stalingrad, then the oil fields in the cocauseaus (don't know if it spelt like this or not) region. This could be a way to make sure that we do not micromanage our troops but that we instead take care of the refeuling, reinforcements, etc... I know that this seems to change a lot from civ2, but it is a nice idea, maybe for another game, not civ3...

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-- Capitalism slaughterer --

[OrangeSfwr]

Wow, definitely a small world. How long ago were you in school? In Maryland or PA? How old were you when you lived here? How interesting...

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~~~I am who I am, who I am - but who am I?~~~

[general_charles]

Well, I moved to the US in 1994 but I did not live in Maryland (Bethesda) until early 1995, in Montgomery county, and in 1996-1997, I went to Walter Johnson high school (9th grade). But I do not think that Montgomery mall is in Pennsylvania, it is in Rockville Maryland, but what ever... I'm now a senior in high school and I kind of miss those times.

There is another I'd like to say about civ3, I'd like to see different kinds of tanks, at least 2 but preferably 3, a small tank (the first one and the less expansive) a medium tank, very effective against infantry especially, and a last one, a heavy tank, very effective against other tanks but less against infantry than medium tanks (therefore providing some differences amonst the tanks even late in the game). And one other thing, I think that once units are mechanised, they should be able to move real fast in open group group and even more in roads.
[This message has been edited by general_charles (edited May 04, 2000).]

[OrangeSfwr]

Oh well :-)

Back to the topic, do (Armor) Tanks in Civ 2 negate city walls like howitzers? The "third" tank in your system should while the other two do not. Armor should have a bonus against Mech Inf. because regular infantry are more evasive than a group of Mech Inf. The infantry (if in a great number) can destroy the tank, but I don't see how Mech Inf. can. Any thoughts?

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~~~I am who I am, who I am - but who am I?~~~

[ember]

This is a repost of my combat system, originally proposed for the V2.0 list.
Any comments?

The CLAS-D combat system (modifed from the LASS system)
(note: all specific numbers are, obviously, arbitrary and would be subject to play testing)
All units are given combat ratings for:
close \ land \ air \ sea \ defense

close: is for non-ranged, within domain fighting (two legions fighting)
land \ air \ sea (LAS) : is for ranged combat against each domain. All combat between units from different domains or between air units is considered ranged.
defense: is the amount the opponents combat rating is reduced by. This makes certain modern units involnerable to weaker ancient units, like a tank vs. a phalanx in the open.

The rating used in a battle is called the combat rating.

The combat system:
Each round a number between 1 and 100 is picked for each combatant. If it is equal to or less than their modified combat rating the other takes damage equal to the units FP.
close combat proccedes to the death of one unit.

Ranged combat runs for a number of rounds equal to the percentage of max HP the attacker had at the start of combat.

Attackers get a plus to attack due to them having initiative. Rough terrain takes away some or all of this bonus, but can never give a net penalty.

Infantry get +25% normally and +50% vs. cities and forts.
mobile units get +50%.
River, hills forest, etc. take away -25%
mountains, galciers, etc take away -50%

Fortifying and forts and city walls gives +50%.

Stacking.
The main attacker is the unit used to launch an attack, and the main defender is the one with the higest combat rating (or designated for it).
If the main unit is an infantry type the auxillary unit is a mobile type, and vice-versa if the main unit is mobile. For naval combat most ships qualify as both.
The ranged unit on each side is the one with the best applicable LAS rating.

The attacker initiates combat and uses 1 MP. The auxillary unit adds 0.5x times it's close rating to the main unit (for both sides). Every 4th turn any damage taken goes to the auxillary unit instead of the main unit. The ranged unit makes an attack every 3rd round. The auxillary and ranged units for the attacker use 1/3 or 1/2 MP.
This allows a simple way of giving benifits to a combined arms strategy. Some units can be used in more than one roll. Mech inf count as both infantry or mobile. Armour are mobile or ranged. The attacker can choose which units act as auxillary and ranged combatnts, nearby aircraft can be used as ranged units also.

Bombards
bombards are ranged combats without the close fighters involved.
Not all units that have a combat rating vs. a domain can bombard it.
cannons can only bombard land, even though they have a relativly good rating vs. sea. If a ship bombards a square with a cannon in it the cannnon shoots back. (it has to wiat for the ships to get in range, even if they are trying to hit the temple, the cannons still shoot back)
In a bombard the defender is the unit with the best LAS rating. The target is what takes damage, not neccisarily the same thing. For older tech units this is random for every round, as tech gets better the target can be chosen, and hit, with more presision.

Raids
Raids are similiar to bombards, except they are conducted by mobile units, with both using their close combat rating. After the number of rounds given by HP is finsihed they automatically retreat. Ships can also conduct raids.

Defense:
dragoons, riflemen, ship of the line are the first units to recieve any defense rating, with 1-2. Stealth-fighters have a small amount also.
Mech inf. cruiseres, carriers, marines, etc have a medium amount, 2-3.
and Armour, battleships, subs, stealth bombers. have the most.
These are all units that are very hard to damage with even WWII weapons, or in the case of subs/stealth bombers, you need modern weapons to hit at all.

Air combat. Air units are based in cities, airbases/forts, and carriers. They can only be moved between cities by deploying them. All air units have 1MP, with which they can launch an assult (normal ranged combat) or assist in 2-3 ground/naval assults anywhere within their range, or they can re-deploy. Fighters can intercept one incoming assult per turn, and bombers can intercept one naval unit per turn if they have MP left (even a fraction).
Air units do not have a close combat rating, all air combat is considered ranged.
When a fighter intercepts an incoming unit it does a normal ranged attack against it. If the incoming unit survives, it continues to it's target, but attacks for fewer rounds do to lost HP.
Helicopters take 2x damage in air combat. They can transport 1 infantry unit into a battle, and act as the ranged unit. They can spot submarines (% chance every turn, higher the nearer to the sub). Air units in a city or carrier will intercept land/naval/air units attacking that square even if they have no HP left. Only helicopters can intercept subs this way.

Terrain gives a penalty to air units attack ratings.
-25% for hils, forest, etc. and -50% for mountains, etc.
Infantry give air units an aditional -25% penalty. (infantry on mountans are very hard to kill with planes). Spies cannot be attacked with ranged combat.

All buildings have HP. They are reduced in effectiveness by damage. Both units and building require money to repair. Units cannot be repaired in enemy territory. Population can be bombarded also, at ~10-20 HP per pop point, with fractional amounts lost. TI's ahve a ~2x land or Sea rating of being destroyed.

Nuclear weapons:
Count as a stealth bomber attack against every unit, structure, TI and population in the target zone, as a regular bomber in the surrounding squares, and a Fighter in the 2 square radius (shpaed like a city radius).


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"Any technology, sufficiently advanced,
is indistinguishable from magic"
-Arthur C. Clark

[The Mad Viking]

OrangeSfwr: with Stinger Missiles! Mech Inf have all the modern equipment - and while they can't hide as well as infantry (until they leave their APCs) they can outmanoevre the tanks all over the 60000 sq mile tile area. The tanks only advantage is if they surprise the Mechs with the infanry unprepared.


Else:
The fight to the death is a limitation, but a reasonable one when you consider that this is a strategic game with turns of at least 1 year duration. Can you imagine how slow things would get if units could keep retreating or both units were damaged without resolving combat? That said, it there are cases where bombarding units should fail to destroy units but not die themelves.

I think some fairly easy changes could reap big dividends.

1. Bombardment
First, artillery type units (Cats to Howies) should not die when stacked with a good defending unit. The counterattack will be directed at the defensive unit, which will be positioned to defend the long-range weapon. Now if the good defender dies, then the artilery would go to, unless in a fort.

Secondly, artillery, naval bombardment and bombers should normally not destroy land units. They should act much like a spy "sabotage" function - weakening the unit both in losses, morale, and disruption, making it easier to destroy.

Similarly, bombers and naval bombardment units should take little or no losses unless there is a special defender / coastal battery / SAMs present.

Bombers should still be able to sink ships. They should take very little damage from battleships and conventional cruisers. Certain ships should be able to shoot down certain aircraft.

As suggested, bombardment / bombing of a city would make citizens unhappy, potentially reduce population, and reduce industrial capacity. This could easily be modelled by turning shields to "waste" although it should show as "damaged" . The production lost would be regained over the next 3 or so turns as the factories are repaired.


2 Fighters
A scrambling vet fighter will beat a non-vet bomber. The current set-up means your fighters will protect your city from being bombed. I think we sometimes look at units as being completely homogenous, when I really don't think they would be. Maybe the "Bomber" unit is a "Bomber Wing" complete with some long range fighter escort. However, it is agreed that fighters should not take the kind of damage they do when defending against bombers. I think the attack should go through as intended, against the city, but the damage should be reduced, and the bombers should be eliminated.

Bombers have often damaged cities with high level attacks and got away with minimal damage despite enemy fighters. But over the course of a year, bombers will sustain heavy losses equivalent to losing a unit.

So we have a similar concept to the artillery one, but where the defending unit (fighter) is not subject to the losses from the attack.

A fighter escort should probably be built separately, and it when facing a scrambling fighet the presence of an escort in the stack would
a) improve bomber attack
b) give bomber a chance for survival
c) damage or destroy fighters


3 Air superiority
I agree with the air support function. When an air unit comes up for movement, you should have a "air support" command, which gives an attack bonus, and a "patrol" command which gives a defensive bonus, to all units with its radius. (5 for a fighter)

Conclusion
I think we all need to remember that Civ is not a tactical combat simulation, and that it takes a long time to play as it is. I am against changes that will, in total, make the game take longer.

[general_charles]

ember:
I really like your ideas, even though some things remain unclear, I think that the idea to give both military units and buildings HP is great, it was one of the things that civ2 did not do and that is very important. But how about civilian have HPs too? I mean, when bombers during WWII made air raids, they often hit civilian populations. The idea that units are costly to repair is good, because this is true.

Orange:
I think that mech infantry is equiped today with lots of weapons, mortars, heavy machine guns, anti tank guns, rochet launchers and SAM launchers, it is not just a small army equiped with antique weapons.

The Mad Viking:
I think you have some quite good ideas. But there is something I would like to ask you: doesn't it annoy you when two of your bomber units get killed why trying to shoot down a battleship while in real life, battleships were not effective against bombers, and only a couple of fighters could easily sink one?
However, there is one thing I do not actually agree with: when you say that fighters should have a 5 turn radius when patroling, I think they should wait for bombers to get closer, say within a 3 square radius, because they do spend some time fighting with the bombers, and they are, there should be some turns taken out of their radius. Besides that, I do agree with you and the high altitude bombing, but I think there should be an option, where your planes only get hurt if the enemy has massive air power in the area, becuse they are way out of range of the SAMs or AAAs.

[ember]

I had modeled pop losses, but it I had modeled it with fractional pop points. Each pop is subdivided into 1000, each attack agains a city, regardless of target does a certain amount of damage, but against civilian areas, much more. HP losses sustained by units supported by the city might sustain 1/1000 per HP lost, or so.
Growth was to be independant of food, asside for having enough, more important was general happines, from government, and social conditions. Growth rates would tend to be 20-100/1000th's per round (2 to 10%)
I had suggested a formulat for pop points to population that followed the civII amounts exactly for whole numbers (i would have to re derive it) Look for some of these ideas in the regions threads in List v2, if you are interested.

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"Any technology, sufficiently advanced,
is indistinguishable from magic"
-Arthur C. Clark

[general_charles]

OK, I see that you have lots of good ideas. This idea to have popgrowth independant of food production is good, even today (at least in Europe, the stats in the US are not the same), we have way to much food (thanks to CAP, the Common Agricultural Policy for EU countries) and our population is either growing real slow or declining, due to higher standard of living, people want less children. In an agricultural society, people tend to want more children to work at the farm, and infant mortality is quite high.

[Az]

General : I agree with you about the mortality . anyway there MUST be a kind of International Food trade ... like in the real life . about units . I imagine to myself any Unit as a groop of about 6000 men , in infantry , or 150-200 tanks in Armor about 5 bombers in a Bomber Unit and 10 7 fighters in a fighter unit. also I think that there must be a difference between helicopters ,and Gunships .coz I cant imagine to myself a transport helicopter shooting a tank ... but maybe its Just me *g* . btw ... not fortified Mech. Inf. have little to no chance of beating armor in any sitation , definetly not if they are the ones attacking . Tried it in Steel Panthers 2,3 . they've beaten my ass , all right . from those patrolling that I've suggested but against an unfortified infantry in a plain field ... well that Infantry general will have to answer some questions in HQ back home , that's right . btw stacking fighters and bombers will defend the bombers above . I know I've mentioned it before but I say it again coz I think this is the solution to the aerial problems . anyway if you have aeral models that are even better than mine plz post 'em . I'll take a look .


P.S. I demand the return of the Partisan Unit , a brand new one and one that takes no 60 shields (!) to make . anyway they should be available only if the city is attacked and has very little of defence units inside .

P.P.S. the best goverment is COMMUNISM !
just look at them makin' all this science when they're happy! give'em 40%-50% of luxuries and watch then grow happy as never... ( trade as in Democracy !! )


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Enslave the enemy .

[OrangeSfwr]

I think G.C. saw my point. I think an Armor should have a disadvantage on Defense versus Mech Inf. (In Civ 2 a Mech Inf has about 50% chance of beating an Armor without fortification or fortress etc.) But when an Armor attacks a group of Mech Inf. from straight on, the result is in favor of the Armor (especially if it is more advanced). I like the idea of upgrading tanks. G.C. had a good point when he brought up WWI/WWII tanks.

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~~~I am who I am, who I am - but who am I?~~~

[general_charles]

Dalgetti: I do agree that mechanised infantry have few chances of beating armor, but if you have played Close Combat, you see that you can have an awful time if you only have tanks, because once you get next to house, there can be infantry inside and those molotov cocktails and flamethrowers are really powerful. This is why a combination of marines, tanks, artillery and airpower, with some use of paratroopers would be very effective in combat. I think that in some situation, there can be some damage that mechanised infantry can do to tanks, for example in street fighting, do you know how long it takes a tank to turn 90 degres? Well, using a jeep or a hummer, you have a real nice acceleration and you can just shoot and run. As for air combat, I think that it is really complex, and I have no way of making it a bit more real without having a real complex system.
As for armor, I think that you definetely need different tanks, I mean, the first WWI tanks did not even stand a chance against early WWII tanks, and early WWII did not stand a chance against late WWII tanks, and those do not stand a chance against today's tanks.....