WTF?! I just started playing Civ 3 and....

[Dante_X]

After playing Civ 2 and Alpha Centauri for many years, I've decided to give Civ 3 a chance. (version 1.29F)

I'm playing on the easiest level, trying to get my feet wet, and learn the new features of the game. Anyway, one of my border towns, equipped with city walls, was fortified with one VETERAN knight, and 1 regular pikeman. Both of them were killed by a solitary regular Russian swordsman who attacked the town.

I'm confused. Statistically, this should have been a suicide mission for that swordsman. Instead he ends up razing my town the next turn, after defeating a pikeman and veteran knight behind city walls. I decided to call this a fluke and continue playing.

Four turns later, another of my walled cities, fortified by 1 regular archer and 1 veteran spearman, is conquered by two regular Russian warriors.

Becoming upset, I attacked one of his towns (without walls) with three regular Legionary troops, one regular knight, and 1 veteran knight. His town had two regular swordsmen. I was promptly massacred.

Is this common? How is it even possible to make a defensive strategy when the computer pulls off feats like this? How am I supposed to go on any type of offensive when even on the easiest level I lose despite statistical superiority?

Is this one game a fluke, or can I expect more of this?

Thanks, all.

[Tiberius]

Go quickly and buy some lotto tickets! With such a bad luck in civ3, you will probably win!!!

Seriously, it sometimes happens and it is very annoying when it happens to me, but then, sometimes I am the one who win a battle or two by luck. There is a random chance in every battle, and it is OK, IMHO.

If it is too annoying to you, disable the "preserve random seed" option and then you can reload the game to obtain different results. It is a kind of chieting, but WTF, fun is the more important than fair-play (playing against the computer, I mean).

[Sean]

You should of taken the swordsman out with the knight!

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by Sean
You should of taken the swordsman out with the knight!

Very true! I missed that.

Also you should have killed one of those warriors with your archer.

[Tiberius]

How big was the town you attacked? If it was bigger than 6, the defending troops had a defence bonus. Nevertheless, your troops should have been able to take that city. It was pure bad luck.

Battles are not calculated purely "statistically". Like in real life, there is a chance for the weaker unit to win. It isn't happening very often, though.

"**** happens", so don't take it tragically

Edited: Damn, I was censored You know what I wanted to say.

[Demerzel]

Quote from Brian Reynolds
I was the one in Civilization II who said no, no thank you, we're not going to have phalanxes beating tanks

gotta think that Brian Reynolds was onto something there though....

[Flandrien]

I am confused myself.
How can one swordsman take out 2 units ?

[Demerzel]

Originally posted by Maestro
I am confused myself.
How can one swordsman take out 2 units ?

i'm guessing in two consecutive turns?

[Ethelred]

Mostly it was bad luck. But only mostly.

Anyway, one of my border towns, equipped with city walls, was fortified with one VETERAN knight, and 1 regular pikeman. Both of them were killed by a solitary regular Russian swordsman who attacked the town.

Thats bad luck. Odd that the AI even tried. Sure it was only one? I ask because the effort itself is at least as odd as the results. Were either of your units down on hits? Other wise AI would not normally make an attack like that. Not with just one swordsmen.

Possible error on YOUR part. Why a regular pikeman?

Four turns later, another of my walled cities, fortified by 1 regular archer and 1 veteran spearman, is conquered by two regular Russian warriors.

Walls don't help all that much. A size 7 city is much tougher than a walled city. Archers suck especially on defense. Why didn't you use it for attack? Why was it a regular?

Are you leaving things out? Like were your units down on hits? Thats all it means to be a veteran. A vet down to two hits is much weaker than a regular and I have noticed that people that make these kind of posts tend to leave things like damaged units out of their rant.

Becoming upset, I attacked one of his towns (without walls) with three regular Legionary troops, one regular knight, and 1 veteran knight. His town had two regular swordsmen. I was promptly massacred.

How big was the city? Walls aren't worth building and when a city gets large enough its has better defenses than a wall. Walls are a complete waste unless you are about to get hit with a raging horde of twenty barbarian horsemen. Even then a second spearmen is probably a better use of shields than a wall.

What the heck were you WASTING shields on walls instead of building barracks and then sending out out lambs to the slaughter with REGULAR legions. NEVER build regulars. They will get their killed way to often. Same for that knight. What a bloody waste of shields to build a regular knight.

Is this common?

No. For one thing most people don't build regulars except at the very beginning of the game, regular units should only be built at very earliest part of the game and legions and knights are not that early, bad idea even with archers. For another, yes fertilizer does happen.

Is this one game a fluke, or can I expect more of this?

Mostly it was a fluke but you helped it along by using regulars and wasting shields on walls. Be carefull about how you attack. Don't defend with archers. They should be used actively on offense and horsies are MUCH better even though they cost more. They can attack at their convenience and they retreat some of the time as well. Don't attack across rivers unless you must and then you will need a serious advatage of Attack vs Defense. If a city is on a hill its harder to attack. If the population is six its harder to attack

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Maestro
I am confused myself.
How can one swordsman take out 2 units ?

I missed that one. Thats what I mean though when I say the people making this kind of post tend to leave out important things that effected the results.

[planetfall]

DanteX,

You left out the terrain variable. 2 attack to 1 defender is a weak attack ratio. If target city,
was on a hill/mountain
across a river

Your results are normal. Also knights are not as powerful versus sword yielding units. My game play experience does not match the Off/def numbers for knights vs swords. They do ok versus spearmen, but have harder time versus swords even though have same defensive number. Go figure.

-- PF

[Traelin]

I know people post about this kind of scenario all the time, but in all my Civ3 days I have never encountered anything even remotely close to this sort of bad luck. Sure, I've lost the 60/40, or perhaps 70/30 battles, but nothing like the example in this thread. Which actually takes me back to my days of Civ1, where my Settler of all things beat a Nuke (I wish I was lying, but it definitely happened, a bit south of the Sahara). Although the Nuke still went off, cuz apparently it goes off whether it wins or loses.

[Arrian]

I've had bad runs of luck like that. But I've also had good runs of luck that are comparable (like my regular swordsman who whacked a fortified conscript rifleman).

The best insurance against bad random number rolls is to build more troops than you think you need, and make sure that any that you actually use in battle are veterans (or elites). Regulars suck, because only having 3 hp makes them more vulnerable to a bad string of random numbers.

EDIT: I forgot to mention bombard units. Bombardment can really help, particularly when used against enemy units that are NOT in cities. Cities provide a lot of bombard defense, and until you can put together a large stack of artillery units (as in the ones you need replaceable parts to build), don't bother trying to bombard them. Instead, using catapults or cannon to assist in the defense of a city, or simply bringing them with a stack of troops, will increase your chances of victory. For instance, in the case of your pikeman & knight that were killed by a swordsman. If you had a catapult in that city, you could have fired at the swordsman as soon as it came next to your city, potentially damaging it. If not, when it attacked your city on its next turn, the catapult would again take a shot (automatically) again potentially knocking off a hit point. Also, that reminds me, why didn't you attack the swordsman with your knight???

So, to answer your question, I'd say that the type of luck you described isn't common, but lucky combat results (good and bad) are. Plus, as Planetfall mentioned, you didn't factor in terrain, which can make a big difference.

-Arrian

p.s. Traelin, the worst single combat defeat I've suffered in CivIII was the loss of a veteran tank to a regular musketman (fortified in a size 3 town on plains, no river crossing involved). **** does indeed occasionally happen.

[zeh]

If you wanna know the probabilities of win a battle, go and see the Civ3 Combat Calculator.
It'll help you deciding if it's a good idea attack or not a unit, but they not tell you why strange things happen sometimes in combat.

[Ethelred]

Also, that reminds me, why did you attack the swordsman with your knight???

Why the heck shouldn't he? Knight has an attack of 4 and the swordsmen has a defense of two plus any defensive bonuses and if things don't go well the knight may retreat.