Do Defenders Weaken with Attacks?

[Strakorfsky]

Good day! Havn't been in AMerica for ages now. Oh well, i finaly get to make a new post.

Well anyways, i just wanted to let you know about an interesting thought I just found about attacking city defenders.

***THIS MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE ALREADY BEEN SAID, IF SO, SIMPLY ASK ME TO NOTE THAT IT WAS FOUND ABOUT BY ANOTHER PERSON*** thank you for your patiance !

So, every been attacking a city with archer, horsemen, ect... One thing you might have noticed it that the first atatcker ussualy fails to kill the defender...But in the same time, the defender could ahev full halth and the scond atatcker takes him down without a scratch. This is an interesting paradox I have noticed in playing as the Germans.

EXAMPLE: i have 6 archers and one spearman go for early bronze age archer rush. The firt arhcer attacks, he ussualy faisl to damage the enemy. The second attacks and ussauly kills the enemy defender without much damage, maybe on point or less. This has shown that the first attack fails while the second almost always wins.

How this is so is a mystery too me. I have looked in the editer for any possible clues as to this but have found nothing. perhaps, civ3 has a characteristic of old civ2 but in reverse: the defender gets weaker with each subsiquent attacks for a turn each.

If you ahve played civ2, you know that an attackign unit moves several times or attacks several times, it gets drasticly more inefective. Maybe it is the same thing for civ3 defenders. I have noticed the same thing on industrial age tank attacks. The tanks could fail to get the mech the first time, but have a more probability of the second time.

This might only be for units on the same level of defence and offence. like arhcers and spearman; spearman 2 defence and archer 2 offence. Or pikeman/hoplite and swordsman/legionary; pikeman 3 defence, swordsman 3 offence.

I would really liek to know your infomation on this, try it out yourself.

Also, i know that a spearman's total defence is subject to different variables like terrain, river, and fortification. But it seems to be indeffernt to the archers.

Could this paradox be true, please try it yourself, or if you know about this, please confirm or deny this little inquery of mine.

As always, thanks for looking at me thread, I am sure it was not time wasted !

Can't wait for PTW, two more days !

[Jon Shafer]

I don't believe that's how it works in Civ 3 (if it is, then it's something suprisingly brand new to me). The engine is just incredibly 'streaky' where you'll lose 3 points in a row, then dish out 4, then take 3 more, etc. You're just having a case of 'first unit bad luck' followed by a miracle.

[Strakorfsky]

Perhaps, but it happens often, and on several different races.

Aztecs jaguar against warrior, happens.

Calvary against Riffleman, ussualy happens.

Or the tank (not advanced tank) versus mechs, happens 50% of time.

Maybe it is just luck, but very often it does.

[Strakorfsky]

Maybe the atatckers just feel mors speared on to win.

Like in ancient times, amazing victories came from almost certain defeat because the men felt compelled to win at ALL cost.

Like in the Soviet Union in St. Peterberg. The men felt so inspired and a bit of Stalin's cruelty made the men stand against Nazi's superior tanks and ifnantry lines.

Oh well, still, amazing to think if it was real.

[vmxa1]

I can not really say that I see it that much. I would say the sampling is so small as to not be statisitcally valid.
No need to wait for PTW, I have it already and many had it before me. It was in my local EB.

[Cyclotron]

While interesting, that trend isn't documented and I don't really notice it. Or rather, I do notice it, but I notice the opposite sometimes too, so I attribute your results solely to luck.

It might make a good Civ3 story, though.

[TacticalGrace]

Next time you play get a piece of paper and write down the results of 20 or 30 battles. For each battle write down the winner, how many points of damage the unit took and whether it was the first, second, etc attack that round.

I think you will find that overall it is just random.

might be best to only look at equivalent battles (e.g. only archer vs fortified spearmen).


This is something I wish a few more people would do before coming on here and saying that the fights aren't random, AI cheated, etc...

[Sea41571]

Strakorfsky ,war is hell ,and Russian winter had something to do with the victory (Burrrrrrr). the officers were also ordered to shoot anyone who even thought of fleeing the battle. Congrads. on your Victory

[Elowan]

Perhaps I missed something here - but if a defender didn't weaken after an attack, cities would never get conquered.

So what's the issue here?

[TacticalGrace]

Originally posted by Elowan
Perhaps I missed something here - but if a defender didn't weaken after an attack, cities would never get conquered.

So what's the issue here?

No, what is being asked here is do defenders weaken after being attacked OTHER than the obvious hit-point loss.

The first poster (Strakorfsky) was said

EXAMPLE: i have 6 archers and one spearman go for early bronze age archer rush. The firt arhcer attacks, he ussualy faisl to damage the enemy. The second attacks and ussauly kills the enemy defender without much damage, maybe on point or less.

i.e. the first attacker didn't do any actual damage. Based on conventional understanding of the game mechanic, the defender actually wasn't weakened by the first attack and should have defended well the second time round.

[Elowan]

I see.

It's possible that what is happening is that the defenders advantage of defending within a city has been lowered by the attack. That would not show as a loss of hitpoints.

Without the 'in-city' advantage - the second attack overwhelms the defender.

[TacticalGrace]

but more likely it isn't a real effect at all. Just random and Strakorfsky is just seeing a pattern that isn't there