Why I quit Civ3 again... (Combat) (Rant)

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by tinyp3nis
Because the warrior can kill the pikeman with a good RN.

That doesn't change the fact that the pikeman is much better.

Sure, the pikeman has better stats but RNG > stats

The RNG cannot be greater than the stats. They are not in competition. The stats are simply too close together (1 and 3). You would not have the problem if you changed them (1 and 8, for instance).

[WarpStorm]

Oh-Tiny-One, are you sure you really know how the system works? Sure, a Warrior can defeat a Pikeman. About 8.6% of the time. Of course, if the Pikeman is stupid enough to attack the Warrior it is a 50-50 fight. It seems to me that stats > RNG 91.5% of the time in this particular example.

[Dis]

I am suprised so many people didn't like civ2 combat. Alpine troops overpowered? I don't remember that being a problem.

I did forget to mention stealth fighters/bombers with my howitzers. But aside from those units the combat wasn't too bad.

But even though there weren't very many problems with civ2 combat imho I actually do seem to like civ3 combat a little more. I just wish combat was a little more complex and with more units. And yeah I do get upset at the screwed up results.

[Cyclotron]

I never thought alpine troops were too bad either.

Mostly, IMO, the offenders were stealth, howitzers, bombers, battleships (almost impossible to kill), helicopters (they could smash tank divisions... and they could go over water!), and elephants.

There were certainly very powerful units in Civ2, but those are the ones I considered broken in that regard.

[tinyp3nis]

You would not have the problem if you changed them (1 and 8, for instance).

You have to realise the big picture, these kinds of units would be totally unbalanced.

[Harovan]

I think the combat system is ok as it is. Sure it could be improved, but to teach the AI to use stacks with combined arms seems to be hard, as show the stacks of twelve Fascists I have seen in CtP2. Alpine troops were cool and I think they would be a nice addition. Basically we already have them as UUs (Keshiks), I'm sure there is a way to add Alpine troops in a mod.

What I really miss, is a real zone of control.

Also the implementation of the 2nd tile improvement by railroads is a poor decision. There should be advanced farms and advanced mines instead. The railroad sleaze looks not only ugly, the infinite movement hurts also the gameplay, even though it may be realistic. No need to deploy your troops wisely, just park them anywhere with access to RRs and you'll have them instantly anywhere in your empire. Air lifting is limited to one time per city per turn, why is RR movement unlimited?

[Kampus majore]

Originally posted by tinyp3nis

You have to realise the big picture, these kinds of units would be totally unbalanced.

What is meant here is that you up ALL units. So maybe warrior stays at 1/1, pikeman gets 1/8, musketman gets 2/16 etc, etc.....

(But editing is not my thing. I want to play the "standard" way. )

IMHO this system is better than civ2. In civ2 you could have howitzers and nothing could really hold them back, not even mechanized infantry. So once you had howy's you just had to build more of them than the AI and bingo: you could crush them!

In civ3 you still have to think once you have Modern Armour. In order to win against an AI which has about the same tech you have, you need to bombard them a lot in order to get through. Much more realistic I think!

Anyway, this is my opinion. Sure, I get pissed when my good units loose from a bad one. But I get over it and try even harder. That builds character and makes civ even more challenging!

[celicakydd]

I agree with there being a bit too much randomness. Civ3 should be more akin to chess than risk.

[tinyp3nis]

What is meant here is that you up ALL units. So maybe warrior stays at 1/1, pikeman gets 1/8, musketman gets 2/16 etc, etc.....

If you can say this with a straight face, you haven't been reading what I have said.

1 x pikeman = 8 x warrior
and
1 x pikeman = 3 x warrior
Does this look like the same balance? No.
If you still don't get it I'm not sure if I can help you.

[Kampus majore]

I see what you mean now, but was it not your purpose to have a pikeman that is better at defending a warrior? So instead of unbalancing things you can balance it the way you want it to be! I must admit that once you start messing with these numbers it will take a long time before you are finished....

Anyway it wasn't my point at the first place, but cyclotrons....

[tinyp3nis]

Originally posted by Kampus majore
I see what you mean now, but was it not your purpose to have a pikeman that is better at defending a warrior? So instead of unbalancing things you can balance it the way you want it to be! I must admit that once you start messing with these numbers it will take a long time before you are finished....

Anyway it wasn't my point at the first place, but cyclotrons....

It's ok...

Yes, it was my purpose. In civ3 and civ2 both, if you had a 1-x unit and a x-3 unit, and you were to kill the x-3 unit by attacking it with 1-x unit you'd need about 3 units to do the job... In civ 2 you have to use all the 1-x's to beat the x-3. But in civ 3 you can (with nice RN) beat it with the first warrior. So how good the x-3 unit was in the end when it got beaten by a single cheap unit?
In civ 2 the unit provides what it promises in it's statistics.

[Cyclotron]

Tinyp3nis, the thing you have to realize is that the RNG in Civ3 is the same as that in Civ2. If they were different, they wouldn't be random.

The entire reason you get different results is because of hit points and firepower.

Obviously, firepower makes better units more powerful in Civ2, so its removal in Civ3 has an effect.

The main difference is that in Civ2, I belive, each unit had 10 or so hit points for each actual hit point level. Since Civ3 has far fewer hit points, results tend to be more streaky than Civ2.

All I'm saying is that the combat system is not profoundly different from that of Civ2; in fact, the only changes are fp and hp. The RNG that you seem to like to demonize is not the culprit here; hit points are.

I will make the concession to you, as I tried earlier, that MP poses some problems for the obvious solution of modding, but also as stated I really am not in a position to comment on that.

[WarpStorm]

Your sample sets are too small, tiny. Yes, if you have a sample set of one event any event can happen, however in a sample set of 100 warriors in a line attacking 100 pikemen in a line, the number of living pikemen will be pretty close to 91. This is assuming the pikemen don't fortify and are out in the open.

[ACooper]

I read an article recently about how people nowadays tend to find someone, anyone, to blame when things don't go exactly there way. They cited anecdotal evidence to show how this was ultimately destroying the world.

So....I guess if you a whining you are destroying the world. So...whiners suck.

[Jimmy 2 Times]

I feel your pain

I recommend that you toss the game and never play again. The ultimate judgement for any game is whether it is fun to play, and in my opinion CivIII is just plain annoying to play. However every couple of months I'll pick it up and give it a go. Today I was one turn away from building Smith's Trading Co when the Chinese build it. Obviously I was pissed but not that surprised since this has happened on many occasions, even earlier in this same game. So I reload a few turns back, establish an embassy with the Chinese and check their progress on this wonder. 32 turns away. Okay you say - they used a leader right? How did they know to build it one turn before me? They have no embassy. Could they have spied on my city some other way? Just bad luck? Happens way too often for that. Anyway, there's my rant.
Also, ignore the posts that try to attack your intelligence or accuse you of whining. As you are probably aware, the internet is a haven for those, whatever you want to call them, that attack and attempt to incite anonymously.