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

[Traelin]

Originally posted by Major Guz
That was indeed one of the first things I noticed (not being able to be in the same square as your allie) in contrast with AC, but then again I realised I should not compare this game with AC.
If you see CivIII as a different game you will much more like it.
(otherwise you keep in the circle "governments suck, I want social engineering etc. etc. etc. like I read in some of the threads).

I dunno, I really liked SMAC's way of doing certain things. One of the things I thought cool was that allied cities could heal your units. And your units could park themselves in allied cities. I love Civ3, but SMAC had some diplomatic and military implementations that were far superior (IMO) to Civ3. But I would never trade Civ3 for SMAC.

[Hanksname]

Well, in Civ terms America never lost ... it simply withdrew. A million casualties versus 50,000 ( or whatever the actual non-Westmoreland numbers may be, still overwhelming ) is a tactical win though obviously not a strategic one.

The Spartans did do well against thousands of Persians, including a larger size of Immortals ... the problem is, someone at Firaxis read that and decided to build it into the game. It happens a lot more often for the AI because the AI has access to everything in the game. Someone wrote earlier that the results are 'statistically' proven to be valid, which is complete hoopie. Who ran that analysis?

Originally posted by peterfharris


A very good point. It seems completely "unrealistic" that America did not prevail in Vietnam. It also seems completely "unrealistic" that the Americans won the Revolution. As for the Spartans holding off the Persians for days at Thermopylae, that is simply absurd, far more ridiculous than a spearman winning 3 times in a row against bowmen!

Er, those wars happened in the real world.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Hanksname
The Spartans did do well against thousands of Persians, including a larger size of Immortals ... the problem is, someone at Firaxis read that and decided to build it into the game.

Wrong. Firaxis wanted to balance unit strengths to a) give lower tech civs a fighting chance and b) give civs without access to a certain resource a fighting chance.

It was a gameplay decision.

It happens a lot more often for the AI because the AI has access to everything in the game.

Wrong again. "It" happens no more often to one side as any other.

Someone wrote earlier that the results are 'statistically' proven to be valid, which is complete hoopie. Who ran that analysis?

And again, wrong. We have tested the RNG over many trials and concluded that it is indeed random. Why would you belive otherwise?

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Hanksname
Well, in Civ terms America never lost ... it simply withdrew. A million casualties versus 50,000 ( or whatever the actual non-Westmoreland numbers may be, still overwhelming ) is a tactical win though obviously not a strategic one.

FYI Veitnam now say they lost about 2 million.

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Hanksname
Well, in Civ terms America never lost ... it simply withdrew. A million casualties versus 50,000 ( or whatever the actual non-Westmoreland numbers may be, still overwhelming ) is a tactical win though obviously not a strategic one.

American casualties were about 350,000 (deaths were about 50,000). Other nations suffered casualties, including Canada and Australia. The Vietnamese casualties are harder to measure, but were probably about 2-4 million.

The Americans lost the battle, nearly suffered a political meltdown, and went into debt to fund the war effort. However, Vietnam did pay an even higher price in terms of human suffering. Just in the 20th century, they fought the French, the Japanese, the French again, then the Americans, before finally securing their independence.

[Hanksname]

1) Conjecture.
2) Conjecture.
3) How exactly did you test it?

Originally posted by cyclotron7


Wrong. Firaxis wanted to balance unit strengths to a) give lower tech civs a fighting chance and b) give civs without access to a certain resource a fighting chance.

It was a gameplay decision.



Wrong again. "It" happens no more often to one side as any other.



And again, wrong. We have tested the RNG over many trials and concluded that it is indeed random. Why would you belive otherwise?

[swagled]

In a way, I'm surprised at how much hullabaloo there is about the combat systems. I think the Civ2 system worked OK, and I think the Civ3 system works OK.

Civ2 had the more "realistic" attack-at-weakend-strength-from-a-long-march feature, which is removed in Civ3. This is the only thing I really noticed.

And, you know, I kind of like that. I felt like in Civ2, it didn't matter what kind of unit I was using... they needed to be one square away to be any good.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Hanksname
1) Conjecture.

No, I'm pretty sure we had firaxians around here a while ago telling us about how the combat system changed to deal with the resource system.

2) Conjecture.
3) How exactly did you test it?

We have had many threads on this in the past, and at several points people have initiated tests of the combat system by making... you guessed it, many attacks in the same circumstance. It has been established that the RNG is flawless.

Why would you ever assume it was anything else? What, you think Firaxis lied to you about the combat system? If that's not meaningless conjecture, I don't know what is.

[Cyclotron]

Oh, and here's a good link on a test:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=35627&perpage=25&pagenumber=1

[punkbass2000]

Originally posted by swagled
And, you know, I kind of like that. I felt like in Civ2, it didn't matter what kind of unit I was using... they needed to be one square away to be any good.

Very good point. I never built one move units in civ2. I build plenty in civ3.

[High_Lord]

Originally posted by swagled
Civ2 had the more "realistic" attack-at-weakend-strength-from-a-long-march feature, which is removed in Civ3. This is the only thing I really noticed.

And, you know, I kind of like that. I felt like in Civ2, it didn't matter what kind of unit I was using... they needed to be one square away to be any good.

Yeah , I remember that...little dude would pop up like "is you crazee?...these guys are wiped out!!" LOL....I tell you what I miss most is the Diplomat...I love CivIII diplomacy but miss being able to use my gigantic treasury to steal units in my territory

[Dis]

What I really mean by the civ2 combat being decent is I liked the odds you would lose a battle. Sure there were overpowered units like howitzer and stealth aircraft. But there was always a decent shot your tank would lose a battle to a musketmen or something. Of course they would clean the board with warriors and such. Howitzers of course blew everything out of the water (or ground) as they had a firepower of 2, and all the other land units had a fp of 1 (except artillery I believe).

In any case there was maybe a 1 or 2% chance of losing a battle you should always win. I was fine with that. With civ3 that chance seems to be around 10 to 20%.

[War4ever]

yup the combat model is weird, sometimes you need your elites extra hp to win against regular troops, other times they lose??? but had you reloaded and attacked with your vet troops you would have won???? how is that normal....it grew tiresome very quickly....

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Dissident
But there was always a decent shot your tank would lose a battle to a musketmen or something. Of course they would clean the board with warriors and such.

Wow, that never happened in all the years I played Civ2. A rifleman had maybe a slim chance... forget a musketman.

In any case there was maybe a 1 or 2% chance of losing a battle you should always win. I was fine with that. With civ3 that chance seems to be around 10 to 20%.

IMO there all no battles you should always win...

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by War4ever
yup the combat model is weird, sometimes you need your elites extra hp to win against regular troops, other times they lose??? but had you reloaded and attacked with your vet troops you would have won???? how is that normal....it grew tiresome very quickly....

Obviously, it is all random. There is a chance of winning and of losing. It's pretty clear they didn't win because they were veteran, but because that's what the ransom result was.

It's completely normal. To say it is not means you don't understand probability.