Unofficial Poll 6: Combat System

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Ok. Heres the question. Do you want:

(a) The combat system of Civ III (read the website)
(b) The combat system of Civ II (no armies)
(c) The combat system of Ctp (armies fight as one entity)
(d) Something new (describe what you want new)
(e) The combat system of Colonization (horsemen lose horses, become footmen)

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Lauraina Bobbit moved to Russia and renamed herself Ivana Kutyocockoff.

[connorkimbro]

We need something more complex than that in Civ2, and i didn't at all like compat in CTP, so i'd say the designers of civ3 know best, i'll go with their model.

[Pedrun]

(D)Have you Guys Ever Played Caesar. I Think the combat model is the best ever created. And could be add in civIII.
In this system when you send unit to combat it appears a screen with a battlefield. Where you actually control the units. Each unit becomes a army (with about 100 or less people) and you can organize the many armies (one for each unit). There is the option (like caesar) to organize each the armies by moving the soldiers before the battle. You would make strategies like put the range and bombard units behind infatary. When you finish organizing you start the combat where you have full control over your units - you could send some to atack in the flanks, other to walk around to attack the back or when the things get ugly you could retreat some units while others are fighting. For those who never played Caesar it is like combat in Age of Empires but futher more organized.

Some Features to accomodate this system to civ3:

-Air units were going to still be controlled by the AI, but you could organize their attack priorities - Firsrt attack the walls, Second the enemies air units, Third the ground units, Fourth ...

-Wall are there to separate the defenders from the attackers while the attackers have to destroy the walls first to atack the enemy- bombard units will help a lot - The defenders can atack their enemy with range and bombard units behind the walls or send all to attack outside of it. The Defenders can even make improvments to help then destroy the attackers(like the Ballistica Tower of CTP2)

-The stats bars instead of showing the health they show the number of soldiers to combat.

[Theben]

Another idea: use the LASS or CLAS-D systems as described in the List.

[Grumbold]

c) An improved army system that allows for air and naval support.

[JamesJKirk]

c) but like CTP2, to allow for flanking, and air/naval support is a good idea too

[Diablo, Bro. of Mephisto]

I would have to say A or D. THe combat system they described in the website sounds good, but still needs working on.

THe battlefield idea sounds like an OK idea, but you have to remember, this is not a war game, so it might be going too far to add battlefields.

I say, dont make it so complexed as battlefields and such, but definetly improve it from that crappy Civ2 system!

just make it realistic, heres a few things I demand for combat:

1. air units (bombers, fighters, etc) should be able to be given a option of passing over, or bombing a unit when it comes upon one, same thing with cities. helicopters should be air units instead of ground units, just with alot of 'range'.

2. there should be flanking attacks, ambushes, and the like.

3. when your unit is atop a hill, there should not only be a + to defense, but also to attack, especially with ranged units. In real life two howitzers when atop a hill could demolish New York in a couple hours, I'm not exaggerating.

4. catapults, siege towers, and the like should be only used for sieges, and for knocking down city walls. And should NOT be able to attack other units, period.

5. ground units (specifically infantry) should be able to pillage villages, and agriculture sites.

6. cruise missiles, and nuclear missiles should have a percentage of missing its target.

6A. there should be curtain stages of missiles. for nuclear weaponry, the first would be Atomic Bomb. second, Nuclear Missile. and third, LRBM (for those of you who dont know what that is, it stands for Long Range Ballistic Missile). with each lvl, there should also be a range, for the first, it would be a range of 10. the second, 14 - 20. and third, 20 or more, you decide. The percentages of missing its target would be as follows: lvl 1 missile, 50% chance, lvl 2 Missile, 35% chance. and lvl 3, 20% chance. and lastly, with each higher lvl the missile is, the worse the damage.

6B. for cruise missiles, the first should be SRM (Short Range Missile), lvl 2 missile would be Cruise Missile, and 3rd, would be Guided Missile, or GM. the SRM would have a range of 10. the Cruise Missile, would be 16. and the Guided Missile would only have a short range of 10.
the percentage of chance of missing its target is as follows: lvl 1 missile, 50%. lvl 2, 30%, and then lvl 3, would have a 0% chance since it would be guided.

6C. another thing about missiles, is that they should be launched from a silo, and NOT moved (civ2 style). The smaller, non-ballistic missiles could be launched from a ship (preferably AEGIS cruisers), or silos. the nuclear missiles could be launched from underground silos (which would be undetectible to radar, that is, if radar is implemented), or temporary missile sites (remember cuban missile crisis, those were temp. launch pads (silos)). Only the guided missiles would be able to be moved, but they wouldn't be "moved" at all, they would be guided.

6D. And lastly, there should be anti-missile missiles, that could be launched to destroy nuclear missiles in mid-air. They would have a 50% chance of intercepting the missile.

well, thats everything I can think of for now. sorry it is so long, I didn't expect most of these ideas, they just popped up as I was typing.

[Youngsun]

I know the "unitworkshop" is dead so you can assume a tank battalian as one armour unit.

The basic concept was borrowed from Colonisation.(simple combat resolution with variuos bonus factors)

No tag match style but Total battle between two opposing masses of military force.



For air and ground support, "range" plays vital parts.

You can assume the individual units as stacked group of variuos units.(a stack of 4 tank units + 1 infantry unit should be shown in the map as one tank?)

Note:the pictures were designed to suit the unit workshop and since we all know the concept is dead, they can be changed/compromised at any way.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

i don't know. I realy like the ctp way of doing it.

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Lauraina Bobbit moved to Russia and renamed herself Ivana Kutyocockoff.

[polymths]

The thing that people should understand is that there are diminishing returns to improving the combat system. I believe that in a game like Civ you can only improve the combat system so much before it doesn't really matter any more.

Now we all agree that the Civ1/Civ2, kill one unit in stack kills all was crap and that the one at a time combat was flawed.

Civ3's proposal seems to address most of those flaws by implementing the concept of armies with bombardment concept. Do we really need to improve upon what Firaxis has announced?

Remember that it really it all comes down to production. Build up productive capacity and just mass build lots of units.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

I vote for c) as a basis for a new combat system (ie. units fight as one entity), but I feel that CTP, though on the right track, could have made the combat model more realistic. So to qualify the above vote, I'd like to say that, using CTP as a base, the following concepts need to be added:
1) Range, height (elevation) and mobility.
2) Stealth and Perception (eg. ambushes and stealth units)
3) Simulataneous combat and the ability to select a target for each of your units (failing that, have an automatic Pairing system-where your units are automatically paired off to an enemy unit. Any excess units are allocaterd to fight against an enemy unit thats already been engaged, allowing you to gang up on units if your army outnumbers theirs!)
4) Bonuses to Attack Strength and/or Firepower if you significantly outnumber an enemy.
5) Terrain effects on mobility, range and Attack/defense Strengths
6) Armour: ie. if armour is higher than firepower, then no damage is scored.Armour substracts from firepower when determining damage!
7) Air and Naval Support (Also Air and Navy Stacks)
8) Basic Orders for units

I certainly don't agree we're near the point of Diminishing returns, as much more realism can still be extracted out of the stacked system Firaxis are proposing!
Anyway, sorry for the post length, but I just wanted to clarify everything

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

P.S: Please Read my post under "Firaxians Please Read!!!" to see a modified (and simplified) combat model based around some of the things I've said above. Let me know what you think-thanks!

[Lawrence of Arabia]

uuuuhhhhhh.........right. Hecka complex dude.

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Lauraina Bobbit moved to Russia and renamed herself Ivana Kutyocockoff.

[SerapisIV]

Dear God Youngsun, this is Civ, not Civ+Harpoon. Way too complex for me. How many battles in an already 30+ hour game would you fight if you had to do that for every attack?

[joseph1944]

1. air units (bombers, fighters, etc) should be able to be given a option of passing over, or bombing a unit when it comes upon one, same thing with cities. helicopters should be air units instead of ground units, just with alot of 'range'.

1. If they use CTP way, your plane stopped one tile from your target and then drops the bombs, same turn.

2. there should be flanking attacks, ambushes, and the like

2. I agree

3. when your unit is atop a hill, there should not only be a + to defense, but also to attack, especially with ranged units. In real life two howitzers when atop a hill could demolish New York in a couple hours, I'm not exaggerating.

3. I was in New York one day for 6 hrs. in 1979. Two big to demolish in two hours. Yes you could cause a lot of damage in two hours.


4. catapults, siege towers, and the like should be only used for sieges, and for knocking down city walls. And should NOT be able to attack other units, period.

4. Catapults are early Artillery and should be able to attack other units. Since other units may move, maybe a 50% change of hitting the units. Siege Towers I agree.

5. Ground units (specifically infantry) should be able to pillage villages, and agriculture sites.[/QUOTE]

5. I agree.


6. cruise missiles, and nuclear missiles should have a percentage of missing its target.

6. Cruise Missiles of the late 50s and early 60s yes. Cruise Missiles of today “NO”. Even in the Gulf War, CNN was watching the Cruise Missiles fly past their Hotel and hit various building and then reporting it. When the Iraqis finally figure out the Navy was using CNN to confirm if the missile were hitting their target they stopped the reporting.

6A. there should be curtain stages of missiles. for nuclear weaponry, the first would be Atomic Bomb. second, Nuclear Missile. and third, LRBM (for those of you who dont know what that is, it stands for Long Range Ballistic Missile). with each lvl, there should also be a range, for the first, it would be a range of 10. the second, 14 - 20. and third, 20 or more, you decide. The percentages of missing its target would be as follows: lvl 1 missile, 50% chance, lvl 2 Missile, 35% chance. and lvl 3, 20% chance. and lastly, with each higher lvl the missile is, the worse the damage.

6.A. What we had or have is ICBM, IRBM, SRBM. I don't remember ever using the term LRBM. We no longer have Atomic Bombs. All of our bombs and missile are Hydrogen base Nuclear Weapon. As for range, the early Atlas had a range of about 6,000 miles. We realy don't have an IRBM at this time unless you want to call the Poseidon/Trident D-5 a IRBM with a range at about 3,230/5,000 miles. Now the Iraqis has the SCUDs which is either a IRBM or SRBM. All of our SRBM are Cruise Missiles with a range from 293 miles up to 1,553 miles.

6B. for cruise missiles, the first should be SRM (Short Range Missile), lvl 2 missile would be Cruise Missile, and 3rd, would be Guided Missile, or GM. the SRM would have a range of 10. the Cruise Missile, would be 16. and the Guided Missile would only have a short range of 10.
the percentage of chance of missing its target is as follows: lvl 1 missile, 50%. lvl 2, 30%, and then lvl 3, would have a 0% chance since it would be guided.

6.B. All missile are guided. You maybe are thinking about unguided rockets that are carried by Helicopters. U.S. Cruise Missile do not miss. The Gulf War, Sudan, Afghanistan are example of that. Now Rocket can miss if the target is a moving target.

6C. another thing about missiles, is that they should be launched from a silo, and NOT moved (civ2 style). The smaller, non-ballistic missiles could be launched from a ship (preferably AEGIS cruisers), or silos. the nuclear missiles could be launched from underground silos (which would be undetectible to radar, that is, if radar is implemented), or temporary missile sites (remember cuban missile crisis, those were temp. launch pads (silos)). Only the guided missiles would be able to be moved, but they wouldn't be "moved" at all, they would be guided.

6.C. ICBM and SLBM (Sea Launched). Yes they should be launched from either a Silo or a FBM (Fleet Ballistic Missile Submarine)
Cruise Missile can be launched from Air, Gound, or Sea.

6D. And lastly, there should be anti-missile missiles, that could be launched to destroy nuclear missiles in mid-air. They would have a 50% chance of intercepting the missile.

6.D. Our Patriot I belived had about 75 % hit rate in the Gulf War. Now we are told they are a lot better.