Are your units getting blasted?

[Temujin69]

Yeah, battle systems needs to be revamped

For those of you who haven't experienced large scale war, you obviously haven't played long enough or far enough into the game.

My scenario: 1960, modern age. EVERY civilization has mutual protection pacts and the computer starts a war so it's roughly 3 civs vs 4 civs. The romans attack with tanks and the greeks manage to kill 1 tank with their cavalry and archers.

My gripe? Well, my army of *4* Elite modern armour attacks a British *conscript* tank in a city of size 4... what happens? That lonely conscript tank took out my army AND 4 Panzer attacks. The fifth Panzer tank took out that conscript. There is definitely something wrong here. Of course, the one that takes the cake is the galleon that defeats my battleship. Yes, few people have had this happen, but it DOES happen. Something needs to be done about this strange and totally random combat system.

[Jack_www]

I dont know what you all you guys are complaining about. The game I have now is on Regent level. I am playing as the americans. I have fought a lot of wars in my game. That was the only way I could expand. When I was attacking with knights I did lose some to spearmen, but they were eliet spearmen. In war you are going to lose units, plain and simple. You have to take this into account. Also I made a army unit and put three knights into it. In every single battle it has fought the army has won. The computer never attacks it etheir, always avoids it. In fact I used this army of nights to take out two armies of longbowmen.

When attacking use bomdardment properly. Take into account the terran and the city size before attacking. Also considered the units stats. I have not had a problem witht the combat system. Some of you guys are just too use to playing Civ2, thats all. Things you did in Civ2 dont work in Civ3, you have to change the way you play, thats all.

[Leonid]

I didn't read thru all of these but i have to respond. To the guys saying there knights get killed by fortified pikemen. ummm do some math . pikemen have defense of 3, knights have attack of 4. fortified behind city walls is like +100%= pikemen defense of 6... even if they are just fortified +50% they are gonna win almost everytime. The pikeman should trash all your knights ..why would you attack pikemen with knights? go to war when you have cavalry at least or better yet infantry or tanks against pikemen. I would feel nervous attacking fortified SPEARMEN with knights..they are to be used in open field against unfortified units.

When seiging cities bombard and get them to 1 or 2 health tops... then use units that preferably at least have 2x preferably 3x more attack rating than defense of the fortified unit. Basic rule of war is attacker needs 3 to 1 advantage minimum.

Don't expect this game to be cheesy like civ 2 where you easily bowl over all the civs in combat..this is better ..this is more realistic.

[Fidel]

Re: Yeah, battle systems needs to be revamped

Originally posted by Temujin69
For those of you who haven't experienced large scale war, you obviously haven't played long enough or far enough into the game.

My scenario: 1960, modern age. EVERY civilization has mutual protection pacts and the computer starts a war so it's roughly 3 civs vs 4 civs. The romans attack with tanks and the greeks manage to kill 1 tank with their cavalry and archers.

My gripe? Well, my army of *4* Elite modern armour attacks a British *conscript* tank in a city of size 4... what happens? That lonely conscript tank took out my army AND 4 Panzer attacks. The fifth Panzer tank took out that conscript. There is definitely something wrong here. Of course, the one that takes the cake is the galleon that defeats my battleship. Yes, few people have had this happen, but it DOES happen. Something needs to be done about this strange and totally random combat system.

i had massive modern wars. none of the stuff you described happened. occassionally a full strength vet cavalry would finish off my 1 point tank but i consider that legit

[konradius]

Hmm... Just loaded up the editor and saw a nice feature there:
You can change the number of hitpoints of the different xp levels (regular, veteran, etc). I'll now try and play the game with conscripts having 2 hp's, regular 4, veteran 7 and elite 10.
Incidentally this will limit the healing power of cities I've seen people complain about.

Might be a nice idea :-)

Konradius

[Quint]

For you folks that are loosing in combat, I'm sorry to say that you just aren't doing it right. Combined arms is the name of the game when fighting, and when you do it right, you will win. You may take some unit losses, but you WILL win.

Bombardment units are your friends, That annoying group of defending pikeman or infantry there? Blast them to 1 hit point with bombardment before you attack with you offensive units. (One note, when I use bombardment units I bring at least 4 or so along with me, in smaller doses they don't do any good). Later in the game when you get artillery this becomes extremely powerful.

When attacking if at all possible use cavalry units (ie. horsemen, knights, cav, tanks). They have a good chance of retreating to fight again if they are loosing the battle.

Defend with infantry units, and always keep two of em guarding your valuable bombardment units. One thing to note, you want to also defend your attacking force of cavalry with infantry if at all possible.

Anytime you see an offensive unit of the computer's in a vulnerable position, take it out or it will hurt you.

My last tip, when defending scorched earth is your friend. Trash their road system to the front lines (with bombardments if possible). Then kill their offensive units as they slowly come to you. Once you've wiped them out, then its your turn to attack. This makes wars take longer, and also makes you have to do more work improving any ground you've gained, but that is what all those enemy workers you captured are for

[Morganstern]

I've reloaded one particular sequence, and haven't had the exact results repeated the way it's described by some here. This is influenced somewhat by the AI's decision to move some of its units in different directions than before, but this again proves the point of a degree of randomness.

[rah]

There are two types of random number generators.

1. Use of a seed number. If the seed number is the same. (which is what they've used here. the same result occurs) The machine remembers the seed number for all you reloaders out there. Which I am thankful of.
The random number generated will become the next seed number.

2. Created seed number. The seed is usually created from the system clock so the results will change every time you use it. (Similar to older Civs)


For all you reload fans, the solution is easy. Either

1. before you do the combat, do something that requires a random number to be generated. This will change the seed.
You can either run a different combat first.
Some types of diplomacy will also change it.
Open a hut.

2. Or just wait a turn. The AI moves will require a random number so the seed number will change. This is real useful on huts.

3. Or just close the game and restart it. This will erase the held seed number.


OR 4. Just live with the results like the designers intended.


Parting note: If you do practice reloads, please don't come back and brag how you Won the game, because you didn't.

RAH

[Marcusrife]

Yes, there is definitely something different about battles. I tried to take a city with two regular warriors and they had one regular warrior. The first warrior knocked down two of the enemy's hitpoints and the second couldn't do jack. He never got that one hit point and he died. I had just saved before that so I reloaded several times and every time it was the same result. Two hit points down for the first warrior then death and the second could never kill the warrior off. So it seems as though the hits are not random. That is definitely apparent but why can't a warrior with three hit points kill one with one. Firaxis obviously built things into the combat system for a reason but some seem to be awkward on several occasions. Maybe someone can shed some light on this.

[Barchan]

Thermopylae.

300 Spartans, plus a smattering of other Greek troops, managed to stave off several thousand Persian attackers, including the Immortals, for several days. By most accounts, the Spartan defenders inflicted grave casualties on their attackers before finally being overwhelmed. This delay threw the Persian advance into disarray and, thanks to a Greek naval battle shortly thereafter, ultimately resulted in the Persian withdrawl from Greece.

Bastogne.

Elements of the US VIII Army Corp, reinforced by elements of the 101st Airborne division, repulse numerous attacks from German Armored and Mechanized Corps. Despite having both numerical and equipment advantages over the Americans, the Germans are unable to take the town. Although it can be debated that Opreation "Wacht am Rhein" was doomed from the start, it certainly was not helped by the failure to capture the key crossroads town of Bastogne.

These are the only two examples I can think of right off the top, but history is replete with examples of combat where the "expected results" failed to materialize. The point is that your mileage may vary. Over the long run, tanks will kill more spearmen than the other way around. But occasionally, even the spearmen win a few. But if you consistently attack with sufficient mass, the enemy will crumble.

Oh, and anyone who thinks that a small number of elite, technologically superior units should always prevail, regardless of the number of technologically inferior conscript units, please read "Black Hawk Down."

BTW, I get just as frustrated when my tanks get shafted by spearmen. This is a normal reaction to losing when you expect to win. At least in the game you can restart, make a better plan and try it again. In real life you just have to suck it up, press on, and have a better plan next time. Assuming you survive for there to be a next time, that is....

[Sava]

Bravo! I'm glad to see that we are putting all the combat newbies in their place. If you use combined arms and pick your battles, you will win. Position your forces in such a way that the computer can't counter-attack, and only attack the computer in situations where the numbers favor you.

If there is a defensive stronghold, bring in some artillery. If you don't have any artillery, then you weren't prepared to fight the war in the first place and you deserve to lose. If you see a guy on a mountain square, move back so that he follows you to a square with less defensive bonus, then attack.

Only attack with mobile units. If you are getting reamed, then your guy will retreat.

Mass your forces and attack at once. If you have one mobile unit next to a city and two more that can be there in one turn, don't attack. The computer isn't going to attack your mobile unit with his garrisoned force. Even if he does, your guy will retreat and then you can heal under the cover of your other units. You want to attack with everything you have on one turn. Because if you don't, any guys you don't kill will get healed the next turn.

Find out how many units are defending before you attack. What I like to do is fortify a defensive unit, build a fortress, and bombard the city until I can determine how many guys are in there. Then I bring 2x as many mobile units as they have defensive units garrisoned to attack. You can determine the number of guys very easy. When bombarding, and you damage a guy, the next bombardment will target the unit with the most hit points, except when one unit is more advanced. But when the advanced unit gets down to one health, the less advanced unit will be targeted next.

Cut off supply routes first!!!! I think I mentioned this before, but it is so important, I'll say it again. If you land troops and pillage all transportation to their resources, they won't be able to produce more modern units. So while your initial first wave might not wipe out their entire civilization, you will be able to produce modern units to reinforce your attacks while they will be spitting out conscripted spearmen.

But then again, if you make stupid battle decision and try to attack a spearmen in a fortress on a mountatin, you deserve to lose.

The combat in the game is fine, if you can't beat the comp, you suck.

[Soliloquy]

Originally posted by konradius
You can change the number of hitpoints of the different xp levels (regular, veteran, etc). I'll now try and play the game with conscripts having 2 hp's, regular 4, veteran 7 and elite 10.

How'd it go? It looks like an interesting idea.

[Jason]

In order to get rubber for my infantry (noone else had the tech and I sure wasn't giving it away) I had to capture an English city guarded by Riflemen with my own riflemen. (no horses either.) Holy US Civil war time. Spotsylvania. Cold harbor. It was a massacre Lost easily 10+ riflemen even with healthy artillery beforehand and when I finally took the city, I'd destroyed the harbor and the rubber wasn't linked to the rest of my empire


Fortunately you can upgrade units if the disconnected city they are in has the resource, so the units inside the captured English town were able to upgrade to Infantry and (compared to before) kick some serious English ass.

I recommend players avoid having to use riflemen vs. entrenched riflemen I should have waited for someone to free up horses for trade I guess.

[morb]

Originally posted by SoulAssassin
Bravo! I'm glad to see that we are putting all the combat newbies in their place. If you use combined arms and pick your battles, you will win. Position your forces in such a way that the computer can't counter-attack, and only attack the computer in situations where the numbers favor you.

If there is a defensive stronghold, bring in some artillery. If you don't have any artillery, then you weren't prepared to fight the war in the first place and you deserve to lose. If you see a guy on a mountain square, move back so that he follows you to a square with less defensive bonus, then attack.

Only attack with mobile units. If you are getting reamed, then your guy will retreat.

Mass your forces and attack at once. If you have one mobile unit next to a city and two more that can be there in one turn, don't attack. The computer isn't going to attack your mobile unit with his garrisoned force. Even if he does, your guy will retreat and then you can heal under the cover of your other units. You want to attack with everything you have on one turn. Because if you don't, any guys you don't kill will get healed the next turn.

Find out how many units are defending before you attack. What I like to do is fortify a defensive unit, build a fortress, and bombard the city until I can determine how many guys are in there. Then I bring 2x as many mobile units as they have defensive units garrisoned to attack. You can determine the number of guys very easy. When bombarding, and you damage a guy, the next bombardment will target the unit with the most hit points, except when one unit is more advanced. But when the advanced unit gets down to one health, the less advanced unit will be targeted next.

Cut off supply routes first!!!! I think I mentioned this before, but it is so important, I'll say it again. If you land troops and pillage all transportation to their resources, they won't be able to produce more modern units. So while your initial first wave might not wipe out their entire civilization, you will be able to produce modern units to reinforce your attacks while they will be spitting out conscripted spearmen.

But then again, if you make stupid battle decision and try to attack a spearmen in a fortress on a mountatin, you deserve to lose.

The combat in the game is fine, if you can't beat the comp, you suck.

heh, did you get wood from all that "puting newbies in place" biz? You easily took everything that was already said here and regurgitated it back out.

When I do battle, I do all those things. Its self evident that if a unit is well defended it will have a better chance to repel an attack (all the defense bonuses). If I'd have attacked with inferior force/number/strategy I'd expected to get my ass kicked too. The problem is I don't. I can beat the computer most of the time just fine. What I have a problem with is having a single unit stand up to a massive hoard of invaders when it shouldn't be able to. This happens because the unit wins almost unilaterally. Basicly it doesn't even get damaged.

The other day I was attacking a city on a plains squre with 2 fortified regular spearmen. So his defence was 2 +85% defensive bonus which totals to 3.7 I was attacking with 5 veteran Knights. The first spearman went down with the first Knight, but it took me the other 4 to bring down the second one. BECAUSE IT DIDN'T EVEN GET DAMAGED with 2 of the 4 attacks.

This is what I have a problem with.

[Sava]

Originally posted by morb


heh, did you get wood from all that "puting newbies in place" biz? You easily took everything that was already said here and regurgitated it back out.

When I do battle, I do all those things. Its self evident that if a unit is well defended it will have a better chance to repel an attack (all the defense bonuses). If I'd have attacked with inferior force/number/strategy I'd expected to get my ass kicked too. The problem is I don't. I can beat the computer most of the time just fine. What I have a problem with is having a single unit stand up to a massive hoard of invaders when it shouldn't be able to. This happens because the unit wins almost unilaterally. Basicly it doesn't even get damaged.

The other day I was attacking a city on a plains squre with 2 fortified regular spearmen. So his defence was 2 +85% defensive bonus which totals to 3.7 I was attacking with 5 veteran Knights. The first spearman went down with the first Knight, but it took me the other 4 to bring down the second one. BECAUSE IT DIDN'T EVEN GET DAMAGED with 2 of the 4 attacks.

This is what I have a problem with.

Actually I have 24/7 wood just thinking about how I'm going to beat you newbies in MP .

The comp had 3.7 def to your 4 attack. 50-50 chance of either him or you winning. Mathematically, that is not that improbable for him to fend you off. So do you have a problem with math? Or just your misunderstanding of it? If you want to constantly win, make your own scenario with a UU that has attack 40 and def 30 with movement 5. Then you'll never lose. But if you do, I won't give you crap about it if you whine on the board. The game is supposed to be challenging. I don't remember a war in this World's history where one side didn't have casualties. Maybe you are playing this game in the bizarro world or something.

BTW, those strategies are common sense. I didn't need to read all the other posts to put those on. Most of them were in my first post, but I figured since you continued to whine after that, you didn't read them, and that I needed to post them again. I was trying to help you out because I have no idea the level of your Civ skill. I figured if I listed all the strats I use that it would help you beat the comp better. Next time, I'll just let you whine in your own thread about how you can't beat the comp on Chieftain.