Are your units getting blasted?

[morb]

Originally posted by yavoon
hehe u save reload newbies crack me up, obviously firaxis has put some kind of protection against save/reload for new battle results. which I think is really nice.

unfortunately I doubt its foolproof. either way, the pure amusement of you running around like ur head is chopped off because you can't seem to save/reload every lost battle nemore is rather hilarious.

troll

[dexters]

well he does have a point Morb

One easy solution is to simply change the order you do things. If for example, a unit you want to save is in a bind and you don't want it to die, but keep getting the same battle result, simply move other units first, then come back to it. I find doing this erases the previous outcome and you'll get a different outcome.

[Kc7mxo]

Hmm. I definetly miss the old system of firepower and hitpoints, but i doubt its coming back.

And just exactly what do you think these forums are for? They're for discussing. Whining. Talking. Arguing. So, when you can't think of anything constructive to say, its kinda pointless just to tell people to quit whining.

I'm not complaining about my bowmen losing to his swordsmen. I'm complaining about my pikemen losing to his warriors.

[Conquesticus]

Combat-values like AOE/AOK?

I played some Civ 3 yesterday, and much to my amazement, I was able to hang with the computer. My musketman and cannons succesfully defended a city from attacks by Knights! But still, this combat system is infantile. Attack, defense? I strongly agree with the post that suggested Sid has sold out to pop-gaming. For most idiots, this combat system is all they'd want. Hell, how many people in America could even find Afghanistan on a map? How many would find issue that a tank got roached by a guy with a flaming arrow? Hell, Rambo did it in Rambo 3! It must be possible! With the exception of we Civ and SMAC fanatics, who have practically turned this kind of thing into a religion, no one else is going to care about the damned combat system. And, that's why Firaxis didn't do squat with the game. My next question is why it took so long to make Civ 3? This could have been released in 1999 with ease. This is not 2001 programming we're dealing with here. And, here's the sentence I never thought I'd type. Would it have been that difficult for Firaxis to use some AOE/AOK-style combat principles, like hitpoints for various unit types, attack values, ranged attack values, armor, piercing armor, etc. And, let's keep in mind that AOE/AOK have been blasted for being unrealistic, so we're not talking about something incredibly advanced. After Civ 2, I started playing AOE and AOK to waste time until Civ 3 came out. Fun games (the first time I built a catapult and fired the sucker with the surround sound on, I was sold), but unrealistic as hell as far as empire-building and diplomacy are concerned. I can't believe I'm now suggesting that Civ 3 should have been more like AOE or AOK. Let's hope that Firaxis comes out with a "should've been" patch that addresses these goofy combat problems. Otherwise, I hear Empire Earth is coming out soon...

[Fidel]

combat rocks

i am really wondering what you people are all about:
1) there is plenty of war. AI honors alliances and attacks en masse
2) combat results are VERY believable. massive tank and infantry battles worked out just as they should. sure you get killed when you attack, but bear in mind that as a rule of thumb, military planner say that you should have 3-1 superiority to win. i cannot remember seeing 'odd result' more than once or twice. i am playing regent and the world war unfolding before me looks very real. sure, sometimes elite cavalry kills a damaged tank but sometimes it is MY cavalry

firaxis, great job on warfare

[Slartibartfast]

Originally posted by Andy
...

Perplexed by this odd repetition, I reloaded the autosave game again and repeated about 6 or seven times. EVERY GAME HAD THE EXACT SAME RESULT. Exactly. Down to the amount of damage that each warrior inflicted before he died, in the same exact order.

I am not exactly a statistician, but to get the same results time after time is extremely unlikely. I realize that the odds may have been stacked against me in the whole overall battle, but there should have been some variation in the amount of damage inflicted by a particular warrior and each warrior should have performed randomly. I find this lack of randomness troubling.

This, gentlemen, is a feature designed to prevent you from reloading until you get the desired results, which, IMO, is cheating.

Seems like the battle-results are calculated in advance. I guess if you've saved the game one round before the battle you'd have gotten a more varied outcome.

[Sava]

Originally posted by Andy
Outside of the complaints already registered in this forum, my largest is that there doesn't seem to be any actual randomness in the combat system of the game. In a recent game, I attacked a English city being defended with 2 warriors with my six 6 warriors. After being defeated the first time, I decided to load a recent auto-save to try my luck again. To my suprise, I lost WITH THE EXACT SAME RESULT. The first few warriors were killed outright, and then the fourth beat his opponent down to one hit point before dying. The fifth warrior caused his opponant to lose one hit point initially and then lost the remaining rounds. The sixth warrior died with out causing a scratch.

Perplexed by this odd repetition, I reloaded the autosave game again and repeated about 6 or seven times. EVERY GAME HAD THE EXACT SAME RESULT. Exactly. Down to the amount of damage that each warrior inflicted before he died, in the same exact order.

I am not exactly a statistician, but to get the same results time after time is extremely unlikely. I realize that the odds may have been stacked against me in the whole overall battle, but there should have been some variation in the amount of damage inflicted by a particular warrior and each warrior should have performed randomly. I find this lack of randomness troubling.

You do know that Firaxis put something in the game to prevent the save/load style of cheating that most people do. The only thing you can do now is load if you got your ass kicked and not attack in the re-play of the turn.

[avvv]

I don't think they should have prevent the reload cheating method.
It is the player's decision if to cheat or not to cheat. You are only cheating yourself, right?
Also, this feature is important for testing if you just had some bad luck or if the combat system is really biased.

About the combat system balance, you shouldn't be able to conquer all the world with a single tank, that's good, but also, tank cost 5 times than an archer and needs 2 strategical resources. I don't care if there are mountains, I want my expensive tank to beat any archer that they face

[yavoon]

I am discussing how much u r whining. ideally a forum is for fruitful discussion. not petty whining. you are all coming at the wrong angle from this. so unpragmatic. if u think that archers are too good against tanks, then make archers to defend against tanks. not gna do it are you? cuz u know that won't work out well enuff.

asto the wished endless complication of the combat system. the combat system is an ends, NOT a means. you don't need a hugely complicated combat system to fulfill a desired ends. AOE's combat system is massively inferior to almost everything in gaming today. its basically huge rock/paper/scissors, which is like newbie balancing. sure it has pretty **** like piercing and crap, but civ3 does not need those things. its scale is different, its ends are different.

[Sava]

Originally posted by avvv
I don't think they should have prevent the reload cheating method.
It is the player's decision if to cheat or not to cheat. You are only cheating yourself, right?
Also, this feature is important for testing if you just had some bad luck or if the combat system is really biased.

About the combat system balance, you shouldn't be able to conquer all the world with a single tank, that's good, but also, tank cost 5 times than an archer and needs 2 strategical resources. I don't care if there are mountains, I want my expensive tank to beat any archer that they face

I disagree. The new model requires more strategy. And that is good. Plus, tanks aren't invincible. If those archers dig a big enough trench, they can disable the tank in a tiger pit. Then the people in the tank are screwed. It's little realistic scenarios like that that Firaxis intended to include when they wrote the model. It would be so hard to program 8 million little combat options like "dig trench" "sabotage wheels" etc. So they just left it to chance. Which is good. Trust me though, if there is one archer in the mountains, I'm going to bring over an artillery piece, bombard him down to one red, then attack him with a mobile unit. It's all about strategy, those who use it will win, everyone else will be invited to the "I suck at Civ" party.

[barefootbadass]

Originally posted by SoulAssassin


I disagree. The new model requires more strategy. And that is good. Plus, tanks aren't invincible. If those archers dig a big enough trench, they can disable the tank in a tiger pit. Then the people in the tank are screwed. It's little realistic scenarios like that that Firaxis intended to include when they wrote the model. It would be so hard to program 8 million little combat options like "dig trench" "sabotage wheels" etc. So they just left it to chance. Which is good. Trust me though, if there is one archer in the mountains, I'm going to bring over an artillery piece, bombard him down to one red, then attack him with a mobile unit. It's all about strategy, those who use it will win, everyone else will be invited to the "I suck at Civ" party.

Amen to that!

Most battles I do in this game that I adequately plan work out the way they should. Combat has been abstracted like many elements from civ 2 in a way that does necessitate more strategic thinking. Complaining about cities not being defendable? Sheesh, they are more defendable than they ever were in civ 2 with the inherent defense bonuses and the lifting of restrictions that troops must be IN a city to not cause unhappiness(in those governments for which that happened). Try positioning troops outside in defensive positions and fortresses. Be a little more creative. And remember folks, its only a game, absolute realism is secondary IMO to having good gameplay.

[Mister_X]

Originally posted by Andy
Outside of the complaints already registered in this forum, my largest is that there doesn't seem to be any actual randomness in the combat system of the game. In a recent game, I attacked a English city being defended with 2 warriors with my six 6 warriors. After being defeated the first time, I decided to load a recent auto-save to try my luck again. To my suprise, I lost WITH THE EXACT SAME RESULT. The first few warriors were killed outright, and then the fourth beat his opponent down to one hit point before dying. The fifth warrior caused his opponant to lose one hit point initially and then lost the remaining rounds. The sixth warrior died with out causing a scratch.

Perplexed by this odd repetition, I reloaded the autosave game again and repeated about 6 or seven times. EVERY GAME HAD THE EXACT SAME RESULT. Exactly. Down to the amount of damage that each warrior inflicted before he died, in the same exact order.

I am not exactly a statistician, but to get the same results time after time is extremely unlikely. I realize that the odds may have been stacked against me in the whole overall battle, but there should have been some variation in the amount of damage inflicted by a particular warrior and each warrior should have performed randomly. I find this lack of randomness troubling.

Actually this is a common feature in many games. My favorite game that comes to mind is Jagged Alliance 2. Yes, it stores random numbers in advance. Duh. Random numbers come from a table or alogrithm, and they get saved with the rest of the game. So take other actions to advance the random numbers if thats what you really want to do.

Do things in another order. Or actualy play the game.

Does the combat system bother me? At times very much so, but you should atlest understand WHY it is like it is.

[saracen31]

Sheesh. Just quit the game & restart it. Every time you play, there's a random seed generation which locks in the whole time Civ III is running. This prevents the tired save/load, save/load routine. This seed remains in memory until you actually quit.

If you really want to get around it, just exit the game & restart Civ III. You'll see different results.

[morb]

alright, all of you fools need to shut up about the saved game cheat prevention biz. enough already. That isn't even a problem. We're talking about something entirely different.

The problem is that a warrior can fend off multiple, concentrated attacks from bowmen. Screw 'realism', we're not talking about that either. We're talking about reasonable outcome. And the kind of outcome I see from battles in Civ3, is not reasonable. I don't expect "easy" or constant vicotries in combat. I simply expect stronger units to actually _be_ stronger. But I guess accourding to some people here that's "whining".

So if you want to call me and others who have a problem with the combat system "whiners" fine, whatever. But just so you know, I wasn't whining about the SMAC system. And don't let me catch you voicing your own problems about the game elsewhere on these forums. Lest you want to become a whiner yourself and be called on it by me at every step.

FIN

[Zurai001]

Re: Re: I've got to agree with SA

while my bowmen got slaughtered while attacking the enimy pikemen fortified in the city.

Well, let's examine that. Bowmen (assuming longbowmen) are 4/1/1... Pikemen are 1/3/1. Fortified raises it to 4.5, lowest terrain defense modifier raises it to 4.7, if there's walls or it's a size 6+ city that raises it to 6.3. 4 attack vs. 6.3 defense yields slightly over 60% win rate for the defender. If you instead mean the Babylonian-specific Bowman, that's about an 80% win rate for the defenders.

AND/OR at the very least, the defenders should not be allowed to heal back to full strength even if the city has a berracks when they have spent the entire turn defending the city.

Actually they don't heal fully. They heal either 2 or 3 health, depending on the presence of barracks. It's quite possible to bombard a city's defenders down to yellow or red health and keept them there if you work at it. Still, I do wish that they'd kept the supressive fire ability of artillery from SMAC.