Paperweight Elites

[Arrian]

I have the same (admittedly illogical) feeling about my elites. It's as if they get complacent. It just seems that they fight poorly.

The reality is that losing an elite is especially painful, and so much more frustrating than losing a normal unit.

In my experience with the game, the RNG does seem to fire off streaks of rolls, good and bad, and if you get a "bad" string, it doesn't really matter if you have 4 or 5 hp. Either way, that unit is going down.

-Arrian

[vmxa1]

So true and why I prefer to use them in as many can't lose fights as possible. Be they as first in or wait till down to 1 HP. Sometimes you must commit them and take your lumps though.

[Meshelic]

I noticed in my game today that veteran's with half of their blocks filled (in the low yellow) would do greater damage to a city than all my elite units did. I was getting rather peeved because I kept throwing horsemen at the last Babylonian capital and it was just not happening. It was only a size 4 at that time, and so it made for a frustrating half an hour of punishing it then finally breaking through. But I won it with my weaker units. Very interesting I thought.

[HazieDaVampire]

i boosted my elites to 6hp instead of 5hp, makes them seem more worth it!

[Jawa Jocky]

Re: Paperweight Elites

Originally posted by jubilation
Gentlemen-

I hate to admit this, but my elite units seem unusually ... well ... wimpy. Perhaps I'm just very, very unlucky, but over time it seems as if my elites are less battle-worthy than my veterans.

--j

I know this can't really be true, but it happens everytime I play. And when I'm losing elites its almost always to severely wounded enemy units. Of course when my elites do win they limp away with 1 hp left.

I'm sure the results are statisitically accurate. Its probably that psycholigal effect were you only remember getting cheated, but kind of block out your normal results. This effect works well is astrology. If you say one correct thing the reader will tune out the 9 incorrect thing you said in addition and will think your a true genoius who's in touch with the stars.

[Arrian]

That's it in a nutshell. You remember getting screwed, but rarely remember all those battles that went well for you.

From my last game, I remember the elite Cavalry which I lost to a spearman (granted, it was in a size 11 city) who took no damage. I also remember the 3hp Tank I lost to another spearman (size 4 city). The Tank was definitely the funniest, because it was the Tank's second combat (attempting to get him elite via the 2 wins in a row=promotion rule), and the 1st one was vs. a rifleman in the same city. He toasted the rifleman, losing 1 hp, and then lost to a spearman, inflicting only 1hp damage. Must have been the psychological effect of telling Tankers to gun down poor, practically defenseless spearmen. My unit mutinied... yeah, that's it! I laughed, and rolled over the spear with the next tank division.

-Arrian

[dac]

Oh, that's not the correct response to losing a tank to a spearman. You're supposed to create a thread complaining about the combat engine on every Civ3 forum you can find!

Seriously, I do think the RNG is seriously 'streaky'. I've watched two or three veteran units die assaulting a unit that doesn't lose a hit point, then my units kill the next three units without a suffering a scratch. I don't know if I remember only the bad results, but it certainly doesn't seem as if that extra hit point that elites have buys them as much survivability as I'd like to think it does.

To be fair though, I've had a couple of games where my swordsmen armies have torn through defending pikemen like they were butter. If the AI did that to me, I'd be upset, but since I'm on the winning side, I pat myself on the back and conquer yet another AI civ.

[Theseus]

In AU 107, sending in Legions against Muskets, I had incredibly good runs...

Jerxes is probably over at CFC complaining!! :biggrin:

[T-hawk]

Part of the phenomenon is in behavior theory - people tend to remember the exceptional cases (an elite doing better than a veteran) better than the common case.

And yes, I've also discovered that the way to generate Great Leaders is to attack with your VETERANs, and only use the elites for high-percentage mop-up attacks. Attacking with the vets is, of course, how you get more elites in the first place.

I guess it makes sense, in that an elite unit that's really good at directing the veterans to attack should be a Great Leader...

[vmxa1]

Theseus thanks for the chuckle.

[Theseus]

You're welcome.

I tried to post this thought before, but it got screwed up:

T-hawk, I definitely espouse attacking with vets first, in order to conserve elites.

Lately however, I've been using a different strategy, especially late in the game, when GLs are less important.

For Cavs, Tanks, and MA, I now typically attack as follows (after any bombardment, if available:

1st) Elites, for their higher retreat odds and extra hp.

2nd) Starting when remaining defenders only have 2hp, I use Armies... conscripts and the equivalent are deathtraps for fastmovers.

3rd) Vets to finish off.

I get lucky with the early elite attacks anyway, and so do get some GLs.

The main point, however, is that this seems to preserve my troops better.

[vmxa1]

Here here.

[jubilation]

Originally posted by dac

Seriously, I do think the RNG is seriously 'streaky'. I've watched two or three veteran units die assaulting a unit that doesn't lose a hit point, then my units kill the next three units without a suffering a scratch. I don't know if I remember only the bad results, but it certainly doesn't seem as if that extra hit point that elites have buys them as much survivability as I'd like to think it does.

Don't forget that along with the extra hit point, elites are supposed to get a combat modifier as well. Sometimes I think it's a *negative* modifier.

I think you get to the heart of my complaint. The battles are _so_ streaky that I question exactly how random the round-by-round combat really is, and I am almost starting to believe that the program decides the combats on an all-or-nothing basis like Civ I ("this spearman WILL survive this turn by God"), and fudges the round-by-round combat.

On the other hand, a factor mentioned by several other posters seems more likely: that I just notice it more when my carefully nurtured elites spill out their brief, brave young lives uselessly into the dust of some foreign land.

[Catt]

Originally posted by jubilation


Don't forget that along with the extra hit point, elites are supposed to get a combat modifier as well. Sometimes I think it's a *negative* modifier.

There are no combat modifiers.

There are only 4 differentiated aspects between elite and veteran troops: (1) elites have 5 HPs; (2) if a fast mover, elites have a higher probability of retreat; (3) elites cannot be promoted to a higher status; and (4) elites can generate GLs (assuming they haven't already done so).

Catt

[Arrian]

Catt,

Dispenser of information, dispeller of myths. Beat me to it.

-Arrian