Combat System Explained

[squid]

Originally posted by jones


principle of choice (combinations)
Pr(
(2/3)^3 - base chance of a winning 3
(
3c1 (3)- to go 4 rounds, d must win 1
4c2 (6)- " 5 " 2
)
(1/3)^n++ - pr d will win 1 more round each time

Bleh..i'm terrible at explaining math. However,

two words:

monte carlo

[knott]

Re: Arg

Originally posted by Azrael-42
Khargath, i agree with a lot of what you said but your comment on tanks is absolutely ridiculous. 100 tanks could fight 10 000 modern soldiers, out in the open, and probably hardly even take a few scratches. Modern tanks have 4 heavy machine-guns mounted on them... Not to be confused with assault-rifles/submachine guns, which is what infantry carry around with them. Machine guns are the ones that need to be set up on bipods (light) or tripods (heavy) before use. They have a range far greater than assault rifles and mow down infantry like so much wheat. They spit out heavy calibre bullets at insane firing speeds. The only way the infantry have a chance is if they are trying to hold a defensive position. That way, they can a) use cover, and b) Set up anti-tank missile systems, notably the Sager russian system and the TOW american equivalant. This is actually a post WWII development. Probably, the absolute peak of usage of tanks in warfare was the Six-Days war, fought by the Israelis in 1967. They used classic, hard hitting, flanking tactics in perfect combination with air support (ironically, similar to German panzer tactics). However, when the Israelis tried to use the same tactics in 1973, the Yom Kippur War, they took heavy tank losses because the Egyptians (which relatively relied more on infantry) were prepared, and using Sager missiles.

I think you are wrong. 10 000 soldiers could easily cut of supplies, assault them on nights and so on. And good anti tank weapons are relative cheap and effective, so they should have a fair chance in direct combat to.

[Barchan]

Begin Rant:

Here's what sticks in my craw:

Presumably, each CivIII unit represents a larger number of forces than the little dude with a pointed stick or the single tank. Brigade, Division, Corp: who knows? But surely more than one.

I understand that even the lowly pikeman, in sufficient numbers, would be able to kill a tank. Perhaps, it could be argued, more than one. Even, though I doubt it, enough to reduce the effectiveness of the unit.

But I find it impossible to believe that a Division-strength mass of pikemen will *eliminate* a Division-strength number of tanks.

Thus, I'm willing to accept that a modern armor unit will take a hit or two rolling over pikemen. But when the pikemen are left standing amid the wreckage of an entire armored division?

Hogwash!

These results cannot be defended by saying "well what about personnel anti-tank weapons" and whatnot. Pikemen shouldn't have 'em. Period. Sure, they can get them when they upgrade to INFANTRY, but you have to pay for that. Pikemen aren't just going to "find" enough anti-tank weapons around the place to be an effective force against armor. They'd have to be upgraded. Until such time, they shouldn't be able to inflict more than minimal damage against armored units. Including mech inf as well.

Rant complete.

[Azrael-42]

uhm No

Actually, the infantry couldn't do a darn thing. You are badly underestimating the machine gun. This isn't red alert buddy, machine guns kill infantry instantly, and in fact mow through entire groups with ease. Its very easy to use machine guns to mow down infantry, whereas even with advanced anti-tank weapons, destroying a tank is difficult. As for the infantry cutting the tanks off, thats nuts. part of the point of armor is that its much, much faster. Its exactly the opposite, the tanks would have no problem cutting the infantry's supply lines. Again, this is a famous German tactic, using panzers to blitzkrieg through enemy weak points, cut off supply lines, and ultimately encircle and destroy the enemy in combination with frontal infantry forces.

[Raleigh]

With respect to phalanxes vs. tanks.

There is just no reason they should ever win no matter what. In early 19th century european colonial times, a platoon of machinegunners could easily defeat thousands, not hundreds, but actually thousands of spear throwing natives.

If any of you have ever seen Shaka Zulu, that movie paints a believable picture of a platoon of riflemen holding off hundreds of spear throwers, despite massive rushes and hand to hand combat. Now, it was a very very close battle, and the platoon had a "leader" so we could even call it 2 rifle units, but still. Imagine if they had just one tank or machinegun...

[Mercani]

Firaxis must explain the equations

In SMAC when attacking, there was an option that would let you know your odds of winning. Well, it may take the fun out of combat a little, but at least we should have the right to know how combat is calculated. This is not real life simulation, "strategy" game. If I don't know the rules of the game, how am I supposed to develop tactics and strategy. I want to know the odds of a tank losing against a phalanx. While this is ridiculuous, at least it helps me when I need to decide which tech to discover.

Firaxis, we need to know all the formula used in the game(rules of the game, simple). Because computer knows them. It is not fair for us not to know. I want formula for all kinds of combat, corruption, how fast workers work, etc.

I hope you are reading these posts.

-- From a civ 3 player(one of your customers, if you want to think that way!)

[cultureshock]

Originally posted by Raleigh
With respect to phalanxes vs. tanks.

If any of you have ever seen Shaka Zulu, that movie paints a believable picture of a platoon of riflemen holding off hundreds of spear throwers, despite massive rushes and hand to hand combat. Imagine if they had just one tank or machinegun...

And if you've ever seen those "Amazing police chases" tv shows... They had one where the guy stole a tank and the police could do nothing to stop him. What eventually did was that he got stuck on the median guard rail on the highway.

[Growler]

Originally posted by Raleigh
With respect to phalanxes vs. tanks.

There is just no reason they should ever win no matter what. In early 19th century european colonial times, a platoon of machinegunners could easily defeat thousands, not hundreds, but actually thousands of spear throwing natives.

If any of you have ever seen Shaka Zulu, that movie paints a believable picture of a platoon of riflemen holding off hundreds of spear throwers, despite massive rushes and hand to hand combat. Now, it was a very very close battle, and the platoon had a "leader" so we could even call it 2 rifle units, but still. Imagine if they had just one tank or machinegun...

That battle was called Rorke's Drift. Just hours before, just a few miles up the road in a battle called Isandhlwana, the Brits lost 1800 troops after being attacked by 20,000 Zulus organized into impis. The difference was at Isandhlwana the commander did not circle his troops but tried to confront them a line, and then they ran out of ammunition because the supply wagons were too far away from where the ammo was being used.

Poor leadership can go a long way to wipe out a technological advantage.

[Barchan]

As Raliegh pointed out:

"In early 19th century european colonial times, a platoon of machinegunners could easily defeat thousands, not hundreds, but actually thousands of spear throwing natives."

Could, indeed. But not always. And that's my only point. As the last two posters pointed out, things go wrong. Leaders make poor calls, guns jam, equipment breaks, the enemy just gets plain lucky.

I noted in recent news that the Afghan Northern Alliance troops sent large waves of cavalry to charge the Taliban's modern armor. "Many of you will die" the men were told, "they cannot kill you all before some of you reach the tank." And many did die, but once the soldiers who didn't reached the tanks, they were dead meat. Small arms and grenades are more than enough to disable a tank if you can get on it; not one of its many guns are able to fire backwards to kill people sitting on it.

Again, read "Black Hawk Down" for an example of how elite, technologically superior troops sometimes lose to technologically inferior conscript troops in sufficient numbers. But even given this example, I'd have to point out that the US QRF was not eliminated during this encounter. Perhaps it lost a "health bar" or two as a unit, but it was not destroyed.

That's my gripe, I suppose. I don't expect to just run over any military unit like so much roadkill, but I similarly don't expect that regular pikemen are going to completely eliminate 100%-strength elite modern armor. Sure, 10 units of pikemen attacking in one turn, that I might be able to believe. But 1v1, they should never ultimately win that battle.

[cgrecu]

how the combat system shoul be

here is how [I think] the combat system should be:

All units should have HP,Attack,Defense,Damage,Range and Shield.

A is the attacker, B is the Defender
r is random number betweem 0 and 1
s is surprise factor

First Round

a.Hp:=a.Hp - (A.Attack-B.Shield)*Damage*r;

B.HP := B.HP - (B.Attack - B.Shield)* Damage*(r/s);

This means that when A attacks B, at the same time B responds, but the response depends on the surprise factor, if it is an ambush, then the response should be almost null.Also if the A attack destroys B, then there is no response.
This goes on untill one units is destroyed (or retreats if capable)

Attack and defense is based on type of bullet (from arrow and sword to 120mm and higher) and shield depends on armor.

Let's taks an impi fighting a tank, even in the worst ambush ever, his weapons would never get passed by the Tank's heavy armor.

Even a tank with very light armor could not possibly damage a tank with very strong armor.

Of course things could be more detailed, there could be types of weapons, with splash, precision, range or the mobile vehicles could have subparts (like engine, weapons, wheels or rails).

But it is not ok for a trireme to sink a battleship.
Of course maybe if it was a custom weapon, like a trireme loaded up with dynamite(or an A-Bomb ).

Anyway, I think that the CIV3 combat system is far inferior to CIV2's.And generally speaking, this game is clearly one big step behind.

Maybe Sid Meyer's decision to start a golf game during the development of Civ was just an warning that nobody really understood.

[cej]

Another issue with Tanks being defeated by Pikemen is that Pikemen have to mass in tightly organized groups. These tight, highly compacted formations are ideal for machine gun fire.

There is no way this could / would ever happen.

All of this harkens back to the days in Civ 1 of having a Phalanx unit defeat an armor unit in an assualt. 3 generations of the same game and we all still have the same gripe. Yet, we keep playing.

[Kc7mxo]

ahhhhh, i miss firepower. oh well. perhaps things will work better when i play this weekend. but first, i must be tested on my automata skills.

[JasonLBarnes]

I think problem is not ....

the combat system but rather the RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR!

I've been savefile scumming for quite a bit trying different units vs the AI's units and came up with some interesting results.

A good example:

I had regular 10 warriors (cannon fodder ) and veteran 7 swordsmen vs 6 Zulu Impis. If I threw my swordsmen at the Impis I would only kill 1 of them and lose the rest. If I threw my warriors at them I would kill 1 then lose 6 and then kill 2 more before the rest of my warriors died off.

What was interesting to me that the swordsmen only inflicted 2 hits when the warriors didn't. According the Civ Calculator the Veteran swordsman have 62.554% Chance each to kill once Impi. While the Regular warriors only have 9.136% each to kill.

So there is something we don't know about the combat system or the Random Number Generator is very streaky. It producing long series of the same or simular numbers.

[Barchan]

I've noticed curious results as well when reloading to see if a particularly outrageous combat result was luck or fate. It almost always appears to be fate; no matter what the odds, if I died once I'll die a hundred times. Strangely, if I change the attack sequence, the fated attack simply shifts to the next unit. Here's the scenario: my first attack (legion v. spearman) always failed while the second (legion v. warrior) always succeed. So I reverse the attacks; this time the warrior repeatedly won while the spearman repeatedly died.

I'm not really sure there *is* a good explanation for this combat system. It seems a bit mysterious to me....

[cgrecu]

Originally posted by Barchan
I've noticed curious results as well when reloading to see if a particularly outrageous combat result was luck or fate. It almost always appears to be fate; no matter what the odds, if I died once I'll die a hundred times. Strangely, if I change the attack sequence, the fated attack simply shifts to the next unit. Here's the scenario: my first attack (legion v. spearman) always failed while the second (legion v. warrior) always succeed. So I reverse the attacks; this time the warrior repeatedly won while the spearman repeatedly died.

I'm not really sure there *is* a good explanation for this combat system. It seems a bit mysterious to me....

If this is true, then we could imagine nice strategies:
One tank and a lot of warriors, Tank attacks first and wins, then we load the game and attack with the warrior.Then again the tank attacks, he wins and we go back to the warrior ...
But I think it was just a coincidence, otherwise it would be really idiotic.