The Altera Centauri collection has been brought up to date by Darsnan. It comprises every decent scenario he's been able to find anywhere on the web, going back over 20 years.
25 themes/skins/styles are now available to members. Check the select drop-down at the bottom-left of each page.
Call To Power 2 Cradle 3+ mod in progress: https://apolyton.net/forum/other-games/call-to-power-2/ctp2-creation/9437883-making-cradle-3-fully-compatible-with-the-apolyton-edition
Originally posted by gamma
And there's very little a tank crew can do against a single person sitting on top of the escape hatch with a knife or club
I would have to disagree with you there. Tank crews are issued automatic rifles and sidearms to defend themselves if there tank was destroyed or if someone was on top of there tank.
I would have to disagree with you there. Tank crews are issued automatic rifles and sidearms to defend themselves if there tank was destroyed or if someone was on top of there tank.
True enough, but they are at a severe disadvantage when actually in the tank. All the person on top has to do is point the muzzle of their weapon in any small opening and fire; their bullets will ricochet and eventually hit someone inside. And God help the tank crew if a grenade gets inside. Meanwhile, the tank crew usually cannot even see people on the tank, let alone manage to target and shoot them.
Historically, when tanks "buttoned up" they were virtually blind to what was going on around them. It's not like they had panoramic picture windows in Panzers, after all. Modern technology (IR sensors and remote video) are helping eliminate some of these problems, but it's still the case that if someone manages to climb aboard a tank they can make life extremely unpleasant for those inside unless there's nearby infantry to pick them off.
A unit such as say a pikemen beating a tank is not the function of the pikemen getting on top of the tank or using a RPG. It is just a formula. The formula needs tweaking so that this is so rare as to not be seen more than once in 3-5 games. Spearmen 1 2 1 vs tank 16 10 2 in open grassland should be like a Blue Moon, not occuring every game (or similar match ups). Pikemen 1 3 1 beating modern armour 24 16 3 is even worse and I do not care if they are forted in a city or not. Do not bother me with all of the bonuses, if the formula allows this it needs modifing. I say this not because I think a man of any kind should not beat the tank under any conditions, that is not it. I am looking at the values 1 3 1 vs 24 16 3. You should not be able to defend a town/city/metro with a pikemen against modern units. I would like to see a penalty for units of previous eras. Maybe once any one gets to industrial age, all acient era unit are not allowed any defensive bonus against units of the higher era or at least some bonus reduction. You could return to FP insead or AC as factors. Please no recitals about combined arms, we know about it. I am sure the scout would have loved some artillery to be backing him up, but it is not always available.
One easy way to get rid of the problem of primitive units beating modern ones is to increase unit hitpoints. =] If you double all of them, the chances of tanks losing to spearmen (for example) decrease HUGELY.
The actual values for reg tank vs reg spearman with, say, 100% bonuses are as follows:
Tank chance to win each roll: 16/(16+4 ) = 0.8
Spearman chance to win: 2*2/(16+4) = 0.2
[Cut incorrect numbers... I screwed up originally ]
Probability of Tank Victory w/ 3hp each: 94.2%
Probability of Tank Victory w/ 6hp each: 98.8%
In general, you can calculate the probability of winning like this:
a = attacking unit offence/(defenders defence * (1+total bonus %/100))
x = attacker's hp
y = defender's hp
z = x+y
P = prob of attacker winning
P = sum[i = y -1 to z-2)]{ (iC(y-1)) * a^(y-1) * (1-a)^(i-y+1) * a }
IOW, each term in the summation is the probability of winning (defender's hitpoints -1) of the first i rolls, plus the last roll.
Which, if you are inclined towards programming, can be written in C as [NB: This assumes you have an appropriate function choose(int x, int y)]:
Well I'll add my voice to the chorus of people who utterly detest the combat system they have contrived. Too many times I have been destroyed in combat by the AI because the combat system is based on Monte Carlo.
The biggest problem I have is that you cannot lay any plans for defending your cities or conducting offensive operations when you cannot even rely on overwhelming force to win the battle. Too many times I have attacked using vetran swordsmen and lost against regular warriors and have had elite longbowmen fall to the same regular warrior. I question as to why they even bothered to give the units strength numbers when it appears to be a RISK style roll of the dice. I hate RISK for the same reason: there is no strategy involved when the only factor determining the outcome is chance.
I am not being a sore loser here: I have tracked combat through a couple of campaigns and the results are ugly. I have lost most of my "strong" units like Knights and Longbowmen to warriors and archers. And mostly in open ground.
Never a good idea to assault a town without 3-4 catapults to soften them up. Unfortunately, as luck would have it, an assault by knights against those 1 hp regular warriors will result in the loss of all but one of the knights and the catapults. Now that could be acceptible if the AI suffered a similar fate. I have yet to see the AI not get the combat results that best suit it's program. It may loose a couple of ancient warrior units against a fortified rifleman or infantryman, but as soon as a you think they have given up, one last unit will appear and wipe out your defenders, without taking a single hit point.
The worst thing about all of this is that I usually do not too badly in the land grab, and will have the largest or second largest standing army when the AI civ's get together to try and finish me off. Too many times, major cities fall in a single turn despite a 4-6 unit garrsion of the best troops I can make, and fall to spearmen and warriors. The AI saves the better units for his follow up attacks. (Very nice prgramming on the tactics. Wish the combat system was as well done)
Is it just me doing something wrong or is the "House" supposed to have that decided an advantage ?
"Not the cry, but the flight of the wild duck,
leads the flock to fly and follow"
Originally posted by Gen.Dragolen
Well I'll add my voice to the chorus of people who utterly detest the combat system they have contrived. Too many times I have been destroyed in combat by the AI because the combat system is based on Monte Carlo.
The biggest problem I have is that you cannot lay any plans for defending your cities or conducting offensive operations when you cannot even rely on overwhelming force to win the battle. Too many times I have attacked using vetran swordsmen and lost against regular warriors and have had elite longbowmen fall to the same regular warrior. I question as to why they even bothered to give the units strength numbers when it appears to be a RISK style roll of the dice. I hate RISK for the same reason: there is no strategy involved when the only factor determining the outcome is chance.
I am not being a sore loser here: I have tracked combat through a couple of campaigns and the results are ugly. I have lost most of my "strong" units like Knights and Longbowmen to warriors and archers. And mostly in open ground.
Never a good idea to assault a town without 3-4 catapults to soften them up. Unfortunately, as luck would have it, an assault by knights against those 1 hp regular warriors will result in the loss of all but one of the knights and the catapults. Now that could be acceptible if the AI suffered a similar fate. I have yet to see the AI not get the combat results that best suit it's program. It may loose a couple of ancient warrior units against a fortified rifleman or infantryman, but as soon as a you think they have given up, one last unit will appear and wipe out your defenders, without taking a single hit point.
The worst thing about all of this is that I usually do not too badly in the land grab, and will have the largest or second largest standing army when the AI civ's get together to try and finish me off. Too many times, major cities fall in a single turn despite a 4-6 unit garrsion of the best troops I can make, and fall to spearmen and warriors. The AI saves the better units for his follow up attacks. (Very nice prgramming on the tactics. Wish the combat system was as well done)
Is it just me doing something wrong or is the "House" supposed to have that decided an advantage ?
No...it's not just you! I feel your pain too, because that happens to me all the time too! It's really annoying when all your defending rifleman lose against warriors and such, and you can't even win against a warrior in open ground attacking with a Knight or Cavalry or such! The combat system is.....well, what combat system? This really seems like the roll of dices!
_________________________________________________
Portugal
Nation of: Magellan's (from Magellan's Expedition);
Vasco da Gama (Discoverer of the Maritime path to India);
and Pedro Álvares Cabral (Discoverer of Brazil in 1500)
"Every day Mankind fights a battle against Nature, forgetting if winning, Mankind will be among the defeated!"
Well, chaulk another game wasted by the CivIII combat casino.
I really need someone to explain this one to me:
my attacking forces - 12 veteran swordsmen, 3 catapults
defending forces - 2 regular impi, 1 vetran warrior all fortified
- 3 size town, no walls, on dessert terrain
1st turn - all three catapult bombard: all 3 failed.
- attack with swordsman: impi#1 reduced to 1 hp, no damage to swordsman then swordsman losses 4 times in a row and dies and impi gets vetran status.
- attack with swordsman: impi#2 reduced to 1 hp, swordsman dies same as above.
- attack with swordsman: warrior reduced to 1 hp, swordsman dies same as above.
- AI does not attack on its turn
2nd turn - all three catapults bombard: all three failed.
- attack with swordsman: impi#1 reduced to 1 hp, gains elite status, swordsman dies same as above.
- attack with swordsman: impi#2 reduced to 1 hp, gains elite status, swordsman dies as above.
- attack with swordsman: warrior reduced to 1 hp, gains elite status, swordsman dies as above.
3rd turn - all 3 catapults bombard: all 3 failed.
- swordsmen do no attack. Fortify.
- impi#1 attacks. Swordsman dies, impi takes no damage.
- impi#2 attacks. Swordsman dies, impi takes no damage
- warrior attacks. Swordsman dies, warrior takes 1 hp damage
5th turn - add 3 vetran swordsman to stack, all fortify.
- bombard zulu swordsman, all failed.
- zulus are on desert terrain.
- attack zulu swordsman with swordsman, zulu goes to 1 hp, then does 4 damage and swordsman dies. Zulu gets elite status.
- attack zulu swordsman with swordsman, zulu goes to 1 hp, then does 4 damage and swordsman dies. Zulu gets elite status.
- attack zulu swordsman with swordsman, zulu goes to 1 hp, then does 4 damage and swordsman dies. Zulu gets elite status.
- attack zulu swordsman with swordsman, zulu goes to 1 hp, then does 4 damage and swordsman dies.
- attack zulu swordsman with swordsman, zulu goes to 1 hp, then does 4 damage and swordsman dies.
I stopped attacking at this point as the zulus were bringing down another 2 regular swordsmen to add the the others
This scenario is repeated each and every time combat occurs. I have seen the AI attack one of my towns with only 1 unit, an archer or spearman and capture it after knocking off a swordsman or a couple of spearmen, who were fortified behind walls, and often with the town on a hill.
I am this ->| |<- close to giving the cd away to someone I don't like just to piss them off as much as the combat system is pissing me off. I have not had this much grief trying to play a game ever before because I cannot rely on weight of numbers to succeed in combat. Attacking with stronger units and having a 4 to 1 advantage in units should be enough to win. Yet I have been stopped cold in my tracks by combat results like the one above.
I put this to Soren and the rest of the Firaxis game designers and programmers: WHAT THE F&*K DID YOU DO?
I played SMAC for a year straight and loved the combat system. It was tough but fair and you could at least predict when you were attacked by a scout, the scout would usually die, not become "The Terminator". On the offensive, I could rely on good units and using large numbers of them to wear down a stronghold when needed. But this is an combat system is an insult to the people that put it together and those of us trying to play this game. And thought at first the "corruption" problems were bad in a large empire...
"Not the cry, but the flight of the wild duck,
leads the flock to fly and follow"
I have been a loud whinner about the combat, but in all fairness, by and large the results are normally that the numbers works and stronger units win. The freak results are very disturbing at times. I tend to run into a few each game and get mad and then go on. My early games had a lot more of them, but I pick the battles a bit better now and see less of it. Pikemen are not to be messed with if they are forted in a city, by any thing less than knights. I watched my pikes kill 8 barb horsemen in a row and took no damage. Great Wall gives double to walls and double to units against barbs can you say massacre?
That's amazing. I've had Civ III since the day it was released, and I've played far, far more than I should, working my way up from chieftain to monarch, playing different civs, etc. I have seen some wacky combat results. I've even screamed at the monitor in disbelief. But nothing, and I mean NOTHING, I've seen compares to your swordsmen v. Impi debacle described above.
I also have never, ever lost a modern unit to a warrior or spearman. I guess I'm lucky (or your luck is horrible). Wow.
Now, I have lost a bunch swordsmen to Impi, but it was a special case (city on hill w/walls).
I was talking to a friend who has the patch (I haven't got it yet, as my modem sucks) and he got the feeling that the patch may have given some combat bonuses to the AI - he was describing losing cities with fortified veteran spearmen and swordsmen to regular warriors and such.
Personally, I think random chance in combat is generally good... but there is a limit to my suspension of disbelief. I have a hard time believing a caravel could damage a battleship. One problem that goes hand-in-hand with all of this is that the AI fails to upgrade its units. Maybe the AI, since all it sees are the a/d/m, realizes that its old, obselete units can still be fairly effective. Or maybe it's just dumb. I admit it, I miss firepower. At the same time, I think mounted units and tanks should have combat disadvantages when attacking cities (over and above the modifiers already in the game).
But that is the point: the combat system is setup to give the defender a slightly better than 50% chance of doing damage when you attack an AI unit assuming the attacking unit has 2 for attack strength and the defender a strength of 1, and after last night's debaucle, it looks like the AI has a similar advantage in attack as well. And this is at Chieftan level.
I had tried to play at the more difficult levels but was frustrated by a total lack of resources in any of the starting positions I got. Kinda hard to get that next settler out when it takes 32 turns to get a poplution increase of 1... and having the AI setup right next to my capital in the best location there was before the city could finish the first settler.
At the rate this is going, I'm going to reinstall the game tonight and re-run the patch and see what happens. I have no luck when it comes to gambling for money, but I kill when it's for points on a crib board...
To that end, there is a spread sheet I found that Kobayashi setup for Civ2 and with a little reworking should be able to show how combat should work for CivIII.
And this is not to say that I haven't had success in combat before: I have used the Egyptians and Japanese to good effect and gotten either cultural victories or world domination. This is mostly why this is so vexxing. Like most software: when in doubt, reinstall.
"Not the cry, but the flight of the wild duck,
leads the flock to fly and follow"
About the starting stop on higher levels - yeah, you do seem to get tougher spots, but I just restart until there is a good one (I generally define this as river and a cow or two). You will get one, trust me.
The combat results you're describing are very different than what I've noticed. I really, really don't think the AI has any combat advantages (pre-patch anyway, I can't speak for post-patch yet). I've never attacked an AI tank with a warrior, so I don't know if I might win one of those. All I know is that, although something wierd does happen here and there, generally newer, better units will waste the older ones. Like I said, I'm ok with occasional wierd results, but I do think there is a bit too much of "Ironclad sinks Battleship" in Civ III.
That Impi vs Swords scenario is unbelivable ... Nothing like that ever happened to me. The most weirdest thing was losing an Army of swordsmen to a Longbow dude. And there was a veteran riflemen that defeated 4 of my cavs attacks in a row without any damage to himself. But that's about it.
but CIV3 combat arrangement sucks, that's a given. CIV2 had a nice set up. So did CTP2. But CIV3 reminds me CIV1, where a phalanx defeating a battleship was normal ...
Tweet
]
Comment