Combat System Explained

[Theseus]

Crecy and Agincourt.

[Zachriel]

Re: Re: Re: Could Someone Explain This to Me?

Originally posted by Gen.Dragolen And the size of the units being set to 10000 persons, I was working on a mod and it occurred to me that this was the scale they intended, mostly since a Roman Legion was about 10,000 men, the Egyptians organized in divisions of 10,000 men, and a modern full strength infantry division is about 10,000 persons, though only about 6,000 are actual combat troops.

I think you will find that the size of the units vary from age to age and from situation to situation.

To justify that assertion, consider the Romans when six Legions comprised a very powerful army of about 30,000 soldiers. With such an army, Caesar invaded Britain in the Ancient Age. Much later in history, the Normans conquered England with an army of only 5,000 soldiers, yet in Civ3 you would probably have more units than in the previous case.

The size of armies started to increase during the Industrial Age and numbered in the millions by the twentieth century. Yet, the number of units do not increase by a hundred-fold, but maybe by only ten-fold.

Typical number of units in attacking stack (Zachriel just making up some numbers for purposes of the discussion )
Ancient: 10-20
Middle: 20-40
Industrial: 40-80
Modern: 80-200

IMHO, the unit sizes are very abstracted and no exact correspondence can be made. (Naval units are even more abstracted than land units.)

[vmxa1]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Could Someone Explain This to Me?

Originally posted by Zachriel
IMHO, the unit sizes are very abstracted and no exact correspondence can be made. (Naval units are even more abstracted than land units.)

Well I agree we have no idea what the values are and since we don't they represent 1 to me.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by vmxa1
Well I agree we have no idea what the values are and since we don't they represent 1 to me.

Yes, 1 UNIT.
In my book a Destroyer is a Task Force of destroyers/cruisers. A Battleship is a heavy Task Force based on a core of 4 or more battleships. A Transport is several transports, with a small number of escorts. Subs and Nuc Subs are packs of 2 to 6 vessels. The modern naval combat units blitz in my book, too!

Infantry, Tanks, MA & MI are divisions or brigades. I am not particular in these cases.

---
Gen.Dragolen, I remember that a Soviet division was about 10,000 men. U.S. divisions have generally been substantially larger, but with a much larger non-combatant "tail" of course. I don't know about modern European unit sizes.

[vmxa1]

You seem to have a vivid imagination.

[Gen.Dragolen]

Originally posted by Theseus
Crecy and Agincourt.

Theseus,

Those would be longbowmen, not archers who have about a 100 yd range and marginal accuracy.

Their simple bows needed only to shoot over the advancing line of spearmen or swordsmen. Having gone riding with a cousin on their farm a little while ago, a horse can close pretty damn fast on a person standing there holding a bow and trying to line up a shot. Not to mention in a collsion, horse vs man/woman, horse wins every time.

What I wish they had done was to make some units have defensive bonuses against other units: spearmen and pikemen vs horsemen and cavalry, longbowmen vs. knights, archers vs spearmen and swordsman, that kind of thing. Then it would be an SOP that you never send out single unit type.

In any case before we go chasing each other's tails again, I'm going to play with the editor and do so testing until PTW arrives. Then we can really have fun debating how things should work...

D.

[Theseus]

Fair enough. Hmmm... how about Egypt against Libya (?), and also the Parthians (admittedly mounted)?

[vmxa1]

I have not been fond of the games I have tried that used a unit feature to counter another unit.

[Gen.Dragolen]

Originally posted by vmxa1
I have not been fond of the games I have tried that used a unit feature to counter another unit.

vmxa1,

I cut my military teeth playing wargames on ping-pong tables with hundreds of 1:72 scale soldiers mounted on bases and tattered old rule books that tried to reproduce some of the biggest battles in ancient times. It was a matter of course that if the spearman's morale held in the face of a charging mounted unit, the horses and riders were simply throwing themselves on to spears and shields.

And Theseus, I would love to see even more countries (call them barbarians?) that had unique units, or at least graphics that would better show what the ancients faced. Kinda boring otherwise: seen one horseman unit, you've seen them all...

My point is that the combat system Soren and company chose was a half strategically abstract , half tactically abstract that suits neither as well as it could if they had concentrated more one style. Either make it a chess match, or go for maximum detail and include ZoC supply lines and unit morale. Generically calling them hit points does a disservice to the game. If you have a chess match, you get armies like in Risk, or go for a detailed wargame where you have to consider all the factors that can affect a military campaign, like a real wargame used to train officers in West Point, Sandhurst, and Moscow.

There are too many factors that can influence the outcome of a battle to simply call it luck. A professional soldier knows that logistics are the biggest challenge a unit in the field faces, and the enemy is secondary. You need discipline, munitions, food, water, and communications to operate as a cohesive unit. If you can't get your men into contact with the enemy, how are you going to win the battle?

In part, I think I demand too much from the game as it stands. I see so much potential to improve it, and I have started to test the different mods like Player1's against my own designs. I would have preferred more of a chess like combat systems that forces you to rely on strategy instead of the weight of numbers to win your battles. A well chosen battlefield, with your enemy forced to fight when they don't want to, and troops that counter whatever units the enemy brings. Like I said, they seem to have it half right. Maybe it will be better with PTW.

D.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Gen.Dragolen


vmxa1,

I cut my military teeth playing wargames on ping-pong tables with hundreds of 1:72 scale soldiers mounted on bases and tattered old rule books that tried to reproduce some of the biggest battles in ancient times. It was a matter of course that if the spearman's morale held in the face of a charging mounted unit, the horses and riders were simply throwing themselves on to spears and shields.

Thats great, but it means nothing to me and many others. I say that, as Wargames do not seem to sell all that well. In any event, I don't care about them. I do not want to be Grant/Patton/Nepoleon or any ohter Generals. I just want to see a unit (say archer) coming my way and figure out what I have at hand to spank them with. Understand, I am only saying lots of people are not going to want that degree of involvement. Combat is only a part of the game, not the whole game.

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Gen.Dragolen
My point is that the combat system Soren and company chose was a half strategically abstract , half tactically abstract that suits neither as well as it could if they had concentrated more one style.

I would say that that is exactly the compromise that makes Civ what it is.

The only way to get "realistic" detail would be to have tiles much smaller than they are now, which are currently 100 miles or so across. The genius of Civ is that it gives a bit of the feel of tactics in a grand strategy situation. Something like Roddenberry's famous compromise that lets Captain Kirk run around in shirt sleeves on alien planets.

[Theseus]

And everyone speaks English!!

Grand stories require the suspension of disbelief.