What's with the loaded dice?

[Heliodorus]

I'm on record as being a great fan of the as-built combat engine. That remains true. I wish the AI upgraded and built modern units, and I wish it understood force protection and combined arms strategies, but...

In the early running, I realized that to succeed in the combat system, I had to adapt from Civ2 mentalities. Among the keys to that adaptation were the following:

1) Bringing enough troops to the party. Gone are the days when a slightly better unit will win over a slightly weaker one with 75%-plus reliability. The result of archer on archer combat is widely variable. To counter, you have to bring more archers to be sure of the win.

2) Combined arms makes all the difference. Catapults in the ancient era may be weak, but they are a requirement. Especially on city attacks - if I don't get some serious successes, I don't send in the regular troops. Additionally, you simply HAVE to have the mobile, retreat-capable attackers to soften up enemies. And you have to understand that quite often, retreatable units fail to retreat and die in that last 1HP-vs-1HP death struggle. Refer to my first point on dealing with this issue.

3) Damaged enemies MUST be destroyed. Damaged friendlies MUST be preserved. Especially enemy mobile units, you have got to kill them when they are damaged. I spend a lot of time maneuvering stacks behind the main area of combat so that I can destroy retreating units. The AI is very good about withdrawing them. Letting him live to fight another day is extremely bad policy. The converse of this is true - always protect your own damaged units, get them to a city, and heal them. The AI is very good about killing them if it can.

4) Bombard, bombard, bombard. Free hits make a huge difference in force multiplication. Especially at sea (when you have artillery, you can bombard ocean squares two tiles out from the coast, which is a great advantage).

5) Support your military with roads and frontier towns. Take the battle to enemy territory, and you will need an even greater number of troops to help you protect retreating units. If fighting in your own terrain, you have to have roads available. If you are into razing enemy cities, bring along a settler or two to establish hospital cities.

6) Weather the storm. The AI can manage a long offensive war in the ancient and early medieval game (it dies out quickly thereafter, especially if invasions become necessary for it). In virtually any game in which I had a war with the enemy, I lost cities to it - if not my own, then some of the cities I took from it. If you strive to conserve units, and thus maintain the edge in attrition, you can eventually overpower the AI so long as you're following the first three rules well.

I LOVE the combat system. Can you imagine the party that spearman has after he destroys your tank? Oh, wait, by then,he's already been killed by the NEXT tank you had... D'oh.

[Zachriel]

Great post, Heliodorus.

[Arrian]

Heliodorus,

I tend to agree with you, except about bombardment in the ancient (and, in truth, medieval) era. I just don't bother. I'm all about the "Mongol Horde" rush with horsemen or knights. It works beautifully, at least until the next patch comes out... I suspect some changes will be made to the retreat ability. I do not, however, discount the usefulness of bombarding the enemy, particularly later on when you're dealing with infantry in size 40 cities.

The real key to Civ III combat is bringing more troops than you might think you need. That way, when you lose a veteran Tank to a regular musketman (which, I admit, pissed me off), you roll over the s.o.b. with the next Tank. A normal strike force for me in the Modern Age (normal map) includes at least 50 Modern Armor. Usually, I'm picking a fight against an enemy that has Cavalry and Infantry... maybe even riflemen (and I KNOW they've got all sorts of spearmen, pikemen and musketmen underneath their primary defenders). Why do I need 50 M.A.? Well, I suppose it could be done with less, but building all those tanks really doesn't take all that much effort, and that way I KNOW, beyond all doubt, that I will crush my enemy easily. When I throw a wounded unit into battle against tech. inferior ones because I want to speed the war along, I understand and accept that my unit might just get whacked.

I understand the frustration of the "realist" gamers who are upset by the very idea that a Tank can lose to a spearman. Part of me agrees (*nod to vmxa1*). What I do not sympathize with, however, is the apparent refusal on the part of many people to adjust their tactics to fit the game - instead choosing to complain about the combat system. Ok, if the combat system ruins your fun, maybe this game isn't for you. Play different games, then (I mean no insult here).

-Arrian

[Zachriel]

Of course, occasionally one can't create the massively overwheming force we would like have on the attack. In this situation sometimes risks must be taken, and random results will have a much bigger impact on the strategic situation. That is the nature of risk.

But if sufficient production capability is available, then there is little excuse in not providing overwheming force.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Heliodorus
Can you imagine the party that spearman has after he destroys your tank? Oh, wait, by then,he's already been killed by the NEXT tank you had... D'oh.

A turn lasts at least 1 year, so give the brave spearman one evening to party, before the next tank rolls.

Good post, Heliodorus!

[Spaced Cowboy]

One quick correction to my previous post. I was referring to 1 to 8 odds for each combat round, not for the whole attack. Also if they use limiting odd and some type of look-up table (such as the old war board games) even the max 4-1 odds would habve something like (dice roll) 3,4,5,6 win; 2 ties, 1 lose. Anyway just my 2 cents worth

Has anyone noticed the likelyhood losing compared to one relative strength and strength in the immediate area. I seem to lose more lopsided battles when I am relatively weak or my forces are scattered. Or am I just imagining it?

I also agree with Heli's post. I usually bring 6-10 of my units to each defender. Haven't gotten the hang of combined arms, usually just beat my army down on the other guy so that I can rebuild with better units (exception being mounted units which I always save). Those archers, longbows and legions do not go anywhere anyhow.

[barefootbadass]

One thing to note when losing a tank or modern armor to a spearman is that it really could have had something like a piece of dynamite or a simple grenade launcher or something. This is not an 'imaginitive' leap, as the civ defending probably has at least gunpowder level technology by the time you are fielding that kind of unit, so the spearman could be a unit that has not been properly trained to use such weapons, and may be severely limited in amount of ammo(hence the lower stats). After all, upgrading requires a barracks.

Now the best solution would be to have the ai build barracks and upgrade troops(unit ai could move to a city to upgrade when more pressing issues aren't available). Although this would make things much more difficult, although more satisfying to win.

[ShuShu]

Mark Caro vs. a Tank.

Freshman year in college, a new friend was talking about how backgammon was a game of luck. I insisted it was not and that I was willing to play at any stakes he wished. He chose a penny a game. One semester and $143.00 later I forgave him his debts because at no point could I have been considered to have been gambling.

Despite having to win at significantly higher rates than tanks have historically shown against spearmen (sticks and stones DO break their bones... err treads) I did in fact lose a few games. And although I feel safe in claiming that most of those losses were due to bad luck, none were unnexpected or unfair. No the one complaining about his lack of luck was the one who lost 14,300 games in fewer than 3 months. Hmmmmm....

[Aeson]

Obviously the "luck" involved in backgammon is getting a poor player as an opponent who is willing to lose 14,300 games before giving up! The bad luck was that he wasn't rich enough to bet $10 a game, and that you had a conscience.

[ShuShu]

Must be a character flaw...

That may explain why I prefer rolling over that spearman with Big Mac's rather than tanks...

[Harovan]

ShuShu: Wow, you played 14300 backgammon games in a few months? Did you something else in that college, like studying or so?

The spearman may have some odds to defeat the tank, but vs. the Big Mac's he has no chance.

[bsklepzig]

Invincible tanks

This thread has been beat to death, but ...

It seems like the outraged folk are focused on the romantic, imaginative elements of combat, not the cold numbers of attack/defense.

Even so, I'm puzzled by the dogged assertion that tanks are invincible against non-modern opponents. Against ANY opponent, tanks can get stuck in mud, lose treads, stall, not get the turret turned fast enough, etc. (When I was a kid, it seemed that 60 Minutes had a story every other week about the crappy tanks that we were churning out. They'd work like a charm on a sunny Kansas day, then die in the rain or the sands of Arizona.)
Mechanical failures or limitations seem part of the risk of modern weapons, hence a small percentage chance for the spearman to win.

Still, the Outraged rage on. A tank vs. a spearman?

That leads me to a look at the realism of combat in Civ3 at all. Let's take the simplest scenario. My single tank heads to City X and meets a spearman on the road. Let's be generous and assume it's something like 1953, where turns only take a year.

This tank-spearman battle rages for a year? (And don't tell me the battle lasts 15 minutes and other stuff takes up the year. Add a few other A/D units and our simple conflict is a three turn (year) battle, with the tank-spearman clash playing one part.)

Given the resources required from the city that built it and the relative population of the cities, I'm forced to surmise that each unit is symbolic of a larger force. (Hence the ability to generate Great Leaders???) 100 spearmen against 10 tanks? 100 tanks? If we're forced to accept that this clash takes a year (or more if techs were rushed early) and have dozens or hundreds (or more) participants, then our imaginations must stretch to include ravines and boulder-pushing. (Heck, in that time, the spearman could save money from a part-time job, buy a Dell and a wireless card, log on to Apolyton and skim some great spearman-tank strategies from this thread!)

If you're going to insist that tank-must-crush-puny-human 'cause that's how it would happen when one tank meets one man in Sarejevo, then you must accept that ...
on a huge map one square = 100 miles
one turn = a year
one unit = many people and
100 miles of terrain is more varied and interesting than grassland-with-road (as it appears on the map)

IMO, it's all symbolic, it's all an approximation. If to-the-letter historical accuracy in combat is critical to your appreciation of a game, maybe Civ3 isn't your cup of tea. Perhaps try Avalon Hill's Axis and Allies board game. If building civlizations and dominating the world through a clever combination of tactics trips your trigger, go Civ. (Personally, I think Civ3 is great!)

Ben

[ShuShu]

to rephase...

Give me a pointy stick and 6000 years to prepare, and I promise I'll be ready for you when that tank finally shows up!

Come to think of it, I think it is highly unrealistic to expect a tank to defeat these spearmen out of the Highlander movies...

Sir Ralph... It was a net DIFFERNCE of 14,300 games.

Actually, backgammon has a doubling cube which doubles (or quadruples) the stakes every time the cube changes hands. The biggest single contest was worth a halfword. Funny thing, I was very lucky when the stakes were high, and unlucky when the stakes were low...

[Harovan]

Re: to rephase...

Originally posted by ShuShu
Come to think of it, I think it is highly unrealistic to expect a tank to defeat these spearmen out of the Highlander movies...

Yea, or take Rambo with his bow (Archer? Longbowman?) against the "evil" Russian attack choppers

Ah by the way, wasn't the Highlander rather a swordsman?

[ShuShu]

Good Point...

wasn't the Highlander rather a swordsman

but since we are being totally realistic here, the Highlander movies are not completely accurate because the immortal spearmen were allowed to upgrade to swordsmen and that is against the rules.

Come to think of it, how were the poor immortals supposed to chop off each others heads before they discovered Iron Working, or even once they discovered iron working, were unable to trade for a mountain with Iron in it?