COMBAT (ver 1.1) hosted by Redleg

[redleg]

hmmmm...the combat thread as I originally intended it appears to be too broad. Therefore I am going to narrow the scope of the topics in this particular thread. This may reduce the popularity of this topic, because some of the ideas here (including my own) are appropriate in other threads.

If you have an idea that is combat related, but dependant on another thread subject, post a condensed version of the idea in the other thread and point them here for the full details.

When posting, keep your ideas seperated. Post different ideas in different posts so it is easier to read.

Combat will be focused on these subjects:

Combat look and feel, the interface - if any
Combat factors and modifiers
Combat resoulution
Combat effects on units after resoultion
Any others that I didnt think of.

If it happens in the "CTP Battle Screen" equivelant, or happens when two units fight, the post belongs here.

Some ideas may more closely fit under units, supply and movement, or AI. Some ideas fit here AND there. You make the call.


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Redleg

Small minds talk about people, Average minds talk about events, Great minds talk about ideas.

<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by redleg (edited May 30, 1999).]</font>

[Pythagoras]

here's my unorganized rant-

I'd like to vouch for the current (Civ2+SMAC) combat system, it works fine. The earlier addition of firepower and hitpoints was a real good improvement.

Modifiers?
Maybe it would help if I posted the SMAC terrain modifiers from the manual Appendix 2 - Tables
Terrain affects on combat-
Artillery - + 25% attack bonus per level of altitude
Mobile units in level terrain - +%50
Rocky Terrain - +50%
(Xenofungus modifiers wouldnt apply on earth)

Plus the others I can remember
Infantry gain + 25% bonus to attacking a city. This may be a bit unrealistic . . but infantry need clear bonuses - cheap defense is one. How about they have easier times policing. Only infantry can police? I guess the main bonus to infantry in the real world are their inexpensiveness, ability to hold objectives, they are more fluid and flexible . . . anyone think of anything?
<I would discuss CTP, but I dont have it . .>

I liked the special abilities in SMAC, and think these could be transferred to Civ3 well, AAA tracking and even Chemical (instead of "Nerve") gas pods, Air Superiority are viable modern day special abilities. What about rennaisance, miedeval or ancient units? Could their be special abilities for these units? The ancient ships could be given "cartographer" as a special ability, decrease the chance of a trireme being sunk at sea.

If we are to maintain customizable units here is what I suggest.
1 Chassis are obesleted by others-
Like I said above a trireme's could have a "cartographer" special ability. On more modern ships, this is sort of a duh - ships won't get lost at sea. Later on a certain advance could obsolete the trireme chassis and one to obsolete that one. Instead of just a trireme having the chance of getting lost at sea, grant it to all ships, Trireme = 50% chance of sinking off shore, Sail boat = 10%, Modern Cruiser = 0.01%.

To sum up, here is a chart of naval Chassis, and some suggestions for naval special abilitys-

Trireme- "Breakdown" = 50% base move-2 hp1 fp1
Caravel- "Breakdown" = 10% " " " "-4 hp2 fp2
Cruiser- "Breakdown" = 1% " " " " "-6 hp3 fp3

Cartographer = halves breakdown odds
Double Hull = + 50% defense, carrys twice as many if transport
Double Size = *2 hitpoints, -1 movement
Ironsides = +100% defense to non Cruisers
Flight Deck = Carrier capability
Submersive = Submarine
Nuclear Reactor - (No Support?)
(help me out, I'm not a naval guy!)

Land units-
Chassis
Infantry (never obsoleted)base move-1 hp(variable) fp(variable)
Horses/Cavalry move-2 hp2fp1
Armor(obsoletes cavarly) move-3 hp3fp2

Infantry only
Gurreala movement thingy - each square a road when moving
Pikes - + 50% defense versus horses
Others -
Artillery - Bombardements as in SMAC
AAA defense - + 100% vs Air
SAM's - Attack Air
DeepRadar - see 2 spacees
Paraatroopers (Inf only?)- air drops 8 movements away from city w/Airport or Airbase
Gas Pods = double attack, atrocity
High morale - trained, veterans
grr . . I dont have more time I'm gonna think about this and get back!

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"I think you're all f*cked in the head!"
Chevy Chase-Nat'l Lampoon's Vacation.

[NotLikeTea]

Midevial civilizations, in the process of attacking a castle/walled town would kill a few cows, or gather enemy corpses, let them sit in the hot sun for a few days, then launch them over the walls, where they would burst open on impact. Spread a fair number of plagues like that.

Early version of biological warfare? Special ability for catepults?

[Flavor Dave]

I don't really know if this fits here, but in my copy of the Civ 2 manual, they considered having you plan and fight the battles, but dropped the idea. (Note: you guys should check out Firaxis' Gettysburg, it's a fine game.)

I propose that they adopt this notion, but only in what would be called "major combat." There would have to be a variety of units present, and a minimum number. And it shouldn't apply to taking cities; that's basic siege warfare. But it might be smart and fun to allow a few short battles.

This should be an optional feature. But wouldn't it be fun to see your catapult, pikeman, and two chariots turn into normal size fighting units, and deploy them, and all that?

[Chowlett]

I don't care if this has been posted before, and turned down or whetever, I didn't read the first version of this thread.

We HAVE to change the resolution system. I mean, if I with my level 12 armour and level 6 gun can't defeat a defender with level 12 armour and only level 1 gun, fair enough. His armour's too good. But how the smeg does he defeat me? My size 6 gun can't pierce his armour, so how does he kill me with his level 1 gun, when I have the same armour? This has to be changed!

[Flavor Dave]

Chowlett--what are you talking about, level 12 armor and such?!!? That aint' in Civ!!

[Eggman]

The Civ2 "move every piece individually" system has to go. I have spent literally an hour on two turns moving my attack force unit by unit as we mercilessly sacked a neighbor and forced him into 4 consecutive civil wars. We need some way to move things in groups. Stacks, armies or whatever is fine by me. Just eliminate this tactical handling of strategic combat.

I think sieging should be an option for your military. Basically, you "surround" a city (cut them off from their friends through ZOC or road connection, put X number of units in their radius, fortified units in a fortress in the area, having more units outside the city than defenders inside, whatever, etc.) and cut them off. They immediately lose 50% of all production, food, etc. As people starve to death, the city starts taking massive happiness penalties and if it gets too bad, surrenders without a shot. Perhaps even units can be damaged/disbanded as the supplies run short. This has the positive benefit of forcing the defenders to have something resembling an offensive military to break sieges. Also increases the value of granaries. And this reflects a major military strategy that was the alternative to bloody frontal attacks on city walls.

Bombardment units should be able to cause damage/destroy buildings inside the city. Especially bombers and howitzers. This is historically reasonable. Even today if you go solely after military targets, you will miss sometimes (see Kosovo). Back in WWII, carpet and fire bombing were clearly the most effective way to bomb, leading to massive destruction. And artillery, even today, are not surgical weapons on the battlefield.

Make air power more powerful than in Civ2. Once railroads were around (I used to give this tech away for obvious reasons), howitzers were always the superior choice to bombers except when land routes were not available. Howitzers had the advantage on attack punch, durability, units destroyed and cost. Don't do this again. Air units should be the key to offensive war in the modern age, not support artillery.

[Chowlett]

Flavor Dave:

I mean units with a defense strength of 12 and suchlike.

<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by Chowlett (edited June 05, 1999).]</font>

[Mo]

During a siege in civII if you had the city surrounded they could still work on the farther out squares which you don't occupy, but there isn't a way to reach them without going through your troops.

[Black Dragon]

I think their should be NO chemical or biological warfare, and if their is DEFINITLEY none on any airplanes. I think it really imbalanced SMAC and gave the attackers too much of an advantage. Until the development of the Tachyon Field, it gave the unit on the offensive an insermountable advantage for the whole game. It can make a size 12 base turn to a size three base in just one turn with an X gas chopper, and made offense way too strong. It should be left out in Civ 3.

[Eggman]

You're right. You could "siege" in Civ2. But it was not a real viable military option. First, you need 10-20 units to pull it off. Second, most of those units will be in squares where they can easily be killed by not only offensive units, but defensive units with decent attack values. Third, the city will hold out indefinitely and never surrender - just lose population which is counterproductive if you want to capture the city. Fourth, if you had that many units available to do this, you have more than enough to just conquer the city, making the option dumb compared to direct attack.

What I propose is to come up with a set of rules where sieging can become a real option to a direct attack. Make it so that five units in a strategic position can effective cut a city off and put it a crisis without a direct assault. Make it so that cities will give up without having to be forcibly occupied. And make it possible for the sieged to break the siege. And make it a real risk that the city might surrender much more quickly than expected or hold out much longer than it should.

This reflects true historic military strategy. It didn't always work, but it was a very effective way to subdue walled/ heavily fortified installations without bloody (and often futile) assaults.

[Flavor Dave]

eggman--the siege is a tactic already available in CivII--in fact, it is more powerful in CivII than what you're suggesting. If you occupy every square, a city will lose almost ALL of its production and food.

Chowlett--if that happens, it is b/c that's the way the mathematical formula for resolving combat worked in that case. The system is explained on many web sites and in the manual, if you need to check it out.

[ember]

I like your idea for sieges. With my 'deployment' system, a city under siege would not be able to recieve any units (this is the method new built stuff is distributed also, so no new builds) If you reduced the food and gave a % chance that a starving city capitulates. This would only happen after all the the food in the city stores is used up (large stock = long time to hold out...)

I would like to reiterate a fix for a combat model flaw.
In the combat model as is units fight to the death way to often.
To fix this my idea is to make most combat end after a certain number of rounds.

For ground combat nmber of rounds be proportional to the HP of the attacker. Each round three things can happen, attacker can hit, defender can hit, or neither hit. Have 50% chance no hit scored, and the remaining 50% would be divided in the usual way.

For bombards (artillary and combat betwwen domains, and all air combat).
Have number of rounds proportional to the HP of the attacker.
For every round roll for the attacker, attack strength is proportinal to the % chance of the attacker doing damage.
If the defender is capable of hitting back (phalanx cannot hit back at a bombard) the defender rolls with the defese strength indicating the % chance of the attacker being hit. Both can happen in the same round)

Under the normal repair system there would be an imbalance towards the defenders, but i propose to make all repairs cost gold proportional to the shields worth of damage repaired. Lots of damaging but not destroying attacks would quickly drain the defenders treasury, then damage would no longer be repaired.

The targeting ability of bombard units would depend on tech level. Low tech units would just generally bombard a city, damaging units, structures and pop indiscriminatly. High tech could pick a specific target.
Whenever a unit attacks a city there would be collateral damage. Each point the defender takes a point could be randomly assigned to something else in the city, representing colateral damage.
This would emphasise defending outside your cities, because they are velnerable to expensive to repair damage. A good fortress system would be very helpfull.

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"Any technology, sufficiently advanced,
is indistinguishable from magic"
-Arthur C. Clark

[Flavor Dave]

"This reflects true historic military strategy."

Well, I don't care about "true" history. I care about making the GAME better. One thing about the game that I don't like is that in the middle period of the game, it is too hard to take cities. Civ falls into a pattern of expand, perfect, assault, waaaay too easily. Perhaps enhancing siege tactics could make crusader-pikeman era offensive warfare more of a viable option. That's what we should be thinking about, not making this game like reality.

If you want to make this game more realistic, you'd play 2 turns and die of old age.

I suggest one redface for every neighboring, occupied square to a city. That way, if you occupy enough spaces, the city is sure to go into revolt, and a diplomat will easily be able to buy it.

[Eggman]

Hey, I wouldn't suggest it if I thought it would make the game worse!!

Personally, I think Civ should do away with buying out cities. You should be able to incite revolts with spies. Then you have three possibilities:
1) The revolts are put down. Perhaps the city gets a happiness penalty for several turns or something.
2) The city declares its independence (ala CTP).
3) The city joins another civ (not necessarily yours). Ethnicity could play a big deal here.

My reasoning is that one of my most successful Civ2 combat strategies was to sack and destroy the enemy capital (may take several tries) and then buyout the rest of their cities cheap. To me, that strategy shouldn't work. To defeat an enemy I should have to conquer him or cause unpredictable political instability, not just throw money around and buy everyone like the "Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase.

I also like the concept of one cities riots causing nearby cities to riot.