COMBAT (ver 1.1) hosted by Redleg

[NotLikeTea]

I think that this is a place where fun should outweigh realism.

If the timescale changes, war becomes a sub game. Since time is slower, building is less important, research is less important, growth is less important...

I'd rather have too long wars than being dropped into another detached game for war. Realistic? No.. but more enjoyable, more epic in nature, and in the end, more exciting.

Besides, wars can take a long time. I can be in a constant state of war for hundreds of years.. how would it decide when to go to slooooow time?

[korn469]

here are my thoughts on combat.

first i think the present civ2/SMAC combat system needs to be changed my ideas are along the lines of other posters in this thread

1. combat is divided into rounds

2. some sort of stack/multiple units in combat at once

3. all units have these factors

attack: the amount of damage your unit does when a hit is landed

defense: the amount of damage cancled out when a hit is landed (could only lower damage to one point)

hit points: the amount of damage a unit can withstand before it dies

rate of fire: the number of attacks a unit can make in a round of combat

range: each unit has a range number...if there is a difference in range the unit with greater range gets to have as many unopposed rounds of combat as the difference in range...unless it is ambushed

accuracy: the chance an attack will actually land

evade: the chance a defender has of evading an attack, also the chance that a unit will succsessfully retreat

disipline: the chance of a unit to surrender or to keep on fighting...additional purpose of disipline could be for the possibilty of your units turning into renegade, and bandits, has anyone seen fortunes of war?

3. giving units rate of fire could make some older weapons be able to have certain advantages over newer ones and it could make certain weapons better for killing certain units.

two examples of this are

native americans warriors of the great plains had an advantage in using bows when faced against spanish and early american settlers and soldiers who used non repeating rifles and muskets, not because arrows did more damage but because they could fire arrows at a much high rate...not until repeating rifles arrive did the native americans really start losing ground

and as for a unit better at killing one thing than another imagine a machine gunner unit and an anti-tank unit...the machine gunner would have a high rate of fire and do less damage than the anti-tank unit becuase infantry units should have less armor and hit points yet there should be larger numbers of them

here's an example of combat a machine gunner unit built with technology of the late 20th centurty comes into battle against three legions built with technology from the time of ceasar their stats are

machine gunner:
attack: 5
defense: 3
hit points: 15
rate of fire: 6
range: 5
accuracy: 75%
evade: 25%
disipline: good

legionsx3
attack: 3
defense: 2
hit points: 20
rate of fire: 1
range: 1
accuracy: 95%
evade: 10%
disipline: excellent

ok lets say the machine gunner wasn't ambushed so it gets four free rounds of combat before the the legions get into attack range and at 6 attacks per round that is 24 free attacks before the legions can attack

out of those "free" 24 attacks the machine gunners will hit with 18 attacks (number of attacks times machine gunner's accuracy) and the legions will evade two attacks (number of attacks times legions evade) leaving 16 attacks that hit the legions

the legions armor will cancle out 2 of the five damage points of each one of the attacks (machine gunners attack minus the legions defense) so that means the three legions will take 48 damage during those first four rounds so two of the legions will be dead and starting the round and the last one will be at 12 hit points even if the legion does hit it wont be enough to kill the machine gunner this round (1 attack at 3 attack damage) and the machine gunner will have enough to kill the legion

of course their should be modifiers according to terrain and moral level and maybe when a unit gets to a certain level of damage (depending upon its disipline level) it might either retreat or surrender

Seige Warfare

my thoughts on seige warfare is this...if the seige force has an unbroken zone of control that completely surrounds a city then that city is considered "under seige" it recieves no trade, and your civilization only recieves half of the income from that city it normally would

a city cannon work sqaues beyond the zone of control circle that the seige forces have around the city. all squares that contain enemy units cannot be worked and if a square is in an enemy zone of control it doesn't produce anything with the exception being if a friendly unit is in that square the tile is still productive and if a both a friendly and an enemy zoc are in a square that square produces half of it's normal value. also once a city under seige runs out of food it will have an ever increasing chance of surrendering to the enemy

korn469

<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by korn469 (edited June 15, 1999).]</font>

[korn469]

even though the machine gunner unit and legion unit were just example unit i do belive that modern weaponry and organization is the only thing that makes our armies better than warroirs from the past...in fact the roman legions were probably better disiplined and better trained than most of the soldiers in uniform today, however give a kid in iraq an Ak-47 a just a little bit of training and not only is he part of their army but he has many times the range and fire power even an excellenty trained and disiplined battle field veteran of a roman legion armed with a gladius
looking at the example the roman legion wins in area of training and organization (a legion is much larger than a machine gunner support team and that's why i gave them more hit points) yet it's tactics (the sheild wall for example) lowers it evade and without guns they cannot hope to compete against modern day soldiers under most circumstances

[Eggman]

Personally, I am open to any combat system that they want to use in Civ3 as long as (1) I can understand it without having to study it for several days and (2) it doesn't involve me moving each unit individually and instead lets me move and use them in groups. However, I like the concepts of unit "range" (I can hit you but you can hit me) and "bombardment" (especially artillery duels). However, if they want a ranged attack value ala CTP, make sure that they separate ranged attack value from the bombardment value. Being good at hitting other units in the thick of battle from far away does not necessarily equate to being good at pounding stationary defenses from far away. See catapult.

And if you want to make war more "realistic," give war some real drawbacks. In Civ2, the only real negatives to waging war (besides losing a war) is the happiness penalty under democracy and republic and the loss/diversion of some shield production as it is required to support the military. These penalties were minor compared to the gain of capturing a couple (or a dozen) cities. I suggest that war (especially offensive war) have additional penalties. Some possible penalties (choose your own favorites and feel free to add to the suggestions):
- Loss of trade routes (this can especially hurt if you are trading a key material with the enemy under a new economic model)
- Gold income drops
- City attacks cost a set amount of money
- Military units cost money maintenance (or even population units) as well as production making large armies expensive
- Happiness penalties and drops in military morale kick in after the war drags on for a certain number of turns
- If your people like your enemy or you have ethnic populations of that country, revolts can happen
- UN sanctions
- etc.

[Flavor Dave]

1. Attaching units--warmongering can be dull, in the railroad age, when one turn takes an ETERNITY!! So, the guys at Firaxis should adapt the Gettysburg system, and allow you to "attach" one unit to another. Then move the whole bunch of them to the front. They still fight separately, tho.

2. I would like for siege warfare to be SLIGHTLY more effective, since conquest in the mid game is too difficult. But if you make it aLOT more effective, then you hurt game balance--offensive warfare becomes too powerful. I don't care about realism--if you want realism, you play two turns and die of old age.

3. Maybe I'm wrong, but Korn469's idea of stacked combat would make the game waaay too easy. What is the AI's biggest weakness in war? Its inability to think on a large scale. If you have stacked combat, I'll just form a superhorde of like 20 units, and go into the enemy's territory and lay waste to it. Once I've destroyed every single mine, road, irrigated tile, killed every stray unit, and taken every small city, I'll just move on, leaving behind a hopelessly wrecked empire. The AI can't do that to me, b/c Civ is too complicated. Then a few turns later, I'll use dips to buy everything, since the cities will be cheap. See, without roads, the AI civ won't have the arrows/income to support its city improvements. They'll have deficit spending. (Or perhaps, a tax rate of 20% science and 80% tax. In that case, I come back 50 turns later with my cavalry/alpines against their phalanxes and archers.)

I *think.* Maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, long ago I was in a discussion on stacked warfare. Everyone thought it was cool and "realistic," until I pointed out how much this change would favor offensive warfare.

[FinnishGuy]

I was thinking how to improve the air combat model in the CIV games and came up with this:

- Air units (icons) are only allowed to exist in base squares (specifically built airbases or cities). They create an "effect zone" (EZ) around them, which includes all squares within the unit's operational radius. Player can move air units from base to base by selecting the unit, clicking on the new base and watching a nice little animation of planes taking off, flying and landing.

- Automatic Recon Flights: If an enemy land/sea unit is inside friendly EZ, there is a chance per turn that it will be spotted. This chance increases the closer the enemy unit is to the base square. The spotting would be re-evaluated every turn.

- Bombing Runs: Player selects a bomber air unit, clicks on the target enemy unit (can also be air unit) and again watches a neat animation of bombers doing an attack run and returning to base. If the bombers fly through an enemy fighter EZ, there is a check whether they are spotted by the enemy. If spotted, enemy fighter interception is very likely. There can be multiple interceptions if flying through multiple/overlapping enemy EZs. If the bombers take too much damage, the mission is aborted and they (try to) return to base.

- Automatic Fighter Escort: If a moving/attacking bomber unit is within friendly fighter EZ, it has fighter escort. Possible enemy interception then first engages the fighters, and if sufficient strength remains then the bombers.

- Automatic Air Superiority: If friendly and enemy fighter EZs overlap, there is a chance of air superiority combat between the fighter units (much like artillery duel in SMAC). The chance increases the more EZs overlap. Enemy bombers entering friendly fighter EZ are intercepted, if spotted.


This sacrifices some player control, BUT reduces combat micromanagement with air units. IMO, it's also more realistic as all air combat is concluded within game turn.

Yeah it's maybe not perfect but what is... all ideas need refining...


Oh, I'd also like to see strategic bombers in CIV III (bombers that damage/destroy city improvements or production). Tactical bombers should act like artillery in SMAC against land units (cause damage but don't actually kill). However, sea or air units could be destroyed by tactical bombers.

[korn469]

flavor dave: well the A.I. losing under the stacked combat system wouldn't much different from A.I. losing under the current single unit system except it'd take less micromanagement on my part...but of course there would have to be limits...like maybe you could only stack five units togther and they'd move as fast as the slowest unit in the stack

have you ever played Space Empires 3? something like that system

and what i was talking about when i said range is that the units wouldn't attack six squares out they would still attack as they usually do but units with higher range would get free attacks rounds under my combat suggestion, but there could still be artillary units that shot more than one square

korn469
if i wanted realism i'd demand a real-time strategy game

[Flavor Dave]

korn, let me ask you this--a stack of 10 knights--does it have 40 attack and 20 defense? That's what has to be avoided.

[Eggman]

Flavor Dave: I am sure that there are ways to have stacks or armies without having to combine all their values into one. CTP managed to do it and the only complaint I have heard about their system is that the units are poorly balanced, which is a flaw in the unit ratings and not the system. The units move in a stack. They are brought into combat in a stack. But the separate units themselves fight individually. CTP stacked combat is almost exactly like Civ2 combat - all the battles are still 1-on-1 - its just that their are multiple confrontations going on at the same time (or a queue forming up to face off against the lone unit, as the case may be). Plus CTP has stack size limits (no more than 9 units per square) that prevents the infamous uberstack.

I believe there is also a plus in stacking for the AI. There are less "units" to move around as they are combined into stacks (basically out of necessity - combined arms are generally more powerful than homogeneous stacks or *gasp* the lone unit). Less decisions makes for a smarter computer player. Or at least I can hope.

However, I think they should consider giving a bonus of some sort to the stack with the numbers advantage. Mass attacks with mediocre units can be very successful, though generally costly.

FinnishGuy - I REALLY, REALLY LIKE THAT IDEA! It keeps the ego boosting value of sending your planes to go kick the crap out of someone while simplifying the work greatly. Plus, we get rid of the phenomenon of bombers taking two turns to make a complete bombing run and hanging out blocking all ground traffic for no good reason whatsoever.

A couple of comments though:
1) You have to assign which fighters are escorts and which ones are patrol. No fair having the same fighters escort the bombers and then intercepting incoming bombers or dogfighting on patrol the same turn.
2) There are some issues to consider with aircraft carriers (would you please teach the AI to use them this time?) Maybe carriers should have 1 or 2 "free" interceptors built into the unit to make it stronger.
3) How do we handle helicopters and missiles? I think choppers would be considered ground units (which they basically are) and missiles are a special case but nonetheless.

And bombardment units MUST have the ability to destroy city improvements. This goes for both INTENTIONAL (sending bombers to just smash the city) and UNINTENTIONAL (sending bombers to hit the military units and accidentally hitting the hospital next door). And make civilian bombing casulties to be a minor atrocity.

[ember]

FinnishGuy;
I have proposed a similiar system for air combat in an earlier thread. I can't find it so I'll repost the main air combat bit here:

AIR COMBAT
due to the extreeme speed, yet huge dependance of air craft on fixed bases, they cannot be acuratly represented under the current model

All aircraft bombard. Air craft do not tend to get into one unit shall die situations as easily as ground or naval forces, there is a strong chance of both sides being damaged to some degree, but still efective as a unit.

air craft can only be moved by deployment (see my economics thread post) they can be deployed to owned and allied cities, air-bases and carriers. In the case of nuclear weapons and cruise missiles, to subs and cruisers instead of carriers.

Air units have four options for each turn; to attack, to go into active defend mode (sentry), go inactive (fortify) and to redeploy.

Redeploy is done by sending them back to the deploy list to be re-deployed the next turn.

ATTACK
The movment of the air unit gives its attack range. When it attacks it bombards the target.
figters and bombers can just choose to bomb units or structures. one of these is then picked at random. Stealth fighters/ bombers can choose induvidual targets. The unit with the best agains air defense rating always defends

Modifiers to air attacks
city walls / fortress: no effect on air combat
SAM: +100% defense
Airport / airbase: +50% defense for defending aircraft
hills, forest, river...: -25% attack
mountains: -50% attack
ships in port: +50% attack
normal moral modifiers apply
For air combat, a unit in the forest does not have an easier time hitting the planes, but the planes have a harder time hitting them.
Ancient units: -100% defense.
renaissance units, helicopters: -50% defense
modern units, bombers: normal
SAM, AGIES, (stealth) fighter: +100% defense

Ranges
figter: 6
stealth fighter: 8
helicopter: 6
bomber: 12
stealth bomber: 16
cruise missile unit: 8
nuclear weapon: 16

Assumes ~100-200 km per square

Recon plane: range 32, when used does not attack, and rarely draws active defense, acts as a vision range of 6 at that point unitl the beggining of your next turn.

airplanes have a vision and active defense range of 0.5x their attack range

ACTIVE DEFENSE only can be used if the plane did not deploy or move in the preceeding turn
for fighters: When an enemy plane targets somthing of yours or an allies in the defense range, they get a pre-emtive air attack on the attacker. It functions as if the active defender had initiated the bombard. If the attacker survives, it bombards the target normally. a unit can only active defend once per turn, and only one unit can defend agains each attacker. Stealth bombers have a 50% chance of the active defense failing to notice them. Figters on carriers active defend agains naval units as well as air units.
For bombers: Enemy naval and ground units are targeted, when they enter range. can be set to only target certain unit types if available, like carriers and transports or settlers.
helicopters: are the only air unit that can attack submarines, target like bombers, but target subs preferentailly. They have a % chance of detecting submarines in vision range.

FORTIFIED air units only defend if they are in the tager square. A carrier attacked by a sub will automatically scarmble helicopters to pre-emptivly strike (% chance before, % chance simultaneously in this case). They do not have to have movment left to defend agains a direct attack, only a distant one.

A good staratagy for bombing is to send in adavanced fighters (target terrain improvments even) to use up the defenders counter attacks, and damage them, then to bring in the bombers. This simulates escorting the bombers with long range fighters.

SAM units activly defend in a 1 square radius. AGIES cruisers have a range of 2 or 3

When air units attack terrain improvments they have a % chance of hitting based on the type of air craft (50% fighters, 90% stealth bombers...)

Helicpters can be used to attack with a marine unit. The helicpter bombards, then the marine attacks in the target square unit it clears all the defenders or dies trying - like an amphibous attack.

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

[yin26]

-=*MOVING THREAD UP*=-

[FinnishGuy]

ember:

OK. I'm a latecomer in this discussion, I just found this board.

Good points there, especially that air units do not die so easily although they can take
heavy damage. Hmmm, perhaps healing should then actually consume production (replacement aircraft being produced). One more good point is that helicopters can attack with a marine unit.

I don't think that we need a separate recon air unit. Recon flights can be abstracted with other air units.


Eggman:

About your comments:

1) Yes I thought about this too. But, there is a danger that air combat will become a clickfest if player needs to constantly change fighter assignments by hand. Some kind of an automatic assignment scheme is almost a must to maintain ease of use. The simplest solution would be to just allow the fighters do double or triple duty (i.e., no assignments). Because air superiority and interception doesn't occur automatically every time (the proposed opportunity checks), some fighters would only fly one mission per turn while others might then do triple duty. Anyway, if assignments are implemented, here's what I thought:

- Fighter units could have four modes of operation: Air Superiority, Interception, Escort and Rest.

- Fighters in Air Superiority mode can attack ONE randomly selected enemy fighter
unit (of any mode). This selection can be made by putting all candidates (those that have overlapping EZ ("effect zone")) in random order and then making engagement checks one by one until the check is succesful or no more candidates remain. The engagement check is based on how much EZs overlap. The more they overlap, the greater chance. The chance maxes out when the enemy BASE square is within EZ. If the candidate enemy is also in Air Superiority mode, the chance is increased (both trying to find enemy fighters). If the candidate is Resting, the chance is decreased (Resting unit is trying to avoid combat). Air Superiority combat should be resolved in the beginning of turn before any other air combat. If the fighter unit doesn't find a target (all candidate checks fail or no overlapping enemy EZs), it assumes Interception mode for that turn.

- Fighter unit in Interception mode can intercept ONE spotted enemy bomber (or escorts first) entering its' EZ.

- Fighter unit in Escort mode can escort ONE bomber unit per turn. It can respond to several enemy interception attempts on the same bomber. If it takes too much damage, another (healthier) Escort fighter can take its' place, provided EZ restrictions apply.

- Fighter unit in Rest mode doesn't participate in combat (unless forced by enemy Air Superiority fighters) and heals more quickly.

- Any fighter unit in Interception or Escort modes can also be used like bombers. If they are used in fighter-bomber role however, they can't do double duty as fighters that turn (or vice versa). Fighter-bombers do not use fighter escorts.


2) Basically, carriers would be handled like ground airbases with the exception that they can move. If a carrier is sunk, all air units it was accommodating have a chance (maybe depending on experience) of evacuating to any friendly carrier (provided there's room), airbase or city within operational radius. I don't think there's any need for "indigenous" fighter units. If a carrier can take 8 air units, there will be enough room for interceptor fighters and still have 2-3 bombers with escorts. Also, on occasion you might want to risk an "all-or-nothing" style air assault, sending all air units to bombing mission.


3) Both could be special cases of bomber units. A (cruise) missile is just a "bomber" that has a very low chance of being intercepted, doesn't use fighter escort and is itself destroyed while attacking. Helicopters could be modelled by bomber units with short operational radius. Chopper units (icons) could also be allowed to exist outside city or airbase squares. They could establish temporary "airbases" for themselves WITHIN their movement radius from a city or normal airbase square. To repair damage, chopper units must return to normal airbase or city (but they suffer damage only from combat, not automatically at end of turn like now in CIV II). Choppers act like bombers, but don't use fighter escort. Because choppers naturally try to avoid combat against fixed-wing aircraft, enemy fighters would have strongly reduced chances to intercept them. Also, they would have a chance to escape enemy fixed-wing bomber attacks (survive with no or minimal damage). The best weapon against choppers would be another chopper or land/sea units with strong anti-air capabilities.


Some more points on air combat:

- If radar technology has been developed, chances to spot enemy units (especially bombers) inside friendly EZ are increased substantially.

- If an airbase is under direct enemy bomber attack, there could be a chance (based on experience) that all fighters in that base can do double duty as interceptors.

- Perhaps there could be a target selection possibility for Air Superiority fighters also. Player can select an enemy base and then the fighter will only engage enemy

fighters originating from this base. This would allow concentration of forces in air superiority missions.

- Conventional cruise missiles should be "anti-structure" weapons to be used against city installations (like demonstrated by real world Tomahawks). Inflicted damage to land and air units should be minimal. Perhaps air units could be more vulnerable. Land or air units can't be destroyed by cruise missile attack. Sea units on the other hand could be destroyed.

- About marines with helicopters proposed by ember: Any marine unit in an airbase can participate in one helicopter attack originating from the same airbase. First, the chopper provides support fire in the target square (like artillery attack in SMAC, damages only) and then the marine unit makes a normal land attack. If the marine unit is victorious and no more enemy units remain, the marines occupy the target square. Marine units can also move WITHIN helicopter EZ from any square to any unoccupied or friendly occupied square (helicopter transport). Perhaps some damage is suffered if moving to enemy ZOC. Attacking marines must start in airbase square because of combat preparations.


Whew getting lengthy... must stop for now...

[Robert]

This thread has been closed down.
You can continue the discussion on COMBAT <a href = "http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum28/HTML/000132.html">HERE</a>

CyberShy
NEW Temp thread head of the Combat Thread

[yin26]

Redleg,

Your position is waiting for you as soon as you come back! Please e-mail me when you arrive home. Cybershy was gracious enough to make the summary for the list, which we want to finish ASAP. You should have received my e-mail by now.