COMBAT (ver 2.0)hosted by Redleg & Theben

[loinburger]

Jon Miller: I like the first idea you've posted (the one of medium complexity) the mostso far. Adding a maneuverability factor (which could also turn into an initiative factor) would help balance the game between offense and defense better, which is Flavor Dave's (and my) primary concern. I've been worrying about the defenders getting crushed later in the game, but Flav's right, the middle game is opposed to the attacker. Maneuverability would help this, as it would be a strike AGAINST riflemen (the folks who tip the balance) and a boon FOR Mech. Inf. (who, with their 6 defense, just can't cut it against howitzers). So, a maneuverability bonus would help to alleviate both the middle game defense advantage AND the end game offense advantage.

Flavor Dave: The way I'd see an ambush working is that it would provide concealment, a defense bonus, and a bonus to retreat (since the defenders are probably hopelessly outnumbered and are expecting to lose). However, ambushers would NOT be able to take advantage of fortresses or other terrain improvements--it would be like hiding infantry in a battleship, as in it just wouldn't work. Furthermore, only one unit could be in ambush in a tile square--and if that one unit is detected by scouts or whatever, then it receives a massive penalty to defense. So what's the point of an ambush, besides realism (talk to Diodorus about that one)? Just a delaying tactic, nothing more. Damage the enemy a little bit and hope to stay alive. Then hopefully your bombers can pick them off later. Is it necessary? Probably not, but I know I'd probably use it once or twice.

[ember]

LASS(R) is a much better system than civ2 combat.
Attackers have initiative and should have an advantage over defending units in the open. Terrain can negate this by making the attacker take so long initiative is lost.
The terrain bonus can never excede the amount gained by the attacker haing inititive.
Fortification bonuses still count.

attackers take adavantage of combined arms.
If stacked with a ranged unit, the ranged unit makes 1/4 of the rounds in a regular bombard against the defender/attacker
Having infantry combined with mobile troops gives a 0.5x the combat rating of the unit not dirreectly involved in the attack as a bonus.

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

[Flavor Dave]

And what makes the defense's advantage in the middle so bad (with pikemen and musketeers) is that this is the same period in which the great, game-changing, permanent, all-city wonders are available. So you shut down the military and try to build as many of Mike's, JSB, Adam Smith, Darwin's, Hoover Dam, UN, as possible. Boooring.

AN ABSOLUTE MUST FOR CIV3--all sea units act like they're in a fortress (die one at a time). This will end the tyranny of the cruise missiles, which I HATE!!! It will make a navy worth building, since you wouldn't have the constant threat of losing a battleship, a transport, an aircraft carrier, and all the poor soldiers on the transport, due to a barrage of 5 cruise missiles.

About concealment--let me make an alternative suggestion. Firaxis has another game called Gettysburg! You can put your units in one of 3 formations--line (for combat), column (for movement) and skirmish (for delaying the enemy.) You put units in skirmish formation in front of your troops, hopefully in woods, or behind rocks. They cover a broad front, and basically take one or two shots at the approaching enemy before turning and running. They do alot more damage than they suffer, and can really slow down the enemy. I suggest adding skirmish to fortify and sleep, available with leadership or something. Only one unit in skirmish formation per tile. It gets a big combat bonus, maybe triple defense (limit other bonuses, or else it's too powerful, IMO--perhaps terrain but not fortress, for example) with this provision--once it gets to 70% strength, it stops fighting. The unit in skirmish is ALWAYS the first to fight.

This would go a long way to slowing howies, at least if the AI is improved as far as its use of terrain and fortresses. Even a humble rifleman will likely give some damage to a howie, and it will still be there. At worst, it will take the howie two attacks to wipe out one unit.

So your tank or howie uses one of its attacks, probably gets close to yellow, or even close to red if it's an MI. Then the next attacker takes on the non-skirmish unit, and let's say wipes him out. Then the attacker still has to finish off the (now out of skirmish formation) first defender. If you set up a picket line of 2-3 fortresses, with one unit in skirmish and one not, that would have to be one hell of a howie dump to get thru. You'd use 3 units' turns (likely, altho it could be 2 or 4) just to get one tile.

[loinburger]

Flavor Dave: I love the skirmish idea! That is EXACTLY what I had hoped Ambush and Raid would be able to do, but so long as it doesn't get too powerful, Skirmish could replace them both very easily.

BUT: there was another reason that I liked the idea of an Ambush unit, and that was to provide a "sensor array" (or whatever) before that tech became available. With the addition of Skirmish then Ambush would no longer be necessary, in fact it would be almost pointless, but I would still like a special ability or basic ability to be Conceal or Scout (probably Scout, I suppose), which would provide a sight bonus (unit can see farther) and provides concealment, but provides no other combat bonuses (in face it may provide a combat penalty, especially when attacking from a Scout stance) and can only be performed by certain specialized units. Just a unit to be your eyes and ears without the Sensor Array (or whatever) tech.

But as I said, I like the idea of the Skirmish position.

[ember]

The CLAS-D combat system (modifed from the LASS system)
(note: all specific numbers are, obviously, arbitrary and would be subject to play testing)
All units are given combat ratings for:
close \ land \ air \ sea \ defense

close: is for non-ranged, within domain fighting (two legions fighting)
land \ air \ sea (LAS) : is for ranged combat against each domain. all combat between units from different domains or between air units is considered ranged.
defense: is the amount the opponents combat rating is reduced by. This makes certain modern units involnerable to weaker ancient units, like a tank vs. a phalanx in the open.

The rating used in a battle is called the combat rating.

The combat system:
Each round a number between 1 and 100 is picked for each combatant. If it is equal to or less than their modified combat rating the other takes damage equal to the units FP.
close combat proccedes to the death of one unit.

Ranged combat runs for a number of rounds equal to the percentage of max HP the attacker had at the start of combat.

Attackers get a + to attack due to them having initiative. Rough terrain takes away some or all of this bonus, but can never give a net penalty.

Infantry get +25% normally and +50% vs. cities and forts.
mobile units get +50%.
River, hills forest, etc. take away -25%
mountains, galciers, etc take away -50%

Fortifying and forts and city walls gives +50%.

Stacking.
The main attacker is the unit used to launch an attack, and the main defender is the one with the higest combat rating (or designated for it).
If the main unit is an infantry type the auxillary unit is a mobile type, and vice-versa if the main unit is mobile. For naval combat most ships qualify as both.
The ranged unit on each side is the one with the best applicable LAS rating.

The attacker initiates combat and uses 1 MP. The auxillary unit adds 0.5x times it's close rating to the main unit (for both sides). Every 4th turn any damage taken goes to the auxillary unit instead of the main unit. The ranged unit makes an attack every 3rd round. The auxillary and ranged units for the attacker use 1/3 or 1/2 MP.
This allows a simple way of giving benifits to a combined arms strategy. Some units can be used in more than one roll. Mech inf count as both infantry or mobile. Armour are mobile or ranged. The attacker can choose which units act as auxillary and ranged combatnts, nearby aircraft can be used as ranged units also.

Bombards
bombards are ranged combats without the close fighters involved.
Not all units that have a combat rating vs. a domain can bombard it.
cannons can only bombard land, even though they have a relativly good rating vs. sea. If a ship bombards a square with a cannon in it the cannnon shoots back. (it has to wiat for the ships to get in range, even if they are trying to hit the temple, the cannons still shoot back)
In a bombard the defender is the unit with the best LAS rating. The target is what takes damage, not neccisarily the same thing. For older tech units this is random for every round, as tech gets better the target can be chosen, and hit, with more presision.

Raids
Raids are similiar to bombards, except they are conducted by mobile units, with both using their close combat rating. After the number of rounds given by HP is finsihed they automatically retreat. Ships can also conduct raids.

Defense:
dragoons, riflemen, ship of the line are the first units to recieve any defense rating, with 1-2. Stealth-fighters have a small amount also.
Mech inf. cruiseres, carriers, marines, etc have a miedium amount, 2-3.
and Armour, battleships, subs, stealth bombers. have the most.
These are all units that are very hard to damage with even WWII weapons, or in the case of subs/stealth bombers, you need modern weapons to hit at all.

Air combat. Air units are based in cities, airbases/forts, and carriers. They can only be moved between cities by deploying them. All air units have 1MP, with which they can launch an assult (normal ranged combat) or assist in 2-3 ground/naval assults anywhere within their range, or they can re-deploy. Fighters can intercept one incoming assult per turn, and bombers can intercept one naval unit per turn if they have MP left (even a fraction).
Air units do not have a close combat rating, all air combat is considered ranged.
When a fighter intercepts an incoming unit it does a normal ranged attack against it. If the incoming unit survives, it continues to it's taraget, but attacks for fewer rounds do to lost HP.
Helicopters take 2x damge in air combat. They can transport 1 infantry unit into a battle, and act as the ranged unit. They can spot submarines (% chance every turn, higher the nearedr to the sub). AIr units in a city or carrier will intercept land/naval/air units attacking that square even if they have no HP left. Only helicopters can intercept subs this way.

Terrain gives a penalty to air units attack ratings.
-25% for hils, forest, etc. and -50% for mountains, etc.
Infantry give air units an aditional -25% penalty. (infantry on mountans are very hard to kill with planes). Spies cannot be attacked with ranged combat.

All buildings have HP. They are reduced in effectiveness by damage. Both units and building require money to repair. Units cannot be repaired in enemy territory. Population can be bombarded also, at ~10-20 HP per pop point, with fractional amounts lost. TI's ahve a ~2x land or Sea rating of being destroyed.

Nuclear weapons:
Count as a stealth bomber attack against every unit, structure, TI and population in the target zone, as a regular bomber in the surrounding squares, and a Fighter in the 2 square radius (shpaed like a city radius).



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

[SnowFire]

This is just my own bias, but I still prefer VG's VMIT Combat system, summarized <a href="http://www.firaxis.com/ubb/Forum8/HTML/000013.html">at Firaxis</a>.

[Mo]

If stacks attack together, then there should be a way tto coordinate the attack of 2 or more stacks attacking a unit from different sides. Also if a unit is surrounded and attacked and it is lossing badly it should surrender thus creating prisoners of war which can be exchanged or sold back to the other country.

[Flavor Dave]

technophile--howzabout units in skirmish position can see two squares? It accomplishes the following:

1. Makes defense easier late in the game, once skirmish is available.
2. It is realistic. In skirmish position, your guys are spread out. Some will be out in front, and see the enemy coming early.

Over in the technology thread, there has been alot of talk about gateway techs. One suggestion has been modern warfare. Perhaps skirmish position will only become availabe with modern warfare. This would be similar to construction making available the "f" command for settlers.

[Theben]

Flav Dave,
The ambush is also something that an attacker should be able to do. That being said, 1) all units should be able to ambush/pre-emptive strike; 2)your skirmish idea sounds better than mine. I like it. But the reasons for the ambush, random combat effects are still there. To sum it up in one quote, "No plan survives contact with the enemy". While you might know SOMETHING is there, you might not realize it's a couple of enemy divisions. This could affect your commander's battle plan, with results=to the disaster outlined above. This is, in effect, "concealment". Also we're talking HUGE tiles here. If I really wanted to hide an army in one square, I could do it (just ask the Russians of WWII).

ember,
Somebody suggested a bonus to the attacker for initative. I guess it was you . I'll have to get back to you on the CLAS-D system, but it looks good. One thing I was working on was incorporating range into the LASS system; range would be a factor between units of the same domain, giving extra shots &/or STR per range difference. Range and bombard would be different; bombard would be an option chosen in the unit workshop (attacks between different domains would still be considered bombardment). If you have any comments on this I'd be very glad to see them.
What does the "defense" do in this case? What is the definition of an "aux" unit here? How does it perform?
Bombards: Another option that would be required is that land-based "bombard" units need to specify what domains they can bombard into.

Jon Miller,
Terrain bonuses, as I see them, would be tailored to the different unit chassises, since both attacker & defender fight in the same terrain. Certain things (forts & fortifying, FE) would be defender only. And as for the space domain, that'll only be used in futuristic eras. I'd rather do without it, but people want space-based weapons. Where else could we put them?

Snowfire,
I prefer my/ember's system. I'm definitely biased.

[ember]

Iniative for attackers only is an issue for LASS and CLAS-D, because they use the same rating for combat, otherwise defense would be favored to much.
These systems have the advantage of alwyas having the same offense/ defense balance (assuming equal tech)

there are three basic types of land unit (for this systems purposes)
Infantry, Mobile and ranged. Many units can be counted in two catergories.
An infantry or mobile unit can iniate combat. (primary combatant) You can also include an auxillary attacker, which is the other type of ground unit (if primary is infantry, mobile is auxillary), You can alos have a ranged unit. The ranged unit can be in a differet square if it is a air or sea bombard capable unit, but all land units have to be in the same square. All sea combatants count as both Prim. and Aux., most ranged as well.

Obviosly we need 4 flags for each unit,
They are attack using rating (C\L\A\S),
a bomber might be able to attack land and sea, but not close or air (air units don't fight close anyways) Units may still have a rating in a catergory, but not be able to initate contact. Usually this air can iniate the easyest, then sea, and only a few ground units can start a fight out of domain.

Defense should apply inranged situations. Bombers for instance will tend to never be engaged in close combat.

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

[Iceman88888888]

Here is my Idea--
Have a combat "view" like Deadlock BUT NOT like CTP!!!. For those who havent played deadlock The combat system was a Terrain view which was standard and consisted of 1000 "squares" that the person playing couldnt see. The Units fought on that and you could only watch them, not direct them etc. My proposition is that CIV 3 has a View like this only you choose the Tatics you want to use first. You could see each individual soldier so when you recruit armys you would have to recuit them in numbers. As Techknolegy advances their will be more and more tatics. Each Unit would have a Value for
Range of Weapons, Reload Time, Mele Combat etc. And you actully watch the combat. However you have the choice of watching or not. (I am Hoping this make scense right now)
I will post more on this idea later

[loinburger]

Iceman: Too much eye candy for my tastes. As I believe Theben has said, CivIII should remain primarily strategic and not tactical (I included the "primarily" bit, as I am in favor of quite a few additions which could be classified as none other than tactical). Although your idea would not necessarily turn CivIII into a purely tactical game (in fact the way you have described it this new enhancement would not add to the tactical level at all), it nevertheless detracts from the main purpose of the game far too much IMHO. I can see myself watching maybe five tactical battles before I turn them off and get on with the game. That's an awful lot of programming for an option that most of us are going to get sick of pretty quickly. So my initial response is definitely negative to your idea.

[Iceman88888888]

I see what you mean, Maybe it only should come on for major battles or something,(I still like the idea of seeing all 50,000 knights storm into battle against a defended 30,000 phalanxs)

[loinburger]

Diodorus: I still like the idea of there being a Skrimish ability made available with Modern Warfare (or a similar tech advance) as outlined by Flavor Dave, although it might require a new name in order to not become anachronistic.

My reasons are:
-I've always viewed a Fortified army as an army ordered to "hold down the fort", aka NEVER retreat. A fortified army would receive a huge defense bonus but would be incapable of retreating and could not move/attack until the turn after becoming reactivated. A Fortified army would also not become fortified until the turn after the Fortify command was issued. This is to simulate entrenchment etc.
-A Sentried or Normal army would be one that has no orders, and so is not prepared to attack nor defend. It is prepared for both. As such, this army receives no bonuses or penalties.
-This leaves the Skirmish (name change?) army, which is the delayed retreat army. It receives a defense bonus (it is always prepared for an enemy attack) and a retreat bonus (its formation and its preparedness). While the Fortified army could be wiped out in one attack (it is almost incapable of retreating due to its formation), the Skirmishing army would almost always require at least two attacks to destroy (due to its defensive stance and retreating nature). However, you cannot put an army into Skirmish position unless you have the proper tech advance(s), and it may be that your Skirmishers would have to have sufficient morale in order to stay in formation (they'd have to be veterans or whatever).

I don't know, you're the historian, I'm just a Physics student. What do you say?

--P.S. I'm all for the Scouting/Recon special ability, howzabout a Concealment special ability (in order to make Ambushing/Raiding easier, or in order to replace Ambushing and/or Raiding?)

[ember]

Scout troops could have a vision of two squares (at two squares they see as a normal unit). At one square they can see (somtimes) camauflaged units, and they can see what is in a stack, not just the fact that there is a bunch of units there, only scouts can determine exactly what is in a stack.
In civ II terms scouts are:
horsemen, warriors, knights
Draggons, calvary, explorers (maybe double chance of seeing camauflaged units?)
Apline troops, partisans, paratroopers.
Stealth fighter, destroyer, submarine.
Spy (Very good at it)
along these lines?

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