:spear: :spear:

how could this have happened?

the only thing I see as explainable is that my battleship was healing, but just for 1 turn. That's no excuse. I declared war on alexander & his vassal state asoka. As my navy was patrolling the sea line of alexander I saw a indian frigate waiting for me to destroy it...man was I wrong...:mad: :mad: :mad:


I was so shocked...I completely exited the game cause I couldn't believe what just happened...urgh!!!!!!!!!!!

</rant>

I shouldn't laugh but mabey you should pick on somebody your own size ?

I have said it before and will do so again : I like those little flukes. It's not completely unthinkable. You get rewarded enough for being in the lead as it is.

Just use a little fantasy. Perhaps the frigate lured your battleship on a massive reef? Maybe they managed to board you at night? Or your guns malfunctioned?

how could this have happened?
Simple... you weren't playing the Wolfshanze Mod... these naval anomolies are a thing of the past.



Just use a little fantasy. Perhaps the frigate lured your battleship on a massive reef? Maybe they managed to board you at night? Or your guns malfunctioned?
Why do I hear "the reef" story every time this happens? Folks... a battleship can fire volkswagon-sized shells over 20-miles accurately... why on God's green earth, if a Frigate went into treacherous waters would a battleship follow (and why does the frigate with only wind-power always make it through the reefs, when a much more controleable battleship doesn't?). If you'd like to cling to even the slightest bit of reality, a battleship would annihilate a frigate about 20-miles away from the reef.

I also don't tink two or three hundred guys with swords and muskets are going to overwhelm a ship of 1,500 men with rifles and automatic weapons... not that the guys in a frigate would even have much luck getting over the sides of the ship (and how did the frigate get within 20 miles of the battleship without being annihilated).

You might as well start justifying the club-weilding warrior defeating the modern tank... it's just as absurd.

Maybe not as absurd, but equally annoying, is when the AI goes on a killing spree with their transports. I mean, transports? They kill my missile cruisers one-on-one both at full health, and they severely damage my battleships. That's also ridiculous.

EDIT: Spelling

My not as absurd, but equally annoying, is when the AI goes on a killing spree with their transports. I mean, transports? They kill my missile cruisers one-on-one both at full health, and they severely damage my battleships. That's also ridiculous.
Well, I fixed that too in my mod.

I'd love to see the combat log of that encounter. The batleship would have about 77% chance of winning a combat round and doing 34 damage (so sinking the frigate in 3 hits), while the frigate would do only 11 or 12 damage per hit and need 8 or 9 hits to sink the damaged battleship. The reported outcome is unlikely, but by no means impossible according to the game mechanics: and whoever thought for one moment that those mechanics are even loosely related to real life ?

Maybe your boiler malfunctioned as you got close to frigate and you blew yourself up?

Why do I hear "the reef" story every time this happens? Folks... a battleship can fire volkswagon-sized shells over 20-miles accurately... why on God's green earth, if a Frigate went into treacherous waters would a battleship follow (and why does the frigate with only wind-power always make it through the reefs, when a much more controleable battleship doesn't?). If you'd like to cling to even the slightest bit of reality, a battleship would annihilate a frigate about 20-miles away from the reef.

I also don't tink two or three hundred guys with swords and muskets are going to overwhelm a ship of 1,500 men with rifles and automatic weapons... not that the guys in a frigate would even have much luck getting over the sides of the ship (and how did the frigate get within 20 miles of the battleship without being annihilated).

You might as well start justifying the club-weilding warrior defeating the modern tank... it's just as absurd.
http://www.lockport-ny.com/images/USS_Cole_Hole.jpg
If a motorboat can do that, just think what a frigate could do.

people died there on Cole. the destroyer did not sink.
Think about how many ships the British used and lost to sink the Bismark.

A high speed motor boat driven by suicidal people and packed with high explosives is more destructive than cannon balls.

Well, the frigate cant be mistaken for a little boat just unable to swing away and btw, the motorboat blow himself up, hence it died too. The frigate didn't.

However, I would love that when this happen an event should come up to honor the pre-era unit with for example giving every sea-based unit two more xp points or something like that just a bit weaker. Or give a smiley extra in every city to honor the "heroes" of the pre-era unit killing someone alot bigger.

Freak (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_%28ACR-1%29) accidents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_battleship_Mutsu) are (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Bulwark_%281899%29) not (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperatritsa_Mariya_class_battleship) entirely (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Vanguard_%281909%29) unheard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_cruiser_Tsukuba) of (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_battleship_Kawachi).

That's without considering the possibilities of a minefield ; god knows more than a few warships went down to minefields.

Wow... people will go to any length to justify the impossible.

Why do people embrace and justify stupidity instead of challenging it?

All I know that anybody who is going to justify a frigate sinking a battleship knows absolutely nothing of naval warfare.

Because, obviously, battleships being lost in freak accidents is clearly impossible.

Despite the fact that, you know, I just posted links to SEVEN SEPARATE INCIDENTS of battleship-esque heavy warships being lost in freak accidents.

I don't see what's "any length" in stating strange battle results is the game's way of simulating that sort of freak chance, since last I heard there wasn't a "Battleship explode in harbor" event. There isn't a "Battleship run into a minefield" event either ; where's the realism in mines-less naval warfare?

Warfare in civ is (quite obviously) abstracted ; a battle between a battleship and a frigate represent more than just "big-gun ships try to sink wood-hulled sailship" - it represent attempts to locate and engage that frigate (a square in CIV is on average muh more than 20 miles), then engaging that ship, then sinking it. At all point there is a chance the battleship may be lost - low, certainly, but not inexistent.

Until a mod implement battleships exploding in harbor and minefields (and frigates being lost in storms, they should never be guaranteed victory. (And, frankly, that would be too much nitpicky details - better to just have lower battle odds than to stack up events after events to increase realism).

If you change the game so that a Battleship can't lose to a Frigate (or a Mech Inf can't lose to a Spearman... etc), then doesn't it follow that the stronger unit shouldn't earn any experience from a no-lose combat?

Personally, I don't mind the occasional oddball result - they keep me from taking victory for granted, which IMO would make the game boring.

A freak storm came up and sank the battleship... an enemy frigate picked up the survivors

Wow... you guys are still trying to justify it... unbelievable.:rolleyes:

Talk about living in la-la land.

The battleship captures the frigate and the crew became POW, but the captain escaped. He courageously sneaked into the room where the battleship kept their missiles and weapons and set a bomb there (on the way has killed 30 guys by bare hand). That guy smartly released his crew when it's a mess there, escaped back into their frigate and left, while the battleship sank behind...... sound like a Hollywood "Air Force One" style movie script, right?? It MIGHT happen :crazyeye: !

Wow... you guys are still trying to justify it... unbelievable.:rolleyes:

Talk about living in la-la land.

Perhaps if you actually adressed the justification instead of rolling your eyes, it would be a little bit more convincing.

Personally, as I stated before, there are SEVERAL factors - not otherwise accounted for in the game that can easily explain why a battleship would fail to destroy a frigate, and be destroyed itself.

Here are a list of battleships that were lost to mines, storms, accidents and the ilk :

Mines
(Russia) Navarin - struck a mine at Tsushima.
(Russia) Petrovavlovsk - Struck a mine early in the Russo-Japanesse war
(Russia) Peresviet - (Second sinking) Struck a mine in January 1917.
(Soviet Union) Novorossiysk - Probably struck an abandoned german mine in 1955
HMS Invincible - struck a mine in the Dardanelles.
HMS Ocean - struck a mine in the Dardanelles.
HMS Audacious - struck a mine in October 1914
HMS King Edward VII - Struck a mine in January 1916
HMS Russell - Struk a mine in April 1916
IJN Yashima - struck a mine early in the Russo-Japanesse war
IJN Hatsuse - struck a mine early in the Russo-Japanesse war.
(France) Bouvet - struck a mine in the Dardanelles.

Accidents
USS Maine - Exploded in Havana harbor, most likely an accident (despite contemporary accusations of sabotage) in 1898
HMS Victoria - rammed and sunk by HMS Camperdown in 1893.
HMS Montagu - Ran aground in May 1906
HMS Bulwark - Magazine explosion in 1914
HMS Vanguard - Magazine explosion in 1917
(Russia) Gangut - Hit an uncharted rock and sank in 1897
(Russia) Imperatritsa Mariya - Magazine explosion in October 1916
(France) France - Hit an uncharted rock and sank in 1922
(France) Liberté - Caught fire and exploded in 1911
(Spain) Espana - Ran aground off Morrocco in 1923
IJN Kawachi - Destroyed by an internal explosion in 1918.
IJN Mutsu - Exploded in harbor in 1943

Sabotaged
(Italy) Leonardo da Vinci - 1916
(Austria) SMS Viribus Unitis - sunk by Australian frogmen attaching mines in 1918.
And frankly, anyone who claim that combat in Civilization is NOT an abstraction of several factors (which include mechanical failures, mines, natural hazards, etc) is at least as delusional as you accuse us of being.

I think it's pretty ridiculous. I don't care how damaged a battleship is, it should never lose to a wooden frigate. Besides that, I can't even see them on the same battlefield.

Just for the sake of making things more realistic, I think Civ should consider automatically "upgrading" units as eras pass. For example, warriors with wooden clubs can turn to "militias" in future areas. Macemen can turn to mercenaries. The relative strengths would not change, but the graphics would be updated to fit the era. Even the poorest nations today would not use macemen or archers. They would use guns!

So when anomalies occur, like a maceman beating a gunship, it would make better sense if it were a mercenary instead because we can all imagine a lucky shot from an RPG.

The battleship spots the frigates on a foggy day. They fire a salvo, but don't hit the frigate, and by the time they've reloaded, the frigate is lost in the fog. The battleship goes in the direction the frigate was going, but a few minutes later, before the fog has lifted, runs into an iceberg and slowly sinks.

Not like there haven't been ships destroyed by icebergs. Sure a modern cruiser would probably have the equipment to detect them in time to change course even if there was very heavy fog, but that wasn't necessarily the case sixty years ago.

Or just a mechanical error. A gun malfunctions when it is fired and sets off all the weapons in the room causing a huge hole to be blown in the side of the battleship. The same thing could occur in a frigate of course, but we've seen frigates lose to galleys as well.

A battleship would never lose to a wooden frigate, true.

But there are MANY factors abstracted into a Civ battle (combat itself, weather, etc) which are all presented as random rolls of the RNG.

Is there a particular reason that prevent minefields, accidents, and other things that are not represented in the game as it stands from being considered as abstracted into the RNG rolls?

Edit : you know, you guys don't exactly make my job easier by invoking far-fetched scenarios like icebergs (I'm aware of exactly one major naval disaster involving an iceberg, and it's not likely it would have happend to a warship) or gun malfunctions, when there are plenty of less far-fetched explanations (magazine fire, reefs, minefields) that are actually supported by historical events.

that's a good idea foobarred

It has limits, though.

If Player A has reached technology for battleships and wind up in war with player B whose still a few techs behind and barely even at ironclad-esque technology, then player B's frigates should still look like frigates.

But it would probably be an improvement - it doesn,t make much sense that a nation with the ability to build battleships would still have frigates around.

I think that it is possible to make this graphics change when any civ passes into a new era. Visually it would make these stupid encounters easier to accept.

It's possible, but it's not really sensible - a civilization that doesn't have the technology to build riffles shouldn't suddenly start having rifle-armed axemen because someone else has riffles.

Even if it doesn't affect the game.

Honestly, what I would do is integrate the justifications into the game : ie, if one of your unit loses a battle against a far weaker unit, the game displays a message giving a reason for the loss.

IE, "Your battleship struck a mine while searching for an enemy frigate!"

so if any civ advances into a new era, the graphics (not the names or strengths) for all obsolete units would change game wide; for all civs.

But that still doesn't make much sense either.

where are these mines coming from ? you are giving technology to a unit that doesn't have that weapon. For sure frigates didn't use minefields.

This would be a cosmetic change that we humans can relate to.

having a random reason pop during a battle is something that I've never seen in a mod for CIV. A graphics change is something that can be done.

Ah, yeah, if you mean for a mod, then graphic changes is probably easier to do.

I was more looking at things Civilization could do.

And actually early mines and late frigates existed at roughly the same time.

(and you could always have "Your ship was destroyed in an accident").

OMFG...I lost a battleship to a frigate!!!
This crap happems. Its one of the very annoying annoyances in Civ.

David Bushnell created crude mines by packing gunpowder into butter churns and beer kegs and setting them afloat in the Delaware River to drift down onto the British fleet at Philadelphia. As a student at Yale University, Bushnell worked on the development of underwater explosives. In his research, he discovered that gunpowder could be exploded underwater. During the American Revolution Bushnell was authorized to design a sea mine (usually referred to as a "torpedo" by Bushnell) to be used against the British fleet. He filled kegs with gunpowder and assembled a flintlock mechanism adjusted so that a light shock would release the hammer and fire the powder.

Bushnell sent the floating kegs down the Delaware River in December 1777 with the hope that one or all of these kegs would drift into the British ships anchored at Philadelphia. Although this attempt by Bushnell is referred to in history books as the Battle of the Kegs, there was no actual battle. The keg mines (torpedoes) did not meet with success. One of the kegs that had been spotted by two boys exploded when they tried to retrieve it, killing them and alerting the British to be on the lookout for the kegs. The British destroyed the rest of the kegs by firing into them as they floated by.

These things were useless at the time. There is no way they could be thought to sink a metal hulled vessle. Sorry.

Frigates remained in service much later than 1777, though.

There were still sail frigates in service during the American Civil War, and the last mixed sail-steam frigates fell out of use not all that long ago.

By which time, mines had already become much more frequent ; the first sinking of a western ship by mine is (per wiki) the Ironclad USS Cairo in 1862, at which time there certainly were still frigates in service.

Simple... you weren't playing the Wolfshanze Mod... these naval anomolies are a thing of the past.




Why do I hear "the reef" story every time this happens? Folks... a battleship can fire volkswagon-sized shells over 20-miles accurately... why on God's green earth, if a Frigate went into treacherous waters would a battleship follow (and why does the frigate with only wind-power always make it through the reefs, when a much more controleable battleship doesn't?). If you'd like to cling to even the slightest bit of reality, a battleship would annihilate a frigate about 20-miles away from the reef.

I also don't tink two or three hundred guys with swords and muskets are going to overwhelm a ship of 1,500 men with rifles and automatic weapons... not that the guys in a frigate would even have much luck getting over the sides of the ship (and how did the frigate get within 20 miles of the battleship without being annihilated).

You might as well start justifying the club-weilding warrior defeating the modern tank... it's just as absurd.

By any chance, does your mod include bombardment with Naval Units beyond one tile? I would like to see a mod that does just that. Not just ship-to-ship combat, but I would like to see shore bombardment (other than cities). I'm trying to learn all this coding stuff, and any help in trying to make similar code to do that on my own would be greatly appreciated!

Let's try to keep trolling and name calling out of the discussion. I seem to recall another thread with this topic having problems. Please keep this one from going that route.

Remember that Civ4 battles are based off of percentages. Meaning that there is always a chance for an advanced unit to be destroyed by a less advanced and inferior unit.

:rolleyes:

The justifications roll-on...

Not buying any of them... pretty sure no modern Battleship in the history of warfare has ever been sunk by an age of sail vessel.

Yes... Civ4 is abstract... but it's simple enough to mod even those percentages into something much, much more unlikely to occur then Firaxis left it as. I refuse to allow Firaxis to give frigates a decent chance of sinking modern ships (and Firaxis did just that). Instead of justifying it... I've worked on fixing it.

What is the % chance of a battleship losing in a battle with a Frigate assuming both are full health, have no upgrades, and no other factors are influencing the battle.

But it would probably be an improvement - it doesn,t make much sense that a nation with the ability to build battleships would still have frigates around.

I think that at a certain time - maybe 50 turns after the obsoleting technology has been discovered, or perhaps after an additional age has passed - one should be forced to either upgrade obsolete units or disband them. As you say, militaries with masses of very obsolete units didn't keep them around for decades on end when they were capable of building better ones.

Wolfshanze, you still have to explain how else Civ is supposed to model all those out of combat losses, if we assume the combat is not an abstraction of a lot more factors than just "two ships fighting" (including minefields, freak accidents, etc).

Because, frankly, if Civilization is supposed to use realistic combat, then it should be realistic about those things too.

Personally, I'd rather keep the combat abstractions than start adding new elements to the game (there is such a thing as too much elements to keep track of in the game) ; it add uncertainty to warfare. And that, in my opinion, is much more important to the feel of the game - there is always a very real chance your war plan WILL go wrong ; and as they say, no plan ever survive contact with the enemy.

:rolleyes:

The justifications roll-on...

Not buying any of them... pretty sure no modern Battleship in the history of warfare has ever been sunk by an age of sail vessel.

Yes... Civ4 is abstract... but it's simple enough to mod even those percentages into something much, much more unlikely to occur then Firaxis left it as. I refuse to allow Firaxis to give frigates a decent chance of sinking modern ships (and Firaxis did just that). Instead of justifying it... I've worked on fixing it.

You seem to believe that your mod brings more realism, and that it is superior to Civ itself. My questions then are simple:

Does your mod make it so that when you take a city, any ships in it are given to you? I mean, realistically, you wouldn't sink ships if you can take the crew off of them.

If a ship is in a city/in harbor, do you use the crew of the ship as a unit to defend the city? In modern times, that's what would happen more often than not.

If the ship isn't given to you, the attacker when you take a city, is it then put out to sea? As if the city is lost, odds are the ship would leave port and get away so the ship at least survived.

If you completely destroy a civilization, do you make it so that any ships and units automatically gift themselves to another nation, or stay as their own nation attacking you in hopes of revenge? That's what happens when a civilization is lost, the people still long for it and fight to get it back, the units/people don't just disappear.

Can you destroy an entire city with a nuclear blast? If you launch a nuclear bomb, an entire city would be destroyed, and few people would survive. Fallout would appear in a very large area, for a very long time, and it wouldn't be possible to get rid of it.

Can you destroy an entire city with aerial attacks? It's been possible to do this for a while now, so I was wondering if you added this feature. By destroy, I mean basically raze with their defenders unable to do anything, even infantry and other gun-powder units who do not have an anti-air attribute.

Civ isn't mean to be realistic, it's mean to be enjoyable and fun, not something that is a battle-simulator for possible future attacks. There are a lot of things in Civ that aren't possible in actuality, but that's because they make the game enjoyable. With your mod, you make it near impossible for anyone behind, by even one tech or one resource, of doing anything defense worthy. Civ attempts to make the game fun and enjoyable, no matter how far behind you are in techs or units. Your mod may be a bit more realistic, but it's definitely not a be all end all. I'm sure there is a lot of things in your mod that are completely unrealistic, but people like you like it because you find it enjoyable, so why knock those of us who find things like a frigate being able to actually do something towards end tech to be enjoyable?

Does your mod make it so that when you take a city, any ships in it are given to you? I mean, realistically, you wouldn't sink ships if you can take the crew off of them.

If a ship is in a city/in harbor, do you use the crew of the ship as a unit to defend the city? In modern times, that's what would happen more often than not.

If the ship isn't given to you, the attacker when you take a city, is it then put out to sea? As if the city is lost, odds are the ship would leave port and get away so the ship at least survived.
...

Hi Gyhth Some mod components can be added to Wolfshanze's Mod.

The first is called Get 'Em (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=256756). This mod component allows you to configure the chance and specific units available for capture. We are not yet done. Cities can't be captured by ships and and land units cannot engage naval units. That's what kills the naval units.

There is another sweet mod component called Flying Mod (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=171813). This componet allows choppers to fly over ocean to attack naval units. Just by defining new terrain types in the code. I believe that it can be tweaked to allow land units to engage naval units on city terrain.

I haven't tried to combine these two because the possible use of such code never really hit me until now..

Hi Gyhth Some mod components can be added to Wolfshanze's Mod.

The first is called Get 'Em (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=256756). This mod component allows you to configure the chance and specific units available for capture. We are not yet done. Cities can't be captured by ships and and land units cannot engage naval units. That's what kills the naval units.

There is another sweet mod component called Flying Mod (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=171813). This componet allows calvary choppers to fly over ocean to attack naval units. Just by defining new terrain types in the code. I believe that it can be tweaked to allow land units to engage naval units on city terrain.

I haven't tried to combine these two because the possible use of such code never really hit me until now..

I wasn't really showing an interest in the mod, I was just trying to illustrate a point. Some of us more or less like the way Civ works, and enjoy attempting to rationalize the outcomes of battles and things like that. I was just attempting to show that the game does still appeal to many of us as is, and that his mod isn't all that realistic either.

these things can be added to any game

oh, come on, just imagine you get a pop-up: "Steven Seagal has been born in away land" the second before you lose Battleship to Frigate (or let's say, it gets "liberated") :lol:

there are many factors involved in war, so this 1-5 % is simply corresponding to unpredictable, weird, heroic, traitorous, cowardly or crazy behaviour we humans are pretty well known for :rolleyes:

I agree with Wolfshanze on the battleship vs frigate topic. I mean sure freak accidents happen but:

It is far better to implement them as another form of random events ("like an inner explosion caused your battleship to sink") than as your 15 cannon inch battleship lose to a frigate. I would give a chance less than 0.05% of a frigate sinking a battleship and a chance of 2-3% of a frigate withdrawing from combat from a battleship. I mean battleships have radars, superior speed and a range of 10+ miles, and I bet they could sink a frigate with a single shot.

As far as naval warfare i would like to see shore defences. I mean that when the defenders see an enemy task force approaching the shore, well they would do something!

Also about the modern era frigate topic I think that it would be best to automatically pop a message saying "Our admiral think it would be best either to upgrade our current naval force or to withdraw them" and give you 2 options. The upgrade one would cause gradually all your ships to be upgraded. It could take for example 10 turns or more with a cost of hammers and gold per turn. Not anything huge like now though. The time and hammers to upgrade would be a bigger factor. The withdraw from service option would give you instantly some gold (scraping the old ship). The message could pop on the fifth turn of modern era for example. What do you think?

I would give a chance less than 0.05% of a frigate sinking a battleship and a chance of 2-3% of a frigate withdrawing from combat from a battleship.


The odds for the battleship winning are displayed at >99.9%. IF it is at full strength. So that does actually work out for you.

oh, come on, just imagine you get a pop-up: "Steven Seagal has been born in away land" the second before you lose Battleship to Frigate (or let's say, it gets "liberated") :lol:

:groucho: yeah didn't you know it was the combat cook that took out your BS ?

Civ, as a game, is specifically designed to give older units a fighting chance. If simply having more advanced units meant automatic victory, then it wouldn't be a game, it would be an exercise in seeing who can tech the fastest.

That said, I do enjoy Wolfshanze's mod. You all should try it out before you knock it. Personally, I enjoy it not because of any "realism" concerns, but because it adds more cool toys. ;)

Wodan

Perhaps if you actually adressed the justification instead of rolling your eyes, it would be a little bit more convincing.

Personally, as I stated before, there are SEVERAL factors - not otherwise accounted for in the game that can easily explain why a battleship would fail to destroy a frigate, and be destroyed itself.

Here are a list of battleships that were lost to mines, storms, accidents and the ilk :

Mines
(Russia) Navarin - struck a mine at Tsushima.
(Russia) Petrovavlovsk - Struck a mine early in the Russo-Japanesse war
(Russia) Peresviet - (Second sinking) Struck a mine in January 1917.
(Soviet Union) Novorossiysk - Probably struck an abandoned german mine in 1955
HMS Invincible - struck a mine in the Dardanelles.
HMS Ocean - struck a mine in the Dardanelles.
HMS Audacious - struck a mine in October 1914
HMS King Edward VII - Struck a mine in January 1916
HMS Russell - Struk a mine in April 1916
IJN Yashima - struck a mine early in the Russo-Japanesse war
IJN Hatsuse - struck a mine early in the Russo-Japanesse war.
(France) Bouvet - struck a mine in the Dardanelles.

Accidents
USS Maine - Exploded in Havana harbor, most likely an accident (despite contemporary accusations of sabotage) in 1898
HMS Victoria - rammed and sunk by HMS Camperdown in 1893.
HMS Montagu - Ran aground in May 1906
HMS Bulwark - Magazine explosion in 1914
HMS Vanguard - Magazine explosion in 1917
(Russia) Gangut - Hit an uncharted rock and sank in 1897
(Russia) Imperatritsa Mariya - Magazine explosion in October 1916
(France) France - Hit an uncharted rock and sank in 1922
(France) Liberté - Caught fire and exploded in 1911
(Spain) Espana - Ran aground off Morrocco in 1923
IJN Kawachi - Destroyed by an internal explosion in 1918.
IJN Mutsu - Exploded in harbor in 1943

Sabotaged
(Italy) Leonardo da Vinci - 1916
(Austria) SMS Viribus Unitis - sunk by Australian frogmen attaching mines in 1918.
And frankly, anyone who claim that combat in Civilization is NOT an abstraction of several factors (which include mechanical failures, mines, natural hazards, etc) is at least as delusional as you accuse us of being.


Get out of here with your list. 1893 until 2008 and that's all you have? You're saying that 1 ship a year out of all the naval battles yearly would be lost to a retarded match up. Those aren't even naval defeats those are accidents. I could take game events and I lose the ship or if the other civ had the tech for water minefields (like forts). However Frigate defeating a battleship would never happen. You could have 150 Frigates approaching a Battleship and a Battleship would destroy them all before one was within a mile. THEY ARE WIND DRIVEN WOODEN SHIPS YOU CLOWN.

If you have to sit down in a think-thank to figure out how it COULD happen it shouldn't be in the game. I am sure I could come up with a reason how a warrior unit should be able to found a town like settlers in a extreme situation.

One major thing in this game needs to happen, certain units need automatic victories over certain classes like rock paper scissors. You can have random accidents to lose military units, that happens throughout history.

A gunship could NEVER lose to any non-projectile units. How does a swordsman or spear man even reach let alone look at a gunship? There is a reason people get conquered quickly when they are using inferior units.


Your list has what 25 cases world wide in over a hundred years? Even if we took you moronic argument, that's still one a year vs. the entire navy's of countries. I think it is fairly clear what happens to wooden ships if one incendiary bomb hits them.

Anyone who posted on this subject rationalizing, might as well say that maybe if you bread radio active spiders you could create a huge army of spidermen.

We all know i should be fixed.

Warned! - Flaming

This is a game. As Wodan said, it gives the older units a chance to fight.

In real world, weapons upgraded in a much gradual manner. Bows and crossbows can beat early muskets easily. Earlier planes crash by themselves frequently. It's not like frigates suddenly become destroyers and only after 150 years of research they become stealth destroyers. So this is not realistic to start with. I wonder why some posters need to call people "clowns" to make their argument over some poorly defined concepts.

And what's so good if that's an automatic win?

Wow... you guys are still trying to justify it... unbelievable.:rolleyes:

Talk about living in la-la land.

Clearly thr frigate was led by Steven Seagal, who boarded the Battleship, killed the crew and scuttled it.

I find it odd how some people will scream and beat their chests about frigates beating destroyers/battleships, but I have never seen any complaints about how so many combats (i.e. all of them, other than those involving siege weapons or the occasional withdrawal) end in the utter destruction of one of the units involved. Battles in which one side is completely annihilated don't happen nearly as often in reality.

That, IMO, is the most unrealistic element of Civ4 combat, but you never see anyone modding in a fix for that.

Look, the OP never posted a combat log (he can't because he never saved!), we don't know what strength level the battleship was at, what promotions were in play or what tech levels were going on with his opponents.

Did one of his opponents bomb the battleship with fighters/airships between rounds? - It's not always easy to catch that. Did he get attacked by other ships between rounds and not realize it?(happens to me sometimes when I have a lot of fights between rounds)

That said, if #7's combat-round odds are right, the chances would be about 1:9000 or so (for a full strength frigate vs. a slightly damaged battleship). So, extremely unlikely, but not so unlikely as to be unheard of among a large sample size, such as Civ IV players attacking with odds greater than 1000:1.

On Friday someone won a lottery with the odds of about 1:173000000. I'm sure all the whiners would say that game needs to be re-designed, too.

This is a game. As Wodan said, it gives the older units a chance to fight.

In real world, weapons upgraded in a much gradual manner. Bows and crossbows can beat early muskets easily. Earlier planes crash by themselves frequently. It's not like frigates suddenly become destroyers and only after 150 years of research they become stealth destroyers. So this is not realistic to start with. I wonder why some posters need to call people "clowns" to make their argument over some poorly defined concepts.

And what's so good if that's an automatic win?

Basically I think if you are two ages above another unit you shouldn't lose ever. There is no way, and i do mean no way.

You shouldn't have a chance to win in a fight, you shouldn't be able to overload a opponent with vast numbers with clearly inferior weapons. This would force people to catch up in tech rather than load up on frigates or caravels to take out a destroyer. Basically if you don't have a destroyer, you SHOULD be screwed until you do.

P.S. Longbowman do beat Musketmen and its not a problem with me, that is fine. Naval and Air Battle is another situation and SHOULD be remedied.

Welcone hornfaust. :beer:

Well in Civ Revolutions a 7 to 1 matchup means automatic success (and no damage) so looks like the Spear v. Tank has been resolved (although Battleship v. Frigate is only 5 to 1)

Well in Civ Revolutions a 7 to 1 matchup means automatic success (and no damage) so looks like the Spear v. Tank has been resolved (although Battleship v. Frigate is only 5 to 1)

Good form.

Basically I think if you are two ages above another unit you shouldn't lose ever. There is no way, and i do mean no way.

You shouldn't have a chance to win in a fight, you shouldn't be able to overload a opponent with vast numbers with clearly inferior weapons. This would force people to catch up in tech rather than load up on frigates or caravels to take out a destroyer. Basically if you don't have a destroyer, you SHOULD be screwed until you do.

P.S. Longbowman do beat Musketmen and its not a problem with me, that is fine. Naval and Air Battle is another situation and SHOULD be remedied.

And THAT would kill game balance, unless the difference is really extreme (Ancient age unit vs modern unit I can sort of see).

Sorry, game balance beats "OMFG REALISM", so no I don't think it should be "fixed".

And "get out of here with your list"? Wow, talk about intelligent answers.

First it's not from 1893 to 2008, since, with very few exceptions (the four Iowas), there haven't been battleships around since the 50s.
Second losing a battleship in a freak battle (ie, against a frigate) is a rare event in the game.
Add up every player and every battleship every last one of them ever built; you will have a whole lot more battleships than ever existed in reality. Ergo more lossesandmore freak losses too.

And in case you didn't realize, Civ does NOT have ways for units to be lost out of battle. Ergo, ships lost in freak battles = accidents and minefields (and daring strategies, and so on and so forth), since those aren't otherwise represented.

What is truly unrealistic is not Frigates beating Battleships, it is Frigates Fighting Battleships (or Spear Fighting Tanks)... the fact is by the time Tanks came out all "civs" that existed had reached Muskets/Rifles... by the time Battleships came out, Frigates were almost gone everywhere.

For civ to be realistic in this aspect, you would have to have the ability to automatically get tech your neighbor had...given enough time.

As it is, Civ's combat model is Highly abstracted and the 5 to 1 strength is MUCH better that 5 to 1 odds, so bad luck seems reasonable.

And don't jump on the "OMFG REALISM" boat without explaining how ships can travel for hundreds of years without returning to port for maintenance, how you don't need say, Iron to build a battleship. (The Bismark took up more steel than an entire armored division used back in WW2), why, without a magic "blitz" promotion a battleship can sink one puny wooden ship a year at most on the offense, why it takes thirty years for a modern ship to circumnavagate, how you can pay maintenance for troops that are isolated behind enemy lines for hundreds of years without a trade route, or even a corridor of friendly territory (Oh yeah, cuz I pay gold for it! :crazyeye: ) and literally *hundreds* of other events.


*stops to breathe*


Seriously, you can't have a game where a turn, at the *least* is six months, and in earlier times can take up to forty years, and then bark about how "unrealitsic" wars are. I don't think that the Civ designers wanted to make a realistic wargame, and if that's what you want to play, then Civ is not for you. I'm not saying it's a bad game, I think Civ is a great game, but that's not what it was designed to be. I mean really, WW2. Do you really think that it should be, game wise, that Germany advanced a huge amount in *THREE* turns, only to have it all reversed, and Germany almost completely occupied in three more? Come on, don't be absurd.

What is truly unrealistic is not Frigates beating Battleships, it is Frigates Fighting Battleships (or Spear Fighting Tanks)... the fact is by the time Tanks came out all "civs" that existed had reached Muskets/Rifles... by the time Battleships came out, Frigates were almost gone everywhere.

For civ to be realistic in this aspect, you would have to have the ability to automatically get tech your neighbor had...given enough time.

As it is, Civ's combat model is Highly abstracted and the 5 to 1 strength is MUCH better that 5 to 1 odds, so bad luck seems reasonable.

Also of note is that there were many transitional steps CIV just plain doesn't have. In the game it's represented as a simple napoleonic sail frigate fighting WW II battleships, but if it was a frigate about to be replaced by the discovery of destroyer and a newly researched pre-dreadnaught battleship...

I mean, the first battleships weren't World War II radar-equipped 15-inch guns vessels, and the last frigates weren't the USS Constitution.

An iron-hulled, mixed steam-sail power frigate armed with early torpedoes (the great equalizer...) would certainly stand a (low) fighting chance against a coal-powered battleship with nothing better than 10 inches guns, no fire-control radars, and the sort of weapon mix that would mean it doesn't carry much amunition for any of its guns.

You all are losing the point. You can keep game balance, by forcing people to spend money to upgrade there units from ancient to modern instead of walking around with warriors and archers guarding cities and frigates fighting on the modern battlefield. Ironclads/Dreadnoughts are the ships that should "have a chance" vs. a battleships.

My biggest contention is the way people can use ridiculously obsolete units for combat, instead of actually having to disband or upgrade them with cost.

And what about people who just haven't gotten that far in the technology tree?

I agree on forced upgrades (or at least, graphical upgrades if forced upgrade is deemed bad for game balance) once you have the technology. But if you don't have the technology to build ironclads...

(Plus, in actual combat of two ships trying to sink one another, the Ironclad stands no more chances than the frigates - its guns are about as likely to pierce the world war II battleship's armor, and the armor of an ironclad might as well not exist against 15 inches guns.)

I think it is fairly clear what happens to wooden ships if one incendiary bomb hits them.
Anyone who posted on this subject rationalizing, might as well say that maybe if you bread radio active spiders you could create a huge army of spidermen.
We all know i should be fixed.

And anyone who's been in the navy knows what CAN (easily) happen when ONE incendiary spark hits the main powder magazine of a battleship
(and frigates had/have cannon)

...not to mention "fleet tactics" that a battleship isn't/wasn't developed to "defend itself" and in fact, just as an aircraft carrier, is EXTREMELY vulnerable when operating on it's own without the requisite escorts to DEFEND it

Odds - both RNG as well as "conditional" odds of the game (and the "unknown parameters" of the game conditions itself)

wooden ships -
my father was on a submarine (USS RAZORBACK SS-394) in WWII off the coast of Japan when it was "discovered" and attacked by a japanese coastal trawler - WIND driven - SAIL boat - NO ENGINE/MOTOR - that was rigged for coastal patrol with passive sonar and depth charges. The trawler continued to silently stalk and to depth charge the Razorback, causing fires onboard while submerged; after several hours of depth charging (the submarine's torpedos/firing pins were ineffective against wooden hulls), with batteries running low, smoke/poisonous fumes taking it's toll on the crew of the disabled submerged vessel, the submarine captain decided to "emergency surface" - ONE gunner's mate raced to the small deck-gun of the submarine the moment it surfaced and got off ONE LUCKY SHOT that took out the "wheel-house" of the japanese sailboat. They escaped with their lives because that ONE LUCKY SHOT that took out the "wheel-house" of the japanese sailboat knocked out the sailboat's radio and fortunately, the japanese "coastal patrol" sailboat had never radio'd for support (air or surface support)
The Razorback immediately "escaped" the hostilities (with casualties), leaving the trawler behind
(who won? who lost? WOOD and SAIL vs. combat ship-of-the-line submarine)

A true story - a wooden sail boat vs (what was) a modern WWII U.S. submarine.

ANYONE who's been in ANY navy knows that ANY ship of the line IS vulnerable to ANYTHING, anyone, anytime, anywhere

now then..... as far as "bread spiders" I'll have take someone elses word on that as I don't have the yeast bit of information about them (much less the dough to buy a book about them)

But - when you say you should be fixed, are you refering to being repaired? spayed? neutered?

Words - I love them (meant in fun, not intended to insult)

:spear: :spear:

how could this have happened?

the only thing I see as explainable is that my battleship was healing, but just for 1 turn. That's no excuse. I declared war on alexander & his vassal state asoka. As my navy was patrolling the sea line of alexander I saw a indian frigate waiting for me to destroy it...man was I wrong...:mad: :mad: :mad:


I was so shocked...I completely exited the game cause I couldn't believe what just happened...urgh!!!!!!!!!!!

</rant>

My all-time asymetrical loss was an enemy galley sinking my battleship in CIV I.

I understand your frustration! Could the galley have wedged itself between the screws and triggered a boiler expolsion? No, it would have shattered between those gear-driven props!

Someone here at fanatics reminded me that it's a group of galleys, and many were probably fireships because it was a suicide mission. That's more plausible if they timed their attack when an oiler or ammunition ship was alongside the battleship .


One of my favorite parts about this forum is commiserating about the improbable and ahistorical occurences , and rationalizing them. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's educational.

i am saying at least a iron clad is faster and much better armament. Iron clads and the subsequent metal/wooden ships built were a lot better. Wooden sail ships are just a joke. 1000 sail ships couldn't catch or even get near a destroyer. Have you seen how fast a destroyer moves compared to sail ships. I just can't stop laughing, go to a port and look at frigates size vs. a destroyer. Try not to cry laughing.

First off, you are just plain wrong about speed, at least as far as Ironclads go.

USS Constitution (a frigate) has a top speed of 13 knots.
HMS Inconstant, a mixed steam-sail frigate reached 16.2 knots.

Comparedly

USS Monitor, the archetypical ironclad, never beat 8 knots.
CSS Virginia, its well known opponent, was limited at 9 knots.
The English built Peruvian then Chilean ironclad Huascar had a top speed of 12 knots.

So no, the Ironclad wouldn't be faster.

Second, Iron-hulled and Iron-Wood frigates most certainly did exist. "Frigate" does not necessarily mean a wooden ship.

And of course a frigate wouldn't be able to catch a destroyer. But a late frigate (such as HMS Inconstant, above, top speed of 16.2 knot) would certainly be able to compare for speed with an early battleship (such as USS Maine, top speed of 17 knots)

and for consistency's sake: what exactly are you referring to when talking about "destruction of BS"? some sort of "naval battle"? that's interesting, because no one can say anything about "it" - animation representing "battle" is purely symbolic, just as well as tank sprite doesn't mean it's a "one tank"; therefore the only things we know for sure are:

#1 - some segment of player's naval forces has been engaging enemy ships in certain sector
#2 - engagement lasted for certain amount of time, for details please refer to lenght of turn in given historical period
#3 - combat log consists some abstract data, regarding amount of damage inflicted and taken during given time, which we can refer only to amount of hammers used to build "Battleship" and to it's combat chances in next engagements, no more clues were given - we can't say HP refers to ship's overall effectiveness, crew status or amount of ammo left - nothing here
#4 - message "Frigate destroyed Battleship" is far from detailed; we haven't been provided with details of engagement, and any attempts to translate combat log into volleys are rather hilarious blind-guessing with no real substance; for what we know "destruction" could have meant "1:1 combat", trick, sabotage, mercy killing after some heavy malfunction, yadda yadda yadda - with no knowledge about details assuming any conceivable answer to be "one true and holy" is simply guessing and playing with %%% with no real rules for counting them;
#5 - we know nothing about order of battle, nothing about amount of enemy contacts, shots fired etc - our imagination is restricted only with assumption that: armed forces represented in game are of human origin, follow some guidelines when it comes to historical development and that numbers present in game may or may not relate to reality - if they relate, we know nothing about such particular relation - ie. no one can say 1 HP represents 100 soldiers;

conclusions:

if you were for some reason misled by silly animations and assume one Battleship and one Frigate/ whatever, 100 BS and 100F if you want/ fixed their positions and fired some volleys at each other then you are indeed living in "la-la-land" because you have as much data to prove it as have people assuming Battleship exploded due to sabotage and "as much" means - none; you can argue all night if sabotage was possible, if possibility reflects this 0,5 % in combat predictions, also - if sabotage was more probable than engine malfunction, mutiny, or in extreme case: frigate disguising as merchant ship or ignored by crew, firing on supply ship filled with ammo right next to BS - the point is you can only say destruction of Frigate in 1:1 combat seems more probable - how much more is hardly relevant as no one can precisely say and the common sense is 99% winning chance is doing quite good job on this matter; throwing away vast amount of accidents, random encounters, vis maior, and other events not covered by "two sprites shootin each other" just because "i think it happened that "right" way" is only another way of baseless assumptions and worshipping self-invented imaginary "reality" :crazyeye:

for what we know "Battleship" is lost, it's pretty rare in such conditions (combat predictions), we have endless set of possible explanations for unusual event - either have some fun, use imagination and stick to one of those or just forget about it and build another one :rolleyes: convincing everyone that "this is ahistorical" is pointless because no one has any idea what and how happened except above facts; of course if you want to convince someone that "certain battleship would sink certain frigate in direct combat in certain situation", have fun and disregard what i wrote ;)

so if any civ advances into a new era, the graphics (not the names or strengths) for all obsolete units would change game wide; for all civs.

What I was thinking if that a civ "advances" in graphics whenever the majority of civs (per population) are at or above a particular era. That way, advanced units can still face older units, but ridiculous scenarios like tank vs. archer will likely never happen.

The justification is that technology will disperse even to the most primitive civs. Somalia is a great example of a country that has arguably have no technological advances, but yet brought down a U.S. gunship back in the early 90's. If this was Civ, it would have been the equivalent of a long-bowman taking down a gunship. However, the reality is that longbows are far more expensive than guns or RPGs because trading partners simply don't make bows anymore.

(and why does the frigate with only wind-power always make it through the reefs, when a much more controleable battleship doesn't?)

Because a frigate sticks 8 or 10 feet below the waterline and a battleship sticks 30 feet below waterline ;)

What I was thinking if that a civ "advances" in graphics whenever the majority of civs (per population) are at or above a particular era. That way, advanced units can still face older units, but ridiculous scenarios like tank vs. archer will likely never happen.

That would sounds about right to me.

Although I could see an exception that this only kicks in a few turns after getting contact with the rest of the world, to allow for isolated primitive civs.

I also don't tink two or three hundred guys with swords and muskets are going to overwhelm a ship of 1,500 men with rifles and automatic weapons... not that the guys in a frigate would even have much luck getting over the sides of the ship (and how did the frigate get within 20 miles of the battleship without being annihilated).

Hey, maybe a guy from the Frigate swam over to the Battleship, climbed on board, and blew himself up in the armory?

First off, you are just plain wrong about speed, at least as far as Ironclads go.

USS Constitution (a frigate) has a top speed of 13 knots.
HMS Inconstant, a mixed steam-sail frigate reached 16.2 knots.

Comparedly

USS Monitor, the archetypical ironclad, never beat 8 knots.
CSS Virginia, its well known opponent, was limited at 9 knots.
The English built Peruvian then Chilean ironclad Huascar had a top speed of 12 knots.

So no, the Ironclad wouldn't be faster.
Wow... that's pretty short-sited... so American Coastal Gunboats are the "archetypical" Ironclad? That's a pretty American-centric view of Ironclads in the world... last time I checked, Civ4 BtS includes 34 Civs from around the world, not just America.

MOST nations in the world with fleets had ocean-going Ironclads... like England's HMS Warrior (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Warrior_(1860))... which could make anywhere from 13 to 17.5 knots under power.

Just saying you have to look at things from more then one angle/viewpoint. I've already added ocean-going ironclads, pre-dreadnoughts and dreadnoughts to my own mod (sig-line).

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k3/Wolfshanze/Games/FunGame2.png

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k3/Wolfshanze/Games/Iowas1.png

I think that it is possible to make this graphics change when any civ passes into a new era. Visually it would make these stupid encounters easier to accept. If any civ advances into a new era, the graphics (not the names or strengths) for all obsolete units would change game wide; for all civs. This would be a cosmetic change that we humans can relate to.
Everybody is free to mod the game to their own liking.

I've been working on making a cosmetic graphics change that works much like workers do in the standard game. This bit of a fashion mod is not finished yet. My trigger for the graphics change hopefully will be when any civ passes an age. I don't know how to define age + x turns. If I like my work I may present it on CFC. But like most of the other things I've created, it may just stay in my home. If you are interested, let me know

The justification is that technology will disperse even to the most primitive civs. Somalia is a great example of a country that has arguably have no technological advances, but yet brought down a U.S. gunship back in the early 90's. If this was Civ, it would have been the equivalent of a long-bowman taking down a gunship. However, the reality is that longbows are far more expensive than guns or RPGs because trading partners simply don't make bows anymore.

No sir, it's like a bunch of guys with guns say shooting down one helicopter. Call it SAM infantry or guerrillas. They get one chopper down out of hundreds of sorties fine.

What I am saying is in CIV stuff like that happens way to much not like .001% this happens all the time like 4-5 times a game you lose units to joke combat.


P.S. I was talking about overall speed, like going AGAINST THE WIND. How in the heck does a frigate maneuver into range of a battleship before it gets blown out of the water? Have 5 frigates in civ attack a battleship they will do damage.

And the battleship is going to expand ammunition and oil over the combat, therefore limiting its ability to fight the next unit that comes up. IE, in civ terms - light damage.

Speed-wise, while the ironclad may have had an advantage sailing directly against the wind (and thereabout), the frigates would from what I know of them hold the advantage in most other directions. ironclads just weren't build to be fast or agile ; they were built to take punishment. They were excellent in narrow, restricted (and preferably calm) waters, but not so good out in the open sea, where by and large warships had decent hopes of escaping them. Also, again, refer to the mixed steam-sail frigates ; they were essentialy identical to the sail frigates, only with an additional steam engine; certainly in CIV the frigate is the closest representation I can see.

Now of course destroyers would be able to run circles around an ancient frigate, but that's not quite the point here.

And "happens way too often" is dubious. Out of all the games every Civ player plays, each player encounter a handful of incidents of this. Personally I don't remember ever running into a tank-killing spear or a battleship-killing frigate (destroyer, yes, but there, there is unimpeachable historical evidence that destroyers sinking battleships in combat has happened, without any resorting to any sort of justification whatsoever), and I've played hundreds of game on Civ II-III-IV.

That frigate was captained by Chuck Norris.

And don't jump on the "OMFG REALISM" boat without explaining how ships can travel for hundreds of years without returning to port for maintenance, how you don't need say, Iron to build a battleship. (The Bismark took up more steel than an entire armored division used back in WW2), why, without a magic "blitz" promotion a battleship can sink one puny wooden ship a year at most on the offense, why it takes thirty years for a modern ship to circumnavagate, how you can pay maintenance for troops that are isolated behind enemy lines for hundreds of years without a trade route, or even a corridor of friendly territory (Oh yeah, cuz I pay gold for it! :crazyeye: ) and literally *hundreds* of other events.


*stops to breathe*


Seriously, you can't have a game where a turn, at the *least* is six months, and in earlier times can take up to forty years, and then bark about how "unrealitsic" wars are. I don't think that the Civ designers wanted to make a realistic wargame, and if that's what you want to play, then Civ is not for you. I'm not saying it's a bad game, I think Civ is a great game, but that's not what it was designed to be. I mean really, WW2. Do you really think that it should be, game wise, that Germany advanced a huge amount in *THREE* turns, only to have it all reversed, and Germany almost completely occupied in three more? Come on, don't be absurd.

Good post!

And let's not forget about the wonders! Is there any DIRECT way of explaining why building the large statue of Christ the Redeemer allows governments to change without consequences? Building the Oracle gives an advance in technology? Mount Rushmore reduces a civilizations war aversion?

I've always been surprised at the worry that 'my tank got killed by a spear man' but none of these other issues are considered a problem!

Best wishes,

Breunor

Simple. One of these screw the human over (ie, losing a battle at odds they feel they should have won). The rest do not. So people latch on the "irrealism" that has hurt them.

Also, gamers in general are much more obsessive about warfare than any other aspect of empire builders.

But yes - there is VERY little in Civilization that actually reflects reality more than indirectly. The game is all about abstractions ; resources, productivity, workforce management abstracted into food/shield(hammer)/commerce ; scientifical progress abstracted into the tech tree, taxes, all economic matters being abstracted to resource trades and the tax/culture/science sliders, immigration and settlement - complex forces - abstracted to the settler unit...the list goes on an on.

Minefield, accident and supplies are abstracted into the combat system, along with weather, hidden terrain features, etc.
All the dozens of frigates and battleships varieties are abstracted to just two units essentialy, one that represent all frigates from the english warships of the Armada campaign to the mixed sail-steam frigates armed with torpedoes of the late XIXth century , and another that represent all battleships, from sluggish pre-dreadnoughts ala USS Maine or HMS Collingwood to fast and sleek Iowa-class battleships that served into the nineties.

That's just the way everything in CIV is - an abstraction.

My biggest contention is the way people can use ridiculously obsolete units for combat, instead of actually having to disband or upgrade them with cost.
Doesn't mean that the obsolete units would -win-, due to the strength disparities.... Though admittedly maybe a squad of 100 warriors could win against a more powerful unit without first strikes. But then, who the Hell has 100 warriors just running around? I mean, seriously? Can you even -make- 100 warriors before normal teching replaces them with axemen/spearmen/whatever?

it's a running joke, we all know about the stupid match ups in the game that result in losses.

Even if the Frigate doesn't kill a battleship it shouldn't be able to do damage. One shell from a battleship would blow the frigate to bits.

Furthermore, no battleship is going to run out of ammunition. Remember these ships are meant to bombard shores and engage with other like battleships. It's possible they could run out of oil on a long voyage. However even standing still in the ocean 100 frigates couldn't damage a battleship.

I have lost battleships to frigates on a couple of occasions, but it has involved airships first.

I have also lost a destroyer + 40% to a fleet of caravels

And twice I have lost a battleship to a triangle.

Well, in Civ3 spearmen won tanks easily, so this is not so especial. What about if the frigate just sunk the battleship from its back?

it's a running joke, we all know about the stupid match ups in the game that result in losses.

Even if the Frigate doesn't kill a battleship it shouldn't be able to do damage. One shell from a battleship would blow the frigate to bits.

Furthermore, no battleship is going to run out of ammunition. Remember these ships are meant to bombard shores and engage with other like battleships. It's possible they could run out of oil on a long voyage. However even standing still in the ocean 100 frigates couldn't damage a battleship.

You begin to repeat yourself. If you don't contribute anything new than this discussion is not worth continuing. And don't just harp on how unrealistically it is - think about how you would handle the changed gameplay as well.

BTW personally I am convinced that just any military disaster can happen under the command of the "right" sort of commander.

The AI doesn't whinge when it loses a battle at 90% + odds, it goes away and comes back with 3 more battleships.

Gameplay and accuracy and all that are irrelevant, because they are infinite in scalability. I've lost tough veteran units with 90% + chances - it just means that AI is DOOMED from that point - cos I go away and come back with a huge SoD in reprisal!!!

And once I won 2 helicopters with a warrior and when I upgraded it, the warrior lost. In Civ these things happen all the time.

That frigate was captained by Chuck Norris.

:goodjob:

Or perhaps it was the Black Pearl... I heard that Jack Sparrow is one hell of a Capn'...

When I was new to Civ 4 I faced riflemen against impi and the impi won by a longshot:confused: :mad: :wallbash::aargh:

:goodjob:

Or perhaps it was the Black Pearl... I heard that Jack Sparrow is one hell of a Capn'...

Davey Jones is no slouch on the Flying Dutchman,with those revolving bow chasers, either.

That one - Impi beating rifles - happened historically.

Woah disregard what I just wrote

You begin to repeat yourself. If you don't contribute anything new than this discussion is not worth continuing. And don't just harp on how unrealistically it is - think about how you would handle the changed gameplay as well.

BTW personally I am convinced that just any military disaster can happen under the command of the "right" sort of commander.

I have given a example of how I think it would be better represented. Random events to lose or damange units like, plague, sabatoge, sinking of ships. That is far more realistic compared to warriors beating tanks and frigates beating battleships on the regular basis that they do.

To paraphrase the theme song of a TV show I used to enjoy watching....

Just repeat to yourself "It's just a game,
I should really just relax

seriously, game. Not realistic, not even supposed to be realistic or simulation, but game based (loosely) on historical units, techs, etc.

Is it annoying to lose an expensive high-tech unit at rediculously low odds? Absolutely. But I really feel that to keep the GAME balanced, you have to have a combat system that does not ever allow 100% success rate, and if you don't have a 100% success rate you're going to get those wacky results from time to time if you play long enough.

Here's another quote - "One in a million chances come up nine times out of ten" (probably paraphrased, too lazy to go get the actual one!) :)

To paraphrase the theme song of a TV show I used to enjoy watching....

Just repeat to yourself "It's just a game,
I should really just relax

seriously, game. Not realistic, not even supposed to be realistic or simulation, but game based (loosely) on historical units, techs, etc.

Is it annoying to lose an expensive high-tech unit at rediculously low odds? Absolutely. But I really feel that to keep the GAME balanced, you have to have a combat system that does not ever allow 100% success rate, and if you don't have a 100% success rate you're going to get those wacky results from time to time if you play long enough.

Here's another quote - "One in a million chances come up nine times out of ten" (probably paraphrased, too lazy to go get the actual one!) :)

Like I said, in Civ Revolutions they would make it so if you have odds worse than 6:1 you lose automatically. This really encourages better game play rather than spending all your money on other techs while severely neglecting your military.

Like I said, in Civ Revolutions they would make it so if you have odds worse than 6:1 you lose automatically. This really encourages better game play rather than spending all your money on other techs while severely neglecting your military.
How in the world does the 1 in 1000 oddball underdog wins battle situation encourage you to neglect your military?

Are you saying that the player might think, "hey my spearmen will sometimes beat the tanks, so I don't have to worry about getting better military tech" :confused:

You have an interesting fact, but I have no idea how you made the logical leap to that nonsensical conclusion... help! :)

Wodan

EDIT: oops, Wodan snuck in while I was typing - meant to follow the post above Wodan's...)

See, I'm forced to respectfully disagree with you there - on two levels:

One, the primary one for me, is that it's a game, and therefore needs to have an element of risk/chance involved to keep it from simply becoming a complex formula. "Let's see, every game I need to build 7 of these guys to attack here, and not lose, and then go there and repeat" - I want (and need) chance in the game to keep it random and, to me, interesting.

Two, if you must look at it from a 'realistic' perspective, I doubt there are very many 'instant wins' in the world historically. Lots of places in history show examples of forces that probably honestly should have lost, but through luck or superior training or skill or leadership or weather or just 'wierd sequences of events' managed to come out on top. (And no, you don't get any examples here - I'm WAY too lazy for that! :p ) So I still feel a random element, but in the range of >99.9% odds, isn't out of line here.

Of course, I realize this is fully my own silly opinion, and I respect everyone's right to disagree with it! :) Guess I just wanted to say that I, for one, am not really looking forward to the 7:1 instant win feature, and hoping it doesn't follow into civ V for PC.

I lost three bombers to a knight. I'm still wondering how it could be done.

lol.... the deadly anti-air knights. You can't BELIEVE the training the horses have to go through...

i believe you will find perfect example of such brave knights in Anachron (Cailleteau/Jurion) - to tell more would be a spoiler :lol: ; this happens in vol.2, though all four of them have much to offer for comic reader looking for some laugh :)

lol.... the deadly anti-air knights. You can't BELIEVE the training the horses have to go through...

That Pegasus bloodline can outmaneuver anything with the wingspan of an airplane!

Hi

You ppl are missing one VERY important thing. Look at the graphics. Compared to the battleships those are not JUST frigates they are GIANT MUTANT frigates. Now logically yeah sure maybe battleships would totally whip regular ordinary puny frigates but GIANT MUTANT frigates??? Come on lets be realistic now :P.

So LOGICALLY the questions isnt how did a frigate beat a battleship but how do those puny battleships beat GIANT MUTANT frigates practically ALL the time. Now THAT is unrealistic hehe :P

Kaytie

Frigates Of Unusual Size (FOUSes) ??

The Flying Spaghetti Monster bestows its powers only to Frigates and other Pirate-suited anti-Global-Warming vessels.

Hi

You ppl are missing one VERY important thing. Look at the graphics. Compared to the battleships those are not JUST frigates they are GIANT MUTANT frigates. Now logically yeah sure maybe battleships would totally whip regular ordinary puny frigates but GIANT MUTANT frigates??? Come on lets be realistic now :P.

So LOGICALLY the questions isnt how did a frigate beat a battleship but how do those puny battleships beat GIANT MUTANT frigates practically ALL the time. Now THAT is unrealistic hehe :P

Kaytie

It's not the size of your frigate that matters, it's how you use it!

If an innanimate chunk of ice can sink a steel ship, so can a frigate with guns, a crew and a decent propulsion system. It would be incredibly unlikely, but not as bad as a maceman beating a helicopter...

If an innanimate chunk of ice can sink a steel ship, so can a frigate with guns, a crew and a decent propulsion system. It would be incredibly unlikely, but not as bad as a maceman beating a helicopter...


Hey, a lot of MI24-Hind helicopters were lost to Warriors (men throwing rocks) in the Soviet vs Afghanistan war. In Vietnam, the US lost more than 1 UH-1H Huey to a giant crossbow.

If an innanimate chunk of ice can sink a steel ship, so can a frigate with guns, a crew and a decent propulsion system. It would be incredibly unlikely, but not as bad as a maceman beating a helicopter...

Suggestion for Iceland unique: Inanimate Chunk of Ice.

If an innanimate chunk of ice can sink a steel ship, so can a frigate with guns, a crew and a decent propulsion system. It would be incredibly unlikely, but not as bad as a maceman beating a helicopter...

To be fair - it was a STEALTH giant chunk of ice

Not to mention that some scripting and program errors read the Steath Giant Ice Chunk as a "mountain" so the ship couldn't see behind it....


(maybe it will be fixed in the upcoming patch.....)

http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/7734/knightdestruindoaviao00yl9.th.jpg (http://img297.imageshack.us/my.php?image=knightdestruindoaviao00yl9.jpg)

That was probably chuck norris riding a horse.

Maybe the guys on the battleship didn't think a frigat was a suginicant threat and allowed it to get close in and... and now you know the rest of the story.

I always put these events down to excessive enjoyment of alcoholic beverages amongst the defeated party.

This is based on my own experiences - there's no way those 12-year-olds could've beaten me up if I'd been sober...

In civ, as in life, too much :beer: leads to :spear:

Suggestion for Iceland unique: Inanimate Chunk of Ice.
Ha, yes! You could build tons of them and they would float around the world destroying ships randomly!

My frigate is bigger than yours. :p