We've got a spearman verses tank, a frigate vs.battleship, and a pirateship thread in which my virtual friend DrewBledsoe raises a question about A.I. caravel spam.

Sometimes you draw Monty, or you lack strategic resources, so from a gameplay standpoint you are forced to go to war with large numbers of inferior units and take your losses and your chances.

Also from a gameplay aspect, I find the element of chance usually makes a strategy game more fun and realistic , even when it's illogical.

From a historical standpoint, the Zulu and The Ethiopians were able to overrun their enemies, even though they had inferior arms. The waves of Chinese infantry recovered North korea from the advanced UN forces.

So I don't think the strategy should be removed from the game. At the same time, it detracts from the fun when it becomes commonplace. It makes the game feel like a shoveling task.



There's a war weariness penalty, but it doesn't seem to be enough to stop this. The A.I.'s don't ask for ceasefire when the strategy fails, , convert all of their production to cash, and spend it on technology, strategic resources, & upgrades or disband those obsolete units.


I've toyed with some ideas, but upon further consideration they were subject to human exploitation.


What's your answer to the cannon fodder question?



What's your plan to improve this aspect of the game?

You know, in Civ's main rival there is the concept of routing, that is, if some unit is too green, too unprofessional, bombarded or overwhelmed it will rout, that is, flee from combat. All Civ's units - and almost all of strategy games' units for that matter - behave as a bunch of suicide bombers, never retreating unless ordered. A solution would be introducing the morale factor, that is, 100 spearmen being thrown at two mech infantries would just panic and disband at some point, after a lot of consecutive rushes ending in slaughtering. Different units would have different morale/fear factors.

One way to minimize all the fuzz would be that all military should be drafted or hired ( mercenaries ) and we would only build the weapons, with the option of upgrading the weapon ( like in Planetfall Mod ). It would not solve the problem but it would give more balance to the game and more incentives to upgrading....

But regarding the inferior unit impossibility to win ,I would say a big and round no... I would be happy with a bigger unbalance to stronger units + a "sh.t happens" RNG factor that could affect both sides, making their efficiency to drop badly ( lack of fuel , careless maitenance , morale, whatever... ). But removing the possibility of winning from inferior units is simply stupid gamewise ( IMHO most of the proponents of that never had been in the weak side of the equation..... )

You know, in Civ's main rival there is the concept of routing, that is, if some unit is too green, too unprofessional, bombarded or overwhelmed it will rout, that is, flee from combat. All Civ's units - and almost all of strategy games' units for that matter - behave as a bunch of suicide bombers, never retreating unless ordered. A solution would be introducing the morale factor, that is, 100 spearmen being thrown at two mech infantries would just panic and disband at some point, after a lot of consecutive rushes ending in slaughtering. Different units would have different morale/fear factors.

My Spartans will never run from a fight! Even if it is an obvious suicide mission...

basically everyone just wants civ to be total war but for 6000 years...

very true.... i hate fighting in the first 50 years too

Well, my point of view is that Civ has found a way that works for combat. Throwing in alot of new concepts like morale into the combat calculations would require a complete rewrite of the combat system that isn't broken today. True, there might be a lack of logic at times when a spearman beats a tank with a fluke move, but it happens so seldom. Also, Civ is Civ because how it is and how combat is fought isn't the main reason I play this game. For a more "realistic" approach to the combat aspect, there's other games to choose from that has a morale aspect and other nifty things in combat. But those games often has some other aspect that a bit suspicious (from a rl point of view)

The only thing I find the civIV could improve on, which should be a fairly simple fix, is the lack of peacerequests from beaten AIs. Though, then maybe we'd whine about the AI constantly spamming you for peacereguests instead because balancing it is likely the hard part...

I don't think I really want to avoid a war in the early stages or have one for 6000 years.

To me, once per era would be about right.

A morale component might be the answer, because it's not as easy to exploit
as diplomatic rules might be.


Sid's Pirates! has a land battle screen for turn-based city attacks. It is tactical, including
ranged and close attacks, strength, numbers, morale, terrain, and flanking bonuses. I wouldn't say it's superior.

The morale is fairly simple- normal, angry, wavering, and panicked. Wavering and panicked units are basically good for ranged and flanking attacks, maybe mop-up, but they often break and run for the rear even when they win.


What I like about the city attack is that it has a fixed elapsed time ( I think it's a week)You take as many turns as you like until the attackers reach the city gates, or all the units of one side have fled. Then both sides basically regroup, possibly being re-enforced, but re-allocating their surviving men into full strength companies if the attacker wasn't awarded the city and presses his attack.

So you avoid those century-long sieges.

:Agree: Sids Pirates on land is really entertaining. If only there were more units, but that problem shouldn't be in C-IV. Maybe add this as a check-option when stackattacking? "Fight large battles self", with a terrain generator a little more balanced than Pirates, a fix of graphics and goals... Could be fun to try, but in the end I think old civ style is superior.

Oooooh, I just had a nice idea I think....

My main irritation, isn't the fact that maybe once in a blue moon on a wet wednesday in July, a spearman beats a healthy tank, or a frigate beats a healthy battleship. No those odds are sooo long I've personally never seen anything even vaguely like it (most would be 10,000 to 1 or greater).

Neither does it bother me, when a destroyer on very low hit points gets beaten by a full hp frigate(tank vs spearman, whatever). I always took it that the "destroyer unit" represented a small convoy, as does the "frigate unit" represent many frigates. The destroyer on low hps might be actually 2 or 3 damaged destroyers vs the healthy (lets say) 25 frigates. In reality, the frigates might just be able to do enough damage to sink the destroyers.

NO, what I hate, is that an infantry against a stack of spearmen can only attack and destroy one per turn. Or a destroyer can only attack one galleon per turn. Ok the exception is if either has Blitz, but that's quite a fancy promotion, and needs a decent amount of xp to get it.

So [finally] ;) here's my idea. Units of a more advanced era, against units of a previous era, get a temporary "superblitz" promotion. They don't get any extra mvmt pts, but they can attack unlimited times (vs said earlier era units) until they lose half the hps they started the turn with. Maybe an automatic temporary first strike for every attack as well (once rifling has been discovered, representing the ranged attack ability)....

Dunno if it would work in practice, seemed a nice idea in the time it took me to read the thread and type this;)

What's anyone think?

basically everyone just wants civ to be total war but for 6000 years...

Say EPIC!

But in defense of Civ let us remember that TW diplomatic, commercial and building aspect is hopelessly shallow when compared to Civ. Will there be a day when we have the best of both worlds?

Oooooh, I just had a nice idea I think....

My main irritation, isn't the fact that maybe once in a blue moon on a wet wednesday in July, a spearman beats a healthy tank, or a frigate beats a healthy battleship. No those odds are sooo long I've personally never seen anything even vaguely like it (most would be 10,000 to 1 or greater).

Neither does it bother me, when a destroyer on very low hit points gets beaten by a full hp frigate(tank vs spearman, whatever). I always took it that the "destroyer unit" represented a small convoy, as does the "frigate unit" represent many frigates. The destroyer on low hps might be actually 2 or 3 damaged destroyers vs the healthy (lets say) 25 frigates. In reality, the frigates might just be able to do enough damage to sink the destroyers.

NO, what I hate, is that an infantry against a stack of spearmen can only attack and destroy one per turn. Or a destroyer can only attack one galleon per turn. Ok the exception is if either has Blitz, but that's quite a fancy promotion, and needs a decent amount of xp to get it.

So [finally] ;) here's my idea. Units of a more advanced era, against units of a previous era, get a temporary "superblitz" promotion. They don't get any extra mvmt pts, but they can attack unlimited times (vs said earlier era units) until they lose half the hps they started the turn with. Maybe an automatic temporary first strike for every attack as well (once rifling has been discovered, representing the ranged attack ability)....

Dunno if it would work in practice, seemed a nice idea in the time it took me to read the thread and type this;)

What's anyone think?


Well, that would expedite matters, to avoid those century -long sieges when the defenders are drafting and popping partisans.

I figure that would work.

Unlimited 10>1 attacks per turn or something? At least a destroyer could clear those caravels.

But I wonder, if that were in place, should the advanced unit get experience from those attacks, and if so how much?

:Agree: Sids Pirates on land is really entertaining. If only there were more units, but that problem shouldn't be in C-IV. Maybe add this as a check-option when stackattacking? "Fight large battles self", with a terrain generator a little more balanced than Pirates, a fix of graphics and goals... Could be fun to try, but in the end I think old civ style is superior.

Agreed.

I love Civ.

If they ever have a Civ V I hope it includes the Pirate!- style sea traffic on the trade routes , and Railroads style traffic on the land routes, ( with camel caravans and wagon trains in earlier eras.) just for the visual effects. I'd love the pirate-style sea battles, too.

:Agree: Sids Pirates on land is really entertaining. If only there were more units, but that problem shouldn't be in C-IV. Maybe add this as a check-option when stackattacking? "Fight large battles self", with a terrain generator a little more balanced than Pirates, a fix of graphics and goals... Could be fun to try, but in the end I think old civ style is superior.

Be careful with ideas you give to developers. What if they also decide to include "dancing with the governor's daughter"?! :p

Be careful with ideas you give to developers. What if they also decide to include "dancing with the governor's daughter"?! :p

That would not be good. I can play CIV while my wife and I are sitting in front of the television. Life is great.

However, she gets jealous whenever I'm "dancing" while playing Pirates!

NO, what I hate, is that an infantry against a stack of spearmen can only attack and destroy one per turn. Or a destroyer can only attack one galleon per turn. Ok the exception is if either has Blitz, but that's quite a fancy promotion, and needs a decent amount of xp to get it.

So [finally] ;) here's my idea. Units of a more advanced era, against units of a previous era, get a temporary "superblitz" promotion.
I've already done something similar in my Wolfshanze Mod... in naval terms, I've broken-down all ships into six distinct "ages":
Age of Sail, Age of Steam, Pre-Dreadnought Age, Dreadnought Age, Modern Age, Nuclear Age.

Naval units in a higher "Age" get a 20% combat bonus against units from an inferior age... also, starting in the Pre-Dreadnought age (when multi-turretted warships bggan to appear), I introduced a new promotion called "Gunnery Control"... which works a lot like Blitz, but is much, much easier to attain for a naval unit (comes after Combat-1 instead of after Combat-3).

This means that a Pre-Dreadnought with multiple 12" gun turrets could wade through several Triremes or Frigates in a single turn... the 20% combat bonus against a previous (out-of-date) age also helps reduce the odds of a frigate sinking a battleship for instance, but it does not remove it alltogether. For those that say they never see it happen, my change does nothing for you (you still probably won't see it), but for those that this happens to too often, this cuts that down a good amount... it also lets a clearly superior naval ship, "clean house" if somebody comes at them with a stack of clearly inferior ships.

I've also made sure only more modern turretted ships get this combat ability... even though a frigate is clearly superior to a trireme, I don't see a wind-dependant smoothbore cannon-firing frigate speeding like crazy through triremes and sinking them like no tomorrow... but a modern battleship or destroyer? Sure thing! :goodjob:

I've already done something similar in my Wolfshanze Mod... in naval terms, I've broken-down all ships into six distinct "ages":
Age of Sail, Age of Steam, Pre-Dreadnought Age, Dreadnought Age, Modern Age, Nuclear Age.

Naval units in a higher "Age" get a 20% combat bonus against units from an inferior age... also, starting in the Pre-Dreadnought age (when multi-turretted warships bggan to appear), I introduced a new promotion called "Gunnery Control"... which works a lot like Blitz, but is much, much easier to attain for a naval unit (comes after Combat-1 instead of after Combat-3).

This means that a Pre-Dreadnought with multiple 12" gun turrets could wade through several Triremes or Frigates in a single turn... the 20% combat bonus against a previous (out-of-date) age also helps reduce the odds of a frigate sinking a battleship for instance, but it does not remove it alltogether. For those that say they never see it happen, my change does nothing for you (you still probably won't see it), but for those that this happens to too often, this cuts that down a good amount... it also lets a clearly superior naval ship, "clean house" if somebody comes at them with a stack of clearly inferior ships.

I've also made sure only more modern turretted ships get this combat ability... even though a frigate is clearly superior to a trireme, I don't see a wind-dependant smoothbore cannon-firing frigate speeding like crazy through triremes and sinking them like no tomorrow... but a modern battleship or destroyer? Sure thing! :goodjob:

Sounds like it works in practice then :thumbsup:, and you obviously thought it through further than my brief "idea".......fancy doing one for land units too ;) ?