So. I said yes. Separate attack and Defense bonuses should be used. But I still think bonuses against different types of units should be used to encourage using different types of units instead of 4/5. Mech Infantry, Modern Armor, Radar Artillery, and Stealth Bombers (Jet fighters sometimes).

Subtract one from no and add one to yes because one person messed up.

Yeah, it makes sense, I guess. It would definitely help with the whole promotions problem, and would lead to a more diversified army. I think this should come in combination with a wider array of units to choose from, so as to be able to choose the optimum mix of defence and attack.

No. And defensive bonus should go away.

I like the current system... seems more realistic.

It also leads to a more combined arms approach.

Whoops. Voted wrong. I meant to vote "Yes" instead of "No", but got confused by the first post and was thinking "Should bonuses against different types of units be used?" to which I do think "No" is the correct answer.

Having played both Civ3 and Civ4, I found the bonuses against certain types of units to be one of the major items I disliked in Civ4. It works well in a game like Age of Empires II, or even III. There, if you are attacking with Knights and Two-Handed Swordsmen, and they have Pikemen and Crossbowmen to defend with, part of the challenge is to get your Knights to their Crossbowmen and your Swordsmen to their Pikemen. You might come out on top, or your enemy might - it depends on how both of you play. In Civ4, if you attack with the Knights, you'll have to face their Pikeman with the Knights, and if you attack with the Swordsman, you'll have to face their Crossbowman. It's a lose-lose situation. And it's not more realistic. The defender is not always successful in getting the ideal troops to defend their camp or gates.

Civ3 isn't perfect, either - if the enemy has all Pikemen and you send in Knights, you should do worse than if you send in Medieval Infantry, and this isn't the case in Civ3. But at least you don't have the discouraging Civ4 system where no matter what you do on the offensive, the defender always gets an ideal defending unit if they have combined arms.

So while the idea behind the bonuses versus different types of units wasn't bad in principle, it didn't work well in practice. There needs to be some way for a Knight to attack a Pikeman/Crossbow stack and actually reach the Crossbow. Maybe a trait "Can avoid ideal defender - 30%", that could be upgraded with the promotion system. If the Knight succeeded, it would face the strongest defender before any bonuses against certain types of units were factored in. It'd throw a monkey wrench in the current combined-arms defence system, but I think it would be an improvement overall.

The alternative is to factor in all the different units in a tile and have some conglomerate of that determine the odds. But that gets away from the one unit vs. one unit system, and could lead to all sorts of consequences (think Giant Stack of Doom Uberstategy). Not that it can't work (a la Total War), but it may be a larger departure from the classic Civ that's been around since 1990 than would be good for the series.

7/6
Pretty close

I like the current system... seems more realistic.

It also leads to a more combined arms approach.

I don't think so. This prevents people from attacking a city, capturing it, moving in, and keeping it. You then have to bring defenders also. If both are used it would encourage using more units so you have defensive units of every type and offfensive units of every type.

It could be a bit detrimental to solving the SoD problem, though. It would mean that stacks would virtually have to double in size to have the same power.

I don't think so. This prevents people from attacking a city, capturing it, moving in, and keeping it. You then have to bring defenders also. If both are used it would encourage using more units so you have defensive units of every type and offfensive units of every type.

No, you only have to bring one type of offensive and one type of defensive... all others are going to be an inferior choice. In the current system it is generally wise to bring a few of each unit type to cover all possibilities.

Re: SoD... Civ3 suffered from these as well. Something major needs to be done to gimp them. More powerful bombardment makes the most sense IMO.

I voted yes because of the battleship vs phalanx problem where a numerous offense number should destroy a miniscule defense number. If both attack & defend numbers are removed plus stripping all other combat factors, the entire system will be brought back to that of Civ1.

I don't think so. This prevents people from attacking a city, capturing it, moving in, and keeping it. You then have to bring defenders also. If both are used it would encourage using more units so you have defensive units of every type and offfensive units of every type.

No, you only have to bring one type of offensive and one type of defensive... all others are going to be an inferior choice. In the current system it is generally wise to bring a few of each unit type to cover all possibilities.

Re: SoD... Civ3 suffered from these as well. Something major needs to be done to gimp them. More powerful bombardment makes the most sense IMO.

Not if bonus against different types of units are also uses which is what I suggest.

Not if bonus against different types of units are also uses which is what I suggest.

But then you have two systems fulfilling the same purpose... it would make the whole affair needlessly complicted.

Not to mention the ridiculousness of of attack/defence ratings. A spear's a spear, whether you're attacking or defending it still functions the same.

When a spear is defending it would keep it's shield close to it's body. And jab as the enemy comes near. While attacking it would charge,, keeping the shield at a distance, most likely using the spear as a lance type weapen.

And you think a large attack (SOD vs SOD) should be always attack and defense from oone to other side? Like if a huge army would attack a huge another army in 1 move? I think that in the battle field, sometime one "army" (part of it) should attack, and with the melee and re-organization of the troops through orders, should defend sometimes. Plus, in ancient melee battles, the two side most of the time charge in the same time, so in term of Civ4 would be translated in two attacks from each side, as well as two defenses from each side, at the same time.

That's why I say "take the Civ4 battle/unit strenght system and delete the defensive bonus".

When a spear is defending it would keep it's shield close to it's body. And jab as the enemy comes near. While attacking it would charge,, keeping the shield at a distance, most likely using the spear as a lance type weapen.

Individually, but Civ is on a much larger scale. A unit of spears serves the same purpose when attacking as it does when defending.

I think there is a general assumption that a unit comprises both the offensive and defensive aspects of what would normally comprise a military unit. But still, some units are always going to be stronger in attack than in defence, so this should probably be represented.

Going back to attack and defense would be bad IMO. I remember in CIV II I always were afraid of attacking the enemy units with my defenders (like using phalanx against a catapult near the city).
Bonuses (like city defense) is more realistic I believe.

I guess either all units are given an attack & defense factor or there are units specialized for defense only and others which are specialized for attack. I myself prefer the split attack & defense for all units.

I voted yes, but after thinking a bit more about it, I think I should have voted no.

KISS is a principle that seems to work (Keep It Simple Stupid) most of the time. Adding additional abilities (promotions), where you get to choose from a legal set of abilities depending on the unit. Afaik units doesn't get utterly unrealistic abilities to choose from. Pluss, I get to be in charge.

It would be too tedious to have to check yet another value. The strenght of an opposing force isn't really known until you are facing him (see the abilities). You check your odds and get the hell out of there if it sucks.

It would also be bad if I had to manually sit and pick targets manually by comparing numbers all the time. I agree it could be more random (maybe after a prolonged siege, simulating some sort of morale?) which enemy you ended up fighting with. Especially considering how (at least myself) find the AI always be perfectly matched against my stack.

Btw, I find Noble difficulty extremely challenging (equal terms my ass!, and I dislike micromanaging), so I'm not as experienced as most of you.
Btw2, I only play marathon on the largest possible maps as well. Not sure if that has something to do with it. Still the maps are just waaaaay too small :D

In Civ3 it wasn't that hard to find out battle win ratios. Much easier in fact then in civ4.

Attack and defense strengths can be emulated with free promotions in Civ4, and many other factors as well. I say just display effective attack and defense strength better (rather than just hit points cum combat strength) and make sure the AI thinks about it. In other words, I want separate hit points but still a combined combat strength with the effective combat strength being calculated using hit points times combat strength with other relevant modifiers also. Our tanks are still strong, there just aren't as many of them. Effective combat strength should determine the chances of the unit harming the other but remaining hit points should determine the number of chances to do this. Thus a tank with 1 hit point still has a combat of 28 versus a spearman with a combat of 4 and 3 hit points. The Spearman gets three chances at 4/28 to hit the tank while the tank gets 1 chance at 28/4 to hit the spearman.

I haven't played a PC civ game in a long time, but I really like the Attack/Defense/Move model used by CivRev and the promotion system that goes along with it. It is really simple but still provides enough tactical reason to use a few different types of units for specific functions.

I would like a system similar to CivRev with more modifiers (terrain, morale, supply lines, etc) and promotions though.

i say just NO.
Civ4 strength+bonuses model is a step forward.

So far on my website people are saying yes to thet, however only 18 people voted.

Neither, I want combined combat strength, yet I want it separated from hit points. Thus I did not vote.

Currently if you have a longbowman in a city, he has a strength of 6 which is probably more due to bonuses like the city defenses, city defense bonus for longbowmen, and any promotions, but you can't easily see this his combat strength is displayed as 6. He takes damage and now his combat strength is given as 4. Hit points and combat strength are effectively combined. I want his combat strength to remain 6, but since he has lost 1/3 of his archers he now only has 2 hit points and gets two "shots" for every three "shots" that a full hit points attacker may get--even if that attacker is a warrior with a combat strength of 2.

Incidently, a horde of spearmen COULD take out a tank. They climb up on top from behind where its coaxial machine gun cannot reach and simply starve the crew out. If the crew opens the hatch to come out for water or cool air they get a spear in the eye. Thats in an open stand up battle, if they don't think to build tank traps, break the tracks and set the engine on fire. Armed Cupola might be a promotion that could give the tank a massive combat bonus against older unit types like melee and archers.

However, since technically I don't want a separate Defense strenth I'll vote.

Speaking of that I wanted to suggest another idea. Units should have health "checkpoints". After a certain unit loses a certain amount of health there should be a point were the health can't be healed any further. Let's say a unit has 20 health. Once it goes past, let's say 15, it can not be brought up to any more than 15 through fortifying. This represents units dying that can't be revieved. This would definitly be a good idea if they brought back Civ3-like armies. Therefore preventing having the most powerfull type of army and going around killing and fortifying. Then doing it again.

Or perhaps there could be some sort of mathematical equation regarding healing that factored in the above, rather than just making it an arbitrary decision. And perhaps it should be so that instead of it being impossible to heal from lower health levels, it is just harder.

Cue mathematical formula:
The following represents a curve that outlines healing in enemy territory, assuming no movement. So, whatever a unit's health is, they fall onto the graph at that point, and move towards the endpoint (where H=100 (%)), which is at roughly 20.297. Time moves constantly, obviously, and the amount of health recovered each turn increases exponentially. The following is the formula that I've thrown together using the basic H=A.e^(kt) model:

H=5.[e^(0.15t)]-5, where
H=Health in percentage
t=time in turns
So, the following is a table showing the what percentage health a unit would be at for each turn:
First column is t, second column is H.

0.1 - 0.07
1 - 0.81
2 - 1.75
3 - 2.84
4 - 4.11
5 - 5.59
6 - 7.30
7 - 9.29
8 - 11.60
9 - 14.29
10 - 17.41
11 - 21.03
12 - 25.25
13 - 30.14
14 - 35.83
15 - 42.44
16 - 50.12
17 - 59.04
18 - 69.40
19 - 81.44
20 - 95.43
20.297 - 100

So, as you can see, as time increases, health recovers at an exponential rate from fortification/healing.

From this formula we can get another one that shows us just how long it takes for a unit to heal, given its health. This formula should makes things much more easy for everyone to see/understand.

Time to recover = 20.297 - ({ln[(H+5)/5]}/0.15)

So, here's another table outlining how long it would take for a unit to recover, given their health.
Health in first column, time needed to recover in the second.

2% - 18.05
5% - 15.68
10% - 12.97
15% - 11.06
20% - 9.57
25% - 8.35
30% - 7.32
35% - 6.43
40% - 5.65
45% - 4.95
50% - 4.31
60% - 3.20
70% - 2.24
80% - 1.41
90% - 0.67

Note that the actual recovery times would of course be rounded up tot he nearest turn.
As you can see, the recovery time would be exponentially greater at lower health levels, which would seemingly accurately reflect the diminishing ability to recover at those health levels, which would help limit SoDs, for starters, and diminish the power of suicide attacks. Perhaps what I propose is a bit harsh on the low health units, and a bit easy on units that only lose some health, but that can be easily modified with a tweaking of the k variable. Whatcha think?

As you can see, the recovery time would be exponentially greater at lower health levels, which would seemingly accurately reflect the diminishing ability to recover at those health levels, which would help limit SoDs

It would limit warfare, not sods. Having slowly healing units is equal to lose them for the particular campaign, so you must have even greater sods than before to win number of consequent battles, while sending injured troops to the rear.

I suppose you could look at it that way, but the healing time would be much quicker within your own territory, so the defender would have the advantage. So, an attacker would not be able to simply throw units at the walls of a city, without the almost certainty of losing those units for the duration of the war, compared to the defender's ability to quickly regenerate. Seeing as this is the principle tactic of SoDs, it would have a limiting effect, I think, although I can see what you're saying. This would be limited even more so if the equation for healing within your own cultural borders was adjusted by the k instead of the A in H=A.e^(kt).

i think it could work all you would have to do is make combat streanth range more like

warrior 1attak 1defence
tank 50attak 45defence
or something like that

see simple

Yeah.

@Camikaze - With your second chart after the first turn the unit would gain about 5% of it's health at 2% originaly making it heal in about 14-15 turns. It doesn't make sence

It shouldn't do...
It would take a unit 2.37 turns to get from 2% health to 5% health, wouldn't it? :confused:

@Camikaze - With your second chart after the first turn the unit would gain about 5% of it's health at 2% originaly making it heal in about 14-15 turns. It doesn't make sence

Healing in that case is non-linear. So if a unit will take 18 turns to heal, it won't gain 5% a turn. First turn it gains 1%, next turn 1%, next turn 1%, a few turns later it goes up to 2%, and so on.

Speaking of that I wanted to suggest another idea. Units should have health "checkpoints". After a certain unit loses a certain amount of health there should be a point were the health can't be healed any further. Let's say a unit has 20 health. Once it goes past, let's say 15, it can not be brought up to any more than 15 through fortifying. This represents units dying that can't be revieved.

But does a unit healing in a barracks represent only healing the actual unit, or possibly also adding more people to it ?

no unit out in the field should be able to heal back to 100%. They can only do that if they are in a city.

Barracks quickens the healing of the unit in a city. How does adding more people heal a unit?

Speaking of that I wanted to suggest another idea. Units should have health "checkpoints". After a certain unit loses a certain amount of health there should be a point were the health can't be healed any further. Let's say a unit has 20 health. Once it goes past, let's say 15, it can not be brought up to any more than 15 through fortifying. This represents units dying that can't be revieved. This would definitly be a good idea if they brought back Civ3-like armies. Therefore preventing having the most powerfull type of army and going around killing and fortifying. Then doing it again.


Barracks quickens the healing of the unit in a city. How does adding more people heal a unit?

Sorry if that wasn't clear; I was responding to Gamemaster77's comment; if injuring a "unit" represents killing some of the people in, say, a tank division, it seems to me that part ot the "healing" of that "unit" in a city could represent training up new people.

Mabye in a barraks but not any random city.

Heck yeah!!

i say just NO.
Civ4 strength+bonuses model is a step forward.

My thoughts exactly.

There's always room for improvement, but IMO going back to the old system isn't an improvement. Instead I'd like too see more promotions, more experience-providing buildings and wonders and more promotion-providing leader traits for increased diversity.

Promotions bring problems however. For instance, they provide another pathway through which the AI can screw up, handing a combat advantage to human players, and the can allow for battle outcomes to be skewed unrealistically. So, it would perhaps be better to still have promotions, but to combine them with another system of differentiation between units.

How about different types of units?

i say just NO.
Civ4 strength+bonuses model is a step forward.

I voted the same way. People, I think, imagine Civ4 combat as two huge forces closing within a mile of each other, and then standing by while individual companies of 100 men walk up and slug it out.

That tile where combat is occurring is much, much larger if you scale it to Earth, something like 200 sq. mi. or more when I compared a huge map to Earth. It represents even more space on "smaller" maps (less resolution).

When a Civ battle occurs, try imagining two forces campaigning over the course of a month, maneuvering through the wilderness, skirmishers scouting and ambushing foragers, until the two main forces contact each other and fight. When you have a stack of ten units against an enemy force of five units, barring any introduction of stack combat mechanics, just imagine the final battle result as the "net" result after your entire force engages their entire force. So if I have 7 units left, I think "okay, I lost 30% of my forces while obliterating the entire enemy force". I don't think "3 of my units suicided on their strong ones and then I mopped up the rest with my backup".

When viewed through this lens, individual attack and defense values do not make much sense. Both forces are actively involved in attacking and defending in this miniature campaign that you don't see. The overall strength of a unit should reflect the equipment, organization, and numbers of the unit. The promotions should reflect the training and experience (whether generally experienced veterans or trained to fight a particular type of enemy or fight in a particular terrain). Young players tend to fight with smaller numbers of troops and see the battle results as way too skewed one way or another (especially if they lose a fight they were supposed to "win"). Older players, or ones more accustomed to statistics, look at the big picture and see that your choice in unit production has a giant overreaching effect on the outcome of a war, even if a few skirmishes seem "unfair" because you had to sacrifice a unit to soften up the stack. And when it comes right down to it, Civilization is about the big picture, not the miniature tactics.

There was an argument posted earlier that this mechanic favors the defender. In fact, I would argue that it favors the attacker. Although the best defender in Civ terms "steps forth to fight off your attack", the attacker has the advantage of picking the best odds of success (in a hypothetical stack of my mace and knight against your crossbow and pike, my mace might have a higher chance of success so I pick him first to fight), representing initiative on the battlefield. Additionally, the attackers can cause collateral damage and utilize flanking, which I think is a seriously underrated promotion tree.

How about different types of units?

Well, there already are. But if you mean a further diversification of units to be selected from, then that could be a way of improving the system, so long as it wasn't taken to a ridiculous degree whereby by there were 20 or 30 units for each era.

Well, there already are. But if you mean a further diversification of units to be selected from, then that could be a way of improving the system, so long as it wasn't taken to a ridiculous degree whereby by there were 20 or 30 units for each era.

I think adding a few more units to each era sounds like a good idea, but like you said the adding must be done carefully, because too many is too many. In the best scenario it would enhance unit diversity nicely as well as notably widen the possible strategies, but that may be too wishful thinking.

Also, I think that Antilogic's post had excellent points that many players don't think at all.

When a Civ battle occurs, try imagining two forces campaigning over the course of a month, maneuvering through the wilderness, skirmishers scouting and ambushing foragers, until the two main forces contact each other and fight. When you have a stack of ten units against an enemy force of five units, barring any introduction of stack combat mechanics, just imagine the final battle result as the "net" result after your entire force engages their entire force. So if I have 7 units left, I think "okay, I lost 30% of my forces while obliterating the entire enemy force". I don't think "3 of my units suicided on their strong ones and then I mopped up the rest with my backup".
When viewed through this lens, individual attack and defense values do not make much sense.


The thing is, viewing it through this lens is exactly the kind of scale of thinking I value not having to do. It's the tactical/"realism" argument from a different angle.

Also units mabye could be upgraded 2 or 3 times before the next complety upradable unit comes. Do I make sense?

Also units mabye could be upgraded 2 or 3 times before the next complety upradable unit comes. Do I make sense?

Well, I don't get what you're suggesting fwiw; could you explain that again ?

Also units mabye could be upgraded 2 or 3 times before the next complety upradable unit comes. Do I make sense?
no

Well, there already are. But if you mean a further diversification of units to be selected from, then that could be a way of improving the system, so long as it wasn't taken to a ridiculous degree whereby by there were 20 or 30 units for each era.
what way of improving the system?
how can one axis system project onto itself a weak, but hard-hitting unit type?

differentiate between a howitzer and a heavy cannon(artillery)?

Yeah, that type of differentiation would be a way of improving the system.

No, because I don't want to lose a modern armor tank to a simple warrior. So no.

[QUOTE=Hail;8486143]no[QUOTE]

Like a swordsman can get a sharper sword

no

Like a swordsman can get a sharper sword
i would not classify that as an upgrade

The thing is, viewing it through this lens is exactly the kind of scale of thinking I value not having to do. It's the tactical/"realism" argument from a different angle.

It's the "game mechanics are different from real life no matter what" argument, actually.

You don't have to imagine anything if you don't want to. But I'm saying that the scale of the game should be considered in unit design.

There really is not much scale in Civ. If we were to put scale to the game then the whole game would be messed up because they are so different. Sometimes you just have to leave it at what makes for better game play.

It could be a bit detrimental to solving the SoD problem, though. It would mean that stacks would virtually have to double in size to have the same power.

Well, now there's no more stacks thank goodness.