Modern warfare in civ 3 can be quite a frustrating experience, since the gameplay changes entirely, but i have played games and found some unique ideas that work in Industrial and Modern age wars.

At the begenning of the industrial age, Riflemen suddnely make a great deal of units obsolete and is the first unit that shows the signs that charging on cities will not work. One of my games I sent 10 Vetrean Riflemen into a city with 1 regular rifleman, I lost 7 of those riflemen and the 8th one was in the red. This can be irritating and can get people to say " this is bull@#$%, " but in reality this is extremely accurate because at this point its trench warfare, not open fields where you can send thousands against a few and still lose because of defenses.

But what can be used against these kind of defenses? Cavalry are ok against Riflemen, but still have issues. When you get infantry, it gets much worse and only the tank will be able to defeat the Infantry regularly. The key for wars may be different, but most of the time it is for pure expansion. if that is the case, there are much better ways to wage a WW1 style war. Artillery pieces become probably your best tool, if not cavalry. Artillery can fire on roads and key recources while cavalry can rush past lines, pillaging all they see. Your opponent may see this and kill your cavalry and artillery despite guards, but these blows are worse and can get a country bankrupt really fast if used effectively. I played a game in the modern age when i stormed a enemy city with tanks(I had no cities nearby, i was passing through allied territory), only to load it with paratroopers and land all across theyre land (I had helicopters to lift them). Once helicopters are in the war and you have stormed an enemy city, you will have the upper hand by taking the opponents economy while yours is probably unthreatened.

While wars can be controlled through these quick attacks and pillages on the enemy's economy, you still wont prove your point to the AI, (in play the world, I expect that a human player would want to surrender if they saw their economy sent straight to @#$%). How do you prove your point and take the " impenetrable " cities? Artillery and Air Raids are this answer, although air is a bit less effective for it (better for pillaging), they still help take enemy HP down then you can make a frontal attack while they are weak.

As far as the navy is concerned, you probably wont have mass naval battles, and the ones you come across wont be against fortified bases, so you can ultimately prevail/lose a sea war, which can be a key for the war. on cross-continent wars the sea is the most important area of war. Your goal is to guard every transport you have going to the enemy shores, and to harrass enemy shores.

On cross-continent invasions lots of people land theyre men as soon as they get there...BAD. you should wait until lyour whole force is collected for you to make a strike on an opponents shore, a quick landing can lead to bieng surrounded, your goals for the assault are to secure at least 1 city where you can ship in forces by loading it with units, then when resistance is gone, force building an airport, form there your true invasion can begin...

Perhaps these quick tips can help some people in their quest to become a master of modern warfare in civ 3.

Tank Warfare and the Blitzkrieg:

I decided, since i havent really covered tank warfare in the article i wrote, i decided to write a few notes on it.

For one, once tanks enter the picture, technology has handed you the counter to infantry (it took them long enough...) and you can now break out of the WW1 style trench wars, and go to the mobile, WW2 style warfare. ' Blitzkrieg ' may be the first thing that occurs to you when you have just gotten your panzers/Tanks, and you are in a war. the keyts for it are not a mass-attack, but an armor push with heavy bomber support and infantry coming to fill those cities you take. Modern armors are basically the same, except you have jet fighters and mech infantry by now, ready to use the tactics of blitzkrieg, (just dont forget about the paratroopers!!!).:soldier: :tank: :ar15:

I voted other.

The most frustrating thing for me is the effect modern warefare has on democracy. Communism while good for constant warmogering is not a good option for a tech based victory.

This doesn't include the hassle of anarchy for non-religious civs.

Cav vs Rifleman requires cannon for large cities.

I tend to use the period between Infantry and Tanks to consolidate.

I voted other : 'Its not frustrating because modern warfare doesn't exist' :D

I try not to be in the situation of needing a modern war at all (far too messy and long). The only time I ever make it to the modern age is a culture or spaceship victory, and the only wars I have are defensive.

If you want to fight, why do it at a time when you are going to lose huge numbers of troops? Answer: for fun, so why worry about fancy configurations of units, just build a load and go kick ass :). And lets face it, if you are not in the position of being able to produce hundreds of units very quickly, what are you doing playing this game?

@phillip_martin:
your sig should read 'Computers always start counting from zero, except when mico$oft sticks it's claws in'

A Victim's tactic for Modern Warfare

What frustrates me is that I am usually lagging behind in technology and thus keep up only a moderate military size for defense purposes. Now, my oponent neighbours are usually busy with themselves and as long as they are banging somebody else's head I try to stay allied with them and keep up trade relations :) then comez the time when their greedy eyes fall upon me... and then it is crucial to have a backup plan...

----------------
Only that I didn't have one- I was a weak and technologically backward Monarchy with WWI Infantry and only a handfull of (modded) WWI tanks facing modern armor, paratroopers and marines...
Worst than this contrast in power was the geographic issue- the enemy had expanded around me until virtually encircling me with his cities.

If I had not realised his true intensions early enough (2 rounds) I would not have stood a chance- I had to draft everything I could in every possible city- some 20 something (so that was about 80 units in two rounds plus all projects started within these rounds) to stop the initial brunt of the attack. After these two rounds my population was depleted, my resources were cut and my production dwelling somewhere below the floor level.

Well, I survived :cool: in fact after 26 turns I was able to dictate a peace deal ;) forget trying to hold cities- it won't work, especially not with conscripts- if you lose a city lose it- try to make the AI engage you on the field in rough terrain- mountains and fortesses on hills- give your troop-stacks one or two veteran modern units, the rest should be conscripts. Save these veterans from direct enemy attack even if you should loose a couple of conscripts in their defense- your army will gain more and more experience and the AI will either avoid attacking a dugg-in military formation, or in the end bleed to death trying to take out your troops.

Do never gather all your veteran troops in one stack- they will eventually be wiped out in a few attacks- try to spread your professional army evenly throughout the front(s) as the strong arm of conscript armies. Dig in and counterattack only to mop up damaged, valuable enemy units in immediate reach- this will give your conscripts experience- and buy you time.

Always keep a rapid response force ready to reinforce your positions. It is therefor crucial to prevent the enemy to destroy vital road/rail connections- keep those open for counterattacks (I am saying this because many players opt for destroying these in order to slow down the enemy assault- this does not help because the idea is to let the enemy bleed to death before your fortifications- NOT to slow down the carnage- stay in control, keep the initiative).

Now repeat after me: I refuse to be a victim ;)

Mass Production is the key for any major war. :soldier: :soldier: :soldier: :soldier: :soldier: :soldier: :soldier: :soldier: :soldier: :soldier:

one of my zulu games i controlled a huge continent in the modern age after killing 3 civs. I had 150 units as a democracy for peace time, then i had a war. At the end of the war 20 turns later, i had close to 500 units. can you say mass production?

:tank: :tank: :tank: :tank: :tank:

Originally posted by Lynx
one of my zulu games i controlled a huge continent in the modern age after killing 3 civs. I had 150 units as a democracy for peace time, then i had a war. At the end of the war 20 turns later, i had close to 500 units. can you say mass production?

:tank: :tank: :tank: :tank: :tank:

What level do you play on, and do you try to finish quickly or do you like to have large battles?

The reason I ask is that I still think this kind of warfare (overwhelming odds against the AI in the modern age) is for people who like large battles, not people who want to win quickly.

I agree that production is very important in any ongoing campaign, but is this a means to an end, or is it fighting for fun?

I think you (and others) should be clearer in your posts as people may get the impression that civ3 is about building an army 10 times the size of the AI and then going to war. This is only a tiny aspect of what civ3 can be.

<RANT>
Lynx,

You forget what the game designers were trying to capture when they set the a/d/m for the Rifleman and Infantry: think of the US civil war and WWI.

Infantry vs Infantry combat is always going to be bloody. Even with tanks in WWI, it took a profound change in strategy and tactics to overcome the power of the machine gun. I'm proud to say that modern combined arms doctrine owes much to the Canadians who took Vimy Ridge in WWI.

At Vimy, the Canadian Artillery was aided by science in the form of physicists from the Univeristy of Toronto who were able to develope sound ranging technology and accurately located all the German guns within range of the ridge. They had miners who tunneled under the German positions where they set off explosions second only to the blast in Halifax harbour. The troops conducted nightly patrols to ascertain the actual enemy strengths and locations (hence a Zone of Control). And they practiced their jobs in division sized units so that everyone knew their job cold.

The results: about a 1000 casualties taking an entrenched and fortified position that the year before had cost the French 600,000 casualties.

While Civ3 can't reproduce this level of detail, it is justification for the miserable results you get if you use Riflemen or Infantry for offensive operations. Not everyone prepares for battle in an effective manner.

Without tanks (who are a little underpowered IMO) you have no way to break a well prepared defense. Even air power is useless since it is even weaker than artillery. A single modern aircraft can put more HE on target than a battery of 8" howitzers from WWI, with more accuracy than you can imagine. What is needed are more advances and more units to differentiate the rapid pace of change in the last century. A MkVII British WWI tank would not last 5 minutes against any WWII tank, and any WWII tank wouldn't last 60 seconds after being spotted by any modern tank.

Civ3's combat model does a great injustice to the wargame aspect of modern warfare, making it too simplistic and unrealistic: imagine having a stack of 120 MA attacking. Not enough room to fit that many vehicles even parked end to end in a square...

</RANT>

D.

I voted other. The attrition rate when taking cities always blows my mind. You can lose four units to a conscript rifleman (who will be elite by the time you kill him).

Sutan,

That is the whole point: house to house fighting is bad news for the infantry that have to do it.

The fighting in Hue, Vietnam during the 67 Tet Offensive is a good example. You have to almost level the place since an enemy can setup up a series of ambushes that will only kill or wound a couple of the attackers while allowing the enemy to fall back to their next position.

Armoured units fare even worse: the Germans lost almost a full division worth of tanks when they tried to roll through a Polish city during Sept 39 offensive. A single molotov cocktail is enough to stop even newer tanks like the M1. Especially if you get one on the air intakes for the engine. Older tanks were even more suseptable to fire.

Allowing a 100% defensive bonus for units in a Metropolis is meant to represent this. So only loosing 4 units to a lowly rifleman is not unexpected in Civ3.

D.

Well, gen.dragolen (welcome to CFC by the way), I know it might be realistic, but the poll was about what was most frustrating. That is very frustrating to me. In game mechanics I expect a tank to roll over anything shy of infantry, not to risk being lost by a conscript rifleman or worse units...

SB,

I would be careful what you wish for. I already consider Tanks (and even more so Modern Armour) a powerful offensive unit. They should not be all conquering for two reasons:
1. The unpredictabality of CIV is what keeps us trying one more turn, and
2. Every game would be a tech race to that unit - boring.

Yes, that 20% chance of defeat by your Vet Tank against a Fortified in Town Reg Rifleman can be frustrating, but this IMHO is what makes the game fun.

Sultan,

Glad to be here.

It would be a simple thing if they could always win over anything short of Infantry (WW2 vintage with anti tank weapons) but again, terrain tells you what they can do in real life.

There are courses for command grade officers in their respective militaries that deal with what kinds of troops you can use where and when. A good example was in Somalia: the US should have send in tanks instead of helicopters when they wanted to capture Aidid (can't remember the correct spelling). In Mogadishu, the buildings were mostly brick, and the opposition was militia with small arms and RPG's. An M1 can laugh off an RPG round and has sufficient MG's to clear a path through a crowd.

If you were try the same thing in a place like Baghdad, where the buildings are mostly concrete, you would wind up facing impassible road blocks and a much better armed opposition who would have anti tank weapons sited in tall buildings.

In game terms, what we could use are more modern units that represent the improvements made since WWII in armour and infantry. A German Tiger tank would be an easy meal for any modern MBT, and WWII Mechanized Infantry, like Panzer Grenadiers would be chewed to pieces by an M1 Abrams MBT. I have been testing mods that better reflect the impact of technological differences on combat and they still allows for older units to defeat the latest and greatest Consider this: the greatest change to modern warfare has been the invention of the machine gun. It took almost 50 years from the time it was introduced (Gatling's gun) to when it was countered by the first tanks.

You should try some of the mods out there and see if they better suit your understanding of how the game should play.

D.

A good idea is too use mobilization as a pre war build up option. Once you declare war your out of mobilization

Gen.dragolen,
I know full well that Infantry trench warfare/Rattenkreig is bloody and is always seen with heavy loss. WW1 was an absolute slaughter as nearly every major nation involved lost at least a Million men. Of course WW2 was much worse with the arrival of Blitzkreig and soon enough Rattenkreig (War of the Rats, Stalingrad is a good example). And i know full well what they were trying to make and i wrote in my original post here if you read it carefully.

anarres,
I like massive wars, I like the scale of " the war to end all wars " as I greatly like modern wars, and like to fight these interminably long wars that take 100 civ3 years on that scale only because I enjoy it. So mass production for such a war in essential if not absolutely neccesary.

:D

@Lynx:
Wow! That post was 19 days ago.

Yeah - if you just wanna big fight the bigger the nubers the better. :)

I think the most frustratiing (if you're not careful) is a more political one. MPPs. The friend of your friend can quickly become your enemy, and your friend [could become your enemy] too.

I wasnt on for a few weeks, and I totally agree that political problems are almost equal to the military problems.

hehe...

I dont really have problems in modern warfare since i kill off my opponents very quickly and by the modern era my production levels are so high that its never a problem. Its still a pretty good guide.

Lynx,

How far did you get playing BG?

I've just reloaded it and am having fun remembering where all the bad guys are, and them wiping them out with massed missle weapons. Maked for a nice break from the frustration of trying to take over the world each night...

D.

You gotta make it that far first.

Lynx has been on vacation for 2 days. Im not usre what your talking about, but if its Baldur's Gate.... Then thats really cool and Interesting. If its not, what are you talking about, i might be able to answer it, but Im going on my vacation tommorow.

The biggest frustration is the lack of true differences among the units. Basically what it boils down to is making the best unit, because there is no reward or punishment for using a mix of units. There needs to be a greater range of abilities that units can possess. A/D/M is not enough to approach a good combat system.

Why build Aegis if no one is going to build those invisible submarines?

Nuke subs stink in Civ unless you're going to use them to launch nukes.

Where is the air to air advantage that Aegis is supposed to have otherwise why call it an Aegis?

All modern war ships travel at 30+ knots, including battleships and carriers. The sailing ships traveled at half that how come battleships and carriers only move one movement point faster than that? The fix is charge the big ships an extra point of movement for changing directions.

Give submarines a shoot and retreat function. Something like sub artillery where they can hit you but not sink you unless they engage you in regular combat.

Laser,

This is what modding is all about. Pick one of the mods out there and give it a try. Scipio's Realism Mod is a good start, or Player1's.

I too have been tinkering and yes, there is no differentiation between modern units, so I have been busily adding all the created units I can find in the Unit Library. It's a lot of work if you go to do it up right, with sounds and all, but it's worth it to see actual German Pnz IV's locking horns with Russian T-34's.

If you like naval units best, do some research and checkout the units that have been created so far and see if you can make a better balance between movenent, firepower and abilities.

After all, it was the difference in designs that allowed the Bismark to sink the Hood in WWII: the Hood was a WWI design, when the naval guns were all low trajectory, and you didn't need thick deck plating just really thick side armour, where as the Bismark's guns were high trajectory and it's rounds came down ontop of the deck instead of hitting the side of the Hood where it was designed to take the hits.

The only problem we face is that the combat system in the game doesn't make much of an allowance for the effect of improved technology in modern warfare...


D.

gen dragolen

There is one major problem with modding though, there is no set standard :( . I want to play the exact game that everyone else is playing. That is one reason I rant and rave and *itch and moan :mad: about what Civ needs to do to improve itself.

(I'm assuming that is one reason GOTM was started to test everyone's Civ skill against each other.)

It is a pain in my left *ss cheek :cry: when whomever :king: makes the decisions about Civ makes sh**ty *ss decisions and truly screw up what we do for hours on end. I could be doing something else :confused: with my time but instead I'd like to play a nice game of Civ one day and not think how much better the game can be because Civ2 does this better or SMAC did this better.

Civ is not a pure strategy. Civ is not a pure simulation (it is a cool hybrid of the two) and I wouldn't want it to be a sim, but if you make a game with history as the theme please break as few eggs as possible :eek:! It would price a lot of people out of the market to buy Civ, but I would easily pay $100 to $150 for Civ if it was everything WE wanted.

I've definitely already many times over gotten my money's worth out of the Civ series and Civ3. To whomever owns Civ don't make promises you can't keep, it is bad for business :nono:.

So, is there a standard Mod that everyone is playing that I'm not aware of??? I don't want to play Civ/PTW unless it is GOTM only. Otherwise it will just be a disappointment waiting to happen :aargh:.

I agree that civ 3 seems to cut down the power of modern aged units as far as movement in concerned. When did cavalry be able to outrun armored attack veicles. sure, it may have great speed and manuverability, but thats an animal, not a machine. the battleships are the same situation.

I voted bombing runs. Bombers simply are not powerful enough compared to artillery, and as a result are good for little more than taking out strategic resources.

I end up pounding cities with bombers, trashing their buildings and people, but leaving the defenders mostly unharmed. Eventually I get them down enough, but it's takes too much. Fighters are very quickly upgraded to jetfighters, but bombers stay their weak little selves until way too late (my wars are over by the time I get to stealth).

I would have preferred a 'Modern Bomber' or some such equivalent, maybe with the advent of the laser, with a 12 bombard.

I voted other. The worst problem of Modern Warfare is the War Weariness. Other than that its when youre facing german panzers

I think bombing runs could be improved but overall taking the scope of the game into consideration, it works for me!!

The real problem is infantry until you have tanks... they are really frustrating.

Tarwoch,

They are supposed to be. Infantry have machine guns, riflemen don´t.

What drives me nuts are combat results that are so far off the average that when you work them out, you´d think the AI just won the Powerball lottery. And they do it many, many, many times...

Even with tanks, they are under-rated for defensive strength. Especially against units like Cavalry.

Tanks have machineguns, and HE rounds, which make flesh and bone bleed and break. I don´t care how good a unit´s morale is: lances and sabres are useless against 600 rpm out of any decent machine gun protected by armour.

In one of the mods I was working on, tanks and mechanized infantry were about twice as powerful as they are in the vanilla PTW. Add in some more hit points and you see how a technological edge becomes your top priority, so you can blitzkrieg your way through all opposition.

Firaxis has admitted that they didn´t do much play testing past the Middle Ages before releasing the game, and it still shows.

A critical part of modern warfare is counterbattery artillery: all it would take is for an artillery unit flagged as fortified to be given the ability to give counterbattery fire when enemy artillery opens up on it. THe main change would be to make artillery a normal unit with hit points. That way, you could silence the enemy guns by doing a direct attack instead of bombardment. It always seemed kind of silly that you could capture enemy guns...

I´ll have to try that out when I get home from work tonight. If it works and if the AI can manage it, I´ll post the .bix file.

D.

I voted other, I hate the sea battles. at the bgining of the game i might only build a few trasports. Then the enemy comes in with like 20 ships and they bombard me and all of that

Thw 2 thing that really irritates me with modern combat (and combat in general) is:

1) The randomness
The random number generator seems to favour the AIs, and not by a small bit either. I did a test on it some time ago, cavalry vs cavalry in jungle. When my cav was attacking, it was lucky to get 1 damage done, when the AI was attacking it was unlucky to suffer 1 damage.

Also, a spearman shouldn't have any chance at all of stopping a modern armor, not even hurt it, yet this is not uncommon.

2) Movement
Railroad is too powerfull, especially on larger maps. If you can shift your entire force around, effectively flanking an enemy without railroads, then you will always have the upper hand. It also makes ships obsolete except for intra-island transit, or in certain special cases such as premoving to another part, skipping enemy territory etc.

Ship movement, especially the later ships, are simply too slow. A galley should not be able to keep up with a sub.

3) Airpower
Airplanes have too low range, their advantage over artillery has always been striking range at the cost of less efficiency. The ideal would be some sort of attack helicopter, that would have lethal ground capability and ignore most terrain bonus and actually gaining bonus from hill/mountain (due to hiding in the contours).

I voted "other"... my problem with modern warfare is that I almost never have it. The game usualy is over by the late second age. Not that I win, but I'm pretty sure wether I'll win or loose and quit due to lack of intrest (and sleep...)

But sure, modern warfare (from riflemen to tanks) should be slow! If I could make a wish, I'd weaken Cav or strengthen Riflemen (especially their attack...) or make Cav more expensice & riflemen/Infantry cheaper. Because they did dominate and were very hard to beat.

If you dont have modern warfare, just pick a fight and start a war. In fact, I ALWAYS in some form am the cause of starting the great wars... and i end them too.

Personallly i hope they add new units foir conquest that can let the player gain alot of good units and have it neccesary to have combined arms.

so do I, its all about the mass MA's these days...

yeah, i would want to rid civ3 of that.

do you think they will do it in conquests? give a need for combined arms?

I doubt it, but methinks ill find it soon.