Are there any mods available for download that make combat more realistic with regards to modern units vs. ancient units? This is the single most annoying feature of Civ 3 and it puts me off the game entirely. I remember the first game I played, I was well ahead in the technology race when I went to war with another race. I expected to wipe the floor with them and was shocked when my tanks started losing battles they should have easily won. I even had a mechanised infantry lose to a warrior who was guarding a town.

I tried another game the other day. In two different battles I have had riflemen lose to spearman. One was in a city but the other was standing outside my city on open grassland. I stopped playing at that point.

What really irritates me is that Firaxis promised that Civ 3 would not have the same problem of ancient units beating modern units.

HW,

Patience. They have promised some changes with the Conquest expansion. And yes combat is very much in favour of the AI Civs. The 1 in 100 chance occurences happen about 1 in 10 to 1 in 5 in most of the games I've played.

But then there is an editor and you have carte blanche to mod to your heart's content.


D.

Great, so once again we have to pay for a patch that should have come with the original game. Any suggestions on modding the units with the editor? I was thinking of muliplying the attack, defense and movement value by the era number.

You could also give more modern units more hitpoints (something like +1 for gunpowder (late medieval) units, +2 for industrial units and +4 for modern units), so that they will be harder for less up-to-date units to kill.

I tried my original idea of multiplying attack,defense and movement by the era number and it seems to be working quite well.

I couldn't see an option in the editor to add hit points though, I think they only get added as the unit levels up.

Originally posted by gen.dragolen
And yes combat is very much in favour of the AI Civs. The 1 in 100 chance occurences happen about 1 in 10 to 1 in 5 in most of the games I've played

Not in my experience. Combats in the long wrong pretty much match the posted probabilities.


They have promised some changes with the Conquest expansion.


Jeff, from Atari, said they jumped the gun when they said there would be a change to the combat system.

Holywhippet
I tried another game the other day. In two different battles I have had riflemen lose to spearman. One was in a city but the other was standing outside my city on open grassland. I stopped playing at that point.



A rifleman has a relatively low attack as it is a defensive unit, I would expect it to lose a lot of times against a spearman (especially fortified in a city). Outside the spearman should win the fight 25% of the time. The one fortified in the city should win about 50% of the time. (These are assuming regular spearmen, veterans would have a greater chance).


What really irritates me is that Firaxis promised that Civ 3 would not have the same problem of ancient units beating modern units.


Where did you see this promise? On the contrary, they have said publicly that helping Civs that are behind the tech or research power curve was a priority.


Great, so once again we have to pay for a patch that should have come with the original game.


They gave you the editor. Use it if you disagree with their rules.

No matter what rules they put in they can't make everyone happy. I am personally overjoyed when I can pull a win out from behind the power curve using lower tech units.

The suggestion of raising hitpoints works well (if you have PTW). Even one point per era makes a big difference.