After watching a M.A. lose to a fortified pikeman (across a river, metropolis, the M.A. got down to 1 hitpoint), I think it is time to re-introduce firepower.

In Civ2, I believe they had firepower numbers for each unit, which represented a technological level such that tanks wouldn't get beaten by pikemen. Tanks and other advanced units should not have difficulties with a pikeman.

Civ4 really needs a way to determine the technological power of a unit. Using only the A/D numbers seems insufficient. Some modifier to affect these A/D numbers when units of different tech levels interact.

mythinks that if you see too much of this, then you should move up a level.

i didnt like the idea of firepower in civ 2

it is possible to disable the tracks on a tank with nothing else than a large piece of metal,and a set of big hairy brass ones ;)

although not a very effective way to stop tanks :)

in a metro, you are fighting not so mucgh against the pikeman as the citizens throwing rocks/motov cocktails at you, sure the pikeman may be the only governmentsponsered opposition you'll face, but there is more than meets the eye

Pikeman are not a problem. It's the clever Spearmen that the modern armored troops have to watch out for! :D

You can´t take out a Modern Tank with a junk of metal or a molotov cocktail. These warmachines are very stable. There should be a bonus/malus when a certain unit fights a unit from a different age!

All it takes is to dig a hole. Or to pry open the hatch.

depend on what u mean by taking out,u can defenitly achieve mobility kill on a tank by lodging a large hunk of metal in the right spot(kind of hard to explain in english for me exactly where) in the tracks

it has been done,its not info im pulling outta my ass

after that,if u have them surrounded, all u have to do is to sit around and wait,the bastards inside will have to take a dump sooner or later ;)


a sniper can take out a tank,how?

be at the right place when the crew has to refuel,get food/ammo!!

im pretty sure u can make a mess of the optics on a tank with something heavy

human ingeniuty that gave birth to tanks in the first place,will continue to be the most feared weapon ever

not too long ago a few palestininans blew up a merkave tank with 50kg explosives,delivery system?

dude on foot,running!!


ps.there is a bonus when a pikeman 1.3.1
is fighting a unit from a diffrent age,MA 24.16.3

the MA has 24/1=24 times the attack value and 16/3=5.33 times the defence value

now thats what i call advantage!

Firepower and Independent hitpoints. Please explain to me how the calculations for attack and defence work in Civ 3, and also how they did in Civ 2.

I tend to agree with the orginal poster...though the reply about moving up levels is also true...on chieftan you do lose armor to guys with the tech-rating of the average side salad....but on 'sid'....its a little better, cuz you're the guy with the spearman hoping like heck he doesn't decide the afterlife will probably hurt a lot less than the next five minutes of his life facing the abrams...

its a popular hollywood myth/(insert your local mythmaker wherever you are) about a lone guy with a bucket and some mud taking out a tank...yeah it can be done...but in theory you can swallow charcoal and produce a diamond...possible and probably likely are 2 diff'rent things.

it is why rich countries invest in tanks rather than guys with pointy sticks.

I had addressed this in another thread but anyways here goes. The spearman facing the tank is not, I repeat, not using a spear. He is using relatively modern weapons, he just isn't trained with them. This is Civ's way of having the international weapons sales.

Consider Afghanistan: The Taliban probably had a tech equivalent to muskets. This did not mean that they could not fight. It meant that most of the weapons were inferior and that their realistic chances of victory were very small. Consider also, the Sioux, Iroquois, Apache, etc. They did not have the technology to produce firearms and yet Custer was literally outgunned at the battle of Little Bighorn.

Getting to the potential fix. Allow that each era change give a factor of 2 advantage to the higher unit, thus a swordsman vs spearman is 3 to 2, a Med. Inf. vs the spearman is 8 to 2.

In addition, one could allow an attacker to attack multiple targets at the same time, but in doing so the defender adds both his hp and defensive values for the entire combat. Thus, in a similar above case, the tank is 64 vs spearmen. If it attacks 3 spearmen at one time, then their combined defense is 6 with 9 hp. However, if tow infantry are hiding in the stack--oops! Also, disallow or reduce the chance of retreat of attacking forces when using this attack technique.

Sorry to post twice, but I had failed to mention that the factor of 2 alteration does, in fact, work. I have altered scenarios where I simply changed the attack and defense values and the combat was as the original poster was looking for. The reason to apply the 2 factor to the values is to allow the civilians and improvements to be able to have some survivability in the modern ages and some risk in the AA.

This is the main problem with simply increasing the combat values of later units. (...and also the reason that I do not alter the values as often as I used to. Boy! what a bloody mess to the cities I wreaked...)

well i didnt say it was an effective way to do it,but it was done during the soviet invasion of hungary(i think) or was checkoslovakia?


dont remember which eastern europe country it was, also done during the revolution in iran
although in both cases,the doers were angry crowds of demonstrators and the tank crews prolly decided not to open fire


modern tanks have at least 1 MG + airburst frag grenades on the back to take out infantry that is getting too close,however those r all 1 shot each and do run out

after that u would have to watch your ass,not get ran over by the tank

now,in a city enviorement,if u kill all the supporting infantry,an isolated tank is in deep doo doo

u can read about chechnya online somewhere as an example


ive actually never seen a lone guy take out a tank with a bucket of crap in a movie

i did see rambo take out an entire army in rambo3, but i havent watched hollywood movies much at all,since i turned 20,maybe 10 movies a year nowadays

hollywood = crap to 99.99%

if there is a myth out there,about a guy killing tanks with buckets, i have not heard it

btw,for a low-tech way of taking out tanks,i would recommend the road side bombs used in iraqs,the french underground first started using them against the nazis

a shaped charge,big enough,as in 50 kg +,will ruin yer ****,dosent matter if u r sitting in an abrams or not

by the time modern armour is around,ALL nations have discovered the benefits of explosives,as someone mentioned

I'm starting to love this thread...we'll get shut down soon for not being on topic...but it's fun while it lasts....

never saw a shape charged explosive stick before....

Ya gotta go back to the old 40's movies to see the myth creation of 1 guy without high-bang-bangs kill a tank, part of the homegaurd "don't worry about your boys" campaign....where mom's were told not to worry about Jr. being out in the field, they after all had...um..training, yeah yeah training....against a tiger tank...nuthin' can be better than um....training; and a bucket. It hadda be true the american government put their official okie dokie on it.

**This ad brought to you by the Coaliltion For I Don't Believe Nuthin' Which Comes Out Of A Committee & the Committee For Better Thought Control**

Originally posted by starrider
After watching a M.A. lose to a fortified pikeman (across a river, metropolis, the M.A. got down to 1 hitpoint), I think it is time to re-introduce firepower.

In Civ2, I believe they had firepower numbers for each unit, which represented a technological level such that tanks wouldn't get beaten by pikemen. Tanks and other advanced units should not have difficulties with a pikeman.

Civ4 really needs a way to determine the technological power of a unit. Using only the A/D numbers seems insufficient. Some modifier to affect these A/D numbers when units of different tech levels interact.

Go to the editor and increase the number of hitpoints of the M.A. That represents the technological level.

Why have ATT/DEF values AND firepower? Why not just up the values that already exist?

I never understood why both were needed...

QUOTE]Originally posted by micmc
never saw a shape charged explosive stick before.... [/QUOTE]


u lost me there

cant think of a way to place 50 kg (thats around 100 pounds btw) of explosives on a stick,or why i for that matter

godz n fishez I'm turning into one of them "you said this, so I gotta add that" guys...*shrug* there could be worse things I suppose.

the high explosive on a stick thing was responding to the idea the "spearman" represents a modern day wholestic civilian population fighting against modern armor....it meant only the spearman I've always taken as an old-fashioned counter (squad leader chits) that was a guy with a pointy stick......it meant it is what it is, not something classier or with more real-world alegory and assigning poetic meanings to explain why a spearman stands up to modern armor so often is only explaining away a game flaw.

to put more simply my "high explosive on a stick" was sarcasm that a spearman is a spearman, not representive of modern-people fighting with weapons at hand which they may or may not have in the first place.

uh hum...ok


not that bad an idea actually

uve seen those magnetic boob shaped "grenades" the germans made towards the end of ww2?

its like a shaped charge,u r supposed to run up to the ass of a tank and stick it there,then run like hell

i think some added range(stick) with a way to disengage the stick after u delivered it to the target(maybe breaking off the stick!) would make the whole system more efficient

althought again,not a very good way to kill tanks



check this for some info on the few abrams taken out in iraq:

http://pub131.ezboard.com/fjpspanzersfrm26.showMessageRange?topicID=365.topi c&start=1&stop=20

ps.i never said u can damage a tank with a spear,but u can make the tracks break if u lodge a whatucallem? steel beams?

the kind u use for building,but u would have to cut one side so it becomes pointy,so u can stick it in there,dosent have to be sharp,but pointy enough so u can get it in there

Lots of ways to successfully defend a city.

Why bother getting close to the tank with your bombs when you can:

-Stick them on a wall and explode that onto the tank
-Wait till the crew is sleeping and then stick a charge on it
-Blast it with an RPG (available in most black markets for the reasonable price of $5k or less) in the rear section between the turrent and the body
-Set up a booby trapped explosive in the street and draw the tank on top of it
-Ram the tank with a car filled with explosives (not recommended for those who like living, but then who says attacking a tank is safe?)
-Small arms fire. It is impressive what concentrated small arms fire can do to less armored sections of the tank, like the various ventilation ducts and all the optical equipment

Literally thousands of ways to take out a tank in a city. The things are pretty worthless there without plenty of infantry support, as they are designed for open country warfare... where they are still rather vulnerable. Infantry is the true power in warfare, which is why it is ridiculous that tanks have such a high defensive power.

There should be some way to join two units together to create a more effective one... like

Artillery+Infantry= Heavy Assault Unit
Infantry+Tank=Supported Armour

It would be nice to be able to customize/combign in-game.

We should start a new thread for this. I could talk/type for hours on guerrilla warfare... I am something of an addict, which is why it depresses me that CIV lacks any form of support for it.

Originally posted by rcoutme
Consider Afghanistan: The Taliban probably had a tech equivalent to muskets. This did not mean that they could not fight. It meant that most of the weapons were inferior and that their realistic chances of victory were very small. Consider also, the Sioux, Iroquois, Apache, etc. They did not have the technology to produce firearms and yet Custer was literally outgunned at the battle of Little Bighorn.

Well just to be fair I think it's worth pointing out that the Taliban uses automatic rifles such as the AK-47/AK-74 with regularity. It's not like they're attacking coalition tanks with rocks or anything. I mean you can get an automatic rifle black market for probably several hundred dollars US.

And as far as the Indians go, the battle of Little Bighorn was an exception rather than the rule. You have to realize that Custer and his troops were a) trapped in a maze of ravines and b) outnumbered 3 to 1 in that battle. That was pretty much a disaster and a fluke. I think the real test of the technology of the indians is where it got them. They were all wiped out, not just in North America, but Cortez and his men pretty much flushed out central america as well. If the technology of the indians could hold up against modern firearms, then they'd still be around, and I'm sure there would be more than one example of a battle that they won in the 200 year history of the indians in conflict with western europeans.

Actually, the native Americans did have lots of victories. As for South America, it was the imperialistic ways of the Incas that did them in. All of their so-called allies hated them and the Spanish basically started what amounted to a massive civil war with themselves directing the blows and reaping the benefits.

To answer the question of why both Attack and Firepower, as I stated in an earlier thread, citizens (and now roads, etc.) need to be vulnerable in the AA and survivable in the modern age. This will not work if the attack values alone are increased.

u can buy an old AK for 50$(not in US),although not new,and maybe not in gret shape,defenitly working,when u buy a large numer of them

the talibans didnt have technology compared to musketsm,afghani blacksmiths are known for they craftsmanship,once i saw a documentary about that,this one guy didnt even have an anvil,much less power tools,he put the rifles on the floor and banged on them,yet still he made beautiful boltactions,god know how he made the barrels

in their early wars with the english they even had better long rifles than the english

they lost the war due to american air supperiority,same thing in iraq

they had no industry

hell i remember 10 years ago or so,before the taliban took power,this afghani guy came to our school,he spoke about the condition of their country after the soviets,he said everything was bombed to dust

they had for example no building for their government,they had to keep meetings in tents!!


we had a theme day where we collected money for rebuilding of afghanistan

ps.another major factor that hurt indians bad was biological warfare

they died in droves from white mans cooties!!

and the whiteman didnt hesitate one second to use this as a weapon

god i hate custer and cortez,although the incas had some very very distasteful rituals...

but all those other indians i liked,too bad they all got murdered

boy we're goin' get killed for taking this waaaay off civ-mod topic...but *shrug* they can only kill us once...and most folks need more practice anyway.

Preface: I'm an old liberal...who also knows a little about history and socio's --ologies (all them pudding sciences which fight like girls for funding). With that said let me do some old fashioned conservative ranting...

yeah the white man..bad evil guy....all the ills of the world rest on his head and he brought nuthin' to nobody. well except a society(ies) which lets us have the time to examine history fairly...and learn. The white man is an evil bad guy...oh and one gentle enough to allow children to grow up thinking some religous rituals of another people are icky.

other topic....craftsmanship traditionaly has lain with the hands of the crafter not the tools they employ. meaning if the skill is there they will find a way to make it work. Up til about 150 years ago the tech-differences between people had nothing to do with warfare --as in killing people. It took "a man with a bayonet with some guts behind it" on all sides, where tech made a difference is in logistics; the ability to get your guys into the place where you wanted to grow cotton and some other guys had the bad fortune of raising their kids on the same property.

and the nice thing about the white man, his days are numbered in the states at least, give it a hundred years and everyone will be polyglut brown. not a bad thing, but it did mean the white guys in Little Rock who were fighting for their indingeonous rights, like other native people have done, were right and the civil rights movement was going to destroy their way of life.

Its not cooties put into blankets and given to starving freezing people, but words can kill as quick, and more deeply because when you revise history, you kill the memory of those who lost the fight.

We can not fight for a global ideal of equality, or at least fairness by damning any group

When tanks lose to spearmen I put it down to friendly fire, the result of carelessness that arises from facing such a weak enemy. It was even wierder in Civ2 when spearmen could shoot down stealth bombers.

rtdoplex: The Taliban even had Stinger missiles. That doesn't mean they could produce an AK-47, or a lightbulb.

I'd say the bottom line is, we're not talking about one tank vs 1 pikeman are we? I thought that one unit in the game is represented lots of tanks/pikemen. I think it's totally unfeasible that a legion of tanks (represented by 1 unit in the game) can be beating by a legion of men with pikes (represented by one unit in the game).

But then I've never seen it in RL so who knows... :crazyeye:

I think it's a good idea to bring back firepower, but then it's entirely unfair to civs that get bad starts without resources and behind in techs. If you control 80% of the land and have all the resources and come stomping over to the Zulu with your MAs, I think it's entirely fair that their Impis hav a small chance of taking you out. After all, even though people say this happens all the time, the real chance is probably about a quarter that of getting a MGL. After all, all it takes is the hatch open and a bucket of hot tar poured in and that tank's history.

But staying on the topic of firepower, tanks are not at all suited to fighting foot units, which is why the possibility of a Pike beating a MA is so real. The pikemen have the ability to dodge and run and sneak around and climb up on the tank, while all the tank has is a really big gun that takes a while to reload and maybe a chaingun. Tanks are designed to basically be mobile artillery that can defend themselves, and to be things that can stop other tanks. So I think firepower should be left out and more realism added.

Guerillas, for instance, should have a high probability to take down tanks due to their ability to coordinate and execute silent, accurate attacks. My uncle Jim, who was in Vietnam, told me that he heard a tale from his good friend in his battalion about a guy who's tank crew was murdered by a small group of Viet Cong who popped their hatch and dropped a grenade inside while the crew was sleeping.

[Justification Mode ON]The lesson is the same lesson learned by leader after leader since the advent of mechanized armor - they just don't perform well in urban combat situations! Any yokal with home-made weapons can be dangerous to that expensive tank once it enters a close combat situation and terrain that allows for constant ambush and encirclment opportunity. Best just to leave the tanks out in the open terrain where they can maneuver (eg, move quickly and hit the *non-fortified* spearmen from a position that does not include crosing rivers and attacking up a mountain!).[Justification Mode OFF] :lol:

Precisely. Take the disaster in Mogadishu in the late nineties. Anyone who's seen the movie or read the book Black Hawk Down will know that mechanized units have no chance against foot soldiers. The hordes of screaming Somalis with AK-47s butchered the convoy in Mog, and they should be able to do it in Civ.

I'd say the bottom line is, we're not talking about one tank vs 1 pikeman are we? I thought that one unit in the game is represented lots of tanks/pikemen. I think it's totally unfeasible that a legion of tanks (represented by 1 unit in the game) can be beating by a legion of men with pikes (represented by one unit in the game).

If you think about it one legion of tanks may consist of arround 30 tanks where as one legion of spear men may constist of 30,000 men, mabye the tanks just dont have enough ammo to mow them all down.

Didn't you guys see Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade?

If your enemy is weak enough to have never upgraded his pikemen or never moved beyond pikes when you're using MA, you can probably spare the one lost to extreme bad luck. You might also consider playing at a harder level where the AI is up to musketmen when you come at them with Abramses. The bottom line is that realism is second to playability, and if there were truly safe wars where you couldn't possibly lose a single unit, it would not be much of a game.

In Civ1 that spearman on the coast could sink a battleship and in Civ2 he could shoot down a stealth bomber. Now that was wierd.

:spear:

I Belive I have explained the whole Spearman/Tank issue:
Better yet, how about a "find out everything you think is real isn't" ending?

Computer: Wake up Ceaser.
Ceaser: Wha?
Computer: The matrix has you Ceaser....
Follow the white spearman.
-blip-
Ceaser: :confused:

That would finally explain this: :spear:

After all, it's a COMPUTER GAME. Anything could hapen....
:cool: You seem to be leading to lives mr Meier. In one, you are Sid Meier, president of Fraxis Games. In the other, you are Julius Ceaser, Emporer of Rome. One of these lives has a future, the other doesn't.
Ceaser: :confused: I don't follow.
:cool: Just hurry up and bug him.
Ceaser: :eek: OW MY ENTRAILS!

They (Firaxis) should give old units from older ages a new look and appearance when you was entering a new age. Make them look like guerilla fighters or an angry mob, but keep their old lozy combat stats! Perhaps that would satisfy some people on this thread.... ;)

But Yuri.

It's very important that you learn one thing.




There is no spear. :eek:

-E

But at the same time there is no tank....

Think about it....

:cooool: What, you mean I can dodge bullets?
:) When the time comes, You won't have to.



:ar15: - - - - - - - - *wooshingmatrixdodgeingefect* :cooool:

But at the same time there is no tank....

Think about it....



But that's exactly the problem! Two seconds ago there was a tank!

Look, realistically could an Abrams battalion achieve elite status and then produce a great leader by crushing spearmen? "Yeah, General Schwartzenagger not only destroyed the bushpeople uprising, but by running them over instead of shooting them he saved us ammo! I'm not one to toss around the word hero, but he's clearly the Military Great Leader of our Civ." So it all balances out.