Wow.. the odds..

Cannibal Corpse said:

Lol dude, understand the fact this should be an instant win, I'm trying to explain this game is illogical, why should i waste my time, when logically and assuming my tanks should win against archers

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think of it this way:

a battle as depicted on screen is actually a war which lasts anything frm a year to 10 or 20 years. Given that a battle lasting those lengths wouldn't be fought head on then one can assume that archers, using ingenuity and geurilla tactics, could actually take out the tank army. They could ambush the soldiers using the tanks at night. They could disable the tanks or even, at a stretch, poison the soldiers food.

You have to see what you see as a condensed representation of a bigger picture, and so yes, it is possible for archers or pikemen to kill mechanised units this way.






if you didn't, you'd go insane with frustration

Cannibal Corpse said:

Just had a 45 Attack Tank Army lose to fortified Archers at 37.5.. this game has some insanely ******ed moments..

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Well, I had the worst yesterday. Playing with England, with 3 cruisers give in me naval support, England receive double support in Modern Era, and I was attacking with an army of tank with Infiltration and Great General. I was stopped by a army of Riflemen with odds at least 4:1. because I was able to destroy fortifications twice before attacking. Ridiculous. It was around 96:21.
To be honest, after that happen I was so pissed that I quit even with the Game complete under my control, two other civilizations destroyed. Sometimes is way to weird the way a battle develop.

Endure said:

Your first idea is just plain wrong. It would make obsolete units worthless and make the germans (automatic upgrades for elites) and leo's workshop even more powerful. As it stands now, obsolete units remain useful as it stands now and it is as it should be for game balance.

For your second point, there's plenty of people today who participate in archery who could get a grenade, or a molotov cocktail, if they so chose.

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Im sorry im trying to make the game realistic. When England knew how to make guns effectivly, they didn't use archers. I didn't see in the vietnam war, old civil war soldiers coming in to battle

civoholic said:

Im sorry im trying to make the game realistic. When England knew how to make guns effectivly, they didn't use archers. I didn't see in the vietnam war, old civil war soldiers coming in to battle

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And when the europeans where fighting to colonize parts of Africa against the natives, there's times with "modern" armies with guns were defeated by tribesmen throwing spears or using bows and arrows.

It certainly wasn't the expected outcome going into the battle, but it did happen occasionally. It's very frustrating when it happens in the game I agree, but it does happen and it's part of the game for the sake of balance.

Endure said:

And when the europeans where fighting to colonize parts of Africa against the natives, there's times with "modern" armies with guns were defeated by tribesmen throwing spears or using bows and arrows.

It certainly wasn't the expected outcome going into the battle, but it did happen occasionally. It's very frustrating when it happens in the game I agree, but it does happen and it's part of the game for the sake of balance.

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didn't the native indians kick what's his names hide?

and i'm sure not every battle the colonial empires had in africa were won by the gunpowder brigade, even if the wars were

frank_littleff said:

didn't the native indians kick what's his names hide?

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Custer's Last Stand? (not sure if that's what you were referring to.)

Killer Moogle said:

Custer's Last Stand? (not sure if that's what you were referring to.)

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yes, thank you, my mind drew a blank

civoholic said:

Im sorry im trying to make the game realistic. When England knew how to make guns effectivly, they didn't use archers. I didn't see in the vietnam war, old civil war soldiers coming in to battle

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if this game was suppose to be 100% about realism, throwing balance and fun to the wind, it would have been made by the history channel, not Firaxis.

CharlieM said:

I sent nine spies across the sea yesterday to take on the English. They were on a Cruiser fleet, I think it was. 18/12, I think. Expected it to be safe (I should have protected it more, I know). Ran into an English fleet with the same numbers, I think it was. I decided to cheat at this point .... I saved the game with the intention of re-doing the battle if I lost. I lost a battle I had an 18-12 advantage on. That's fine--sixty percent odds are not 100 percent.

I re-loaded a save. I lost. I re-loaded the save. I lost. I re-loaded the save. I lost. I did this TEN TIMES before giving up and just running away from the sea battle.

In Civ IV, there was an Options setting where you could re-set the "odds machine" if you re-loaded the game, instead of just getting the same result over and over. Wonder if that exists in this game.

Addendum: The reason I "cheated" was because I knew this could be the turning point of the game. My 9 spies (three x 3) landed in England, and stole a total of about 1,400 gold. It was the key in my Economic victory!

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Thats a terrible reason to cheat. Whats the point if winning is so important that you have to make sure you cheat to get it.

dennis580 said:

Thats a terrible reason to cheat. Whats the point if winning is so important that you have to make sure you cheat to get it.

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Ummm, because winning is fun. And losing is not as fun. And I sensed that was the make-or-break moment of the game.

I hope to not need to resort to such tactics as I get better at the game. I am sorry if you don't see the point, but I do.

CharlieM said:

Ummm, because winning is fun. And losing is not as fun. And I sensed that was the make-or-break moment of the game.

I hope to not need to resort to such tactics as I get better at the game. I am sorry if you don't see the point, but I do.

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You will be better at the game by learning to win a losing (weak) position. This game isn't really all that challenging except when things turn badly in the beginning of the game.
I know you can play it any way you want but you are cheating yourself of playing probably the most interesting games while you're still learning. Once you learn the game well you realize just how easy it is to cream the AI.
I recommend you try the "game of the week" where you can't save.

I'm not enjoying this game at all, because of the odd logic which is employed in the above examples, additionally...

1). How can one have Tanks before gunpowder, I have tanks and it then says I can now make cannons, huh?, what kind of logic is that?.
1a). I have Cruisers and it asks me if I want Galleons, huh ?....
2). Archer units with different Civ's have different powers, why?.
3). Tanks shoot down planes, wtf...(although that's fun).
4). I had 4 archer armies in my city for defence, and it mysteriously gets over run by one pike army, huh?....
5). I had several archer armies on a perimeter on hills guarding my city, peace was made with neighbour and my defending archer armies vanished, huh?...
6). The map zoom out is really crappola as one cannot zoom-out and pan without some serious roller coaster nauseating effects, and it doesn't really provide a decent overview of the surroundings. On more than one occasion I have had a city overrun because I couldn't locate the enemies city with that crappy zoom so that I could send my tanks over. I HATE THE MAP SCAN.....

I'm currently trying to get going at deity, and I'm two turns away from tossing this game....

I do my best to manage my city so that I can get some decent tech going asap, and next thing, bam I'm being hammered by a neighbour who has rifleman....wtf...how did he get there so quickly.....just doesn't seem logical and therein lies the issue for me, so much about this game is illogical that it's unplayable.
There's nothing which explains the little nuances of the tech's, like Archer units which can nail Tanks, how absurd is that, at least provide that information somewhere in civilpedia and yes I have RTFM.

as I said, two turns away from the trash can....

It's pretty funny how, in each iteration of Civilization, people still expect to win 100% of the fights where they have more than a 51% chance to win...

revcrap said:

I'm not enjoying this game at all....
I'm currently trying to get going at deity, and I'm two turns away from tossing this game....

I do my best to manage my city so that I can get some decent tech going asap, and next thing, bam I'm being hammered by a neighbour who has rifleman....wtf...how did he get there so quickly.....just doesn't seem logical and therein lies the issue for me, so much about this game is illogical that it's unplayable.
There's nothing which explains the little nuances of the tech's, like Archer units which can nail Tanks, how absurd is that, at least provide that information somewhere in civilpedia and yes I have RTFM.

as I said, two turns away from the trash can....

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revcrap,

Try playing a game on King or Warlord first. I think you'll find that you can pretty much destroy the AI opposition. Deity definitely tests your resouce managment and luck. Both my Deity victories were extremely fortunate circumstances.

nm ...................

I've been browsing for a while but I had to make an account and post about the excessive amount of whining going on.

I'm into realism as much as the next guy, but this game simply can't be played with any sense that your 'modern' military units are guaranteed a victory over inferior units, or you are going to be disappointed.

Just think about it... if tanks armies were instant wins when up against archers/pikemen/riflemen/knights/catapults/cannons/etc, the entire game would become a race to get tanks because first to research combustion wins the game. I don't know about you but that would get boring to me very quickly...


Rather than focusing on what your army looks like (whether the polygonal representations of your troops are holding bows and arrows or machine guns), instead worry about the numbers. This game is all about numbers, attack values, defense values, modifiers.

For what it's worth, this is the first Civ series game I've ever played, and I'm having a blast.

JJDM said:

This game is all about numbers, attack values, defence values, modifiers.

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Yes and my point is, these values which you so treasure are totally random and undocumented, so how the heck is one supposed to form any kind of strategy against a foe who always has the odds in his favour.

are you a Firaxis dev in disguise, trying to prop up the game...

revcrap said:

Yes and my point is, these values which you so treasure are totally random and undocumented, so how the heck is one supposed to form any kind of strategy against a foe who always has the odds in his favour.

are you a Firaxis dev in disguise, trying to prop the game up....

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They aren't random, it's probability, it's a dice roll. If you have 50 attack and the defense has 50 defense, you can expect to win that battle 50% of the time. That means you will lose 50% of the time.

Say you lose that battle. Your next army attacks with 50 attack, this doesn't mean that you are going to win because you lost the previous battle. It means you have another 50% chance of winning or losing. And you may lose again. And you may lose the next time too.

If you want to win consistently, you have to play the odds in your favour.

No I don't work for anybody, I just enjoy numerical strategy games and I felt obligated to post my opinion on historical accuracy making or breaking the fun factor of this game.

JJDM said:

If you want to win consistently, you have to play the odds in your favour.

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So where, pray tell, is this documented ?, and how exactly does one "play the odds" to ones favour, is this witchcraft, a hidden skill ?,

revcrap said:

So where, pray tell, is this documented ?, and how exactly does one "play the odds" to ones favour, is this witchcraft, a hidden skill ?,

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You know, you may have a point. The game behaves exactly as I expect it to from several years of playing civ games on and off but to a newcomer, the way the odds work with the combat system may not be obvious. If they don't explain it clearly in the manual or the 'pedia, they should. Right now, away from the game, I can't remember if they do.