Should probabilistic mortal combat return?

Alexey86

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Mar 6, 2014
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Especially if somehow limit stacks is implemented and more units are available in warfare then Civ5. Should probabilistic return as in one on one melee to the death like in Civ3. They do battle till one dies so no possibility to save that unit by retreating him to be healed. Horseman can retread when dieing again.

It will make the AI stronger again, also there could be some heavy promotions can lead to retreat or fail from enemy to finish the kill or hills, heavy terrain.

With this it wil decrease the chance of outsmarting the AI and make warfare more dangerous and the game harder because eventually you will loose lots of units in wars or a lot harder to face 2 nations at the same time.

I personally loved that a lot and the thrill when 2 same units face each other because you didnt know who would win or when an older unit makes a lucky blow. Only by special promotions, special terrain or unit UA the battle between 2 units does not end with a fatality, other then that someone always dies leaving the other with either full health or damaged leading other units to finish him(if limit stacking is a go then he could be protected or could even retreat depending on that unit).

Opinions?
 
I don't even know what its saying, but I like Jason Bateman.
 
What is a probabilistic return? A spearman that can defeat a tank?
 
So you want the days of 300 spartans roflstomping tanks everywhere back again? XD

It still can happen in civ 5. Although the last time I pulled off the spearmen vs tank and win was in vanilla civ 5 when hp system was still at ten hps for max. Many a roman tank units was frustrated by my landsknecht spam.

While it was funny defeating ww2 units using knight/pikeman formations with impunity, I don't really care much. I feel that I strongly prefer the current combat system where each battle isn't a fight to the death.
 
What is a probabilistic return? A spearman that can defeat a tank?

Civ5 is still a probabilistic combat system (that means that there's a probability of an outcome, but the exact result isn't certain). What he's talking about is a fight to the death. The original post did not do an adequate job of explaining why the own system was better and my recent memory comparing vanilla Civ5 to G&K (where it was much easier to die in the former) suggests the old system was not better.

The only suggested reason is the AI handled it better, but I don't think that's the case. It seems to me that a greater chance of surviving is something that works in the AI's favor because they're more likely to make dumb mistakes and not have effective reserve units.
 
What I would like to see is stack v. stack combat.

Ie one SOD attacks another SOD in one click and then a certain # of units are lost from both sides (and maybe some units damaged as well)
 
What I would like to see is stack v. stack combat.

Ie one SOD attacks another SOD in one click and then a certain # of units are lost from both sides (and maybe some units damaged as well)

Like a Paradox game, huh. Or a Total War game with battles set to auto-resolve.
 
What I would like to see is stack v. stack combat.

Ie one SOD attacks another SOD in one click and then a certain # of units are lost from both sides (and maybe some units damaged as well)

While I don't miss stacks at all, if they were to return, this is the best way to do it. 1upt is a more fun way to handle combat, but this method here at least gets it over with quickly.
 
What I would like to see is stack v. stack combat.

Ie one SOD attacks another SOD in one click and then a certain # of units are lost from both sides (and maybe some units damaged as well)

Isn't this kind of what we have now with the hit point system? Think of an individual Unit as a "stack" of 100 "units." If the Unit takes 17 points of damage, then 17 "units" in that "stack" died during the combat.

The only difference is, instead of having to manually create a stack of various units on our own, we're given a "stack" of 100 identical "units" when the Unit is built/bought/gifted and the "stack" can "reacquire/recruit" more "units" when it heals.
 
Isn't this kind of what we have now with the hit point system? Think of an individual Unit as a "stack" of 100 "units." If the Unit takes 17 points of damage, then 17 "units" in that "stack" died during the combat.

The only difference is, instead of having to manually create a stack of various units on our own, we're given a "stack" of 100 identical "units" when the Unit is built/bought/gifted and the "stack" can "reacquire/recruit" more "units" when it heals.

Well "healing" a stack would require building units (ie spending hammers to replace those lost)
That is a rather significant difference.
As is the ability to make a stack that is
1. more than 100 units
2. made up of different types of units
 
Sweet Jesus, no! I hate probabilistic chance-of-success-actions-with-great-risk in strategy games! I struggle with them in all Total War Games, Europa Universalis series, few other games, and now Civilisation - '99% chance of success! Oh, bad luck, you have just lost unit with 100 experience and also entire offensive is screwed' :p

I still have trauma after Medieval 2 and my Danish spy witch max experience and 86% chances of success who needed, seriously, 26 attempts to finally kill last enemy prince* (do I have to mention that previously he killed the entire royal family without any problems despite being less experienced? :p )

*- In my fury decided I'll rather die reloading this save than being screwed by ridiculous probability system :p
 
Isn't this kind of what we have now with the hit point system? Think of an individual Unit as a "stack" of 100 "units." If the Unit takes 17 points of damage, then 17 "units" in that "stack" died during the combat.

The only difference is, instead of having to manually create a stack of various units on our own, we're given a "stack" of 100 identical "units" when the Unit is built/bought/gifted and the "stack" can "reacquire/recruit" more "units" when it heals.

Presumably, the units in a stack would have synergy to a degree. All of one type would be at a disadvantage and the combination would matter. That "100 of the same unit that self-recruits and doesn't grow beyond that size" is a pretty big difference from a "Total War on auto-resolve" style.
 
Absolutely NO to a civ4 system! But may I suggest an alternative? A hybrid. As much as I enjoy 1upt, carpets of doom is a big turn down for me at combat at higher difficulties.

My suggestion :cool: -

Underlying combat same as civ5 (range units, 100hp etc., in a 1vs1 same as civ5). Add to that the following change to range units - attack strength diminishes as the attacked unit's health lowers (lower hp of a unit = less soldiers in the field > harder to hit!). This would address "precision killing" and keep ranged units in proper role, softening the enemy before "clashing" and/or "cleaning up".

Now to the hybrid... Battle ready stack of say 5 units. With max stacking 10, but receiving "logistics" penalty (range AND combat) of say 15% per unit above 5. Note: City limit could be 1-2 units.
Max stacking primarily used for, well logistics, moving army around, staying idle within borders etc. and "battle ready" for combat. This would create a nice scenarios of army being ambushed en route etc. Also more outside the city focused battles.

Ranged units attack the whole stack, the damage spreads across units within the stack. If a full health lone swordsman receives 10hp hit from a lone archer, in a 5 stack, all would receive 2hp hit. Now of course if 5 archers would attack, then consequently spread would be 10hp across the stack.

The composition of the 5 would have various effects. While a composition of 1 swordsman, 1 spearman, 1 horseman and 2 archers would seem like a decent stack to fend off any lone units, a stack of 5 swordsman managing to get close unhindered by range would deal great damage. While a stack of only archers could do great deal of range damage, a not so full melee stack (even 1-2 units) would all but annihilate it. While a stack of 2 swords and 3 catapults could take a city, in the field the four horsemen would take it apart etc.

OPTIONAL (Not decided yet): If a units strength is much higher than individual units within the stack ("one shot kill" one on one), say long swordsman attacking archer stack, combined hp could be taken into account, say resulting in "one shot two kill". Making GDR for example one shot annihilating whole stacks of inferior peasants, in turn forcing peasants to practice some sort of partisanish lone unit attacks instead of standing army face off.

Now before you say "Why not just make several stacks of each unit, 5 swords, 5 archers etc., and just use them just like lone units"... you absolutely could. :lol:

BUT... how much units do you raise for ancient - medieval combat? More than 2 stacks? I certainly don't. :)

The goal of my suggestion is adding fun on some basis of logic and at the same getting rid of logistics nightmare that civ5 is, without reverting back to boring combat of SoDs.

What do you think? Please comment. :)
 
Small stacks mean the same problems of carpets of doom without any of the tactical strategies. There's no attempts to flank to take out ranged units or anything like that because the ranged units are protected by defending units.

Small stacks is the worst of both worlds, not the best.
 
Small stacks mean the same problems of carpets of doom without any of the tactical strategies. There's no attempts to flank to take out ranged units or anything like that because the ranged units are protected by defending units.

Small stacks is the worst of both worlds, not the best.

Capacity hexes might work. Could be interesting and could encourage true combined arms.

Armor/Infantry on the same tile for city invasion stack, armor only stack for max speed.

Armor might cost 2 points, Infantry 1 point.

If you had a hex with 3 points capacity, you might still be 1UPTing units until some tech is unlocked to increase that capacity.

You'd never get to 100 units in a stack or the strange hodgepodge of units we used to put into a stack, but it would have the effect of 1UPT and stacking while effectively allowing players to mix and match units as needed. Some of the mechanics would be similar to how armies in Civ3 worked.

One thing I am unsure about is the impact this will have on AI, but I assume having 'ideal types of stacks' would work as the computer could be taught to understand rules like use 2 infantry 1 tank configuration for city attacks, only tanks when moving etc. and unlike armies the stacking is not permanent, but given how badly Firaxis botched armies in Civ3, It may be a programming challenge to get the AI to understand how to form these small 2-4 unit mini stacks with the right configuration of troops. Who knows.
 
Capacity hexes might work. Could be interesting and could encourage true combined arms.

Armor/Infantry on the same tile for city invasion stack, armor only stack for max speed.

Armor might cost 2 points, Infantry 1 point.

If you had a hex with 3 points capacity, you might still be 1UPTing units until some tech is unlocked to increase that capacity.

You'd never get to 100 units in a stack or the strange hodgepodge of units we used to put into a stack, but it would have the effect of 1UPT and stacking while effectively allowing players to mix and match units as needed. Some of the mechanics would be similar to how armies in Civ3 worked.

One thing I am unsure about is the impact this will have on AI, but I assume having 'ideal types of stacks' would work as the computer could be taught to understand rules like use 2 infantry 1 tank configuration for city attacks, only tanks when moving etc. and unlike armies the stacking is not permanent, but given how badly Firaxis botched armies in Civ3, It may be a programming challenge to get the AI to understand how to form these small 2-4 unit mini stacks with the right configuration of troops. Who knows.

Or create certain rules banning silly combinations like warrior, modern armor, archer. So that if the AI want to create an army like that, they have to refer to list of allowed units and then create from that.
 
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