Combat mechanics?

[Freddy Fear]

Sorry, wrong forum...



How is the combat mechanics working? I can't seem to figure out why I loose and what it takes for me to win. I loose alot.

I'm trying out Noble now in BtS, and that meens I suddenly need to do quite a bit more fighting then the easier levels where I could go for a science, cultural or some kind of friendly victory. I usually had stronger troops then my oponents, so I'm rarely attacked.

At Noble I get the understanding that I play with the same " means" as the oponents, but to me this doesn't seem to be the case.

Example: me: Saladin, neighbor: Joao. I saw him being able to seal me off early, so I start serie- producing tropps (Archers and Axemen), and kept doing this for the rest of the game. Still he is able to keep a stronger force than me constantly (we both had only Capital when this started). In addition he made 4-5 settlers, kept replacing the workers I killed while he still kept ahead of me in research, I was never below 80%. He established 5 other cities, 2 I managed to raze before he filled these with Archers and this didn't seem to hurt his maintenance in any way.

Then the combat: I attack his 20% defence city with a stack of 6 Axemen, it's defended by 2 Archers with 1 Strength upgrade, my Axemen had Strength and Raider. I throw all 6 at him and I'm beaten.

On my side he sends 1 Archers (again with 1 strength) after my lonesome worker trying to hurt my Copper harvest. He kicks a hole in my outer perimiter of Archers, even though I have Protective trait so my Archers have 3 upgrades and 25% defending bonus from Fortify. I then throw 2 more at him as he passes through my lands and the third manages to take him down!!

To me these numbers, defence- percentages and upgrades seems like only a measure for comparison. The mechanics are based on difficulty and the strength me and my oponent have. Like this: I was torn down by Montezuma in a game the other day and just kept playing to see how bad it would get. 2 of my cities were taken very fast and I was suddenly at the very bottom of the scale. But now I had 3 Archers defending my Capitol from the inhumane stacks of Swordsmen he was sending in. And they defended it very good. He threw in stacks of 10- 15 each round, with Chariots, Spearmen, Swordsmen, Archers and I still won!
So why didn't the other cities defend this good? To me it seems like the game "calculated" that I wasn't doing that bad when he first attacked me, so my forces were weaker! Or performing worse in a way.

Warfare is just frustrating this way, it's a like a dice- roll but the dice have alot of modifiers.

Could someone explain this to me? Or point me towards some article on this subject. Or is there a modifier I'm not aware about?

[Spoonwood]

Originally Posted by Freedy Fear

I'm trying out Noble now in BtS

Are you playing Civ IV instead of CivRev?

[Freddy Fear]

ouch, just realised, sorry...