Originally posted by Repoman
Call it logistical problems. The tanks and Mech Inf don't have a year's worth of gas in their tanks 
I believe there are historical accounts of German panzer units defeated only because they ran out of gas. Also, during the breakout from the Normandy hedgerows, US tanks would run out of gas. The front was moving faster than the support system could keep up.
Yep. The Ardennes offensive is a famous example. The lack of oil in the end of the war was a crippling trouble for Germany.
While all of this talk about relative strenghts of units and how they interact is nice I've seen very little pertaining to my original question: why are tanks slower than some horse units? If there is some historical precedent for this I'd love to hear it or if the reason is playability I'd love to hear that as well and the reasonings behind it. As of now, I really can't figure out why this is (and on the same subject, why Mechanized Infantry only have a movement of 2 as well).
For the realism :
I suppose that's because tanks need support (replaceable parts, oil, maintenance) while horse has just to eat grass and drink water. I suppose too that cavalry is more able to go through difficult ground than tanks. But well all in all I think that tanks should get 3 in movement, but spent more movement points on non-flat terrain.
For the playability :
Tanks has the "blitz" capacity, which means they can attack for each movement point they have. Cavalry can attack only once, while tanks can attack twice (only once if they attack staked units though). It's probably to not make them too powerful that they put them to 2 movements.
So tanks can be damaged but never lost? Accidents, friendly fire, catastrophic mechanical failure, weather etc. are myths and units are never lost to these kinds of things in the real world? Again, combat does not take place by having two units meet and having someone say, "Go.". Combat is a dangerous place regardless of how much someone outclasses their opponent. Heck, tanks are sometimes lost/disabled in TRAINING exercises!
Losing tanks in friendly fire, bad luck in fight and mechanical failures would be represented by the damage the unit takes.
Thirdly, where in the world did you get the idea that a Civ tank represents a division? It represents as many tanks as it takes to get an attack value of 16 and a defense value of 8 relative to a group of calvary representing an attack value of 6 and defensive value of 3. That could be 3 tanks, 5 tanks, etc. but certainly does not sound like a division.
Well, here is the central difference. I consider that a unit represent a bunch of people : some hundreds in early ages, some thounsands in modern ages. A modern armor unit is for me something between a regiment and a division. I base this opinion on the fact that :
1) drafting remove one population point (and I think that every ground unit should require one population point to be built).
2) one unit can conquer a whole city (I hardly imagine that 5 tanks are able to subdue a 200 000 inhabitant town).
3) A whole civilization use often about 100-200 units, which is about the same than the number of divisions that the nations had at the start of the WW1.
Considering that, loosing a modern armor unit is like losing several dozens of tanks. Hence the idea of only loosing one or two hit point max.
If you think that higher-tech units should only be allowed to be damaged and never lost against lower tech units, it sounds like Civ is not for you. You would probably be happier playing Rock, Paper (Rock, Paper, Scissors without the scissors - high tech beats low tech, no questions asked).
Sounds more and more like you would be happier playing Rock, Paper than Civilization.
I could make idiotic comments like "then if you think that a longbowman can take out a tank, you would probably be happier to let all the fights be resolved with a 4+ on a dice regardless of the unit", but it would show the same caricatural way than your statement. I'd rather talk again about the "moderation" word I used. There is TOO MUCH randomness in fight. I don't ask for REMOVING the randomness, I ask to REDUCE it.
The entire might of the US plus allies vs. a single second-rate oil country compared to oh let's say, 25 individual calvary vs. 5 individual tanks. Yep. Sounds lopsided but not nearly as much as the first example. It is apples and oranges but still.
USA did not send more than 50/100 thousands men. They have more than five millions in their army. France sent a division (14 000 men) while it has about 700 000 soldiers. UK sent even less men. You call that the "entire might of the US plus allies" ? And the Iraq was supposed to have the 5th world army by the time (ok it was a big exaggeration, but still it was probably in the first 10/15 in the world).
And I was actually using this example to say that Iraq had modern armor, infantry and cruise missile. The allied had armor even more modern, infantry even more modern and cruise missile even more modern. The tech gap is wider between cavalry and WW2 tank than between two kind of modern armor.
First of all, there is moderation. In civ, the best a calvary unit vs. a tank can get is a 33% chance of winning and that is only if they catch a tank at its most vunerable (unfortified on grassland). In most situations, they calvary has dramatically less chance of winning. And that's if the calvary is attacking. If the tank is attacking, the odds of the tank winning are generall 90+%. Heck, even in the best situation (calvary fortified in a metropolis built on a hill with the tanks attacking across a river) the best a calvary can hope for is roughly an 18% chance of winning (or, put another way, 6 times a likely to lose than they are to win).
First, cavalry has not 33 % chances hitting a tank. It's 43 % (6vs8). It's far too much. I would say 25 % would be a good thing.
Second, LONGBOWMEN has 33 % chances of hitting a tank. If THAT is not wild and ask for some tweaking...
The longbowmen were, infinitely more than cavalry, the reason I asked for stronger modern units over ancient ones.
First of all, it is really a stretch to call early tanks "high-tech" (not much more high tech than a model T - some, but not much). May I recommend Tank Warfare: The Illustrated History from 1914 to the Present Day. Early tanks were notoriously unreliable and sometimes were taken out of the battle by things as simple as too much mud.
Compared to longbowmen, tanks are high-tech. In one hundred years, our actual high-tech tanks will be considered as toys. "high-tech" is relative.
Second, there is no WW1 tanks in Civ, and WW2 ones where quite reliable.
Secondly, we were talking about calvary vs. tanks. Calvary (as represented in Civ) are hardly "stone age units".
I exagerrated, but you can loose tanks against longbowmen not rarely. Longbow are not "stone age" unit, but they are six centuries late toward tanks.
And secondly, you are not asking for moderation but elimination of the calvary having any chance of winning whatsoever: "Any unit that is fighting another unit with a big tech gap should win with at most one or two hit points lost. " That is moderation? Hardly.
Eliminating any chances of winning against tank for non-gunpowder units are not excessive in my mind.
Reducing the chances of cavalry dealing one damage point from 43 % to 30 % or even 25 % is not that much a scandal too.
That's just what I was going to say! Tanks beat lower tech units and can only be damaged but never lost sounds more like a "caricatur[e]" of the real world than anything I said.
When the "lower tech units" are longbowmen and pikemen, the caricature is allowing them to destroy tanks brigades.
). If the combat system\terain was subtle and sophistacted enough to convey various units strengths and weakness's AND if the ....Tech levels were more clearly defined and stratifed, we probably would not see quite as many 'rationalizations' from people over the odd combat results we all *know* to be an issue. Can horses defeat tanks, well that really depends on a great many things that civ3 simply cannot factor in. Could cavalry regiments\armies defeat tank units in set piece battles, the answer to that, no matter how many 'just so' scenario's some of you dream up, would be no.
