eotinb said:
The implication being that it shouldn't be too hard to mod the interface to make it an actual combat calculator. Now if I could only find the right functions...
The problem with this is that it requires a bit too much information, I think, and as a result it
shouldn't be so correct. The main reason for this is abstraction; Civ uses a generic set of equations to handle all combat, but if you know too much then you start making decisions based solely on the math, instead of on the circumstances.
Unit A is our unit. Units B and C are the enemies; both are the same type of unit, but have slightly different amounts of damage (like, one's at 50%, the other at 51%), such that it'd take unit A 2 hits to kill C but 3 hits to kill B. The odds of victory would, as a result, be drastically different. If you could actually see correct odds, you'd be able to tell where the exact threshold is.
Now, what if Unit A has three first strikes (i.e., tank vs. longbow)? If A's first strikes can kill or almost kill its enemy, then A wins, but if not, the more powerful opponent almost definitely wins. So, if B's health is slightly higher than C's, the odds could be drastically different.
The point is, in both cases a minor alteration in circumstances can severely skew the results, due to the quantized nature of the combat system. In reality, no one would be able to measure those alterations well enough, and real damage wouldn't be quantized like that. If the damage in Civ was even semi-random (say, instead of 20*(X/Y), make it (10-30)*(X/Y)) then this wouldn't be so bad.
Now, what I'd like to see would be a simple percentage, simply by taking (power * health) for each unit and dividing by the total, which'd give a better representation without depending on knowledge of the exact nature of the combat system. So, you'd see "12 vs 10.2 (67%)". Also, I'd like the odds system to better handle things like first strike.
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that She can rewrite some of the rules. 
