What if combat wasn't RNG dependent?

Hi all.

I've been thinking a bit lately about how the RNG luck-****s us in the early game sometimes, and sometimes offers great rewards. Many have considered it a necessary evil, but I'm not convinced it's truly necessary.

What if combat outcomes between two relative strength ratios were *fixed*? As in, an axe attacking an archer (neither with promotions) on a flatland *always* had the axe win, but also *always* with the same amount of damage taken? As far as I can think, this wouldn't have a negative impact on the gameplay at all, aside from not relying on lucky results or being screwed by unlucky ones . IMO it sacrifices some realism for a MASSIVE boost to gameplay viability, but that's a preference issue.

I'm not looking for preferences here. I am looking for legit reasons this would be good, bad, or indifferent to the gameplay design and balance itself. I'm imagining that once collateral is a serious element that the functional difference will be minimal, though I don't have any evidence to back up that idea just yet. The big impact therefore would be planning around the early game; IE against barb archers (always screws you unless you fortify on the right terrain) and versus and against the rush.

You could argue that the AI wouldn't handle it well, but that would be a silly argument because the AI doesn't handle any combat well ever. Thoughts? Amendments? Is there a reason such a fundamentally frustrating aspect of civ is NECESSARY?

Also, the code in civ IV blows chunks (every unit has to check if it's an air unit or some such crap constantly? Really?), but that's an issue for another time.

I think that such a system would work--I'm thinking about games like chess here--but I wouldn't enjoy it (sorry, I know that you said preferences aside). What I dislike most about it is that promotions become worthless in terms of enjoyment of the game.

I think that a reasonable compromise might be to have the game fight the battle twice and then take the average of the two.

What I dislike most about it is that promotions become worthless in terms of enjoyment of the game.

Click to expand...

This is the kind of thing I'm looking for.

I'm not sure I agree though. Theoretically, promotions could be *more* useful. Picture the scenario where a promotion flips the winner of a battle over to you. Such a unit, if you protect it after each of its attacks so that a retaliation doesn't wipe it out, would potentially get QUITE strong and allow you to beat some enemy units you might otherwise be forced to take losses to kill. Theoretically attached generals would be miles better too, since you'd know attacking at favorable odds that you'd not lose it. It would also increase the importance of picking off opposing attached generals, for they could indeed get very powerful if allowed to do so.

If nothing else, elite forces in the game would actually be MORE worthwhile, because proper usage of them would keep them alive as opposed to "herrrrp you lose your combat V horse archer to an archer in the field". As it stands non-medic general attachments are practically worthless, because you are statistically expected to lose them in 20 battles or less...often much less if you actually want to use them in battles where a cleanup unit without promos couldn't have done the job just as well.

I think that a reasonable compromise might be to have the game fight the battle twice and then take the average of the two.

Click to expand...

I'm asking this because a friend of mine who is capable of modding is seriously considering reworking the combat mechanics for our weekly MP games. One thing I will strongly oppose is anything that forces the game to do even MORE calculations. When he was going through the code some of my harsher suspicions were confirmed; this game has butt**** tons of unnecessary checks and it does them constantly. Adding even more would make turn lag even worse, even if only by a little :/. I also think that it is probably unnecessary.

It would alter the risk-reward decisions of the game.

Right now, it's you go to war by not only bringing more stuff than the other guy, but with enough excess for an error margin. That error margin is crucial, have barely not enough, and your opponent is going to be able to whip in another archer or bring up another spear next turn, and the crippled remnants of your previous will not be able to do anything about it.

So there is some real tension when I enter someone's land with a horse archer stack. It may fail to capture or raze anything, meaning I've lost a ton of military without reducing the military nor the production power of my opponent.

On the other hand, if I can can 100% guarantee that my stack will defeat my opponent's stack, I won't need to sink excess hammers into that safety margin. Not to mention that if I calculate that I can't win a battle, I'll simply retreat the stack.

Losing absolutely everything to an early dice roll sucks. But I also like the strategic trade-offs that come with a war of conquest, and I'd hate to sacrifice that aspect of the play.

It would depend on how well the AI handled it. (Which we know would be bad.) But as earlier mentioned the AI is already bad so would this matter. If it would stop the AI from doing some of those really dumb attacks, then maybe.

For the record all war games need a RNG since war is never that predictable.

That error margin is crucial, have barely not enough, and your opponent is going to be able to whip in another archer or bring up another spear next turn

Click to expand...

I fail to see how it wouldn't remain possible for an opponent to whip additional unexpected units, and for that to throw a wrench into a military that's at the margins. What you wouldn't be able to do is get lucky with not enough forces or be completely screwed when you've really gone all-out.

On the other hand, if I can can 100% guarantee that my stack will defeat my opponent's stack, I won't need to sink excess hammers into that safety margin.

Click to expand...

Even if your opponent has invested an unexpected amount into military? Whips and moves 3 units into a target city before you can capture it? Whales on you with collateral?

Losing absolutely everything to an early dice roll sucks. But I also like the strategic trade-offs that come with a war of conquest, and I'd hate to sacrifice that aspect of the play.

Click to expand...

That's great, but I'm looking for an argument as to why curtailing the RNG actually does sacrifice that aspect of play. Fact of the matter is, it *doesn't* sacrifice tradeoffs whatsoever. What it sacrifices is the chance of being over or under-rewarded for a given investment against an opponent's investment.

For the record all war games need a RNG since war is never that predictable.

Click to expand...

This isn't an argument. It's a blanket, unproven and frankly annoying statement . You can't possibly prove that ALL war games NEED RNG; that's flagrantly ridiculous.

You also advocate against the "predictability" of war, as does Nick C. above. There's one problem with such a line of reasoning: once the game introduces collateral and involves combat between stacks, rng impact on the outcome of war is virtually nil.

That's right. If we were to take your arguments to their logical conclusion, we'd have to ban siege from this game and rework the combat mechanics entirely. The MAJORITY of this game is actually designed around predictable outcomes when it comes to combat, because the majority of war after the early game is in fact stack combat...and while collateral isn't perfectly fixed damage (due to unit targeting rules), it's pretty freaking close.

Basically, in the mid-late game the RNG can cost you maybe 1% to 5% of your stack's , if that. In the early game, the RNG can cost you 0% to 100% of your stack's . Think about that and tell me this game *needs* combat to be RNG driven again, if you can come up with an actual reason why:

1. For 70-80% of the game, the RNG has minimal impact on war outcomes, if any.
2. But for ~20% of the game, the RNG has catastrophic game-changing impact on war outcomes completely different from anything seen for the rest of the game.

I'm looking for a serious reason that such a pattern-break setup is good for the game...and there needs to be a lot more teeth to the opposing argument than simply "because it needs to be there". How about a very good reason WHY it needs to be like that?

The most amusing thing to me is that the majority of Nick C's post doesn't actually focus on the RNG at all, but rather just planning margins vs the opponent doing something unexpected INDEPENDENT of the RNG .

Not to mention that if I calculate that I can't win a battle, I'll simply retreat the stack.

Click to expand...

You make it sound like that's some unfair advantage. In reality, if you 1) spend a large % of your resources to build up military 2) kill diplo relations by declaring on someone and 3) pay maintenance on a large quantity of units in enemy territory and 4) don't actually capture much...

Well, you're screwed, or at least VERY far behind someone who put those into workers, settlers, granaries, and libraries. 50+ turns behind is not such a simple "just retreat" scenario...and if you don't include enough units in your pre-war prep that you're well above "margins" in case your opponent whips out forces or pulls them from somewhere unexpected, you're going to die a slow death anyway.

So how is *not* relying on the RNG in the early game breaking the tradeoffs again? The tradeoffs are more consistent, but mistakes will very surely still ruin you.

It would certainly make wars more predictable and less frustrating in the beginning especially. I'm more than fed up losing unit after unit after unit in 70-80% fights, and even well into the 90s.

But maybe this unpredictability would be a loss for the gaming experience after all. The fact you simply don't know what happens when attacked or attacking does give the game a bit more flavour. Even if sometimes you want to throw the computer out the window as a result of it

Would it not make some promotions a bit useless though? Like barrage and first strike for example? With this change we'd be looking at max offense or max defense I gather, so the more specialised promotions may become a bit pointless, to be harsh about it. The game would risk becoming more about min-maxing than it currently is. And getting ahead in the tech race for better units would be even more important, while currently you can get by with obsolete units to a larger extent.

Not done any math on that so maybe it's incorrect, but just some thoughts about possible consquences.

I'm not convinced what you propose would be bad. Worst aspect I can think of is that it's a step further towards forced-optimization in an already optimization-friendly game.
It surely would "please" competitive players and "displease" more casual ones.
Thinking about it, I do not think the competitive basis on any game is above 5% of the community.
In my mind, a series of such changes is bound to drastically reduce a game's audience. I've witnessed (player versus player) games dying from being too optimization-friendly. While hardcore players were really satisfied, all others fled. Of course, if you intend this change to be limited to a small audience, there isn't really a problem, there.


Regarding game balance, I'm unsure how such a change would affect high base strength units (be they next gen units or UUs).
What do you do when your neighbour is Rome and all his Praetorians have a 1st kill guaranteed ?
What then when your neighbour reaches Military Tradition 15 turns before you ? All those advantages that are present in the game would be greatly amplified, wouldn't they ? (Of course you can have siege but the point still holds.)
I would think that to even the chances a bit, Civ4 would have to step away from its win or lose combat system and make retreat more frequent, especially when odds are close.
(e.g. instead of killing an Archer defending a city, the Praetorian retreats, leaving the Archer heavily wounded.)

I'd hate it - It'd just turn combat into a giant number-crunching exercise. Oh look, Pericles is defending that city with 3 CG Longbows. Right, let me get my excel spreadsheet war calculator out...so if I attack with 5 CR2 Maces I'll win and my last Mace will have 4.3 str left. Select units. Attack. Win. Yawn...

RNG is great when it goes in your favour and horrible when it goes against you. But what it does do is greatly increase the strategic depth of the game as it forces you to put contingency plans in place in case the unlikely happens. And when the odds go in your favour and you win an unlikely fight, it can be a game changer.

Choggy expressed my belief better than I.

This isn't an argument. It's a blanket, unproven and frankly annoying statement . You can't possibly prove that ALL war games NEED RNG; that's flagrantly ridiculous.

You also advocate against the "predictability" of war, as does Nick C. above. There's one problem with such a line of reasoning: once the game introduces collateral and involves combat between stacks, rng impact on the outcome of war is virtually nil.

Click to expand...

First it's an opinion. Based on playing 100's of games over 50 years. I have enjoyed games that have them more than those that don't. And it's my opinion that it's more realistic. You have your opinion, I have mine.

As to your stack example. Yes agreed, with stacks it does minimize it. For me it's similar to 1000 coin flips. In real combat the most powerful army usually wins. But not always.

If you're annoyed, I really don't care. That's just your opinion.

Minute differences in combat strength will alter the outcome of fights completely. Often it won't matter if the units are heavily damaged after the fight. Then a single additional promotion or one additional catapult can change a battle from an impossible proposition into a landslide victory.

Suppose for instance you try to take a city defended by 5 identically promoted archers with 5 identically promoted axes. It's impossible if you have CI and Cover on your axes you'd lose everything if you try. With CII and Cover you can take the city without losses. Damage to either set of units is almost inconsequential in that scenario. In that way small things like getting a general earlier, say, turn the outcome of the battle on its head.

(The example can be made even more drastic if you stagger the combat strength of both sides like 6.3, 6.1, 5.9 vs. 6.2, 6.0, 5.8. In this case a single promotion on the weakest unit turns this contest from a loss with 100% unit losses to a win with 100% enemy losses.)

To put it more mathematically: Your fixed combat resolution has a jump discontinuity at the point where both units strengths are equal and the jump height is huge.

In Civ5 where units do not necessarily die in battle fixed combat outcomes would work much better in my opinion.

^ Agreed
Killing a unit with "odds" < 75% would be borderline silly. Errr... I mean it wouldn't constitute an appropriate mechanic.

I had the same thought after losing multiple >90% fights. But I guess you'd have to rework first strike.

Are you sure you can mod this into the game? I thought that some elements of the code are locked away from the user - maybe battle isn't one of them. You could probably trick the system into working ... but that would raise your 'more code' hackles.

Personally, I won't like such a system as I am the luckiest bar$tard there is when it comes to battle victories. I always win 20% battles and never lose battles over 50%. ALWAYS.

In Civ5 where units do not necessarily die in battle fixed combat outcomes would work much better in my opinion.

Click to expand...

I was under the impression that the OP is talking about something like that?

This is an interesting thought, as many a game really has been won or lost due not to skill or ability but due to RNG luck in the battles. However, I agree with civac's post. One promotion (or fortification of long enough time) being the difference between a complete win and complete annihilation seems like a worse game mechanic to me. There should be some kind of middle ground.

The game mechanic you are arguing for is an RTS type mechanic, where each unit deals out X damage every Y seconds. What makes that tolerable in RTS is that you can attack one unit with multiple units (ie if you have a 5 v. 5, focus all 5 of your unit's attacking on the same unit at once rather than having five 1 on 1 battles). I'm not sure if or how you could implement such a mechanic into civ, particularly if you want to minimize the introduction of new code. And frankly, the AI would just become even more of a joke in war. Yes, it is already bad, but you shouldn't be making the s***** AI even worse. Your change would be about making the game enjoyable. I would argue that making the AI worse would negate any potential good you gain from getting rid of that luck.

I do agree with the notion that early war is too luck driven. I just think the idea that a promotion on one of the archers you are attacking can turn a 100% win into a 100% loss is less palatable and less fun than being screwed by the RNG.

I'm definitely not sold to the "after siege RNG is basically irrelevant" line of argument. True, the RNG gets quite tossed to the side after col. damage enters in action ( and even then the damage made to the top defender, that most of the times is the critical element in the stack vs stack battles and city attacks, is as RNG driven as in any other battle ), but siege warfare is just a quite minor way of doing war ( in spite of being quite cost-effective hammerwise ). In BtS you have flank attack ( highly RNG dependent ), withdraws ( idem ), air strikes ( idem ), espionage ( idem ), nukes ( well, only RNG independent after 4 of them in the same place ) and even good ol'zerging ( that, depending of how you see it, is more and less RNG dependent than siege ), so reducing all to siege is quite ... well, reductive

I'm with civac on this: taking the RNG completely out of the game would create huge jump points. I know that lots of players would love that, given the regular complaints asking for a musket that kills every ancient unit that gets in front of them or similar, but I do think that the majority of the people around are quite against it ( otherwise we would be playing civ V ), besides borking completely the current promo system ( BtW how would you deal with withdraws, TMIT ? ) ...

But if you ask me for a system that is less RNG sensitive than the current one, that I can agree with

I can't really object to this. If anything, this might make barbarians more balanced instead of herp derp RNG screw early game. Also casual players would see MGs mow dow more backwards units and be more approving and less likely to come with conspiracy theories.

How RNG dependent is Civ V combat? Not that it should be used as an example, but it seemed less luck driven than Civ 4's.

One format an RTS player would probably have seriously mixed feelings about is tactical combat. Master of Magic (1994), a highly-praised Civ 1 spin-off, may have been onto something there. In Civ 4, I think it would be nice if a battlescape appeared when you move your stack of doom onto the enemy city, as pictured above. The entire army fights the entire garrison in one furious battle; units in MoM have a more complex set of capabilities and ratings then they do in Civ. In short, outcomes in this format are less random and more, well... tactical. The disadvantage is a lumbering pace, though. You can't just zap away units and move the game along unless you turn tactical off and throw in once again with the RNG.

It would really affect the way barbarians are fought in the early game. If you always win the battle if you have >50% odds, you could always defend against archers by putting warriors in the forest. So barbarians would be less of a threat, but this could be considered a good thing.

I agree with the assessment that the biggest problem is the dramatic flip in combat outcomes by taking promotions at about 50% odds.

A question, TMIT: Is it possible for your friend to mod the freaking peace vassal mechanic? Specifically, how an AI you're winning a war with can peace vassal to a powerful civ, forcing you to war with that civ? Getting rid of that garbage would sell me on the mod, pretty much regardless of the other content in it. I don't mind vassals in general, but being forced into a war with the most powerful civilization in the game because you were WINNING a war is just bad design- it punishes the player for doing well.