Regarding the RNG luck. I do believe that it is about luck. The luck of the draw is what this combat system is about. I figure the odds are always 50/50. Either you will or you won't win. I am not being negative but I am just stating the truth that I am not a lucky person. It show up in lots of places.
I am not saying that I can't win because I do but I do it with numbers and power. On the very turn before I was going to win my French Cultural victory, Egypt declared war abusing the ROP. They had parked next to two of my newer cities built in old Greek lands (yeah, I killed them, the Arabs and the Aztecs) in order to win, I had to abandon my two cities. they were a liability.
I had about 15 bombers and 2 fighters in one city - those things are amazing. People told me I would love the lethal bombing for bombers and that sure is nice.
I had two 4-cav armies (lost one), two 4-tank armies and a bunch of singleton cavs and tanks . I had my arty in the cities until the cities were abandonded.
I came back after my win and wiped out their invasion fleet using battleships, destroyers and my bombers. I used bombers on the SOD's as well.
One turn after my win, I had destroyed two cities and wiped out two SOD's and the invasion fleet. At that point I quit playing as Cleo had been spanked and I had already won -AT Regent!!!!
Interestingly enough, Cleo sent everything she had in those SOD's. when I took out one city, it was defended by 1 cav and 2 spears. This was in a city right next to my empire as we had two 'fronts'. It was a horseshoe shaped continent.
Her original attack was one infantry attacking a city with 3 (weak) defenders.
All of this is to say that I can win at war but I know going in that I need at least 5 -1 odds to make it work. The nice thing about France is that you have lots of cash to rush buildings and/or walls when you need them.
so now I have to decide whether to try my NOW game with Germany and Iron or to wait one more Civ and try it with Greeks without counting on the iron. That will be back at warlord.
This is certainly an interesting series of games.