another AI conspiracy???

[sail lbi]

Freakin’ AI. Here I am, pummeling the Greeks (I’m playing Egyptian on with 6 Battle ships and a dozen modern armors. I bombard the crap out of them, only to get 5 of 6 failures, then I go after them with the armor, only to get beaten back by a couple lowly tanks & a rifleman. Up comes the Iroquois and they capture the city, no problemo!!! I swear the AI civs conspire (do I dare say cheat) against us lowly humans!!!!

 

[Chieftess]

hehe.. just look at my sig.
I've played some where my swordsman and archers couldn't defeat one impi (I had a good dozen of them!), yet I play as the Zulus, and my one impi can't even stand up to an archer or warrior!

 

[eyrei]

You are both paranoid and delusional. No offense. The AI gets no advantage in combat. It just seems that way because we remember those times we got screwed, and forget all those times we benefit. Plus, we tend to exagerate to make our points on this topic. The random number generator is just that, random. It works both ways. There have been several threads about this. In fact, I believe one of them is sticky.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

eyrei is right, as usual. But I do have to say it`s kinda strange to see with how few troops the Ai sometimes defends or takes cities!

I do get the impression that the RNG is even more stringy under 1.17f

Chieftess post is just what keeps happeneing to me!

 

[Switch625]

Originally posted by eyrei
You are both paranoid and delusional. No offense. The AI gets no advantage in combat. It just seems that way because we remember those times we got screwed, and forget all those times we benefit. Plus, we tend to exagerate to make our points on this topic. The random number generator is just that, random. It works both ways. There have been several threads about this. In fact, I believe one of them is sticky.

I remember a battle where the "invincibility syndrome" worked in my favor. I had just dropped off one settler and one pikeman on a newly discovered island. After a few turns, out of the darkness came a stack of TWENTY barbarian horseman! I force-built a wall for my settlement, and braced for the worst. By the time the battle was over, my regular pikeman was elite, and had one hit left. There was no reason to expect my unit to hold out, but it did.

 

[Rob in TN]

Maybe it is a perception thing but I've sure had the feeling from time to time. Seeing a superior unit score NO damage against an out of date one and then dying in the process is frustrating I have to say.

BTW can you be paranoid WITHOUT being delusional?

 

[Mapache]

Being paranoid doesn't mean that noone follows you.

Well, when one my my Legionaries(with only 2 hitpoints left) survived against four attacking swordsmen it wasn't luck. It was skill.

 

[Minuteman]

Originally posted by Rob in TN
BTW can you be paranoid WITHOUT being delusional?

Yes, but that grade of marijuana is very expensive. :crazyeyes

 

[eyrei]

Originally posted by Rob in TN

BTW can you be paranoid WITHOUT being delusional?

We are all delusional on this forum. We correspond seriously about OUR swordsmen and archers fighting Zulu Impi, about hordes of barbarian horsemen, about galleys defeating battleships, guys with sticks stopping a tank offensive, minimal corruption in democratic governments, the Americans and Babylonians having a border dispute, 4000 year old leaders, launching space ships to Alpha Centauri, leaders completing the Pyramids in one 'turn', 50 year treks over 100 miles, etc. :crazyeyes

 

[brody]

I think the true problem is that the RNG is just that - 100% random. There should be something more substantial than a random number generator to determine who wins a battle. After all, a RNG can, in theory, generate several very high numbers all in a row (and seems like this sort of thing happens a lot with computers), making a spearman be able to hold out against a stack of 20 knights!

Maybe we need something extra thrown in - like a more detailed HP scale or something. Instead of 2-5 HP, we have, say, 200-500. Then every turn of combat, each unit is likely to take some damage. The knights may suck really bad and only hit you for 10 damage every time they take 50 or something, but still, with 20 knights they'll win in the end... and then we could even add things like unit HPs and unit damage. For example, spearmen get 20 HPs (at conscript level) while modern Armor get like 200. Spearmen hit for 5-10 HPs while Armor hit for 50-100 or something. Then it would be truly rare for an Armor to fall to an archer.

This will probably never happen, but it seems like the only way to make combat less dependant on the already flawed RNG. (Not that Civ3's RNG is flawed in particular, I'm saying all computer's RNGs are flawed)

 

[Salvor]

You could do that with the editor, but be prepared for some very loooong turns.

And a good RNG will follow a normal distribution pattern, with a kurtosis very near zero. If you remove the RNG entirely, then you'll have a 100% deterministic game with no chance at all, period.

 

[Rob in TN]

Which leaves you - essentially - with a modified Chess program.

Not sure that's what we want.

Can't help but be reminded of Polish Lancers fighting Germany at the start of WW2. Don't think they had many victories even monor ones, but at least they tried.....

And The Zulus, both at Rourke's Drift (they 'lost' despite massive advnatges) even though they wiped out a modern army a few days before....

 

[Reddneckrebel]

Maybe everyone else is paranoid and delusional. Maybe we few are the sane..............

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Originally posted by Switch625


I remember a battle where the "invincibility syndrome" worked in my favor. I had just dropped off one settler and one pikeman on a newly discovered island. After a few turns, out of the darkness came a stack of TWENTY barbarian horseman! I force-built a wall for my settlement, and braced for the worst. By the time the battle was over, my regular pikeman was elite, and had one hit left. There was no reason to expect my unit to hold out, but it did.

If that was on a lower level, it is not so surprising, since you get a bonus against barbarians. This is cumulative with other bonuses so having terrain and walls add up to a lot!

What level was it?????

 

[Ironikinit]

Nobody is going to believe this, and I didn't think to get a save...

No less than 2 hours ago, I was playing, what else, right...

Anyway, I had an infantry army, three infantry in an army, in a city, not fortified, and I believe it was short a couple hit points. No matter, cos the infantry were all vets at least.

The Iroquois attack with some crap units, knights, longbows, nothing to worry about....

A vet Iroquois infantry attacks the city from ACROSS A RIVER. One, two, three, down go my infantry.

I swear that it happened, but I can't prove it.

I didn't lose the city, nothing much happened, I countered the next round and wiped out a few of his units. I don't even remember swearing about it or anything. Still, it really was the damnedest thing.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

I believe you, I once used a 3-Inf army, all vet, to attack a Longbowman in a city (no walls, size 4, grassland, now river) - and lost!

 

[Ironikinit]

Really, the lucky thing was that I rushed an airport there the turn before cos it's my foothold on his continent. I felt a lot safer doing that since culture flips aren't supposed to happen to size one cities with a big garrison.

 

[IronicWarrior19]

I've had size one cities with 5-10 archers in flip post patch. Very annoying to have to rebuild half of your army, especially when using units like archers with high casualty rates.

 

[stachnie]

Originally posted by Rob in TN
[BCan't help but be reminded of Polish Lancers fighting Germany at the start of WW2. Don't think they had many victories even monor ones, but at least they tried.....
[/B]

They were quite effective because they were an elite of the Polish army and, what is even more important, they were equipped also with mounted artillery. Last but not least, German tanks at the beginning of the war were much easier to destroy...

Anyway, multiplying HP by 10 could be a good idea - it would be a bit like in CivII.


Regards,

Slawomir Stachniewicz

 

[Switch625]

Originally posted by Killer


If that was on a lower level, it is not so surprising, since you get a bonus against barbarians. This is cumulative with other bonuses so having terrain and walls add up to a lot!

What level was it?????

Regent.