Tarquelne
Follower of Tytalus
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2001
- Messages
- 3,718
(I originally posted this at Apolyton, where I thought the forums were getting a little too negative. I thought it might be of interest to people here too, though.)
I suppose Civ3's combat _might_ have been discussed here before... but lets look at it again.
"I disagree civ3 gives better gameplay with regards to combat. fast units are too powerful. Ships bombardment sucks. Air bombardment sucks. shall I go on?"
Yes.
What's wrong with fast units? They're more expensive than the slow units, don't have retreat advantage against any other "fast" units, and don't _always_ retreat. With those facts in place to start with - What exactly is the argument for them being too powerfull?
And, btw, I have found myself winning militarily too often - I've increased the cost of offensive units already. But I didn't find "fast units too powerfull", just what I thought was less-than-optimal balance in the combat units, just like almost every other game I've purchaced. As with many games I could edit things and change the balance. Now, rather than rant on about it I just changed things to suite myself, placed a few messages explaining what I'd done and why, and happily played on. Which is what I generally do when I'm not pleased with a game's unit-stats. I find all the vehemence of the complaints against fast units unseemly. First - the less-than-expert 80%+ of the Civ3 players probably either don't appreciate the power of Fast units, or simply can't take advantage of thier knowledge if they do appreciate Fast units. For them the units are balanced. Secondly, the more-or-less-expert-20% of us can make some pretty simple adjustments to fix things.... that's why I think so many people complaining about Fast units are characterized by others as "whiners"... If it's YOUR problem, and YOU can fix it, but you don't... you probably really are just whining.
Ship bombardment/air bombardment: "Sucks" how? The most common complaint I see is that bombardment can never destroy a unit. I was disgusted at first, but I came to see the reasoning behind it. First, you need to actually risk a unit to destroy an enemy unit. The human player can't, for example, get Flight before the computer AIs and wipe out the enemy with bombers alone. You have to use "combined arms" more. Not only is that almost certainly more interesting, it's also actually more realistic. Real-life bombardment can and does destroy individual units, but seldom utterly destroys a fleet or regiment - you've generally got to really have someone go in and finish 'em off. And, of course, given Civ3's scale, you should think of each combat unit as a collection of individual real-life units, not 1 soldier, 1 tank, 1 ship. I think it's fun to pretend a Battleship is 1 battleship, but I think it foolish to insist that it really act just like 1 battleship in the game.
The new bombardment system allows you to use bombard ment to "soften up" the enemy _almost_ to the point of utter destruction. Very, very much like real life. The biggest departure is certainly in naval combat.... that can certinly be considered a "flaw" in the game... but "bombardment sucks"- I think that's going way too far. Realism has been sacrificed for better gameplay - Civ3 would still be a _rotten_ historical simulation or wargame even with far more realistic bombardment rules, but it might have become a worse strategy game.
Finally, you can fiddle with the bombardment stats somewhat in the editor. If Firaxis allows us to give bombers or ships the ability to sometimes sink a ship as cruise missiles can I'd be completely satisfied.
The tech advantage: The other big criticism I see of the combat system is the ability of lower-tech units to defeat higher-tech units.
First of all... havn't you people ever played another game before? Other than in wargames or simulations combat unit values are very seldom realistic, and even some wargames/simulations screw things up. Civ3, as has been mentioned before, is neither a wargame or a simulation...
Unit costs: A Tank costs, what, 12 times what a Warrior costs? Obviously a huge departure from reality... but the game is supposed to be playable from ancient times to the modern age - imposing realistic unit costs would screw up gameplay at one end or the other (if not both.) How'd you like warriors to cost 1/2 a shield... a decent sized ancient city could then produce, what, two dozen or more a turn? Or how about if Tanks took 60+ turns to produce? Not good gameplay.... who's got some counterarguments?
So the game has "flattened out" (made more equal) unit costs. With the flattening of unit costs the game then _must_ flatten out combat statistics or the more advanced units (the ones that "realisticly" should be far more expensive") will _utterly_ trounce the less-advanced units. That'd be realistic, but it'd make the military part of Civ3 little more than a race to be first to key military techs. "I got Knights before the Aztecs, so I destroyed them. Then I got Cavalry before the Indians, so I destroyed them. Then I got Infantry and Artillery before the English, so I destroyed them...." I'm sure some people would think that's great fun.... and those people can edit the unit values to make the game play that way.
There's also the issue of what the Civ3 combat units _really_ represent. If my neighbor has developed Infantry and Tanks and I've got Riflemen then it's foolish to think that my Riflemen units are "really" using Civil-War era weapons while my neighbor has developed refined semi-automatic rifles and large-bore guns. In real life there's almost always at least a trickle of tech "leaking" from the most advanced nations. A country doesn't go straight from Henry-Rifles to 155mm cannons.
If I've got a Spearman that's been sitting in a city for 2000yrs I'd have to be pretty stupid to believe it's _really_ a bunch of guys with pointy sticks when everyone else has got automatic weapons. Sure, it'd be nice if the game had an additional dozen or so "default" units that obsolete units ungraded to with era changes, or key tech-advances. But that'd add some more complexity, some more work for the programers, and wouldn't change the gameplay at all. A 1/2/1 unit is a 1/2/1 unit by any name.
I suppose Civ3's combat _might_ have been discussed here before... but lets look at it again.
"I disagree civ3 gives better gameplay with regards to combat. fast units are too powerful. Ships bombardment sucks. Air bombardment sucks. shall I go on?"
Yes.
What's wrong with fast units? They're more expensive than the slow units, don't have retreat advantage against any other "fast" units, and don't _always_ retreat. With those facts in place to start with - What exactly is the argument for them being too powerfull?
And, btw, I have found myself winning militarily too often - I've increased the cost of offensive units already. But I didn't find "fast units too powerfull", just what I thought was less-than-optimal balance in the combat units, just like almost every other game I've purchaced. As with many games I could edit things and change the balance. Now, rather than rant on about it I just changed things to suite myself, placed a few messages explaining what I'd done and why, and happily played on. Which is what I generally do when I'm not pleased with a game's unit-stats. I find all the vehemence of the complaints against fast units unseemly. First - the less-than-expert 80%+ of the Civ3 players probably either don't appreciate the power of Fast units, or simply can't take advantage of thier knowledge if they do appreciate Fast units. For them the units are balanced. Secondly, the more-or-less-expert-20% of us can make some pretty simple adjustments to fix things.... that's why I think so many people complaining about Fast units are characterized by others as "whiners"... If it's YOUR problem, and YOU can fix it, but you don't... you probably really are just whining.
Ship bombardment/air bombardment: "Sucks" how? The most common complaint I see is that bombardment can never destroy a unit. I was disgusted at first, but I came to see the reasoning behind it. First, you need to actually risk a unit to destroy an enemy unit. The human player can't, for example, get Flight before the computer AIs and wipe out the enemy with bombers alone. You have to use "combined arms" more. Not only is that almost certainly more interesting, it's also actually more realistic. Real-life bombardment can and does destroy individual units, but seldom utterly destroys a fleet or regiment - you've generally got to really have someone go in and finish 'em off. And, of course, given Civ3's scale, you should think of each combat unit as a collection of individual real-life units, not 1 soldier, 1 tank, 1 ship. I think it's fun to pretend a Battleship is 1 battleship, but I think it foolish to insist that it really act just like 1 battleship in the game.
The new bombardment system allows you to use bombard ment to "soften up" the enemy _almost_ to the point of utter destruction. Very, very much like real life. The biggest departure is certainly in naval combat.... that can certinly be considered a "flaw" in the game... but "bombardment sucks"- I think that's going way too far. Realism has been sacrificed for better gameplay - Civ3 would still be a _rotten_ historical simulation or wargame even with far more realistic bombardment rules, but it might have become a worse strategy game.
Finally, you can fiddle with the bombardment stats somewhat in the editor. If Firaxis allows us to give bombers or ships the ability to sometimes sink a ship as cruise missiles can I'd be completely satisfied.
The tech advantage: The other big criticism I see of the combat system is the ability of lower-tech units to defeat higher-tech units.
First of all... havn't you people ever played another game before? Other than in wargames or simulations combat unit values are very seldom realistic, and even some wargames/simulations screw things up. Civ3, as has been mentioned before, is neither a wargame or a simulation...
Unit costs: A Tank costs, what, 12 times what a Warrior costs? Obviously a huge departure from reality... but the game is supposed to be playable from ancient times to the modern age - imposing realistic unit costs would screw up gameplay at one end or the other (if not both.) How'd you like warriors to cost 1/2 a shield... a decent sized ancient city could then produce, what, two dozen or more a turn? Or how about if Tanks took 60+ turns to produce? Not good gameplay.... who's got some counterarguments?
So the game has "flattened out" (made more equal) unit costs. With the flattening of unit costs the game then _must_ flatten out combat statistics or the more advanced units (the ones that "realisticly" should be far more expensive") will _utterly_ trounce the less-advanced units. That'd be realistic, but it'd make the military part of Civ3 little more than a race to be first to key military techs. "I got Knights before the Aztecs, so I destroyed them. Then I got Cavalry before the Indians, so I destroyed them. Then I got Infantry and Artillery before the English, so I destroyed them...." I'm sure some people would think that's great fun.... and those people can edit the unit values to make the game play that way.
There's also the issue of what the Civ3 combat units _really_ represent. If my neighbor has developed Infantry and Tanks and I've got Riflemen then it's foolish to think that my Riflemen units are "really" using Civil-War era weapons while my neighbor has developed refined semi-automatic rifles and large-bore guns. In real life there's almost always at least a trickle of tech "leaking" from the most advanced nations. A country doesn't go straight from Henry-Rifles to 155mm cannons.
If I've got a Spearman that's been sitting in a city for 2000yrs I'd have to be pretty stupid to believe it's _really_ a bunch of guys with pointy sticks when everyone else has got automatic weapons. Sure, it'd be nice if the game had an additional dozen or so "default" units that obsolete units ungraded to with era changes, or key tech-advances. But that'd add some more complexity, some more work for the programers, and wouldn't change the gameplay at all. A 1/2/1 unit is a 1/2/1 unit by any name.
