Anyone likes "Strength"?

[Mirc]

OK, Vertronix!

 

[slothman]

...or the Alpha Centuari unit designer that really allowed you to customize your unit the way you saw fit.

I don't know how AC worked but a method where you have a certain number of points to add for each modifier could be good.
You can either add 3 for defence and 5 to "vs melee."
Or you can add 2 for seige and 4 for "forest defence" and 2 for "city garrison."
Promotions might just allow more points to be distributed as you see fit.

Pikemen stop the horses, horses stop the archers, archers stop the macemen, macemen stop the pikemen.

The pedia said something about a "rock/paper/scissors" method.
It is similar to that.

like a KungFu movie where the hero fights the enemy one at a time

On a Saterday Night Live there was a skit where a ninja team kept losing.
They talked after a battle to find out what went wrong.
At one point they said that while one ninja was unconscious the enemy grabbed his legs and swung him around hitting the other ninjas.
That is one of my favorite.

Civ3/2/1 does have advantages but with all the other stuff added only strength is needed now.

 

[Evie]

I'm not so sure about that, afterall consider the case of the pikeman. I've seen them do numbers on horse units, even in attack! There's no way a man with a heavy, long pole gores a horse out in the open. Maybe the horse-riders are laughing so much at the thought of charging pikemen that they get forget to dodge them. Sure, we knew the pikemen were good against horses due to the bonus, the only problem is that it shouldn't apply to pikemen on the attack.

Actually, pikes having a bonus against horses while attacking is extremely realistic.

As you - correctly - pointed out, horsemen would have to be *dumb* to stay in place while a group of enemy pikes advance on them. That's a good way to get murdered.

The problem is, what ELSE can they do? They have only two serious options. The first is to try to avoid the pikes - which means, withdrawing (IIRC, cavalry units have a % chance of succesfuly withdrawing in Civ IV). That's probably their best option. The second is to try to stop the pikemen's advance by attacking them - which is even more suicidal than staying there waiting for the the pikes, as the pikes will benefit from the horse's momentum in that case!

So yes, essentialy, pikes have the advantage against horses in combat.

In addition, keep in mind that pikes have only one MP, so horses should get a chance to actually pull out of range of the pikes before the pikes can attack.

But yes, if knights actually chose to stand and fight against pikes, then the pikes will have a serious advantage, regardless of whether the knights are being attacked, or doing the actual attacking.

(Horse archers, of course, are an entirely different story).

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I just think that, if you are going to HATE something, then play it for a little while before you decide. When they first announced the removal of seperate Attack and Defense strengths, I was HORRIFIED. Then it was explained to me and, after I thought about it a bit, I realised that the Civ4 system was infinitely better (though I agree with Venger that a genuine 'Stack Combat' system is the way they should eventually go-with or without a combat mini-screen). Consider things this way, MIRC. Did you ever think it was a bit lame that a tank was guaranteed to kill another tank JUST because it was the one who attacks first (AS:10/(AS:10+DS:3)=77% chance of tank A killing tank B). In civ4, with a single strength rating, if two tanks go head to head, then they will have a roughly even chance of winning-assuming similar terrain.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Venger]

There is something to be said for initiative on the attack. Defenders already get bonuses for terrain, fortifying, etc., that simply giving a power rating means you get issues like the rampaging Pikemen, rushing across the field to attack the Knights, where Pikemen were effective in prepared position to absorb a Frankish charge or the such. I think the A/D for armor on armor worked - okay. The key is to find balance. Nobody should be able to really guarantee victory between units like tanks, but the attacker should have an advantage when using a weapon that is, frankly, designed to attack - tanks are not great defensive machines. They attract fire like moths to a flame...

Venger

 

[MarcAntiny]

I'm not so sure about that, afterall consider the case of the pikeman. I've seen them do numbers on horse units, even in attack! There's no way a man with a heavy, long pole gores a horse out in the open. Maybe the horse-riders are laughing so much at the thought of charging pikemen that they get forget to dodge them. Sure, we knew the pikemen were good against horses due to the bonus, the only problem is that it shouldn't apply to pikemen on the attack.

Your not thinking properly... just cause it shows one or 3 units on screen depending on your settings, doesn't necessarily mean that's what it is... In general, I'm sure all units represents battalions, platoons, divisions, squads, etc... you get the idea. If you think back to medieval combat, pikemen were used in formations to defend against cavalry attacks. Haven't u ever seen Braveheart??? I understand your gripe about them actually attacking horse units as these units were used primarily for defense, but the bottom line is you need to have some balance in your attacking groups in order to be successful.

 

[alco75]

Haven't read the thread, can't be bothered, but just to add that I like strength far better than previous attack / defense attributes. (The longbow in Civ3, 4/1/1, what a load of crap, for example.) Civ4 attack / defense is sorted by special ability and/or promotions, the latter being decided by the player. Which is a much better system, obviously.

 

[Evie]

There is something to be said for initiative on the attack. Defenders already get bonuses for terrain, fortifying, etc., that simply giving a power rating means you get issues like the rampaging Pikemen, rushing across the field to attack the Knights, where Pikemen were effective in prepared position to absorb a Frankish charge or the such. I think the A/D for armor on armor worked - okay. The key is to find balance. Nobody should be able to really guarantee victory between units like tanks, but the attacker should have an advantage when using a weapon that is, frankly, designed to attack - tanks are not great defensive machines. They attract fire like moths to a flame...

Venger

*points at his above post*

In short - it's not ATTACKING PIKES that's a problem. It's trying to use knights to defend anything. Knights are purely offensive units (and thsi is represented in the game by their inability to benefit from defensive bonuses); pikes, on the other hand, could be used for either purposes. Cavalry were better at attacking in general (as they are in this game : higher speed, and more powerful against most units) due to mobility and the sheer shock value of the charge, but pikes certainly could be used in offense as well as defense.

Macedonian Sarissa, Swiss mercenaries, Spanish Tercio - the armies that relied on the pike square as their main infantry weapon in history are legions.

 

[zagaz]

Someone mentioned that they did not like seeing the score, above the minimap one of the little icons will turn that off if you would rather not see that.

 

[Charles 22]

Has anyone tried "stack attack" yet? It's an option, but I'm not sure if using it will change the game up very much, most particularly if the AI is affected.

 

[Venger]

Stack attack is useless - doesn't change a thing, other than the AI now decides which unit in your stack has the best odds, and plays for instance your Knights:The Gathering card against the enemies Mew Toookemon card...

Venger

 

[gradenko_2000]

Stack attack is useless - doesn't change a thing, other than the AI now decides which unit in your stack has the best odds, and plays for instance your Knights:The Gathering card against the enemies Mew Toookemon card...

I didn't know this, so if I have a bajillion units in a stack, I can use stack attack and automatically have the best possible unit be the one to attack without having to check the individual odds by hand? Sounds cool.

Oh and just so I can make an actual contribution:

Did you ever think it was a bit lame that a tank was guaranteed to kill another tank JUST because it was the one who attacks first (AS:10/(AS:10+DS:3)=77% chance of tank A killing tank

In a tactical battle, this makes sense - the first shot usually wins. However, I do agree that on a strategic scale, that sort of initiative is a little hard to swallow.

It's trying to use knights to defend anything. Knights are purely offensive units (and thsi is represented in the game by their inability to benefit from defensive bonuses);

That's why Knights and other cavalry have that extra movement - they can't defend, so they have to defensively attack. If you need to respond to a nearby threat, they can respond to it a turn or two faster. If you need to kill something without leaving your stack, they can attack then duck back in. I don't particularly see how this is a problem.

 

[Philips beard]

Someone mentioned that they did not like seeing the score, above the minimap one of the little icons will turn that off if you would rather not see that.

The problem is while playing multiplayer, me and my mate don't like to see the scores at all. I know it can be turned of there, but it's so easy for one of us to take a little curious look now and then. It should be possible to turn it completely of for both of us! It's ruining the excitement not knowing anything about you're opponents before meeting them!

 

[Dikaioma]

This new combat system is the same one employed in Colonization, which reminds me... I need to make a Colonization mod for this game.

 

[Philips beard]

I'd love to see a Colonization mod for this game, and pehaps are we lucky enough to see a Colonization 2 coming up from Firaxis soon?

 

[Philips beard]

I'd love to see a Colonization mod for this game, and pehaps are we lucky enough to see a Civilization 2 coming up from Firaxis soon?

 

[Teutonic_Knight]

I am on the fence about this. However, I do like the Age of Empires II approach in unit strengths(bonuses) and weaknesses. I love the fact axe men are good against melee units and spearmen are good against mounted units. Makes for a more challenging way to balance your armies.

 

[george_manet]

I was a little skeptical about the new combat system since it seemed that you could just mass-produce the unit with the highest strength and dominate on attck and defence. But when I actually played the game I saw that this was not true.
I was playing as Russia and had a stack of cossacks (strength: 18) ready to take a city defended by pikemen (strength: 6). No problem, right? But due to the pikemen's advantage vs. mounted units and their city's defense bonus, they actually had a higher chance of winning. Then I noticed that a couple of macemen I still had hanging around, who have a huge bonus vs melee units and city raider promotions, had better odds than my cossacks vs pikemen defending a city. Now I always put a wide variety of units in my invasion force, because they might come in handy in certain situations.
So instead of just stacking your top unit and tearing through the enemy, you have to think a bit about who you're attacking and where.

 

[Mirc]

Wow, seems that everyone likes Strength!
Maybe if I'm going to play it I'm going to like it. Anyway, when I started this thread I didn't think of the bonus of some units against another ones. Maybe the new system is better!

 

[gradenko_2000]

Stacks do not force multiply for attackers.

Look at it this way. If you send two swordsmen to face two swordsen, that looks like an even battle, right? Well what if you sent 20? That looks unfair. But the outcome would STILL be the same, because the odds are never 20-2, they are always 1v1 because combat is ALWAYS 1 v 1, attacker versus best defender, like a KungFu movie where the hero fights the enemy one at a time...

At first, I thought this was a little lacking too, but then I realized it's all for the best. I'm sure anyone who's played an RTS has encountered the concept of focus-fire. Going all the way back to the original Red Alert (perhaps farther) where massing huge numbers of heavy tanks was the order of the day - the supposed counter would be rocket infantry, since tank cannons dealt less damage to entrenched troops. However, at a critical point, you could focus enough tank cannons to kill off squads in single volleys.

A more recent example of this is in Warcraft III - Knights are supposed to counter Archers - but get enough of them, and the Archer's ability to focus three dozen groups worth of arrow fire into individual Knights can kill them off faster than the Knights can, because due to collision sizes, can only hit single Archers in groups of 4 or so.

Thusly, the same could happen here if an option for entire stacks to engage in combat was implemented. As long as you can outproduce the enemy, he can build Pikemen all he likes, you can still win with Cavalry provided you attack with a 3:1 numerical superiority*.

*Yes, I acknowledge that this may already possible, except lumping together a whole stack's combat value against another stack is likely to make it more acceptable. The current 1 unit at a time schema would result in horrendous losses.