Are there any tricks to naval combat? Why do my battleships suck?

[Kid R]

Re. RNGs, possible confusion is that "RNG" has 2 common meanings. To the more technical people it's a specific term for the very low-level routines that create sequences of random numbers. Clue's in the name: Random Number Generator. Every time code calls the routine it spews out a new number: 74312105, 41234, 96248939, 23, 98644208, etc. These routines are very simple, have been around for many decades, are understood very well, and even the simplest ones give results virtually indistinguishable from "real" randomness in most contexts. The one used all over the place in Civ 4, so far various people including myself have been able to find out, is totally sound.

But to gamers "RNG" is kind of a black box term just meaning "whatever determines some random result". What Seraiel means here I think by "RNG" is the set of systems and routines built on top of that low-level routine, basically the whole Civ 4 combat system. All he's arguing is that the combat system, especially with low quantities of units, gives results which vary too much for enjoyable gameplay, and would be better if smoothed out. E.g. for example if the number of rounds of fighting in each battle was increased, and the amount of HP damage done by each successful hit decreased, that would clearly make the result more predictable. Obviously this is a matter of taste as some people like the wild variation Also it has to be said that the promotion system does go some small way towards catering for different tastes - e.g. the COMBAT line I'd say in the long run gives you more predictable results.

So suggestion: Non-techies, don't use our precious technical term "RNG" when you mean the general combat system! Techies, don't be so quick to take offence on behalf of the RNG when non-techies are probably really talking about the combat system

 

[Seraiel]

Well written Kid_R

[EDIT]

Post reads very smooth . I didn't get what you mean with "true randomness" though, you mean the RNG that HE uses?

No, you understood me very well, I take that as a good sign.

 

[Kid R]

"true randomness" though, you mean the RNG that HE uses?

Yes, Sid's RNG!

 

[Macksideshow]

I think I understand what you mean Seraiel as well and I get the frustration. I think its a symptom of you playing the game with the goal of minimizing finish date which I do too just not nearly as well. Even smallish variance early will have a huge effect so I suspect you have reached a point in your play where you basically feel you are playing the RNG.

To most players (well at least when the game first came out) the randomness was mostly fun and their strategy was not so min/maxxed and it didn't seem such a big deal to lose an unlucky number of times. I can remember losing rough and then rebuilding and coming back 100 years later and winning and that was fun to me at the time. Now, I'd prob just reload (or rage quit) as I don't play HoF.

I think we understand that it is the combat system you have an issue with (not specifically the RNG). I am wondering if you had ideas of how to improve it?

 

[Lexicus]

What also got mentioned btw. was another thing that I now call "badly programmed" I'm confident in writing this and that is the function via which HP-losses are distributed. If a Machine Gun is in a city there are good chances that a Cavalry will beat it, this already is stupid, do you know what Machine Guns do with Cavalries? I hope you don't. And if in a 99% fight the chances to get out with 50% of the HP are 15%, that again is too high for my taste. A 99% fight means that one unit is lightyears further in developement and that unit should maybe take a few scratches and ofc. it can lose if i. e. having a malfunction or whatever but losing 50% HP and that with 15% chance? Not in the world is that realistic, a Destroyer could run over an Ironclad and probably take only minor damage, a Destroyer would need one shot to sink the Ironclad while the Ironclad probably could not even scratch the armor of the Destroyer and yes, ofc. , the Ironclad could wait somewhere, the Destroyer passes and then the men from the Ironclad jump on the Destroyer and capture it, but 50% HP at 15% chances is ridiculous.

Your point is taken, but you're actually underestimating the Destroyer's superiority here. A Destroyer would smash an Ironclad before the Ironclad could even see it over the horizon. It would be ludicrously unequal engagement. The Ironclad would not even get the chance to scratch the Destroyer's armor.

With cavalry vs machine guns, I don't even think machine guns should be separate units, they'd be better manifested as be a promotion given to Infantry that gives a bonus against gunpowder and mounted.

I think we understand that it is the combat system you have an issue with (not specifically the RNG). I am wondering if you had ideas of how to improve it?

More rounds of combat with lower damage each round would probably accomplish what Seraiel wants pretty much by itself. It's sort of similar to what Civ V did when it changed health bars from 10 HP to 100.

 

[Seraiel]

I think I understand what you mean Seraiel as well and I get the frustration. I think its a symptom of you playing the game with the goal of minimizing finish date which I do too just not nearly as well. Even smallish variance early will have a huge effect so I suspect you have reached a point in your play where you basically feel you are playing the RNG.

To most players (well at least when the game first came out) the randomness was mostly fun and their strategy was not so min/maxxed and it didn't seem such a big deal to lose an unlucky number of times. I can remember losing rough and then rebuilding and coming back 100 years later and winning and that was fun to me at the time. Now, I'd prob just reload (or rage quit) as I don't play HoF.

I think we understand that it is the combat system you have an issue with (not specifically the RNG). I am wondering if you had ideas of how to improve it?

Playing the RNG is a fitting description . Yes, the whole game is more or less randomness, Mansa picking the right tech, an AI not choosing to build a World Wonder from T0 when I'm waiting for a trade, well calculated battles, having the right neighbours and nobody far away building any Wonder one needs (Oracle / Mids / GLH / MoM / Kremlin / TM / HGs) ... Gambles are really fun but it's when one is forced to gamble while not wanting that can lead to frustration. If I i. e. decide to skip Construction and then the AIs by chance don't pick it early enough, ok, but when I attack a city that has 5 defenders with 15 troops at the optimal time so when every turn more would mean more defenders and every turn less would mean that I'd have less attackers and then still lose, that shouldn't happen imo. . I'm willing to lose if I go a risk but not if I play without making a fault just because a function rolls the wrong numbers and I have "bad luck" .

I already made some suggestion like i. e. creating functions that get the actual results closer towards the expected results over a certain number of fights keeping randomness but less the maximum possible gain but also maximum possible loss so that players have more control while gambles still are kept, so safer play. It'd be very easy to keep the players that love going for great risks by programming something as a "beserk mode" for a unit in which it attacks more wildly i. e. raising the maximum possible deviation but then that mode would need a disadvantage so that playing with beserk-mode-only doesn't achieve the best possible result like i. e. "the unit can only be set to beserk mode once and then dies after 10 fights" or "the unit needs twice as long for healing" etc. . The more options there are for the player the better the game assuming that the options are well balanced. CIV is very good in that discipline with i. e. resources that are all somehow different but very equal in value via the various options to transform into via Specialists i. e. or into via Wealth or also into , or or via the slider. If the DEVs were smart they'd all play an MMO once a while and simply copy the ideas from there or maybe also play some RTS games. Why are there i. e. no stationary defenses so building that can defend a city? It would create an option to better emergency defend a city or why can land not be mined with Workers.
I also wrote that it'd help if the acual superiority of a unit would actually mean something like in the case of Destroyer vs. Ironclad but then to counter that make upgrades completely free or cost only a few or make Workers able to upgrade units via Workerturns would probably be the best option. A feature I'd love would also be customization, in MOO2 players could design their units. In CIV this would need to be not that complex but it'd be amazing if a player could i. e. raise the STR of a unit by i. e. taking 1 movement point away or give a unit 1 movement-point by lowering it's STR because then it'd be possible to i. e. fight someone that has Infantries with i. e. "suicide-Rifles" that have only 1HP but +50% STR when the tech-situation just didn't allow something else. All those are imo. possibilities to enrich a game and make it better. Even in CIV5 the combat system is still completely underdeveloped, how is a player supposed to have fun, when the AI is unable to coordinate it's unit with 1 UPT?

Your point is taken, but you're actually underestimating the Destroyer's superiority here. A Destroyer would smash an Ironclad before the Ironclad could even see it over the horizon. It would be ludicrously unequal engagement. The Ironclad would not even get the chance to scratch the Destroyer's armor.

With cavalry vs machine guns, I don't even think machine guns should be separate units, they'd be better manifested as be a promotion given to Infantry that gives a bonus against gunpowder and mounted.



More rounds of combat with lower damage each round would probably accomplish what Seraiel wants pretty much by itself. It's sort of similar to what Civ V did when it changed health bars from 10 HP to 100.

Thanks for jumping in Lexicus .

 

[Seraiel]

Many of those things could btw. maybe be partly handled by promotions, beserk-mode could i. e. be a promotion and one feature that imo. would have the possibility of solving many problems would be if stacks could be used as combined troops so if i. e. 20 Checkers really fight as 20 with a STR of 40 against 20 Archers with a STR of 60 because that would allow for i. e. 100 Rifles owning 50 Infantries easily which imo. is realistic (I'm no military expert, so plz don't neat pick and tell me that an M4 is actually so much better than a Rifle from 1800AD that this is not realistic ^^ ) . As it is with every unit fighting every unit 1 strong uber-unit can pwn almost unlimited numbers of defenders, I once fought 1 Axe and didn't beat it with 20+ Warriors . And maybe all not 100% fair towards the DEVs because CIV is 10y old and for that time the game was probably revolutionary, but a GG should be a single unit with some interesting promotions but a GG should be a commander so it should i. e. work like a healer so a GG should really lead the units on the tiles around him by giving them i. e. a greater strenth and he shouldn't be a single hero unit that basically isn't even a real hero because the promotions don't make him stronger so one is in fear the whole time that he'll die ^^ . I'd also like a guard-function so the player i. e. being able to say "this unit gets guarded by unit x" and then unit x fighting instead of the other unit. This would allow to i. e. prevent that the actual heroes die because they always get chosen first and another thing I'd like would be the possibility to assign troops so like the AIs have scripts for city_defense or unit_attack assign stack_primary_defense to i. e. Drill units so that they really profit from their ability to get less collateral by being chosen as the first targets. Things like that basically emulate what CIV5 tries with 1 UPT because with a combined SoD of 20 units i. e. then the primary defenders would be in the outer ring, it'd solve the complete problem of 1 UPT that the AI has and then it'd be possible to bring i. e. a "formation" kind of feature so i. e. Archery-units standing in the middle attacking via range and not suffering any damage because of the guarding-feature of other units that are in the outer ring. Not completely sure that this is understandeable.

And I'm sorry to steer up one topic after another, but why does a Warrior need 2000y to move from one point of the map towards the other point . They could have taken inspiration from Chess so i. e. make units like Towers or Queens that have vastly higher movement points.

I'll leave it at this for now.

 

[Macksideshow]

elitetroops [EDIT]

What also got mentioned btw. was another thing that I now call "badly programmed" I'm confident in writing this and that is the function via which HP-losses are distributed. If a Machine Gun is in a city there are good chances that a Cavalry will beat it, this already is stupid, do you know what Machine Guns do with Cavalries? I hope you don't. And if in a 99% fight the chances to get out with 50% of the HP are 15%, that again is too high for my taste. A 99% fight means that one unit is lightyears further in developement and that unit should maybe take a few scratches and ofc. it can lose if i. e. having a malfunction or whatever but losing 50% HP and that with 15% chance? Not in the world is that realistic, a Destroyer could run over an Ironclad and probably take only minor damage, a Destroyer would need one shot to sink the Ironclad while the Ironclad probably could not even scratch the armor of the Destroyer and yes, ofc. , the Ironclad could wait somewhere, the Destroyer passes and then the men from the Ironclad jump on the Destroyer and capture it, but 50% HP at 15% chances is ridiculous.

Addition: The Combat rounds are also too few in number. You once demonstrated that there are cases where a single +10% STR promo can lead to needing 1 combat round less sometimes raising chances from 30% without that promotion to 60% with it. And I'll go again one step further and now also say that the whole unit-upgrading function is a complete fail aswell, because unit-upgrades are basically not adviseable in CIV and the reality (in states other than the WW2 UDSSR) the humans are the valuable part and not the weapons. Ok, training the humans costs some money, but how much difficulties do you think an ancient Archer would have had with a Rifle? Archery is way more difficult than handling a rifle, the Archer would have laughed at how easy his job became. Actually the whole process of upgrading is stupid imo. , because a Warrior cannot live 5000y so the Warrior 5000y after the initially build Warrior are the children of the children of the children (...) so they'd live in the time where those new weapons would get developed and could easily adapt.

And there was one other function that I didn't like aswell, I'll remember it in a further discussion maybe and I beg to understand the above correctly now.

The Australian 4th Light Horse Brigade successfully charged Beersheba which was defended by machine guns with relatively few losses so these things can happen in real life. I take your point about good chances of it happening though.

Additional combat rounds makes sense.

 

[Lexicus]

Many of those things could btw. maybe be partly handled by promotions, beserk-mode could i. e. be a promotion and one feature that imo. would have the possibility of solving many problems would be if stacks could be used as combined troops so if i. e. 20 Checkers really fight as 20 with a STR of 40 against 20 Archers with a STR of 60 because that would allow for i. e. 100 Rifles owning 50 Infantries easily which imo. is realistic (I'm no military expert, so plz don't neat pick and tell me that an M4 is actually so much better than a Rifle from 1800AD that this is not realistic ^^ ) . As it is with every unit fighting every unit 1 strong uber-unit can pwn almost unlimited numbers of defenders, I once fought 1 Axe and didn't beat it with 20+ Warriors .

The Australian 4th Light Horse Brigade successfully charged Beersheba which was defended by machine guns with relatively few losses so these things can happen in real life. I take your point about good chances of it happening though.

Look at the Battle of Isandlwana for a real-life example of a massive stack of Impi beating about 3 Infantry.

During WW2 the Russians were still using lots of mounted troops, typically they would move as cavalry and dismount to fight, but there are accounts of actual cavalry charges (using sabers and everything) on isolated German positions behind the lines, since the cavalry was extremely mobile and largely independent of conventional logistics.

Of course, Russian cavalry in WW2 were armed with modern weapons, from submachine guns and bolt-action rifles to mortars and light machine guns.

An interesting idea might be certain techs (Assembly Line, Railroad, or Artillery perhaps) unlocking promotions to keep cavalry from being rendered completely irrelevant by the onset of Infantry (extra movement, some sort of terrain-based bonus in flat land, possibly an attacking bonus against Infantry).

Another idea is implementing a logistics system to put a soft-cap on the amount of units allowed on a tile, and also enabling tactics like cutting supply lines and surrounding enemy armies to have some impact. Certain units eg cavalry, horse archers, Marines, should recieve logistics-based bonuses, while units like Knights, Cuirassiers, Tanks, should be harder to supply than normal units.

Basically, there should be some cost, whether in hammers or gold or expressed in some other way, to healing units and unit healing should be based on line-of-supply to your own territory and resources required to build the unit. If your forces are on a tile lacking access to horses it makes no sense that your mounted units can heal.

 

[elitetroops]

An RNG that evens out results though is something good imo.

...

Randomness in games needs to be very carefully controlled so that the results don't get too extreme because (this should be easily understandeable) great luck is great but if there is no limit, then players will play more and more risky seeking greater and then even greater luck and the flip-side is that they also get greater and greater suffering and too much of something (and I know that very well from having very strong feelings i. e. ) is not good anymore, so very slightly controlled "a little less luck" and therefore "a little less suffering" would be better.

Do you truly understand the implications of what you are suggesting here? The only way to make this work would be if the displayed combat odds are not the real odds for winning a battle (except for the first battle in the entire game). To "control the randomness" (an oxymoron in itself), all combat results would have to be skewed to give more likely wins to whoever has lost the most so far. Every time you win a battle, the odds for winning the next one would have to go down and every time you lose a battle the odds for winning the next one would have to go up. If the goal is to completely avoid extreme results, then inevitably there would have to be extreme situations when the displayed odds are 80% but your true odds of winning are 0%.

Now can you imagine what it would be like to play a game like this? The code for calculating real combat odds would obviously be known to the top players, like all the other code in the game. If you wanted to play a top level game, you would have to make use of this information and keep track of all the battles won/lost to be able to calculate your true odds for winning the next battle. That would be quite some spreadsheet (I know how much you love those ). Most likely people would have gotten tired of these spreadsheets a long time ago and mods like BUG/BUFFY would do the math for you. So now you would have a game where your odds for winning any battle is not constant, but it is constantly changing depending on previous results. When you walk your CR2 mace up to the fortified protective archer in a hill city with 20% cultural defenses, the odds would not say 65.1%. It would sometimes be >75% and sometimes <50%. In extreme cases it could be much more or much less. The percentages would swing more rapidly the smaller this "certain number of fights" you wish to control randomness for. Next, imagine how extremely easy this would be to exploit. Whenever your odds are lower than they should be, you fight less important battles with less important units (preferrably battles at low odds to make it more likely you lose and raise your odds). After losing a couple of those battles, your odds go up and now you can fight the battles that are important for you to win. I'm sorry, but implementing a system like this would be absolutely horrendous.

If, on the other hand, you are like me and prefer the combat odds for similar battles to always be the same, and you want those odds to be the true odds for every single battle, then you get the rest of all the randomness issues as part of the deal. There is no way around it. It is pure mathematics and you cannot change how that works.

 

[lindsay40k]

You aren't doing anything wrong, the RNG in CIV is just badly programmed.

I think it's less about the RNG and more about the 'fight to the death' combat rules. If we had five or ten rounds and then break off, an overdog's charge or broadside that falls on its backside would mean the unit just limps off, rather than getting stamped into the mud.

 

[rah]

Yes, every test that I've ever done mimics what elitetroops demonstrated here, so anyone that says it's a bad rng is just plain wrong.

If the odd of winning are 80% you should win about 80% of the time.

It seems Serial is simply arguing that he would like it to be 90% for the same combat so he only gets screwed 10% of the time rather than 20%.

You can change the combat model however you want, but if the odds are 80% that should be the result.

I understand that some game players don't like random things, but if you like civ, I always chuckle when the main random thing they rag on is the combat. As serial pointed out, there are so many random aspects to the game that combat is just one small part. And if you consider every time the game calls the function over the course of the game, you will never have such a small sample that it will deviate far from the norm. But timing is everything. Bad luck at the wrong time can be everything. (JUST LIKE IN REAL LIFE) Which is why I like the rng and thing it make the game great.

 

[rah]

I think it's less about the RNG and more about the 'fight to the death' combat rules. If we had five or ten rounds and then break off, an overdog's charge or broadside that falls on its backside would mean the unit just limps off, rather than getting stamped into the mud.

Yes, that model is used in Colonization. (at least in the R&R mod) and it does exactly what you claim. Of course they used too few rounds so to many combats are unresolved. (at least in my opinion)

 

[s.bernbaum]

There is an old saying amongst military planners that may well apply here:

Battle plans never survive contact with the enemy.

(This is not directed at particular person or post. It is a comment on the entire discussion.)

 

[Seraiel]

That post of you is a shame rah. I really thought you were an intelligent person, now I now the RNG is not the worst, it's people like you who write posts full of hate. Don't cross my way again, I may not attack, but be sure that I'm able to defend should you only once again say that I want the game to be easier or that I'm frustrated because I don't win as much as I'd like or whatever you are raising.

I just hope now I'm wrong, before I wasn't, my critique was valid but your post is outrageous.

 

[Lexicus]

Yes, every test that I've ever done mimics what elitetroops demonstrated here, so anyone that says it's a bad rng is just plain wrong.

If the odd of winning are 80% you should win about 80% of the time.

It seems Serial is simply arguing that he would like it to be 90% for the same combat so he only gets screwed 10% of the time rather than 20%.

You can change the combat model however you want, but if the odds are 80% that should be the result.

I understand that some game players don't like random things, but if you like civ, I always chuckle when the main random thing they rag on is the combat. As serial pointed out, there are so many random aspects to the game that combat is just one small part. And if you consider every time the game calls the function over the course of the game, you will never have such a small sample that it will deviate far from the norm. But timing is everything. Bad luck at the wrong time can be everything. (JUST LIKE IN REAL LIFE) Which is why I like the rng and thing it make the game great.

Did you not read Kid R's excellent clarifying post?

 

[rah]

Yes I did. But it seems others didn't so I heaped on.

And if Serial took offense, he's pretty thin skinned because it was not intended as insult. I'll just chalk it up as a communication gap.

 

[Pangaea]

Come on now; all posters here have surely played enough hours to know what is truly meant. Of course things will even out over 3000 battles. But if you have for instance 5 battles with winnings odds in the early game, and lose 3-4 of 5, then there is a good chance that rush is over, you can't take the city, defenders promotion heal, new guys are whipped, reinforcements come from nearby cities, maybe even they'll counter and kill your surviving units. Unless you have a horde of reinforcements, that rush has basically failed, simply because you got screwed by the RNG. We're hardly "rushing" with 3000 units. Late in the game this matters a great deal less because you have a big stack. But if you get "bad rolls" in the very early game, that has a huge impact on the whole game.

Yes, it can happen and it's a result of the RNG, or how it's implemented in the game. It's an issue, but whether that should be fixed/amended is a separate discussion. It seems people are a bit touchy when it comes to mentions of the RNG. Maybe it's the forum's version of "Your momma..."?

I think more rounds and more health would go some way to solving it. Underneath the hood each unit actually has 100 health points, and depending on strength and promotions and such, it will lose X of that for each round. This value could be higher, or each round could result in less damage, and that would go some way to solving things. Losing 7 rounds in a row can happen, obviously rarely, but losing 20 in a row or something? That would take some seriously bad luck! With more rounds needed to win each battle, the battles in the early game should in general be closer to the stated odds too, with less deviation due to "bad rolls". And even battles with poor odds should damage the defender, due to the amount of rounds needed to win.

 

[elmurcis]

Yeah, more rounds actually should help here. It is frustating when battle ends with oposite unit having 1/100 HP left just because each round my unit damaged was 33 not 33,3(3) (so it should won battle) but AI unit got lucky 4 winning strikes in a row).
Still outcome difference should be more damaged (60-80% HP left) winning units (higher chance for oposite unit to do any kind of damage) so it would be less likely just to "go ahead".. atleast without Supermedic for sure.
Just thinking about random things.. if you have 32 black and 32 white pieces of squares, you still can get chess table totally random

 

[elitetroops]

Adding rounds would not have any effect winning streaks or losing streaks. As long as the odds for victory are the same, it doesn't matter if the outcome is determined by one RNG call or a series of 100 RNG calls, you are still just as likely to lose X battles in a row. The main effect of adding rounds would be that you could expect the winning unit to take at least some damage more often. As such, this could have an effect on how often you end up feeling totally screwed, because you would be more likely to avoid the situations where the first couple of attackers don't even scratch the top defender. In other words, it would have an indirect effect on losing streaks. However, this would also work against you when you are attacked by large stacks (good luck surviving those always war games ). And, as elmurcis said, it would probably also slow down your own conquest when attacking with superior units, as your attackers would need healing more often. It would also greatly reduce the value of first strikes.