deanej
Deity
Yes, and I'm one of the only people on the forum mourning the end of stacks.
Attack and Defense VS 1 Number
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Yes, and I'm one of the only people on the forum mourning the end of stacks.
Ahriman
Tyrant
Yes, you are.
But stacks are gone, and we will have fewer units and so each unit will be representing a larger number of troops. IMO this should mean that units that cannot attack at all should be gone too.
KrikkitTwo
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I AGREE. The point is in Civ 1-4 Every battle carries a Large risk... in Every battle you could lose a unit. Healthy Modern Armor v. damaged Warrior there is a (theoretical) risk of losing your Modern Armor.... That is too big a risk.
The way I see it
1. Every battle should have a cost (each side takes damage)
2. Every battle should have a risk the cost may be higher
In Civ 1-4, only the Risk of cost was there... it was possible to win Any battle without a scratch, it was also possible to lose Any battle without scratching the enemy.
The RNG should remain in Civ... but "To hit rolls" should be removed from combat
The RNG should only affect the amount of damage done (a limited effect)... it should not be allowed to make damage to one side 0. (an infinite effect)
Now part of doing that is to make Damage taken by a unit become more vitally important (costly healing)
I don't get it. Are you really suggesting that a better system would be one where a tank killing a warrior must take damage? That means a system where you always have to heal units if you want to use them at full strength.
EDIT Also, a warrior attacking a walled hillcity defended by archers means the archers have to get hurt? I agree there should be a chance they get hurt, but I don't agree at all that having archers survive unscathed is a problem with the combat mechanics.
EDIT Also, a warrior attacking a walled hillcity defended by archers means the archers have to get hurt? I agree there should be a chance they get hurt, but I don't agree at all that having archers survive unscathed is a problem with the combat mechanics.
Ahriman
Tyrant
Yes, he is.
And plenty of historic examples of superior weapons taking basically zero damage.
eg; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ulundi
13-18 british deaths against 15,000 zulus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Manila_Bay_(1898)
US 1 dead (due to heatstroke) vs 6+ cruisers.
KrikkitTwo
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Not necessarily... they indicated that taking damage would not affect your "ability to defend" It may not affect your ability to attack as well.. ie a 200 str tank with 1 hp and a 200 str tank with 100 hp would still both be at full strength. (but one could die in a battle the other one wouldn't... but they would do and take the same amount of damage in that combat)
Also, what is wrong with having to heal units to use them at full strength.
Are you assuming units must stop to heal???
Why??
Perhaps it just costs money,
Perhaps they heal 2% per turn in enemy territory, and 16% per turn in friendly territory regardless of movement. (so you can heal completely for free.)
Maybe they wanted a way to slow units down a bit.
The problem with the combat mechanics is Not 'superior weapons/positions taking 0 damage'
The problem is RANDOMLY taking 0 damage... Inferior units/positions can also take 0 damage.. because they have a chance to do so.
If you wanted units to have a possibility of taking 0 damage in my system, then round damage taken DOWN rather than up
ie
A tank is calculated to take 0.36 points of damage from a spearman-> Tank can actually take 0 or 1 damage depending on how you round it... if you want more rounding go with fewer hit points (I've been assuming 100, but you could have in the range of 2-5 like in civ3, or 10-30 like in Civ 2. You could effectively avoid rounding altogether by giving units millions of hit points.)
13-18 deaths =0 damage???
This is a civ unit, not a pile of people damage=/= death
damage= dead, wounded, equipment damage, morale decrease, deserters, equipment overuse, individual exhaustion, etc.
If 'death' was the only measure of unit damage, then it should cost population points to heal units.
Also those are single battles, not a good equivalent for a civ unit-unit combat (although probably the best we have)
Hail
Satan's minion
you are not the only one! sign me in too!
Jopo
Chieftain
I like to approach the whole combat simulation from the perspective of HOW WOULD IT PLAY OUT IN REAL WORLD, HISTORICALLY. (without too much math involved)
For example: An archer has a first strike capability representing the units capability to shoot at a distance, good that´s one way to simulate it, if someone comes up with a better system I´ll consider it, but first strikes work as a way to simulate ranged fire.
Here´s one problem though: The archer is strong as long as the enemy is at range and the archer can shoot arrows at them, but when/if the enemy manages to close the distance to melee range, then I´d expect the archers to be very weak, so in Civ 4 terms, archers have a +50% (or whatever you like) bonus IN THEIR FIRST STRIKES, BUT when the combat gets to melee, the archer has a -50% minus, because the archers are really not trained or meant for close combat, they might have daggers and knives as personal weapons, but that´s really weak if your up against a swordsman with a shield (a TRAINED swordsman, trained for melee combat, archers train for years to be good with a bow, NOT to fight a melee)
In the current system the bonuses apply ALL THE TIME, an archer with a +50% bonus against melee units is a real killer also in melee combat, when the bonus might be meant to ONLY mean a bonus in ranged fire.
So I think there should be COMBAT PHASES or COMBAT TYPES or SOMETHING to differentiate different combat types, you have RANGED COMBAT (archers, musketeers, riflemen etc.) and you have CLOSE COMBAT (swordsmen, archers if they´re attacked in melee, musketeers in bayonet charge etc.)
Ranged units might have a RANGE parameter in their data to indicate who fires first and who gets the upper hand in ranged combat, archers might have 300m and riflemen 500m etc.
Anyway, to the question, should there be 1 or more values in combat, I´ll say that the STRENGTH master value goes a long way, BUT I think that if you intend to simulate reality FAITHFULLY and represent ALL the different aspects that affect combat, you might need more than one value and IF you need more than one then use more than one by all means. As long as reality is simulated well in the model, I´m happy.
Cheers!
PS.
I´m one of those too who think that stacking is NECESSARY.
Reason 1: How are you going to fit large armies into islands like Great Britain or Japan? You CAN´T with a 1upt system, that´s ONE reason to keep stacking in my opinion.
Reason 2: How are you going to move multiple units at a time? I don´t know if Civ 5 will have ANY sort of a system to allow multiple unit movement and even with fewer units it´s going to make turns take longer and that´s BAD, besides I like LARGE armies, lots of resources for everyone so ALL can build MASSIVE armies and duke it out. Without multiple unit movement it´s going to take forever to complete just one turn. There´s another reason to keep stacking, multiple unit movement.
However, I know that stacking has a major problem aswell, it´s called the Stack of Death and that´s BAD. So I propose a solution:
It´s called STACKING PENALTY. All units in a stack incur a sizable (decide yourself what is sizable) -50% or more PENALTY to their combat strength, making combat in stacks impossible and making the so called Stack of Death VULNERABLE. Stacks would remain as "marching formations", but you would need to deploy from stacks to an open formation to do battles in the field like in 1upt. So basically you would have the best of BOTH worlds, you would have stacking to enable large armies in small places, to remove overcrowding on roads and to enable multiple unit movement AND you would have those cool field battles that they envision at Firaxis, inspired by Panzer General, which had a 1upt system and its problems of overcrowding on roads etc.
I hope there will be a MOD that enables all this, since they´ve already made their decision at Firaxis, so the 1upt side will have their needs met by the vanilla game and the "stackers" will need to mod the game.
Also I´ve heard that they´ve REMOVED religions??!! They must be insane at Firaxis to do something so unrealistic. That too needs to be corrected by modding. Let´s wait and see what else needs to be done for the game to be playable.
Any volunteer coders for a MOD project?
Cheers!
For example: An archer has a first strike capability representing the units capability to shoot at a distance, good that´s one way to simulate it, if someone comes up with a better system I´ll consider it, but first strikes work as a way to simulate ranged fire.
Here´s one problem though: The archer is strong as long as the enemy is at range and the archer can shoot arrows at them, but when/if the enemy manages to close the distance to melee range, then I´d expect the archers to be very weak, so in Civ 4 terms, archers have a +50% (or whatever you like) bonus IN THEIR FIRST STRIKES, BUT when the combat gets to melee, the archer has a -50% minus, because the archers are really not trained or meant for close combat, they might have daggers and knives as personal weapons, but that´s really weak if your up against a swordsman with a shield (a TRAINED swordsman, trained for melee combat, archers train for years to be good with a bow, NOT to fight a melee)
In the current system the bonuses apply ALL THE TIME, an archer with a +50% bonus against melee units is a real killer also in melee combat, when the bonus might be meant to ONLY mean a bonus in ranged fire.
So I think there should be COMBAT PHASES or COMBAT TYPES or SOMETHING to differentiate different combat types, you have RANGED COMBAT (archers, musketeers, riflemen etc.) and you have CLOSE COMBAT (swordsmen, archers if they´re attacked in melee, musketeers in bayonet charge etc.)
Ranged units might have a RANGE parameter in their data to indicate who fires first and who gets the upper hand in ranged combat, archers might have 300m and riflemen 500m etc.
Anyway, to the question, should there be 1 or more values in combat, I´ll say that the STRENGTH master value goes a long way, BUT I think that if you intend to simulate reality FAITHFULLY and represent ALL the different aspects that affect combat, you might need more than one value and IF you need more than one then use more than one by all means. As long as reality is simulated well in the model, I´m happy.
Cheers!
PS.
I´m one of those too who think that stacking is NECESSARY.
Reason 1: How are you going to fit large armies into islands like Great Britain or Japan? You CAN´T with a 1upt system, that´s ONE reason to keep stacking in my opinion.
Reason 2: How are you going to move multiple units at a time? I don´t know if Civ 5 will have ANY sort of a system to allow multiple unit movement and even with fewer units it´s going to make turns take longer and that´s BAD, besides I like LARGE armies, lots of resources for everyone so ALL can build MASSIVE armies and duke it out. Without multiple unit movement it´s going to take forever to complete just one turn. There´s another reason to keep stacking, multiple unit movement.
However, I know that stacking has a major problem aswell, it´s called the Stack of Death and that´s BAD. So I propose a solution:
It´s called STACKING PENALTY. All units in a stack incur a sizable (decide yourself what is sizable) -50% or more PENALTY to their combat strength, making combat in stacks impossible and making the so called Stack of Death VULNERABLE. Stacks would remain as "marching formations", but you would need to deploy from stacks to an open formation to do battles in the field like in 1upt. So basically you would have the best of BOTH worlds, you would have stacking to enable large armies in small places, to remove overcrowding on roads and to enable multiple unit movement AND you would have those cool field battles that they envision at Firaxis, inspired by Panzer General, which had a 1upt system and its problems of overcrowding on roads etc.
I hope there will be a MOD that enables all this, since they´ve already made their decision at Firaxis, so the 1upt side will have their needs met by the vanilla game and the "stackers" will need to mod the game.
Also I´ve heard that they´ve REMOVED religions??!! They must be insane at Firaxis to do something so unrealistic. That too needs to be corrected by modding. Let´s wait and see what else needs to be done for the game to be playable.
Any volunteer coders for a MOD project?
Cheers!
KrikkitTwo
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Not possible OR desirable
Civ is not a combat simulator any more than it is a economic or political simulator
The idea behind the combat model should be to have the Results of the model match the expected Results in the 'real world historically'... to a degree, you also want to consider game balance, and make multiple units and strategies fun to use.
which can be represented by giving the archers a greater amount of strength
OR
giving the Archers a ranged bombardment ability
This is assuming you are trying to simulate a 'cage match' between small groups of individuals... Civ is simulating entire armies clashing over a period of multiple Years
I'm not.. as I'm sure you wouldn't be if economic or political reality was simultated at ALL well in Civ
Well what they need to do for stacks to work is to change the model from Unit v. Unit combat to Stack v. Stack combat.... requires a lot of complexity (if the stacks can be mixed)
Religion(s) plural have been removed... Religion has not... it is now a 'social setting' (Monotheism, Polytheism, Paganism, Theocracy, etc.) the same as totalitarianism, freedom, economy, environment, etc.
Ahriman
Tyrant
My god.... in total agreement with a Krikkitone post. The horror....
We will have stack v stack combat in Civ5! Its just, you won't be able to select the subcomponents of each stack. ;-)
KrikkitTwo
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If they didn't have ranged combat as something common, I'd agree with you. But instead I'd say they Still have unit v. unit combat, but units are arranged in 'blocs' rather than 'stacks'.
(The universe is restored.. mild disagreement reigns)
Really? I think the risk of the Warrior killing the tank should be remote, but in real life, it's NOT impossible. The warrior throws a stone that goes into the gun turrett and causes the next shell to misfire and take out the modern armor. A warrior tricks a tank into chasing him and it gets trapped between trees or meanders into a deep bog. These things can and have happened. In CivI - IV and presumably in V, we don't get a real idea of what tactics could be at play, but no one really thinks of them as limited to the very static repetitive set of exchanges we see in Civ4 animation do they? If anything, a warrior veteran and commando should be quite cabable of neutralizing an isolated tank with no combat experience. Even if we say that a unit represents a squad of warriors and a squad of modern armor, it's certainly possible that on their best day using superior tactics, luck and terrain a squad of warriors might be able to neutralize an inept, inexperienced and unlucky squad of modern armor on their worst day. Yes, it should be very very rare. But it happens.
I think there may be a valid argument that the odds should have been stacked even further against this in the earlier Civs, but that's different than saying it should never never never be able to happen.
Ahriman
Tyrant
Worth noting that the original question of this thread has been answered; we have a single strength value, and then hit points/health.
deanej
Deity
Let's say the warrior has a .1% chance of defeating the tank (I think I'm being generous here). Of course, units represent more than the one tank on the screen, so let's say it's 100 warriors vs. 100 tanks. The chance to win is 0.1^100 - this is a number so small my TI-84 PLUS can't even give the result as anything other than 0. You probably have a better chance of walking through a wall than the warriors have of defeating the tanks.
The whole analysis even leaves out the fact that battles in RL aren't determined by probability.
KrikkitTwo
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Actually we have 3 values
a Strength value, a hit points/ health and a Bombardment value
Ahriman
Tyrant
But no separate attack/defense values, which was the thread's question.
Schuesseled
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yes exactly, this is a must for a civ game!
Schuesseled
Deity
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name one occurence when a primitive club wielding warrior has tricked a tank into getting stuck between two trees. bet you cant.
Ahriman
Tyrant
Battle of Endor ;-)
Remember you are the political leader commanding the generals who command the battlefield troups in Civ. Extrapolating to real life, there is also a chance that you're battlefield leader is a TOTAL IDIOT and falls for some trick of the warrior that results in all of the 100 tanks firing on each other or smashing into each other and exploding. In fact, if I'm the warrior commander, this is exactly the tactic I would try to employ -- sneak into the middle of the tank formation and force them to risk injuring one another while attacking my squad. Minimal chance of success, but not impossible. TOTAL IDIOTS can also be lured to drive their entire force over cliffs, between trees, etc. This is especially easy if you are facing the (insert nationality of your choice).
