Attacking triremes

[Osvaldo Manso]

Triremes have a defense strength of 0. This means that any attack to a Trireme will be successful as it happens on solid ground with Diplomats.
That was what I thought. So, whenever I found an enemy Trireme I attacked. Since Triremes have an attack strength of 1, in a Trireme Vs. Trireme battle the offensive side always wins.

However, I was surprised to watch a Trireme standing firm after being attacked.
This particular enemy Trireme was carrying some units so my guess is that it was the units being transported that actually defended the Trireme. I always thought that units inside vessels (Triremes, Sails, Transports, Carriers) were inactive and could not attack or defend unless they were disembarked.

I would like to know what you think about it. Is my guess correct or is there another explanation for what happened?
If my guess is right, were you aware of this?

 

[Mize]

Diplomats and caravans also sometimes win defensive battles on their own, which eliminates your theory about triremes being able to defend only when full.

The answer is in the combat mechanics, which Gowron researched and very nicely summarized in this thread a few years ago:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ1-combat-mechanics-explained.492843/

Take a look at the 'Battle Outcome Determination' section. In a nutshell: a defender with zero defence will win a battle if the attacker is unlucky and also gets a zero from the roll of the digital dice. The smaller the attacker's attack value, the greater the chance to lose to an unarmed defender. Also, since the game does a lot of multiplication and division during combat, it makes sense that units with zero defence actually have one, zeroes might break the formula. So they are not totally defenceless after all.

 

[Osvaldo Manso]

Diplomats and caravans also sometimes win defensive battles on their own, which eliminates your theory about triremes being able to defend only when full.

The answer is in the combat mechanics, which Gowron researched and very nicely summarized in this thread a few years ago:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ1-combat-mechanics-explained.492843/

Take a look at the 'Battle Outcome Determination' section. In a nutshell: a defender with zero defence will win a battle if the attacker is unlucky and also gets a zero from the roll of the digital dice. The smaller the attacker's attack value, the greater the chance to lose to an unarmed defender. Also, since the game does a lot of multiplication and division during combat, it makes sense that units with zero defence actually have one, zeroes might break the formula. So they are not totally defenceless after all.

Thanks for your explanation. I never thought it was possible to get a zero from the roll of the digital dice, as you said. However I was thinking if zero defence was actually zero or if units could have decimal points like 0.2 or 0.3 which would be rounded down to zero for simplicity purposes.

I'll take a look at the thread you recommended me. Although it was a bad surprise it's great see new things after 37 years of playing!

 

[Mize]

I was thinking if zero defence was actually zero or if units could have decimal points like 0.2 or 0.3 which would be rounded down to zero for simplicity purposes.

That's kind of what people thought was going on before Gowron, darkpanda and the other hackers turned the game inside out and figured it out. I was actually about to write about it in my previous reply but decided against it, so as not to make my post confusing. Come to think of it, that assumption was almost correct. In reality it's not 0.1 or 0.2 but somewhere in between -- 1/8.