BATTLE ENGINE - The most unrealistic aspect of the game.

[Venger]

Warriors Vs infantry???

I didn't know there was a difficulty level lower than settler?

Giggle!

That said - Civ REFUSES to use one of the few things that CTP got right - it's combined forces army concept. Different units perform different roles simultaneously to resolve combat not Kung Fu movie style where the hero fights one enemy at a time, but on a scale that makes sense...

That said, I can live with the single unit needing to attack 10 times. Hey, it's not like Tenochtitlan was overrun the first day.

Venger

 

[Lord Shadow]

Civilization was never meant to be realistic.

 

[Grizpin]

Civilization was never meant to be realistic.

Ok, I can appreciate this point of view but I was a bit frustrated last night. I had a stack of about 7 horse archers and 7 longbowmen trying to take a city defended by 4 archers with defense bonuses. I could not kill one of the enemies units until I got catapults. It seemed a bit to over the top for a city with no walls being over run with horse archers and longbows.... just my feeling.

 

[Inflammatory]

Were your units greenhorn? Did his have city defense promotions? Was his city on a hill?

 

[Grizpin]

Were your units greenhorn? Did his have city defense promotions? Was his city on a hill?

They weren't greenhorns... most of them had 3 promotion levels with strength upgrades. The town may have been on a hill but I also had completely razed the country... they had no production and yet were able to hold off my troops for 50+ game time years... if not longer. Wouldn't they run out of arrows at some point?

 

[Inflammatory]

Well, simply sounds like you've been screwed by the random generator. Apparently a lot of people have suffered that problem, but I've been lucky so far. You're supposed to be able to see the combat odds before attacking.

 

[MeteorPunch]

they had no production and yet were able to hold off my troops for 50+ game time years... if not longer. Wouldn't they run out of arrows at some point?

Either that, or your units would have died of old age.

 

[Volstag]

Civ IV is a largely abstract game, especially with regards to combat. Deal with it, or return the game. Why aren't you complaining that your units can't walk across the globe in a five year turn?

 

[Grizpin]

Civ IV is a largely abstract game, especially with regards to combat. Deal with it, or return the game. Why aren't you complaining that your units can't walk across the globe in a five year turn?

Ummm.... don't tell me what to do. Either be constructive or don't come to this forum... ok?

I am trying to understand what I might be doing wrong. Is it wrong to post a frustration in regards to gameplay in (omg) a gameplay forum??? Maybe my strategies aren't correct and appreciate any constructive feedback to help me correct what I may be doing wrong.

Thanks to the previous poster who offered insight to my situation .

 

[dh_epic]

ARGH.

People who get caught up in the timeline of Civ are wasting everyone's energy. This isn't something you should argue about.

What's important is how the turns work. What kind of timeline would you attach to a game of chess or checkers?

The right answer is WHO CARES.

 

[Grizpin]

Personally, I'm not worried about the timeline. I just don't understand why it would take so many units + siege units just to route out a few troops in a city without walls. I understand they have defense bonuses but it seems to me they are a bit unbalanced to the bonuses that attackers receive. Am I wrong in this? Maybe I just didn't have the right troops??? I still think a legion of horse archers and longbowmen could take out a handful of the best defensive units over any period of time... doesn't matter how long, just that they would eventually do it.

 

[rd_syringe]

Situation:

2 warriers in the city against 1 infantry. Infantry attacks and killes the warrier with no prob. But than it has to wait ONE WHOLE turn to attack the other. Which represents years of time.

Now imagining this in reality. If Russia was to attack one city in Azerbayian with intention of destroying it and killing everybody around. Would that take years?

Civilization is an abstraction of reality, like a board game. Applied to reality, that enemy city was under siege by troops stationed outside its borders in a multi-year siege. You have to fill in the gaps yourself.

It's like when your troops get attacked by a lion unit. Applied to reality, troops crossing through dangerous territory were weakened by the dangerous wildlife of the environment (which has happened historically). Game-wise, your swordsman unit was attacked by a lion unit. It's all abstract to make it playable.

 

[Heav]

Personally, I'm not worried about the timeline. I just don't understand why it would take so many units + siege units just to route out a few troops in a city without walls. I understand they have defense bonuses but it seems to me they are a bit unbalanced to the bonuses that attackers receive. Am I wrong in this? Maybe I just didn't have the right troops??? I still think a legion of horse archers and longbowmen could take out a handful of the best defensive units over any period of time... doesn't matter how long, just that they would eventually do it.

yeah, u didn't use right army , archers/longbowmans are for defense, horse archers beat meele units(except spearman/pikeman) and meele units beat city .

So when u wanna atack city, ur stack of units must have spears, swords/axes and bows and late catapults and better technic.

 

[Ravinhood]

Does a chess piece get to move more than once per turn or attack more than once per turn? No it doesn't, why? Because it's the "rules of the game", Know why warriors can't attack more than once per turn??? Because it's the "rules of the game". If you don't like the rules don't play the game. It's a game "not a history lesson or trying to be "realistic". It's a turn based game of "strategy", what YOU read into it is your fault, not the games faults, it is faultless when it comes to the "rules of the game".

 

[Genghis Khan II]

Ok while we are at it why dont we bring up the fact that if you added up the civics, you would wonder why americas in debt.

 

[[Gandalf]]

Yes, I totally agree that Civilization is not meant to be realistic (although some maps and things like that have done a good job of imitating the real thing).

One thing though, that affects the overall fun-ness of the game is that you can't attack in groups. This would add a whole level of strategy (which units attack with which, against which), and improve the overall gameplay. I hope to see a mod for this in the future! It's always good to have more options as opposed to less.

 

[Sorceresss]

Civilization was never meant to be realistic.

 

[Joh]

You can always turn on 'stack attack' in the advanced options to make the whole stack attack at once. But that reduces strategy.

As it is, you choose the best attacker for the job based on how the battle has gone so far.

 

[Jonathan]

2 warriers in the city against 1 infantry. Infantry attacks and killes the warrier with no prob. But than it has to wait ONE WHOLE turn to attack the other.

The reason for this is the stupid combat system, whereby you have two stacks of units but they can fight each other only one at a time.

This is stupid not just because it's unrealistic (battles don't work like this) but because it's so tedious. If I have 12 units fighting 10 units, I don't want to have to work my way through them one at a time, I want to select my 12 units, point them at the target, and have the program resolve the battle at once.

 

[Frewfrux]

It sounds to me, reading your origonal post, that you don't so much have a problem with the battle engine (you do...but) but, rather, more of a problem with the time sequences.

If that's the case then I have two things to say:

1) You miss-titled this thread.

2) Rather then me saying to you "it's just a game", how about "Do you have any suggestions to improve the game?" How is it that you propose to fix the problem that you percieve? Keep in mind that the game still needs to be playable (you can't have even just 1 year per turn for 6000+ years).

I would actually be interested in sugestions to fix this little problem of civ. It's an aspect of the game that has plagued the serries ever since it started. Not that I think it ruins the game, it is just a game after all It's just that I've allways thought it could use some improvement, but never been able to think just what improvement that might be. Maybe that's a sign that they got it as right as it could be.