battle results pre-determined each turn?

[Hobie]

so i'm at war with my neighbor and i've worn his city defense down to a single conscript(2 hp) infantry. i have one more elite modern armor that i can attack with. of course, my modern armor dies while the infantry doesn't lose a single hp. i'm pissed off so i reload the last year. repeat attack. same thing happens. try a couple more times. exact same results. WTH?

later on, i have 2 elite modern armors attacking a veteran mech inf. first modern armor takes 3 hp's off him(he has one left) and dies. second modern armor attacks next unit(regular mech inf) and only takes 1 hp before he dies. restore save game. same exact results.

everytime i save the game before an attack the next turn, i get the exact same results from the battle. yes, i know this is kinda cheating, but it's not like i'm playing multi-player or anything.

does this happen to anyone else? SHOULD this be happening?

 

[Blitz_1]

HAPPENS TO ME ALL THE TIME! Anytime I do a major attack, I always save before I attack. And everytime if I lose and try again, the EXACT same thing happens.

I guess it prevents cheapness where people can just save and load until they win

 

[Knight-Dragon]

A suggestion, form your armor units into Armies. That's what Armies are for in Civ3 - to attk cities in addition to other things. You may want to bombard the defenders before launching attks too - to soften them a bit. Use ships (if near coast), bombers, artillery etc.

 

[Civilizator]

Yes,

the results of the combats are all predetermined, not
only for a single turn, but probably for the whole game,
as a long sequence of numbers the computer uses
as it needs to find out the results of the fights.

 

[Magellan]

Yeah, I noticed the same thing. Save and repeat doesn't change results. The one thing you can do is save and then attack the next year.

 

[betheballdanny]

I wonder if the same applies to the loss of galley to the depths of the sea? In civ2, I'd sometimes let that happen beacause I had trouble counting to 3 at 4 in the morning. So, I'd reload the game from the previous turn and land the sucker near the coast the next time. That obviously wouldn't cause the a sinkage in this case, but what if you're trying to cheat your way to a continent 5 squares away? I would never do that, as that "strategy" wouldn't be possible in an MP game though.

 

[Galen Dietenger]

The results are predetermined, its cheap and annoying as hell. While I agree its cheap to simply reload till you get the results you want, Firaxis in fact is*ENCOUREING* the need for that very same behavior by makeing 'the killer phalnax' integreal to the game. On the one had, they want to prevent cheapness-thats fine-then they turn around and make it so ironclads can sink nuclear subs- conscript spearmen defeat elite cavaly-tanks get beaten by middle ages or bronze age tech etc-weve all seen it happen.

Now heres how the 'combat system' seems to judge battles. Either you do really good-that is the majority of your battle are won with few loses-low damage -OR- your combined arms force of tanks-cav-infantry artillery etc-will sufffer horrible loses-and like you all, this will happen reload after reload. The only way around it is too wait it out and attack next turn. The combat system needs to be totally revamped imo. From firxasis offically admitting its combat system means loseing modern units to bronze age tech to ..whatever they have done to 'predetermine the outcome' indicates a real lack of intergrity on there part. And it tells me they hold Civ3 players in very low regard as well. Of there so worried about armchair generals saveing all the time-make it so u can only save every 5 years or so or something -and return the combat system to one that makes logical sense.

 

[Peteus]

BAH!

Really, it's not that bad. Try taking out the pen and paper and actually recording the results of 100 attacks or so. Believe me, I know how frustrating it is to lose an elite modern armour without hitting the defending infantry. But I'm OK with the fact that it's possible, and I'm confident from observation that it is rare.

And the "non-random" random number generator is an intentional design decision, to discourage save-and-reload cheating. If you're really concerned about it, all you have to do is quit and restart the game - the generator will be reseeded, and you'll probably get a different result! (Or so I've heard.)

 

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

AFAIK, combat outcomes are *not* predetermined, but random number generation is programmed such that if you reload a save and do the exact same attack you WILL see the exact same results.


Dan

 

[rubble]

i dont know why they didnt include "iron man" option like the had in SMAC, you know the one where you could only save when exiting, this predetermined combat is bs

 

[damunzy]

Originally posted by rubble
i dont know why they didnt include "iron man" option like the had in SMAC, you know the one where you could only save when exiting, this predetermined combat is bs

As Dan just said, combat is not predetermined. If you want to cheat, completely leave the game and then come back. If you want to get better at the game try changing tactics. Remember, this is Civ3, not Civ2. You need to change your tactics.

 

[Hommer]

This is strange to see such discussion in this forum. Save-Load-Load-Load-Load is not Strategy, isn't it?

And there was a strategic game "Jagged Alliance 2"... In there a RND(x) works absolutely similar.

Sorry 4 my English.

PS: Try to modify the sequence of action of units...

 

[daffyduckmw]

What it looks like the game is doing is saving the state of its pseudorandom number generator when it saves the game. A pseudorandom number generator is a function that produces a sequence of random-seeming numbers. Its called pseudorandom because the function keeps track in a sense of where it is in a list of random numbers. So the function's current "state" determines what the next number it spits out will be. The game is saving that state with your saved game.

So it's not really that the results of who is going to win what fights is predetermined. You can get different results from the same saved game by varying the order in which it asks for random numbers. Attacking with unit a, then unit b will produce one result. Attacking with unit b, then unit a will produce another. In fact inserting anything that requires a random number before your attack will affect the outcome. So you can leave a galley out at sea, or enter a hut and it will cause a different result.

By the way, this was true of Civ2 as well, it was just less obvious. In Civ2 just moving units around used random numbers. If you had half your movement left and tried to enter a mountain square, there was a random chance that it would succeed. So all you had to do to get a different combat result from your saved game was to move your units around a little differently, Something you were bound to do anyway without even noticing. This doesn't work any more, though, movement doesn't use random numbers in Civ3.

So if you want to get different results out of your saved game, save it earlier (ideally a whole turn earlier) so you can vary the order in which you do things.

 

[LoneWolf]

The combat results are absolutely NOT predetermined. I can not believe some of the mindless foolishness you read hear. I have had different combat results upon saving and replaying many times. BTW, this is not "kinda" cheating, it is real, actual, honest to God cheating. And then people complain about the AI!

 

[benn]

Originally posted by daffyduckmw
So if you want to get different results out of your saved game, save it earlier (ideally a whole turn earlier) so you can vary the order in which you do things.

That's right. Save your game at the beginning of the turn even. As long as you vary how you move your other units that turn or the order of attacks, you MAY see different results.
If you save and keep repeating the same attack, you will get the same result.

 

[VoodooAce]

shoot, i like this because i think it DISCOURAGES the save, load, load strategy because it doesn't help.

Plan your attacks right in the first place, and then deal with the results of your actions, regardless of whehter those results are postive or not!

 

[ironfang]

If you cant take a bloody nose stay out of the ring. [punch]

War isnt easy and costless, so if you lose an armor unit to a city... :midfinger ... regroup and try again.

:skull:
ironfang

 

[ApocalypseKurtz]

Originally posted by ironfang
If you cant take a bloody nose stay out of the ring. [punch]
:skull:
ironfang

WHY DO YOU LOOK AT ME WHEN YOU HATE ME

WHY SHOULD I LOOK AT YOU WHEN YOU MAKE ME HATE YOU TOO

I SENSE A SMELL OF RETRIBUTION IN THE AIR

I DON'T EVEN UNDERSTAND WHY THE F YOU'D EVEN CARE

AND I DON'T NEED YOUR MEMORY

WHY DRAG ME DOWN IN YOUR MISERY

OH YEAH

 

[Hobie]

first of all, i want to thank all the people who replied about the not-so-random random number generator. i now know a little bit more about how the game works. it was not so much the fact that i lose a modern armor to an infantry occassionally that bothered me(hell, i've have weird lopsided battles go my way, as well), but the fact that it did not seem random that was weird.

secondly, "If you cant take a bloody nose stay out of the ring. "? WTH kind of response is that? i'm sorry if i'm not as good at this game as the rest of you. it's a freaking single-player game. frankly, i don't care if i have the best strategy. i played civ 2 for years and had crappy strategy and still enjoyed it. one day i will learn to abuse the ai like a lot of people in here and people will hail the strategy as brilliance instead of condemning me as a newbie because i'm reloading saved games instead of taking advantage of an imperfect ai.

 

[Galen Dietenger]

Daffyduck I think explained it perfectly, you can get around combat 'bias' by changeing the order in which units attack. However the same 'bias' (for lack of a better word) operates in other aspects of the game as well. For example-ever notice when you plant a spy and it gets caught and killed? IF you try again-what happens-dead and so on untill they declare war on you. But if you try next turn-it might work. The game has 'decided' your spies will be caught and killed no matter how many times you try. Huts are the same way. Now I agree save+load is chessy-totally agree

-BUT-

Firaxiss admitting to there 'killer phalanx' system (see thread here on that topic) as well as the maddening way that citys you just conqureed revert without warning a taking the 12 tanks and infanty you had there on riot suppression with them-is just a little hard to take. Espically when you can lose huge number of units to this-they get 4? conscript infanrty on THAT turn. A unrealistic and skewed combat system will encourage save-and-load like nothing else-and thats what we have happening here (imo) no matter how much they try to prevent it. Like i said if they want to prevent reloading-dont let us save every turn or use some other method, im sure something better than what exists could have been implemented.