battle results pre-determined each turn?

[CrayonX]

Imagine playing chess with a chessmaster and saying "oh wait, I didn't want to do that!". Yeah, right....

Treat Civ3 like chess, plan moves and strategy WAY ahead of time, and you'll be better off (and more fulfilled) in the end.


crayonx

 

[Sblerber]

OUTCAME OF A BATTLE IS NOT RANDOM OR STATISTIC IN CIV III and I'm very disapointed in it.

To prove my statment I'm sending a zipped saved game of mine where I realize that the computer tries to balance up things during battles so that their outcame depends upon the actions that the player takes before entering a battle (stuff like hurring up a production in a city that the player is defending affects negatively the aftermath of the battle).

In my game, I play with the Romans and I'm at war with the egyptians and they are trying to take over the city of NEAPOLIS.
Four different cases have been studied and the outcame of each one is ALWAYS THE SAME and is clearly RELATED TO THE ACTIONS THE PLAYER TAKES BEFORE:

CASE 1

1 - Action: Roman warrior at Neapolis attacks Egyptian warrior. Outcame: Roman warrior wins (2 life points are left - yellow then the unit becomes veteran and is left then with 3 life points - green).

2 - Action: Hurry up spearman production in Neapolis

3 - Next Turn

4 - Egyptian War Chariot attacks Roman Warrior. Outcame: Egyptian unit wins but retreat to the hills with one life point left (red)

5 - Barbarian Horseman attacks Cumae. Outcame: Barbarian wins

CASE 2

1 - Action: Hurry up spearman production in Neapolis

2 - Action: Roman warrior at Neapolis attacks Egyptian warrior. Outcame: Roman warrior wins (1 life point is left - red).

3 - Next Turn

4 - Egyptian War Chariot attacks Roman Warrior. Outcame: Egyptian unit wins (full health bar)

5 - Barbarian Horseman attacks Cumae. Outcame: Barbarian defeated

CASE 3

1 - Action: Hurry up spearman production in Neapolis

2 - Next Turn

3 - Action: Egyptian warrior attacks Roman warrior at Neapolis . Outcame: Egyptian warrior wins (2 life points left - yellow). Neapolis taken

4 - Barbarian Horseman attacks Cumae. Outcame: Barbarian defeated

CASE 4

1 - Next Turn (do nothing)

2 - Action: Egyptian warrior attacks Roman warrior at Neapolis . Outcame: Roman warrior wins (no life point lost).

3 - Action: Egyptian War Chariot attacks Roman warrior at Neapolis . Outcame: Egyptian War Chariot wins (1 life point lost). Neapolis taken

4 - Barbarian Horseman attacks Cumae. Outcame: Barbarian defeated

CASE ANALISYS

In cases 01 and 02 it can be clearly seen that the aftermath of the battles are affected by hurring up the prodution. If the player hurry up the spearman production in Neapolis before attacking with the Roman Warrior he will get much more injured than if the player hadn't hurried up the production. If the player tries to "trick" the computer by attacking before hurring up the production (like in CASE 01), next turn the computer "tricks back" by making the Barbarian horseman win at Cumae (the only case where the barbarian wins, and he will always win the same way. In all other cases the barbarian is always defeated). So the aftermath of the battle is not depending upon statistic uncertainity, but upon the computer trying to balance things up, because the outcame will be always the same, no matter how many time you repeat the battle.

In cases 03 and 04 if the player hurry up the production, the warrior will ALWAYS lose the battle when attacked by the egyptian warrior whereas he will ALWAYS have a flawless victory if the player don't hurry up the production.

I'm very sad at that because I am a Civilization fan since 1992 and I was very happy at the news of this new version, but now much of the fun has been lost.

Try to follow the script for each one of the cases and you'll see what I mean.

Leandro Caputo
A disapointted Brazilian Fan

 

[Akka]

Originally posted by CrayonX
Imagine playing chess with a chessmaster and saying "oh wait, I didn't want to do that!". Yeah, right....

Treat Civ3 like chess, plan moves and strategy WAY ahead of time, and you'll be better off (and more fulfilled) in the end.


crayonx

The fact is, I'm NOT playing against a chessmaster. I'm not even playing with a newbie. I'm playing WITH A FREAKING SIMPLE ***ARTIFICIAL*** INTELLIGENCE !
I can cheat it, I can subdue it, I can betray it, I can do it whatever I want, because it's artificial, it's not real and ***I*** am the only ***HUMAN*** player.
I do not hurt anyone, I do not cheats anyone, I do not betray anyone.
The only thing I could do is to spoil my own personnal pleasure. Well, it's ***MY*** business if I spoil ***MY*** pleasure. And actually, having a semirandom system that have always the same result is spoiling my pleasure much more than save-reload-save-reload trick (I call it a trick, not a cheat).

So to all the lessons givers (VoodooAce and Ironfang comes to my mind) : stop talking high and be paternalist, each one has the right to play as they want, even if they enjoy cheating to death, as long as it's not MP.
If you don't like the reload trick, DON'T USE IT, but stop with the superiority complex. I used this trick in Civ 1 and Civ2, I will use it as many times as I see fit whenever I can, and I don't care about it.
Who are these guys that feels they can tell me how I should play ?

Forcing this kind of "you'll not trick" stuff is extremely annoying from Fireaxis. They should have worked on the air superiority bug rather.

Well, great game overall anyway, I just hope that the patch will fix bugs and remove this semirandom thing.