Better Combat unfolding

[Danicela]

I don't very understand how the combats work, the combat graphics seem to be independent of what happens in the Fight Diary and the combat graphics seem to be independent even of what and how the power will be reduced. (ex : even if you unit is hit, he doesn't lose any life, or although he is not hit, he loses life.)
The fight diary is also hard to understand, moreover, the french translation is very bad done : it talks about 'inflige' (= deals) instead of 'subit' (= is dealt), so you can't understand what happens, because the situation is inversed.
What is the link between power and "damage" => 100 hp ? How do you calculate the damage ? 17? 23? The power is a "chance" of dealing damage or what? How do you see it on combat graphics? The combat graphics seem to be only a "decoration" without any thing in link with power, life, and fight diary.

It would be better if for each hit, it decreases hp/power to the damaged unit, and it would be even better if you see the life bar of each decreasing progressively of the hits (like in all the other strategy games) :

For exemple.
A warrior vs archer.
the warrior gives a hit to the archer => the archer loses life + life bar.
After, the archer gives a hit to the warrior => the warrior loses life + life bar.
And the Fight Diary says the same things, for each hit, you get the exactly same information in the Fight Diary.
Therefore, The life bar would be shown in the combat, but the life losing would be shown only gradually according to the hits.

The combat graphics, the fight diary, and the power, should have a link, something coherent, to easily understand how it works, and the meaning of each information.

See the poll.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I don't very understand how the combats work,

Check the Strategy Articles forum for an explanation of how it works

The combat graphics seem to be only a "decoration" without any thing in link with power, life, and fight diary.

Correct, and since you can't really react in the middle of a battle , how it should be.

 

[Danicela]

Correct, and since you can't really react in the middle of a battle , how it should be.

Why do you want to react in the middle of a battle?
How it should be ?
Why did you posted "No" if you agree with my idea?

 

[eg577]

The point is that if we are going to sit through the animations we should at least be told how many life points the winner has left. I liked the old civ2 way where there was a small black "explosion" each round indicating which side got hit. At the very least the civ4 attack animations should correspond to winner of each round. In civ2 and civ3 you also got to see their hitpoint bars dynamically change during the battle, which for the life of me I don't understand why they can't do that with graphics bloated civ4.

 

[DarkFyre99]

I've always been of the opinion that the graphics generally does reflect the flow of the battle. I know that if one side is reduced to a single soldier on screen (of the original three), then that side has taken heavy damage. If one side takes a hit from the other, but doesn't lose a figure, than the hit did little damage.

I also like the way that the health bars and strength of the unit doesn't change at the beginning of the battle anymore. It makes the outcome of the fight in doubt until the very end.

 

[Mr. Do]

I'd just like to see it sped up a lot more, I get so bored of having to sit through ~5 seconds for every fight. When I have big wars going on and the AI SoD'ing me, I've got better ways to be wasting my time. And before someone tells me, "You can put the quick battle option on!!!!!11", that's not good enough, as it makes the battle instantly and doesn't give you ANY time to observe or reflect upon what's going on, and indeed, there've been times where I've heard the noise indicating victory or loss and have had no idea where it took place.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Why do you want to react in the middle of a battle?
How it should be ?
Why did you posted "No" if you agree with my idea?

Because you can't react in the middle of the battle, the graphics are merely for show. Therefore, its a silly idea to give the player nearly useless detailed information in the main screen. You can get the information in the diaries, trying to add it into the graphics would be a waste of programmer/artist time+computer time