Better combat

[TheNiceOne]

Originally posted by Plume

TheNiceOne: Your suggestions are all pretty good. Making combat a lot more terrain dependent would add a lot to the game. However, IMHO, there are many improvements in the combat system that would be simpler and enhance game play at least as much. Let me give you examples:

1) The simplest fix: bring back the "odds window" before combat from SMAC. That was very useful. Of course, make that option removable in the preferences. I hate to calculate probabilities when I'm playing a game (but I understand that others might not want to see them, they want to keep that feeling of "it's just a game").
For me, I'm happy with the "it's just a game" feeling, and I'm content with the general feeling of odds. I would probably use this if it was there, but I don't think it would make combat more interesting.

2) Another huge problem with Civ3: the lack of units.
[snip]
If you're a builder you might not agree but the bottom line is that in terms of combat, except in the ancient era, you only have one good attacking unit and one best defending unit. I guess this relates to what TheNiceOne was saying: it would be great to have a game where different situations require different units. Ok, there's also the artillery but considering how useless catapults and cannons are, artillery comes too late (and should have a range of 3!).
Yep, that's my idea. If some guerilla types fared better than other in mountains, then there would be reason to build them (unless you didn't plan ot fight in mountains). If cavalry and knights fared poorly in woods and even worse in jungle (as they should), then there would be a use for other offensive foot-units etc.

Consider the following example. What's the point of longbowmen? At 4/1/1, they are useless. One might argue that they don't require strategic resources but if your opponent has knights and you don't, you're toast anyway. So, why not have the longbowmen at 5/3/1 ? That way, they're slower than knights but at least they have a higher attack so then, you've got to make a compromise: speed or attack.
See above - we seem to agree, but have a terrain dependancy would give even more diversion - also since you had to consider the terrain more carefully before going to war, and you would have to build a force that suited the terrain you would fight in.

[snip]Basically, I would summarize this last paragraph by:
- when an attack occurs where both units are at full strength, neither units die (you need multiple attacks).
I've played PGI and III (but not II).
I see problems with this idea: In civ, units are stacked, which unlike PG means that the attacker doesn't get to choose the defender he wants to attack - the best defender is always used. With your idea, the first defender woul take some damage, then for the second attack another defender would take some damage etc. So unless the attacker had quite a larger army, no defender would die. In the defender's turn he could move the wounded units back and move in new defenders, making it much harder to get anywhere when on the offense.

4) Make players pay for healing.
Or - let a maximum of on HP be healed (representing the broken unit that need time to get back in fighting shape). Other lost HP must be reinforced - either by combining units or by rebuilding the unit in a city.

5) Increase the speed of naval units and the range of air planes. This has been talked about to death.
Agreed, but even more important, is to decrease the speed of railway movement. It makes no sense that any unit in your whole (land-based) empire can strike back an attack on the first turn. One of the most important strategies, that of proper positioning of troops is totally lost after the railways.

 

[TheNiceOne]

Originally posted by MuddyOne

TheNiceOne, I would like the ideas for a multiplayer tactical wargame, but not a predominately singleplayer stategic game. I would like to see a tactical wargame with empire building components in it, I just rather not Civ become that game.
Don't get me wrong - I didn't mean to make civ mostly a tactical wargame - but I'd like a bit more tactical depth than it is now.

1)AI. It currently performs poorly, it would do even worse with more details.
That's really a good argument against. There's no doubt that I would prefer to see a smarter AI in the combat we have now than a deeper tactical combat with an AI that isn't up to the task.

2) Scale. The scale just doesn't seem right for a tactical game to me. On one square you in the middle of the plains. Move one square and then your at a peak of a mountain. A unit is generally considered scaled larger than I would like for tactical considerations as well.
I don't see how penalizing cavalry for attacking into (or out of) jungle and giving them a bonus in plains would be a problem with the current scale - but this would open up for more interesting tactics both in the tech three and building queue (where there would be room for more different units), and in the tactical combat where your cavalry would have to wait for some kind of infantry support when the enemy is hidden in the forest.

3) Turn Based implimentation. The current way it is implimented would favor who is "up" too heavily. It would need to be changed to a plot moves/give orders, resolve moves/combat simulatanious type of system to avoid that fovoratism.
Not necessarily. Terrain affecting units differently shouldn't be any problem ina turn based game. Stacked bonuses shouldn't either. It could be as simple as to give a tank unit 50% attack bonus if attacking together with an infantry unit, while at the same time giving the defending infantry 50% defense bonus if stacked with tanks.

PS. Realistically increased height would have negligable affect on the range of artillery. Nothing wrong if adding it for gameplay purposes, but not if trying to make it more realistic. I can see increasing the "to hit" probablities due to increased viewing distances.
Is that really true? I agree that doubling the distance for a cannon from 1 to 2 is a bit unrealistic, but certainly artillery placed on heights get a lot more targets than those placed lower.

 

[TheNiceOne]

Originally posted by bobgote

TheNiceOne: I think your issue should be more with the AI rather than with the battle technique. It is tactically smarter to send mech inf. and artillery with your tanks. By sending just tanks, the AI should take the advantage and counter attack. The AI needs a bit of work, i admit, but the battle technique is just fine.
I agree that a smarter AI would be great, but I'll give you an example of what I mean: Assume I have a stack of tanks and infantry two squares from an enemy city I'd like to take. What I will do is to move a tank one square and then attack, and repeat this until the city is defeated. Then I will move in the infatry which now get to use the road bonus and therefore can reach the city square.

If civ was a bit more realistic here, then the tanks would all be defeated when attacking alone, since attacking a city with unsupported tanks is a guranteed disaster. I would have to use one turn to move all units adjacent to the city and then attck with combined arms the next turn.

Also if you want me to gainsay your statements, give me a couple of points that you think are strong and I'll give you my opinion

Ok, have you played Shogun: Total War? It's a turn based strategic game where the battles are fought real time.

I still remember my first campaign where I had a strong army mostly based on cavalry concquering province after province. Then I attacked a province where the defenders was foot-soldiers in dense woods. I sent in the cavalry from behind and attacked with my spearmen from the front looking first at the spearmen's battle. The spearmen got problems, so I wanted to look at my strong cavalry army to find out when they had taken out the enemy. Well, I had to look hard, for my army of several hundred cavalry had been massacred in the woods, with less than 10 remaining.

Lesson learned: The cavalry was great in the open field, but I needed a more diverse army for the woodland areas.

CIV doesn't have this. In civ I just crank out as many cavalry as possible, and then have just a few foot-soldiers for defense in case of a counter-attack. The cavalry can be used anywhere regardless of the defender's terrain, which is quite brain-dead, and makes the combat quite tedious instead of an interesting tactical challenge.

 

[Masquerouge]

Again, I say : combat in Call to Power was great. Stack units, movement restrictions, fights between multiple units, flanking (meaning flanking unit would attack AT THE SAME TIME on a defensive unit), range (an archer didn't stand a chance against a warrior, for instance, but an archer and a warrior in front would wipe two warriors)...
So maybe, just maybe, Civ3 couldn't do all this because it would have lokked like they copied CTP. But again, just maybe.

However, I'm ok with Civ3 fighting. It's not the ultimate in real strategical and tactical fighting, but hey, that's the way it is.

 

[bobgote]

Originally posted by TheNiceOne
If civ was a bit more realistic here, then the tanks would all be defeated when attacking alone, since attacking a city with unsupported tanks is a guranteed disaster. I would have to use one turn to move all units adjacent to the city and then attck with combined arms the next turn.

Ok, i understand where you're coming from here, but i'm just scared that what begins as minor changes could change heaps and destroy the whole game. Someone said before that it's not meant as a primarily military game, and I agree wholeheartedly. Just be careful what you wish for. If they tried to do it, you still wouldn't like it lol. And if you did, then no-one else would, and would complain about it. it's impossible to please all the people all of the time. In this thread you also have people saying that they want the governers to make it so we have to do even less micromanagement, so it's hard to get the balance thing right.

Also I agree with whoever said something about railroads. Maybe 9 tiles in 1 turn is reasonable, but that should be about it, it's crazy that it takes 0 time to travel entire length of continent.

Did you read what I said about the guerrilla units? That might help a bit. ( I think i said it in this thread lol) eg. those units could do a lot better in forests, hills etc that others.

4) Make players pay for healing.

No. OK, power of complaint gone to head. NO!!! healing is GOOD. More advantage to the besieged. You should need heaps more attackers to take a city. I'm going to try more seige warfare I think, with more artillery and pillaging

 

[Anglophile]

I am going to agree with bobgote and Masquerouge, meme si ce n'est pas facile because they are not agreeing with each other. To agree with bobgote - Firaxis made the decision, as I understand it largely based on Sid's view of what Civilization is and isn't, not to have a separate combat module. It is a strategic level overview of the growth of Civilization(s) not a tactical level wargame. I agree with Masquerouge because I believe that CTP2 has a much better (in the sense of being fun) combat system. One really did need to balance armies more realistically to optimize results. While I would like to see stacked combat, there is nothing in the editor, and nothing that has been revealed about future versions of the editor, that will allow such a modding of the combat system.

My own favourite of tactical combat systems in strategic games is another Microprose (makers of Civ and MOO among others) game - MOM (Masters of Magic). This might be a little too tactical for Civ so I would gladly settle for CTP with combat turns and turn orders, as described by Zouave, including withdraw. Each turn, every unit would act and firepower would actually be useful as it would determine the maximum number of attacks for that unit per combat turn. Wishful thinking and I knew that I wouldn't be getting tactical combat when I bought the game and still really enjoy playing; but one can dream.

 

[MuddyOne]

Originally posted by TheNiceOne ]

I don't see how penalizing cavalry for attacking into (or out of) jungle and giving them a bonus in plains would be a problem with the current scale - but this would open up for more interesting tactics both in the tech three and building queue (where there would be room for more different units), and in the tactical combat where your cavalry would have to wait for some kind of infantry support when the enemy is hidden in the forest.

You also mentioned flanking and surrounding. So a full spread optimal attack could not be accomplished on a dense built map with current scaling.

Not necessarily. Terrain affecting units differently shouldn't be any problem ina turn based game. Stacked bonuses shouldn't either. It could be as simple as to give a tank unit 50% attack bonus if attacking together with an infantry unit, while at the same time giving the defending infantry 50% defense bonus if stacked with tanks.

ROP abuse is so effective because of how much the game currently favors who is "up". Give me the option of flanking, surrounding, attacking from most favorable location with the most favorable stack could only increase that advantage.

Is that really true? I agree that doubling the distance for a cannon from 1 to 2 is a bit unrealistic, but certainly artillery placed on heights get a lot more targets than those placed lower.

Yes, it really is true. At max range the projectile is dropping almost vertically, so the gain is pretty minimal from dropping further. Direct fire situations can be tricky to do. You have to adjust your fire based upon the horizontal distance to the target, not the direct line distance to the target.