biggest civ problems

Yes, crossbowmen begin life with a first strike. Archers generally can add first strikes as promotions as well, so you could face a crossbowmen with 3-5 first strikes and be dead before you ever swung the mace. See this unit encyclopedia.

aahhh, okaaayyy... well, i've underestimated crossbowmen. i'm going to investigate first-strike for future combat.
 
An oversight, really. It's part of the combat, it should be taken into consideration. Have any mods addressed this?

BTW, thecivdude, :) don't forget when you win with 30% odds. These things go both ways.

i hear you, but usually i don't attack with 30% odds unless it's a catapult (for example), purposely intended as a sacrifice. i am pleasantly surprised when it wins or withdraws, but i don't expect it. i attack much less often unless i have good odds so that may contribute to seeming out of whack.
 
Most people do.

ok, admitted... but i did attack with a swordsman general... that's the second part... shouldn't a general have a first-strike advantage? or have some way to cancel out first-strike?

in my first post i mentioned that generals seem like nothing better than pawns as other units in the game. it's a disappointment in an expansion pack called "warlords"...

i'd be happy with fewer generals in the game, but who kicked butt when you got one... +2 to health, first strike, etc... but alas, they too are pretty weak... even when up around +60% strength and 40% withdrawl. they die... :(
 
They make excellent medics. I find using at least one as an instructor is valuable -- put it with barracks into your production center and your units are born with two promotions. Another instructor will often find his way to a secondary production center; the latter might also get a military academy.

I usually use them in that order, starting with the medic. The sole GG on my current battlefield is a warrior with Medic III and Morale. Powerful. I once made an offensive general; he died ignobly, weeping for his mother.
 
The sole GG on my current battlefield is a warrior with Medic III and Morale. Powerful.

I agree. I find this to be possibly the best use of your first GG in a war-oriented game. It keeps the stack moving a lot faster than even a Medic II which you may not have! Other than that, they go as instructors or later as Military Academies(sometimes).
 
ok, admitted... but i did attack with a swordsman general... that's the second part... shouldn't a general have a first-strike advantage? or have some way to cancel out first-strike?

in my first post i mentioned that generals seem like nothing better than pawns as other units in the game. it's a disappointment in an expansion pack called "warlords"...

i'd be happy with fewer generals in the game, but who kicked butt when you got one... +2 to health, first strike, etc... but alas, they too are pretty weak... even when up around +60% strength and 40% withdrawl. they die... :(

One thing not mentioned is there's a HUGE difference in survivability when attacking with healthy units vs. damaged ones. I don't remember the exact numbers, but the odds take into account the health of the attacker only indirectly, in the relation between HP and attack value. And first strike capability makes that discrepancy even greater, by knocking even more HP off the attacker before it even gets a chance to roll for damage. I do know that you'll be much less successful winning a fight with an attacker even 1 HP damaged compared to his healthy counterpart. I ran a simple comparison a long time ago of Swordsman vs. Longbowman, alternating each between damaged and healthy. Basically, the bowman wins most of the time as long as its not injured. But when even 1 HP down (my simulated damage), the results swung back in favor of the swordsman - I think about 60:40 or 70:30 in his favor if he was healthy and the longbow was damaged.
 
I believe thecivdude has fallen victim to the laws of probability. For example while it may be true to say that given 100 flips of a coin that all turned up heads that the next flip still has a 50% chance to turn up heads, what is not true is to say that the next 100 coin flips will turn up heads is 50%. Ignoring first strikes, rounds of combats and other such complexities let's look at the scenario (rounding for simplicity).

The GG has a 20% chance of dieing in combat on the first attempt which can be stated as 1 in 5. Now what are the chances the GG would have died in all rounds given 2 rounds of combat? If my calculations are correct it's: %04 (.20*.20) So let's factor out the odds given the 4 attempts thecivdude made:

Chance of GG dieing every time with 1 in 5 combat odds given 4 attempts:
Attempt 1: 20% (.20)
Attempt 2: 04% (.20^2)
Attempt 3: 00.8% (.20^3)
Attempt 4: 00.16% (.20^4)

Now after the first 2 rounds of losing by round 3 we're close to a 1% chance of continuing the losing streak, which as we all know from having won either for or against 99% combat odds is quite possible. Therefore I can't say I'm surprised it took 4 attempts and I believe we can pretty safely assume the AI isn't cheating :).
 
Exactly, humans percieve patterns where there aren't any, such as the laws of probability. Not to in any way doubt the intelligence of anyone here, as we all do it. However, it is true that we remember the times when the odds were for us and we lost more than the other way around. When you lose at low odds, it is predictable, and you expect it, when you win at low odds, it's a nice surprise, when you win at high odds, it is expected, and when you lose at high odds, it is seen as a personal affront, violating the laws of statistics, while it is actually fulfilling them. We all have a tendency to remember past grievances, so let's accept that and apply it to CIV.
 
haha! thanks for the response. :D
i guess i need that rabbits foot then.

well, here's how i look at probability:
attempt 1: (odds of having a cow 0%, odds of victory 80%) loss
attempt 2: (odds of having a cow <50%, odds of victory 80%) loss
attempt 3: (odds of having a cow >80%, odds of victory 80%) loss
attempt 4: (cow inevitable, odds of victory still 80%) finally a win

there are just times when... grrrrrr!
are there any zen classes for civ junkies?

well, i just played a long game bearing all this in mind. attempting to take note of how combat turns out typically... and well, usually, things were going my way most of the time. every now and then there would be one of those really unlikely losses. i lost a cavalry to a longbowman at 98.4%... but, with a half grin and shake of the head, i just kept going. it was actually interesting how often things went in my favor.

i tried that general as a medic thing too. sweet! worked good, thanks!
 
My experience is that 80&#37; odds will on average let you win about 2/3. 70% odds you win about 1/2, and 50% I will mostly lose. I dont actually believe the game cheats, and that I'm just continually unlucky, but its been going on for so long now I plan according to "reduced odds".

Maybe I have selective memory.
 
ok, admitted... but i did attack with a swordsman general... that's the second part... shouldn't a general have a first-strike advantage? or have some way to cancel out first-strike?

in my first post i mentioned that generals seem like nothing better than pawns as other units in the game. it's a disappointment in an expansion pack called "warlords"...

i'd be happy with fewer generals in the game, but who kicked butt when you got one... +2 to health, first strike, etc... but alas, they too are pretty weak... even when up around +60% strength and 40% withdrawl. they die... :(

There are ways of cancelling out first strikes but they are not available to swordsmen.

I hear what your saying about general. Having a General is rarely much better than a swordsman with CR3. Medics are great but I find giving one to a catapult/trebuchet is more useful once you have CR3 you should be able to get good odds against the top unit until gunpowder (once cultural defences are down), you can get a 55% withdraw chance and then boost collateral damage. Once they are upgraded to cannons your sorted. The amount wasted on suicide cats has dimished greatly since I tried this. Just don't use it on a longbowman guardign a hilltop city.
 
My experience is that 80% odds will on average let you win about 2/3. 70% odds you win about 1/2, and 50% I will mostly lose. I dont actually believe the game cheats, and that I'm just continually unlucky, but its been going on for so long now I plan according to "reduced odds".

Maybe I have selective memory.

yeah, you know what?!?!? that's exactly what i've been doing for a looong time. but what happened the other night was just too much for me. but yeah, if i see 80%, i think 50/50... shouldn't have too...
 
There are ways of cancelling out first strikes but they are not available to swordsmen.

I hear what your saying about general. Having a General is rarely much better than a swordsman with CR3. Medics are great but I find giving one to a catapult/trebuchet is more useful once you have CR3 you should be able to get good odds against the top unit until gunpowder (once cultural defences are down), you can get a 55% withdraw chance and then boost collateral damage. Once they are upgraded to cannons your sorted. The amount wasted on suicide cats has dimished greatly since I tried this. Just don't use it on a longbowman guardign a hilltop city.

hmm... i'll give it a try :goodjob:
 
For what it's worth, I turned my selective memory upside-down last night, and found myself winning a ridiculous number of times against < 50&#37; odds.

Also, I just flipped a nickel ten times. It landed heads seven times. Is my nickel cheating?
 
For what it's worth, I turned my selective memory upside-down last night, and found myself winning a ridiculous number of times against < 50% odds.

Also, I just flipped a nickel ten times. It landed heads seven times. Is my nickel cheating?

nooo maaan, you're nickle is not cheating... as i said before, it just seemed like the game favored the crossbowman... "seemed like"... i'm not accusing the game of cheating. and i just mentioned above that i paid particular attention to comabt outcome last night and was struck by how often it went in my favor. less than 50% odds didn't work out in my favor very much, but more than 70 or 80 percent seemed to work out my way often.

i capitulate, i heard everyone on all points. but i'm curious: why do you defend civ so? can you admit that losing 3 times in a row with 80.6% percent "chance to win" is strange? what if you rolled a six sided die 10 times and got 6 every time. you'd think something was odd, right? if a human being was gambling and beating you with these dice, you'd say they were cheating right? are you going to accept their argument about the laws of probability just working out in their favor? perhaps not, but... like i said, i'm sure the programming for the game is just fine.

anyhoo... suffice to say that every now and then the odds catch up to you and whacky stuff happens... it's all good.
 
For what it's worth, I turned my selective memory upside-down last night, and found myself winning a ridiculous number of times against < 50% odds.

Also, I just flipped a nickel ten times. It landed heads seven times. Is my nickel cheating?

You mean you didn't know? [Cliff Clavin from Cheers] You see, the weight of Jefferson's profile on the head of the nickel has been, er, scientifically shown to be less than the weight of, er, Montessouri on the back. So, Nahm, when you flip a nickel, you're, er, more likely to get yer Jefferson to fall heads up. [/Clavin]

:mischief:

I hope you're old enough to get that reference, btw. :old: :D
 
nooo maaan, you're nickle is not cheating... as i said before, it just seemed like the game favored the crossbowman... "seemed like"...

I know, I didn't mean to belabor the point, but I had intended to try the experiment yesterday, and never got around to it.

i capitulate, i heard everyone on all points. but i'm curious: why do you defend civ so? can you admit that losing 3 times in a row with 80.6% percent "chance to win" is strange? what if you rolled a six sided die 10 times and got 6 every time. you'd think something was odd, right?

Losing three times in a row with 80% odds, especially when those odds apparently do not fully take into account things such as first strike, does not actually strike me as odd. I'm not defending Civ as much as I'm defening the laws of nature. ;)
 
Why don't you run an experiment to support your claim with something besides vague anedotes?

Record attacking 1000 times at the same odds and see what the actual results come out to be.
 
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