Catapults withdrawing to knights and cavalry!

[NKVD]

there is nothing more stupid then Trebuchets or catapults withdrawing in combat from Cavalry. Thats totally messed up. How can a band of 2000 pounds wooden machine moved by soldier's muscles can retreat faster than Cavalry!? giving the upgrade against siege weapon is useless since they will only retreat faster.

 

[SkippyT]

Cats/Trebbies have a 20% withdrawal chance.
You can only withdraw when you are attacking, you are ambushing the cavalry, but the cavalry is not attacking you.
A defending cavalry team can't really retreat.

 

[aronnax]

Oh gee, what a pity. Lets go protest now

 

[NKVD]

Cats/Trebbies have a 20% withdrawal chance.
You can only withdraw when you are attacking, you are ambushing the cavalry, but the cavalry is not attacking you.
A defending cavalry team can't really retreat.

ambushing when attacking a city? I mean can you ambush a fort? lol I could understand against units with the same movement rate but not cavalry

 

[Sisiutil]

As complex as Civ is, it is nonetheless a very simplified version of the much more complicated real world.

If it helps, think of it like this:

Siege weapons usually attack from a distant, protected position. Forces under siege weapon attack must decide if it's worth sallying out to counter-attack. Suppose they do; they might destroy the siege weapons. Or the counter-attack force itself might determine that discretion is the better part of valor, deciding to withdraw rather than be slaughtered to a man, leaving the seige weapons (and their handlers) damaged but alive.

The term the game uses is "withdrawal", but it seems more realistic to think of it as a representation of how unassailable the siege weapon's position is.

 

[CliftonBazaar]

I do agree with Sisiutil's post but also need to add - Catapult squads are not just catapults, it would also include support staff and archers to defend it. I realise that archers are not shown but it would make no sense to send a bunch of cat's out by themselves, you would send out a minimum amount of archers to defend it (and probably an axeman or 2).

So the cat's attack Cavalry at night by suprise, the Cavalry lose half their men before they get to their horses. Finally the Cavalry is ready to counter attack; so the commander of the cat's starts to retreat - do the Cavalry follow? Considering the cat's are retreating with their archers and axemen the cavalry may decide not to follow, especially if they have already lost a lot of soldiers.

I personally don't have a problem with the Civ4 battle system and realise that weaker units will sometimes (not usually) defeat more powerful units.

As someone on these boards once said; A spearman defeating a tank is not so silly if the tank commander has locked himself out of the tank, by accident, when the spearmen attack.
And who said the spearmen defeated the tank? they may have killed the staff in the tank and then hid the tank - remember all the Russian tanks that were found in the hills of Afghanistan when the US invaded?

 

[None_Existant]

YOu will notice that after a sucessful withdraw, the withdrawing unit has very little health left. Its not really a withdrawal in this case, more of a lucky route.

So basically the catapults which managed to withdraw (the little bit of health remaining) would have routed in a rl battle and abandoned positions leaving their teammates to die.

After the calavery finish mopping up, they won't notice that 10 enemy catulpults escaped, they'll mop their brows, give each other highfives, glow blue and go home. Meanwhile, your 10 catapults which retreated will miraculously spawn more team mate-...wait. Why are you complaining that your catapults are living?

 

[CliftonBazaar]

Why are you complaining that your catapults are living?

The OP doesn't say wether they were catapults or cavalry.

 

[KMadCandy]

aww come on, it's totally possible, once you think about it.

the catapults are simultaneously full of adrenaline (think incredible hulk here) contemplating the task ahead of them, and completely and utterly scared because cavalry is like, i dunno, same as santa claus, they thought it was only a fairy tale told to scare children. no wait, santa isn't to scare children, scratch that and insert "bogieman". then again, their commander wouldn't tell them to try if they had no chance (they're naive) and so they try the theoretically impossible and succeed (think of dumbo and the magic feather here). so, sometimes, the combination of those factors ends in a withdrawal. naturally none of the other catapults believe their story. they see the remaining health on the one that did withdraw and roll their eyes thinking "whatever caused that the near-death experience gave him visions". and so the whole santa claus/bogieman/incredible hulk/dumbo cycle continues, game after game, for each new generation of catapults.

 

[Sisiutil]

aww come on, it's totally possible, once you think about it.

the catapults are simultaneously full of adrenaline (think incredible hulk here) contemplating the task ahead of them, and completely and utterly scared because cavalry is like, i dunno, same as santa claus, they thought it was only a fairy tale told to scare children. no wait, santa isn't to scare children, scratch that and insert "bogieman". then again, their commander wouldn't tell them to try if they had no chance (they're naive) and so they try the theoretically impossible and succeed (think of dumbo and the magic feather here). so, sometimes, the combination of those factors ends in a withdrawal. naturally none of the other catapults believe their story. they see the remaining health on the one that did withdraw and roll their eyes thinking "whatever caused that the near-death experience gave him visions". and so the whole santa claus/bogieman/incredible hulk/dumbo cycle continues, game after game, for each new generation of catapults.

Whatever you're smoking, I want some.

 

[KMadCandy]

well, the thread started with the words "there is nothing more stupid than" and i kinda wanted to show that there can in fact be things more stupid than that, is the only defense i can think of!

ps i am on narcotic painkillers atm but they are doctor prescribed and not smoked and the FDA says i can't share with ya. i think that applies even tho you live in canadiaville.

ppss no goodies for you until you play another round of the mansa ALC buster!

 

[gettingfat]

This is far from the most unrealistic.

Actually the more ridiculous thing is the fact that the mounted units can't withdraw at all when attacked by the slower units. Maybe the horses all get panicked when seeing the pikes pointing at them.

Also I can never understand why in naval battles the defensive unit has the advantage instead of the attacker. A stationary ship, even nowadays, is rather difficult to change direction and accelerate. The attacker in motion generally has a substantial edge.

The idea of "ambush" is essentially a null point here. The fact that there is no offensive bonus even when you attack from the forest/hill or in naval battles is already an indication there is really nothing called ambush in the game to start with.

 

[feldmarshall]

This is far from the most unrealistic.

Actually the more ridiculous thing is the fact that the mounted units can't withdraw at all when attacked by the slower units. Maybe the horses all get panicked when seeing the pikes pointing at them.

Also I can never understand why in naval battles the defensive unit has the advantage instead of the attacker. A stationary ship, even nowadays, is rather difficult to change direction and accelerate. The attacker in motion generally has a substantial edge.

The idea of "ambush" is essentially a null point here. The fact that there is no offensive bonus even when you attack from the forest/hill or in naval battles is already an indication there is really nothing called ambush in the game to start with.

i second all his opinions. those have to be fixed in future civ games

 

[aronnax]

This is far from the most unrealistic.

Actually the more ridiculous thing is the fact that the mounted units can't withdraw at all when attacked by the slower units. Maybe the horses all get panicked when seeing the pikes pointing at them.

Also I can never understand why in naval battles the defensive unit has the advantage instead of the attacker. A stationary ship, even nowadays, is rather difficult to change direction and accelerate. The attacker in motion generally has a substantial edge.

The idea of "ambush" is essentially a null point here. The fact that there is no offensive bonus even when you attack from the forest/hill or in naval battles is already an indication there is really nothing called ambush in the game to start with.

Dont we get some bonous from attacking from hills and trees already?

 

[Strato]

Dont we get some bonous from attacking from hills and trees already?

I think the bonus applies only to archers. By all means correct me if I'm wrong.

The only other reasoning I could come up with for the catapults being able to withdraw from mounted units is maybe the weather. After all, horsies don't move too fast in mud. But then, maybe catapults wouldn't either. Meh, it's just a game, and thankfully not real life, so sometimes it's nice to imagine that these sorts of behemoths have incredible speed. In fact, I remember in Age of Empires 2 Conquerers, with the mongols, and their drill tech (from memory), the battering rams became incredibly fast when loaded.

 

[Dominico]

This is far from the most unrealistic.


Also I can never understand why in naval battles the defensive unit has the advantage instead of the attacker. A stationary ship, even nowadays, is rather difficult to change direction and accelerate. The attacker in motion generally has a substantial edge.

When attacking another ship at sea you usually have to steam/sail/row towards it, since ships have the most guns on the side this puts the attacker at a massive disadvantage. This is why the French were so suprised when Nelson sailed directly into the side of their line head on and cut their line in half, it worked but his flagship got a pounding.

The coast also offers advantages in navies, meaning you have cover of land to duck into and shallow water makes manouvering hard.

Finally just because the unit is not moving in the game doesnt mean its sat their at anchor. It will be manouvering around as the other ship attacks.

As for the horses i never really got that either, but i put it down to game mechanics. If horses retreated from being attacked aswell as attacking they would be super powered and very hard to kill. Its a good thing they cant do this. The trick is keep them out of range of attack with their 2 movement points, which is sort of showing their ability to ride away from an attack.

The way i look at it they got caught out in the open if attacked, and surrounded and massacered. Kind of harder to explain that one away though!

 

[Greeneyedzombie]

When attacking another ship at sea you usually have to steam/sail/row towards it, since ships have the most guns on the side this puts the attacker at a massive disadvantage. This is why the French were so suprised when Nelson sailed directly into the side of their line head on and cut their line in half, it worked but his flagship got a pounding.

showing that nelson was a victim of the wind, and had no other choice then to break with tradition and sail straight into the enemy and was lucky to survive. wich history now calls a modernazation of naval warfare tactics.

 

[bardolph]

It actually doesn't make much sense for catapults to withdraw *at all,* but from a game mechanics perspective, it's nice to be able to recycle 25% of my siege units for the next battle.

 

[chessplayer]

It actually doesn't make much sense for catapults to withdraw *at all,* but from a game mechanics perspective, it's nice to be able to recycle 25% of my siege units for the next battle.

recycle, heal, and attack again

 

[Holycannoli]

I'm noticing more and more people want a more realistic combat system in Civ I think a lot of us are done with the classic system and want something better.

Simplified, abstract combat is OK, but realistic is better.