Civ III: Conquests Patch Notice

[padlock]

Originally posted by Dragonlord


This is how I see it, too, exactly! And IMO thats good! No more huge stacks of horsemen killing off tanks, as an extreme example.. Remember what happened to the Polish Cavalry against Nazi tanks...

But before you had a choice, you could try to acheive military superiority either via having a technological advantage, or through shear numbers, or something in between. This new change will LIMIT the way we can play the game.

Also, I would argue that a huge stack of horsemen should be able to kill a single tank.

 

[Kami_Mercenary]

Well, personally I find that there are 4 units in the game which are pretty much useless. The paratrooper/helicopter, it's just not worth all the resources to be able to transport 1 paratroop. The I think that Subs are too weak. I mean come on, they wreaked havoc on Allied shipping, but attacking a Destroyer, etc...with a sub is pretty much asking for death. Then, I also think that the stealth fighter is useless too, its the exact same as a stealth bomber. Now, maybe this stuff has been resolved since I last played though since it's been awhile. As for the combat system, I think that making it so that the stronger unit has a better chance of winning is a good idea - makes complete sense. And to the buddy who said to include marine cities because there is no reason for naval warfare - I say, please, please don't put marine cities into Civ. There is a reason for the Navy - and that is whoever has the stronger Navy controls the sea, and therefore can mount an amphibious attack with ease (which I prefer to land attacks), also Tactical subs with nukes onboard are a good reason to have a Navy searching for them. Keep up the great work guys, Conquests is the best Civ I've played yet!

 

[Gen]

Originally posted by Dragonlord

This is how I see it, too, exactly! And IMO thats good! No more huge stacks of horsemen killing off tanks, as an extreme example.. Remember what happened to the Polish Cavalry against Nazi tanks...

Still, Nazis lost hundreds of tanks in September, 1939. I think less powerful units should have fair chance for winning too, especially in great numbers.

 

[SuperBettaFish]

The old combat system is fine. I won't patch if the new combat system is not an option. I can mod the corruption and still play (unless I can mod the combat calculation).

 

[Jurimax]

Aren't we all a little bit overreacting? I mean since the announcement was made, no 'official' reaction has been given. It's great to see so many responses, but until we get an official explanation on how things will turn out in-game, I reckon our 'guesses' are a bit premature.

Greets Jurimax

 

[Jeff_ATARI]

Originally posted by BomberEscort

Also, about "streaks"... They are in your mind. The combat is random and this has been confirmed. I believe this is an example of Atari and others catering to the irrational desires of the statistically uninitiated. Please, don't make this change...

Whoa! Don't drag me into this! I have my own set of irrational desires, and none of them involve changes to random number generators... Just repeat after me: making the game = Firaxis & Breakaway. Getting you the game, and telling you about the game = Atari.

You might have seen a hint about this potential change about 6 months ago, when the initial list of epic game changes mentioned a potential change to the combat calculator. In the end it was left out of the initial release, but there was always a hope of somehow incorporating it. Obviously Jesse and his team are looking forward to evaluating the change in the coming months.

Frankly, I'm proud that we managed to achieve our goal of having enough time to release more content with our first update!

Best,
Jeff Foley
Atari

 

[Arathorn]

Let me add to the chorus decrying the change to the way combat results are calculated. This is a *horrible* idea that will completely put the game into higher numbers win, smaller numbers lose. The PRNG as it is implemented is IDEAL -- it is straightforward to understand, works as mathematics indicates it should, and allows for much flexibility in strategy. The proposed change obfuscates combat, limits strategy/fun/options, unbalances certain units dramatically and is a very bad idea.

If the cry for a change is so loud that Breakaway/Firaxis feels it necessary to do something, at least implement this as an upfront option that those of us who enjoy options and strategy in our games can leave it off and play a balanced game.

The proposed change does not change the streakiness of battle, except as a side effect of making the stronger side even stronger. And streakiness is a GOOD THING inherent in any reasonable psuedo-random number generator. Without ebbs and flows in battle, somewhat beyond the human's control, Civ3 will finally find its way out of my CD drive. What a huge disappointment this little tidbit is.

The rest of the patch looks GREAT! And I hugely appreciate the news. I, of course, want it ASAP, but I recognize that's not possible and I really appreciate the efforts to communicate. and :thankyou:!!! Corruption and gpt bugs were game-breakers -- almost as bad as changing how combat works would be.

Arathorn

 

[BomberEscort]

The question remains... Is it in or can it be changed? It seems to me that this is the change to the combat system and it is not an option... How sad. Maybe someone from Firaxis/Breakaway (not Atari ) would comment.

Someone needs to make a poll...

 

[padlock]

Originally posted by Jurimax
Aren't we all a little bit overreacting? I mean since the announcement was made, no 'official' reaction has been given. It's great to see so many responses, but until we get an official explanation on how things will turn out in-game, I reckon our 'guesses' are a bit premature.

Greets Jurimax

Jurimax, I'm not sure if I understand what you mean by no 'official' reaction. On the first page of this thread, Tavis from Firaxis wrote:

"The Change was having the random number generator (rng) calculate the Results 4 times instead of 1.

Possible Outcomes: AttackerLoses, AttackerWins

If there is a tie, it retries."


Wouldn't that be considered official?

As to over-reacting, I'm not sure if people realize just how much this changes the odds.

I was playing a bit with the combat calculator and came up with these results:

-If a vereran unit with attack value of X attacks a fortified veteran unit with a defense value of X on grassland, it's chance of winning the battle is now only 16%! What's more, the defender is on average only going to suffer 1 hit point of loss.

-The same battle with the defender on a hill would give the attacker a 3.7% chance of winning!!! (remember this is a case where the attack strength of the attacker is the same as the defense strength of the defender)

Things get much worse when attempting to attack fortified units inside towns with walls, or cities.

 

[BomberEscort]

Originally posted by padlock
...The same battle with the defender on a hill would give the attacker a 3.7% chance of winning!!! (remember this is a case where the attack strength of the attacker is the same as the defense strength of the defender)

Things get much worse when attempting to attack fortified units inside towns with walls, or cities.

The game will now become incredibly defensive in nature. No one can risk sending offensive units to a slaughter. There are always Culture Flips though

 

[Nad]

Originally posted by BomberEscort
The question remains... Is it in or can it be changed? It seems to me that this is the change to the combat system and it is not an option... How sad. Maybe someone from Firaxis/Breakaway (not Atari ) would comment.

Someone needs to make a poll...

I certainly hope so. If they think they got a hard time from the corruption/gpt bugs, just wait for the flak they'll get if they implement this combat "fix"

I really hope they don't shoot themselves in the foot like this.

 

[digger760]

I am also not impressed with the new combat calculator. This could be a game breaker for me. It almost boils down to Rock-Paper Scissors type combat

Oh Please, Please, Please leave the combat calculations as is.

The rest looks promising though.

 

[eliliang]

Originally posted by BomberEscort

Also, about "streaks"... They are in your mind. The combat is random and this has been confirmed.

That the pseudo-random number generator (PRNG) passes certain statistical tests does not eliminate the possibility that it could be streaking.

Firaxis could publish the algorithm for the PRNG and those of us who are statistically initiated could check it more thoroughly.

Originally posted by BomberEscort
I believe this is an example of Atari and others catering to the irrational desires of the statistically uninitiated.

It is true (and I mentioned it at the end of my previous post) that people tend to notice streaks which skews their "observational" frequency. Also, you don't notice a streak until it starts to occur, which also skews your perception. For example, if you are flipping a fair coin, and you get 4 heads in a row, the probability of this is 1/16. However a person doesn't notice that they were getting multiple heads until they get two of them in a row. Then their brain clicks into "uh-oh, I'm starting to get one of those streaks" mode. The probability that they would get two more after two have ALREADY OCCURRED is 1/4, which is very possible, thereby confirming their fears, etc.

Originally posted by BomberEscort
I believe this is an example of Atari and others catering to the irrational desires of the statistically uninitiated. Please, don't make this change...

I agree. But I think that Firaxis should publish the algorithm for their PRNG or if they are using a well-known algorithm, then they should say what that is, and we can make some analysis or recommendations.

 

[Jurimax]

Yes, I know that's official, but what I actually meant was whether this would be a stand-alone change to the combat-calculator or if Firaxis-Breakaway are holding something up their sleeve that would make these changes somehow less drastic.

It is indeed true that this change (on its own) would be a big change in strategies. But perhaps they're incorporating other things into the combat calculation.

Greetz Jurimax

 

[BomberEscort]

Originally posted by eliliang
...I agree. But I think that Firaxis should publish the algorithm for their PRNG or if they are using a well-known algorithm, then they should say what that is, and we can make some analysis or recommendations.

I hope they do this too, but I'm not holding my breath...

 

[carlosMM]

I must say I have a weird situation in ALL my C3C games so far: attackers win all the time. Archer vs Spear is a win even on hills most of the time. I'd welcome the change.

 

[vbraun]

I think the new combat system will make it harder for someone to play a peaceful game. If there always on the defense there most likely going to loose to a enemy with a higher attack.

Anyways a new patch is good news

 

[Masquerouge]

I think people get freaky about the streaky...
The change in the RGN calculation was so briefly described I really want to wait until we're sure how it works before rejoicing or booing.
Reading the posts, I'm afraid people infered too much from too little. All that was done was extrapolating what was said about the change, write about the possible effects of that extrapolation(based on solid mathemathical knowledge allright ) and then start screaming all over the place.

So for me, it's wait and see until we have more info. You're surely right, guys, but I'll wait and see

 

[Padma]

And one more thing to remember: this is a BETA patch. If we, the playing community (read: beta testers! ), find the patch to be horribly unbalancing, it can be changed/deleted from the *final* patch.

 

[Commander Bello]

Having browsed through this thread, I'm a little bit puzzled now

To me, it seems that I have to play a different version of C3C than most of the others. Ok, let me explain...

I've quit to play C3C two weeks ago, since in the 6 epic games (all on huge archipelagos) which I had played so far, I had to learn that my attacks wouldn't pay off.
The last (very frustrating) example was this:
Having SoZ and Knigths Templar, I built an army consisting of Ancient Cavalry, Crusaders, Knights, and Pikemen (and lots of workers). A surprise attack on the Babylonians made me conquer two of their cities (don't remember the names, let's call them A and B), one next to my harbor on their continent, one some tiles away in the middle of the land (B).
Next, I tried to rush towards the third Babylonian city (C) and created a fortress on the only hill next (two tiles away) to this city. All the other tiles were just grassland, nothing else. At this fortress, I had 18 Ancient Cavalry and Crusaders, 5 Pikemen, 2 Trebuchets and some Longbowmen. The fortress was linked to city (A) - having barracks for quick recovery - by roads.
Out of a sudden, the Babylonians showed up with 4 different stacks of Swordmen, a total of 31 (and all of them just regulars!) of them, obviously all of them heading towards city (B). Since they just walked by my fortress, I planned to wear down their troops a little bit. So, I attacked them with my 18 attack units (all of them being at least veterans, some even elite), after my trebuchets had bombarded them. After the battle was over, I had lost 16 of my attackers, with just 2 Ancient Cavalry who had retreated successfully from the battle still living. The Babylonians still had 26 Swordmen, now most of them being veterans or even elite.
So, I lost 16 attackers with attack value of 3 or 5 with the defenders (defence value 2) just loosing 5 units.

Similar experiences I had to make at all the other epic games as well This is just the one which really made me become abstinent of playing C3C any more...

So, it seems that combat calculations in C3C had changed from they way they took place in PTW, anyway.
To me, it seems that the defense bonus of the terrain is taken into account in a very different manner, now.

For that, I am really eager to have this patch really soon. I have no problem with loosing a "stronger" unit versus a "weaker" one - from time to time. This adds some taste to the game.
What I really hate is when I plan an attack and the §="§$%! RNG just kills my units away.

Please, guys... release this patch ASAP!!!! :tank: