Civ III: Conquests Patch Notice

[T-hawk]

I'd like to point out (again) that there is a *big* difference between increasing the number of hitpoints for units, and averaging some rolls for each hitpoint outcome. Charis' analysis stops just short of addressing the precise issue. The graph gives the odds of winning battles, and averaging four rolls does give similar results to iterating 4 HP, yes.

What this doesn't analyze is the damage that the stronger unit receives even in winning the battle. Increasing the hitpoints keeps the damage dealt to each side in line with expectations, adding a buffer to absorb some of the statistical randomness. Averaging the rolls tilts the *percentage outcome* of each hitpoint toward the stronger unit.

Damage taken by the stronger unit in winning doesn't really matter for tank-vs-spearman, which is what Firaxis had in mind, and why it was overlooked. But damage taken by the stronger unit *does* matter in many situations; indeed, it's a core component of the game balance. When? Anytime you attack a defender that has a higher modified combat value than the attacker, which is the entire game from pikemen on up to mech infantry.

This is why the averaging change breaks the game balance. The game mechanics rely on being able to use swarms of knights to overwhelm musketmen, cavalry to overwhelm rifles and infantry, even lots of modern armors to overwhelm mechs given the number of multiplicational advantages available to the defender by that time.

Average four rolls for each HP of combat, and suddenly you require double or triple the number of attacking units to defeat stronger defenders. Is this the price we really want to pay for slightly increased determinism when a strong unit attacks a weak defender?

 

[DaviddesJ]

Originally posted by T-hawk
The game mechanics rely on being able to use swarms of knights to overwhelm musketmen, cavalry to overwhelm rifles and infantry, even lots of modern armors to overwhelm mechs given the number of multiplicational advantages available to the defender by that time.

Actually, I think that's a bug, not a feature. You accurately describe the reason why humans can conquer the AI players so easily: because this sort of strategy is feasible for humans, but the AI can't really handle it. But I think the game would be better if this were (significantly) harder to do. Attacking would be more difficult, require greater preparation, take longer and have less benefits. "Build swarms of offensive units and roll up the computer opponents" wouldn't have to be the by-far-most-effective-way-to-win.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Well, in my games the AI certainly does wear down defenders by throwing large numbers of attackers on them on a regular basis. Indeed, they are much more reliant on such tactics than I am, because they fail to use artillery offensively. With the new combat system implemented, my ability to wage offensive war against technologically equal opponents would take a severe dent, but the AI's would be essentially eliminated.

 

[Charis]

You're right T-Hawk on those points. My focus recently was on one-on-one battles. But it did occur that there were three very key items to keep in mind when comparing increase of hp vs averaging, when it comes to war situations. Before any heads start spinning from the math, let's start off with a graph!

Here's a concrete example, how many MDI does it take to kill ten spearmen in a siege (ignoring promotions and healing)

Two things to note:
- As you go from Regular-DarkBlue (3hp) to Elite-Yellow (5hp) units the variance goes down. But in all cases the expected value is 5.0 (which is 10*2/4).
- If you use 1hp units but average the roll 4 times, it's not at all equivalent. The purple line shows a marked shift to the left, ie you need far fewer MDI, usually 1 or 2. Increasing HP to elites as well as using a 4-roll avg will reduce the spread further, but note that this light blue line is shifted left compared to the old system with elite units.

----
Ok, more detail for those who can follow the math.

i) the probability 'p' of winning a single hp on one shot is very different. Currently p = A / (A+D), while p changes dramatically when you average rolls in cases where p_old was not close to 0.5. When you compare the chance of winning for avg-4-rolls and using one roll but 4 hp, the single unit chance of winning is somewhat similar. BUT for a set of units attacking together vs multiple defenders, the fraction of collective hit points the defender will lose is equal to p, and this is independent of how many hit points any one unit has. If you have twenty att-2 attackers taking on ten def-2 defenders, it's going to be an even battle no matter if all the units have 1 hp, 2 hp, 3 hp, or 20 hp. Consider nearly-infinite hp for a moment, the result of any one battle would be attacker wins for p > 0.5, and loses for p < 0.5, but the opposite unit will always have the fraction abs(2p-1) of his hp remaining. To take out m defenders in the case of large hp, you will need n = m (1-p) / p attackers. In the old system, this reduces to n = m * D / A attackers. Nice
If hp are not equal, it's easily accounted for by n = m * D/A * Dhp/Ahp.

ii) The number of hit points has no effect on the expected number of attackers needed to take out a set of defenders, but it DOES have a significant effect on the spread of the actual number of attackers needed. With a huge number of hit points, the number of MDI needed to take out ten spears will be 5 in almost every battle, with a rare number of 4's and 6's, and almost never a <=3 or >=7. In a system with one hp, the required number of attackers takes on a Poisson distribution (similar to binomial but with a longer tail on the high side). With 3 hps (regulars) the spread is significant but much less than 1hp. With 5hp on both sides the spread will be less.

If this is what people mean by 'streakiness', losing several unit battles in a row where you were the favorite, the solution is to raise hps, not to average dice rolls

iii) The current system has an intutive sense in that for any one hp the chance the attacker will win is A / (A+D). BUT it's also intuitive in that if you need to defeat a stack of m defenders, you will need D/A times as many attackers. If your attackers are half-strength, you'll need double. If your attackers are double-strength, you'll need one half as many units as there are defenders.

With the proposed (and I know, postponed) combat system, the intuitive feel is lost not just for one battle, for for knowing how many attackers are needed to defeat a set of defenders Instead the ratio that you need is a non-linear function of D and A ratio. Only near A = D does it stay intuitive.

In playing around in Excel last night, I found that when averaging rolls, the effective 'p' is in the ballpark of Normdist((0.5-(A/(A+D))*(Nrolls+3)) when Nrolls is in the range of 2 to 10.

(Note all comments here ignore defender promotion. The effect of that will be to give a nice boost when D > A, possibly quite significant where D >> A and the defenders are regular to start.)

The intuitive nature of the existing linear dependence on the A/D ratio gives players an easy ability to know how many attackers they will need to have a good chance to defeat a set of defenders. Altering the number of hp's has no effect on this expected number, but will affect the variance about that mean

Charis

 

[DaviddesJ]

Originally posted by The Last Conformist
Well, in my games the AI certainly does wear down defenders by throwing large numbers of attackers on them on a regular basis. Indeed, they are much more reliant on such tactics than I am, because they fail to use artillery offensively. With the new combat system implemented, my ability to wage offensive war against technologically equal opponents would take a severe dent, but the AI's would be essentially eliminated.

None of the high-scoring GOTM players seem to use artillery much, either; it's too slow. It's easier to conquer the world quickly with knights or cavalry.

I would generally agree that, in theory, I'd rather give a combat boost to the AI (on both offense and defense), than to tilt the balance more toward defense. And one problem with the proposed mod is that humans might be able to exploit it to actually get a combat advantage at certain times (e.g., medieval infantry vs spearmen).

But I'm not worried about a stronger defense hurting the AI. The AI already has no real ability to attack a human player. When was the last time you read a high scorer in the GOTM describe how the AI took several of his cities??? Furthermore, even when defending against the AI, it's generally better/more effective to ambush its stacks as they approach, than to hole up in cities and defend.

In reality, in Civ3, attacking is what humans do and defending is what AIs do.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Since apparently your sole concern is to maximize the challenge for the human player, the obvious solution would seem to be making a "Uber-Sid" level.

I do know very good players who do use artillery on a massive scale - Moonsinger comes to mind - and I disagree it's slow; even without the settler landgrab exploit, I can usually advance quicker with a combination of Cav and Arty than with Cav alone, assuming sinking the same amount of shields into the war effort, and would assume that this becomes more, rather than less, true on higher levels, since the AI is going to outnumber me harder*. So I guess the reason these players don't use Arty much is that they effectively finish their games before Replaceable Parts come along.

* Actually outnumbering the major AIs is very rarely something I attempt. I guess I agree that the fact that I'm able to overwhelm the AI with inferior numbers of inferior units could use some fixing ... but the new combat system was not intended to do that, and would, in my eyes, be a perverse way of doing it.

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by The Last Conformist
So I guess the reason these players don't use Arty much is that they effectively finish their games before Replaceable Parts come along.

That is a good guess

In most GOTMs the top players are playing under their level even in the Predator class, and thus the game is indeed settled (and the position in the standings determined) before Replaceable Parts.

 

[Commander Bello]

As I understand it now, the modification of the combat RNG has been dropped again.

And most of the other posters are cheering and celebrating. Well, fine for them.

For me, this is really VERY disappointing.

Many people here have complained: "Oh my god! No, no, no!!! A stronger unit now will win! Please, Firaxis, don't do that!"
To me, this perfectly displays how most of the people understand this game, when it comes to warfare...
In the past, I contributed to some threads in which things like this have been discussed. There always is the fraction of people who don't like it, when a stronger unit will almost every time win.

But this would be a simulation of reality.

The whole CIV-series always was more than weak in regards to combat simulation. On the battle field, the stronger unit (taking all the "modifiers" into account) WILL win. This is proven by war history. The rare occasions when a "weaker" unit (aka a weaker army) has won the battle have been triggered by individual mistakes (of the military leader in charge) or by very, very exceptional circumstances like weather influence and the like....

People have complained about a reduction of strategic variety, if this - again, obviously rejected - combat patch would come into place.
The exact opposite would be the case.... If a stronger unit would be to win in almost all cases, then the player would really have to develop a strategy about how to use his troops. Some have posted that it would no longer be possible to take a walled town, being defended by infantry, with their 3 or 4 cavalries.... In my eyes, exactly this would be the correct outcome of the battle. "In real life", the infantry would just have abolished the cavalry before going to lunch...
To me, it seems that this demand to have the "randomness" in the majority of postings is just triggered by the wish of some people, that the weakness of the current combat system might save them from time to time - because of a lack of having developed a proper military strategy. Then people posted: if you don't like the current combat system, just start playing chess! This reveals their attitude perfectly. In Chess, you have to make your thoughts, how to use your "units". In current CIV, you can win your games with the help of the RNG. And if it is against you, you just start over...

Sorry, guys, we just missed a chance to get a better CIV... There is absolutely no reason to cheer.
Except for those who are feeling satisfied that they don't have to learn something new...

 

[DaviddesJ]

Originally posted by The Last Conformist
Since apparently your sole concern is to maximize the challenge for the human player, the obvious solution would seem to be making a "Uber-Sid" level.

Giving the computer player more and more production advantages isn't a good way to create an enjoyable and challenging game. One of many shortcomings of that approach is that it generally produces a "crossover" point: the human is behind the computer players from the start, and eventually "catches up", and then, the game becomes uninteresting. Non-production advantages, like helping the computer defend better, act more uniformly over the course of the game, thus making the whole game more interesting. I also think that if it were significantly harder to conquer computer players, the game would be more interesting because there would be more paths to victory. Right now, by far the quickest and easiest way to win is simply to conquer everything, or at least enough of your neighbors to max out your production. This is a flaw: it shouldn't be much easier to become stronger by conquest than by investing in internal infrastructure.

 

[Gingerbread Man]

Many people here have complained: "Oh my god! No, no, no!!! A stronger unit now will win! Please, Firaxis, don't do that!"
To me, this perfectly displays how most of the people understand this game, when it comes to warfare...

Well, seeing that the people whining about it are the best known players in the game, and understand the entire game inside out, their opinions are well founded.

Its not that people are dissapointed that with the changes a spearman couldnt destroy a tank. It is just that units that previously won 60% of the time, now won 80% of the time. Where it would normally take 6 swordsmen to capture a spearman defended city, it now would take 4. It would essentially be ruining the game.

If that feature had been released, I most probably would have stopped playing Civ.

 

[Catt]

Originally posted by Commander Bello
As I understand it now, the modification of the combat RNG has been dropped again.

And most of the other posters are cheering and celebrating. Well, fine for them.

For me, this is really VERY disappointing.

Actually, it looks like it will eventually be included as a configurable option -- but it won't be in the patch next week.

Many people here have complained: "Oh my god! No, no, no!!! A stronger unit now will win! Please, Firaxis, don't do that!"
To me, this perfectly displays how most of the people understand this game, when it comes to warfare...
In the past, I contributed to some threads in which things like this have been discussed. There always is the fraction of people who don't like it, when a stronger unit will almost every time win.

But this would be a simulation of reality.

Perhaps others are looking for an engaging game rather than a simulation?

People have complained about a reduction of strategic variety, if this - again, obviously rejected - combat patch would come into place.
The exact opposite would be the case.... If a stronger unit would be to win in almost all cases, then the player would really have to develop a strategy about how to use his troops.

I disagree with this but am curious about why you think it so. If I had a much greater degree of confidence about my troops' chances, I would be able to think much less about how I use my troops -- just look at available defenders and attackers among potential enemies, find the right match-up, and march 'em off into battle. Why do you think a more determinative outcome among combat would actually cause one to think more strategically about troops?

To me, it seems that this demand to have the "randomness" in the majority of postings is just triggered by the wish of some people, that the weakness of the current combat system might save them from time to time - because of a lack of having developed a proper military strategy.

You know it is generally considered polite to actually listen and respond to what people actually post, instead of speculating on some unknown and nefarious motive behind all these elaborate cover stories others have offered. I mean, I know that you are convinced that you are correct beyond a shadow of a doubt, but perhaps actually addressing others' arguments, rather than ignoring what others actually said and asserting that the "real" or "secret" reason is their own inability to develop a "proper military strategy" . . . I don't know, just perhaps it might be better to focus on the arguments?

Frankly, what is a little bit mind-boggling about your post and its timing is that the producer of the game -- and the actual designers -- decided to retest the combat change after reading threads like this one, and concluded rather quickly that:

. . . it became apparent that the Ancient Era would require significant rebalancing . . .

What?!? As some showed even absent playtesting via mathematical analysis? Could the change really have unbalanced the game? Certainly not -- clearly the designers themselves are incapable of designing a proper military strategy and the proposed combat change threatened to expose their failing to the whole world.

 

[Revolutionary]

@Charis WOW!!! thats alot of math.

Anyway I think what you said is that you do agree with me that by simply increasing the HP of ALL units it will help deal with all those unlikely outcomes.

Another option would be to BOTH increase the HP for all unit and give HP bonus to certain units in specific eras. Similar to CIV2

 

[The Last Conformist]

Originally posted by DaviddesJ


Giving the computer player more and more production advantages isn't a good way to create an enjoyable and challenging game. One of many shortcomings of that approach is that it generally produces a "crossover" point: the human is behind the computer players from the start, and eventually "catches up", and then, the game becomes uninteresting.

Agreed.

Non-production advantages, like helping the computer defend better, act more uniformly over the course of the game, thus making the whole game more interesting. I also think that if it were significantly harder to conquer computer players, the game would be more interesting because there would be more paths to victory. Right now, by far the quickest and easiest way to win is simply to conquer everything, or at least enough of your neighbors to max out your production. This is a flaw: it shouldn't be much easier to become stronger by conquest than by investing in internal infrastructure.

I still think boosting defense is a wrongheaded way of increasing the difficulty of the game (it would actually help builder style players, for a start), but if we, on such or other grounds, decided that boosting defense is indeed needed, certainly there are simpler, cleaner and more transparent ways to achieve that than introducing the new combat system; boosting unit defense values across the board, for instance.

The ideal way of boosting difficulty, of course, would be having a more competent AI.

 

[alfeas]

As an aside, did they ever specify which day this week the patch would be out? I'm eager to start a new game.

 

[barron of ideas]

Black Waltz:

The UK has never been the "rest of the world."

As in the famous newspaper headline, "Fog in Channel, Continent cut off." Britain is the world and not-britain is the rest of the world.

 

[Commander Bello]

Originally posted by Gingerbread Man

Well, seeing that the people whining about it are the best known players in the game, and understand the entire game inside out, their opinions are well founded.

Its not that people are dissapointed that with the changes a spearman couldnt destroy a tank. It is just that units that previously won 60% of the time, now won 80% of the time. Where it would normally take 6 swordsmen to capture a spearman defended city, it now would take 4. It would essentially be ruining the game.

If that feature had been released, I most probably would have stopped playing Civ.

....yeah.. exactly the first seems to be the very point. Some people have learned how to survive with the current combat system. And now something new shall come up? Iiiiiiik!
A unit having double the strength of the defender, really shall win? Oh my god, come on...

You defend the fact that there has to be a six to one superiority for taking out an entrenched spearman (notice: you think, that six swordmen shall be needed!). Well, exactly this is, what makes the current CIV combat system that weak. If you translate this concept into single points then you have to have 18 attack points against 2 for defense to be successful.... bah....

Any change here wouldn't ruin the game at all. Maybe, it would ruin some old habits in combat. Maybe, it would require the flexibility of creating new concepts to be successful.
And that is, what I miss when I read the complaints about the new combat system. It just have been complaints of a very, very conservative fraction of players, who obviously felt more than uncomfortable with the thought, that there could be changes. Most probably, changes which couldn't be used for exploits.

Things are not necessarily better, just because they are old and common.
Again, I state that the whole community of players missed a chance here. The whole issue could have let to an improvement of the whole combat concept.. even, or especially, if we would have learned about the necessity to redesign individual combat values.

CIV has some very nice features, but combat and corruption (as they are - not basically) are the most silly concepts in the whole series.

 

[socralynnek]

The problem is, that the A/D values are balanced for the 'old' combat model. So, if you rebalance the values, then the new system might prove useful, but it takes a lot of testing until it is done.
I don't have any problem with making a tank vs. spearmen even stronger.
But Swordsmen and spearmen are designed to be about at equal strength if the spearman is fortified. But now, with the new combat system, swordsmen would be much stronger(imagine immortals), so the formerly balance would be ruined.

 

[nihil8r]

so if i have a game going and i put the patch on will it fix the problems?

 

[socralynnek]

You can't load an old game into the new version, at least it was always that way.
Correct me, if I'm wrong.

 

[Arizona_Steve]

Not true. It's generally been the case that old games are transferrable to a newly patched version.