Combat Bonuses

[deo]

Combat bonuses should be added in Civ 4 to make the game more realistic. I don’t mean to add combat experience or something like that but to add combat bonuses that make a unit that attacks or defends more powerful even if the attacking or defending unit has less attack ore defense. Example a musket infantry fights with a light cavalry than the musket man has no chance because the light cavalry is to fast for the musket infantry and when they reload the light cavalry attacks than but the musket infantry is strong vs. foot units like the swords man and heavy cavalry so the musket infantry could be strong vs. foot units and heavy cavalry but weak vs. light cavalry. The pickman could be strong vs. heavy and light cavalry but weak vs. archers and longbowmans. This could reduce the possibility that a tank loses gassing a spearman.

 

[The Last Conformist]

The developers have said this aint gonna happen.

 

[sir_schwick]

The developers have said this aint gonna happen.

I keep hearing that different places. Do you have a link to the source of this conclusion?
That seems like a strange thing to leave out, considering consistent complaints about how unintuitive and unrealistic units are. I hope they at least leave the ability to mod such a thing in.

 

[warpstorm]

In Soren's GDC presentation on Civ4 (heretoafter refered to as CIV) he said that rock-scissors-paper is a poor game. People have been interpreting that to mean that unit bonuses won't be in CIV.

(Although in the same presentation, he showed quite a lot of admiration for Age of Mythology which features combat boni).

 

[deo]

(Although in the same presentation, he showed quite a lot of admiration for Age of Mythology which features combat boni).

I had this Idea from Rise of Nations

 

[deo]

If Attacked With...........................Counter With
Light Infantry........................................Cavalry
Gunpowder Infantry................................Heavy Cavalry, Tanks
Modern Infantry.....................................Tanks, Machine Guns
Heavy Infantry.......................................Archers, Gunpowder Infantry
Foot Archers..........................................Heavy Cavalry, Light Infantry
Machine Guns........................................Tanks, Cavalry
Flamethrower.........................................Infantry, Machine Guns
Light Cavalry..........................................Heavy Infantry
Heavy Cavalry........................................Heavy Infantry
Ranged Cavalry.......................................Archers, Tanks, Light Cavalry
Artillery Weapons....................................Cavalry, Tanks
Anti-Aircraft...........................................Tanks,Infantry
Fighter Aircraft........................................Fighter Aircraft, Anti-Aircraft,Cruisers
Bomber Aircraft........................................Fighter Aircraft, Anti-Aircraft
Helicopters..............................................Fighter Aircraft, Anti-Aircraft
Heavy Ships............................................Fire Ships, Submarines
Light Ships..............................................Heavy Ships
Bombardment Ships...................................Ships
Heavy Bombardment ships..........................Submarines, Aircracft
Fire Ships................................................Light Ships
Aircraft Carriers........................................Submarines, Light Ships, Anti-Aircraft
Submarines..............................................Light Ships, Helicopters

 

[warpstorm]

Looks like rock-scissors-paper to me

 

[sir_schwick]

What is a better system then Rock-Paper-Scissors? I can't think of any system that is better for interesting combat. Currently the unit type is a just for graphical and metaphorical purposes. The Knight is the ultimate unit of the Middle Ages. In actual history, the Knight was the most effective shock troop of the time, but an army of just Knights could easily be defeated. Its part of the reason the French did so poorly in the Hundred Years War.

In SMAC, the system handed certain advantages to certain unit types. Infantry gained an attack bonus versus fixed emplacements(cities, fortresses). Mobile units gained an advantage against slower units in open terrain. There were even modifications(with the custom units) that allowed you to design speciality counter-class units. It made for a more tactically sound experience, since any military could be designed against, if you had the info or battle experience to know what to desing.

 

[warpstorm]

All I'm saying is that Soren doesn't like R-S-P, not that we won't see a new combat system.

 

[sir_schwick]

I didn't mean that as any kind of attack. I was seriously asking what system would he propose using instead of R-P-S. Where is Soren anyway?

 

[rcoutme]

How about reading the sticky of Civ IV consolidation and then asking what would be best. Currently, there is a lot of stuff summarized on combat, units and movement. There are some really good ideas in there to make combat more interesting (including combat bonuses for certain units in certain terrain).

 

[warpstorm]

Where is Soren? Busy coding up CIV as we "speak".

 

[sir_schwick]

Could Soren at least add combat bonuses as a moddable attribute? And yes, I politely ask him to take a moment and reply to this.

 

[NP300]

What is a better system then Rock-Paper-Scissors?

Rock, Papers, Scissors seems awfully confusing to me. Look in the thread I started about 2 sets of a/d values. The suggested bonus system would be an awful lot simpler than Rock, Paper, Scissors.

 

[Cuivienen]

SMAC didn't act as Rock-Paper-Scissors, though. Just some suggestions:

On Grassland and Plains, +15% Attack if the attacking unit is faster. (easy flanking)
On Hills, Jungle, Swamp and Mountains, -5% Attack if the attacking unit is faster. (relies on speed)
1-movement units get +10% Defense in Cities and Forts
Defensive Bombard units get +15% Defense in Cities and Forts.
Defensive Bombard units get +5% Attack vs Cities and Forts.
Some other stuff I haven't thought of.

That doesn't sound like RPS to me, just a bit of realism.

 

[NP300]

SMAC didn't act as Rock-Paper-Scissors, though. Just some suggestions:

On Grassland and Plains, +15% Attack if the attacking unit is faster. (easy flanking)
On Hills, Jungle, Swamp and Mountains, -5% Attack if the attacking unit is faster. (relies on speed)
1-movement units get +10% Defense in Cities and Forts
Defensive Bombard units get +15% Defense in Cities and Forts.
Defensive Bombard units get +5% Attack vs Cities and Forts.
Some other stuff I haven't thought of.

That doesn't sound like RPS to me, just a bit of realism.

Look here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=94054

The bonus system could be used with 5 unit categories. The terrain could have moddable defense bonuses as they already do. But in addition, they could also have overall bonuses for unit classes. So that grassland/plains could give a bonus to mounted units. Forests, mountains, hills and jungles could give a bonus to foot units. This would be much simpler.

 

[sir_schwick]

A true R-P-S system says X always beats Y. The SMAC emerged as a R-P-S system because certain combinations always won in great number. Units with high mobility will usually win against slower units on open terrain. Infantry units will naturally approach fixed emplacements with smaller profiles. So real unit interactions start to appear as patterns that soon resembled X always beats Y.

 

[deo]

The RSP system is the best system for civ but there also are some other bonuses in civ 3 example: if the defending unit is in a mountain he gets +100% defense bonus.
So if a Archer attacks a fortifyed swordsman in a mountain than the archer gets 50% bouns attack because the archer shots from long distance. This is what i think in civ 3 shuld be added

 

[sir_schwick]

If you started using an extensive RPS system, then you would have to rethink unit vs. unit combat. Because the units in Civ aren't tactically varied, it would be more frustrating to do this. You would have to redo the entire unit system. I would like to see this, but it would probably hurt the production time of Civ 4.

 

[deo]

Yes normaly it will take much time to create such a unit system but it will be more realistic and improve the gameplay... we will see what they will do in civ 4