warpstorm said:
Even though it says that. A unit that has 3 of its hundred hits gives the same number on that display as one that is full strength. It also doesn't take into account first strikes (other than telling you how many you will get).
I don't *think* so, unless I'm misunderstanding what you're saying here. To sum up my understanding of how combat works:
- Each unit has a base strength; for example, warriors are strength 2 and swordsmen strength 6. In practice, these numbers may have little relation to who wins the battle, due to promotions, strength modifiers, terrain modifiers and so forth.
--- After all of those modifiers are added in, you get your actual "odds" -- what you see on the screen as x vs y. For example, if an unpromoted swordsman was attacking a combat II warrior on a forested hill, the "odds" shown would be 6.0 vs. 3.9. (Assuming I did my math right; it's early and I'm coffee-less.)
--- Each unit starts a battle with 100 hit points. The odds show the likelihood of a "hit" in each round of fighting.
When a hit is scored by either opponent, the other suffers damage in proportion to the opponent's strength --- the swordsman will induce more damage per hit on the warrior than vice versa. Battle will continue until one or the other opponent is out of hitpoints. What does this mean in practice? Well, in Civ 3, a theoretical 6.0-strength attacker would have a 61% chance of winning versus a 3.9 strength defender ((6.0/(6.0+3.9)) assuming equal hitpoints at the outset. In Civ 4, the attacker's chances are *much* higher, due to the point italicized above. This is one potential source of confusion over battle outcomes.
--- Damage incurred during a battle is reflected by loss of strength. For example, if the 6.0-strength sword loses half its hit points in beating the warrior, it will subsequently be shown as strength 3.0. It still starts its next battle with a full 100 hit points, but its strength is halved. For example, say that another warrior identical to the first steps up on the hill, and the player decides to attack without waiting for the swordsman to heal. The odds are now 3.0 versus 3.9. Now it's the *warrior* that is more likely to hit each round, and the *warrior* who deals more damage each round. The swordsman is very likely to lose. This is the other source of confusion, I think. People are still thinking of that damaged swordsman as a swordsman, and it isn't. In practice, it's only as strong as an archer.
Arathorn wrote an excellent strategy article on the workings of combat; it's in the strategy articles subforum. In addition to the stuff I mentioned above, it also covers such esoterica as first strikes, withdrawal chances, and discontinuities in the hit point system that make attacking at slightly-less-than-even odds (6.0 vs 6.2, for example) a surprisingly bad idea.
