Combat Spoiler - Knowing the winner before animation ends

[Detritus]

I was debating with myself whether to post this - because for me it is a bit of a letdown. It could, however, help people with slow computers to feel better about turning battle animation off, so here it is:
You can actually find out who wins before animation ends by looking at the experience number of your unit (bottom left corner). If the number goes up - you win. If it stays unchanged - IA wins.

 

[*Nosferatu*]

I just leave the cursor over the enemy and then see if the strength drop to zero.

 

[Exavier]

You watch those animations? I usually use stack attack and hit you with every unit in my stack before the event log can even show 1 combat message

 

[MattJek]

Ive noticed this problem too in like the second game I played. Once you attack, you can see the strength whether the goes down to zero or not. I doesnt matter what unit the cursor is over, you'll know the outcome in a split second. Its kinda a letdown but Ive gotte used to it

 

[ThERat]

I posted this in the bugs forum long time ago and the new patch has changed the health bar display. However, they forgot about the exp points. or when you drag the mouse over the units, the stats show up before the fight ends.
Either way, none of the fighting is anything nearly as exciting as in Civ3. There, you would see the health bars slowly going down and that could lead to nailbiting situation where your unit goes red before pulling off a victory.

I would wish that would be back, as it is the battle animation for Civ4 might as well be turned off.

 

[QiZhe]

Yes, you don't need to watch the exp points, just see if your strength (or their strength) drops to 0. I've been doing this for a long time. A pretty old bug.

 

[Caprice]

I turned off the animations... they take too long when I've got so many battles to wage.

That, and I also like the "Stack Attack" function.

I noticed the "flaw" in the way the game presents animated battles (the first day I played actually) and never thought anything of it... I guess maybe that ought to not be.

 

[Yzen Danek]

Actually, you don't even have to see the numbers to know what's happening; the combat animations are telltale. There is a finite set of animations for when you are going to win vs. lose.

I didn't discover this consciously; actually, what happened was that the initiation of certain combat animation sequences made me feel relieved while others made me feel stressed. After a while, I figured out that it was just a learned behavior from the two different types of sequences, like a Pavlovian response.

I've been the unwitting participant in a psychology experiment.

 

[QiZhe]

Actually, you don't even have to see the numbers to know what's happening; the combat animations are telltale. There is a finite set of animations for when you are going to win vs. lose.

I didn't discover this consciously; actually, what happened was that the initiation of certain combat animation sequences made me feel relieved while others made me feel stressed. After a while, I figured out that it was just a learned behavior from the two different types of sequences, like a Pavlovian response.

I've been the unwitting participant in a psychology experiment.

Yes, that's true. Though I've been duped once or twice... However, with the numbers, they appear as soon as you engage. You wouldn't even have to watch one or two sequences.

 

[ghen]

Actually I prefer the buggy way.

I want to see immediately who wins the fight so I can set up my strategy for the next attacker, but I also want to watch the fight animation because its fun.

 

[Thalassicus]

Same here, the time between combat initation and resolution allows a moment to think about the results. I hope they bring back a checkbox to still display health bars in combat -- either that, or fix "Quick Attack - Defense", and I'd use both quick attacks. On the defensive, it needs to at least center on the combat and pause a split second so you know where and what happened. I tried using it, but you lose scouts without knowing which one it was, or sometimes enemy ships will come in from the fog of war and kill something without you knowing where it happened. Simply saying "X unit has died to Y" is pretty useless on the defensive when dozens of attacks can occur all over the map

 

[Illusion13]

The thing is, in Civ 3, you can sorta get a feel of the combat anyways... Like, it goes in rhythm, which means if your unit is hitting, it will probably continue to get a few more hit in, and if it is losing HP, it'll probably keep losing HP... etc...