Combat System, Take 2

[DarkwingGT]

I wanted to discuss the combat system ala "Balancing the Battle System" but a small scale war and IMHO overzealous moderator nuked the thread. BTW Mod, you can be a perfectly wonderful moderator in everyway, but I do believe the situation wasn't that bad in the thread yet. Sorry, just my opinion.

Anyhow, please, I'd like to discuss the battle system but I don't want this thread closed, so play nice people.

Sgt. Zimm, I agree with 99% of what you say, so I'd appreciate your thoughts, but avoid saying anything that would close this thread prematurely, thanks.


Ok, so, I posted this under the 1.16f bugs thread, but I believe I posted in the wrong place.

This is not so much hyper-advanced units being beaten by ancient units as much as extreme odds in my favor losing about everytime.

I frequently use 5 or 6 units with at least double the attack rating to kill one unit and lose all my units. Recent example, one swordsman with 1 health standing on grassland successfully defended against 4 elite Immortals with full health. This in itself is odd, but similar battles occur every round. Is this a bug in the battle system, or it's intended effects? NOTE: I have the first 1.16f patch and play on Warlord.

 

[Sgt Zimm]

Sure I tossed around some insults in the last 2 posts, but only about Eliezar. The last post of mine was dripping with irony, considering the title. Unfortunately the person who posted after me didn't quite get it.

Of course I did write a scathing response to Eliezar in that post as well. *shrugs*

The other posts merely contained attacks on appaling historical falacies and historical analysis and I stand by them. That being said, it wasn't my fault completely. I never used any suggested expletives.

However, point well taken DW.

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It has been my observation that the defender is given the advantage in any combat scenario (city square or otherwise). The defender may not succeed (using the spearman vs. tank example) but they often cause horrendous damage to the attacker (I repeatedly had tanks taken down to yellow or even red by one spearman.)

Next patch: fix the combat system. It really affects the quality of the game.

 

[Sirp]

I find it odd to hear so many complaints about the combat system. In my experience, the combat system is occasionally a little unrealistic, but never horribly bad.

Being a skeptic, I am inclined to believe that people are simply heavily exaggerating their losses in combat, but I suppose it could be something weird with the random number generator on their machine.

The only real gripe I have with the combat system in it's current form is with naval battles. I feel that all iron-based ships should have their attack and defence approximately doubled. Not that I think it's a chronic problem, it just becomes mildly annoying when one occasionally loses a destroyer to a frigate. I can't say I've ever lost a battleship to a galley though, as some people have reported.

Every now and again, people post anecdotes of some extremely-unfair-sounding combat results in which they lost n units of type x to 1 unit of type y (where n >>> 1, and x is a unit of considerable technological advancement over y). I have never come across such inordinate results in my game (sure, I might have lost two cavalry to a defending spearman once or twice). Every now and again people discuss the prospect of a saved game where inordinately unfair combat results are about to take place. However, no-one seems to have done this yet; would anyone care to post such files, so that we can decide for ourselves if the combat system is sometimes inordinately unfair, rather than be told to believe anecdotes on the matter?

 

[Zeb_Fisher]

I haven't had the experience either of losing a tank to a spearman. I have lost a modern tank to a rifleman, but that is only rarely ... and I consider that realistic.

I will say that every now and then something wierd does happen where it seems like the computer is cheating ... for example 3 regular tanks attack my city which has two mech. infantry and a panzer... they destroy all my units without a scratch to them.

But in general, I haven't found a problem with combat. In that same city the civ earlier threw it's entire army of cavalry at me ... about 12 calvary and lost them all.

Perhaps it is like the earlier games and the computer gets an advantage is it is down to it's last few units or cities.


Zeb

 

[scavenger]

I think the spearman-tank thing is a bit overrated

I admit I have never lost a tank to a spearman, I role over them. I think the problem is more in other ways, where the gap isn't THAT huge as a two defense spearman and a twenty four attack tank.

Things like Ironclads beating battleships, submarines taking out battleships, conscript mech inf taking out elite tanks on a regular basis (happening to me in my current game)

 

[Special_O]

I've seen conscript riflemen beat tanks many many times. Sometimes three or four times in a row. And in the same game, the tanks easily beat veteran infantry and other tanks.

WTH is with those conscript riflemen?

 

[scavenger]

thats the point its not logical

 

[Sgt Zimm]

Hmm, perhaps my spearman vs. tanks are, in the grand scheme of things, isolated incidents. Fine.

Don't know about the rest of you, but the computer doesn't seem to build too many artillery units in my experience. In ancient times, they will build the odd catapult or two, but generally they go all out on swordsmen. Even when they develop metallurgy, they rarely build cannons. I haven't yet had any experience with civs in the industrial and modern age so I can't say much for artillery, radar artillery, bombers, etc (I've only finished one full game so far - on chieftain). Thus, the computer's strategy seems to be sheer numerical superiority in battle. Even when attacking my cities, I've never seen the computer bombard it first.

Your thoughts and experiences?

 

[scavenger]

im my experiance, on Diety, currently in the year 2002, the enemy uses Radar Artillery a lot for defense, every single major city i've attacked has had at least 1, and the capital which I just took about 4 minutes ago, cost me about 20 modern armors and it held not 1, not 2, not 3, but NINE radar artillery units

 

[Sgt Zimm]

Scavenger,

Has the computer ever used arty to shell your cities before an attack? what about precision bombing? Basically I'm asking whether or not the computer uses coordinated attacks to try and take a city.

 

[cutiestar]

Well I don't think there is anything wrong with the combat system, in the first GOTM i had groups of Immortals ( 4 attack) going against Aztec warriors I would win most fights, but sometimes I'd lose three immortals against the one warrior, it didn't worry me, or else it would just have been far too easy.

In this game I also had heaps of battleships and basically they ran over the opposition too easily.

I think maybe they should have the combat set so an old unit if the roll of the dice says it will fluke the win against a modern unit, maybe the modern unit just loses all it's life down to one red line left, that way your unit doesn't get killed, but it is put out of the battle for a few turns until it's health is recovered. You may even need to move it out of the zone to recover.

 

[scavenger]

Zimm,

It would be hard to say if the computer ever uses precision bombing, they DO, sometimes, bomb the living heck out of my cities before attacking them, but they never use artillary. Right now the russians (liek you care what civ) are using their airforce VERY effectivly to blow the hell outa my navy, they have a U-Shaped continent and the capital is at the bottom of the U, but I can't get any battle ships even close to it to blow up the roads around it because they use bombers to destroy them 1 to one health and AEGIS cruisers or battle ships to blow them apart.

The non-use of artillery is for one primary reasons, it moves too slow! They couldn't get one close enough to one my cities to use it.

 

[DarkwingGT]

First let me say that I'm happy people are replying to my thread.

Ok, cutiestar, my point is not that flukes shouldn't happen. It's that they happen in roughly 50% of my battles. That just seemed way to high a percentage for flukes. And I wasn't using the Modern Armor versus Spearman example (the worst gap fight I've ever had was a Swordsman defeat a Mech. Infantry) although I should point out that I don't believe ancient units should stand a chance. Period. If the game has progressed for 2000 years and the computer is still using Spearman, well then tough cookies that my Tanks roll all over them, they should've upgraded. If I'm still using Galleys when a Battleship comes up to fight me, well then I shouldn't stand a chance in a very hot place.

See, if you look at my original post, my point was this, a 1 health Spearman with no defensive bonus (it had just moved so wasn't fortified plus it was on grassland) defeat all 4 of my Elite Immortals with full health. So let's do a statistical comparison, 4 attack vs. 2 defense. According to the rules, I should win 4 out of 6, i.e. 66% of winning. Now, I just need 1 in 20 "fights" to be a success. Statistically speaking the chance that I don't win a single fight is 0.33^20. Those odds are pretty steep that I'd lose. I'm just not sure why people think it's ok for odds like that to lose. If the computer marches in with 4 Immortals and attacks my one Spearman, I know darn well I'll lose. I just think that behind the scenes the computer has been given an Attack/Defensive bonus. Oh well. BTW, I can't tell you what 0.33^20 is because the Windows Calculator can't handle numbers that small.

 

[DarkwingGT]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the artillery. I've had the computer occasionally use artillery for defense but I've never seen the computer use it for offense. But then again I only play on Warlord.

 

[Loopy]

It could just be how I'm reading through the forums, but I have yet to see anyone post a save game showing these 10 modern units dying to a one-health ancient unit. Given how "broken" combat is supposed to be, with this sort of thing happening regularly, you'd think at least one person would post a game.

As nice as these stories of unbalanced combat are, it's not the same as replaying a save game. Take the first example here, was it really a swordsman or a spearsman? Attacking across a river? Did the s-man start out as conscript and get three promotions while killing the Immortals? Regardless of how answered, unless the save game can be fired up and played, it's just an exaggerated story.

Oh yeah, people always seem to forget that there's never a case of "no-defensive bonus". Grassland gives a 10% bonus -- check the Appendix.

 

[Zachriel]

Yes, that's right. The enemy spearman has a better than 1/3 chance of surviving, with the 10% terrain bonus. If it does, it will probably gain a hitpoint.

And it was probably fortified. If it gets a 50% bonus (does it? can't find it in the book, but it seems to work that way, like in civ2), then it would have a better than even chance. With a couple of reasonably lucky breaks, the spearman could become elite.

 

[Zeb_Fisher]

I've seen the AI use bombers, but it's hard to say if they are using bombers to soften up a spot they're going to attack or just using them because it knows it's supposed to. Mostly the bombers seem to go after roads to resources.


The AI definately doesn't fight like me ...


Amphibious assault:

Aircraft Carrier launches bombers to destroy railroads to the city ... slowing down advance of enemy troops.

2 cruisers + battleship begin shelling city, hopefully not destroying the harbor, but getting everything else.

the turn of the invasion, bombers plus ships shell city and then a transport of marines invades... I always win the city this way... very often never losing a single marine or even having a marine get hit.

it's almost the same strategy with parachuters... or using helicopters to transport marines in.


Zeb

 

[scavenger]

the AI has very poor amphibious assault tactics, but its land battles are very good, it doesn't just go for border cities, if it can penetrate into your empire and get "softer" less defended cities, it will go for them.

 

[Sgt Zimm]

In my latest game (warlord - customized-chinese civ), the combat seems to be well balanced thus far. I'm in the middle ages and my Riders are doing great. At times they will lose to a Spearman, but that makes some sense since said spearman is fortified in a town/city/metropolis and on a hill. Also, my Riders tend to escape in this case.

I haven't encountered an incident where a redlined unit has held off a large number of elite, more advanced units.

Can't say much about naval combat, don't care for it in this game. All of the important wonders' (Sun Tzu's, Pyramids, Sistine Chapel, Hoover, etc) effects are restricted to the continent they are built on. Thus, I see no point in launching a D-day invasion of another continent. I'd much rather conquer the entire continent that I'm on (I always play on large or huge maps, so space is not a problem.)

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Interesting Observation: I can't really substantiate this, it just seems to be a correlation. It appears that once I bombard a city with artillery, even if it fails, the defending unit is far easier to defeat. Does the bombardment "knock" the unit out of fortified mode or something?

Bunch of crap or shreds of truth? You tell me.

 

[Sgt Zimm]

1. Pikemen doubling their defence rating against mounted units (horses that is.) - Civ II

2. Infantry get a bonus when attacking a city (I think it was 25%) - SMAC.

3. Not really a bonus per se, but units from different era's had increased firepower. Gunpowder gave a FP of 2 vs. 1 for units without it. I think the Battleship had a firepower of 4, but I'm not positive. - Civ II

4. Is the "Pearl Harbour" combat modifier (from Civ II) still in Civ III? If it isn't, it should be.


Can't think of anything else at the moment. Feel free to add more or trash the ones I've suggested.