Control of Battles

[Moonsinger]

I think the focus on realism would only make combat more frustrating. Then the game would be 100% pure predictable numbers. 7000 troops versus 5000 troops -- the prior would win, and survive with 2000 troops.

Actually, when it comes to tactical combat, it won't be a number game at all! Age of Wonder or Heros of M&M got the right idea for tactical combat. With proper defense setup: formation + terrain + location + ability bonus of the great leader or commander in battle, it's very possible for a small group of 100 troops to withstand 7000 troops. In Age of Wonder:SM, with proper character development, each of my great leader can single handedly take out 100 of the enemy best units without much of a problem. Of course, since the AI can't possibly learn how to play like that, the human player usually win; therefore, it's probably best for Civ4 not to go that way.

Remember the Alamo! It's a hopeless situation, but it's always fun to try to save the Alamo.

 

[Rik Meleet]

The main focus of the complaints about combat not being realisitc is that the larger the force on 1 side, the smaller the chance should be to loose units. Let me share with you my thoughts.

- a SoD of for instance 4 archers + 3 swords + 2 spears, attacking 2 vet spears in a city. You preselect the attacking forces, for instance 3 archers and 3 swords and by some mathematical calculation damage is dealt to them as a team. It can be randomly dealt to members of that team, or to the weakest unit first, I don't know what would be best. The battle is only stopped when the defending team or the attacking team is killed. The danger is that you loose all the attacking forces, but this can be countered by not selecting all units in a team. But not selecting all units in a team makes the team weaker...
- Defense teaming; all forces that are fortified on a tile automatically defend and get damage divided as a team.
- Unfortified defensive units are considered "ambushed" and are dealt damage the way it is in Civ3.

Notice that an attacking team with movement 1 who won, has no movement points left to fortify and thus, if counterattacked, does no longer function as a defensive team.

Idea or not an idea?

 

[Moonsinger]

- a SoD of for instance 4 archers + 3 swords + 2 spears, attacking 2 vet spears in a city. You preselect the attacking forces, for instance 3 archers and 3 swords and by some mathematical calculation damage is dealt to them as a team. It can be randomly dealt to members of that team, or to the weakest unit first, I don't know what would be best. The battle is only stopped when the defending team or the attacking team is killed. The danger is that you loose all the attacking forces, but this can be countered by not selecting all units in a team. But not selecting all units in a team makes the team weaker...

Well, the army in Civ3 has almost been working in that fashion. To implement your idea, all they have to do is to give the ablity to unload troops from the army and do not limit the size of the army. Also, if all units in the army are down to 1 HP (unit inside the army, not the army itself), the weakest unit will die first.

 

[dh_epic]

I think yours is a neat idea, Rik Meleet. The decision would be between using all your forces at once and having greater strength but greater risk, or dividing your forces somewhat, having less strength but less risk.

I think this is already in Civ implicitly, though. For example, I think we've all encountered a situation where we've brought a few ships of troops in a staggered way. We bring in a wave of four troops, attack with three, and win 2 out of 3. The enemy launches a counter attack and we lose another troop. We bring in another ship the next turn and end up with 6 troops, two of which are severely hurt.

Whereas if we landed both ships at the same time, we could have attacked with 6 of them, took the city, or at least ended up with 2 fresh units to hold off for a counter attack, leaving all 8 units.

I wonder if your suggest is redundant, or like another neat layer on top of combat. Instead of deciding how many turns to spread your invasion time on, you can actually subdivide your turn into actual phases. Will I attack in one big phase? Two phases? 8 individual units, like in Civ 3?

I think your idea adds another layer of complexity without being too complex. I'm with it.

 

[Jon Shafer]

When I send my SOD of 1000 archers and two spearmans against 2 spearmans, I would expect no lost. With at least 1000 arrrows firing at the two defenders, I'm telling you...they don't stand a chance! With the Civ3 combat system, a couple of my archers will usually die.

Realistically, those 1000 Archers can't all fit into one tile anyways, so boo yah.

Besides, Archers usually just fire arrows. The spears could take cover behind junk and then the Archers would have to go and dig out the survivors... taking a few casualties in the process.

 

[Moonsinger]

Realistically, those 1000 Archers can't all fit into one tile anyways, so boo yah.

Yes, it does! One tile in Civ is equal to at least 50 square miles. Are you saying that in the real world, you can't fit 1000 archers into a 50 square miles?

Besides, Archers usually just fire arrows. The spears could take cover behind junk and then the Archers would have to go and dig out the survivors... taking a few casualties in the process.

I think you are mistaken! Archers don't just fire arrows. If the target is out of sight, they would usually light up their arrow first. If you send your spearmans to take cover behind junk or whatever, chances are they will burn to dead. Moreover, archers don't usually go by themselves. They are always escorted by some spearmans for protection too. That was my original point! Your spearmans had to enage my spearmans first before you can get to my archers.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Yes, it does! One tile in Civ is equal to at least 50 square miles. Are you saying that in the real world, you can't fit 1000 archers into a 50 square miles?

Certainly not! Have you seen how big those fellows are compared to the size of each tile? They must be a dozen miles across!

I think you are mistaken! Archers don't just fire arrows. If the target is out of sight, they would usually light up their arrow first. If you send your spearmans to take cover behind junk or whatever, chances are they will burn to dead. Moreover, archers don't usually go by themselves. They are always escorted by some spearmans for protection too. That was my original point! Your spearmans had to enage my spearmans first before you can get to my archers.

You never mentioned anything about any Spearmen. Throw one in there and obviously the battle is yours.

 

[Hygro]

Yeah but moonsinger, an archer in civ3 represents approximately 100 archers. Now try fitting 100,000 archers without proper saniation and organization (they are ungabunga archers after all) in 50 square miles. It just ain't gonna work!

 

[Jon Shafer]

Approximately 100? Says who?

 

[Hygro]

just a guess. makes sense though. what do you think?

 

[The Omega]

I don't like the idea of tactical battles. The reason I like civ more than other strategy games is because civ is strategical, not tactical. I'm awful at tacticul games. While I do think that the combat system needs refinement, you must remeber that the leader/general is not the one making the frontline decisions that win a battle (They're just the ones that take teh credit ). In civ, you are the leader of a country. Thus, you're making strategical, not tactical decisions.

 

[Jon Shafer]

just a guess. makes sense though. what do you think?

No idea. Depends on what they're supposed to represent. I would say at least 1000 persons per unit though, obviously less for things like Bombers and Tanks and such.

 

[Hygro]

1000 per person is a lot for such an early ancient age unit. For later units like infantry though...

 

[MSTK]

I like to use figures of about 300, especially considering that it takes 500 years to build a single warrior batallion.

 

[Jon Shafer]

I like to use figures of about 300, especially considering that it takes 500 years to build a single warrior batallion.

Agh, not that argument again...

The years were only added to give a sense of time passing. I reach the Industrial Age by "1200 AD." So what? It means nothing.

 

[MSTK]

It means nothing, of course. But I'm just adding my subliminal opinion.

 

[dh_epic]

Whew, now we're arguing over how many archers can fit on a tile?

Man, you guys would be the worst game developers You're the reason a one hour meeting takes two days.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Whew, now we're arguing over how many archers can fit on a tile?

Man, you guys would be the worst game developers You're the reason a one hour meeting takes two days.

Apparently few people around here are able to take things tongue in cheek.

 

[Colonel]

Been done, its not good because they would have to define how many real things would be represented in one unit, then of course you would have devolpe the difference in amounts for units, what I mean is there is a difference between amounts of real things in different unit. A tank represents perhaps a division but a battleship represents one or two real battleships. Besides the fact the game is strategic not tactical. Generals and warcraft are completely different games and should not be mixed

 

[Moonsinger]

Certainly not! Have you seen how big those fellows are compared to the size of each tile? They must be a dozen miles across!

Since the size of the carrier seems bigger than 1 tile, does that mean it must be a dozen miles across? What's about the size of a great leader? We all know that he is only 1 man, but yet he fills up the whole tile too. Anyway, it's just a game and size representation doesn't matter.

You never mentioned anything about any Spearmen. Throw one in there and obviously the battle is yours.

Yes, I did mention about my spearmen in my first post in this thread. In fact, that is the whole point for tactical combat. This was what I said before at the beginning of this thread:

I think the tactical battle would make the game more real. For example, if we send a group of 4 archers and 2 spearmans to attack a group of 2 spearmans. Without tactical battle (like in Civ3), we can attack only with 1 unit at a time. The end result, a couple of our archers probably will die.

On the other hand, at the tactical combat level, we would simply fortify our 2 spearmans protecting our archers. Of course, our 4 archers will fire a few round of arrows at the two spearman defenders. The defenders don't have much of a choice here. If they don't move forward to intercept the attacker, they will be eliminated by the incoming round of arrows. If they move forward, they will have to face our two spearmans protecting our archers first. The end result, our two spearmans against their two spearmans back by some around of arrows (range attack) from our 4 archers, their two spearmans will be eliminated while all our force will survive.

At the tactical battle, an group of 4 archers and 2 spearmans should and should always be able to take out 2 spear defenders without getting kill. Btw, Age of Wonder, Heros of Might and Magic, and Master of Magic are all like that.