Damage to Units

[Sarisin]

I enjoyed reading all the tests, posts, etc. in the Combat Odds thread. That addressed winning the battle. How about if you already won the battle, though?

How much damage does your unit take? The amount often is meaningless, but sometimes it can hurt if your damaged unit quickly gets hit again. Anyway, here are a few of my thoughts on damage to units. Your comments are welcome.

1. I think most of the time the damage reflected is pretty realistic. I suppose in many battles units receive some damage and some are untouched. However, I am surprised sometimes when the damage received from a lesser enemy unit is excessive. For example, in my current game I attacked a plain old barbarian Wolf Rider with a Beastmaster who had plenty of promotions - the damage took 3 turns to heal. That seemed unrealistic to me. I'm sure you have had other examples in your games. I'm thinking (but not convinced because I don't know all the code, etc.) that if you have Combat Odds of 90+% you should receive little to no damage. This clearly is not the case though in my games anyway. OK, if you take on a unit with Combat Odds of 75% (if you win) you should have a damaged unit on your hands. However, with overwhelming odds, why so much damage?

2. Do some units take on more damage than others? It seems to me like my mounted units are the big offenders here. OK, I know there is a rock-paper-scissors thing going and all the promotions certainly enter into it. But, it just seems like those mounted units a very fragile.

3. I really think there is a problem with the damage HN units take. For example, I attacked a dwarven axeman with my HN Giant Spider who maxed out the promotions with 200+ XP. The axeman had Combat I. The Combat Odds were 99.9%, but that little axeman still did enough damage to require 7 turns for the Spider to heal. I have heard the rationale that supply lines take time to get to the HN units, but this Spider was just outside my border only a few tiles away from one of my cities, so Also, I had what I think was my first damaged unit that showed 20 TURNS to heal. Again, a HN Giant Spider. The Combat Odds were in the 80% range, but that just seems like way too much damage to me.

I will say that one thing that is a great boon to damaged units is building the Shrine of Sirona. That really helps a lot, especially with those pesky Marksman type units lurking around.

Over to you....

 

[odalrick]

Fall from Heaven has damage heal very slowly, unless you invest some resources in healing. I think it's mostly the difficulty in obtaining Medic that does it but there are a few other promotions that reduce healing rate. On the other hand, if you do invest in healing, recovery is very quick. Hidden Nationality units get hit particularly hard since the are considered to be in enemy territory unless they are in your territory.

If you want to boost healing get some priests for their Medic promotions, Spirit I for Courage, Body II for Regeneration. Inns and some other buildings heals very quickly. Body mana increases healing in your territory. March, Combat IV and V boost healing too. First Strikes tend to reduce damage taken.

If you think cavalry are particularly prone to taking high damage, it could be because they sometimes survive battles they lost, and are naturally badly damaged then.

Just invest some in healing and damage will become almost a non issue between turns.

 

[Zechnophobe]

It isn't that the spiders are damaged all that much, but rather that HN units heal so SLOWly. I'm pretty sure that they only heal 5% per turn, meaning that sometimes it really does take them 20 turns to heal up.

 

[Pyr0mancer]

It isn't that the spiders are damaged all that much, but rather that HN units heal so SLOWly. I'm pretty sure that they only heal 5% per turn, meaning that sometimes it really does take them 20 turns to heal up.

It's actually because they heal 5% per turn in enemy territory, and ALL territory is enemy territory for HN units except for the owner's territory.

Also, just because it's 90% to win doesn't mean it's a blowout. Chances are half of those wins really are close, therefore your unit gets heavily damaged. The only surefire way to reduce the damage you take is to invest in Drill promotions or anything else that gets first strikes. With enough first strikes and a decently strong unit you can often win battles completely unscathed.

 

[Tarquelne]

1. I think most of the time the damage reflected is pretty realistic. /snip/ That seemed unrealistic to me.

I think the basic problem is that Civ4's combat system is itself highly unrealistic. With real-life (or a detailed combat system) there are all sorts of ways a superior force is going to minimize it's loses while cleaning up an inferior foe. Civ4, though, doesn't include any of them. It's like everybody always uses a full-on assault. Promos like "Drill" are the closest you're going to get to force preservation for individual units.

More powerful units do tend to end battles in better shape, but the game's hit-point system is going to see a pretty wide range of results.

OfTopic: I'm impressed with what I've seen of Dale's Combat Mod. I was surprised with all the improvements squeezed into Civ4's very basic system.

 

[Sarisin]

It's actually because they heal 5% per turn in enemy territory, and ALL territory is enemy territory for HN units except for the owner's territory.

Also, just because it's 90% to win doesn't mean it's a blowout. Chances are half of those wins really are close, therefore your unit gets heavily damaged. The only surefire way to reduce the damage you take is to invest in Drill promotions or anything else that gets first strikes. With enough first strikes and a decently strong unit you can often win battles completely unscathed.

I didn't know that about 'neutral' territory being treated like enemy territory. So, if I have my HN Spider just out in the wilderness somewhere and he defeats a barb Warrior, the healing process is penalized because he is in ENEMY territory.

Of course you are right with this, but I don't see the logic there. Just because nationality has not been declared why the penalty in 'neutral' territory? I get it for enemy or territory of another civ's, but why neutral?

My 2 HN Giant Spiders both had well over 100XP and one had all the available promotions for that type of unit. When you have a unit like that go up against a unit with just one promotion and the odds are 90+%, yes, I would expect a blowout. But, I guess you have those mysterious combat odds enter into play.

Thanks for your comments.

 

[Sarisin]

Fall from Heaven has damage heal very slowly, unless you invest some resources in healing. I think it's mostly the difficulty in obtaining Medic that does it but there are a few other promotions that reduce healing rate. On the other hand, if you do invest in healing, recovery is very quick. Hidden Nationality units get hit particularly hard since the are considered to be in enemy territory unless they are in your territory.

If you want to boost healing get some priests for their Medic promotions, Spirit I for Courage, Body II for Regeneration. Inns and some other buildings heals very quickly. Body mana increases healing in your territory. March, Combat IV and V boost healing too. First Strikes tend to reduce damage taken.

If you think cavalry are particularly prone to taking high damage, it could be because they sometimes survive battles they lost, and are naturally badly damaged then.

Just invest some in healing and damage will become almost a non issue between turns.

Yes, I agree that it is imperative you have a unit with Medic to heal damaged HN units. However, that is not always possible.

For example, I want to send my sneaky guys into a civ I don't have an open borders agreement with and it is unlikely that I would have an HN unit with the Medic promotion.

Also, I just happened to be playing Auric Ulvin. The Illians are a WIP and don't yet have a unit with the Medic promotion that is buildable.

Your ideas would work for most units, but not the HN units I normally have. I don't believe Giant Spiders or the Three Stooges can get the Courage promotion. I'm not sure about Regeneration, but I kinda doubt it. I don't think they can get March (Stooges can, and that helps a lot, but not Spiders) or first strikes either. Getting them back to Inns inside my territory just wouldn't make any sense as by the time they got back there, they could be healed already.

I'm not sure why my mounted units always seem to be the weakest when it comes to receiving damage. Again, when you look at those Combat Odds and they are very high, you expect to win with minimal or no damage. However, often, they withdraw or take a lot of damage, which could, as you say, have been very close to a losing battle.

Thanks for your ideas, odalrick.