Darn the blasted combat system
- Thread starter Andre
- Start date
it just can't work....and walls aren't the issue in question here...it's to do with frontal assault, not passive defending.....BTW warriors aren't of much use or capability...it's just all too darningly RIDICULOUSLY uncertain, this, this....what?game?
Then use hill or mountain or river to get def bonus, bring some bombard unit, in old age i like to use a stack of catapult, spearman an archer. Bring this stack slowly and surely. your catapult is use to weaken any approching a.i. unit, sometime its better to loose a turn to keep your stack togeter.
Some people look like they wage war only on 2 dimension, defense units and attack units ( spearman+archer or sperman+horsman) but there is 3 dimension to wage war in civ 3. Bombard units+defense unit+attack units like (catapult+spearman+archer or bomber+battleship+marine or bomber+infantry+tank).
With a tridimensinal attack no a.i will stand in front of you.
With a tridimensinal attack no a.i will stand in front of you.
Zachriel
Kaiser
Uncertainty is a part of Civ -- always has been. The use of bombard units is the Civ3 method of reducing uncertainty.
Nevertheless, if you want a simple (and bloody) method of warfare, build twenty veteran swordsmen early in the game. This should give you the power you seek.
(Of course, you need to expand first, perhaps build temples, definitely build barracks, etc.)
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2001
- Messages
- 30,080
Does this mean that you lost your spearman when you used them to attack other units?
This is a strategy game, with a luck modifier.
The 'good' players know the odds, and work them to their advantage; the defensive/offensive/bombard combos for example.
It is not ridiculously uncertain. By studying the odds, you can virtually set a "confidence" level that you will win a certain battle. Eg. you can predict how many of a particular type of unit you will need to take a city of size X, on a grassland plain, defended by Y of unit type Z.
I personally try to rely as little as possible on the luck element. I will bombard defenders down to 1 HP. I will bombard a city or pillage improvements to reduce a metropolis to a city or a city to a town before attacking. I will use overwhelming odds to the point where I know that I can take a certain city on a certain turn, but I try to unnecessarily waste resources. Sometimes you have to take risks, but you can still try to minimise them.
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dreadknought
timelord
Just my opinion but the real problem with these units is that they all fight at close range in effect. Archers should get a shot off at a closing unit (at least one) and then if that unit survives then the archer dies.The normal use of archers is to attack at a distance and this is why they are feared in battle. Example ( say you have an area with some trees and archers are waiting for invaders to come by and so here come some spearmen in the distance. OK well if the spearman charge then the archers are going to fire at a distance and kill a few and probaly haul ass until they can regroup and fire again. Or on a battlefield ever see the bowman fire over their on foot soldiers and kill the advancing enemy I have. and they should. No foot soldier in ancient times is going to survive a well placed volly of arrows. What I do is give all ranged units bombard ability starting with a 1 range for archers 2 longbowman 3 musketmen and so on but I also balance this by lowering their up close defense and I greatly add to hit points of some modern units such as battleships ect...Also I give archers a bombard att. of just 1 and add from there. My tanks can bombard from 4 squares and have a bombard strengh of 20 if I remember right.
I just had a look at the online calculator - does anyone have any idea why the results for attacks against Barbarians are so dramatically different? (@Flintlock - hard-coded?)
That would be because of the difficulty level. It can be changed in the regular editor. At Sid and Deity there is no bonus against barbarians(maybe except for the Great Wall?), at demigod 25%, at Emperor 50%, at King 100% and 200% at Regent. Below it goes up to 400% and 800% should you ever care to find that out.
Schwierigkeitsgrad (Civ3) – CivWiki
Almost a 21 year "necromancy"... That must be a new record...
TempusFugit
Warlord
- Joined
- Feb 20, 2023
- Messages
- 136
I’ve never seen anything like it, not even on forums for black metal or Heroes of Might and Magic. (Where necromancy is quite prevalent.)
But since the topic already has been given new “life” I have to say that I find the combat system in Civ 3 to be the best in the series.
Complex enough that you have to make interesting choices and take terrain into account, while simple enough that the AI can handle it in an ok way, and also not very time consuming.
Battles in Civ 3 feels like real warfare to me and the mixture of this and the relatively quick pace, makes Civ 3 the best game in the series for making war and building huge empires. Civ 2 is also very good for this.
My impression is that a lot of the people who criticized it was people who couldn’t handle random outcomes to their battles or people who never took the time to read the manual or the civiliopedia.
But since the topic already has been given new “life” I have to say that I find the combat system in Civ 3 to be the best in the series.
Complex enough that you have to make interesting choices and take terrain into account, while simple enough that the AI can handle it in an ok way, and also not very time consuming.
Battles in Civ 3 feels like real warfare to me and the mixture of this and the relatively quick pace, makes Civ 3 the best game in the series for making war and building huge empires. Civ 2 is also very good for this.
My impression is that a lot of the people who criticized it was people who couldn’t handle random outcomes to their battles or people who never took the time to read the manual or the civiliopedia.
Ruin
Warlord
When I was into Axis and Allies Revised (via computer but you could do this in RL), most people played a variant called Low Luck where you would add the attack values and divide by 6, and that was how many hits you got, and the defender could choose who took the casualties, and then it would progress until combat was concluded. The Civ combat system works differently (e.g. no dice, terrain, HP), but I think something like might be the way to get rid of the spearman vs tank nonsense. On the other hand it makes all combat a foregone conclusion, though that's not necessarily a terrible thing, look at chess where a Queen always beats a Pawn for example.
IIRC Civ2 prevented it with Fire Power. Just need something to attenuate the rng rolls to a smaller range. Combat should not be able to swing so wildly that A beats B with no damage, B beats A with no damage. It is fine for A or B to win, just seems nuts that it could vary by that much. I could be wrong, but it is annoying.
Sometimes a Pawn beats the Queen. Take for example this simple position:
Black is a Queen up, but White mates with a lowly Pawn: g3-g4 checkmate!
There are some really beautiful combinations based on themes like the above.
Ruin
Warlord
Yeah, I realized that was idiotic as soon as I hit post, but left it to see if anyone would catch it. I guess the analogy still stands but should have said "whoever attacked first".
I think what @vxma proposes would be good
Also, while I realize that some complaints about the combat system reflect a basic misunderstanding of probability/game mechanics eg terrain, I wonder about the soundness of the pRNG. Further, whether it has been improved/corrected in later versions of the game. For example, I know these are anecdotal and potentially exaggerated , but reading old game stories, I see many more ridiculous upsets than I typically experience.
IMO the worst is the naval combat. I can imagine a bunch of spearmen somehow damaging a tank, but I can't see how a frigate beats a destroyer any percent of the time.
Mostly I'm pleased to jump in a 20 year old discussion.
timerover51
Deity
Part of the problem is that the combat values for attack and defense in the game for more advanced units are pretty bad. I have boosted the combat values of industrial and modern units quite a bit to reflect the benefits of technology advances. Take a look at the Battle of Omdurman to see what happens when an essentially Ancient Age army attacks and Industrial Age one.
As for naval combat, the ship values in the standard game are appalling both in terms of combat value and speed. A Galley has Attack 1, Defense 1, and moves 3. An Ironclad has Attack 5, Defense 6, and moves 3. In reality, one of the English Ironclads could just about hoist a Galley onboard with one of its boat cranes. The Galley had a sustained cruising speed of about 3 knots, the Ironclad had a sustained cruising speed of about 10 knots. The Galley had a sprint speed for about 20 minutes of 10 or so knots, until the oarsmen were exhausted. The Ironclad had a top speed of between 14 and 18 knots for about 4 hours, until the stokers were worn out, then the ship had to slow down to cruising speed. The Ironclad also could operate easily in weather that would sink the Galley, and had a far greater endurance. Then you have the Ironclad's guns to deal with. Do not even get me on the ratings for the Battleship.
As for a Frigate verses Destroyer fight, I view the Frigate USS Constitution as probably the finest frigate ever built, but in a combat between it and a World War 2 U. S. Navy Fletcher-class destroyer, probably the finest destroyer of World War 2 in terms of balanced fighting capacity, it is dead meat. The Fletcher's five 5"/38 guns turn her into flaming wreckage without the Constitution firing a shot.
I really dislike the ship combat, until destroyers. Galley sinking frigate, not unusual for the frigate to not even do damage. I have lost frigates to galley, when the galley was 1hp. Just insane.
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