Die stinking battleship!I am a caravel!

[Witchfinder]

In my latest games, I've lost about 3 cavalry units to plain old Impis, and another one to a 5000 year old warrior unit! I don't mind the occasional freak occurence, but the whole point of investing time and effort into new technologies and building advanced units is that they should be noticably superior.

People point to the Zulus as an example, neglecting the fact that Isandlwana was their only major victory. Look at Rorke's Drift as a better example. Or the use of the Maxim machine gun. Or the burning of Ulundi. They also point to India, which succeeded in regaining home rule through diplomacy, not through armed resistance.

The concept of firepower should return to Civ 3. At the moment, there's little point in upgrading certain units. For example, if you were to upgrade from ancient Hoplite to musketman, you would gain 1 point of defence ability. If you were to be attacked by Knights, this would result in a change from 42% chance of victory to a 50% chance. What's wrong with this picture? Yes, I've lost musketmen fortified on a mountain to knights just recently.

 

[Gruntboy]

Dillo, with that attitude no wonder you get upset when you lose.

I have read the threads. I am entitled to my opinion and never tired to have them put in the rules - you're just making stuff up now. You obviously haven't read my posts properly and can't control your temper, in a game or real life. I never discussed wishy-washy explanations for your perception of a poor combat system. You don't seem to be "discussing" any kind of reality.

If you are so pent up about the rules, why don't YOU stick to them? Stop trying to change them for your benefit, just 'cos you don't like losing. Go back to playing Civ2 if it upsets you that much.

Oh yeah, and where did I say I liked the combat system or otherwise?

Is it possible to have a discussion these days or do you have to fight for your life every board you go on?

 

[Gruntboy]

Witchfinder, point is, its a game. You're not moving from pikes to musketmen. You're moving from unit F defensive value 2 to unit G defensive value 3. History moves on. The offense improves, the defense develops to counter it. Pike was employed alongside shot. Jackson's men threw stones at Union soldiers during Second Manassas.

People are seeing only that reality that they want to.

 

[Dillo]

You wanna piss me off call me a liar.. Hmmm.... You wonder where my anger has comefrom, maybe you are the one who hasnt been read? O then you accused me of playing some ther game didnt you? Bah!! I HAENT CHANGED THE RULES... i AM PLAYING AS IS. Its just very annoying that this happens more than Just occasionaly to some of us. May be occasional for you, and thats Great I wish it was that way for me. Not that I have to worry much about it lately because I can seem to avoid the cultural victory, It seems if I ever intend to go to war again, then I must turn off the Cultural Victory. Or either go up a level. But this argyuement is pointless, really, its not happening to you and thats all you really need to say instead of calling us liars, or accuseing us of playing some other game. You must come here and flame us who have the problem. Or try to rationalize, it. We dont need that, we need advise, What differs about your configuration and your settings, why is it that you dont seem to encounter this problem much while others always do? Just like the Teleporting troops, or disapearing Culturelnes, or the Nothing showing in the demans from other civs bug. Lets work to help others with troubles instead of calling Us liars or accusing us with really dumb things. Maybe?

 

[Gruntboy]

Boy, what is your problem? Some other guy called you a liar.

You may have noticed a smiley back in my Civ1 jest. I am not going to walk on eggshells with someone who gets excited over a game.

Now your accusing me of "coming here" and "flaming" you? Is this your website? Am I stealing your buddies? Boo hoo, maybe I'm finding civ3 isn't that easy and I'm looking for a forum to discuss this. What I am NOT doing is complaining about the game rules because I don't like them.

Try your simplistic goading elsewhere. Man, I've been here for one afternoon and a variety of goons have called me boring, dumb and accuesed me of accusing them as liars! If you think that'll stop me from invading your space, you ain't never been flamed and you don't take your own advice by reading others posts.

 

[Dillo]

Originally posted by Gruntboy
Boy, what is your problem? Some other guy called you a liar.

You may have noticed a smiley back in my Civ1 jest. I am not going to walk on eggshells with someone who gets excited over a game.

Now your accusing me of "coming here" and "flaming" you? Is this your website? Am I stealing your buddies? Boo hoo, maybe I'm finding civ3 isn't that easy and I'm looking for a forum to discuss this. What I am NOT doing is complaining about the game rules because I don't like them.

Try your simplistic goading elsewhere. Man, I've been here for one afternoon and a variety of goons have called me boring, dumb and accuesed me of accusing them as liars! If you think that'll stop me from invading your space, you ain't never been flamed and you don't take your own advice by reading others posts.

Hmm I took that post to be agreeing with the other Guy if thats not how it was meant I am sorry, but Its sure seemed that way. Stealing my buddies? I have no buddies here. I dont know about a single one of these people. And what does Flameing me have to do with me own ing the website? Point? I am not complaining about the rules of the game. I feel that this is a random bug, Like many others in the game. It must be, because people like you are not experienceing it with the frequency other of us have.I am not lyeing or makeing anything up. All this is fact plain and simple. We can all speculate as to why, but that doesnt really matter when it comes down to it. Thats whats causeing these wars. All I want is to figure out why its happening and fix it so I can have it like you. Where it happens sometimes not Half the time. Thats alll. Now again I ask. Do you or do you not have any Ideas on this subject?.

 

[Gruntboy]

Well mate, looking at your posts, if you believe its a bug then so be it.

But by looking at some of your math, it looks like it was intentionally designed that way, so it can't really be a bug.

I think the crux of the point, that we've been attempting to discuss, is whether you agree with the designers.

Now I don't disagree (and I may change my tune if I find myself suffering your problems in the future). But then I'm easy going about games and like the micro-management of civ - losing a dozen units to secure a city seems like a reasonable trade (though losing mech inf to savages would be galling).

Do you think the code for calculating combat is buggy?

 

[Witchfinder]

Originally posted by Gruntboy
Witchfinder, point is, its a game. You're not moving from pikes to musketmen. You're moving from unit F defensive value 2 to unit G defensive value 3. History moves on. The offense improves, the defense develops to counter it. Pike was employed alongside shot. Jackson's men threw stones at Union soldiers during Second Manassas.

People are seeing only that reality that they want to.

Uh? Yes you ARE moving from pike to muskets. It's a game based on history, see? What's the point of researching tech and getting new units otherwise? You may as well call the units "Attack unit I" or Defensive unit III". By your rationale, research should be at the same rate for all Civs, because as soon as it becomes available, the technology filters down into the hands of soldiers on all sides.

Point is, your offense HAS improved, but the enemy defence has NOT improved to counter it. The the flawed combat system fails to take this into account to any significant degree. Your enemy has chosen not to invest resources in new units, but is not penalised for it. History shows that the opposite is true, as more advanced armies almost universally trounce less advanced armies.

If you want to stand a chance, then spend the resources and invest in these new-fangled muskets, or those crazy "tank" machines - THAT is part of the game.

 

[Dillo]

Originally posted by Gruntboy
Well mate, looking at your posts, if you believe its a bug then so be it.

But by looking at some of your math, it looks like it was intentionally designed that way, so it can't really be a bug.

I think the crux of the point, that we've been attempting to discuss, is whether you agree with the designers.

Now I don't disagree (and I may change my tune if I find myself suffering your problems in the future). But then I'm easy going about games and like the micro-management of civ - losing a dozen units to secure a city seems like a reasonable trade (though losing mech inf to savages would be galling).

Do you think the code for calculating combat is buggy?

I actually think there is a buggy factor in there. What may cause it I have no Idea. Maybe linked to a certain civ on the attack or a certain civ on the defense, then again it may be a random bug in the combat resolution. Thats what I am leaning toward.But I think its a conditional random Bug. It happend in my example, with me playing the American fighting the Aztec. It has also happened to me in naval warfar vs. The romans. But I have only had one land battle with the romans, and never fought the atecs at sea. So I cant speculate on those factors.

 

[Soufie77]

In all honesty, I think the combat algorithms in Civ2 were buggy too. It's just a feeling you get from observing how certain patterns of victory seemed to repeat in similar situations. In Civ3 these "bugs" are much more pronounced, which may be due to flaws in the game mechanism which prevents you continuously reloading a saved game to win battles. (How the hell did they code that anyway?)

For example, a specific pattern which has a tendency to repeat is:-

attacker loses 1HP or 2 HP in tandem
defender loses all HP in tandem

Once a unit is in a downward cascade as with the defender above, it is very unlikely for it to recover and go on to win the fight. Hardly ever do you get a combat situation in which, for example, attacker and defender lose HP in succession (a-1, d-1, a-1, d-1 etc..)

I know this all sounds rather arbitrary and nitpicky, but I really do think that Firaxis should review the combat code, or (if I'm totally civved out and seeing patterns where they shouldn't be) PRESENT the battle in a different way as to make it more exciting/less predictable. If the combat process were truly randomised, in an even 1 on 1 (eg. unfortified mech inf attacked by tank), the battle should have the "thrill" of a football penalty shootout.

 

[Dillo]

Lets kill these littel threads on the subject and put this problem under one heading please... Here

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11683

 

[Sarcastro]

Dillo, would you please use some paragraphs in your posts? Your ideas are getting lost in those huge blocks of text.

Originally posted by Soufie77
In all honesty, I think the combat algorithms in Civ2 were buggy too. It's just a feeling you get from observing how certain patterns of victory seemed to repeat in similar situations. In Civ3 these "bugs" are much more pronounced, which may be due to flaws in the game mechanism which prevents you continuously reloading a saved game to win battles. (How the hell did they code that anyway?)

I'm told that the pseudorandom numbers used in the combats are generated beforehand, and then picked from a list when combat begins. So, rather than reloading and attempting the same battle again, which will have the exact same result, you can reload, do something else which uses a random number, and then try the battle again.

I don't condone or use that practice, but a lot of people have said it works that way.

 

[baberg]

If the game frustrates you so much, why do you keep playing it?

If this board frustrates you so much, why do you keep posting here?

Nobody is forcing you to play Civ III. Nobody is forcing you to post to these boards. And, likewise, nobody is forcing me to read your posts. I think I'll stop.

 

[pax_65]

I just read through this thread... 4 quick points:

1. Drop the personal attacks. This is a good thread but too long for that stuff.

2. I agree a caravel shouldn't be able to sink a battleship. It happens to me too and is not a rare occurance.

3. One of the best points made was about the balance of the game. If modern weapons can run all over everything else, the first one to get tanks wins. This is especially true when you consider the importance of strategic resources. You can get tanks, then use them to crush your opponents to secure all the oil and rubber so they'll never have modern weapons.

4. The Solution: A spearman should not be able to destroy a tank - if both are 100%, the spearman should lose 100% of the time. However, a spearman should be able to damage a tank. (Maybe a really lucky throw jams a tread?) That would slow down the onslaught just enough so the tanks can't run over the whole world too quickly.

Honestly, I thought the whole "firepower" combat system in civ2 worked pretty well. Why did they change it?

Jon

 

[Special_O]

It happens all the time in every game I play! It's getting to the point where I'm afraid to attack anyone, no matter how much better my units are.


I spend hours and hours getting the best units and they are more or less useless?

F@ck.

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

DILLO, Flubber Dubs, Mike C, please chill out a little . Thunderfall tries to maintain more collegial and less confrontational forums that other games sites you may be used to.

 

[Mike C]

Originally posted by baberg
If the game frustrates you so much, why do you keep playing it?

If this board frustrates you so much, why do you keep posting here?

Nobody is forcing you to play Civ III. Nobody is forcing you to post to these boards. And, likewise, nobody is forcing me to read your posts. I think I'll stop.

Oh I don't know..... gee....Maybe a good place to start is because he paid 50 bucks for the game? Has that occured to you yet? I wouldn't be surprised given the amount of thinking needed to come up with that one.

 

[costanza]

Let's try a re-statement of a previous post:

He plays the game (though it makes him mad) because he paid 50 bucks for it. Sounds forced to me.

He posts here (though it makes him mad) because he paid 50 bucks for it. Again.

Is that like paying for a pair of shoes that hurt your feet and then keep wearing them so you can painfully get your money our of it? We used to have a kicker here that the coach played just to prove he was right; and we lost many close games because he sucked. But hey, we recruited him, so he should play instead of the more capable walk-on.

One of the only true solutions to having these weird battle outcomes would be to make the units statistically closer to each other, but keep the outcomes separated. Meaning this: if an attacker were going against a very powerful defender, maybe it would be very very very unlikely that he would kill him, but very likely that he would do damage. That way, you do make progress with older units, making it possible to win wars with older technology; but guaranteeing that the advantage still lies in having the latest and greatest.

This could be acheived by manipulating numbers or by having a bunch more units. For example: something stronger than marines and not as strong as modern armor. You would most certainly have to have 3 or 4 units added in there anyway.

Either of these would produce a more balanced game, prevent someone from killing everyone just by having the latest technology, and making the fluke wins more of a fluke. It would also mean that yeah, if you could make more of a slightly older unit, you could win battles and wars just by throwing more numbers at the more advanced enemy.

Feel free to disagree.

 

[CrayonX]

Adding fuel to this silly flame war.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the USS Cole incident? If a battleship is caught off guard by a caravel ("that dinky little ship is no threat") who knows?

Personally, I like how brute force does not equal a sure thing. Random little quirks like this make me go "D'oh!", but if your reaction is anything beyond that, you need to get some fresh air once in a while. It's only a game. It's ok to constructively criticise but don't be a baby.

 

[Ihatework]

I dont even notice that much of problem with the combat being buggy. I notice that if I leave myself open to attack then the AI can over power me with large numbers of inferior units, or if his units have defesive bonuses that they can somtime beat my more powerful units but other than that no. Maybee once or twice but ectreemly rare