It's okay, admit it . . . who savescums and why?

[doktarr]

Anyone who's ever watched a bad action movie can probably think of ways that a phalanx could defeat a tank well over .01% of the time.

And you what, plan for 40 battles? Really, how? You could lose that unit in the first attack.

I say "OK, self, I'm going to war with a big hitter. How am I going to conduct this war? Am I going to do it in a way that involves my hero landing many/most of the kills, or in a way that involves using weaker figures and suffering more losses, but protecting my hero?"

So, I look at what's the various possible outcomes of the war given the two approaches. Approach 1 will get me a nearly flawless victory most of the time, and a catastrophic loss some of the time. Approach 2 will give me a relatively predictable number of losses. At that point, it's just a pretty straightforward cost/benefit analysis.

Yes the result, if I choose approach 1, has a great degree of randomness to it. But the choice has plenty of strategic depth.

EDIT: to bring this back on topic - I save a lot and reload quite a bit, but it's because I have a bad tendency to screw up my mouse clicks and send figures off in the wrong direction - or worse, like sending my Mage into combat instead of attacking with the fireball.

 

[Calavente]

oh that I know this feeling...
or clicking on maelstorm (by habits) instead of fireball when there is an ally/neutral nearby

 

[Viatos]

As a chess player myself, I have to agree with Evalis over Breunor, although I think the vitriol could be eased off a bit.

Random chance is the death of strategy. In complex combat scenarios, it can introduce the idea of real-time tactics, which you occasionally see in games (much more common is the illusion of chance, where the scripted ninja will always bust through the window but it's a surprise to each new player).

However, Civ 4 has no complex combat scenarios between units. Unit A attacks Unit B, and one or the other wins. The complexity is all strategic and large-scale. Randomly losing units on a 99.9% attack is pointless, and actively devalues the player's intelligence and foresight. It's like, playing chess, if any piece that got knocked over by a passerby was considered 'taken'. Even if it's not very likely that someone is going to walk right into the table, there now exists a possibility that I will lose the game no matter how well I play.

There's nothing intriguing or interesting about that. When random chance screws us over in real life, it's a tragedy; in a game, it's frustrating and unrewarding, and reminiscent of tragedy. In a game designed to entertain and engage a player's mind, that's a serious flaw. I don't feel good about losing a game after Abashi dies to a lone Priest of Leaves and the epic monster that took so much effort and focus to unlock is no longer available to crush my enemies who relied on spamming summons they didn't care about to manipulate the random chance engine. I feel irritated that an otherwise enjoyable game was ruined by the equivalent of a rambunctious child slapping my rook off the table three moves from checkmate, and my opponent grinning and saying "Oh, that's too bad. I hope that piece wasn't important to you."

 

[Horatius]

Why is the game ruined for losing one or two units?
Bad strategy.
You lost your queen, and you can't still win the game?

In truth, if it was simply rock,paper,scissors, the game wouldn't work.
Civ4 is not chess (ffs);
and random chance is not the death of strategy by any means. You just have trouble incorporating it in your reasoning and making certain kind of evaluations - this is why there are plenty of young chess genius but no backgammon special children - to deal with such a game you must have more than just a pure logical approach which a child can have although he/she can't really make long run estimations of things developed with and affected by randomness (not easy even for adults).

Personal I rather fight it out trying to adapt (which makes it fun) to consistently make the best move for the long run no matter what than see a game develop in a linear and predicable fashion.
I also like to take some chances for big rewards, an atitude that is only possible in a game with random chance.

 

[Calavente]

yes, but low risk that give big punition is also very bad...

(if it is not the same between losing my full health LVL20 Dragon to a warrior than having him having "no luck" and drop to 1%health LVL20 dragon + 1 xp.
that second one is already bad luck, as I can now be easily targetted by an assassin or something.
So I have only my own stupidity to blame if I let him die after that as I did'nt provide my dragon with a cover unit or something.

However dying due to a warrior....bleh.. that's not a strategic decision that was bad. It was only real bad luck on a sound strategic decision.

the only way my dragon could (pseudo realistically) die by encountering the warrior is if suddenly, while trying to eat the warrior, the dragon chokes on the boots... and die, and the warrior doesn't die due to blood loss after losing his leg...

CiV (woa ! my first positive comment about Civ V???) at least has this good: a fight can end with both units wounded. It reduces the risk that a highly powerful unit fall on his sword, by bad luck...

 

[Horatius]

Now we are exageratting. One has to play an incredible amount of games to be able to see a full hp Lv20 (!) dragon lose to a warrior. You'll never see it. It's probably impossible bc chances are like 0,0000000000000000000000000000000000001 or plain 0.

It's like losing a chess match bc of a big falling snot that causes the wrong piece to move and the opponent doesn't forgive.
Funny to imagine, never happens.

We're talking about a game where you can summon free monsters every turn for free damage...

 

[Calavente]

well, it happens, and more often than you would think.
(the lvl20 dragon vs warrior doesn't really happen, true, but losing at 99,99 odds happens, and not so rarely... to confirm that you just have to consider the number of times I load back due to this).

at 99,9, you should not lose the unit... ever. At worst if you had the worst luck ever, you should escape and leave the battle with 1-5%health (maybe with no mvt remaining) and leave the defender with his/her damage, and maybe a big xp boon (as if it had killed you and not as if you had fleed). And when it is its turn to play the AI SHOULD attack your now 1 1% health former big unit if it can (ie if it is not defended or if it has >90% chance of killing you).

but you should not lose him. at 80%, if you attack, and lost, that was the price to pay. But not at 95, 99, and even less so at 99,9... bleh;
(Edit: the case is less strong when attacking at 99% and the more so for 95% odds, but I think in those case it should also apply).

I say "should and should not"... but that is only to express my opinion of "strategic+fun". I'm not binding anyone to it.

EDITbis : It would be better if attacking at >99 (or 99,9 or 95..) odds gave a temporary 100% withdrawal rate, maybe with a temporary promotion giving "held, -5strength" so as to even increase your need to defend your wounded. I suppose this would not be easily manageable... but the other solutions IMO are the 99,9 becomes 100% as in MoM .. or the "Hero/high levelunit get a 2nd chance mechanics".

 

[Horatius]

If you have some withdrawl chance, you can escape after the 0,0 something.

I've lost a few at 99,9. I've also won a few at 1 or 2% and even 0, something against heros (massive xp gain!).
It evens out if you play enough, it's as simple as that. For me the possible danger makes it more fun instead of the boredom of a certain result.
What matters in the end is if the unit pays for itself.

If my dragon dies then I can have a different affection for him. If he always lives he becomes dull - and must be cheating.

 

[Calavente]

i hate the 1% win as much as the 99% lose.
the 1% that wins... was a canon feeder unit... I wanted to use it just to reduce Archeron's some few points. I don't want him to die now. I would have prefered His huge xp bonus to go to the unit I chose, or the beastmaster with subdue beast I chose...;

I know it evens out.. but both situations are bAAAd!

 

[Tielby]

at 99,9, you should not lose the unit... ever. At worst if you had the worst luck ever, you should escape and leave the battle with 1-5%health (maybe with no mvt remaining) and leave the defender with his/her damage, and maybe a big xp boon (as if it had killed you and not as if you had fleed). And when it is its turn to play the AI SHOULD attack your now 1 1% health former big unit if it can (ie if it is not defended or if it has >90% chance of killing you).

If you feel strongly about this, there's nothing stopping you from modmoding a free Flanking promotion for every hero unit and other select units. Or you could make the flanking promotion available to all units. That way, as your favorite unit gets stronger and stronger, you can choose to also promote it with increasing chances to preserve itself.

Sorry but I still think the chess analogy is flawed. In a game against another human being, your opponents actions can't be predicted with 100% accuracy. Yes, I know that your opponent has a limited number of options, and you can plan for each of those possible actions, but even the best players find it almost impossible to plan more than several moves ahead, because of the exponentially expanding possibilities. I know this is moderated somewhat by discounting moves that your opponent would have to be stupid to make, but he/she may still make those moves, sometimes as part of a broader strategy. My point is, there is still an element of unpredictability. That unpredictability is not, technically, random chance, but from a purely subjective point of view, what's the difference? I mean, is it really impossible that you'll make a mistake, an oversight, and leave one of your critical pieces vulnerable? Experience with the game will make that possibility increasingly remote, but the chances of that happening will NEVER be 0%.

 

[Calavente]

I (me, personnaly) never made the appology of chess..
I like the uncertainty. but for me, 99% or more so 99,9% comes so close to 1 (or 1% or 0,1% so close to 0) that I'd prefer it to be a certainty, the difference between 99 and 99,9 being more an indicator to determine my final health ( but with huge variations depending on chance) than it being a indicator of winning or losing.

And here, losing a 99 (or even a 98%) chance combat is not unpredictability, it clearly is random bad luck. As if, each turn you had a chance of having "plague", on top of the normal AC related plague. No way to predict it. you can influence it : / ratio, but at best you lower this to 0,1%: this mean that at best, one game out of two (and more generaly each game as your / is bad for at least one city), you get plague. no way to escape, no way to plan.
that would be plain bad luck and would be a bad mechanism.

It wouldn't be fun.
I think it is the same for losing 98+ odds battle, or killing someone when I defend/attack with 0,1-2% odds.
but I already exposed my case