"Luck" Ruins civ's "professional" appeal.
- Thread starter A+ombomb
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I think the problem lies less in luck, and more in that skill and strength can't be used to mitigate luck in too many places, especially combat.
One thing I'd like to see is some limitation in unit defenders- they can't be everywhere at once. One way of countering this could be saying that each defender in a stack has to fight once each before they can be re-used. Then each time a defender has to be re-used, it loses 10% of its strength.
This would also give you some element of strategy, you could even come up with ploys where you send in fodder first, and yeah, they're going to die and your enemy will get experience, but send enough in and they'll be overwhelmed. Hell, this would even give all those loser warrior and archer units a role in the game after they're obselete, as you feed them to your enemies to distract them...
One thing I'd like to see is some limitation in unit defenders- they can't be everywhere at once. One way of countering this could be saying that each defender in a stack has to fight once each before they can be re-used. Then each time a defender has to be re-used, it loses 10% of its strength.
This would also give you some element of strategy, you could even come up with ploys where you send in fodder first, and yeah, they're going to die and your enemy will get experience, but send enough in and they'll be overwhelmed. Hell, this would even give all those loser warrior and archer units a role in the game after they're obselete, as you feed them to your enemies to distract them...
Someone said that attackers should get to pick the unit they attack now that is unrrealistic. If im attacking a city, the guy in the watch tower or on patrol or whatever in the city looks and says "oh, they are attacking with horses, get those pikemen up!!" It would be rediculous for me as an attacker to pretty much say "hey Frederick, bring those spearmen to the front so my axes can slaughter them. k?" What I would like to see however is a type of quiet movment or stelth in other words type of promotion, where attacker gets to pick. Weather and supply lines should also play a part as another poster has said. when spending multiple turns in desserts and jungles my units are just as healthy as when they left.
Just a note. 95% chance to win is NOT 100% chance to win. If you expect, unwaveringly, to win every battle you fight at 95% odds then you are not being reasonable. 95% odds to win means you will lose 1 in 20 of those battles (statistically). It is NOT 100% and so yes of course you will lose these battles, and quite often. That is not a flaw with the combat system, it is a flaw with your head. You think that 95% is sooo close to 100% that a win is guaranteed, when it is not.
I personally get very annoyed when I lose those 95% fights, because I'll look at the combat logs in amazement and it'll be my unit losing each round 6-7 times in a row, the odds of which are far far far less than 5%, and should only happen about once in my entire civ-playing lifetime...
For example, earlier today, I lost a spearman to a warrior, and yeah, crap happens, but I then checked the combat log, and saw that the warrior won 7 rounds in a row. The chances of that happening are (1/3)^7, which should happen about once every 2000 times the two units fight. I doubt I've probably attacked a warrior with a spearman more than a dozen times in my entire life! But of course I shouldn't complain about this, because it's bound to happen sooner or later. It's still irksome though, and it always will be...
For example, earlier today, I lost a spearman to a warrior, and yeah, crap happens, but I then checked the combat log, and saw that the warrior won 7 rounds in a row. The chances of that happening are (1/3)^7, which should happen about once every 2000 times the two units fight. I doubt I've probably attacked a warrior with a spearman more than a dozen times in my entire life! But of course I shouldn't complain about this, because it's bound to happen sooner or later. It's still irksome though, and it always will be...
deeperthanu
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icemanjsg said:
Luck has nothing to do with life.Nothing in life has to do with luck except games and they require great amounts of skill.Whatever you are dealt with you adapt to.
Instant_Cereal
Warlord
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To a good general luck is important - Livy
The die is cast - Gaius Julius Caesar
The die is cast - Gaius Julius Caesar
Exactly.cymru_man said:
There's no reason why the probability factor in Civ should be cut out. That would make it boring and lifeless. I mean, you'd just beeline to techs for more advanced units than your opponent, and in fighting him, you will always be certain to win (loosely speaking). What's the point in that?
Mr. Do said:
While I don't really know how the combat system works exactly, I suspect that the 95% figure is not referring to your unit's capability to hit and do damage each combat round but rather your overall chance of winning the fight. Not the same thing, so your maths is irrelevant.
fret said:
While I'm basically happy with the present system, all this discussion has gotten me thinking: perhaps there could be some (small) extra penalty applied to a unit defending multiple times in a round? So, if my Spearman + Archer is defending on the plains, the Spearman can still defend against 5 Chariots in a row, but he starts taking a penalty (which might result in the Archer defending instead) if he takes them all on himself.
I know that the effects of damage partly simulate this already, but I think they only partly simulate it. I do think the battle system might be improved by a small added penalty, though it's hard to be sure without testing.
Cu Chulainn
The Unoriginal
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I am more or less content with most aspects of CIV I can see where there's room for a few improvements but randomness being a large part of combat is part of what makes civ interesting. If it could be balanced properly though I would heavily support allowing stacks to attack at once.
While war makes up about the right proportion of the game, combat takes too damn long in real world time. Giving orders to tons of units is rough and while there are shortcuts in place a battle heavy turn can still take half an hour or more if I really pay attention to every move. I would like anything that would streamline war while maintaining the current balance and allowing me to just send my stack at a town and have it resolve itself would go a long way here.
This may be a great opportunity to incorporate the Warlord units in a way that may not have been considered previosly. What if you had a Warlord status screen allowing you to give orders to your generals as to how they should do battle? A variety of instructions could be used like setting how low the defense bonus of the town should be before the general stops bombarding, deciding which units he should try to attack first, protect from enemy attack etc. Warlord promotions could then open new options on this menu in addition to providing combat bonuses. Obvioulsy the idea would need a lot of work, but it could add a bit more microstrategy to large battles whlie still keeping the system extremely abstract.
While war makes up about the right proportion of the game, combat takes too damn long in real world time. Giving orders to tons of units is rough and while there are shortcuts in place a battle heavy turn can still take half an hour or more if I really pay attention to every move. I would like anything that would streamline war while maintaining the current balance and allowing me to just send my stack at a town and have it resolve itself would go a long way here.
This may be a great opportunity to incorporate the Warlord units in a way that may not have been considered previosly. What if you had a Warlord status screen allowing you to give orders to your generals as to how they should do battle? A variety of instructions could be used like setting how low the defense bonus of the town should be before the general stops bombarding, deciding which units he should try to attack first, protect from enemy attack etc. Warlord promotions could then open new options on this menu in addition to providing combat bonuses. Obvioulsy the idea would need a lot of work, but it could add a bit more microstrategy to large battles whlie still keeping the system extremely abstract.
cymru_man said:
If you admit you don't know what you're talking about, it's probably a good idea not to bother responding in the first place.
You usually get odds of 95% from fights where one unit has a much better chance of winning each round, perhaps a Spearman against a Warrior in open combat. Each round, the chance of the spearman winning is 2/3, and the chance of the warrior winning in 1/3. However, for the warrior to win overall, the spearman must win about 7 or 8 rounds to take off all the HP of the spearman, without losing the fewer amounts of rounds which will make it lose all of its own HP; the chances of a fight going so long without the warrior dying are so rare, that the spearman has a huge chance of winning, which could be around 95%. I can't be sure if that's exactly correct, but the principle is there.
HOWEVER, for there to be 7 rounds in a row where the warrior beats the spearman, each with a chance of one in three for the warrior to win, the chances are (1/3)^7, or about 1 in 2000. Now in total there are a few chances for there to be 7 rounds in a row, so it's probably more like 1/200 (being generous), but it's still extremely unlikely for such a streak to happen... yet it does.
That's how luck goes, it's annoying, but it happens. Don't try and tell me it doesn't, though.
DSChapin said:
Something along those lines sounds good to me.
Although Id alter it slightly and have it so that a defending unit can only defend once. Once all defenders have had their go, start the list again with 1 defend each.
And when you are being attacked, you should get to make this choice rather than the computer. I know thats heading back into unnecessary micromanagement terriroty, but alas, to each his own.
Luck may diminish *profssional* attractiveness of the Civ4 game, but it does not diminishes attractiveness as *personal* game. Luck was always part of the game, not just Civ4 but most of the PC game.
Even in deterministic game like chess, if the game complexity is high engough for the player (8*8 chess for beginner, 32*32 chess board for pro chess player), player practically can not predict exact outcome of each move, luck factor plays larger part. Civ 4 is like huge 128*128 chess board. In Real world and history, luck always played some part.
I don't care luck part of combat, or other game outcome of Civ4 game. It is fair enough and addes excitement to game. I can lose a combat because of bad luck, but on next combat, I can win because of good luck.
We do many combat during a game. So luck is averged out and game is largely determined by my play skill, not just luck.
It is like long poker game. Individual round of poker game may be determined largely by the poker "hand" which is determined by luck, But if we play many round of poker ( say, > 30 round), luck factor playes less part and the skill of poker player largely determines the final outcome.
But if I designed Civ game, I would like to reduce luck factor in Civ4 staring point and dependence on luck factor in early stage of the game.
Final otcome of whole Civ 4 game strongly depends on first 50 turns of the game and the first 50 turns is largely dependant on how good the starting point is, which is determined by luck. And this luck plays only once in a game, so the luck regarding starting point has no another chance to be averaged. This luck on starting point playes too much role on whole game.
Civ4 map ganeration /staring point should be more elraborated to make the starting point/condition ralatively fairer to the all player so that we don't have to start over the game to get better staring point. I don't mean symmetic map but less *random* map. But arrage the map so that all staring point have largely similar ralative "favorability" for all player starting point. Map should be largely symmetric (not identical) in favorability point of view. We should not get better game start point even if we resatrt the game.
Even in deterministic game like chess, if the game complexity is high engough for the player (8*8 chess for beginner, 32*32 chess board for pro chess player), player practically can not predict exact outcome of each move, luck factor plays larger part. Civ 4 is like huge 128*128 chess board. In Real world and history, luck always played some part.
I don't care luck part of combat, or other game outcome of Civ4 game. It is fair enough and addes excitement to game. I can lose a combat because of bad luck, but on next combat, I can win because of good luck.
We do many combat during a game. So luck is averged out and game is largely determined by my play skill, not just luck.
It is like long poker game. Individual round of poker game may be determined largely by the poker "hand" which is determined by luck, But if we play many round of poker ( say, > 30 round), luck factor playes less part and the skill of poker player largely determines the final outcome.
But if I designed Civ game, I would like to reduce luck factor in Civ4 staring point and dependence on luck factor in early stage of the game.
Final otcome of whole Civ 4 game strongly depends on first 50 turns of the game and the first 50 turns is largely dependant on how good the starting point is, which is determined by luck. And this luck plays only once in a game, so the luck regarding starting point has no another chance to be averaged. This luck on starting point playes too much role on whole game.
Civ4 map ganeration /staring point should be more elraborated to make the starting point/condition ralatively fairer to the all player so that we don't have to start over the game to get better staring point. I don't mean symmetic map but less *random* map. But arrage the map so that all staring point have largely similar ralative "favorability" for all player starting point. Map should be largely symmetric (not identical) in favorability point of view. We should not get better game start point even if we resatrt the game.
Phantom_Lord
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DarkFyre99 said:
Well, doesn't random elements always tend to even out?
All you people who say you want more realism need to think a little bit. The civ 4 combat system is realistic in the macro scale which really is the only thing that matters. The combats are so simplified that you have to add some randomness. One unit attacking another symbolizes a battle that is drawn out over a year, maybe more. You say you want weather effects and stuff like that added in and take away the randomness. I say, the weather effects are already in there, as a part of the random part of every battle!
As I said earlier, you need to understand that the good things of the battle system is in the macro scale, it makes you need combined arms to defend a city, to bring superior numbers when invading a country and so on.
For the battle system to not have any randomness and still be realistic you would need to model the bodies of each soldier, all the brains of the thousands of soldiers would have to be built up after each string of DNA and developed through their growth under influence of the environment and so on... Instead, we have a simplified system where a Random Numbers Generator makes calculations which symbolize all of the big and small things that happen on the battlefield!
Id just like to state for the record that I...
Dont want the game more realistic
Dont want the game like chess
dont want the game like RTW
do want a more challenging combat system
do want a skill to tak preference over luck ***
I just want a more challenging combat system, rather than just updating the mathematics behind a battle but on the face of it, not much changing, as a previous poster put it 'banging units against other', i would add to that statement and change it to 'banging units against other, one at once', this is the Civ 4 combat motto.
*** at the INDIVIDUAL battle level. Im not denying that part of the skill of war is the planning, this sems to the biggest argument on the opposite side of the fence to me.
In addition to this skill (a RTW player would call it the Strategic layer, as opposed to Battle layer), i would like a 'battle layer', but that doesnt have to be anything like RTW at all. It would be great if it could be designed in total isolatin fromt the fact RTW exists. Because RTW battles are on such a scale that they will never bear any shred of usefullness in a game of Civ.
Dont want the game more realistic
Dont want the game like chess
dont want the game like RTW
do want a more challenging combat system
do want a skill to tak preference over luck ***
I just want a more challenging combat system, rather than just updating the mathematics behind a battle but on the face of it, not much changing, as a previous poster put it 'banging units against other', i would add to that statement and change it to 'banging units against other, one at once', this is the Civ 4 combat motto.
*** at the INDIVIDUAL battle level. Im not denying that part of the skill of war is the planning, this sems to the biggest argument on the opposite side of the fence to me.
In addition to this skill (a RTW player would call it the Strategic layer, as opposed to Battle layer), i would like a 'battle layer', but that doesnt have to be anything like RTW at all. It would be great if it could be designed in total isolatin fromt the fact RTW exists. Because RTW battles are on such a scale that they will never bear any shred of usefullness in a game of Civ.
MrCynical
Deity
You are vastly overcomplicating matters. If the combat odds are listed as 95% then your chance of winning is 95%. Not 1999/2000, not (1/3)^7, not 100%. It's 95%, period. The game allows for all the issues of how many rounds the combat lasts, and presents you with a nice neat odds of success. A little testing in worldbuilder shows that the combat odds are quite reliable averaged over many units. You should expect to lose 1 in 20 of combats where you have a 95% chance to win, and given the number of combats in an average game, it will happen reasonably often.
Cu Chulainn
The Unoriginal
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Despite the way a great many people seem to think Civ is not now nor was it ever meant to be a war sim. IMO the amount of time you spend on war in a given game takes up too much time as is. Making the combat system more complex would turn it into a war game where you do a little city building on the side. If I wanted to play a game like that I'd go play Heroes (and I do, often) or some other game where the battles are the main focus.
That said the only times luck has affected the overall outcome of my games is when I planned poorly. Sure the margin of victory is always affected by the outcome of the RNG but it's my planning that determines whether I win or lose overall.
What I want is a better AI. Heck, if they released an expansion that was 100% AI improvements I'd be thrilled.
That said the only times luck has affected the overall outcome of my games is when I planned poorly. Sure the margin of victory is always affected by the outcome of the RNG but it's my planning that determines whether I win or lose overall.
What I want is a better AI. Heck, if they released an expansion that was 100% AI improvements I'd be thrilled.
