Modern Military is STILL unrealistic

Someone just needs to mod it so that modern mech. units steamroll (historically) obsolete units. If a civ is doing so poorly that all they have to combat my mech. units are a bunch of spearmen why should there be any balance? Also, it would keep this argument from popping up on the boards once it was resolved, and it we could have it both ways.
 
One of my gripe with this Civ is the fact that the Technology don't go far enough. We have the same unit (almost) as Civ3.

Not enough new units, always the same ending : Tanks and Airplane. bah.. Where are the Robots fighter? the paratroopers ?

Robot Fighter : 28 STR, -5% war weariness (max of 25%)
Mech warriors?
Transport Copter/airplane?
Amphibious transport?
Mobile arty
Upgraded Helicopter?

I flew right through the Tech tree, by 2005 I was doing research on Future Techs, it is the first time I ever get Future techs on a Civ game.

Maybe they should change the "Future techs" and put "Building improvement", "military improvement" where you could upgrade your existing stuff...
 
Soryn Arkayn said:
Let me paint you people a scenario.

That's how you conduct a war. And I do mean conduct. Because any fool can fight a war; what I mean by conducting is controlling how the war is fought. This means attacking, outflanking, and suppressing the enemy so they can't launch a counter-offensive; they're forced to turtle inside their cities and wait until I come to knock down their walls and slaughter them.

If you people fought wars the right way, like I do, you'd rarely ever be frustrated by having Archers or Riflemen destroy your previous tanks.

Wow, I bet you feel good about yourself... You talk about using greedly tank but you wait until you are 1:1 againt low tech unit, what a coward you are.

In resume :

I wait until I can loose 1 unit every 2 fights against low tech infantry.

Yish, talk about " art of war ", why not use Airplanes to strike units before, oh mighty warlord :king:
 
You guys need to see the last Samuri, the old killed the new no problem.
 
Gustomucho81 said:
One of my gripe with this Civ is the fact that the Technology don't go far enough. We have the same unit (almost) as Civ3.

Not enough new units, always the same ending : Tanks and Airplane. bah.. Where are the Robots fighter? the paratroopers ?

Robot Fighter : 28 STR, -5% war weariness (max of 25%)
Mech warriors?
Transport Copter/airplane?
Amphibious transport?
Mobile arty
Upgraded Helicopter?

I flew right through the Tech tree, by 2005 I was doing research on Future Techs, it is the first time I ever get Future techs on a Civ game.

Maybe they should change the "Future techs" and put "Building improvement", "military improvement" where you could upgrade your existing stuff...

An array of different future techs would definitely be good (with a variety of bonuses (+exp to all units, +health, + happiness like currently, +production...possibly on Projects only to make it worth researching in a Space Race, +Culture%, +Great People %)
Combine those into a group of techs (+happy+Cult : +GPP+Exp : +health+Production)
 
This subject is not worth discussing anymore. Any unit can kill a tank because:

- The tank can be weakened down to the strength of a Warrior (what's the use of one if its tracks are blasted and its cannon is bent?
- The less advanced units can have lots of defensive bonuses, while tanks can't have any. If I remember correctly, the rifleman's Strength value is 14, and the tank's 28. If the first is entrenched in a city with 80-100% defense bonus (VERY likely), it can put up a decent and fair fight (it effectively becomes another tank with 100% bonus).

Unless a fully healed tank meets another unit in open ground, with no bonuses whatsoever to the defender, it can lose. As long as there's more than 0% of win chance for the opponent, the possibility of defeat for the tank is always there. That's the wonder of probability.

The ultimate cause of the loss of advanced units against primitive ones is an awful set of tactics. Since Civ4 enhances that part, people with little tactical skills find themselves in trouble and blame it to the game. I can see a few of their kind in this thread.
 
killaman said:
My MODERN Tank gets destroyed by some piss-ant Rifleman. What the hell is that? Just ONE freaking modern tank in an open field could easily take out two regiments of rifleman.
Wrong. If you can dig a tank-trap you can defeat a tank. That requires the "shovel" technology. Secondly, a single tank wouldn't have enough ordinance nor fuel to kill over ~5000 people. Thirdly, almost all modern infantry divisions have organic, and quite lethal, anti-tank support.

If you guys weren’t sleep the last twenty years you would have noticed that there were two wars in the middle east which totally showed off how Modern Tanks could take on so many regular tanks
Are you talking about the poorly trained, poorly equipped tanks predominantly arrayed in static defense?

let alone two hundred year old rifleman and 3 hundred year old Grenadiers.
You're taking the game way too literally. There are still "rifleman" and "grenadier" units in the world today -- it doesn't mean they're using 18th century equipment.

Oh yeah I also like how a Grenadiers /rifleman can take out my Chopper. Here is a hint, in battle the Chopper would have seen those guys from a mile away and taken them out from a mile away just as they did in a recent war called Desert Storm.
Is this the same war where we've lost helicopters to small arms fire? Yes, it is.

Dude, the bottomline is this: combat in Civ is abstract. It doesn't represent the "real" capabilities of "real" units under "real" circumstances. Why don't you play Combat Mission, or Steel Beasts, or TacOps4, or some other true wargame if you're looking for more realistic combat models?

And finally, unless this was your last tank, in the final battle for victory, who cares? Just kill the rifleman with your next unit. Why do people get so upset about this. If technologically advanced always vaporized inferior units, the game would degenerate into nothing more than an arms race.
 
T100 said:
You guys need to see the last Samuri, the old killed the new no problem.

Actually, if you don't close your eyes at the end, you'll see the the new (gattling guns) MASSACRE the old... wasn't even close...


(edit) oh crap, this has 3 pages... this was probably already told...
 
killaman said:
My MODERN Tank gets destroyed by some piss-ant Rifleman.

Tanks are useless in cities in real life, other than as psychological weapons. So I think even Civil War era riflemen could hold back tanks if they were entrenched in a city. Tanks can't do squat against infantrymen hidden in holes and sniping from buildings.

Oh yeah I also like how a Grenadiers /rifleman can take out my Chopper. Here is a hint, in battle the Chopper would have seen those guys from a mile away and taken them out from a mile away just as they did in a recent war called Desert Storm.

Choppers can be taken down with very primitive technology in fact. In Vietnam the VC managed to destroy choppers with "spears" to put it that way. The weak point of a chopper is the rear propeller on the tail. Choppers have been shot down by throwing such "spears" at their tail propellers. It doesn't take much to destroy the propeller. Just putting a stick in it can tear it apart. And without it the chopper spirals out of control

The Stealth bomber should be able to take out a unit of soldiers. We do have various types of bombs that would take out a large area and along with it any living thing minus roaches.

They can't in real life. They were used in the NATO war against Serbia. When the war was over it was found that most of the Serb equipment was untouched. History is full of examples where lots of bombers and artillery haven't managed to dislodge entrenched infantry. Look up Monte Cassino for one example.

Here is the battle of Monte Cassino, where the Allies bombed the whole place until it was nothing but rubble, and yet they lost 54,000 men trying to take the place:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Monte_Cassino

The first battle started on January 4, 1944 and the monastery atop the hill was destroyed by Allied bombing on February 15. Allied aircraft heavily bombed the ruins of the monastery and staged an assault on March 15.

During three failed attempts to take the heavily-guarded monastery of Monte Cassino (January 17–25, February 15–February 18, March 15–March 25), the forces of the USA, the UK, India, Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand lost approximately 54,000 men yet did not manage to seize the city or the castle overlooking the Rapido River valley.

The so-called Fourth Battle of Monte Cassino was fought by the 2nd Polish Corps under General Władysław Anders (May 11–May 19). The Indian divisions stationed there helped in the capturing of the main Gunnery for which a member of the Indian armed forces were awarded with the Victoria Cross for his daring raid into the gunnery and killing all there.

During the battle of the Somme there was the greatest artillery bombardment in all of history. It failed to dislodge the Germans:

http://www.firstworldwar.com/battles/somme.htm

The British thought the bombardment would kill all the Germans and they would be able to just waltz in(Civ3 style):

The expectation was that the ferocity of the bombardment would entirely destroy all forward German defences, enabling the attacking British troops to practically walk across No Man’s Land and take possession of the German front lines from the battered and dazed German troops. 1,500 British guns, together with a similar number of French guns, were employed in the bombardment.

However the advance artillery bombardment failed to destroy either the German front line barbed wire or the heavily-built concrete bunkers the Germans had carefully and robustly constructed.


Last but not least my favorite, NUKES. It’s so realistic that it takes about 6 or more ICBMs to take out a city of size 12.

A single nuke cannot destroy an entire metro area in real life. Even a 1MT nuke would only level the city center proper, not the whole metro area. It would take a MIRV with several nukes to level an entire metro area. And even then the casualty rate would not be 100%. Plus, keep in mind that the cities in Civ represent an entire region, not just a metro area. So in fact the nukes are over-powered as they are from the standpoint of realism.
 
killaman said:
YES it is a game, and what makes a games FUN is a fair ballance. Obviously when modern warfare barely beats and sometimes gets beat by archers and rifleman then there is something majorly wrong with the ballance and THEREFORE the FUN factor is reduced.
And I know that one unit does not represnt an individual. I've been playing CIV since 1995 I kinda figured that out when I first started to play over 10 years ago.

Umm... What's balanced about picking on an archer with your tank? Or any of these other so-called imbalances on the part of the AI?

How come you don't complain when it's your rifleman or archer that takes out the PCs tank?

Maybe the developer's were trying to make it more BALANCED by giving some hope to the players who are lagging behind. Otherwise, why would you play the game if it was that difficult?

My suggestion, calm down, realize it's a GAME of STATISTICS more so than an actual representation of real life.
 
killaman said:
:My MODERN Tank gets destroyed by some piss-ant Rifleman. What the hell is that? Just ONE freaking modern tank in an open field could easily take out two regiments of rifleman.

You are totally mistaken. Tanks are quite ineffective against dug in infantrymen. Tanks are also highly vulnerable to infantry. If you knew a little history, you'd know for example that the longer WWII went on, the more apparent the limitations of unsupported armour became. For example, the Germans used tank heavy divisions against France and quickly found how ineffectual they are without support. Fortunately, the tank commanders could call on the Luftwaffe in that campaign for ground support.

When the Germans invaded Russia, their Panzer divisions consisted of two tank regiments and one infantry regiment. By the end of the war, those numbers were reversed. Tanks need infantry to keep opposing infantry away. And tanks are particularly vulnerable in built up areas. They can basically only be used in cities in an infantry support role.

killaman said:
If you guys weren’t sleep the last twenty years you would have noticed that there were two wars in the middle east which totally showed off how Modern Tanks could take on so many regular tanks, let alone two hundred year old rifleman and 3 hundred year old Grenadiers.

Again, you're mistaken. The Israelis did not have particularly modern tanks, especially in the '67 war. Quite a few of them were, IIRC, WWII Shermans.

The decisive weapon for the Israelis in both wars was air power, not tanks. And in case you've forgotten, the Israeli tank forces got creamed in their first attempted advance on the Egyptian frontline in the '73 war - by SAGGER wielding infantry.

(Edit: My mistake, you are presumably referring to Gulf Wars I and II. All the same my point still stands).

killaman said:
Oh yeah I also like how a Grenadiers /rifleman can take out my Chopper.

Weren't you paying attention during the Iraq war? A number of US helicopters were shot down - by small arms fire. In fact, the US was forced to limit its use of 'copters for that very reason. They proved to be much more vulnerable than anyone anticipated.

killaman said:
The Stealth bomber should be able to take out a unit of soldiers.

As someone else pointed out, bombers are not necessarily that effective against well dug in and camouflaged infantry, especially when high level bombing aka the Stealth. The US managed to knock out only a handful of tanks in its two month long air campaign against the Serbs. Air power alone is not that effective, modern warfare is all about combined arms, air, artillery, infantry and armour all working together.

And BTW whoever said the US hasn't lost any tanks in Iraq is wrong. The US has lost quite a lot of tanks. I've seen no shortage of pics of destroyed US tanks myself. They've proved especially vulnerable in street fighting, where Iraqi insurgents have fired on the tanks with antitank weapons from above, onto the top of the tank where the armour is thinnest. In fact these tactics have proven so effective that the Pentagon is redesigning the Abrams to strengthen the armour on top of the engine bay.
 
Few ancient men armed with bows have destroyed my modern armor, while protecting their city (even without walls)...
This is a great unbalanced thing.

Back in Civ 3 - smth. like a frigate have destroyed my nuclear submarine with 2 ICBMs onboard... It was UNPLAYABLE! Because of such things I've abandoned playing CIV3 (but I'm a great fan, since CIV1 - played it even without a mouse!!!)

Well, in Civ4 all naval units are pretty realistic and balanced (in fight)!
Just make a balance better with modern armors...please!!!!
 
I just could'nt resist replying to this. complaining about a game being unrealistic is like complaining about a horror movie being unrealistic. But then again I would not have replied if he actually got his historical facts right.

You want realistic? Ok!

Iraq example:

1) You have to have sanctions imposed on the city/civ you want to conquer for atleast 12 years. When I say 12 years I do not refer to 12 game turns, since you want realistic you need to sit on your damn PC for 12 REAL LIFE years. Ok?

2) You have to make sure that city/civ is not able to produce even 1 single army unit because either it does not have the technology to do so, or because of your sanctions from point 1. Fun aint it?

3) You need to have alot of sattelites out in space, so that you are able to see the whole civilizations (including any fishy people trying to run away from arms inspectors), while the enemy can barely muster some binoculars.

4) You need to bomb the crap out of the civilization (you have satellites, so you know exactly where the troops are) for 12 years straight, including a huge blitz just before invading them reducing their army into fodder for wild animals. Maybe we can add a civic and call it "Shock and Awe" ?

5) Later waltz into the city, no... waltz into his whole civilization in 1 day. Alot of fun isnt it? I bet you feel all mighty and skilled now? I can feel the satisfaction of a -war well fought- .

Its not over.. after all that, and after taking his whole civilization, get prepared because if you want realism, then NOW you will start losing tanks and armored vehicles to a group of chaotic resistance fighters who use publicly available means to design improvised explosives. Lets not forget kidnapping and beheadings. Disruption to the oil supply by bombing pipelines. Oh did you spend 50+ billion to wage your modern war? No? Only around 1000 gold???? Ok! Oh wait, lets add more realism, how about Abu Ghuraib and an international outcry that tarnishes your reputation? Depleted Uranium coated bullets? should I go on???

Vietnam?

Or maybe you think Somalia was a very advanced country with well trained Somalian Delta Force Operatives? Maybe Blackhawk Down was meant to portray how the Somalians invented ultra sonic weaponry and pinned down some soldiers from the most advanced military in the world for a very long time. Consider that to be your dumb ass tank against a mob of Somalian Archers.

The most valuable modern weoponry today is not a tank, or a nuclear missile (howcome we dont have Hydrogen bombs in Civ4?) but its the -airforce-. I repeat again, airforce is what counts these days (along with satellites).

With all due respect, and no offence intended to either you or your deep and thorough understanding of war, games and history... STFU (i say that in jest along with a friendly smile).

Civ4 is great the way it is.
 
I can't be bothered reading all this, but it has improved from Civ3 on battles, on Civ3 the computer seemed to have higher chances in winning on this it seems a little more fair, but if you was back in the stoneage vsing a military of tanks, would you complain if you won them?;) i know i wouldn't lol.
Yea although it is a load of bs in real life a war isn't based on mathematics whereas a game has to be for it to get anywhere, so theres always gonna be a chance. But they could add something in that stopped modern day military losing to stoneage archers.
 
Gustomucho81 said:
Wow, I bet you feel good about yourself... You talk about using greedly tank but you wait until you are 1:1 againt low tech unit, what a coward you are.

In resume :

I wait until I can loose 1 unit every 2 fights against low tech infantry.

Yish, talk about " art of war ", why not use Airplanes to strike units before, oh mighty warlord :king:
I refer to the Full Spectrum Warrior quote: "A great commander doesn't just accomplish the mission, he brings his soldiers home alive." (Or something like that.)

Your command style is no doubt "Throw as many grunts into the meatgrinder as necessary to destroy the enemy."

The way I fight is assault and capture a city, ideally without any unit casualties. Then I let my assault force heal before moving on. This way my attack force doesn't diminish and I don't have to wait to produce reinforcements. Ideally, I'll have a second wave to continue the invasion why my first heals. That's how I conquered the Persians in my last campaign. I was playing on a Continental map and the Persians were lucky enough to be the only Civ on a medium-sized continent, so they benefited from unfettered expansion. So I had the problem that I couldn't land an invasion force without declaring war. Usually I'd go after a weaker Civ first to secure a foothold on the continent, then go after the big dog. But since I couldn't do that, I just produced lots of Marines and I succeeded in capturing two cities during the first turn of the war. Then I unloaded the rest of my Transports directly into my newly captured cities, which allowed my Tanks to advance right away. My attack was so swift and overwhelming that I annihilated the enemy defenders without them ever counter-attacking my captured cities.

And I did indeed use artillery, aircraft, and warships to bombard the enemy's fortifications. I try to give my attacking units every advantage I can -- or, more accurately, neutralize the enemy's defensive bonuses.

So yes, I may play it safe, but it's a helluvalot smarter than other people's method of risking a few mechanized units to slaughter low-tech units, and then b!tching when it doesn't work out. It's not cowardice, it's prudence. And it's in Sun Tzu's Art of War that "a wise general does not seek war until it is already won," (or something like that). The meaning is that you shouldn't gamble in war, because the house always wins. Using Hitler as an example; he gambled early on and was successful in anexing Austria and Czechoslovakia, and conquering Poland, Belgium, Denmark, and France. But his luck ran out when he tried to conquer the USSR. Whereas the Allies didn't launch Operation: Overlord until victory was virtually guaranteed; the only dilemma that Eisenhower contended with was how many casualties the Allies would suffer in the invasion of Normandy.

So my playing style is identical to Eisenhower's. And you accused me of being a coward...

So are you suggesting that Eisenhower was a coward, Gustomucho81?
 
WarX said:
The most valuable modern weoponry today is not a tank, or a nuclear missile (howcome we dont have Hydrogen bombs in Civ4?) but its the -airforce-. I repeat again, airforce is what counts these days (along with satellites).

With all due respect, and no offence intended to either you or your deep and thorough understanding of war, games and history... STFU (i say that in jest along with a friendly smile).

Civ4 is great the way it is.
With all due respect, you're being naive WarX.

In the Gulf War, I can't recall who precisely (I think it was the Brits) claimed that the Coalition's objectives of forcing the Iraqis to withdraw from Kuwait could be accomplished solely by air power. This proved to be untrue. The Coalition launched thousands of airstrikes and the Iraqis didn't withdraw. It was only after the Coalition invaded Iraq and Kuwait did the Iraqis retreat and were defeated.

The lesson is that you can bomb the enemy all you want, but that won't stop -- often it won't even deter them. When soldiers are killed, more can be trained. When tanks are destroyed, more can be bought or manufactured. When buildings are bombed, new buildings can be built. If commanders are killed, new ones take their place. You can't defeat a determined enemy solely by air power. The only way to defeat them is to put soldiers on the ground.

This is especially true in Civ4 because you can't use aircraft to kill enemy units; you can only weaken them. This is a change from Civ3 -- or at least later Civ3. I believe originally in Civ3 you could only injure enemy units with airstrikes, but somewhere along the way bombers could actually kill units. But in Civ4, you can't kill units with airstrikes. So there's no argument, you need ground units to win battles in Civ4. Aircraft merely support the army, and always have.

You can dominate the battlefield by achieving air supremacy and even coax the enemy in surrendering, but you can't actually defeat an enemy without the army.
 
He never said that you could win the battle solely with aircraft or that other forces arnt needed he said that Airpower is the greatest asset in the Modern warfare of today which I would have to agree. if you controll the skys you control the battle. you can provide support for your ground forces and prevent the enemy from doing the same you can knock out enemy factorys and bases limiting their capabilitys making the ground invasion that much easier and ultimatley saving the lives of many soldiers. Not only that but it is also a deterent and a shock factor that can cause the enemy to simply surrender rather then face the awesome power of these weapons.

"To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."
-Sun Tzu, the Art of War
 
WarX, this is NOT the question of REALISM. NO!
This is a question of GAME BALANCE!
Of course, we are just playing the game... But why do I need tank if it can be destroyed with an ancient arrow??? Because of this there is NO point in modern weapon... Just take a spear and it's done!
 
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