Movement + attack = defeat

[TLHeart]

I have been playing CivIV since the first day, mostly on Noble. I have noticed that when I move a unit, any unit, along a road, that if they attack in the same turn, the probability of being defeated is much greater. Example, I am being pillage by a knight, I send out a pikeman from my city, he moves one space along the road, still has one more space of movement along the road left, combat odds favor the pikeman, the pikeman is defeated.

SMAC had a hurry attack modifier, that if you attacked with less than 1 movement point left, then you attacked in a weakened state. I am wondering if CivIV has the same mechanic, although we do not see it?

I have had this happen in many different situations, with different units. I know units can be defeated at anytime, bla bla bla.....

Has anyone else noticed this behavior, or am I just imagining this, since I loved SMAC so much?

 

[Yzman]

No, you still have the same probability, but it is just that, a probability. You can still lose.

 

[Steve2000]

I haven't noticed this, but it would be easy to find out if it is true. Hold down "ALT" and hold your mouse over the enemy unit to see the combat odds. You could have a rested unit immediately next to the enemy and a unit 1 tile away of the exact same type and promotion. Compare and you will see. You could set up the conditions in the editor.

Personally I have not read anything to indicate that moving before attacking has any effect, but if it did it would be interesting.

 

[dracop]

That seems to happen to me as well; Ive doen multiple reloads testing attacking in one shot with my unit out of mps and attacking after letting the unit sit for a turn. Ive lost on 25 to 10 combat odds in my favor; conssitently, on some of my tests while completely owning the enemy the turn after. It does not alter the combat odds displayed but I think there is a penalty. It also could jsut be random coincidence, I tend to have alot of fighting in my games so I note whenever I lose with odds in my favor (the reverse never seems to happen, the AI always seems ot win when odds in its favor). I have also noticed that the computer tends to return identical results on reloads, Im not sure why.

 

[Psyringe]

I have also noticed that the computer tends to return identical results on reloads, Im not sure why.

It doesn't tend to return identical results, it does return identical results upon reload (as long as you retrace your steps in the same order). This feature has been built in deliberately in order to discourage people from using the save/reload-cheat.

If you did your tests without knowing this, they are probably worthless, since you just repeated the same sample n times, instead of getting n samples ...

 

[calyth]

basically it kept the same seed for the PRNG used for combat and probably all the other random numbers needed.
I don't notice anything different between moving and attacking and just attacking. Granted if you're in your own territory, fortified for a while, and then attack, the unit's going to heal while fortified.
Perhaps the knight is in a bad tile to be attacked?

 

[countzero]

Perhaps the knight is in a bad tile to be attacked?

I thought mounted units don't get defence bonuses ?

 

[Thalassicus]

If you want to test it, start up a new game and drop 50 units in the world editor on a road. Then drop 50 barbarian units further along the road, and group-move your stack next to them. Choose the "Stack Attack" option under gameplay (attacks with all units in a stack, one by one, until there are none left). Attack the barbarians and count the number of troops that survived, and you have a pretty good estimate of the probabilities, displayed or not

Also, from what I understand the displayed combat odds only compare the numerical strength and attack/defense modifiers. I have the understanding that wounded units have greatly less combat odds than a comparison of the numerical strengths alone. So if a wounded, half-strength Knight goes up against full strength Axemen, the odds of success are actually much less than 1:1. I don't know where the post is to reference regarding that, but that might be why you're losing battles apparently in your favor.

 

[Bezurn]

With regard to wounded units, their odds are substatialy less than full health units because each unit, regardless of strength, gets 100 hp max. The str just determines the odds for winning a round of combat. Each round you win takes 20 hp off the loser.

I don't think there is a penelty for attacking with only partial mp left.

 

[calyth]

countzero: yeah forgot about that. then it might have 2 promotion to make life a bit harder.
Thalassicus: I thought barb units have 90% of the original's strength. I tried to test something using barb units and the strength isn't the same.

 

[Junuxx]

@calyth:
There's a 10% bonus for attacking barbarians, to be precise. (and 50% for animals, I think).
But if testing doesn't work well with Barbarians, use the French.