Thanks for that excellent link.
Here's some easy on the eye statistics I've calculated using creamcheese's accumulative method of defence bonus stacking:
Criteria:
For the Ancient Age maximum defence bonus is as follows: Fortified 25%, Walls 50%, Hill 50%, other side of a River 25% = 150% maximum defence bonus.
For the Ancient Age normal defence bonus is as follows: Fortified 25%, Grassland 10% = 35% normal defence bonus
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For the Medieval Age maximum defence bonus is as follows: Fortified 25%, City 50%, Hill 50%, other side of a River 25% = 150% maximum defence bonus.
For the Medieval Age normal defence bonus is as follows: Fortified 25%, City 50%, Grassland 10% = 85% normal defence bonus.
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For the Industrial Age maximum defence bonus is as follows: Fortified 25%, Metropolis 100%, Civil Defence 50%, Hill 50%, other side of a River 25% = 250% maximum defence bonus.
For the Industrial Age normal defence bonus is as follows: Fortified 25%, Metropolis 100%, Grassland 10% = 135% normal defence bonus.
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For the Modern Age maximum defence bonus is as follows: Fortified 25%, Metropolis 100%, Civil Defence 50%, Radar Tower 25%, Hill 50%, other side of a River 25% = 275% maximum defence bonus.
For the Modern Age normal defence bonus is as follows: Fortified 25%, Metropolis 100%, Grassland 10% = 135% normal defence bonus.
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I have not bothered to calculate Warriors, Aztec Jaguar Warriors, Horsemen, Iroquois Mounted Horsemen, Archers, Chariots, Egyptian War Chariots, Scouts, Incan Chasqui Scouts, Longbowmen or Explorers. Scouts and Explorers have a defence of zero and all the others have a defence of 1. The most a defence of 1 can ever get before the Industrial age is 2.5, so obsolete from the get-go really.
I have not calculated anything but land troops versus land troops.
I am assuming you are attacking the Capital City or decent second or third cities.
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Spearmen, Zulu Impi, Sumerian Enkidu, Swordsmen, Celtic Gallic Swordsmen, Persian Immortals, Ancient Cavalry, Babylonian Bowmen, Mayan Javelin Throwers, Hittite Chariots, Medieval Infantry, Viking Berserkers, Arab Ansar Warriors, Mongol Keshiks, Spanish Conquistadors all have a base defence of 2 providing the following:
Ancient Age Max defence of 5
Ancient Age Normal defence of 2.7
Medieval max of 5
Medieval norm of 3.7
Industrial max of 7
Industrial norm of 4.7
Modern max of 7.5
Modern norm of 4.7
So even under normal conditions a Swordsman or Medieval Infantry or Knight only just beats a Spearman and the Spearman can quite quickly and easily surpass them. Another reason why Cavalry really speeds up the conquesting. A max of 7.5 makes defending against an attack of a tank's 16 seem kind of impossible. More of that later.
Pikemen, Greek Hoplites, Carthaginian Numidian Mercenaries, Roman Legions, Crusaders, Knights, Chinese Riders, Indian War Elephants, Cavalry, Russian Cossaks, Ottoman Sipahi all have a base defence of 3 providing the following:
Medieval max of 7.5
Medieval norm of 5.55
Industrial max of 10.5
Industrial norm of 7.05
Modern max of 11.25
Modern norm of 7.05
So even under normal conditions a Cavalry, Infantry or geurilla only just beats a Pikeman and a Pikeman can quite quickly and easily surpass them. Another reason why Cavalry really speeds up the conquesting still. A max of 11.25 makes defending against an attack of a tank's 16 seem more plausible, but not really. More of that later.
Musketeers, Dutch Swiss Mercenaries, Japanese Samurai all have a base defence of 4 providing the following:
Medieval max of 10
Medieval norm of 7.4
Industrial max of 14
Industrial norm of 9.4
Modern max of 15
Modern norm of 9.4
So even under normal conditions a Cavalry, Infantry or geurilla should be desperately struggling against them. This should slow down conquesting until Tanks. A max of 15 makes defending against an attack of a tank's 16 seem more plausible. More of that later.
French Musketeers have a base defence value of 5 providing the following:
Medieval max of 12.5
Medieval norm of 9.25
Industrial max of 17.5
Industrial norm of 11.75
Modern max of 18.75
Modern norm of 11.75
So even under normal conditions a Cavalry, Infantry or geurilla should be losing regularly against them. This should slow down conquesting until Tanks to which the tank would then be only a slight advantage. A max of 18.75 makes defending against an attack of a tank's 16 seem totally plausible. More of that later.
Riflemen have a base defence value of 6 providing the following:
Medieval max of 15
Medieval norm of 11.1
Industrial max of 21
Industrial norm of 14.1
Modern max of 22.5
Modern norm of 14.1
So even under normal conditions a Cavalry, Infantry or geurilla should be totally losing against them. This should slow down conquesting until Tanks to which the tank would then be only a slight advantage. A max of 22.5 makes defending against an attack of a tank's 16 seem quite safe. More of that later.
Infantry have a base defence of 10 providing the following:
Medieval max of 25
Medieval norm of 18.5
Industrial max of 35
Industrial norm of 23.5
Modern max of 37.5
Modern norm of 23.5
So even under normal conditions attacking them with Cavalry, Infantry or geurilla should be suicide. This should slow down conquesting until Tanks to which the tank would then still be at quite a disadvantage. A max of 37.5 suggest even Modern Armour should not bother attacking them. More of that later.
TOW Infantry have a base defence of 14 providing the following:
Modern max of 52.5
Modern norm of 32.9
So even under normal conditions attacking them with any land unit should be suicide or at the very least a hard fought struggle for Modern Armour. More of that later.
Mechanised Infantry has a base defence of 18 providing the following:
Modern max of 67.5
Modern norm of 42.3
So even under normal conditions attacking them with any land unit should be suicide. More of that in the following analysis.
Conclusion
I suspect when they beta tested the game they found that either the defence stacking wasn't working and just didn't tell anyone or they added a secret bonus to all attackers. I know when I first played civ3 I was stunned that my Infantry could drop like flies against Cavalry, as if I might as well have left the city defended by Spearmen. This was always a bigger shock to me than having a Spearman defend a tank once every few games.
This makes me think that the numbers aren't as important as they appear to be at face value.
At the start of the game a Warrior 1/1/1 can attack and kill a Spearman fortified in a town 1/2.7/1. That's almost a 300% assault. Even out in the open defeating a 1/2/1 Spearman or Archer is a 200% assault.
By viewing the numbers in terms of percentages rather than numbers one can then rationalise how a Cavalry 6/3/3 can assault an Infantryman 6/18.5/1 because this is, again, just under a 300% assault. Similarly, a Cavalry assaulting a Mechanised Infantry 12/18/2 out in the open is just a 300% assault.
Another two options to consider are, firstly, that the Random Number Generator has a much wider range than is obvious and that this generator changes during each era. So in the Ancient Age all the rolls might be calculated on the bases of a 6 sided dice to which an attack of 1 attacking a defence of 3 gives the attacker a win potential on a roll of 4, 5 or 6 where the defender rolls a 1, 2 or 3 respectively. Moving onto the Medieval era might raise the dice value to a ten sided dice, Industrial 20 sided and modern 50 sided, so a Modern Armour 24/16/3 could roll up to a 74 to beat the Mech's normal 12/42.3/2 when rolling under 20.
On top of this the game might have critical hits, similar to roll playing games, where a maximum roll is an automatic hit and a minimum roll is an automatic loss. This would occur much more frequently at the six-sided stage and very rarely at the 50 sided stage.
So, how can a Tank lose to a Spearmen? In the modern era, applying a 50 sided dice, a Spearman 1/4.7/1 could roll a 30 to score 34.7 whereas the Tank 16/8/2 could roll an 8 to give an attack of just 24. Now it makes some sense. So, for a Veteran Tank, with 4 hit points it is likely to lose to a critical, get a minimum critical and then get two low scores matched with two high scores for the Spearman and die on the rare, but not totally infrequent, occasion.
So, perhaps your Army, attacking at 3/1/2 to a defence of 1/2.7+/1 simply met with 12 terrible rolls, something which doesn't happen often but seems to happen more noticeably with computer generated Random Number Generators. I remember playing The Temple of Elemental Evil and having exactly that kind of luck with my Archer throughout most of the game.
If anyone knows the exact stats behind encounters I'd be glad to be thrown out the ball-park. The odds calculator is good, but what is it's formula and where is the formula described in full so I can stop making myself seem like a fool newb with random guesswork?
comes from. Something got triggered that boosted the AI unit to near invulnerable status. The modifying programing could be event triggered, or triggered at random. It could be that events trigger a chance the program will add its boost. There are several ways I can think of how this program might work.
