My Elite tanks defeated by a veteran pikeman

[doc mabuse]

wow, i never expected this much reply, so thx to all, but i am now losing 7 out of 10 strong units against the weaker, certainly this RNG must work the other way around as well? i dont want to install mods though. but is this really normal even on the chieftain lvl? and another thing: i had six parachutists, made them airdrop on an empty city, all six failed and now i LOST them?????

 

[Scuffer]

As has been said before, it'll depend on terrain, fortifications and so on. It is quite possible to lose 7/10 or more, but don't worry, sometimes it works in your favour too. Difficulty level doesn't make any difference to the outcome of fights, except against barbarians.

 

[doc mabuse]

ok, got the general idea now, the thing is, first of all, to say goodbye to civ2 play rules and go along with the game. Reading other threads and the war acadamy is helping out a lot. This was only my second game, but it is as addictive as civ2!!!

 

[punkbass2000]

You can't paradrop into an enemy city.

 

[jb1964]

I also pushed a tank army just a little too far and lost it to a spear or pike, I forget which.

This week I have had an F15 shot down by a WWII vintage fighter.

This month I have had a destroyer go down to an ironclad.

Now, on the flipside, I have had a forted warrior DEFEND flawlessly against a vet sword. that's 1.25 vs. 3.0 winning 4 consecutive times.

Welcome to the club.

 

[Ivan the Kulak]

Yeah, DON'T drop paratroopers on an enemy city, even if it's empty, they just die. In fact that's all they do anyway, is die. If you start modding, I recommend taking them out of the game altogether, to make room for more interesting units.

 

[Grav]

In addition to keeping the game balanced, the idea of a spearman defeating a tank one in a while isn't really all that unrealistic. Remember, the game's cartoons don't just represent one tank against one spearman. It's a bunch of tanks against a bunch of spearmen, who, on rare occasions, might be able to cleverly dig and disguise enough anti-tank pits, leap out of enough trees at overconfident tank crews who have left that hatch open, steal enough guns and hand grenades off of the enemy dead and figure out how to use them effectively, etc., etc., to pull off a victory in a battle. Not a war, necessarily, but a battle.

There are plenty of times in history where a technologically much inferior army, usually with better morale, motivation, and knowledge of the local terrain, was able to make life pretty difficult for their opponents. Think Ethiopia against the Italians or Majahadin against the Soviets. Neither was a case of people literally thrusting a spear at a tank, clank clank clank <boom> clank clank clank, as in the Civ animations. But spearman v. tank is a reasonable metaphor for that sort of thing, in the same way that building city improvements one at a time is a reasonable metaphor for setting the educational, religious, military, and so on priorities for your society.

<heresy>If anything, I think that tank is unrealistically ~overpowered~ against low-level units.</heresy>

Cheerfully submitted,
Michael4000

Who cares? What it comes down to is that its simply not fun for the player. It makes you want to rip your hair out when you see your full army of elite modern tanks, being taken down by a redlined conscript warrior on plains (ok, I brought it a bit far there, but hey, I'm trying to make a point). Not only that, but you mention times in which weaker armies win against stronger ones, however you include factors of which are not included in any civ game... morale, motivation, etc. So when you take these out of the picture, you can only make a result based on what's there, which is simply a tank versus a spearman. Its nothing more. Its not a set of traps set up by spearman who are waiting in pits, etc.... Its a tank, versus, a spearman. Given the cost in shield difference, and the HUGE technological difference, a spearman should at best, take 1 hp away from the tank. However, when you have them consistently winning (relatively speaking, even moreso with pikemen), it just makes the whole combat system a bit whacky. A civ two era's back SHOULDN'T have a chance to win. Period. A civ should win, because they are a good civ, not because of a generous RNG. So if a bad civ gets declared war on... tough sh*t, maybe they'll play better next time.

 

[JMK]

Suggest you use your tank to attack workers.
i have never lost a tank against a worker

 

[Scuffer]

@grav
It would make the game one-dimensional and exceedingly boring though. It would become a tech race for the next-gen military unit, and that would be that.

 

[Renata]

I don't mind it the way it is -- would be too boring if the stronger unit won all the time, like Scuffer said. (And I just lost a full-strength 16hp AncientCav army to a reg pike on plains in one of my current games, so I feel the pain. )

Really, though, some of the examples given aren't as extreme as they might sound when all the defense bonuses are factored in. Marines, for example, attack with a strength of 8. (In PTW, anyway; haven't built any in C3C yet.) A pike fortified in a city on a hill across a river defends with nearly equal strength, if I have my math right. You'll lose almost 50% of the time. Even without the hill or without the river you might lose 1/3 of the time. Check out some of the combat calculators out there; they can be surprising.

Renata

 

[Cu Chulainn]

As far as health mod's go, something DB did in his BBW mod was to give health bonuses to each tech age. (AA+0, MA+1, IA+2, Modern+3) which IMO fixed these issues without destroying balance.

 

[morchuflex]

As far as health mod's go, something DB did in his BBW mod was to give health bonuses to each tech age. (AA+0, MA+1, IA+2, Modern+3) which IMO fixed these issues without destroying balance.

But doesn't this mod reduce the importance of XP? going up from vet to elite is more important if you have 3 base HP than if you have 6.

 

[Ivan the Kulak]

Well, what they need to do is find a way to make the AI tougher without having to resort to things like dice rolling on an epic scale, as pointed out, this is really just unfun. There are other threads about this, some of the ideas put about are automatic upgrades for the AI, so you are always engaging relatively modern units tech wise, conquered areas becoming totally unproductive war zones for an extended period of time instead of happy cities. and so on. The fundamental problem is that coding a really smart AI is an enormous challenge, no one for any game has really ever done so. Thus, to make things harder, we see things like hard to get, magically disappearing resources, combat units with a ridiculously small number of hit points, etc.

 

[The Omega]

Suggest you use your tank to attack workers.
i have never lost a tank against a worker

That's just what they want you to think, but those workers can be vicious. Once lost half my army to some guy with a shovel.

 

[Grav]

@grav
It would make the game one-dimensional and exceedingly boring though. It would become a tech race for the next-gen military unit, and that would be that.

I don't follow how you think it would make the game one dimentional... they are plenty of things civ focuses on besides combat. But yes, I believe someone who hasn't invested as much into their military development, should rightfully loose. It SHOULD be a race for the next gen unit. Don't you remember the race for tanks in civ 2? That was some tense gameplay! Plus, the race ends eventually, and then everyone has the same units anyway. As it is now, the combat system is heavily flawed. A simple solution would be to simply add more units, as to make the technological ramp less "jumpy". But then again, I there should be *some* jumps, IE, gunpowder, tanks, etc. Fair for the AI? Prolly not, but we're not here to please the AI, we're here to please the player.

 

[michael4000]

I definitely agree with you, Grav, that it's all about the gameplay. I like your idea of a less "jumpy" unit curve, too -- might be good for the game and, less importantly, would be more realistic.

Truth is, I've almost never had a tank or MA defeated, or even seriously damaged, by a warrior or spearman. If it happened, though, I can't imagine it would spoil my game. I'd just double-check to make sure I wasn't attacking into a metropolis, or across a river, up a mountain, or whatever, salute the bravery and honor of my technologically-challenged foe, and bring up the next tank. I'm going to win that war (statistically) every time. If losing one or two attack units seriously cripples my whole strategy, I just didn't bring enough noise.

...and then I guess I would play at a higher level next game. The whole armor -vs- spearman thing kind of suggests sandbagging, to me.

 

[AA-battery]

Yeah Mike 4 triple 0, your kinda right about the point where morale and motivation come into play. But these are ELITE tanks against a VETERAN pikemen. Aren't elite units supposed to have more expierience, trust, and morale than anything beneath them? didn't they earn the title elite? In armies elite forces are the best of the best. But when it comes to that we are kind of moving away from the game. It all comes down to the computer's random and strange number crunching.

 

[punkbass2000]

The only elite advantages in combat are extra hp and extra chance of retreat, if any.

 

[michael4000]

Aren't elite units supposed to have more expierience, trust, and morale than anything beneath them?

Yeah, that's kind of a weak spot in my argument. But if I were a better military historian, I bet I could drum up an example or two when a technologically much superior, highly trained and experienced force was (temporarily) "humiliated by a ragtag band" of (insert stalwart but doomed defender here).

Whatever. I guess I was just trying to reframe the whole issue so it didn't bug people so much.

 

[doc mabuse]

Its even going further and further: i needed 3 icbm's to destroy six spearman in a city, 4 stealth bombers to kill an ordinary spearman in grassland And my nuclear sub (veteran and severely pushed in hp) nearly got whacked by a Galley.Can someone tell me the reality in this. What is the galley going to do? make the slaves jump in the water and hit my sub with a wooden oar? And to my humble opinion and as far as i know, nuclear attacks are massively lethal...