No more direct attack on cities without bombarding first.

[joespaniel]

That says it all.

Strollen posted a good point.

An elite phalanx in a city with walls has a 50% chance to stop a tank !

Here are his calculations, and I see his logic;
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7104

It would be a simple matter to use artillery to smash the little bugger and roll in the same turn, but I question the sanity of a tank vs. phalanx equasion that isnt 99-100% in favor of the tank.

Anyway, artillery and bombers (battleships if on or near the coast) are going to be crucial to attacking a city.

 

[joespaniel]

The mech infantry is now nearly impossible to root out of a good defense. As it should. It defends at a 20!!!

Multiple airstrikes and massed artillery are going to be needed to weaken it enough to budge. Then an "army" will probably be necessary to destroy it.

Does anyone know how the A/D/M of an "army" is calculated?

From the best 'stats' of the units that make it up?

Example: Modern Tanks attack at 24, Mech defends at 20, both move at 3

So, an army of tanks and mech inf would be 24/20/3 ?

A lethal combination, to say the least.

Or is it just a stack, like civ2 ?

 

[Cunobelin Of Hippo]

Artilery will play a HUGE role in conquest. We can't just go charging in anymore. I like that, I think it encourages realistic, strategical attacks rather than 'Yeah, run in there and shoot up the place'.

 

[The_Clash]

Time to use the big guns then, artillary, battleships, bombers, and all those fun things. Or you could just nuke them out.

 

[Monte Pyton]

i dont know about defence, but i actually believe that when an army attacks they "pool their attack values together" so that if an armour was grouped with two other armours, they would attack with a power of 24*3=72!

 

[RobKid]

That is not how armies work. If you want to check out how they work, it's explained in the infocenter and there are several good threads over in the general discussion forum. I don't really feel like typing it out again.

 

[Apollo]

When an army attacks, its most powerful unit attacks until almost dead, and then the next most powerful begins the onslaught, and so on until the defender is dead. When your army switches units, it doesn't allow stacked defenders to do the same, unless they're also in an army. This is all coming from memory from reading posts, so I'm not guaranteeing the accuracy.

 

[donsig]

An elite phalanx in a city with walls has a 50% chance to stop a tank !

It would be a simple matter to use artillery to smash the little bugger and roll in the same turn, but I question the sanity of a tank vs. phalanx equasion that isnt 99-100% in favor of the tank.

Why use artillery when you can just save your old catapults to stone the phalanx? The catapults are probably cheaper to maintain than the artillery.

What's insane about having your catapults destroy the enemy phalanx so your tanks can move in?:crazyeyes

Hey, if you don't get rubber you won't have tanks anyway.

Imagine you can't get rubber because there's an elite fortified pikeman in the way and your riflemen can't dislodge it!

 

[joespaniel]

The point is theres no way on God's Green Earth that a phalanx (even elite and fortified) could stand up to a gunpowder unit, must less a tank unit, ever! They would be dog food. Period.

Now that all units have 3 hit points (forget the 4 and 5 for now) no matter what era, and firepower is gone, it ruins the realism of combat. We are back to Civ1!

I have read several reviews today, of people complaining about this same thing. Archers shooting down cruise missles! WTH!!!

Whoever decided this was a bonehead.

 

[joespaniel]

One good point, though. Naval bombardment of ground troops is one-sided. Ground troops cant fire back, which is acurate enough.

The phalanx cant kill the battleship!

 

[zandar]

True, it seems that units to attack, units to bombard and units to protect bombarding units (like catapults) from enemy capture are going to form the "siege triangle".

I think it's realistic, siege of any city should require significant military resources. Individual cities are much more vaulable with the larger number of civilizations on the map at once, the cost to establish a city, and the effect of culture on smaller cities.

I'll enjoy the challenge.

 

[JBearIt]

Originally posted by joespaniel
The point is theres no way on God's Green Earth that a phalanx (even elite and fortified) could stand up to a gunpowder unit, must less a tank unit, ever! They would be dog food. Period.

The phalanx could stick his sword/spear into the tank treads and cause them to jam up!

 

[loduke]

Originally posted by joespaniel
I have read several reviews today, of people complaining about this same thing. Archers shooting down cruise missles! WTH!!!

Whoever decided this was a bonehead.

I read the post about the archers destroying the cruise missle as well, but what you are forgetting, or didn't see is this... they guy was moving his missile from 1 city to another and he ran out of movement points before he got where he was going. Well, you don't move a cruise missile by firing it, you load it on a truck an haul it. I think that the only time you should think of a cruise missile having actually been fired is when it's targeted at an enemy, otherwise, it is just being moved.

At least that's the way I look at it.

Loduke

 

[Mikeweather]

Originally posted by joespaniel
The point is theres no way on God's Green Earth that a phalanx (even elite and fortified) could stand up to a gunpowder unit, must less a tank unit, ever! They would be dog food. Period.

That's what Colnel Custer thought too.

 

[joespaniel]

The 10,000 Sioux that destroyed Custer's 500 men were armed with rifles, in addition to bows and hatchets. It would have been more like;

Sioux - 5 warriors, 5 horsemen, 3 swordsmen, 3 bowmen, 2 musketeers and 2 cavalry.

Americans - 1 cavalry.

You get the picture...

However, with a full load of gas and ammo, I would happily roll up the whole lot with a tank regiment!

 

[joespaniel]

I like what Zandar said about the "siege triangle".

Only a fool would send armor against a fortified city without infantry support and after blasting the crap out of it first with artilllery and bombers. Nobody does that (and survives!) anymore. Its basic military strategy.

Armor will kill things in the open (thats realistic), and bombardment is necessary against defensive positions (also realistic).

Loduke - I understood that, but how could a bunch of yahoos with bows and arrows destroy a modern military convoy? Its not possible. Trucks with cruise missles on them would be escorted by heavy guard.

However, for games sake, I will steer clear of any archers with my ICBMs!

Argh! My game didnt come today...

 

[deanstow]

:tank:
First of all, when you think of armor, you are thinking of modern day equipment. The original tanks (WWI and *early* WWII) were canTANKerous pieces of equipment. While it is certain that one shot from the main gun would be the end of military service for quite a few footsoldiers, if the rest kept their composure, they could get close to the tank and do horrible things to it. Italy had many problems in Ethiopia because of just that. Also, ask the British about the Zulus in Africa. Ask the Soviet Union about *their* stay in Afghanistan.

Second of all, history is loaded with civilizations that whipped everyone's collective a$$ with advanced technology just so they could get thier own butts whipped by the next technological advance that came along. Essentially, no jump in technology ever came that was not spurred on in some way by military spending. The point is that it would be a very poor game to play if simply having a technological superiority was enough to guarantee victory like it can in real life.

It is a game, not a simulation. What ever makes the game *playable* may have to take precedence over what makes the game *realistic*.

Have Fun

 

[donsig]

Civ I was playable (or else we wouldn't be talking about Civ III would we?) but still it was not fun to lose a battleship to a phalanx. That won't happen in Civ III but we are a bit worried about spearmen destroying tanks and swordsmen killing mechanized infantry. The game must be playable and fun!

As for early tanks being susceptible to spearmen we should remember that the tank drivers had guns!

In any event the strategy to avoid losing modern units to ancients ones is bombardment. I don't have the game yet so I can't comment any further...

 

[Robespierre]

The point is theres no way on God's Green Earth that a phalanx (even elite and fortified) could stand up to a gunpowder unit, must less a tank unit, ever! They would be dog food. Period.

First off, it's no longer a phalanx, it's a spearman, and secondly, that's not necessarily true. Primitively armed but determined fighters in a metropolis could hold off a tank assault if you didn't even bother to bombard them first. Anybody who knows guerrilla tactics will tell you that. Look at what happened in China between the nationalists and communists, or in Vietnam. Those damn Viet-Congs were in there using sharpened bamboo sticks against US Marines when they ran out of ammo (which happened often), and although the Vietnamese were getting killed in a ratio of like 100 to 1 they still won the war.

Remember that a civilization that has its resources sabotaged is reduced to fighting with spearmen or some other "free" unit, so spearmen can also represent just hastily assembled rag-tag militia who are improperly armed and lack ammunition. These kind of warriors could certainly hold off tanks with a big bit of luck and the proper circumstances, though at heavy casualties, and certainly not if they were the target of a concentrated bombardment first.

 

[joespaniel]

For the sake of playing the game, I will keep Robespierre's explanation in the back of my head.

I really like the bombardment ability, and cant wait to try it out. Alas, my copy of the game has not come yet. I pre-ordered from Amazon. Has anyone gotten theirs yet? From Amazon?