OMFG...I lost a battleship to a frigate!!!

[Breunor]

And don't jump on the "OMFG REALISM" boat without explaining how ships can travel for hundreds of years without returning to port for maintenance, how you don't need say, Iron to build a battleship. (The Bismark took up more steel than an entire armored division used back in WW2), why, without a magic "blitz" promotion a battleship can sink one puny wooden ship a year at most on the offense, why it takes thirty years for a modern ship to circumnavagate, how you can pay maintenance for troops that are isolated behind enemy lines for hundreds of years without a trade route, or even a corridor of friendly territory (Oh yeah, cuz I pay gold for it! ) and literally *hundreds* of other events.


*stops to breathe*


Seriously, you can't have a game where a turn, at the *least* is six months, and in earlier times can take up to forty years, and then bark about how "unrealitsic" wars are. I don't think that the Civ designers wanted to make a realistic wargame, and if that's what you want to play, then Civ is not for you. I'm not saying it's a bad game, I think Civ is a great game, but that's not what it was designed to be. I mean really, WW2. Do you really think that it should be, game wise, that Germany advanced a huge amount in *THREE* turns, only to have it all reversed, and Germany almost completely occupied in three more? Come on, don't be absurd.

Good post!

And let's not forget about the wonders! Is there any DIRECT way of explaining why building the large statue of Christ the Redeemer allows governments to change without consequences? Building the Oracle gives an advance in technology? Mount Rushmore reduces a civilizations war aversion?

I've always been surprised at the worry that 'my tank got killed by a spear man' but none of these other issues are considered a problem!

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Evie]

Simple. One of these screw the human over (ie, losing a battle at odds they feel they should have won). The rest do not. So people latch on the "irrealism" that has hurt them.

Also, gamers in general are much more obsessive about warfare than any other aspect of empire builders.

But yes - there is VERY little in Civilization that actually reflects reality more than indirectly. The game is all about abstractions ; resources, productivity, workforce management abstracted into food/shield(hammer)/commerce ; scientifical progress abstracted into the tech tree, taxes, all economic matters being abstracted to resource trades and the tax/culture/science sliders, immigration and settlement - complex forces - abstracted to the settler unit...the list goes on an on.

Minefield, accident and supplies are abstracted into the combat system, along with weather, hidden terrain features, etc.
All the dozens of frigates and battleships varieties are abstracted to just two units essentialy, one that represent all frigates from the english warships of the Armada campaign to the mixed sail-steam frigates armed with torpedoes of the late XIXth century , and another that represent all battleships, from sluggish pre-dreadnoughts ala USS Maine or HMS Collingwood to fast and sleek Iowa-class battleships that served into the nineties.

That's just the way everything in CIV is - an abstraction.

 

[Milly]

My biggest contention is the way people can use ridiculously obsolete units for combat, instead of actually having to disband or upgrade them with cost.

Doesn't mean that the obsolete units would -win-, due to the strength disparities.... Though admittedly maybe a squad of 100 warriors could win against a more powerful unit without first strikes. But then, who the Hell has 100 warriors just running around? I mean, seriously? Can you even -make- 100 warriors before normal teching replaces them with axemen/spearmen/whatever?

 

[hornfaust]

it's a running joke, we all know about the stupid match ups in the game that result in losses.

Even if the Frigate doesn't kill a battleship it shouldn't be able to do damage. One shell from a battleship would blow the frigate to bits.

Furthermore, no battleship is going to run out of ammunition. Remember these ships are meant to bombard shores and engage with other like battleships. It's possible they could run out of oil on a long voyage. However even standing still in the ocean 100 frigates couldn't damage a battleship.

 

[ferenginar]

I have lost battleships to frigates on a couple of occasions, but it has involved airships first.

I have also lost a destroyer + 40% to a fleet of caravels

And twice I have lost a battleship to a triangle.

 

[Dero Zero]

Well, in Civ3 spearmen won tanks easily, so this is not so especial. What about if the frigate just sunk the battleship from its back?

 

[Ammar]

it's a running joke, we all know about the stupid match ups in the game that result in losses.

Even if the Frigate doesn't kill a battleship it shouldn't be able to do damage. One shell from a battleship would blow the frigate to bits.

Furthermore, no battleship is going to run out of ammunition. Remember these ships are meant to bombard shores and engage with other like battleships. It's possible they could run out of oil on a long voyage. However even standing still in the ocean 100 frigates couldn't damage a battleship.

You begin to repeat yourself. If you don't contribute anything new than this discussion is not worth continuing. And don't just harp on how unrealistically it is - think about how you would handle the changed gameplay as well.

BTW personally I am convinced that just any military disaster can happen under the command of the "right" sort of commander.

 

[GIO888]

The AI doesn't whinge when it loses a battle at 90% + odds, it goes away and comes back with 3 more battleships.

Gameplay and accuracy and all that are irrelevant, because they are infinite in scalability. I've lost tough veteran units with 90% + chances - it just means that AI is DOOMED from that point - cos I go away and come back with a huge SoD in reprisal!!!

 

[Dero Zero]

And once I won 2 helicopters with a warrior and when I upgraded it, the warrior lost. In Civ these things happen all the time.

 

[Mangas]

That frigate was captained by Chuck Norris.

Or perhaps it was the Black Pearl... I heard that Jack Sparrow is one hell of a Capn'...

 

[munam]

When I was new to Civ 4 I faced riflemen against impi and the impi won by a longshot

 

[Rusty Edge]

Or perhaps it was the Black Pearl... I heard that Jack Sparrow is one hell of a Capn'...

Davey Jones is no slouch on the Flying Dutchman,with those revolving bow chasers, either.

 

[Evie]

That one - Impi beating rifles - happened historically.

 

[Ceritoglu]

Woah disregard what I just wrote

 

[hornfaust]

You begin to repeat yourself. If you don't contribute anything new than this discussion is not worth continuing. And don't just harp on how unrealistically it is - think about how you would handle the changed gameplay as well.

BTW personally I am convinced that just any military disaster can happen under the command of the "right" sort of commander.

I have given a example of how I think it would be better represented. Random events to lose or damange units like, plague, sabatoge, sinking of ships. That is far more realistic compared to warriors beating tanks and frigates beating battleships on the regular basis that they do.

 

[jeffreyac]

To paraphrase the theme song of a TV show I used to enjoy watching....

Just repeat to yourself "It's just a game,
I should really just relax

seriously, game. Not realistic, not even supposed to be realistic or simulation, but game based (loosely) on historical units, techs, etc.

Is it annoying to lose an expensive high-tech unit at rediculously low odds? Absolutely. But I really feel that to keep the GAME balanced, you have to have a combat system that does not ever allow 100% success rate, and if you don't have a 100% success rate you're going to get those wacky results from time to time if you play long enough.

Here's another quote - "One in a million chances come up nine times out of ten" (probably paraphrased, too lazy to go get the actual one!)

 

[hornfaust]

To paraphrase the theme song of a TV show I used to enjoy watching....

Just repeat to yourself "It's just a game,
I should really just relax

seriously, game. Not realistic, not even supposed to be realistic or simulation, but game based (loosely) on historical units, techs, etc.

Is it annoying to lose an expensive high-tech unit at rediculously low odds? Absolutely. But I really feel that to keep the GAME balanced, you have to have a combat system that does not ever allow 100% success rate, and if you don't have a 100% success rate you're going to get those wacky results from time to time if you play long enough.

Here's another quote - "One in a million chances come up nine times out of ten" (probably paraphrased, too lazy to go get the actual one!)

Like I said, in Civ Revolutions they would make it so if you have odds worse than 6:1 you lose automatically. This really encourages better game play rather than spending all your money on other techs while severely neglecting your military.

 

[Wodan]

Like I said, in Civ Revolutions they would make it so if you have odds worse than 6:1 you lose automatically. This really encourages better game play rather than spending all your money on other techs while severely neglecting your military.

How in the world does the 1 in 1000 oddball underdog wins battle situation encourage you to neglect your military?

Are you saying that the player might think, "hey my spearmen will sometimes beat the tanks, so I don't have to worry about getting better military tech"

You have an interesting fact, but I have no idea how you made the logical leap to that nonsensical conclusion... help!

Wodan

 

[jeffreyac]

EDIT: oops, Wodan snuck in while I was typing - meant to follow the post above Wodan's...)

See, I'm forced to respectfully disagree with you there - on two levels:

One, the primary one for me, is that it's a game, and therefore needs to have an element of risk/chance involved to keep it from simply becoming a complex formula. "Let's see, every game I need to build 7 of these guys to attack here, and not lose, and then go there and repeat" - I want (and need) chance in the game to keep it random and, to me, interesting.

Two, if you must look at it from a 'realistic' perspective, I doubt there are very many 'instant wins' in the world historically. Lots of places in history show examples of forces that probably honestly should have lost, but through luck or superior training or skill or leadership or weather or just 'wierd sequences of events' managed to come out on top. (And no, you don't get any examples here - I'm WAY too lazy for that! ) So I still feel a random element, but in the range of >99.9% odds, isn't out of line here.

Of course, I realize this is fully my own silly opinion, and I respect everyone's right to disagree with it! Guess I just wanted to say that I, for one, am not really looking forward to the 7:1 instant win feature, and hoping it doesn't follow into civ V for PC.

 

[afa2000]

I lost three bombers to a knight. I'm still wondering how it could be done.