"One unit per one tile" strategy thoughts

[Ellestar]

How is that true?

I will admit that say 4324 is less 'usable' than 28, but 4000 is actually more so (simpler number)

28 would be more usable than 4000 IF that 28 accurately represented the odds.

...
I'm sure there are some smart books about it, but i don't know them. But one simple fact should have told you that i'm right: noone but you ever complained about it, and strength numbers higher than 30 are almost never being used in a popular computer games, the only number that is sometimes higher is HP.

No, in civ 4 (and civs 1-3 as well) they still have "trouble" in the sense that
1. They CAN die to that archer
2. They almost Always will take damage from that combat (except in the case of Civ 1 where there was no damage)

Mine would only eliminate #1 (A Mace/Elephant wold probably be like 10x as strong as an Archer, say 3x as strong as a fortified Forest Archer.. so it would still defnitely win)

Which seems like a better system as it
1. Truly eliminates Spear v. Tank
2. Allows weaker units to still have impact even if they Don't have massive impact

Any wargame combat system i know fixes these issues as well. They also don't add a 5-digit numbers for a player to count, and they don't have a dumbed down linear exchange of units.

There are interacting systems... ie

The "Str Bonus System".. partially exploited through tactical positioning
Terrain Bonuses
Position Bonuses (Flanking).. could be in
Unit v. Unit Bonuses
Promotion/Experience Bonuses

The Economic System.. with probable tie ins to the Social System, etc.
Building the units.. ties into unit v. unit + promotion experience
Maintaining units
Repairing the units

Movement System
Getting the units to the front


Als of those interact with combat, because this is Not Panzer General, so you don't need or WANT as much tactical complexity, there are other systems to provide that.

They don't make combat complex because they don't change tactics (that is, there is only one tatics - a Stack of Death).

 

[r_rolo1]

However, I will stick with the general tenor of my claim, which is that after medieval periods, it is relatively rare to be assaulting a city which has an entire enemy army in it. If nothing else, this is because more modern armies were *big* and took up a lot of space, and because they tended to require more manuever.

Frederick and Napoleon are medieval enough for you? Ok, most of the napoleonic warfare was in open field, but it had some sieges to armies fortified in cities ( probably the most famous ones would be a the hemi-failed siege of Mantua ( because Napoleon was forced to abandon the siege and the siege equipement to march and beat a reinforcement army, and thus he was forced to make a blockade and starve the city when he got back ) or the failed one to Acre ), but a lot of the Frederick war actions were sieges to cities , most of the times with the enemies inside ( like the failed siege of Prague ).

And better not talk of other post medieval wars, like the 30 years war ....

 

[JanissaryRush]

In the modern Era you get so many units in all the civ games, it would be interesting to see how they work it in Civ 5.

 

[chongli]

Frederick and Napoleon are medieval enough for you? Ok, most of the napoleonic warfare was in open field, but it had some sieges to armies fortified in cities ( probably the most famous ones would be a the hemi-failed siege of Mantua ( because Napoleon was forced to abandon the siege and the siege equipement to march and beat a reinforcement army, and thus he was forced to make a blockade and starve the city when he got back ) or the failed one to Acre ), but a lot of the Frederick war actions were sieges to cities , most of the times with the enemies inside ( like the failed siege of Prague ).

And better not talk of other post medieval wars, like the 30 years war ....

A siege is not the same thing as a battle. Many sieges do not end in battles as often either the defender will surrender or the attacker will give up and retreat. Actual assaults on the dug-in defenders in the city during a siege are relatively rare.

 

[r_rolo1]

You can say the exact same thing about sieges in middle ages ... by some reason some lasted more than one decade Anyway, there is no qualitative diference between the siege warfare in napoleonic warfare and the medieval one ( or even the classical one ) in that aspect ... so the argument of Ahriman does not make sense either way.

 

[Jabba]

However, I will stick with the general tenor of my claim, which is that after medieval periods, it is relatively rare to be assaulting a city which has an entire enemy army in it. If nothing else, this is because more modern armies were *big* and took up a lot of space, and because they tended to require more manuever.

Also, because preservation of the army was very important (partly because it was harder to raise a new one), and so it was often seen to be wiser to abandon the city to preserve the army, rather than fight a losing defensive battle.

I agree with all this. It’s very true that armies tried where possible to avoid getting holed up in cities under siege, and would sometimes abandon a city to achieve this (think of Moscow in 1812, though there are various other examples).

The ideal was to have a garrison that was large enough to man the city’s defences, but beyond that extra soldiers in the city were generally counter-productive. They were more mouths to feed without being able to do much unless the enemy found a way in (by which time it was typically too late anyway!).

The best way to deal with a siege was to attack the besiegers from the rear. Of course, this is only possible to do if you still have a relieving army roaming around somewhere outside the city!

By the way, here is quite an interesting article I chanced on that is all about attacking and defending cities throughout the ages.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2002/MOUTDimarco.htm

It stresses the ambiguous nature of city-based warfare, which was apparently discussed by Sun Tzu as long ago as 500 BC. Basically, you’d much rather avoid having to fight for cities – but sometimes you have no alternative.

 

[Chris Stalis]

I would like to take a moment to remind people that the game is deliberately trying to merely abstract combat, not to include a representation of each aspect of military strategy available at the current unit level. For all the value in historical argument about cities, the simple fact remains that a lot of combat occurs outside of cities. Even with historically significant and memorable events, the effort to favor "in the field" warfare may simply have forced an inability for field units to be conceptualized the same as city units.

Everyone in the discussion should that a city will have its own defenses in ADDITION to its 1 UPT for home defense. I believe this is being considered sufficient for the level of abstraction in the game right now, and these "grand sieges" would be intended to be modeled and roleplayed as interacting with the "city garrison" building or whatever they choose to call it. Thus, there will still be a concentration of force afforded to a city... it just won't be the same as a concentration of force in the field due to the limitations of encouraging that field combat.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

...
I'm sure there are some smart books about it, but i don't know them. But one simple fact should have told you that i'm right: noone but you ever complained about it, and strength numbers higher than 30 are almost never being used in a popular computer games, the only number that is sometimes higher is HP.


Any wargame combat system i know fixes these issues as well. They also don't add a 5-digit numbers for a player to count, and they don't have a dumbed down linear exchange of units.

Let me say this one time
Civ is NOT a war game, we don't worry about ammo or armor facings

Most wargames don't cover spearman to tanks, so they have no need for multiple digits differences because one unit is not 100* as good as another... What would you rather have in Civ 4, 100 Warriors SoD or a Mechanized Infantry, based on Combat survivability alone... you'd take the Mech Infantry. I'm pretty sure that situation never happens in a Wargame (except for units that can't attack another one/have special abillities)

Most wargames have no civilian side so they can throw tons of extra complexity into combat.

Quite frankly, Why isn't it appaling that Civ has a "dumbed down" linear economy model. If a linear model is good enough for the key aspects of civ (production/technology, ie empire building) it is definitely complex enough for a SECONDARY part of civ (combat)


Also, people have complained about the Transparency of combat... all the "Spearman lost to Tank" is complaining about that transparency.

All the demands for an in-game combat calculator are complaints about that lack of transparency

You look at the situation and it Doesn't do what you expect it to do, that is BAD game design.

If the Spearman was a Str 10, and the Sword a Str 15. And the random Factor wasn't too complex ..ie single step randomness. Then someone can easily determine the result... and Understand the result.

It's not just 'predicting' the odds, its understanding the relationships between different units.

You should be able to tell the Relationship between Str 5 and Str 6 on a level more than
6>5.. on average
without having to use a combat calcuator

...
They don't make combat complex because they don't change tactics (that is, there is only one tatics - a Stack of Death).

1. Combat >>> Tactics
There is the strategy of building the right mix forces and maintaining the forces, dealing with the war weariness

2. Tactics (with SoD) do exist, they consist of
Moving the SoD to the right terrain
Attacking with the correct units in the SoD (knowing when to suicide units)
Taking the time to Heal units v. moving on
Knowing how to split the SoD without it becoming vulnerable.

Those are Limited tactics but they are still there.

Note that the Only difference between a SoD and a Blob of Death (with 1 UPT) is that the Relative positions of the units matter.. now that is significant.


Finally,
I don't see where "checking the combat calculator" is a Tactic.

The combat systems of Civ 1-4 (including Rev) have moved towards increasing Lack of understandability. They have said one of the core ideas in Civ V is "what you see is what you get"... hopefully it means a reverse of that trend towards stupidly complex combat systems.

 

[da_Vinci]

I don't see where "checking the combat calculator" is a Tactic.

The combat systems of Civ 1-4 (including Rev) have moved towards increasing Lack of understandability. They have said one of the core ideas in Civ V is "what you see is what you get"... hopefully it means a reverse of that trend towards stupidly complex combat systems.

I see the odds calculator as a time saving device ... whether there are internal rounds of combat, with different damage per hit in an internal round, or not ... there will still be terrain modifiers (maybe more than one per tile?) and I would like to have something that saves me the time to work out the odds.

Of course, the expectation of a probabilistic event is the proportion of a large number of trials that realize the event ... so if the combat system is to retain some variability of outcome for a particular matchup, it will never be completely predictable in any one instance.

So I think the issue is less about whether strength counts are single, double, or quadruple digits, and more about whether maintaining a random (or perhaps really pseudorandom) element in the resolution of combat is desirable or not.

dV

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I see the odds calculator as a time saving device ... whether there are internal rounds of combat, with different damage per hit in an internal round, or not ... there will still be terrain modifiers (maybe more than one per tile?) and I would like to have something that saves me the time to work out the odds.

Of course, the expectation of a probabilistic event is the proportion of a large number of trials that realize the event ... so if the combat system is to retain some variability of outcome for a particular matchup, it will never be completely predictable in any one instance.

So I think the issue is less about whether strength counts are single, double, or quadruple digits, and more about whether maintaining a random (or perhaps really pseudorandom) element in the resolution of combat is desirable or not.

dV

Well there is a difference between the combat odds calculator and the Strength calculator
The Strength calculator showed you each step in an understandable way (+50% v. Melee, +25% on hill, etc.)

The Odds calculator Didn't show you How it got the calculated result, it couldn't, because that would have taken the entire Screen and several equations/levels of iteration.

That means the game mechanic was Way too complicated.

Nothing wrong with Random, but it should be simple one-step random

"checking the combat calculator" should be like checking the production calculator... or checking the strength values, every step should be understandable.

 

[chongli]

I see the odds calculator as a time saving device ... whether there are internal rounds of combat, with different damage per hit in an internal round, or not ... there will still be terrain modifiers (maybe more than one per tile?) and I would like to have something that saves me the time to work out the odds.

Of course, the expectation of a probabilistic event is the proportion of a large number of trials that realize the event ... so if the combat system is to retain some variability of outcome for a particular matchup, it will never be completely predictable in any one instance.

So I think the issue is less about whether strength counts are single, double, or quadruple digits, and more about whether maintaining a random (or perhaps really pseudorandom) element in the resolution of combat is desirable or not.

dV

My educated guess (based on all of the stuff I've read and my experience with PG) is that combat won't have "internal rounds" anymore. When you attack a target, you'll do some damage and then the target responds and does some damage to you. The amounts of damage will likely be randomized with many different factors affecting the outcome (strengths of the units, terrain, promotions etc).

If it works like this, the combat odds calculator would simply tell you how much damage you are likely to do (on average) and how much damage you are likely to receive (on average).

 

[KrikkitTwo]

My educated guess (based on all of the stuff I've read and my experience with PG) is that combat won't have "internal rounds" anymore. When you attack a target, you'll do some damage and then the target responds and does some damage to you. The amounts of damage will likely be randomized with many different factors affecting the outcome (strengths of the units, terrain, promotions etc).

If it works like this, the combat odds calculator would simply tell you how much damage you are likely to do (on average) and how much damage you are likely to receive (on average).

And hopefully that would all be easily calculatable
ie
Base Str=6
On Hill=*2
v. Cavalry=*2

Your Final Str=24

Enemy Str=6

Damage done = 20-40 hp (you are the stronger unit)
Damage Received= 5-10 hp (6/24* base amount) (they are the weaker unit)

or
Damage done= 32-48 hp=40-60 hp * 24/(24+6)).... avg=40
Damage received=8-12 hp = 40-60 hp * 6/(24+6)....avg=10

 

[chongli]

And hopefully that would all be easily calculatable
ie
Base Str=6
On Hill=*2
v. Cavalry=*2

Your Final Str=24

Enemy Str=6

Damage done = 20-40 hp (you are the stronger unit)
Damage Received= 5-10 hp (6/24* base amount) (they are the weaker unit)

or
Damage done= 32-48 hp=40-60 hp * 24/(24+6)).... avg=40
Damage received=8-12 hp = 40-60 hp * 6/(24+6)....avg=10

Sure, that sounds like a simple scenario. There may be a lot more factors involved, however. Terrain improvements, city improvements, promotions, attacker vs. defender etc.

As an example, pikemen should absolutely destroy cavalry when they defend against them. On the other hand, pikemen should not be nearly as effective at charging the cavalry and attacking them.

 

[Ahriman]

Pikemen had better be effective at attacking cavalry. A purely defensive unit has no purpose, because no-one will be dumb enough to attack it.

There's no such thing as a stack-guard anymore.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Sure, that sounds like a simple scenario. There may be a lot more factors involved, however. Terrain improvements, city improvements, promotions, attacker vs. defender etc.

And all those factors should very simply act as a multiplier/modifier to the Strength
No "First Strikes" etc. Those are part of the Range system.

So

Unit Base Strength
* Terrain Factors (attacking From terrain and defending from terrain)
* Terrain/City Improvements Factors (Forts/Fortifications)
* Unit specific Terrain Factors
* Unit Specific Terrain/City Improvement Factors
* Unit specific Enemy Unit type factors
* Attack/Defender specific Factors
* Promotion Factors (some Terrain or enemy unit specific)

+Bonus from other friendly units 'surrounding' target

= Final Strength

Then compare those to determine how much I do to them, and how much they do to me

 

[chongli]

Pikemen had better be effective at attacking cavalry. A purely defensive unit has no purpose, because no-one will be dumb enough to attack it.

There's no such thing as a stack-guard anymore.

No, this is where terrain comes into play. Stick that pikemen unit in the one hex wide valley and tuck archers behind it. Now the enemy has to attack your pikemen or face the wrath of the archers.

Purely defensive units are incredibly valuable because they can serve as mobile barricades.

 

[Ahriman]

So they attack the pikemen with a melee unit, or a ranged unit.

And what if you aren't *in* a chokepoint?
I'm guessing that most wars won't be just at a choke. Should the pikes be useless elsewhere?

There's no reason to make the pikemen unable to be good at attacking cavalry.

 

[frekk]

Give an example of a violent storming of a city and the reply is: aha, there was no prolonged siege so it doesn't count.

Well, the conquest of a city has certainly not disappeared from the game - cities are still the key objectives.

Give an example of a prolonged siege and it is: aha, there was no fighting inside the city so it doesn't count.

It's not that it doesn't count - it's that control of the environs around the city was important too, it was not a case of the defenders huddled only within the city itself. You're right in that city assaults continued to be an important part of war, but as the argument relates to the game itself, civ represents the reality of city assaults very poorly in the way it concentrates defenders within the city and attaches no importance to control of the environs.

I'm not defending the OP, just critiquing the idea that the new system is somehow worse or less realistic than the old system.

 

[r_rolo1]

Jabba has a point there. Some posters here seem to either have a fairly reductive idea of what taking a city is ( first you outmanouver or destroy the enemy main army and get to the city, then you make lines, then you storm the city and make some combat in the walls and inside of them ... if any step of those is missing , there was no battle for the city ) or have no idea at all. Those two ideas were actually veiculed in here and your response to his objection is basically say that it doesn't matter, but without a solid statement why ( first you say that cities will still be important ( well, if cities would not be important in a game called civilization ...( civilization comes from civita, you know ... ) ) and then you say something about the control of the enviroment around the city, like if those issues would not be covered during history by relief armies in most of the ocasions and not by the troops actually trying to defend the city ... )

 

[da_Vinci]

Pikemen had better be effective at attacking cavalry. A purely defensive unit has no purpose, because no-one will be dumb enough to attack it.

There's no such thing as a stack-guard anymore.

No, this is where terrain comes into play. Stick that pikemen unit in the one hex wide valley and tuck archers behind it. Now the enemy has to attack your pikemen or face the wrath of the archers.

Purely defensive units are incredibly valuable because they can serve as mobile barricades.

So they attack the pikemen with a melee unit, or a ranged unit.

And what if you aren't *in* a chokepoint?
I'm guessing that most wars won't be just at a choke. Should the pikes be useless elsewhere?

There's no reason to make the pikemen unable to be good at attacking cavalry.

Hmm ... what is the real difference between attack and defense, other than intent (gain ground vs. hold ground) ... once the two forces meet, is there really much difference in the combat?

Other than that defender gets to shoot at attacker while attacker advances, and the defender can be dug in (which is already covered in terrain, fortifications, and ranged combat) does it matter much whether the horse are charging a phalanx of pikes, or if the phalanx of pikes is marching into the horse (ignoring flanking issues, which seem similar in both cases)?

dV