Please, fix the combat odds!

[Hey Joni]

I post to complain about the combat odds system! I lost ALL of my army to absolutely illogical odds!

First, I attacked a 0% defense Viking city (bombarded) with CR MACEMEN against 2 combat-promoted ARCHERS and an AXEMAN (pulled a succesful CS slingshot and then ran for Machinery). I decided to throw a suicide cat at the defenders. After that I lost TWO CR macemen in the siege, before I finally killed the defenders (that was more than 96% but I was like - "doesn't matter, sh*t happens, I took the city anyway..."). It was the holy city of Judaism and half the continent was Jewish - a very desirable city!

Next, I garrisoned my army in the city. Some units moved away to fight elsewhere... The ones in the city had some time to heal, when HELL BROKE LOOSE!

I had in the city one full strenght/combat 1 maceman, a full strenght/combat 2 spearman and 2 catapults. Some support troops were 2 squares away... Vikings were behind in tech, they had nothing to effectively attack my maceman. The vikings attacked the city with 2 Horse Archers, on the next turn. Guess what - both horses WON! One killed my combat 1 maceman, the other my combat 2 spearman! So I cursed a lot and:

1) killed one of the seriously wounded horse archers with a catapult at 100% odds; and

2) directed one support troop - a combat 1/shock chariot to the city. Its purpose was to defend from the left 0,6 strenght horse archer (just because horse archers have a bonus against the 2 left catapults and I decided to strenghten my defenses).

On the next turn my 4 strenght/combat 1 chariot LOST to the almost dead horse archer! I was so pissed off from this "display of power" that I signed peace to regroup (I also had nothing left near the city)...

Let me just note, that this is not the only time I lost to great odds in the same game! Not to mention the time when ALL of my promoted praetorians dropped like flies to various greek units (chariots/archers/spearmen, not just axemen) This is tragic! I love the game but I hate even thinking about loading an autosave!

I am absolutely sure that the odds are misleading, FIRAXIS, FIX THAT PROBLEM!

 

[Underdawg]

It happens sometimes. It wasn't 100% was it? It all averages out. Gosh, I see this topic everyday. Just prepare for occasional losses.

 

[mice]

I've got to think Hey joni has a point.

In all the Vanilla games I played I dont remember so many radical results. Sure we remember losing the good unit at 92.5% and forget all the times when it wins, but ... Battle seems more kooky in Warlords. I think they changed something.

Having said that i like it. The whole expansion has made the game less predictable , which I think was probably one of their main goals

 

[carlosMM]

heck, I had one game where I went to the combat log three times because I kept thinking I must have misread what it said there: I lost two (!) 100% combats in a row.

but then, what's civ without

 

[Alkazar]

Maybe they should not even write the combats odd. I mean, you must be able to gess by yourself. Also, don't forget what the expression «fog of war means».

 

[Hey Joni]

Having said that i like it. The whole expansion has made the game less predictable , which I think was probably one of their main goals

Yeah, it's nice to have uncertainty to an extent. But the thing is that I fought really hard to have macemen while Ragnar was still far, far away from any corresponding units. That's on Monarch! So when I had a reasonable army with macemen I expected to see the result from that effort... That is what pissed me off, I don't mind the occasional loss of an experienced unit at high odds.

 

[shivute]

Combat does seem to be a lot more random now. I have also lost units with good win odds, however I also win more battles with poor odds - I find it amazing now how my used to be "suicide" catapults last long enough to actually accumulate promos!
I remember winning against a longbow in a city with a catapult with odds of 0.6%!

 

[werdna]

It seems it changes for Warlods.
WHen playing emperor games, I lose a lot 70-80% odd battles (way more than half) and quite a few 90+% battles.

When playing on prince or noble (always war option), I rarely lose 70% battles.

Maybe they changes something about battles based on difficutly level.

 

[holy king]

come on
a 50% odd is a 50% odd....
everything else is your personal impression about it, but mathematics doesnt really care, so no reason to get upset....

 

[Martinus]

It seems that (and I base it both on my own experience and on the surprised howls of people in MP) combat in Warlords is more random than in vanilla. I don't know if this is intended or some bug in calculations?

 

[drkodos]

I only play a few games/week, but in keeping track so far, I am winning about 70% of the battles where my odds to win are about 70%, acheiving victory about 90% when the winning odds are about 90%, and coming out ahead about 50% or less when the odds of winning are 50% or less.

 

[Vonjan]

I'm Curios of the following. where the city located on ?Plain,Hill Thundra.?what were the promotion the horse archer had? Remember they get a -10% VS City attack. How hurt was your maseman when you captured.Now the Odds could go in your Favor a 100% but Start accounting all the red and you'll see where things screwed up second try a few horse Archers with the same Promotion and try the attack with World builder test and try to see it from the attackers position.Remember the city must be of exact same things.also the terrain from wich they attacked from.

 

[Hey Joni]

I'm Curios of the following. where the city located on ?Plain,Hill Thundra.?what were the promotion the horse archer had? Remember they get a -10% VS City attack. How hurt was your maseman when you captured.Now the Odds could go in your Favor a 100% but Start accounting all the red and you'll see where things screwed up second try a few horse Archers with the same Promotion and try the attack with World builder test and try to see it from the attackers position.Remember the city must be of exact same things.also the terrain from wich they attacked from.

Look, I'm not a newbie in this game! I wouldn't post such threads, or in other threads on that topic, if I wasn't absolutely sure that something is wrong. And the odds that I speak of are not 50%, not 70%, they are not 80% or 90%, they ARE 96-7% and above! And I didn't lose 1 unit to such odds, I lost my ENTIRE macemen squad, ON A SINGLE SIEGE and the defense after that!

Another thing! When this game was released I used an exploit with save/load that I later abandoned... I think that it is very relevant (although I feel a little ashamed from myself ):

In the beginning of the game I explored with, say, two or three warriors/scouts. When one of them reached a goody hut, I quick-saved and if it didn't pop a tech, I loaded the game. Then I moved the unit around the goody hut, saving/loading each turn until I got a tech, while I continued exploration with the other units... I know, its WEAK and I NEVER use that anymore, but read on! Eventually, while I went around the hut with one unit, another reached a second hut. So now I had two units going round the huts, waiting for their techs and saving/loading on each turn. Here comes the important part - when one of the units eventually discovered a tech in a hut, the second one discovered another tech ON THE SAME TURN! I've had up to THREE units popping techs IN THE SAME TURN! (that's on Monarch, for the record) What are the odds for that?

I learned to hate this exploit, cause it helped too much, I also got better at playing the game so I don't even think about it now. I think of it as of something that allowed me to play on Monarch before I was good enough to play fair. Because of this exploit, I now hate loading games in general and do it only on rare and serious exceptions. Such strays of "bad luck" have been really annoying, even more when you put a lot of effort to turn the odds at your side on higher levels...

However, the exploit proves that the odds of something happening are not dependant fully on the announced percentage... The odds of tech popping at higher levels are small - why did I pop three of them in the same turn? The same thing happens with combat and those impossible results. Please, feel free to try the hut thing, just to see that I'm not kidding you!

 

[DarkSchneider]

One thing to consider, is that the computer doesn't factor in the cost of crossing a river if your unit is farther than 1 square away from the enemy. That being said, I know there used to be a bug in the odds calculator with first strike units, since at one point I was getting odds over 100% for the win percentage. I'm not sure if the bug is still there. This used to happen a lot with first strike naval units fighting other damaged naval units with first strike.

 

[civ_king]

remember the lowwwwwwwwwwwwwwww chance of such a thing a happening but if 10,000,000 players have even 30 battles a game thats 300 million battles (unlikely) but if is 10 million players play 1000 battles a game thats thats 10 TRILLION battles its gona happen 2 some1

those are rough estimates please correct me if they find the #'s wrong.

 

[andrewlt]

One thing to consider, is that the computer doesn't factor in the cost of crossing a river if your unit is farther than 1 square away from the enemy. That being said, I know there used to be a bug in the odds calculator with first strike units, since at one point I was getting odds over 100% for the win percentage. I'm not sure if the bug is still there. This used to happen a lot with first strike naval units fighting other damaged naval units with first strike.

Yeah, the river bug is nasty until I looked closer and discovered it. I probably lost quite a few units to it. I'm not sure if they fixed the first strike bug yet as I haven't seen 100%+ odds yet playing Warlords.

I'm not really sure why Firaxis keeps a huge chance-based model for their battles. The only reason given by proponents is that it gives an outplayed and outmanuevered civ a chance to win by getting lucky. I hate gameplay mechanics that are designed to give losing sides a chance to win due to luck. Something like a pure hitpoint based mechanic found in RTS games would be better, imo.

 

[Vladesch]

Unless the odds are 80% or more I expect to lose fights. Wouldnt surprise me if they are just "theoretical" odds, ans the real odds are boosted in favor of the computer player at higher levels.

It just happens too much to believe its random chance.

 

[Lord Parkin]

but if is 10 million players play 1000 battles a game thats thats 10 TRILLION battles

10 trillion? Hmm, not according to my maths...

 

[Judge Dee]

one thing i've noticed / suspected is that the way the random number generator works in warlords, if it's decided that your 96.7% odds with a maceman are going to result in failure, it'll result in failure for all of your guys. in other words, if it has decided that you're in for a run of bad luck, you're gonna have a serious run of bad luck. it's gotten to the point where, if if i see a couple units die on high odds, i wait for the next turn and try again.

 

[ThERat]

I played some AW games in warlords and got really fed up with the odd generator, because it seems a little broken. For one, the first strikes are NOT correctly applied, so the issue is that archers, LB's, xbows show higher odds than they are. This can be really annoying.

It's clear that 70% odds in the long run will give you a ratio of 70/30, but then I have to say that losing a few 90%+ odds in a row can be downright frustrating. In a AW this can break the game.
I think C3C gave freak results but with promotions and catapult bombardment one could plan and carry out strikes really nicely to achieve kill ratios of 10:1 or more easily. If you don't believe that, go read SG in C3C forums.