Primative units vs Modern Units

[Headline]

classic stuff...



The sacking of Rome in the 5th Century?

Oh and don't forget the Americans in Vietnam...

The barbarians did have better technology in 5th Century. In fact, most of Legions were recruited from various tribes of barbarians. It was a time when heavy cavalry (new technology) dominated over foot walking legions.

Americans lost due to civil disorders at home. The statistics show that North Vietnamese had more casualty. The North Vietnamese isn't primitive either. They were armed with AK provided by China and Russia.

 

[SignalSgt]

OK, a longbowman has a strength of 6? (is that right?) boosted, oh, let's say 100% from various bonuses to 12...

A Tank has 28
A Chopper has 20

Are you actually losing these battles consistently?

YES!! Now Redcoats in cities are taking down modern armor

 

[dpaajones]

YES!! Now Redcoats in cities are taking down modern armor

Excellent - those British troops sure have balls!

 

[DeathsHead]

Im wondering how unit upgrades are effecting these battles. Improved city defence for example. The way I figure it a battle is not just a single engagement anyways ( given the time per turn ). Maybe your crews were caught out of their choppers taking a crap, who knows.
As long as these type of losses are not a common occurence, its no big deal to me. Call it good/bad luck.

 

[Slimbo]

hmm

I just tried to imagin what I (being commander of an lonbow unit) would do when I had to defend a city which is been attack by tanks...

I would look for some primitive but feasable workarounds, e.g.:

1) Buring holes and covering the trap (like stoneage men done hunting) when the tank falls into the hole I would burn a smoky fire to force the units to leave their tank and then still disorientated they could be taken out with my bows

2) I would use moltow cocktails (assuming that a commando of my longbow archers woud definitly be able to steal some fuel from the attacking army even though I don't have the technology for fuel yet)

3) I would try to steal some explosives and use them against the attackers

So for sure being realistic I would loose way more men then them but still I think IT IS realistic that longbow men could take out a couple of tanks, and sometimes even the whole attackers

Against choppers my commander would need a bit more wit but maybe the following could work:

1) Duck & Cover ;-) and maybe just by luck when a chopper coming down to low looking for me somen could bring up something like a "rope-trap" eg throwing a rope tied to a building into the rotors...

2) burning lots of fires to take out the sensors (smoke against optic, heat against infrared)

So in general if you assume that primitive units do adapt their tactics despite their primitive weapons a lucky strike is very realistic and could happen.

In real life, for example:
-A terrorist fisherboat nearly took out a modern amercian destroyer about 5 years ago or so (USS Cole (sp?)

- More or less daily criminals only armed with knifes take out policemen armed with mordern pistols or even machine guns

- When I was still serving in the German army as a commander of a "modern armor" we did had real losses (total loss of equipment, and even serious injuries) just by accidents - it was just a training mission without any real ammunition, but in unknown rough terrain these things happen quite often - and I think a good tactial commander could force these things to happen even though he only has a shouvel and some primitive bows
For example (happened to mee) you can make a modern tank useless by just chopping trees (if the barrier is big enough and hidden from infrared and optical sensors, the tank could be totally stuck.... and don't ask how my eyes looked like for the next 2 weeks because I was still on the optics when we hit the barrier with 30 miles/h )

 

[whb]

The more unrealistic part is that the civ you are attacking with modern tanks and gunships only has spears, and black market AK-47s and RPGs haven't made an appearance.

 

[A'AbarachAmadan]

The more unrealistic part is that the civ you are attacking with modern tanks and gunships only has spears, and black market AK-47s and RPGs haven't made an appearance.

They may be spearmen on the screen, but I think of them more as a nation that hasn't developed the technology, but some of their forces may have recieved it on the black market. Think Somolia, then I don't feel so annoyed about such things, or I won't when I get the game.

 

[Slimbo]

Just one more thought to the number thing (30 archers vs. 30 choppers)...

Antique army's had virtually no supply units, modern army's however have in general a ration of 1/10 (meaning 10 men in supply for just 1 men in combat).

So if you have a platoon of 6 modern battle tanks (4 men each =24 men), you would need another 240 men in all stages of supply and tactical and strategical stages. If you believe in equal number of men (not weapons) between antique and mordern units, you would have 260 archers to build traps or throw molotow cocktails on only 6 tanks - not 260 tanks...

This even opens up another tactic for the poor lonbow men - attacking and disrupting supply lines If you think of one square side being several hundred kilometers long, a tank would be more or less useless if you suceeded to disrupt his fuel supply with guerilla tactis, he wouldn't even see the city walls... so you just have to wait until the guys on the tanks start starving and get out of it

 

[Jecrell]

Gentlemen...

It's about time you invested into DESTROYING DEFENSES FIRST. You can't honestly expect to win battles against cities that have defense values up to 80% that you've been fighting over a century with fully upgraded defensive units to die singlehandedly to newly created modern units.

Make use of your artillery; it's worth using it.

 

[Dominico]

Nice post slimbo. Good to see some people thinking "outside the box"

The combats are not supposed to be just a tank vs a man with a spear. In a street battle like stalingrad ect, the men with the "spears" could do quite well against tanks using other tactics also.

On the open plains as you are imagining the battles im sure they would do a lot better.

Just imagine the spearmen to be like the tribesmen in Blackhawk down. They managed to get their hands on some anti tank rockets and took out the helos.

Strange things can happen. Maybe like others say you need to destroy the defences they are behind before relying on super tech. Super tech doesnt always work.

P.S. Rome wasnt sacked in 5th 6th century BC. The Barbarians were let into the city without a fight. It wasnt a mad burning rampage though many modern pictures show otherwise.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

My units have been getting solidly owned fighting on the defensive against hopelessly primitive units... There is absolutely no reason that longbowman ought to be able to attack and kill a tank defending a city, but that's exactly what has happened to me.

As a side note: I found the people writing about how they imagine the spearmen/longbowmen as people in a 3rd world country using means other than their weapons to defend rather amusing because I once wrote a fiction story for Civ3 about a Spearman v. Modern Armor battle in which a defending Spearman turned back my Modern Armor.

It was the only time it happened, so I laughed it off and decided to make a story out of it. In the story, a number of farmers and citizens armed only with pikes successfully sent the Russian 9th Armored Division to the bottom of the Marne by blasting the bridges over the river as the tanks were advancing.

The first part of the story was told from the perspective of the farmers. The second was told from the perspective of the commander of the campaign against the city explaining to the Kruschev-esk high commander how exactly his armor was turned back by a bunch of untrained yokels with pikes...



Nevertheless, consistent defeat at the hands of pathetically out of date units especially when they are attacking makes for bad gameplay and ultimately takes away any reward from advancing technologically in the game. It must be rectified.

 

[DeathsHead]

Nevertheless, consistent defeat at the hands of pathetically out of date units especially when they are attacking makes for bad gameplay and ultimately takes away any reward from advancing technologically in the game. It must be rectified.

How consistent is it? There are many bonuses through promotions, culture, time fortified,etc. that could have a real impact, or is it just an unlucky random thing? I havn't really noticed it myself ( of course Ive only played a couple of games so far ), will post if/when I do.

 

[pathos]

When this type of thing happens, I don't view it was "my tank was killed by a spearman" because the models on the screen are just representations of a unit. IRL, of course, a tank would run over a spearman, but the game is looking at the battle as one unit with such-and-such stats going up against another unit with some other stats, and then it becomes just calculations and rolls of the dice and uncanny things are bound to happen then.

But, like Jecrell said, players should really get in the habit of destroying defenses first. It really helps.

 

[Carver]

i think people should use more math than sterotype when playing this game.

Agreed. Also, the player with the tech lead shouldn't be able to dominate too easily. Of course, military advancement is part of the reason for going through the tech tree. But for gameplay, the tech leaders still need to face a challenge if they go to conquer the world.

 

[trogdorix]

unit promotions also play a large part. if you can get some longbows to go Barb hunting early on, you can usually rack up four of five promotions, letting them be a great defence against later era units.

Antique army's had virtually no supply units, modern army's however have in general a ration of 1/10 (meaning 10 men in supply for just 1 men in combat).

that's not quite true--the ratio is 1/10 support, not supply. the difference between the terms is actually quite large. My entire Field Artillary brigade is considered to be "combat support", even though artillaray over in Afghanistan and Iraq have removed more enemy targets than any other type of unit.

 

[Fieryphoenix]

As I've said in another, similar thread... the situation is preposterous only if you assume the units have to attack only with the equipment that would be available when they were first available to me made. If on the other hand you assume that a meagre store of modern weapons, far fewer than neccesary to actualy become a modern unit but, well, enough, then the very rare victory becomes plausible as, say, really bad luck for those chopper pilots that the warlord's followers had snagged a few, decades-old surplus SAMs from the war when their country was invaded by that big super power that eventually left. Sound like any world situations now you know of?

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Well, regardless of whether or not you like to envision the spearmen doing something other than using spears against the tanks, you're still playing a game. And as such, if the game seems to screw you too often, there's a problem. Like I said, I too imagine in my mind a more complicated situation that what the graphics show, but still, if I can't even wage a decent war, there's really no point for me to even be playing, is there?

 

[TerraHero]

classic stuff...



The sacking of Rome in the 5th Century?

Oh and don't forget the Americans in Vietnam...

In the case of Rome, Rome ahd lsot its lead due to centuries of internal corruption, the disbanding of the Leionairy Cohorts being replaced by inferieur troops. Wavering commerce and the increase in pwoer of the rest of the world compared to the Romans. Rome HAD a lead in about anything when it was getting powerfull but lost it.

As for the US, yeah i guess they DID lose, but wanna compare casualty rating? Its not like they lost a 1 to 1 ratio, the casualites on VC side where enormous compared to the US. Thus making it rather hordes of inferieur troops taking down 1 superior then 1 inferieur taking down hordes of superier. Wich is kinda the way it should be right? so this was rather an arguement against the current way where obsolete troops beat superier updated units.

 

[CLDragon]

Actually, tanks did not defeat cavalry in WW1. Tanks played a very small role in WW1 and were probably not worth the investment of research time and money as far as their impact in WW1 was concerned; they merely forshadowed that the next war would be fought differently. Cavalry was out of use by the time tanks were introduced, because cavalry was beaten by the higher rate of fire and accuracy of modern rifles, to which a horse and rider presented too good a target.

i think he ment Poland vs Germany in WWII...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_September_Campaign

althou almost every army had a calvary in WWII, not for charging but for special perposes such as recon or mobile infantry.

 

[Mujadaddy]

YES!! Now Redcoats in cities are taking down modern armor

If you're attacking a city with a tank FIRST, that's your problem. Soften up the target.