Retreat Odds?

[Giaur]

First factor is ratio strofattacker : strofdefender

There is one more factor that matters. You mentioned about that: how big is defender's bonus.
Is it 0 percent or 200 percent.

When defensive bonus is big, it's better to use Combat, I think f.e.
I would promote my maceman to combat when facing CG3,Guerilla2 archer.

And I would use CR promotion for my mace when facing CG2 longbow.

But you were right about one more thing. It's too late to think straight I would not bet that I am saying true

 

[burlicconi]

Combat is not only simple adding % to base strength. If you have warrior with 25% against archery units, it is not 2+ 2*0.25, it is archer- 25%.
retreat odds (as I have read in some topics before) is not working as usually combat. If some unit have 30% retreat odds, it means that if strength of that unit drop to almost zero, only then unit has 30% chance to survive...

 

[Giaur]

Reasuming: I do not actually understand how this function ...
x - defensive bonus
y - ratio attackerstrenth:defenderstrength
... looks.

It's important to check how this function looks like, when defensive bonus is a negative number (as Knight had one when defending against pike).

 

[Giaur]

@burlicconi: We've just figured out, that it's not 25 percent it's rather
100-100/125 I think. This means 100%-80%. Archer loses 20 percent not 25.

 

[oyzar]

Um it is pretty clear combat for attacker is added to attacker then multiplied to base strength. For defeder you take all other bonuses and penalties and if it is greater than 0 you multiply by 1+number and if it is less than 0 you divide. so -25% would be basestrength/1.25 while +25% would be basestrength*1.25

 

[Giaur]

Yes. When bonuses are possitive, you multiply these bonuses by defender's strength. When bonuses are negative you multiply these bonuses (but with plus sign) by attacker's strength. It gives an answer: Is it better to attack? But it does not give an answer: Should I use City Raider or Combat. We could assume that CR gives better results in most cases, but it does not include such factor: Combat acts better in open ground.

I just do not want to reach for calculator every time I siege a city.

 

[seizer]

This is very interesting, and more than a little bit counter-intuitive.

I guess that this explains why trebs get so good odds vs longbows. In general this means that non-strength bonuses are better when the attacker has lower base str than the defender, right?

Edit:
Actually looking at the numbers the difference between the ways of calculating seem to be very small in the treb vs longbow case...

Edit again:
Looks like I had the calculation wrong. It does indeed make a very big difference...

 

[oyzar]

Non-strength bonuses are mostly better because they are way larger... we are looking for the cases where this is not true(where you would want combat instead of non-combat) but yes with lower base strength than the defender non-combat bonuses become even better.

 

[JujuLautre]

All this is because Strength bonuses are multiplicative on attack but additive on defense. So with strength promotions, combat will lots of times not have the same odds on attacks and on defense.

 

[seizer]

Non-strength bonuses are mostly better because they are way larger... we are looking for the cases where this is not true(where you would want combat instead of non-combat) but yes with lower base strength than the defender non-combat bonuses become even better.

Well, like you said it's only true when the defender has very high defensive bonuses. If you are attacking a CG III Longbow in a hill city with 40% cultural defence Combat II is better than Combat + I Cover if my calculations are correct.

 

[Quechua]

As far as I understand it, the base strengths of the attacker and defender don't matter for these combat vs. city raider type decisions.

C1 is better than CR1 if defender's bonus is greater than 120%
C2 is better than CR2 if defender's bonus is greater than 170%
C3 is better than CR3 if defender's bonus is greater than 225%

You should take a look at the 'combat explained' article in the war academy.

 

[Thomas G.]

Flanking vs. Combat.
Advantage combat: First off, a win is a vastly superior result. Firstly, you destroy your enemy. Secondly a victory gives good exp while a withdraw give 1 exp. Exp which gives a promotion means both a stronger unit, and an instant heal. Thirdly your unit will be less hurt (than a not-quit-so-strong unit would be, anyway) while a withdrawn unit will always be in need of masive healing. Many times this is not very different from a loss (you pay unit upkeep for it, it is useless while hurt etc etc). Protracted wars is a liability

Do use flanking if your unit is non-immune to first strikes AND the enemy has a powerful top defender. Like one nasty CR3 Drill2 archer or something. Rest of units in target square will typically be weaker. The one flanking unit will (hopefully) damage this elite opponent a little bit, but will expect to be neutralized itself. But later units will have acceptable odds against it. This will of course require flanking II to neutralize the first strikes.

Combat vs. City raider: When I have units poised outside a city, I very rarely give the city attackers anything but CR. One or two macemen should have combat, to defend the stack. They can be used against easy mop-up duty against the city. But city raider I on a maceman is most of the time better than combat I even against a raw archer in a city. Because archers have a natural 50% city-defence bonus. And besides, city raider gets increasingly better each level, and also the CRIII comes with a useful +10% against gunpowder units. And when upgraded to grenadiers, this makes them instant rifleman-in-city killers. And at a certain point in the game, "your attack stack" vs. "enemy rifleman-held city" is a very common occurence. So I would use CR on macemen a lot. However never give the promo until you are next to enemy city, ready to attack. And have some elite combat in the stack, because as pointed out, CR is totally useless you are assaulting the city.

Btw, when I can field macemen the road to trebuchets is usually not far off. And trebs are so amazingly good at city attack. CR all the way, they typically get 60% or slightly better at CR2 against fortified veteran longbows when cultural defense is stripped away. That is the first attack, after that it only goes uphill (or downhill for target city). My macemen rarely NEED the CR promotion to win, they just need to advance towards the all-mighty CRIII. At which point they usually are kept safe unless really really needed. Attacking at up to 96% or so will still give 2 exp. I think.

 

[Giaur]

Flanking vs. Combat.
Advantage combat: First off, a win is a vastly superior result. Firstly, you destroy your enemy. Secondly a victory gives good exp while a withdraw give 1 exp. Exp which gives a promotion means both a stronger unit, and an instant heal. Thirdly your unit will be less hurt (than a not-quit-so-strong unit would be, anyway) while a withdrawn unit will always be in need of masive healing. Many times this is not very different from a loss (you pay unit upkeep for it, it is useless while hurt etc etc). Protracted wars is a liability

I agree with all arguments you put on the table. But I still use flanking, I do not want losing a battle.

 

[Giaur]

Combat vs. City raider: When I have units poised outside a city, I very rarely give the city attackers anything but CR. One or two macemen should have combat, to defend the stack. They can be used against easy mop-up duty against the city. But city raider I on a maceman is most of the time better than combat I even against a raw archer in a city. Because archers have a natural 50% city-defence bonus. And besides, city raider gets increasingly better each level, and also the CRIII comes with a useful +10% against gunpowder units. And when upgraded to grenadiers, this makes them instant rifleman-in-city killers. And at a certain point in the game, "your attack stack" vs. "enemy rifleman-held city" is a very common occurence. So I would use CR on macemen a lot. However never give the promo until you are next to enemy city, ready to attack. And have some elite combat in the stack, because as pointed out, CR is totally useless you are assaulting the city.

I rarely use CR promotions. The explanation: I need max 2 CR units to capture the city. Too many CityRaiders is a waste, because CR is useless outside the city walls.

 

[CivCorpse]

I believe it is like that ...
a) C2 Knight attacks C2F Pikeman:
10 + 2 (20% strength) vs 6 + 6 (100%) + 2.7 (20% +25% promotions)
It's 12 vs 14.7

b) C2F Pikeman attacks C2 Knight
6 + 1.2 (20% strength) vs 10 - x (20% knight strength - 25% formation - 100% base pikeman bonus = -105%)

But how to decrease strength below 0. It's of course BS. I opened the game and checked Knight's strength. It's 4.87.
So I believe it's sth like 200%-105%=95% of 10 strength.

Why is that? Do not ask me. I always had problems with understanding that and I claim that battle system is unnatural.

the 4.87 is the knights strength shown as it compares to the pikeman's base 6 strength

a c2 knight's strength of 12 is 81% of a c2Fpikeman's strength of 14.7

So 81% of the base strength of 6, is 4.87

Now do the math for this one I think i would rather have a HA over a tank anyday when facing a spearman

 

[Willburn]

Flanking vs. Combat.
Advantage combat: First off, a win is a vastly superior result. Firstly, you destroy your enemy. Secondly a victory gives good exp while a withdraw give 1 exp. Exp which gives a promotion means both a stronger unit, and an instant heal. Thirdly your unit will be less hurt (than a not-quit-so-strong unit would be, anyway) while a withdrawn unit will always be in need of masive healing. Many times this is not very different from a loss (you pay unit upkeep for it, it is useless while hurt etc etc). Protracted wars is a liability

This is only a true statement in isolated 1 unit vs 1 unit fights. Flanking horses can be compared with catapults. (the greatest unit in civ4 is bombard unit imho..And if you knew how many times the catapult has been tweaked beceause of how powerfull it is you would agree.)

In stack attacks you want to hurt your opponent early and get away with it, then let other units mop up the weak enemy units. This gives very high kill to loss ratios. Usually this is achived with sacrificing catapults early (cheap and expendable) and mop up with stronger units. But I can see flankers could have this role as well. In naval battles I allways prefered flanking submarines anyway.

A case against Flanking:
But there are weaknesses of flanking. It is not used on defence. This is not a big problem in single player where its easy to pick your fights, but in cut throat multiplayer games you are usually looking at gettting cata'ed and counterattacked the turn before you attack a city if the opponent sees you have only flanking units.

Conclusion:
I think flanking is at its greatest when your trying to attack a very deadly unit and bring him down while minimizing losses. Much like I used to do a sub and destroyer to kill a battleship. (or two subs) Or when you have that lone longbow with city defence 2, it could pay off to deal with that guy first with some flanking. The problem is you are more likly to face a spear or pike in that scenario instead of the longbow you where out after.