Should attack AND defense ratio's be used in Civ5?

[PeteAtoms]

I haven't played a PC civ game in a long time, but I really like the Attack/Defense/Move model used by CivRev and the promotion system that goes along with it. It is really simple but still provides enough tactical reason to use a few different types of units for specific functions.

I would like a system similar to CivRev with more modifiers (terrain, morale, supply lines, etc) and promotions though.

 

[killmeplease]

i say just NO.
Civ4 strength+bonuses model is a step forward.

 

[techathon]

So far on my website people are saying yes to thet, however only 18 people voted.

 

[Tholish]

Neither, I want combined combat strength, yet I want it separated from hit points. Thus I did not vote.

Currently if you have a longbowman in a city, he has a strength of 6 which is probably more due to bonuses like the city defenses, city defense bonus for longbowmen, and any promotions, but you can't easily see this his combat strength is displayed as 6. He takes damage and now his combat strength is given as 4. Hit points and combat strength are effectively combined. I want his combat strength to remain 6, but since he has lost 1/3 of his archers he now only has 2 hit points and gets two "shots" for every three "shots" that a full hit points attacker may get--even if that attacker is a warrior with a combat strength of 2.

Incidently, a horde of spearmen COULD take out a tank. They climb up on top from behind where its coaxial machine gun cannot reach and simply starve the crew out. If the crew opens the hatch to come out for water or cool air they get a spear in the eye. Thats in an open stand up battle, if they don't think to build tank traps, break the tracks and set the engine on fire. Armed Cupola might be a promotion that could give the tank a massive combat bonus against older unit types like melee and archers.

However, since technically I don't want a separate Defense strenth I'll vote.

 

[Gamemaster77]

Speaking of that I wanted to suggest another idea. Units should have health "checkpoints". After a certain unit loses a certain amount of health there should be a point were the health can't be healed any further. Let's say a unit has 20 health. Once it goes past, let's say 15, it can not be brought up to any more than 15 through fortifying. This represents units dying that can't be revieved. This would definitly be a good idea if they brought back Civ3-like armies. Therefore preventing having the most powerfull type of army and going around killing and fortifying. Then doing it again.

 

[Camikaze]

Or perhaps there could be some sort of mathematical equation regarding healing that factored in the above, rather than just making it an arbitrary decision. And perhaps it should be so that instead of it being impossible to heal from lower health levels, it is just harder.

Cue mathematical formula:
The following represents a curve that outlines healing in enemy territory, assuming no movement. So, whatever a unit's health is, they fall onto the graph at that point, and move towards the endpoint (where H=100 (%)), which is at roughly 20.297. Time moves constantly, obviously, and the amount of health recovered each turn increases exponentially. The following is the formula that I've thrown together using the basic H=A.e^(kt) model:

H=5.[e^(0.15t)]-5, where
H=Health in percentage
t=time in turns
So, the following is a table showing the what percentage health a unit would be at for each turn:

Spoiler :

First column is t, second column is H.

0.1 - 0.07
1 - 0.81
2 - 1.75
3 - 2.84
4 - 4.11
5 - 5.59
6 - 7.30
7 - 9.29
8 - 11.60
9 - 14.29
10 - 17.41
11 - 21.03
12 - 25.25
13 - 30.14
14 - 35.83
15 - 42.44
16 - 50.12
17 - 59.04
18 - 69.40
19 - 81.44
20 - 95.43
20.297 - 100

So, as you can see, as time increases, health recovers at an exponential rate from fortification/healing.

From this formula we can get another one that shows us just how long it takes for a unit to heal, given its health. This formula should makes things much more easy for everyone to see/understand.

Time to recover = 20.297 - ({ln[(H+5)/5]}/0.15)

So, here's another table outlining how long it would take for a unit to recover, given their health.

Spoiler :

Health in first column, time needed to recover in the second.

2% - 18.05
5% - 15.68
10% - 12.97
15% - 11.06
20% - 9.57
25% - 8.35
30% - 7.32
35% - 6.43
40% - 5.65
45% - 4.95
50% - 4.31
60% - 3.20
70% - 2.24
80% - 1.41
90% - 0.67

Note that the actual recovery times would of course be rounded up tot he nearest turn.
As you can see, the recovery time would be exponentially greater at lower health levels, which would seemingly accurately reflect the diminishing ability to recover at those health levels, which would help limit SoDs, for starters, and diminish the power of suicide attacks. Perhaps what I propose is a bit harsh on the low health units, and a bit easy on units that only lose some health, but that can be easily modified with a tweaking of the k variable. Whatcha think?

 

[killmeplease]

As you can see, the recovery time would be exponentially greater at lower health levels, which would seemingly accurately reflect the diminishing ability to recover at those health levels, which would help limit SoDs

It would limit warfare, not sods. Having slowly healing units is equal to lose them for the particular campaign, so you must have even greater sods than before to win number of consequent battles, while sending injured troops to the rear.

 

[Camikaze]

I suppose you could look at it that way, but the healing time would be much quicker within your own territory, so the defender would have the advantage. So, an attacker would not be able to simply throw units at the walls of a city, without the almost certainty of losing those units for the duration of the war, compared to the defender's ability to quickly regenerate. Seeing as this is the principle tactic of SoDs, it would have a limiting effect, I think, although I can see what you're saying. This would be limited even more so if the equation for healing within your own cultural borders was adjusted by the k instead of the A in H=A.e^(kt).

 

[aragogthebest]

i think it could work all you would have to do is make combat streanth range more like

warrior 1attak 1defence
tank 50attak 45defence

or something like that

see simple

 

[Dumanios]

Yeah.

 

[Gamemaster77]

@Camikaze - With your second chart after the first turn the unit would gain about 5% of it's health at 2% originaly making it heal in about 14-15 turns. It doesn't make sence

 

[Camikaze]

It shouldn't do...
It would take a unit 2.37 turns to get from 2% health to 5% health, wouldn't it?

 

[UWHabs]

@Camikaze - With your second chart after the first turn the unit would gain about 5% of it's health at 2% originaly making it heal in about 14-15 turns. It doesn't make sence

Healing in that case is non-linear. So if a unit will take 18 turns to heal, it won't gain 5% a turn. First turn it gains 1%, next turn 1%, next turn 1%, a few turns later it goes up to 2%, and so on.

 

[rysmiel]

Speaking of that I wanted to suggest another idea. Units should have health "checkpoints". After a certain unit loses a certain amount of health there should be a point were the health can't be healed any further. Let's say a unit has 20 health. Once it goes past, let's say 15, it can not be brought up to any more than 15 through fortifying. This represents units dying that can't be revieved.

But does a unit healing in a barracks represent only healing the actual unit, or possibly also adding more people to it ?

 

[exhile]

no unit out in the field should be able to heal back to 100%. They can only do that if they are in a city.

Barracks quickens the healing of the unit in a city. How does adding more people heal a unit?

 

[rysmiel]

Speaking of that I wanted to suggest another idea. Units should have health "checkpoints". After a certain unit loses a certain amount of health there should be a point were the health can't be healed any further. Let's say a unit has 20 health. Once it goes past, let's say 15, it can not be brought up to any more than 15 through fortifying. This represents units dying that can't be revieved. This would definitly be a good idea if they brought back Civ3-like armies. Therefore preventing having the most powerfull type of army and going around killing and fortifying. Then doing it again.

Barracks quickens the healing of the unit in a city. How does adding more people heal a unit?

Sorry if that wasn't clear; I was responding to Gamemaster77's comment; if injuring a "unit" represents killing some of the people in, say, a tank division, it seems to me that part ot the "healing" of that "unit" in a city could represent training up new people.

 

[Gamemaster77]

Mabye in a barraks but not any random city.

 

[Argetnyx]

Heck yeah!!

 

[Pikkis]

i say just NO.
Civ4 strength+bonuses model is a step forward.

My thoughts exactly.

There's always room for improvement, but IMO going back to the old system isn't an improvement. Instead I'd like too see more promotions, more experience-providing buildings and wonders and more promotion-providing leader traits for increased diversity.

 

[Camikaze]

Promotions bring problems however. For instance, they provide another pathway through which the AI can screw up, handing a combat advantage to human players, and the can allow for battle outcomes to be skewed unrealistically. So, it would perhaps be better to still have promotions, but to combine them with another system of differentiation between units.