Should the game tell you how likely you are to win a war

[civilizationfanatic2000]

Let's say you try to start a war. You click the Start War button. When you hover over the options of countries you can declare on, they should tell you how strong the country is in comparison to yours and what percentage you fare against them in a war, supposing three different approaches (blitz, long grinding, unconventional strategy). This would only apply in easy difficulties. I'm thinking, harder difficulties wouldn't have this, you have to guess.

When the power of a country is dependent on land, population, technology, governmental structure, and so on, would it be too hard for a human player to figure out their chances against their opponent without the aid of a guide?

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Given that misjudging the strength of your opponent seems to be more common than not (Napoleon in 1812, Hitler in 1941, Putin in 2022, etc) in starting wars, I think it should be hard for a human player to figure out their chances . . .

What could be done, depending on how Civ VII handles espionage/spies, would be to have an espionage action speccifically related to this. As in, you choose among:

Discover total Production Points/turn for the Civ
Discover total number of land/sea/air Combat Units for the Civ
Discover total Gold/$ per turn for the Civ
Discover last Technology discovered by the Civ

And you find out some things pertinent to making a decision about whether you really want to fight them, or stick to diplomatic skullduggery . . .

 

[Patine]

Given that misjudging the strength of your opponent seems to be more common than not (Napoleon in 1812, Hitler in 1941, Putin in 2022, etc) in starting wars.

De Gaulle 1946 and 1952, Nasser 1956, Salazar c. 1960 (all of his Colonial Empire), Johnson 1965, Rajiv Gandhi 1987, Hussein 1990, Bush 2001 and 2003. Yes, it is quite the Hall of Shame, isn't it?

 

[Patine]

De Gaulle 1946 and 1952, Nasser 1956, Salazar c. 1960 (all of his Colonial Empire), Johnson 1965, Rajiv Gandhi 1987, Hussein 1990, Bush 2001 and 2003. Yes, it is quite the Hall of Shame, isn't it?

In fact, Imperial Crown Prince Friedrich, son and heir-apparent of German Kaiser Wilhelm II, personaly commanding the 3rd or 4th (I believe, of 8) German Imperial Field Army, said, reassuringly, to his wife, children, and the servants and staff of his palace, as he prepared to ride to war on August 4th, 1914 (just before violating the, "scrap of paper,") that he would be back, victorious, before the autumn leaves fell on Paris.

 

[pokiehl]

I don't think it should. It would be extremely complicated or even impossible for the game to meaningfully evaluate the success of different combat strategies while taking into account other relevant conditions.

The displayed military score and any other suppositions you can make based on your exploration or diplomatic visibility are plenty good enough. Players don't need their hands held.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I don't think it should. It would be extremely complicated or even impossible for the game to meaningfully evaluate the success of different combat strategies while taking into account other relevant conditions.

The displayed military score and any other suppositions you can make based on your exploration or diplomatic visibility are plenty good enough. Players don't need their hands held.

I don't think it can, no matter how much computer you devote to it. Given that supposedly professional military thinkers like the German General Staff in 1914 and 1941 and the Russian General Staff in 2022, just to take two examples of groups of people with a general reputation for knowing the subject and being pretty good at analysis, totally bungled the evaluation, I do not think any computer programmed by us humans will do any better. After all, both the German and Russian staffs made (and make) a great deal of noise about studying military history (i.e., the data base of past mistakes) to inform their analysis, so the best we can hope for from the current trend of 'programming' AI by feeding it everything on the subject is for it to make the same mistakes. - Only, being computer, making them Bigger and Faster.

That's why I think the best we can hope for is to present the game's statistical data (resources available to your proposed opponent like Production, Gold, Technology, existing Units, etc) and let the player screw it up on his/her own.

 

[pokiehl]

I don't think it can, no matter how much computer you devote to it. Given that supposedly professional military thinkers like the German General Staff in 1914 and 1941 and the Russian General Staff in 2022, just to take two examples of groups of people with a general reputation for knowing the subject and being pretty good at analysis, totally bungled the evaluation, I do not think any computer programmed by us humans will do any better. After all, both the German and Russian staffs made (and make) a great deal of noise about studying military history (i.e., the data base of past mistakes) to inform their analysis, so the best we can hope for from the current trend of 'programming' AI by feeding it everything on the subject is for it to make the same mistakes. - Only, being computer, making them Bigger and Faster.

That's why I think the best we can hope for is to present the game's statistical data (resources available to your proposed opponent like Production, Gold, Technology, existing Units, etc) and let the player screw it up on his/her own.

Right, and ideally that would also incentivize doing the legwork to get the visibility to your opponent's data: physical exploration of the map, diplomacy, espionage...Earning that information then actively considering it is a much more engaging (and realistic) way to evaluate the probability of success in war, as opposed to the game trying to spoonfood you with some fundamentally flawed automated assessment.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Precisely. There should be a very good set of reasons why the Scout line keeps getting Upgraded and you keep getting Trading Posts, Envoys, Spies and other 'Go Look' mechanics in t he game. . .

 

[Patine]

Precisely. There should be a very good set of reasons why the Scout line keeps getting Upgraded and you keep getting Trading Posts, Envoys, Spies and other 'Go Look' mechanics in t he game. . .

A spy sattellite as a late endgame mechanism there, too, would be neat.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

A spy sattellite as a late endgame mechanism there, too, would be neat.

The last upgrade to the Scout/Reconnaissance line of Units: the KH-11 Spy Satellite

 

[Marla_Singer]

De Gaulle 1946 and 1952, Nasser 1956, Salazar c. 1960 (all of his Colonial Empire), Johnson 1965, Rajiv Gandhi 1987, Hussein 1990, Bush 2001 and 2003. Yes, it is quite the Hall of Shame, isn't it?

De Gaulle hasn't started any war in 1946 and 1952. De Gaulle left power in january 1946 when the 4th Republic was instituted.
I assume you thought about the war of Indochina and Algeria, but De Gaulle wasn't in power when they started.

 

[reddishrecue]

What it should do like older installments, is show an estimate of power. Walls, barracks, units all add up to power and with that show, players can estimate whether it would be alright to go to war with that civilization or not. Dont get me wrong, its just an estimate, meaning that it might fail.

 

[pokiehl]

What it should do like older installments, is show an estimate of power. Walls, barracks, units all add up to power and with that show, players can estimate whether it would be alright to go to war with that civilization or not. Dont get me wrong, its just an estimate, meaning that it might fail.

It literally does this already. The military power number is right under the leader icons in the “ribbons” at the top right of the screen.

 

[Patine]

What it should do like older installments, is show an estimate of power. Walls, barracks, units all add up to power and with that show, players can estimate whether it would be alright to go to war with that civilization or not. Dont get me wrong, its just an estimate, meaning that it might fail.

I recall Civ3 estimating rough chances of success of a BATTLE. Do Civ4 and Civ5, which I have not played, actually calculated such for a potential WAR before declaring it?

 

[Patine]

It literally does this already. The military power number is right under the leader icons in the “ribbons” at the top right of the screen.

I'm not sure that's the level and detail of information they're looking for. I think they want the game to calculate a more accurate (but unrealistic to exist) prognosis for them.

 

[reddishrecue]

I recall Civ3 estimating rough chances of success of a BATTLE. Do Civ4 and Civ5, which I have not played, actually calculated such for a potential WAR before declaring it?

Civ 4 calculated success odds before units attack as a percentage and it showed a power ranking in demographics. Civ 3 I never played. Civ 5 was similar to civ 6.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The Strategic Estimates, of total 'war power' (the components of which may vary from culture to culture, country to country, Civ to Civ) are notoriously inaccurate and subject to all kinds of bias IRL, and that is what I thought we were discussing originally.

The game could give the player any kind of information - numbers of Encampments, numbers of Units, Great Generals, Prouction Points per turn, etc. and still provide the player with just enough information to be Totally Wrong. -And thus introduce a level of Realism in player decisions almost matching the egregious mistakes made by actual General Staffs throughout history.

Estimates of Battle Results, on the other hand, is a place I would love to see the game 'double-down' on all the individual named characters and animated characters in the game - if for no other reason than that no other game is providing anything like that, so it would serve to emphasize tghe Civness of the game.

You are prepared to move a unit/Army/SoD into contact, an animated screen pops up with a Sergeant/Captain/Chiliarch of the scouts who tells you that there a Whooping Lot of enemy troops over the hill, but they are all Sissy Boys with long hair who are ofviling their arms and legs and polishing a bunch of big ol' shields.

- And if you haven't read your Herodotus where he describes the first Persian reports of the Spartans preparing for battle, you might make an extremely Bad Mistake . . .

Let's have staff officers, Colonel Blimps, Longeye the Scout, some scruffy-looking traders to interrogate - sources of information that may or may not be reliable, that may be telling you what they think you want to hear, or maybe making everything up because they have No More Idea about your enemy than you do.

Welcome to the world of Real Military Intelligence, where the only information is Misinformation, Incomplete Information, or Baldass Lies masquerading as Information.

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

I would not mind if some of the publicly available information such as if a civ has a both resource and the technology for a unit were more concisely presented. Have the advisors warn me that my neighbor can horse me down.

 

[vorlon_mi]

I'd have to rely on @Patine for Civ2 information.

• Civ3 had a military advisor who gave the human player a qualitative description of your military strength, relative to each AI civ that you've met. They describe the algorithm over in the Civ3 Strategy forum. On one of the victory status screens, one could view an area chart of military power for all of the civs. Turns/years were the y-axis, with power being your width. As civs were eliminated, their area shrank and disappeared. Civ3 did not display predictions about a battle before you engaged in it.
• Civ4 also displayed a graph of military power; using the BUG or BUFFY mod as recommended in the Civ4 forums made it clearer. IIRC, it was a line chart with turns on the x-axis. As @reddishrecue wrote, Civ4 also displayed a percentage chance of victory for a battle before you engaged in it.
• Both Civ5 and BERT have information about relative military strength. They also show a prediction of damage inflicted and damage suffered for a specific battle.
• Civ6 gives many of these same data as well.

But zooming out just a bit, going back to the OP's question -- should you start this war? That's a whole different question to answer. What's the player's objective for the war?
Grab a city? Grab a resource? Carve out a chunk of territory on one side of your enemy, while the bulk of their army is already tied up in a war on the opposite side?
I might declare war just to spank an AI who denounced me, or to be able to squish the annoying religious units that keep streaming over my borders.

Not every war declaration is intended to take the opponent's original capital or wipe them out from the game. In the early turns -- for the games with workers, not builders -- it is common to declare a quick war just to capture an unguarded settler or worker. In Civ6, one might start an early war to capture, or raze, a city that doesn't have its walls up yet. I've been known to start wars in Civ3 and Civ4 for the purposes of bribing another AI into the war, then letting them do most of the fighting and dying.