Guerra
Warlord
I wish forts would protect against collateral damage.
So...war seems to suck.
- Thread starter Solo4114
- Start date
I haven't used forts that much, actually, though I'm considering using them more on the current map which has a fair amount of landmass. My other maps have had me either controlling a large continent's coasts, or islands that didn't really require them.
KrikkitTwo
Immortal
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2004
- Messages
- 12,418
the reason they don't code it out of existence is
1. Gameplay balance
and
2. Realism...about a hundred years after the discovery of "Astronomy" no civ in the world was more than one or two techs behind in weapons... Helicopter v. longbowmen CANNOT occur in the real world (when dealing with actual civs) because by the time anyone has "Gunships", "Infantry" are available to Everyone through the black market... Even the Native American tribes were fielding gunpowder cavalry within 300 years of contact... now they never built any of those guns (or as far as I know they never made any of their own metal)... but they still had them (just not nearly enough).
So accept the fact that you Gunship loses to an occasional Longbowman as
1. Preventing the Realistic, but unfun, version where upon the discovery of Astronomy the top 1/3 of all civs in tech automatically eliminate the bottom 1/3 in tech
2. Allowing the unrealistic, but fun version, whereby Gunships actually get to fight longbowmen... (and win 70-90% of the time)
1. Gameplay balance
and
2. Realism...about a hundred years after the discovery of "Astronomy" no civ in the world was more than one or two techs behind in weapons... Helicopter v. longbowmen CANNOT occur in the real world (when dealing with actual civs) because by the time anyone has "Gunships", "Infantry" are available to Everyone through the black market... Even the Native American tribes were fielding gunpowder cavalry within 300 years of contact... now they never built any of those guns (or as far as I know they never made any of their own metal)... but they still had them (just not nearly enough).
So accept the fact that you Gunship loses to an occasional Longbowman as
1. Preventing the Realistic, but unfun, version where upon the discovery of Astronomy the top 1/3 of all civs in tech automatically eliminate the bottom 1/3 in tech
2. Allowing the unrealistic, but fun version, whereby Gunships actually get to fight longbowmen... (and win 70-90% of the time)
JerichoHill
Bedrock of Knowledge
If you are encountering trouble warring, it is in your approach.
Civ4 combat is designed so that you will lose units. Would you rather lose cheap suicide collateral damage units or hardened troops?
Step 1: Bombard down to 0% cultural defense.
Step 2: Pillage key unit making resources
Step 3: Combined arms
Send in the suicide cat's first.
Then your shock troops
Mopup. Promote and move on.
Keep one or two explorer medics in your stack to heal them.
Above strategy works well into Emporer games...
Civ4 combat is designed so that you will lose units. Would you rather lose cheap suicide collateral damage units or hardened troops?
Step 1: Bombard down to 0% cultural defense.
Step 2: Pillage key unit making resources
Step 3: Combined arms
Send in the suicide cat's first.
Then your shock troops
Mopup. Promote and move on.
Keep one or two explorer medics in your stack to heal them.
Above strategy works well into Emporer games...
Lord Sankra
Out saving the planet
Guerra said:
How would one go about balancing that, seeing as one of the game's design goals was the elimination of the Stack of Doom...
I'd rather see a blackmarket system implemented or have a mechanism whereby you can learn techs from civs just from having a lot of contact with them or friendly relations, or perhaps reverse engineering. Maybe have it be part of a larger aspect of trade. Instead of simply trading resources, you make a whole new aspect to the game where you create actual goods and sell to other civs -- with the caveat that they can reverse engineer things.
Actually, come to think of it, that makes things pretty interesting... A heavily developed commerce/trade game whereby you create goods and sell them to other civs. Buying goods has significant positive bonuses (IE: the items have a practical use and give you a boost in this or that). Selling goods gives you lots of cash. But, you risk reverse engineering and the discovery of your own techs, so you have to weigh whether the money is worth the possible tech loss. Maybe include the spread of culture as a result.
But as to the "it's unfun when the civs at a technological disadvantage get wiped out", I disagree. That's how things went in our planet's history. Underdeveloped civilizations got swallowed up -- either culturally or militarily -- by more advanced ones. Maybe the less developed civs had access to some of the items, but I still think there ought to be some realistic aspects to combat included instead of a straight number crunch.
If you're claiming that a unit of longbowmen actually has SAM launchers through the black market, great. Put it in the game and make it obvious instead of requiring people to "imagine" that it happened so as to defend the game mechanic. I'd be happy to accept that my enemy suddenly has a rifleman unit due to black market losses in my bordering empire, even if the enemy lacks the ability to construct it himself and therefore doesn't have that many.
Basically, it's like this. According to the game conventions, what you see is what you get. Anything else is something the player has made up in his own mind to justify the system. So, longbowmen attacking mechanized infantry is literally guys with longbows attacking armored targets with 30mm cannons and .50 cal machineguns. It's not "guys with longbows who had access to the black market and happened to actually have some light anti tank shoulder launchers but we just show them with longbows because it takes too much time to create longbow units with shoulder launchers." It's just guys with frickin' longbows.
I've got no problems with adding game mechanisms that simulate black market, mechanical wear and tear, the need for supply lines during a war to keep things repaired, or other things. I just want the game to show it and not make me have to create some fantasy to explain away why longbowmen were somehow able to take out mechanized infantry. Otherwise, that's all we're really doing -- trying to justify an obvious flaw in the game by coming up with made-up reasons why the flaw isn't a flaw.
The game's still fun and I still think this is the best Civ game yet, but the "spearmen vs. tanks" scenario just shouldn't be in the game. You can justify it any way you like, but if we're gonna come up with some kind of reason to allow this, the game should show it.
Otherwise the simple answer is: this convention exists because the designers haven't coded it out or created some numerical calculation that won't let it happen. Period.
Now, on the other hand, if you simply find it more fun to have units with obvious tech disadvantages that should, by rights, have no ability to defeat their opponent still win sometimes through sheer dumb luck or the game's inability to distinguish opponents' levels of technology, then hey, I guess our definitions of fun are just different. Personally, I find it more fun to play a game that more closely represents reality. If the reality would be that no civilization past 1900 would be using spears and bows to fight a war, fine, include a game mechanism that speeds them along somehow, or let them get swallowed up by an opponent. But me, I just don't particularly see it as fun to have an obviously underpowered unit (underpowered by its weaponry, I mean) somehow able to win because of game contrivances like defensive bonuses or a lucky roll.
Actually, come to think of it, that makes things pretty interesting... A heavily developed commerce/trade game whereby you create goods and sell them to other civs. Buying goods has significant positive bonuses (IE: the items have a practical use and give you a boost in this or that). Selling goods gives you lots of cash. But, you risk reverse engineering and the discovery of your own techs, so you have to weigh whether the money is worth the possible tech loss. Maybe include the spread of culture as a result.
But as to the "it's unfun when the civs at a technological disadvantage get wiped out", I disagree. That's how things went in our planet's history. Underdeveloped civilizations got swallowed up -- either culturally or militarily -- by more advanced ones. Maybe the less developed civs had access to some of the items, but I still think there ought to be some realistic aspects to combat included instead of a straight number crunch.
If you're claiming that a unit of longbowmen actually has SAM launchers through the black market, great. Put it in the game and make it obvious instead of requiring people to "imagine" that it happened so as to defend the game mechanic. I'd be happy to accept that my enemy suddenly has a rifleman unit due to black market losses in my bordering empire, even if the enemy lacks the ability to construct it himself and therefore doesn't have that many.
Basically, it's like this. According to the game conventions, what you see is what you get. Anything else is something the player has made up in his own mind to justify the system. So, longbowmen attacking mechanized infantry is literally guys with longbows attacking armored targets with 30mm cannons and .50 cal machineguns. It's not "guys with longbows who had access to the black market and happened to actually have some light anti tank shoulder launchers but we just show them with longbows because it takes too much time to create longbow units with shoulder launchers." It's just guys with frickin' longbows.
I've got no problems with adding game mechanisms that simulate black market, mechanical wear and tear, the need for supply lines during a war to keep things repaired, or other things. I just want the game to show it and not make me have to create some fantasy to explain away why longbowmen were somehow able to take out mechanized infantry. Otherwise, that's all we're really doing -- trying to justify an obvious flaw in the game by coming up with made-up reasons why the flaw isn't a flaw.
The game's still fun and I still think this is the best Civ game yet, but the "spearmen vs. tanks" scenario just shouldn't be in the game. You can justify it any way you like, but if we're gonna come up with some kind of reason to allow this, the game should show it.
Otherwise the simple answer is: this convention exists because the designers haven't coded it out or created some numerical calculation that won't let it happen. Period.
Now, on the other hand, if you simply find it more fun to have units with obvious tech disadvantages that should, by rights, have no ability to defeat their opponent still win sometimes through sheer dumb luck or the game's inability to distinguish opponents' levels of technology, then hey, I guess our definitions of fun are just different. Personally, I find it more fun to play a game that more closely represents reality. If the reality would be that no civilization past 1900 would be using spears and bows to fight a war, fine, include a game mechanism that speeds them along somehow, or let them get swallowed up by an opponent. But me, I just don't particularly see it as fun to have an obviously underpowered unit (underpowered by its weaponry, I mean) somehow able to win because of game contrivances like defensive bonuses or a lucky roll.
JerichoHill
Bedrock of Knowledge
Cheapest medics you can have, come out promoted with having barracks and are an aggressive civ, or just have the appropriate civic to get the extra promotion.
Lord Sankra said:
I dunno. If by stack o' doom you mean armies of units, I'd say the solution is another army. Make it so the AI actually builds and uses armies, and you're off to the races. If you mean units that are really well defended, well, don't we already kind of have that issue in cities? Maybe I'm not getting your terminology here.
Lord Sankra
Out saving the planet
Solo4114 said:
And that is how it is in Civ4. If you follow JerichoHill's guidelines, you will win against an inferior civ. Off course, you need a sufficient number of units, but that shouldn't be a problem when you have the tech lead.
Solo4114 said:
Stack of Doom: putting many units on a single tile, usually a good mix betwen offensive and defensive ones. In previous civs, the only counter was a larger stack on your own. In civ4 you can use SoDs, but to a lesser extent than earlier civs thanks to collateral damage (CD). Make units in forts immune to CD, and the enemy would have no way to deal with large stacks.
pholkhero
Deviant Mind
Hear that devos?? Make it so . . .Solo4114 said:
Yeah, and then those devos can whip it good. 
Anyway, I'll follow the guidelines, but I still take issue with the one-on-one aspects of it. Not much I can do about it, though, so I'll just adapt. I just hope they address this eventually. It seems silly not to unless it's something that can't feasibly be coded.
In terms of the CD vs. SoD issue, maybe one solution is to make forts immune to collateral damage, but limit the number of units you can fit in the fort, or that would get the immunity bonus (all other units would be on their own).
Personally, I don't think ANYONE should be immune to collateral damage at any time. Even in cities. If you're lobbing huge stones or vats of flaming oil or whatever into a city, you're not just hitting the buildings. Chances are you're hitting the troops stationed there (and the population too, actually). Especially before the advent of precision targeting, I'd expect cities being bombarded to still suffer collateral damage. I kinda wish you could use catapults to bombard enemy hexes from one hex out (but to themselves be basically defenseless as they are currently if attacked). At the very least, this'd be a nice addition to attacking cities -- making bombardment cause collateral damage to units, I mean. Unless it's already doing this and I just don't notice it. Otherwise it seems the only way to do collateral damage is the ol' suicide run.
Anyway, I'll follow the guidelines, but I still take issue with the one-on-one aspects of it. Not much I can do about it, though, so I'll just adapt. I just hope they address this eventually. It seems silly not to unless it's something that can't feasibly be coded.
In terms of the CD vs. SoD issue, maybe one solution is to make forts immune to collateral damage, but limit the number of units you can fit in the fort, or that would get the immunity bonus (all other units would be on their own).
Personally, I don't think ANYONE should be immune to collateral damage at any time. Even in cities. If you're lobbing huge stones or vats of flaming oil or whatever into a city, you're not just hitting the buildings. Chances are you're hitting the troops stationed there (and the population too, actually). Especially before the advent of precision targeting, I'd expect cities being bombarded to still suffer collateral damage. I kinda wish you could use catapults to bombard enemy hexes from one hex out (but to themselves be basically defenseless as they are currently if attacked). At the very least, this'd be a nice addition to attacking cities -- making bombardment cause collateral damage to units, I mean. Unless it's already doing this and I just don't notice it. Otherwise it seems the only way to do collateral damage is the ol' suicide run.
ArmoredCavalry
Warlord
The designers HAVE to keep these odds in. how would you feel on the higher levels if you had those modern armor crush you're pathetic infantry?
the truth is that the cultural defences are in place to recreate the wars through the ages. sieges in medevil times lasted for long times. trench warfare was a disastor since no-one could advance. Nazi germany was so succesful because they could bomb an enemy and roll in with panzers.in civ language, medevil units needed to bomb the very big cultural defences, treanch farefare gave cities HUGE defensive bounuses. and the blizkrieg allows planes to knock down these defences.
yes, the designers overpowered the defences for a reason.
and collateral damage is GREAT in catapults. They arn't called suicide catipults without good reason. the main point for them to die, but cause COLLATERAL DAMAGE to the enemy forces. then just steamroll into your new city/pile of rubble.
the truth is that the cultural defences are in place to recreate the wars through the ages. sieges in medevil times lasted for long times. trench warfare was a disastor since no-one could advance. Nazi germany was so succesful because they could bomb an enemy and roll in with panzers.in civ language, medevil units needed to bomb the very big cultural defences, treanch farefare gave cities HUGE defensive bounuses. and the blizkrieg allows planes to knock down these defences.
yes, the designers overpowered the defences for a reason.
and collateral damage is GREAT in catapults. They arn't called suicide catipults without good reason. the main point for them to die, but cause COLLATERAL DAMAGE to the enemy forces. then just steamroll into your new city/pile of rubble.
jeremiahrounds
Prince
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2003
- Messages
- 404
I think a little bit of this is perspective.
What i mean is if two major armies clash. Both armies are mostly destroyed. You loose a major city usually you count that as loss.
So if things are balanced in perspective you would expect that to be a victory in reverse? But its not.
You send your major army over to the enemy. Two armies clash. Your army is destroyed. And one city of the AI is destroyed. If your like me thats a loss!
So the interesting thing is if the same thing happens to you the AI won. If you do it though... the AI won.
The reason is unless you got a ton of cities your aversion to loosing cities is much greater then your thrill in destroying a city. So no matter what they do with the mix they are going to run into a little of this. If they make it easier on the offensive player then youll still feel like its easier for the AI to take your cities then it is for you to take them because winning 1 isnt as valuable as loosing one is damaging. If they make it harder to take cities its still the same too!
So anyway thats my 2 cents.
What i mean is if two major armies clash. Both armies are mostly destroyed. You loose a major city usually you count that as loss.
So if things are balanced in perspective you would expect that to be a victory in reverse? But its not.
You send your major army over to the enemy. Two armies clash. Your army is destroyed. And one city of the AI is destroyed. If your like me thats a loss!
So the interesting thing is if the same thing happens to you the AI won. If you do it though... the AI won.
The reason is unless you got a ton of cities your aversion to loosing cities is much greater then your thrill in destroying a city. So no matter what they do with the mix they are going to run into a little of this. If they make it easier on the offensive player then youll still feel like its easier for the AI to take your cities then it is for you to take them because winning 1 isnt as valuable as loosing one is damaging. If they make it harder to take cities its still the same too!
So anyway thats my 2 cents.
Suicide catapults I can maybe bite (let's say that these things are for "one use only", and they cant be transfered); suicide cannons and artillery now, that are destroyed after they cause collateral damage? Why is it so difficult to admit that the whole collateral units issue is (at best) extremely unrealistic? As for gameplay, they probably did it because they couldn't make AI handle well the artilleries (see CIV 3 for details) - but is that enough excuse to deify such a handling?ArmoredCavalry said:
At least, they should allow for all these units after they finish the bombardment of the city to be able to hit the defenders WITHOUT the suicide mission issue. It is just a matter of realism: bombing destroys the entrenchment and then the defending units can be damaged. The same should also apply to cannons and artilleries inside the city: they should be able to cause damage to the enemy without being destroyed. Since when the defenders had to get their cannons out of the city walls, in order to attack with them? If you don't want that, then at least make the castles+walls to cause damage to the army that is under them (this way they might acquire some use at all).
Is it really impossible for a Longbowman to take down a tank? This may come to Solo4114 as stretching, or making up a scenario to cover up an in-game flaw, but personally, I don't have difficulty imagining how it could be done.
Obviously, a direct confrontation between a tank and a longbowman with the latter prevailing is silly and no sane human would attempt such a thing. But does it really have to be a direct confrontation? A longbowman or two could be waiting, hidden out of sight, watching as the tank lumbers along. These longbowmen scramble up on the tank, pop open the hatch (somehow) and then fire arrows at the occupants inside. Voila! an operator-less tank is as good as a disabled or destroyed tank.
Real-life soldiers, when they know that they possess superior firepower, tend to be overconfident and therefore, sloppy. Isn't the Vietnam war a classic example of this? With all the firepower and attendant tech in the US arsenal, how come they still "lost" that war?
Oh and here's a funny and not real evidence that it can really be done but just for the sake of having an image of it: watch Rambo IV. He's on the side of the Afghans fighting against the Soviets. Watch as he was able to take out a Soviet soldier armed with a pistol using his bow and arrow. Watch as he was able to commandeer a tank armed only with an assault rifle. And finally, watch as he takes out a helicopter gunship with that tank. Not realistic but the "image" of how this is accomplished is shown.
Obviously, a direct confrontation between a tank and a longbowman with the latter prevailing is silly and no sane human would attempt such a thing. But does it really have to be a direct confrontation? A longbowman or two could be waiting, hidden out of sight, watching as the tank lumbers along. These longbowmen scramble up on the tank, pop open the hatch (somehow) and then fire arrows at the occupants inside. Voila! an operator-less tank is as good as a disabled or destroyed tank.
Real-life soldiers, when they know that they possess superior firepower, tend to be overconfident and therefore, sloppy. Isn't the Vietnam war a classic example of this? With all the firepower and attendant tech in the US arsenal, how come they still "lost" that war?
Oh and here's a funny and not real evidence that it can really be done but just for the sake of having an image of it: watch Rambo IV. He's on the side of the Afghans fighting against the Soviets. Watch as he was able to take out a Soviet soldier armed with a pistol using his bow and arrow. Watch as he was able to commandeer a tank armed only with an assault rifle. And finally, watch as he takes out a helicopter gunship with that tank. Not realistic but the "image" of how this is accomplished is shown.
Btw, take a look at this: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=164046.
I've already finished the game I've attached on that thread. I was able to systematically wipe out an entire American continent with a single army of artillery and cavalry, the size that can fit in 11 galleons. I've never had to replenish this army, merely taking several turns to completely heal before proceeding to attack another city. And yes, they did take damage from catapults and arrow-based counterattacks but they survived til the end.
The trick, and you showed that you managed it, is to maintain enough of a military tech lead so that you do have better quality army than your rival and to make sure that you have a large enough number of them to use. Because, as was posted by someone else, a single tank can be overwhelmed eventually when enough waves of inferior warriors are thrown at it.
I've already finished the game I've attached on that thread. I was able to systematically wipe out an entire American continent with a single army of artillery and cavalry, the size that can fit in 11 galleons. I've never had to replenish this army, merely taking several turns to completely heal before proceeding to attack another city. And yes, they did take damage from catapults and arrow-based counterattacks but they survived til the end.
The trick, and you showed that you managed it, is to maintain enough of a military tech lead so that you do have better quality army than your rival and to make sure that you have a large enough number of them to use. Because, as was posted by someone else, a single tank can be overwhelmed eventually when enough waves of inferior warriors are thrown at it.
ArmoredCavalry said:
If that happened, I'd reevaluate my development or diplomatic strategy and try to get to a point where I wasn't so far behind technologically or where the enemy with the big guns was my buddy. I don't, however, need the game to mollycoddle me (unless I choose to play on chieftan
) in terms of having units that are obviously outclassed defeat a clearly superior enemy.The cultural bonuses are perfectly cool overall. I agree that they create a more seige like atmosphere, which is a nice touch. What I disagree with is the one-on-one scenario of a a clearly superior tech being beaten by a clearly inferior one that should be unable to damage the superior one.
Medieval anything vs. modern anything. Napoleonic infantry vs. armored units. You get the picture. If you want to say "Oh, well, they have so MANY guys with bows attacking that one tank, so THAT's why it died" well ok, but again, show it. Allow units to attack in unison instead of piecemeal (if they can do this I haven't figured it out yet -- when I group my units they only attack as the single unit, not as the whole group, although they move as a group). In Civ3 you could build armies of up to five units, but even then, the game still just treated it as single units that would simply attack in succession.
If you want to create the scenario of 50,000 archers simply overwhelming a single tank or a machinegun unit, groovy! I say go for it. But make it so the game shows it and not so that we're trying to find the loophole explanation for screwy numbers or a lack of some kind of offsetting factor or factors that should be (but aren't) in the game.
Anyway, like I said, I'll adapt and adjust my expectations given what the game is. I just think it should be done differently. There should be some kind of calculation done for the type of unit and something for tech advances. Maybe throw in the massed units option to allow a full stack to attack as one.
Xanikk999
History junkie
jeremiahrounds said:
EDIT: I quoted the wrong person. I think you can figure out who i meant to quote.
The longbowmen beating tank still does not hold ground.
First off. The tank would have the hatch locked, and no amount of arrows would open it.
Second. Tanks have external machine guns that are controlled from the inside.
You cannot honestly tell me that the longbowmen would survive being mowed down by machine guns and could win with arrows.
As i said before even if they could get close the hatch would be locked and besides they couldnt get close.
Xanikk999
History junkie
Please ignore my last post i quoted the wrong person
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