So...war seems to suck.

[rmill27]

Damn these kinda threads are annoying. Just accept it that my archer is gonna kick your tank's ass on any given sunday. What fun would it be if tanks always won.

Well, now I have to drive thru my enemy's empire unstopped, with 0% chance of losing. Maybe the tanks overconfidence gets them killed? I don't know. If you want realism why don't you ask Sid and Firaxis to zoom into every single battle (I mean, zoom into the literal battle) and watch.

Stop with these stupid threads please.

 

[JerichoHill]

Its called play-balance.

obviously some people want play-balance, uber-realism, and numerical accury in a 49.95 package.

ill take good play balance

 

[Solo4114]

Damn these kinda threads are annoying. Just accept it that my archer is gonna kick your tank's ass on any given sunday. What fun would it be if tanks always won.

Well, now I have to drive thru my enemy's empire unstopped, with 0% chance of losing. Maybe the tanks overconfidence gets them killed? I don't know. If you want realism why don't you ask Sid and Firaxis to zoom into every single battle (I mean, zoom into the literal battle) and watch.

Stop with these stupid threads please.

Nah, I like talking about this stuff. Besides, I view it as no different from people agonizing over how 0.5 hammers gets wasted when building Improvement X instead of Improvement Y, so you have to organize your building so as to micromanage, etc., etc., etc.

You have, however, clarified one point for me. You just really want to win with your archer units and realism be damned. And as far as "What fun would it be to roll through an enemy's territory with tanks and 0% chance of losing" well, if you've managed to get the AI to the point where they're using archers against your tanks, why NOT be able to steamroll them?

Or are you more worried about the AI steamrolling you instead? Personally, if I get to that point, I'll either try to make AI allies who defend me, or I'll say "Well, lost that game. Time for another one" and start over.


As for the playbalance issue, how does it unbalance things to do what I suggested? How is it "balanced" for the scenario I've described as problematic to exist? What would be "unbalanced" about things otherwise? Explain to me how "balance" is maintained by medieval hand weapons being somehow able to kill armored vehicles or flying gunships and such.

 

[wylergnu]

I agree, this is a stupid thread. Until you can prove that a well trained unit of ancient spearman couldnt kill a unit of tanks on the very odd occasion (i.e. go invent a time machine) then I think the game works fine, without being too complicated to play and develop. This isnt after all a war game.

 

[Solo4114]

If you need to have it proven to you that spearmen couldn't kill tanks, you need to get a grip, man. Come on, it doesn't exactly take a flying leap of logic to figure this one out.

I throw a spear at your tank or try to stab it with my spear. You tell me what's going to happen. Go ahead. Riddle me that one, Batman.

 

[rmill27]

Hey all I'm saying is.. imagine yourself as a member of a spearman unit, and imagine having to go up against a tank. You can't run, and you gotta fight.
There's got to be some insane plan that will work in order to defeat the tank. Probably won't work but never know. Maybe the tank screws himself up and gets stuck in a ditch somehow and the spearmen overpower them.
I just mean its possible for the spearmen to win. Highly unlikely? Of course. Impossible? No. Probably will take a huge stroke of luck along with a master plan tho.

And as for me really wanting to win with an archer.. I'm just using it to prove my point. I would expect to steamroll thru the enemy if thats all they had to vs my tanks with. But completely unscathed and with no problems whatsoever? Nah. Would be nice, but randomness helps make the game fun.

 

[Solo4114]

Oh, well, hey, that I concede (actually I conceded that a while ago). All I'm saying is the game doesn't really depict that and I think it should. Or maybe the game gives you some kind of "last ditch" option in combat where, if you're hopelessly outmatched, you sacrifice one of your units on some suicide mission, but hope that it destroys the enemy and doing so somehow ups your chances of killing the other unit.

Basically what I'm advocating is that the game try to realistically depict what you expect would happen, rather than simply being about number crunching -- or to the extent it is basically just number crunching, that it include numbers that generally speaking produce the result you'd expect. But for the time being, I'm gonna try messing with the XML files.

 

[rmill27]

Oh ok I think I get what you mean.. but in the end it comes down to number crunching anyways because its on a computer afterall lol.
The only way for true strategy to prevail would be for you to somehow take control of battles. This almost seems implementable.

Maybe, when you attack with a stack, you choose all the units you wish to attack with, and then enter a 'battle mode' of sorts. Would lengthen the game a bit for sure, but if they made the battles real fun (and quick to some extent), maybe it would be worth a look at. lol and maybe it would give everyone who's complained about spearman beating tank sweet revenge when they can finally run over a spearman personally with their tank.

 

[linchpin]

Anglo Zulu Wars (spears vs machinegun and rifle volley), Iraq-Iran wars (nothing but your body and a Qu'ran vs tanks and artillery), WWII, (eastern front, Russian "human wave" attacks) Satsuma Rebellion (sword vs rifle), Russian Japanese war (calvary vs machine gun)...

Enough said.

If you're tanks are going up against archers so often, maybe you need to move up the difficulty level?

 

[Pantastic]

And you've misread and misstated my argument. Moreover, your own argument is internally inconsistent. You say that what I ask for is absurdly unrealistic and yet you make the argument that we are to imagine that tanks are breaking down, crews are being killed in their sleep, molotov cocktails are being thrown at tanks, defensive fortifications are destroying troops, ambushes are occurring, etc., etc., etc. when NONE of this is depicted or even SUGGESTED in the game.

Please tell me exactly where the internal inconsistency in my argument is is; I'm not sure you even know what the term means. It is perfectly consistent for me to argue both that your proposed rules for tanks are absurdly unrealistic and that the game includes abstractions, neither position contradicts the other in any way. This is a grand strategic game, there's a lot of abstraction in the combat model, and trying to put in individual tactical actions would just be silly. I mean, you want some kind of notification that a given troop type used a particular weapon against another troop type or you don't believe it's in the game.

Like someome else has said, you can modify the XML files so that you can have invulnerable tanks such that one single tank can fight an entire continent filled with spearmen and archers without taking a single scratch.

 

[cabert]

Please tell me exactly where the internal inconsistency in my argument is is; I'm not sure you even know what the term means. It is perfectly consistent for me to argue both that your proposed rules for tanks are absurdly unrealistic and that the game includes abstractions, neither position contradicts the other in any way. This is a grand strategic game, there's a lot of abstraction in the combat model, and trying to put in individual tactical actions would just be silly. I mean, you want some kind of notification that a given troop type used a particular weapon against another troop type or you don't believe it's in the game.

Like someome else has said, you can modify the XML files so that you can have invulnerable tanks such that one single tank can fight an entire continent filled with spearmen and archers without taking a single scratch.

couldn't have said it better!

 

[Rast]

Rambo isn't avalaible in this game.

Praetorian with Strength I / City Raider II / Cover I / Shock I? About as close at it gets...

 

[Solo4114]

Oh ok I think I get what you mean.. but in the end it comes down to number crunching anyways because its on a computer afterall lol.
The only way for true strategy to prevail would be for you to somehow take control of battles. This almost seems implementable.

Maybe, when you attack with a stack, you choose all the units you wish to attack with, and then enter a 'battle mode' of sorts. Would lengthen the game a bit for sure, but if they made the battles real fun (and quick to some extent), maybe it would be worth a look at. lol and maybe it would give everyone who's complained about spearman beating tank sweet revenge when they can finally run over a spearman personally with their tank.

I don't think you even need to get that detailed. Just add in the kind of stuff folks are talking about in XML -- IE: tanks invulnerable to melee units or +99% or something. Then the computer crunches the numbers and generally gets the right result. You could even add a "luck" roll in for that one-in-a-million chance that [low tech unit] beats [high tech unit]. I mean, Civ is a "macro" game, rather than a "micro" one (despite all the micromanagement) in terms of what it depicts, so I'm a lot less troubled if I know that the equation doesn't take that archer (or whatever) and boost his combat ability to the point where he's at the base level of, say, modern infantry when facing a tank or a gunship or somesuch.

Or you could add a "combat engineer" promotion which makes the unit capable of sabotaging the enemy (automatically takes off 10% power) and ups the chance of a successful "luck" roll, but only works against units that are +2 tech levels or something. Maybe not that specific mechanism, but I think you get the idea. What I'm saying is this kind of stuff can all be modeled and should be modeled. It can all be behind-the-scenes stuff, too. It doesn't even have to be player-controlled things. I just get the sense that right now the game doesn't see "archers" vs. "tanks", and only sees "Unit with base attack value of 3 modified up to 18.2" vs. "unit with base attack of 22 modified to 24" or something. There needs to be some consideration beyond that which reflects the tech differences -- though not necessarily something the player worries about.

Anglo Zulu Wars (spears vs machinegun and rifle volley), Iraq-Iran wars (nothing but your body and a Qu'ran vs tanks and artillery), WWII, (eastern front, Russian "human wave" attacks) Satsuma Rebellion (sword vs rifle), Russian Japanese war (calvary vs machine gun)...

Enough said.

If you're tanks are going up against archers so often, maybe you need to move up the difficulty level?

First, in most of those cases -- especially the "human wave" eastern front attacks -- you're talking about large masses of troops, which I've already said I'd have a lot less of a problem with. But the game doesn't depict that. It depicts a single unit (whatever that unit's supposed to represent -- a platoon, regiment, army, whatever) vs. another single unit. It's not showing 50,000 screaming warriors bearing down on a single tank. Not in the abstract, not in the concrete. Not by any stretch of the imagination. If it DID, then it'd make a hell of a lot more sense. Sure a single tank can take out a platoon or even maybe a company of medieval troopers. Maybe even a regiment, depending on the circumstances. But the higher the numbers go, the more trouble the tank will have. And I'm cool with that. Just put it in the game, because right now you have to "just pretend" that that's what's happening.

Second, the difficulty level isn't the issue. It's the fact that the game is designed to allow this sort of thing. If I kick the difficulty level up to emperor, more likely I'LL be the one with the dramatically weaker units, and the AI will be steamrolling me -- as it should if I've fallen that far behind in tech and military production. Except, given how the game's set up, that won't necessarily happen. Kicking up the difficulty level as a solution is akin to saying "Just put your hands in front of your eyes and pretend your car doesn't have a busted tail light." The tail light is still busted, I just don't see it now. The problem hasn't been solved.

Please tell me exactly where the internal inconsistency in my argument is is; I'm not sure you even know what the term means. It is perfectly consistent for me to argue both that your proposed rules for tanks are absurdly unrealistic and that the game includes abstractions, neither position contradicts the other in any way. This is a grand strategic game, there's a lot of abstraction in the combat model, and trying to put in individual tactical actions would just be silly. I mean, you want some kind of notification that a given troop type used a particular weapon against another troop type or you don't believe it's in the game.

Like someome else has said, you can modify the XML files so that you can have invulnerable tanks such that one single tank can fight an entire continent filled with spearmen and archers without taking a single scratch.

I think I pretty well explained my own argument. You're claiming my asking for the game to be modeled such that the type of unit confrontation is taken into account (IE: armor vs. melee, flying units vs. melee) is somehow unrealistic (you still haven't really explained how, by the way -- is it unrealistic because I want this stuff modeled and doing so would somehow be practically infeasible, or is it unrealistic to expect certain types of units to beat others hands-down when there's no suggestion of any of the "spear beats tank" scenarios you've described in the game?), and yet it's perfectly acceptable to make up all sorts of scenarios which aren't actually happening and simply say "Oh, well, it's an abstraction" to explain away what are otherwise unrealistic results. To me, that's pretty internally inconsistent. My request is "absurdly unrealistic" because I want the game to model more true-to-life matchups between units, but yours is perfectly realistic because "it's an abstraction" of a lot of different far-fetched events which aren't even depicted or suggested in the game.

But, you're right, you can mod the XML files and that's what I intend to do (again, as I've said).

 

[cabert]

I think I pretty well explained my own argument. You're claiming my asking for the game to be modeled such that the type of unit confrontation is taken into account (IE: armor vs. melee, flying units vs. melee) is somehow unrealistic (you still haven't really explained how, by the way )

Your asking is unrealistic because, in some extreme situations, something can happen making the "other era" unit to be kicked. You cannot argue that this never happens, numerous examples have been given through this post.
And the fact that the game doesn't show how it happens isn't a fault.
It's only "abstract" combat. No wargame tactics involved here. No hiding behind the trees is shown when your warrior gets a +50% bonus from forest, so why should the tank trap be shown?

 

[Solo4114]

How about even suggested. The "hiding behind the trees" thing is suggested by the +50% forest bonus. NOTHING in the game suggests the situations anyone's described here (mechanical breakdown, killing the crews on the ground, lucky shot, hopping on the tank and stabbing the crew after prying the hatch open, hordes of angry pygmies attacking, etc.). In fact, what you're saying is what I'm ASKING for -- put something in the game that might suggest how exactly these things occur. I didn't say that the tank should be absolutely invincible. I've said that, given what the game actually models -- which doesn't include, suggest, allude to, or otherwise tangentially mention any of the "one in a million" scenarios described in this thread -- should have the tanks being invincible. If you want to model things like bonuses for "combat engineering" (IE: +10% vs. mobile units like horse archers up through the mechanized infantry and armor) or somesuch. That would at least suggest that maybe the combat engineers had built some kind of traps or something. That would be an abstraction as opposed to making something up out of whole cloth to explain a hole in the combat calculations.

 

[Mr. Nice]

That would be an abstraction as opposed to making something up out of whole cloth to explain a hole in the combat calculations.

But the only "hole" in the combat calculations as you see it is that no unit ever gets a 100% chance of success against another. In open combat, the chance of a pre gunpowder era unit beating a tank is very small, but nonetheless non-zero, and it's not up to the game to describe what particular possible but very unlikely event occurs if the tank loses.
The only way for a longbow (the best defensive pre-gunpowder unit) to get a non-trivial chance of beating a tank is if they are a city with high cultural defence, a few city garrison promos and be fully fortified. Each of those abstractions represents that it is possible (although still not that likely, ie the odds are still against them) to defend an urban area if you know the area well and have time to prepare, even with a wide tech-level gulf, particlarly if the aggressor hasn't used their technological advantage to bomb/shell the crap out of you first (in the abstract, bombing/bombarding to remove the cultural defence).

ps: If you think CivIV is bad for this, be glad you never played the original Civ. Since it didn't have the concept of unit health, so all combat took only one round, even a fortified warrior (weakest unit in the game) had about a 3% chance of defeating a battleship which attacked it .

 

[Solo4114]

Oh I did play Civ 1. And I remember those fights well. They irritated the hell out of me. I do miss the palace-building, though. (it was so much cooler than the throne room stuff).

I just think that as some units are, for example, immune to first strikes, others should be immune to certain era units (generally speaking). To the extent that we're going to put in vulnerabilities, I'd prefer the game be less abstract and more explicit. IE: "Tank suffers mechanical breakdown!" and your tank suddenly drops 50% of its health during the attack.

 

[KillerCardinal]

How about even suggested. The "hiding behind the trees" thing is suggested by the +50% forest bonus. NOTHING in the game suggests the situations anyone's described here (mechanical breakdown, killing the crews on the ground, lucky shot, hopping on the tank and stabbing the crew after prying the hatch open, hordes of angry pygmies attacking, etc.). In fact, what you're saying is what I'm ASKING for -- put something in the game that might suggest how exactly these things occur. I didn't say that the tank should be absolutely invincible. I've said that, given what the game actually models -- which doesn't include, suggest, allude to, or otherwise tangentially mention any of the "one in a million" scenarios described in this thread -- should have the tanks being invincible.

Actually, in my opinion the game does suggest this stuff (when related to cities at least). For a while I'd been trying to figure out just why a city without walls but has been around for quite some time could have a better defense than a city with walls. What I've come up with is that the cultural defense value includes both:

• the populace willing to fight the enemies in the streets(making the "human wall" for things like the tanks) which makes the longbowmen or whatever able to have a chance when the fighting would actually begin,
• and various things like tank traps and ambushes when the enemy goes to sleep at night(like in vietnam or whatever).

Basically any of the advantages that an army would gain from fighting on home ground, the cultural defense value suggests happens.

I don't know if that makes sense or not, but that is just my two cents.

 

[Vatec]

How about even suggested. The "hiding behind the trees" thing is suggested by the +50% forest bonus. NOTHING in the game suggests the situations anyone's described here (mechanical breakdown, killing the crews on the ground, lucky shot, hopping on the tank and stabbing the crew after prying the hatch open, hordes of angry pygmies attacking, etc.). In fact, what you're saying is what I'm ASKING for -- put something in the game that might suggest how exactly these things occur. I didn't say that the tank should be absolutely invincible. I've said that, given what the game actually models -- which doesn't include, suggest, allude to, or otherwise tangentially mention any of the "one in a million" scenarios described in this thread -- should have the tanks being invincible. If you want to model things like bonuses for "combat engineering" (IE: +10% vs. mobile units like horse archers up through the mechanized infantry and armor) or somesuch. That would at least suggest that maybe the combat engineers had built some kind of traps or something. That would be an abstraction as opposed to making something up out of whole cloth to explain a hole in the combat calculations.

It IS suggested by the time scale and game mechanics: turns take at least a year. In a year, a tank division drives into the town, blows away whatever foolish archers chose to stand and fight, and settles down for restful garrison duty. It is only then they discover that every time they leave their barracks, they get ambushed. Then someone starts picking off the sentries guarding the area where the tanks are kept (guerrilla warfare). An entire company dies when their food is poisoned by a native cook (cultural defense bonus). And so on.

All these things are suggested by the time scale and other game mechanics, such as the culture bonus and fortification bonus (which also represents general planning ahead, such as, "look, we can't beat these guys in a straight fight, so what we're going to do is hide our longbows in our attics and just use them to kill sentries once these guys settle in and get overconfident).

As for game balance, the ability to use out-of-date units gives builders the option to devote more of their resources to culture, space race, or diplomatic victory conditions, without having to worry about being blown out in five turns by a more modern neighbor.

 

[Solo4114]

Well, I've already stated my position on whether this stuff's suggested. Suffice to say I disagree that the cultural bonus and defense bonus suggests all those things occurring.

As far as the game balance issue goes, that is a valid point although I do think that there are other means by which builders (which I tend towards myself) can mitigate the weakness. Good diplomatic relations, culture flipping, and making nice with a big tough bodyguard civ can help there. Playing the religious game would help too. Granted, sometimes you'll get a psycho AI like Montezuma or Alexander who are just flat out opportunists, but generally I think you can avoid those issues. Also, assuming you actually CAN build better units and simply haven't because you're focused on building city improvements and wonders and such, you can also upgrade your existing units.

On the other hand, if the player is so far behind that he can't build better stuff, and his diplomatic relations are so bad that he can't get help from his neighbors, maybe at that point he kinda deserve to get steamrolled or should reevaluate how he approached his builder strategy. As has been pointed out on the forums here, the AI is opportunistic when it senses that your civ is weak. If you put all your eggs into the research or money basket without allocating some development towards your military, that's probably not the best overall approach to the game. Although admittedly I tend to take a more generalist approach rather than a "I usually play a warmonger" or "I try to always go for space race."