spearman vs tank.. once and for all. final show down!!!

[frekk]

Originally posted by superslug
Battleships to Settlers, huh? I saw AI workers catch my ICBM's with their barehands and throw them back at me...

Personally I find the RNG's unpredicatability to make the game more exciting because you don't know you're going to win when you attack. It forces tactical reasoning and advanced thinking on the player's part so that it does stay a thinking game. If we just got to roll over more primitive units invincible, we might as well play checkers, right?

Besides, the Spearmen-Tank thing has become as much a part of Civ tradition/lore as Elvis has, much like the Llama's in SimCity. It's part of the charm and experience that makes Civilization the best.

EDIT: Just saw your double post, maybe I misunderstood the mention of Poland.

I'm not sure anyone else has mentioned Poland at all. I did say that maybe you could think of spearmen as being like the German troops on the Atlantic wall - which is a long way from Poland and well after the invasion of Poland. These were undereqquipped units of men too old or too young or unfit for regular combat duty. Sub-infantry i guess you could call them.

As far as the settler in Civ 1 - I swear it happened all the time, and it was alot more common if the settler was working (settlers/workers were the same thing in Civ1)

 

[superslug]

I was obviously joking about the ICBM/worker thing, and while my memory is hazy on 1, I don't doubt for a second Settler's could do that. After all, Spearmen do occasionally take out Tanks...

 

[Vietcong]

supersslug.. i still dont see how... explain how a tank divison can lose to a spear divion.. sone thing realistk... not them trapeing every one with pits.... u cant do that.. im shure after the fist few tanks get traped thay will notice something wrong

 

[superslug]

Why spearmen can take out tanks in Civilization III has been explained to you and hundreds of other posters thousands of times in dozens of threads as redundant as this. I'll have nothing more to do with it.

EDIT: And it's superslug, not supersslug.

 

[Vietcong]

lol sorry about ur name.. any way ther very wrong i think..

even 500 ww1 tanks chold beat 2000 spearmen.. expesaly the german Av-7.. yes it moves 8 mph. but it had mgs allaround it.. 6 mgs. 2 on the right and left and 2 in the back.. plus the small navel gun on the front...

now lets have a german ww2 tank divison go aginst the zulu....... who whold have won??????
allso thanks for keeping the thread alive.. im im a lil closet to that coustem pic thing of ho chi men for my acount!! yaaaaa ! go VC!

hay im sueing edit now!! think admin. didt see fist time u posted.. but any way if ppl are wondering y i made this thread fi thesrs a thosand others this is the" final show down".

 

[frekk]

Originally posted by Vietcong
lol sorry about ur name.. any way ther very wrong i think..

even 500 ww1 tanks chold beat 2000 spearmen.. expesaly the german Av-7.. yes it moves 8 mph. but it had mgs allaround it.. 6 mgs. 2 on the right and left and 2 in the back.. plus the small navel gun on the front...

now lets have a german ww2 tank divison go aginst the zulu....... who whold have won??????
allso thanks for keeping the thread alive.. im im a lil closet to that coustem pic thing of ho chi men for my acount!! yaaaaa ! go VC!

Who says its 500 tanks and not 100? Who says its 2000 spearmen, and not 20 000? As far as the Av-7, it would be very easy to beat if it were far from home. All you would need to do is distract them, get them chasing something, and send raiders back to its fuel depot and destroy that. A couple of hours later - no ammo, and no fuel.

 

[Vietcong]

i estamated it to logical numbers.... in ther early ages it was rare to have an army of 200,000 men. so every sper man equaling about 2000 is about right, i say 500 tanks becus i dont see and antion haveing 100,000 tanks.. so 500 is more realistick.. every hit point whold be about 125 tanks
yes frekk? si that ur name? i cant see it hear but i u know who u are.. yes that is posibble. but how u hjave a new situation.. gard towers with mgs and having sper men throw them selfs at them will be realy usless.... of corse it wholnet be the undoibale..

 

[frekk]

Originally posted by Vietcong
i estamated it to logical numbers.... in ther early ages it was rare to have an army of 200,000 men. so every sper man equaling about 2000 is about right, i say 500 tanks becus i dont see and antion haveing 100,000 tanks.. so 500 is more realistick.. every hit point whold be about 125 tanks

Excpt hit points don't reflect numbers, since you can't build 125 tanks just by fortifying yourself anywhere, like on a mountaintop halfway across the world with no supply line. It's more general than that. 5000 is probably accurate for the spearmen, even though armies of 200 000 or more were seen by most of the ancient civs detailed in the game (Persia, Rome, Aztec, Carthage etc). Certainly 500 is way way way too high for Modern Armour. Maybe for WW2 tanks.

The other factor is that its always a one-on-one battle represented in the game. But the spearmen only win maybe 1 in 25 times. So really, its not 500 tanks vs 5000 spearmen; its 500 tanks vs 125,000 spearmen. Since it would take a stack of 25 spearmen to reliably defeat the tank most of the time.

The rest of the time, when a lone spearmen defeats a tank, you have to remember that tanks sometimes get defeated with no enemy around at all. New models have what are called 'teething troubles' and you can just assume that they broke down in hostile native territory and the crews were butchered by spearmen.

 

[Andropov]

As someone with some experience with this let me assure you that no group of individuals armed with spears are going to damage a tank. In fact, 2000 spearmen, if you have a decent shooter on the coax aren't going to even get very close. Tanks are made to withstand any small arms fire (let alone wooden spears).

Could you dig a hole and trap a tank? Sure...maybe, but even then you haven't disabled all of the weapons or personnel aboard.

The truth is that primitive armies with spears, shields, etc. were able to occasionally win battles versus more modern armies like Isandlwana for example. But, since the advent of the machine gun and then the tank...those armies never win and likely never will.

Having said that...hey it is just a game, and computer code isn't real life. Besides, aren't there mods that give modern armor more firepower?

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by Andropov
Could you dig a hole and trap a tank? Sure...maybe, but even then you haven't disabled all of the weapons or personnel aboard.

I believe I already cover that - exactly why my spearmans fill the holes with oil in the first place. I'm sure the burning oil will disable all personnel aboard.

Originally posted by Moonsinger
1. Dig a very deep hole (vertical depth of about 40 feet)
2. Fill the hole with oil
3. Cover the hole with a thin layer of leaves.
4. Throw some spears at the tank to lure it toward the hole
5. Once the tank fall into the hole, ignite the oil (just in case the tank crew decide to climb out with their machine guns or something - the burning oil should take care of that).
6. That's it.

 

[Andropov]

lol...ok ok

Burning oil would probably do some damage (and the tank would probably set the oil off by itself). Amazing that these spearmen of yours have the sense to dig deep holes and fill it with oil, but not enough know-how to make mines...

Tank crews generally carry pistols (or at least they used to, I assume they still do). I guess if I had to be on a battlefield with my M1911 pistol, I'd rather be facing spearmen than infantrymen.

 

[Rjak]

Join us again next week for Man of War vs Battleship!

Become confused when a ship made out of wood manages to beat the most powerful ship ever to set sail, taking only minor damage doing so, then start thinking that Civ 2 got it right.

 

[Vietcong]

Originally posted by Andropov
As someone with some experience with this let me assure you that no group of individuals armed with spears are going to damage a tank. In fact, 2000 spearmen, if you have a decent shooter on the coax aren't going to even get very close. Tanks are made to withstand any small arms fire (let alone wooden spears).

Could you dig a hole and trap a tank? Sure...maybe, but even then you haven't disabled all of the weapons or personnel aboard.

The truth is that primitive armies with spears, shields, etc. were able to occasionally win battles versus more modern armies like Isandlwana for example. But, since the advent of the machine gun and then the tank...those armies never win and likely never will.

Having said that...hey it is just a game, and computer code isn't real life. Besides, aren't there mods that give modern armor more firepower?

Thank you.. i under stand its a game. but come on! this is beyond reality of even a game unless the spear men had divine intervition in the battle

 

[Vietcong]

Originally posted by Rjak
Join us again next week for Man of War vs Battleship!

Become confused when a ship made out of wood manages to beat the most powerful ship ever to set sail, taking only minor damage doing so, then start thinking that Civ 2 got it right.

Hay now that u say that.. how dose a woden ship made of wood with puny cannons sink a battle ship???? and yes i have had it happend too! same for subs ect... hay!! infacet ill make a hole new thread about that too!!!!! great idea Rjak... thank u for reminding me of it....

and im not jokeing


o ya.. if i was a tanker i wholdnet even fire my guns at the on comeing spear men rather i whold just run them over and when thay start runing off ill cahse them down in my tank and keep doing so untill ther all ran over ... lol i voted for #4

 

[Beanzy]

Actually, it makes perfect sense to me. Weak gunfire (Musketmen and Riflemen) and cumbersome weapons (Pikemen) cannot be successfully wielded against the Tank. However, the nimble spearmen can evade the tank shells, approach the tank and shove his little spear down the gun at the end of the tank. Then, when it next fires, the shell explodes inside the tank (since everyone knows wood can hold back a large explosion) and destroys it. That is why the spearman can do damage to a squad of tanks.

 

[nihilistic]

Vietcong, you seriously need a spell checker. Casual errors are one thing, consistent and seemingly intentional errors are another.

 

[Vietcong]

thes are not squads rather ther more like divisons.. so how can the spear men do that to every tank in the hole divison???

 

[Civrules]

Considering that both sides will be ready for battle, the tank will have no problem beating up the spearman. Actually, the spearman would not know what hit them. Ask a person who drives a tank and he will laugh at the idea. If that ever happened the spearman army would drop their spears and run for dear life.
I know that this is a game though and if it could be represented in a better way than no one would be arguing about it.

It is obvious that that is not normal. Why has this question being brought up so many times? Because the whole “spearman beating up the tank” is not normal.

 

[Beanzy]

By acting not as a unified whole, but as a pack of individual mauraders (like those whatchamacallits the Romans used during the monarchy... forget the name). They could run about, leaping on tanks at random.

Oh and nihilistic, I completely agree, consisten spelling errors drive me nuts!

 

[The Last Conformist]

Originally posted by civrules
Considering that both sides will be ready for battle, the tank will have no problem beating up the spearman.

Who says both sides will be ready for battle? Plenty of armies have been defeated by not being ...

Actually, the spearman would not know what hit them. Ask a person who drives a tank and he will laugh at the idea. If that ever happened the spearman army would drop their spears and run for dear life.

Except there are examples of people attacking tanks with spears. As I said above, there's even claims that they've succeeded occasionally.

I know that this is a game though and if it could be represented in a better way than no one would be arguing about it.

It is obvious that that is not normal. Why has this question being brought up so many times? Because the whole “spearman beating up the tank” is not normal.

There's worse oddities in Civ that are almost never brought up. I shan't claim to know why, but the Spearman-beats-Tank issue has acquired iconic status in the community, well beyond its "intrinsic" importance.