Spearman Vs Tanks part 2: Longbowman vs Helicopter gunship

[TheNiceOne]

First of all, there's no denying that the game strives for realism, which obviously must work within the constraints of a fun and strategic game. Archers are better city defenders than spearmen because it's more realistic. Hills give a defensive bonus over grasslands because it's more realistic. Where realism fits within the goals of the game designers and adds fun and strategy, it is incorporated to the chosen degree.

I somewhat agree. I think "strives for realism" is a too strong word about CIV, I think "is inspired by realism" explains it better though. But note that even those examples you give, are only inspired by realism on a general basis. An archer defending a walled city would be invulnerable when attacked by spearmen in real life. And hills would give big offensive bonus to artillery in real life...

Some aspects of the game have to be completely abstracted to simulate real-world dynamics on some level or to bolster game mechanics, but that doesn't negate the need and perception of realism in other aspects. For example, it would be perfectly valid to criticize the presence of dinosaurs in the game from 4000BC, even though furs don't give cities +1 happiness in real life.

I agree...

I am simply disagreeing with your assertion that because the game is unrealistic by whatever measure, then any criticism on the basis of realism is pointless or unjustified.

And that's not my assertion. My assertion is that this game is not supposed to be a realistic combat simulation, and by striving for that, you both degrade gameplay and the overall realism.

A war with gunships vs longbows in Civ IV would simulate the USA attacking a tribe somewhere in real life, so it is realistic in the sense that gunships would slaughter the tribesmen, if not realistic in the sense that the USA would go to war with a tribe in the first place.

But such a situation would be the topic of a specific CIV scenario, and we're discussing the general game. In that, attacking a tribe is simulated by attacking barbarians, and as far as I know, barbarians are no problem for gunships.

However, the second kind of realism is irrelevant, because the premise of Civ IV is that history and the timeline is variable. The fact that Russia is 800 years behind you in military tech doesn't make Civ IV unrealistic, as anything can happen regarding the relative growth and power of each civilization. The rules and mechanics should be as realistic as possible, not necessarily the events and outcomes as compared to real history.

It is here we disagree. I find it extremely unrealistic that one of the world's main 8 powers (assuming a game with 8 civs) are 800 years behind another in military technology. Point me to one event in the world history where this has happened, and I would learn something new. This is much more unrealistic, IMHO, than the fact that the underdog win 1 in 100 battles.

There's no need for me to cite a world power that has had a huge technological advantage over the rest of the world to depict what can happen in Civ IV, because like I said, that kind of realism is irrelevant.

I disagree. CIV has always been (for me) a game simulating the management of an empire, not a tactical war simulator. And when managing an empire, there's no such thing (realistically) as a military tech gap that gives you automatic victory vs the other empires of the world. If you have this in CIV, then you may well increase the tactical war simulator realism, but at the cost of decreasing the realism of the empire management.

That's not irrelevant to me.

 

[TheNiceOne]

Thanks for the support, Philips beard.

My experience is that you will almost never lose to ancient units if you plan well, and are good organized. It's just like in the real world, planning is everything, much more important then the lead in technology! I think the whining people in this thread lack organization and the use of combined arms in their wars......

I agree. Show me a game where the general can ignore tactics, and simply attack straight in the face of the defender without any thought of planning, bombarding the enemy etc., and I can show you an unrealistic game.

cIV is already very much so, making the modern army vs ancient army combat pretty unrealistic since the general (you) doesn't need to use any strategy at all. How removing the little need that is left for tactics in such combat would increase realism, is beyond me.

 

[Dominico]

The only time this ever happens is if you send the wrong unit in to do the wrong job. Helicopter and Tank units are not for attacking towns. Infantry are for attacking towns.

You are not thinking about the varied aspects of what the game is simulating and are thinking only of what you see.

The tank vs spearmen is not a fight where the tank stands outside town, fires, and the spearmen run up and hit it with their spears. It is obviously so MUCH MORE! Lol

The tank is attacking into the town, the spearmen have defences, are dug in with fortifications. The forts have weapons and attack power (hence the bonus against attackers) The people are helping in the town (hence the culture bonus) The fight is over the course of a year or so.

So it is quite possible for spearmen to beat tanks if you think about it intelligently instead of just 3 spearmen vs a tank. Its thousands of spearmen vs a few hundred tanks, attacking into fortifications, with the populace saboutaging tanks. Tank holes for them to fall into, traps.

Similar things for helicopters ect.

All that said if this is consistantly happening you are a very bad general, and using the wrong tools for the wrong job. Though i think from the first poster this is just a one off as he is laughing about it.


Also there are lots of instances in real life of the crap tech winning sometimes. Take Zulus with spears vs British with guns ect.

Not that hard to grasp how it works IMO. You just need to think outside the box and have a little imagination.

 

[MinionJoe]

Tell that to the Ewoks!

If Ewoks can take out an AT-ST with a pile of logs, then surely an archer can take out a gunship.

BTW, did you know that a bulletproof vest won't stop an arrow? They won't even slow it down. And the English longbow was invented to penetrate plate armour.

"We're KNIGHTS, those lowly peasants with bows can't stop US!" *twack*

 

[dyinhere]

I somewhat agree. I think "strives for realism" is a too strong word about CIV, I think "is inspired by realism" explains it better though. But note that even those examples you give, are only inspired by realism on a general basis. An archer defending a walled city would be invulnerable when attacked by spearmen in real life. And hills would give big offensive bonus to artillery in real life...

'Strives for' in the sense that the object of the game is to "recreate history" with a grand scope of gameplay that necessarily relies on representing reality as much as possible for immersion, limited by all kinds of factors like desired complexity, playability, fun, development time/resources, etc. If Civ didn't strive for realism, then it wouldn't be Civ.

Concessions have to be made on the details, leading to the case of spearmen defeating archers behind walls. Why isn't this thread complaining about that? Simply because it's easier to imagine the spearmen climbing or penetrating the walls or busting through the gates than it is to accept an ancient knight defeating a modern gunship in actual battle all too frequently.

And that's not my assertion. My assertion is that this game is not supposed to be a realistic combat simulation, and by striving for that, you both degrade gameplay and the overall realism

You did say earlier in the thread that nothing is realistic about Civ IV, and that complaining about something in terms of realism therefore makes no sense. But you also agreed with my dinosaur example, so I'll disregard those earlier comments.

I agree that this game is not supposed to be a realistic combat simulator, but when an ancient ground unit defeats a modern air unit a little too often, it becomes conspicuously odd amid other acceptable peculiarities.

Yes, the gunship is treated as a land unit, but it should have a modifier against early units to reflect the fact that it's airborne in battle.

But such a situation would be the topic of a specific CIV scenario, and we're discussing the general game. In that, attacking a tribe is simulated by attacking barbarians, and as far as I know, barbarians are no problem for gunships.

I was just trying to explain how it doesn't matter that wars are not fought between longbows and gunships in reality. That kind of realism is not even a consideration in a game like Civ IV. Some aspects of reality are thrown right out the window from the start of game design, allowing for a civ to research tech in isolation and advance far ahead of the rest of the world. Other aspects of reality are essential, like having terrain resemble characteristics of Earth, or soldiers resemble human beings of a certain era with the appropriate weapons.

It is here we disagree. I find it extremely unrealistic that one of the world's main 8 powers (assuming a game with 8 civs) are 800 years behind another in military technology. Point me to one event in the world history where this has happened, and I would learn something new. This is much more unrealistic, IMHO, than the fact that the underdog win 1 in 100 battles.

This is what I find ridiculous. The fact that one of the civs is 800 years behind in military tech is not "unrealistic". If they were on an isolated island poor in resources, then is it still unrealistic? A game doesn't have to mimic actual historic events to be realistic. The whole point of a game is to explore and choose interesting variations of outcomes. If you want to do that with civilizations in human history, then a certain amount of realism is necessary to immerse the player as a ruler of an empire and play that out. But the fact that Russia didn't evolve like real-life Russia is totally irrelevant. When Civilization MMCDLXXVIII comes out and models every aspect of reality except actual historical evolution (outside of real earth scenarios), will it still be considered unrealistic because the automobile is invented in Carthage? Realism is important in processes, not in outcomes dependant on countless variables.

I disagree. CIV has always been (for me) a game simulating the management of an empire, not a tactical war simulator. And when managing an empire, there's no such thing (realistically) as a military tech gap that gives you automatic victory vs the other empires of the world. If you have this in CIV, then you may well increase the tactical war simulator realism, but at the cost of decreasing the realism of the empire management.

That's not irrelevant to me.

Increase the difficulty then. Or play with people. You're talking about something that can change from game to game. The civs present in a game are not automatically empires. They start out as nomadic tribes. Not all of them achieve empire status. Perhaps none achieve empire status if the first bonafide empire survives and keeps expanding to 2050.

Imagine if the fall of Rome never happened, and they continued to progress far ahead of the various barbarian tribes, the far East, and the Americas. Would it be possible fo a situation to develop where the Romans would be vastly ahead of a number of other civs in the world militarily? That's what the game simulates.

 

[lysander]

In the real world a longbowman could never, never take out an attack helicopter. It is absurd when this happens. If the game wants to simulate the difficulties that large powers have in subduing other cultures, it should make it possible to lose units while cities are in resistance. As a real life example, the US had no problem whatsoever destroying the Iraqi army; almost all US casulties have come during the resistance phase of the war.

During the first gulf war, when Iraq was armed with high quality soviet weapons, they were simpy unable to fight back against US technology. The idea that a longbow could stand a chance against modern war machines is absurd. It's not that an arrow couldn't easily kill a modern soldier, it's that modern weapons would devistate an entire army of longbowmen before they were in arrow range. The few times in history where armies that were this disproportionate met were slaughters. In the battle of Omdurman in the Sudan, the British killed 10,000 and wounded 15,000 while losing 50 men and havinf 300 injured. And that was with rifles and gattling guns, not helicopters and tanks.

HOWEVER, I have to say that I've found civ IV to be significantly better than the other games in this regard. Playing on noble difficulty, I just finished a war against two large civs that were significantly behind me in tech. I had tanks, bombers, marines, and gunships. They were using musketmen, grenadiers, and the occasional knight/longbowman. I conquered both of them (the incas and japanese) and only lost 2 units (and both of these were marines, who plausibly could take casulties charging a fortified position held by musketmen). I've found that this game has really minimized this problem and would sugest that the few losses of helicopters to longbowmen are simply flukes.

 

[mikh07]

i find it irratating that swordsmen can beat musketmen when one of the tips clearly states 'don't bring a sword to a gun fight.'

 

[Grognard7431]

First of all you can't take a city with a helicopter or a plane in the real world anyway, you need ground troops. Spearmen can hide and your copter has nothing to shoot at. 500 Steel tipped arrows would seriously mess up any modern aircraft unless they bombed them from high altitude. Regardless any reality comparisons and you spiral into stupidity with almost anything in this game so don't even start. If the game made it so modern units destroyed ancient units you all would whine that its too easy and/or ***** that its nothing but a tech race now.

Ok now say it with me:

IT'S A GAME NOT A SIMULATOR!
IT'S A GAME NOT A SIMULATOR!
IT'S A GAME NOT A SIMULATOR!
IT'S A GAME NOT A SIMULATOR!

 

[Rhandom]

LOL.

"This is Apache 1. I've got a camp of what look like 200 guys with longbows showing up on IR, about half a mile ahead of me. Permission requested to engage with long range cannon fire."

"Permission denied Apache 1. Please close to within 100 yards, and engage with your sidearms by hanging out of the window.Wait for daylight."

Please guys. Game balance demands advanced units have a chance of losing. But don't try to justify it with nonsense realism arguments.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Correct me if i am wrong, but according to the article on combat mechanics, after all bonuses have been accounted for, if your units has a strength of 20 and theirs is 10, don't you have a 99+% chance of winning?

Not sure what article you're referring to, but those numbers are misleading (and sound like standard hyperbole, with "99%" simply meaning "almost always"). In each round, the helicopter is twice as likely to deal damage as the longbow. If the helicopter hits, it'd deal more than the normal damage; if the longbow hits he'd deal less. I'm not sure on the exact numbers, but let's pretend for the moment that the helicopter hits twice as hard. So, the helicopter basically has a 4:1 advantage in raw power.

In a single straight-up fight between undamaged units, then yes, the helicopter's chances of winning are nearly 100%. Let's pretend for the moment that every unit has 4 HP, and that each time the longbow wins he deals 1 damage, while every time the chopper wins he deals 2. So, for the longbow to win, he'd have to hit four times before the helicopter hits twice. He has a 1/81 chance of hitting four in a row, and a 8/243 chance of hitting three out of the first four (losing the other one), and then hitting on the fifth. So, he has an 11/243 (just under 5%) chance of winning with these numbers.
(This assumed that 2-4 hits were enough to kill. The actual numbers should be higher, which reduces the longbow's chances further.)

BUT, this ignores two things:
1> Cumulative effects of damage. A damaged helicopter is less likely to win each round. This might happen from previous battles, or maybe from early rounds of the fight. If the helicopter has a 4:1 advantage from a 2:1 strength, as noted earlier, this means that four longbows WOULD be able to take down a gunship.
2> First strike. If the longbow can get a free first hit in, his odds of winning triple since it's one less round of combat he has to win. This might sound reasonable, but notice the Drill promotions; if the longbow can get two or even THREE first strikes, he stands a very good chance of knocking the majority of the attacker's health off even before the normal combat logic begins. At that point, it can end up a toss-up.

The result is that while one longbow might have bad odds against one gunship, it's easily possible that after the first fight, the gunship would be so damaged that a second defender could win. And, if the first strike goes well, the first longbow might even win.

And on another note: a Longbowman has a strength of 6, +25% for city or hill defense. So, for him to get to 10, something else had to be coming into play; an extra terrain or city bonus, for instance, or a lot of Combat promotions. So, it wasn't just "helicopter vs. longbow", it's more like "helicopter vs. longbow on terrain that really, really favors the longbow" or "helicopter vs a longbow that's trained to fight against helicopters". Most chopper-vs-longbow battles will be far more skewed.

 

[snepp]

Not sure what article you're referring to, but those numbers are misleading (and sound like standard hyperbole, with "99%" simply meaning "almost always").

Standard hyperbole that has the mathematics to back it up?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=137615
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=140622
http://c4combat.narod.ru/c4c_v0_13.htm

 

[yoshi]

Try a rank of 300 Longbows.... that will utterly destroy a helicopter.

Just a reality check: that would be the equivalent of hitting a fully armoured gunship with 300 low-calibre bullets. Meanwhile a modern gunship's cannon can fire that many high-calibre bullets in a fraction of the time, thus shredding a bunch of guys in medieval dress literally to pieces before they ever got a shot off.

But that's just taking it literally. Civ is about generalizations and the same applies to tech level: it's assumed that primitive units are the equivalent of modern very, very rag-tag units (i.e. even the most primitive civ will adapt to a more advanced aggressor, even if the adaptation is not generally applied--think first nations peoples aquiring rifles to fight genocidal US infantry).

That said, archers actually winning against gunships is really pushing it: rotary-wing aircraft tech is so far ahead of pre-gunpowder projectile weaponry that the odds of the latter winning--under any imaginable circumstances--are just too ridiculous (let alone doing so on a regular basis).

Spearmen winning against tanks is perhaps believable under some circumstances but this is too much.

Solution: Increase heli strength to 60 (and increase all modern mechanized units' stength by similar factor). The heli may still take damage on occasion but will probably never be destroyed while at full health. And that's how it should be, where Civ4 is concerned.

(And if the AI is fielding primitive units that could be upgraded to modern units, then it's the AI's own fault.)

If it were up to me, I would give all civs certain rudimentary modern tech some years after first contact, just to keep things more realitically balanced.

Question: if this is a balance issue, isn't determining this stuff prior to release the play-testers' job? What were those bums doing that whole time?!

 

[snepp]

Question: if this is a balance issue, isn't determining this stuff prior to release the play-testers' job? What were those bums doing that whole time?!

It's only a balance issue to some, to other it's fine. Modern units already have rediculous odds against outdated units, so count me in the latter. Anyone that finds it to be so terribly unbalanced that it ruins the game for them are free to edit the unit strengths at any time.

 

[TheNiceOne]

You did say earlier in the thread that nothing is realistic about Civ IV, and that complaining about something in terms of realism therefore makes no sense. But you also agreed with my dinosaur example, so I'll disregard those earlier comments.

That's not what I wrote. But I think it makes little sense to pick out one detail out from the big picture, and look at the realism of that single detail, detached from the whole, when what you're playing is a simulation of the entire human world history.

I agree that this game is not supposed to be a realistic combat simulator, but when an ancient ground unit defeats a modern air unit a little too often, it becomes conspicuously odd amid other acceptable peculiarities.

What do you mean by "a little too often"? We're not exactly talking every second, or even every 50th battle here. We're talking about something you will likely not see in one tenth of your games.

I was just trying to explain how it doesn't matter that wars are not fought between longbows and gunships in reality. That kind of realism is not even a consideration in a game like Civ IV.

It certainly is for me. That's why I imagine that the longbows doesn't really represent forces from a civ that's 800 year's behind me in technology.

This is what I find ridiculous. The fact that one of the civs is 800 years behind in military tech is not "unrealistic". If they were on an isolated island poor in resources, then is it still unrealistic?

Well, it has never happended even once through the history of mankind that one of the main powers of the world has lagged 800 - or even 100 years behind, and yet you don't think its unrealistic. How can anything be more unrealistic than that?

Increase the difficulty then. Or play with people.

Why should I? It's not me that's complaining and saying that the game should be changed.

You're talking about something that can change from game to game. The civs present in a game are not automatically empires. They start out as nomadic tribes. Not all of them achieve empire status. Perhaps none achieve empire status if the first bonafide empire survives and keeps expanding to 2050.

But the others are still the main competing powers of the world....

Imagine if the fall of Rome never happened, and they continued to progress far ahead of the various barbarian tribes, the far East, and the Americas. Would it be possible fo a situation to develop where the Romans would be vastly ahead of a number of other civs in the world militarily? That's what the game simulates.

No, something like that has never been possible, the neighbour contries would still learn their technology from contact with Rome. It's an interesting thought experiment, but totally unrealistic, as proved by the entire history.

But more important than this, is the actual war. Even the U.S. made sure to use some strategy when attacking Iraq (which is far from among the top 8 powers of the world). They used artillery and bombers to soften up the defenders, and really tried to use the right equipment for the job. And still they had losses. Not many, but some. That's what I want in a war in cIV too: The need for some strategy, using artillery and the right equipment at the right time, and then maybe suffer some losses. What I don't want is to merely be able to mindlessly steamroll with one unit type just because I've got a technology advantage. That's not how war works, and that's not realistic. And I'm happy that the designers of cIV can see this too, and not only look at that single battle between the gunship and longbownman.

 

[Dom88]

Helicopter gunships such as the Apache were developed as tank killing machines, perhaps the developers of the game were attempting to simulate this.
Realism doesn't come into it since a gunship wouldn't actually fly through enemy terrain magically refuelling and re-arming no matter where they were, and guess what, they can actually fly over water in the real world too!
Personally I don't see anything wrong with the gunship in the game. Their main purpose is to counter enemy tanks. They're expensive little toys, and in my opinion made to be deliberately fragile, makes you think twice before risking them in combat unless you need to.

 

[yoshi]

Modern units already have rediculous odds against outdated units, so count me in the latter.

Fine but helicopters losing to archers and that cannot be defended by game balance.

Let me explain:

Game balance refers to the process of adjusting values to ensure that a single factor (a tech jump, for instance) will not win the game.

Each level of tech further from the backward civ's tech level increases the odds to the point where they cap out (i.e. 1vs1 combat = 100% odds), in which case additional units are usually required to destroy the advanced unit (e.g. 3vs1 combat = 80% odds).

What I'm getting from this thread is that a late-game unit can lose to an early-game unit (i.e. 1vs1) and what's more, it happens regularly enough to have an effect on gameplay (i.e. it's not just a freak occurance).

Where the game is concerned, this is tantamount to babying in that it does far more than simply prevent single factor wins; it artificially extends the game even when there is a clear winner (i.e. makes winning more tedious than strategic).

Bottom line: if you're so behind in tech that you're using Longbowmen against an opponent with the prerequisite for helicopters, you suck so hard that your civ deserves to be wiped from the face of the map.

 

[snepp]

Game balance refers to the process of adjusting values to ensure that a single factor (a tech jump, for instance) will not win the game.

Agreed.

Each level of tech further from the backward civ's tech level increases the odds to the point where they cap out (i.e. 1vs1 combat = 100% odds), in which case additional units are usually required to destroy the advanced unit (e.g. 3vs1 combat = 80% odds).

Agreed.

What I'm getting from this thread is that a late-game unit can lose to an early-game unit (i.e. 1vs1) and what's more, it happens regularly enough to have an effect on gameplay (i.e. it's not just a freak occurance).

Partially agreed. While a late-game unit can lose to an early-game unit (1vs1), it does not happen regularly. Anyone that say it does either (a.) doesn't understand the definition of regularly, or (b.) enjoys making gross exaggerations.

Where the game is concerned, this is tantamount to babying in that it does far more than simply prevent single factor wins; it artificially extends the game even when there is a clear winner (i.e. makes winning more tedious than strategic).

I agree with what you're saying, but this isn't the case. In my experiences the only thing tedious about steamrolling a backwards civ is movement rate of units.

Bottom line: if you're so behind in tech that you're using Longbowmen against an opponent with the prerequisite for helicopters, you suck so hard that your civ deserves to be wiped from the face of the map.

Couldn't agree more.

 

[ZombieEater]

While it always annoys me, I don't care too much about losing an advanced unit to a guy with a backhoe.

For the folks who can't accept that, think about it as if your precious gunship was ridden into the ground by an incapable pilot in a routine maneuver.

Don't have the exact numbers, but US deaths in Iraq due to accidents are what? 10% of the total by now? And some of those were just flying from point A to point B without any enemy fire.

[edit]Quick search on CNN. As of Nov. 8 2005, 2056 US casualties in Iraq, 447 classified as non-hostile. I guess that makes it 20%, though not all might be accidents. Well, there's always friendly fire... [/edit]

Count yourself lucky you don't lose any Units in CivIV due to accidents or human error!

 

[Captain2]

well think of it this way, maybe the longbow men didnt blow up the heli, just an arrow pierced the windshield and hit the pilot

 

[Bal Ur]

Though I do believe in game balance, just the image of a group of archers destroying a squadron of helicopters seems rediculous to me. I believe in the other thread one person said that the graphics of each unit should be changed for each era, so that in the modern era it wouldn't be "spearmen vs. tank", but instead "angry mob with homemade weapons vs. tank".

And on a side note, here is a video of a few training runs of an attack helicopter. I somehow doubt that in real life a group of archers could beat several dozen of these:

http://www.break.com/articles/iraqfootage.html