Tank army vs Pikeman
- Thread starter Heretiv
- Start date
Terrapin
Prince
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2003
- Messages
- 505
Yep, those pikemen come with special armor piercing spears, fully able to penetrate the fuel tank on an armored vehicle causing it to explode. Also, the pikemen are very strong. Also, they are very heavy, so when they strike the tanks with sufficient force to pierce their armor, the pikemen themselves do not just fly off in the other direction. So fat weight lifters with magic spears it is!
Seriously, the game does not treat units from different eras very well. Each gets its attack and defense numbers and the chances of each winning are (generally) proportional to the ratio of those numbers. Defenders have a lot more bonuses available than attackers. So, even though the pikemen only have def 3 and tanks have att 10, there is a non-negligible chance that the pikemen will win. If the pikemen are dug in, defending a capital and/or have defensive upgrades, they have quite a good chance. If the tanks are not veteran the pikes might even be the favorite!
The civ series has always had this problem. In civ 1, the ratios were relatively small, and each battle was resolved as a single random event. That meant a warrior with def 1 had a straight 10% chance of killing a tank! Civ 2 smoothed this down by giving each unit a number of hit points (10, 20 or 30) with each "win" in a combat doing 1 hit point of damage. Combat lasted until one unit was dead. This reduced the change of an ancient unit killing a tank. The tanks had 20 hit points to the ancient unit's 10. So the ancient unit still had its 10% chance to win, but needed 20 wins before the tank got 10. The odds of that are microscopic. Civ Rev has now introduced the overrun mechanic. If there is a big disparity in the att/def ratio, the defender will simply disperse without fighting. That eliminates the possibility of many absurd outcomes, but does nothing to prevent competent defenders like pikemen from beating tanks, at least some of the time.
So, if you want bare knuckled realism, I suggest going on e-bay and picking up a copy of "Squad Leader" or "Atlantic Wall." Civ Rev provides diverting, streamlined gameplay, but nothing like historical realism.
Seriously, the game does not treat units from different eras very well. Each gets its attack and defense numbers and the chances of each winning are (generally) proportional to the ratio of those numbers. Defenders have a lot more bonuses available than attackers. So, even though the pikemen only have def 3 and tanks have att 10, there is a non-negligible chance that the pikemen will win. If the pikemen are dug in, defending a capital and/or have defensive upgrades, they have quite a good chance. If the tanks are not veteran the pikes might even be the favorite!
The civ series has always had this problem. In civ 1, the ratios were relatively small, and each battle was resolved as a single random event. That meant a warrior with def 1 had a straight 10% chance of killing a tank! Civ 2 smoothed this down by giving each unit a number of hit points (10, 20 or 30) with each "win" in a combat doing 1 hit point of damage. Combat lasted until one unit was dead. This reduced the change of an ancient unit killing a tank. The tanks had 20 hit points to the ancient unit's 10. So the ancient unit still had its 10% chance to win, but needed 20 wins before the tank got 10. The odds of that are microscopic. Civ Rev has now introduced the overrun mechanic. If there is a big disparity in the att/def ratio, the defender will simply disperse without fighting. That eliminates the possibility of many absurd outcomes, but does nothing to prevent competent defenders like pikemen from beating tanks, at least some of the time.
So, if you want bare knuckled realism, I suggest going on e-bay and picking up a copy of "Squad Leader" or "Atlantic Wall." Civ Rev provides diverting, streamlined gameplay, but nothing like historical realism.
elthrasher
Revcaster
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2009
- Messages
- 712
Sounds pretty unlucky to me, but when in doubt, here are two good rules of thumb:
- bring extra armies
- use naval support
Sorry for the necro but in a recent game Cavalry Armies were cutting through Muskets like hot knives through warm butter but when they came up against underlying Pikes in the same city they'd often get down to redline before winning. Likewise once attacked a Numidian Merc on a mountain (defending at 6 while the 3-unit Army's attacking at 9) and got down to 1 hitpoint before winning (whew!). Meanwhile single Cav units didn't seem to have the same problem against Pikes. A pity that Armies' combat odds aren't consistent throughout different eras. Or am I missing something?
Last edited:
Similar threads
