The return of the killer Phalanx

[Zachriel]

You must have very bad luck. I only see the "killer phalanx" every once in a while, and I always have plenty of backup.

 

[chewcud]

Zachriel

All wonderful examples of occasional, spectacular victories that might have a place in civIII. And I do want those occaisions to arise when I lose (or win) under odd circumstances. But in CIV III there is a very consistent bias towards defending troops regardless of their technological level.

Honestly, the current rules make the game a little less interesting because you are not open to multiple styles of military combat, but are forced into a inordinatly defensive battle with older technology because it doesn't pay to build advanced units. I am all for siege battles with coordinated bombing runs, artie shots, ground troops and armor. Great! But when all five methods fail consistently to oust a pair of elite shaka-zulu spearmen... well.

Sadly, my war history reads more like constanza's. loss after loss to inferior units.

What would be cool is if those odd occurances happened a lot less frequently, but that by winning such a battle, the game recognized that and gave the unit/city/civ a reward. I mean, everyone knows of the british/zulu battle, and some (thanks, Zachriel) of the warsaw ghetto. Those are important events, and could be reflected as such in the game. A leader, a "commemorative statue" for culture points, whatever.

The key is less, though. very rare occurances.

does the "balancer" game mod address the to any decent degree? While maintaining, er, a good balance?

 

[chewcud]

one other thing. Navy.

I see a lot more strange losses at see than I do at land. Is there something to be done for that? Keep your navy close to costal batteries? Fortify? Keep a buffer of galleys around your ships?

and is it just me or does the bombard ability fail a little much? both when I am attacked and when I attack, it seems that not much happens often. I've watched two or three civs fire shot after shot after shot at a few square/cities of mine and it didn't do anything. My bombers and jets fly over a city five times in one turn and 2 or three of those do some damage. Maybe the bombers worked a little more often, which makes sense.

But the navy. Ugh.

 

[Akka]

Originally posted by Zachriel
480BC - Thirty thousand Persians confronted 300 Spartans warriors at Thermopylae. Xerses, King of the Persians, sent wave after wave of his best troops only to see them thrown back. Eventually, they killed the 300 brave Spartans, but the delay gave the Greeks time to prepare a successful defense. Xerses called down the wrath of the Gods on Firaxis.

I don't see any difference about technology here. Where is the point ?

1879 - In Isandlwana, South Africa, Zulu warriors armed with pointy sticks wiped out crack British gunpowder infantry. A senior British military specialist blamed poor planning on the part of Firaxis.

That was the ONLY victory of the Zulus. In the same time, the entire Africa was conquered by European nations without any other kind of defeat. Try to take away a whole continent defended by Impis with riflemen and cavalry alone and having only one unit damaged.

1943 - With only 23 repeating firearms (mostly rifles), the Jewish inmates of the Warsaw Ghetto held off two crack German Divisions for 28 days: They started out with only one puny revolver and a few rounds of ammunition, but the intrepid and precision use of that one firearm resulted in the acquisition of 22 long arms. The German high command blamed Jewish elements in Firaxis bent on domination of the German people.

The ghetto was finally razed, and the rebellion quelled, NOT ending in the city making any "culture flip". I may be wrong, but it's quite usual to see cities revolting, deposing the governor and going back to their previous civilization in the game. Even with three armored elite divisions in them.

2000 - A pair of terrorists steered a small boat loaded with explosives alongside a U.S. Navy destroyer in Yemen and stood at attention as the small boat blew up, U.S. officials said. The explosion opened a large hole in the hull, nearly sinking the technologically advanced USS Cole. The U.S. said that it wasn't really fair, and that Firaxis should change their combat system.

The ship was not sank, it was damaged. So no unit lost, just reduced to one hit point. Try to make a whole game of Civ3 losing no naval unit against galleon and ironclads.

How come no one playing Civ3 is complaining that their own phalanx successfully defended an enemy attack by a more technologically advanced AI civilization?

Personnally, because I'm not often in late in the tech race, and because I DO upgrade my units.

I would like to offer some of my own examples, BTW :

1453 : French army slaughter the english army at Castillon, using the first massive artillery fire to shot down the cavalry, despite being outnumbered by 2 or 3 to 1.

XVI° century : about 200 Spanish soldiers destroy the Aztec, the Inca and the Maya empire.

XVIII° to XIX° century : native american are butchered by colonists and Americans. Their only important military victory is, in two centuries, the destruction of Custer.

XIX° century : Africa, India and Asian south-east are conquered by Europeans. English lose one unit of riflemen in the whole. French destroy the 6000 men of Abd-el-Kader with 500 cavaliers.

XX° century :
- WWI is won because of the economic and number advantage of the Allied, and because of the extensive use at the end of the war of tanks. Cavalry is decimated.
- France lose 10 000 men in Viet-nam, killing more than 100 000.
- France lose 30 000 men in Algery, killing more than one million
- USA loses 55 000 men in Viet-nam, killing more than 1 100 000.
- USSR loses 15 000 men in Afghanistan, killong more than one million.
- Korea war : UNO loses 53 000 men, China loses 900 000
- Gulf War : Allied forces loose about 500 to 2000 men, Iraq loose more than 100 000

And I have to add that the wars in the XX° century were between "units" that were only a few "tech" away (ie : infantry vs cavalry, infantry vs modern armor, F-15 vs Jet fighter), not between a "modern unit" and a "medieval" one.

Justify the absurd combat result because of game balance, because of the fact that's only a video game, or tell me that you don't care, or anything, but please stop with the stupid rationalization and with the "tech is not that much important".