The return of the killer phalanx

[Magellan]

One of my biggest beefs with civ3 is the anti-realistic performance of ancient units v. modern units. A spearman/hoplite or a musketman will hit a tank at least once or twice during each combat. That's absurd. A musketman would be 100% wiped out against a tank, with no damage to the tank, every single time. With the elimination of firepower, to make it even close to realistic, I think the middle ages units need to be increased about 50%, while the industrial/modern units need to be at least doubled in power. That would still result in a spearman in a large city damaging a tank, which is silly, but at least the frequency would be reduced.

 

[CoolLizy]

The problem with the newer units being too much more powerful than their counter-parts is that it puts a little too much imbalance in the game.
Even if a civ is only about nine turns behind another in research, the advanced Civ would be able to use it's new mech inf. to completely wipe out a few cities before the other Civ could even mobilize it's new found mech inf. nine turns late to replace it's riflemen once it gets the advance, too.

 

[Magellan]

Well, CoolLizy, I see your point. As always, it's a question or realism v. playability. I guess I was so excited to see my tanks, that I really wanted to roll over the pesky Aztecs and I was mad their pikemen were slowing me down some.

 

[Suvorov]

Q: Do you know what one of the most effective weapon in combating tanks is?
A: A pit.

Tanks do not fare so well against prepared positions. When massacring troops who are moving about in the field, there is no better, but against fortifications you're bound to have some casualties, even if they don't have guns, if they have any idea what they are doing. Just make a big enough pit, trick the tank into rolling over it, then kill the crew while the tank is immobile an unable to raise its weaponry high enough to fire it.

Hell, tree trunks put at a 30 degree angle relative to the ground with a supporting beam can stop the advance of modern MBTs.

They're not as invulnerable as you seem to think.

 

[CoolLizy]

That's what nukes are for.

 

[White Raven]

Here’s how I explain the phenomena. It hinges on the fact that turns are long periods of time and that a tile is a lot of territory. A turn of attack is not a single engagement along a limited front of battle, it’s an entire campaign or maybe we could call it a siege. Sure, Pikemen standing in a field wouldn’t last five minutes against tanks or Mech infantry… but this isn’t what happens. These battles become a matter of “hitting them where they ain’t”. Tank crews have to eat, sleep, refuel and rearm. They camp for days at a time. They spend the day rumbling around the streets looking for something to shoot but find nothing… but they’re being watched. Hey, when the driver of the tank answers the call of nature, all you need is a rock to finish him off.

When advanced troops attack a city with primitive defenses, I assume they waltz right into the place. I can picture a Major waltzing into the mayor’s office and putting his feet up on the desk. This doesn’t make the city a conquered city. The primitive troops are still there, waiting for openings. They didn’t face the oncoming columns, they faded into the background. Urban fighting… street to street fighting is a dirty, ugly business that often lasts months or years.

How long can an army survive in this kind of hostile territory? If they encamp in mass with good security… they’ve isolated themselves and haven’t succeeded in conquering the city. If they spread out and engage the enemy, they loose many of their advantages. Sure, they have a decent chance of winning in the end, but it's not going to be easy.
:soldier:

White Raven

 

[Julian I]

And all that is explained in the manual where exactly?

I don't know what's worse... people mindlessly *****ing about absolutely *anything* without rhyme or reason or people coming up with reasons out of thin air and concepts the game doesn't contemplate at all, just to explain or feel good about the game's shortcomings.

One more time, all that the game uses to resolve combat is :

- ADM
- HPs
- Terrain/city size and relevant improvements
- Fortified or not

Anything else DOES NOT EXIST for the game. So pikemen beating tanks is just a pitfall of the combat system... not "pikemen digging pits or opening the hatches to kill the crew".

Peace...

 

[Setsuna]

Well said, Julian.

Though from what I heard in the chat earlier today, this crap was intentional.

Apparently it's not "fair."

I say, what's the difference between falling behind in technology, and falling behind in any other aspect of the game? If you don't have as many cities, as much developed infrastructure, a big enough military and so on, should the game nerf the AI because it's not "fair" that they managed to put together a decent empire?

 

[Daikoku]

Originally posted by White Raven

When advanced troops attack a city with primitive defenses, I assume they waltz right into the place. I can picture a Major waltzing into the mayor’s office and putting his feet up on the desk. This doesn’t make the city a conquered city. The primitive troops are still there, waiting for openings. They didn’t face the oncoming columns, they faded into the background. Urban fighting… street to street fighting is a dirty, ugly business that often lasts months or years.

How long can an army survive in this kind of hostile territory? If they encamp in mass with good security… they’ve isolated themselves and haven’t succeeded in conquering the city. If they spread out and engage the enemy, they loose many of their advantages. Sure, they have a decent chance of winning in the end, but it's not going to be easy.
:soldier:

It seems to me like you're making the hapless pikemen commanded by Che Guevara or something... That's one extreme, while on the other you have Cortez and the Aztecs.

While I understand the need for game balance with not letting the new unit roll over everything, realistically musketeers were not trained to fight tanks. Personally I'd think there would be some sort of morale penalty or "terror" rating involved with primitive units versus modern ones. After all, even the most hardened archer probably wouldn't be too happy to fight the big armored thing with the guns.

Of course, you could split hairs on this sort of thing forever. For example, a religious civ's units might want to flee the tank thinking it was a demon, or instead you'd get a sort of "crusade" mentality. I never thought that the Civ2 combat system was too complicated, although I do think it is a good change at least in making it far more difficult to destroy fledgling civs very early on.

 

[KillerRabbit]

Well, personally I havent gotten over the thing that my submarine (wich attacked) a ironclad LOST, after a couple of days meditating on this subject i still was confused. How can that ironclad even shoot back at a submarine....???

In Worldwar 2 when USA sent reinforcments to europe during german invasion USA ships were taken down 1 by 1 on their route to europe due to submarines, and these were modern ships compared to the stupid ironclad!

And also my tanks had lots of problems fighting phalanx (exuse me, spearmens) and lost much hitpoints during the fight. What should be done is that some units couldnt just win whatever 0.1% thats on their side to score hit in modern units.

Like this Phalanx should not be able to do anything to a tank, while a rifleman can, (gunpoweder) and infantry has very big chance elimnating tank (AT troops in that infantry for example!)

A (my) submarine should n-e-v-e-r loose against anything under Destroyer/cruiser or what they are called in civ 3.

Sword units vs. gunpowder units fighting OK,
gunpowder vs. modern fighting, still ok,
but never sword units vs modern, NOT OK

So when attacking a phalanx, swordsman with a tank, they should surrender, convert to a worker or whatever!

AND - THE CORRUPTION!!! It is NOT possible to have a large civilization in this game, even with palace and forbidden palace?

There is much to improve in this game, but still it is an excellent game overall

BTW; I know a single tile represents a lot of terrain, and that 1 phalanx represents many 100s of warriors together, and that 1 turn is a very long time (years in fact)

Since i have been in the military, as machine gunner, I know that if 20 people starts running at me with a sword in their hand they wouldnt stand a chance since a machine gun shots so incredible fast and doesnt need to be reloaded that fast, with over 100 shots in 1 magazine.

So - Ancient units and mid-middle ages untis should surrender as soon they are attacked by modern units!

 

[Julian I]

Setsuna:

Is there a transcript from the chat anywhere? I'd love to take a look at it.

And we agree. I've been saying that since I finished my first game (won, btw ) here in the forums (also over at arstechnica...lots of civers there).

I make sure I lead the science globally... nobody knows more stuff about more things than I do. I work hard to keep my cities in order, so I can have a fast, efficient production base when/if the times come. I also make sure to deploy the necessary infrastructure (transports/roads/railroads/resources) so when the time comes, I can produce great numbers of cutting-edge, powerful units and I'm also able to deploy them when they're needed really fast.

So, when my tanks or battleships lose to pikemen and galleons, the only conclusion I can draw is that the game is actually penalizing ME, just to protect the other civs that couldn't/wouldn't keep up.

IF THE PLAYER IS DOING A GOOD JOB HE GETS PENALIZED FOR THE OTHER'S SHORTCOMINGS

This is not "Sid Meier's Protect the Backwards, Primitive-Ass People". It's dog-eat-dog... if I have tanks and you have pikemen, then screw you, I'm rolling over you if you can't make something better to stop me.

It's Civilization (or Civicorruption...depending on who you ask). And in the history of our civilizations it has been proven time after time after time after time that superior civilizations crushed inferior ones. Through technology, through sheer numbers, through diplomacy, through whatever you want.

Just because Firaxis was oh-so-mortally afraid of ICS or being able to wipe out entire civs with 5 tank divisions, now they went overboard with the fixes to the other side. Now corruption is beyond crippling and it takes 300 tank divisions.

And 300 tank division would be a great, realistic number... if it wasn't for the fact that the other civ is STILL DEFENDING WITH 2-3 PIKEMEN PER CITY.

There is NO excuse for this. Firaxis : Grow some balls and let the people play the game however they want to. Don't artificially cripple entire valid avenues of play just because of a "design choice" (favoring the defender).

Peace...

 

[starfox]

I totally agree with KillerRabbit:

How can my submarine be hit by a galley?? My sub is invisible to these guys and shot torpedoes. The enemy cannot see me and even less know what happened

I totall agree with Julian:

Now each time my tank attack a phalanx (or anything similar) I GREW ACCUSTOMED to that fact that I might lose!! I start thinking "uh uh darn a phalanx, tough fight... fortunately my tank has full HP" IT IS TRUE!!

Is there a way to change this in the editor?

I want my tanks to kick butts and plow through spearmen like they were grass!!

So firaxis, if you listen, honestly you know we're right! dont you get upset too when YOU lose your tanks to puny units! so please do something about it or at least give us the possibility to swtich on a realistic fight button/option

 

[skintigh]

Heh, reading that title reminded me of a favorite civ2 moment - when a phalanx downed a stealth bomber. Must've done wonders for their morale, which was probably low after being in the trenches for 3000 years.

 

[The Ripper]

Originally posted by Julian I
And all that is explained in the manual where exactly?

One more time, all that the game uses to resolve combat is :

- ADM
- HPs
- Terrain/city size and relevant improvements
- Fortified or not

Anything else DOES NOT EXIST for the game. So pikemen beating tanks is just a pitfall of the combat system... not "pikemen digging pits or opening the hatches to kill the crew".

It's strange hearing someone who is so shortsighted about the numbers in the game,just to say that they are not fit to give a certain result....
If you want to speak about the game without imaginin anything else about reality,consider that numbers are there to give the results you see,not the contrary...
If not what a problem to improve attack of 10 points for each era?
A 50 attack tank is very powerful...but i don't think that at Firaxis they can't calculate additions...
This game is a simulation of reality,and a simplified vision of reality is behind the numbers..
If you lack fantasy and love calculations,play chess...

 

[9 ECAC Titles]

There's a lot of imagination behind chess, too. ;-)

I can understand how certain styles of play are hampered by the design decisions, but I can't get too upset about it, since they match the way I like to play the game.

For those who do not like imagination, skip the next paragraph.

Considering the time frame behind even a small # of turns, it would not be realistic to assume that a civ with ancient weapons, when confronted with a civ with modern weapons, would not steal/adopt/adapt their way to a conderable improvement in their battlefield effectiveness. The game models this, albeit abstractly.

 

[Jezner]

So far, I haven't had a problem with the combat system even when the computer's ancient units beat my modern ones. Technology is not only factor in determining a military outcome. Technology is a tool. In the hands of idiots, well - we all the know the result.

I haven't gotten a hold of subs, but I agree with you that ships should not be able to fight back. Personally, I'd like the Civ crew to establish a bombard command for the sub so you can fire in any direction, but you can't be seen. If you did want ships to fight back, why not create a depth charge improvement? That makes sense, no? In any case, I have yet to get subs (its 2007 and I just got infantry) so I'm taking wild stabs in the dark.

 

[KillerRabbit]

Civilization 2 have better combat system than Civ 3 in my opinion, there i lost modern stuff at least 70% less than in Civ 3

Well, overall Civ2 has gotten a little bit outdated , so i guess I have to live with these, until someone makes a mod, or, I learn how to do one!

BTW: In the editor in Civ3, why is edit rules greyed out to me? I cant change anything, just make the map and use the brushes, not edit any rules at all.... =(

Civ 3 is a great game, but things *could* be better

* The computer should be easier in the easiest (I am learning a newbie civ player to play civ, and its very hard for him to keep up with the AI, even for me, player of Civ series since Civ1

* Units that surrender if attacking unit is 2 "eras" higher. (or split the eras into 8 for military units, and allow max 4 jumps in the 8 eras before untis surrender

* Make units have special abilities, wich is checked like this: Trireme attacked by submarien. Tririme depthcharges=no, cant hit back. Bomber bombs infantry, has Infantry AA capability=xxx (well that depends on how modern infantry troop) then shoot back.

Well, also one thing I am missing is to terraform, I havent researched whole tech tree yet, but I havent seen any option in civilopedia to turn deserts to plains and so on.

AND where did the Alpha Centauri landscape go!??! with heights and so, in the late modern ages it should be possible to raise / lower terrain to build canals, and so on...

Well, I guess you cant get everything.....

 

[CurtSibling]

Using the editor you could add some subtle changes to the game
balance to make it more fair:

This works for me:

Ancient ground units...nil

Middle Ages ground units...add +1 to attack factors

Industrial Ages ground units...add +4 to attack factors

Modern Ages ground units...add +10 to attack factors


Ancient Artillery units...add +2 to bombard factors

Middle Ages Artillery units...add +3 to bombard factors

Industrial Ages Artillery units...add +4 to bombard factors

Modern Ages Artillery units...add +5 to bombard factors


Ancient Warship units...nil

Middle Ages Warship units...add +2 to bombard factors

Industrial Ages Warship units...add +4 to bombard factors

Modern Ages Warshipunits...add +6 to bombard factors


This does not ruin the game! The AI has the same advantage,

and the assaulting unit has a fighting chance.
Armour etc, are good, but still take damge from Infantry etc.

All round I find the arrangement more like real life...
I plan to release a MOD with all these changes soon!

 

[HarryS]

Hi everyone,

This is my first posting but I've been a Civ fan since Civ2 came out. I don't have Civ3 yet (i'll have to wait for the Mac version) but I'm gonna jump in with my tuppence worth.

Yes, there is no way an Ancient Era unit could even dent a Modern Era tank unit but if we're going to demand that level of brutal realism and play inbalance, then we should be honest and include the down side. No modern Era unit should be allowed to operate above one turn once it's line of supply back to its own Civ borders has been cut/compromised/ destroyed/ whatever. In essence we would be talking about all modern units having to drag around behind them a line marking how they are getting all those lovely rounds of HEAP/HEAT ammunition; diesel fuel, spare parts etc. We all know that the Civ has the strat resources to build the unit in the first place but is that Civ getting those resources to that tanker deep in enemy territory that's tearing up the enemy's roads and mauling it's phalanxes? Some how I doubt it. Tanks are hard nuts to crack, supply trucks are all together an easier proposition.

Ancient Era units were far easier to support in the field, actually living of the land was part of their tactics. It was with Napoleon (sp?) that supplying an army from home became a military necessity.

Personally, if I wanted that level of military precision I'd be playing one of the many excellent war-gaming games out there. I may yet do as as I am interested in military history but that's not what I play Civ for.

I am really looking forward to having a crack at this game, so please bum me out about it guys!

 

[Julian I]

If you lack fantasy and love calculations,play chess...

I love fantasy. And I love sci-fi even more...

That's why I played Fantastic Worlds and AC.

However, when I play Civ (any Civ), uh.... I don't know... maybe it's just me, but I expect a humble, minimum, tiny bit of reality? You know, since it's mostly based on real historical units, real civilizations and all that?

I can only suspend my disbelief *so much*... normally up to whenever I attack a galley with an ironclad and I lose.

Peace...

PS : BTW, I'm also a terrific Chess player...