This game, and it's "random # generator" are BS!

sumthinelse, good post! I've never seen that the AI is better equipped in compat luck then I am. Sometimes my HEROIC, BRAVE, DEVOTED, BRILLIANTLY LED AND SUPERIORLY ARMED units win against all odds, sometimes the CHEATING, BACKSTABBING, UNREALISTIC AI win against all odds. For me, that is part of the charm. I loved it when my last wounded samurai managed to beat off 6 babylonian bowmen, thus saving my capito, and I equally loved that the babs in their turn held on to the strategically important Uruk like the Ruskies did in Stalingrad.

What is annoying is the way these battles are shown, and, here we go, all togather, THE SPEARMAN VS TANK SYNDROME again.

I've NEVER seen any posts about how stupid it was for that lone AI mech infantry grind those attacking panzers into dust. We can picture that. It makes sence and we can, unless we slept thruout school, see similar historical events. The few airborn Americans holding out during the Battle of the Bulge, the Spartans of Thermoplylae etc. What makes us rave about this cheating AI is the crazy battles that defy common sence. perhaps it would be better if you only had "units" in civ, not bothering to name them or give them any kind of graphic. Firafax has not a clue how to portrait the different units anyway, so why bother.

Fix the anacronism problem, and the reality of combat will sort itself out.
 
a few more words on several things posted above (I`m to lazy to find the posters and name them explicitly):

1) the seed is a good idea, since ti makes cheating harder

2) I, too, like a challenge. But the suckier the ahdn dealt to me, the more do I have to rely on careful planning and on using every advantage I may get. This is exactly where the freaky RNG/combat system hits: it will often destroy the most carefully laid plans, while simpler stuff sails through. THis leads to my feeling that games with an easy start get easier, while tough games often also go unlucky :(

3) I believe the RNG is basically OK, our sample is to small and it gets to the point where the strings produced get really to long for the game, whether they are nromal or not! I don`t think they are, but I`m too lazy to do a statistical test.

4) the combat system sure is a big improvement over CivI and CivII. Still, some aspects, such as leader creation or the high dependency on luck, beyond all possible caution on Emperor are extremely annoying. I would like to be able to play Emperor as a tougher challenge, not as something needing more luck. If I think harder and plan better it chouls mean something! Hwo can it be that I regularly win carless deity games, but often loose carefully played Monarch games at the same time?????

5) As for the leader thing: it would be so easy to fix that, by simply letting the probability of a leader increase by a small amount for every fight that doesn`t produce one. Maybe in increments of 1/32 up to 25% (that being the 8th fight from start of increase), starting at fight 9. Thiis would make the probability of getting a leader in fight 16 25%, rather fair I`d say.
Maybe this should only be done for the first leader in the game, but for him it needs to be done. It cannot be that I conquer 80% of the world on a huge map, using elites whenever possible and I don`t get a leader ever! Not once!

6) As for all those who believe in an intentional advantage for the AI: sometimes I feel liek that, too. But then I also see improbable results in my favor, especailyy on higher levels where I`m routinely outgunned and out-teched. I don`t think there is one, except maybe by making the random sample so small.

7) Why does the AI seem to have so much luck? One thing I`d like to add which I didn`t get across right in my last post: The human player doesn`t plan on winning a sure-loss fight. Thus, he cannot use a win in it (unless he`s very lucky) while the AI is not expecting anything, thus often being more capable to use a lucky break. When I put a spearman into the path of a Cavalry, I expect to loose it and pile up better defenders in the next city. The AI doesn`t, deploys its troops elsewhere and if the spearman wins I have missdeployed troops and the AI doesn`t. Sure, if he dies the AI may loos a town. But for me the feeling of being unlucky if my Cav dies is there, while if my spearman wins I go Oh ****, if I`d only known.....
basically, the AI is willing to take risks a human never would, simply because it cannot plan long term.
 
Originally posted by Killer

7) Why does the AI seem to have so much luck? One thing I`d like to add which I didn`t get across right in my last post: The human player doesn`t plan on winning a sure-loss fight. Thus, he cannot use a win in it (unless he`s very lucky) while the AI is not expecting anything, thus often being more capable to use a lucky break. When I put a spearman into the path of a Cavalry, I expect to loose it and pile up better defenders in the next city. The AI doesn`t, deploys its troops elsewhere and if the spearman wins I have missdeployed troops and the AI doesn`t. Sure, if he dies the AI may loos a town. But for me the feeling of being unlucky if my Cav dies is there, while if my spearman wins I go Oh ****, if I`d only known.....
basically, the AI is willing to take risks a human never would, simply because it cannot plan long term.

Exactly! This is what I was getting at in my earlier post...in fact I think the crazy AI risks pay off dangerously often in the early part of the game when your military is smaller and every battle counts.

@Killer - I think you and I not only agree on how the thing works, but we probably both play very similarly. Only very recently have I started playing some bad odds gambits, and that's strictly for trying to get galleys across oceans. Because if I do make it, and find another civ, the payoff in trade opportunities is so huge it's worth the several turns it takes to produce galleys that might all sink...anyway I'm starting to think the only reason I'm not bothered by the combat system as much as you is that you've played more games than me, and at higher levels.

Once the AI starts outproducing the human player (which happens immediately once you select "Monarch" or higher level), the player cannot rely on good luck, because in the long term, the odds will even out and strategy becomes more important. If, as the experienced players are saying, the flukiness of the combat system prevents a Human strategy (the only real kind of strategy, since it depends on REAL intelligence) from paying off, then that's a shortcoming of the game, not playing style.

However I think it's important for ppl to realize that flukes DO happen, and the AI is much more likely to benefit from them than the Human player. It's not that the RNG is broke, it's the way the AI plays that does this. SO far my position has been that the human can mitigate this with sound strategy (though you still suffer some unforeseeable outcomes, "stupid #@$%* spear got stuck in the treads"), but maybe not enough so...
 
@ Parkranger:

Yeah, you are probably rigth about us two nad about the strategy/level/luck thing. Would you like to MP (maybe by e-mail)? Should be fun!

AS for the Galleys: I did some trial and found that your chances of not sinking increase drastically if you rush a Temple (or preferable two) if you can afford it before you end turn. Sometimes this got me a Galley across an ocean for 4 turns.....
 
Originally posted by Killer
AS for the Galleys: I did some trial and found that your chances of not sinking increase drastically if you rush a Temple (or preferable two) if you can afford it before you end turn. Sometimes this got me a Galley across an ocean for 4 turns.....

Interesting. Any idea on why this is so? Does rushing use the RNG for some reason? Or do you think the programmers put some sort of mysticism/good omen/favour of the gods thing in there? If so, I will dedicate all my temples to Poseidon!

@Killer - check your PM.
 
Originally posted by Park Ranger


Interesting. Any idea on why this is so?

????? no idea, but what I did was as follows:

I saved before end turn. Case A: Galley sinks. I reload, end turn, galley sinks. Again and again and again. So there seems to be a seed, too.

Case B: Galley sinks. I reload, rush a temple or some other cheap building. End turn. Galley often survives. So the seed has been changed.

Case C: Galley survives. I reload, rush a Temple, Galley survives. I have never seen a negative influence of rushing on Galley surviving!!!

@ parkranger: check your mail! ;)
 
u think the results are screwy on monarch and below?
try a deity game.

i am torn between two sides.

1) it is really frustrating when i build 20 mounted warriors, attack a city with 3 defenders and though i do win, 10 of my mounted warriors are wounded to 1 HP and they have to heal. with the intervening healing time and redeployment costs (opportunity cost since the mounted warriors could have moved on deeper into AI territory) i only manage 3-4 cities b4 the AI counterattacks and we stalemate on the war unless another AI picks up the fight on the other side.

2) it would be silly to expect same ease of winning a deity game
if these hardships weren't placed on ur path at deity. if u want an easier game, play lower levels...that's what they are for.


still, i'd like to see my10 mounted warriors predictably have an easier time beating a lone spearman.
 
another thing, from the games i've played i think there is an undocumented sense of morale.

it goes like this: if u move ur units to an AI city and declare war, u can expect to lose a bunch of units in the attack. if, in addition to the units u moved in to that city u reserve another stack of units and during ur turn u also attack another quite unepexted location, u have higher chances of winning that second battle.

somehow the defense values are bumped higher when the attack is expected at a particular location
 
It's just the way humans see things. They only see the part that's against them and not the part that's for them. Trust me, I know how frustrating it is when a Conscript Hoplite beats an Elite Modern Armor. But then there are also occasions where my single Mod Armor army wipes out an entire computer in Regent. If you flip a quarter once, the result is radical. Flip it one million times, the results will or might only be slightly off. Everyone has their streaks, dont get angry when you're off it
 
Originally posted by ZemiGod
It's just the way humans see things. They only see the part that's against them and not the part that's for them. Trust me, I know how frustrating it is when a Conscript Hoplite beats an Elite Modern Armor. But then there are also occasions where my single Mod Armor army wipes out an entire computer in Regent. If you flip a quarter once, the result is radical. Flip it one million times, the results will or might only be slightly off. Everyone has their streaks, dont get angry when you're off it

we all know that, but it`s not only what you remember, but also that normal human playing style works to make flukes more noticable - and probably more common!
 
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