Unit attack/defend values: meaningless in C3C?

[Woody]

Basicly, the "combat strength" of a unit isn't the same as it's probability of victory, and that fact is a novelty to traditional wargamers. What we're seeing here is the results of Civ3 fanatics trying to defend their love, while unfortunately ignoring standard wargaming tactics.

There is your problem, Civ III has never claimed to be a war game. Its a strategy game with warfare as one of its components.

 

[shortguy]

2) percentage of winning a round=percentage of winning an entire battle

Only if they have equal hp.

 

[Bungus]

Right. I don't know how some of you can argue otherwise, but the above statement is entirely correct ("Only if they have equal hp").
Medieval infantry atacking a spearman (ignoring terrain bonuses) has a 66% chance of winning, provided they have equal health
Even with the RNG leaving streaky results, I say 100 tests will paint a pretty reasonable picture of

 

[FinnMcCool]

Shortguy and Woody both have valid points, IMO. Woody points out the non-importance of combat, but I might disagree with his assesment that Civ3 isn't a wargame; no matter how hard I try, I always seem to find myself in the midst of war. I think the game designers arranged it that way...

Shortguy: expand on your idea. Please.

 

[socralynnek]

1) there are hit ppint bonuses in for ancient cavalry and the war elephant.
2) percentage of winning a round=percentage of winning an entire battle


#1 is irrelevant. We're talking about the combat system for all units.
#2 is just incorrect. It's mathematically correct, but it isn't a useful equation for calculating the chance of winning a battle. The complaints are coming from players who object to a VERY HIGH Combat Strength losing 1/3 of it's total viability due to a single round losing against a very weak unit.

It's not even mathematically correct, it's only correct if bith units have only 1HP.
Here is a good Combat Calculator:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=75765

In the above example:
Tank vs. Tank on Plains(not fortified) both 3HP

Attack 16
Defense 8.8 (10%defense bonus)

Chance of winning one round for attacker : 16/24.8 (64.52%)
Chance of winning battle for attcker: 75.7 %

Tank vs.Tank (not fortified) on forest with battle across river
Attacker 3 HP, Defender 4 HP

Attack 16
Defense 12

Chance of winning one round for attacker: 57.14 %
Chance of winning battle for attacker : 48.5%

So, dont forget about defense bonuses and Hitpoints, they can make the difference
(OTOH even in the first example winning only 10 of 20 fights is not that unlikely)

And after playing a lot C3C I can say: The RNG is perfect, it gives the results you expect from an RNG, because some streaks are part of Statistics, a RNG without streaks would be very flawed!

 

[Woody]

Shortguy and Woody both have valid points, IMO. Woody points out the non-importance of combat, but I might disagree with his assesment that Civ3 isn't a wargame; no matter how hard I try, I always seem to find myself in the midst of war. I think the game designers arranged it that way...

It must be something in your playing style, while it is almost impossible to play a game with no wars it is very possible to play a game without being at war all the time. It is also not hard to turn some wars into a "phony" war where you rarely see the enemy by using alliances and diplomacy.

BTW I didnt say combat was not important, I just pointed out that the game was not based exclusively on combat. Knowing how to wage war is a very important part of this game, but war is not just about the outcomes of individual battles. To be successful you have to account for a possible strings of bad luck in your planning, it might mean suing for peace earlier or having to wait a couple of turns for units to be replaced before resuming the attack.

 

[Pfeffersack]

You do not even need special hitpoint boni for modern units to influence the combat in the way the modern unit wins more often - if you just double the hitpoints of the various experience ranks, you will see this effect, too.Of course, special hit point boni favor modern units even more - examples for how this works are the DyP and RaR mods.

 

[Cu Chulainn]

*scoff* by this logic you'd just build nothing but warrior the whole game and win. We've been over this a billion times, if victory were as predictable as some seem to want it to be the variation of the game would go down considerably and it would become boring. An example: in my most recent game the Iroqouis attacked me as I was switching to Republic. My army wasn't what it should have been and I had to switch a couple of big projects over to horsemen + spears to get a couple extra units during a long anarchy. With only a few units I was able to hold off their hordes of mounted warriors long enough to get the gov change and begin cash rushing an army. Without the RNG I wouldn't have had a chance. They would have bulldozed half my empire and probably put me pretty much out of the game. If you want higher level units to always win combats give them a +100 hp bonus and quit yer whinin'!