Unit Balance fix?
- Thread starter Jake000r
- Start date
RogueNine
Warlord
Which units need to be balanced? Besides, you can just go into the editor and fix whichever units you think need a boost/fix.
Phantis86
Chieftain
Unbalanced units sound as if they are becoming a real problem.
This is the third time tonight I have come across unit unbalancing. My older cousins and I were discussing unbalanced units ealier this afternoon. While I have not come across any yet, (I just recieved the game today as a Christmas gift, but played for about two hours) my cousins had the same complaint.
A patch from Firaxis would be nice. Try the editor, I haven't got into that yet, but I am sure you could fix your problem in there.
This is the third time tonight I have come across unit unbalancing. My older cousins and I were discussing unbalanced units ealier this afternoon. While I have not come across any yet, (I just recieved the game today as a Christmas gift, but played for about two hours) my cousins had the same complaint.
A patch from Firaxis would be nice. Try the editor, I haven't got into that yet, but I am sure you could fix your problem in there.
Ripley
Warlord
I'm relatively new to turn based strategy and Civ3. Never played either of the first two.
I don't think unit balance is a problem. The thing with many units is that they all seem to have a particular strength. No doubt there is a few I haven't used yet. But strength in one area usually means a relative weakness in another.
Rather than making generic statements, could people who think that some units are unbalanced please offer the specific examples that cause them to think that way.
Merry Christmas, and good cheer to all.
I don't think unit balance is a problem. The thing with many units is that they all seem to have a particular strength. No doubt there is a few I haven't used yet. But strength in one area usually means a relative weakness in another.
Rather than making generic statements, could people who think that some units are unbalanced please offer the specific examples that cause them to think that way.
Merry Christmas, and good cheer to all.
etj4Eagle
ACME Salesman
Yep we definetly need to know what units people find unbalanced and why. I myself haven't come across that problem, of course I also tend not to engage in wars (with all the luxeries that the AI is trading me, any war where I am fighting more than one of them is very bad for me).
Part of this problem may be just bad luck with the random numbers if they haven't played many games and don't have massive wars is their games. And in some cases it could be the issue that some are having with getting improbable results too often (suggesting a system specific bug in the random numer generator).
I hope the original poster, posts back with how they are unbalanced. (Which kind of suprises me as the developer's decision to balance the units is why alot of people are getting disgrunteled when their more tech advanced unit doesn't walk over the opposition).
Part of this problem may be just bad luck with the random numbers if they haven't played many games and don't have massive wars is their games. And in some cases it could be the issue that some are having with getting improbable results too often (suggesting a system specific bug in the random numer generator).
I hope the original poster, posts back with how they are unbalanced. (Which kind of suprises me as the developer's decision to balance the units is why alot of people are getting disgrunteled when their more tech advanced unit doesn't walk over the opposition).
I was playing as Egyptians, and was at war with the Russians from early on in the game.
Earlier in the game, I had a warrior become elite against barbarians, who I had sent against the Greeks to handicap them quickly.
This one warrior managed to take out a regular pikeman guarding a level 2 city, losing one health, then taking out another city, level 1, with a regular pikeman guarding, losing no health.
The stats for these units are
1/1/1 (warrior)
and
1/2/1
When I went to war with the Russians, I had started massing up a bunch of archers, who quickly reached the target city.
Ok - veteran archer attacks regular pikeman in level 1 city, dies, inflicting 1 damage.
Next veteran archer dies outright. (pikeman becomes veteran)
Next veteran archer loses 2 health and manages to kill the pikeman.
Later, my units are heading to the Russian capital and meet an enemy archer (veteran).
My veteran archer attacks - dies, inflicting 2 damage.
If these were freak occurences, I'd be happy.
But they happen all too often.. I could've conquered the Russians in half the time if the 'random' stuff was eliminated.
In fairness, it does happen the other way too.. how many times have you smiled as the enemy's 4 cavalry gets wiped out by your lone defending rifleman..
But I don't want to play with my luck, I want to use my skill, thanks.
Earlier in the game, I had a warrior become elite against barbarians, who I had sent against the Greeks to handicap them quickly.
This one warrior managed to take out a regular pikeman guarding a level 2 city, losing one health, then taking out another city, level 1, with a regular pikeman guarding, losing no health.
The stats for these units are
1/1/1 (warrior)
and
1/2/1
When I went to war with the Russians, I had started massing up a bunch of archers, who quickly reached the target city.
Ok - veteran archer attacks regular pikeman in level 1 city, dies, inflicting 1 damage.
Next veteran archer dies outright. (pikeman becomes veteran)
Next veteran archer loses 2 health and manages to kill the pikeman.
Later, my units are heading to the Russian capital and meet an enemy archer (veteran).
My veteran archer attacks - dies, inflicting 2 damage.
If these were freak occurences, I'd be happy.
But they happen all too often.. I could've conquered the Russians in half the time if the 'random' stuff was eliminated.
In fairness, it does happen the other way too.. how many times have you smiled as the enemy's 4 cavalry gets wiped out by your lone defending rifleman..
But I don't want to play with my luck, I want to use my skill, thanks.
So you are complaining about a defensive bias? Even though this is a game, there is definite historical precedent to giving defenders an advantage in combat--your warrior beating the spearmen was beating the odds, but succumbing to defensive units is typically the norm. Someone posted a spreadsheet awhile back which (or a java calculator) which could tell you the chance of victory between two units in combat, using factors like terrain, cities, etc...check that before you decide results are unbalanced.
Zachriel
Kaiser
Originally posted by SGX
I was playing as Egyptians, and was at war with the Russians from early on in the game.
. . .
But I don't want to play with my luck, I want to use my skill, thanks.
The combat results are well within reason. The best way to eliminate luck is with large numbers of units, and a little common sense when attacking fortified positions.
Modern military doctrine says you should have at least 3-1 on attack, or up to 10-1 against a well-prepared defense.
Zachriel
Kaiser
Originally posted by bst1
There is a solution to any minor imbalances in combat. It's called artillery!
Right on, dude!
DreadJester
Chieftain
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2001
- Messages
- 3
I would say that inbalance is definatly becoming a horrible blemish in this game. I have seen posts in other Civ 3 forums with the same complaints. For starters, I don't think that the Easiest level is easy enough. My wife has already given up Civ 3 out of frustration and went back to Civ 2. As far as unit imbalance, here are some complaints I've heard around the web.
"Taking an army of archers against a swordsman and getting your army waxed without even putting a dent in the swordsman isn't exactly right. Regular enemy swordsmen against a defending elite archer in a walled city with the Great Wall built in my country and the archer's get killed without even taking the swordman down one click. What's going on here?"
"One things Civ2 had going for it was the concept of hitpoints and firepower. When I first moved from civ1 to 2 I had no clue what it was about until I realized I wasn't losing a battleship after attacking a fortified phalinx in a city with citywalls anymore. Now they took it away and I saw an ARCHER take out a tank! An ARCHER! What are they using? Depleted uranium arrowheads?"
"#1 - The AI is too powerful. Even on the easiest levels it expands like a virus. I have not won a game yet, and I'm playing on [correction: Warlord] level. I am a veteran strategy gamer, if I can't win... well, let's just say that casual gamers, like my wife, simply don't have a chance. It is horribly frustrating, and I simply did not pay for this game to be frustrated like this, 5 days into it.
#2 - The AI cheats in combat. I did some statistics, and early on in the game: (all units regulars, all combat on grassland)
human archer vs computer archer loses 80% of the time. the algorhythm is, unbelievably, somehow saved before the actual combat takes place. I saved one game and I attacked the AI archer with my own... 30 times. I lost, 30 times, and not once did I do 1 damage to his archer. I wonder if restarting the game would have somehow "reset" the argorithm.
computer archer vs human archer wins over 95% of the time
human horseman (attack 2) vs AI swordsman (defense 2) loses about 80% of the time. again, saving the game and trying again resulted in the exact same sequence of events over two dozen times.
FIRAXIS, I understand that you want a strong AI to make it challenging for the top 0.001% Civ players. For the rest of us, please give us a fighting chance. Stop the cheating AI, or at least let us know what the odds really are.
Thank you."
"ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: (3 of 10)
The game cheats...like no other game I've played from the Civ series,
including the Call to Power series. To be honest with you, I'm
extremely pissed that the Firaxis team didn't properly tune the game
so that it wouldn't have to cheat as bad.
The extent to which Civ3 cheats hints that the development team
didn't put in the time to properly balance the gameplay. For
example, I had 3 Veteran Mechanized Infantry w/ defense of 18
attacked and defeated by 3 Calvary men (yes, men no horses vs. the
best modern armored defense vehicles)!!!
Over and over again, battles like these happen much more frequently
than you might imagine and I'm only playing at the 'Warlord' setting -
one setting above the easiest difficulty level! Don't get me
started on this...my army of tanks defeated by men on horses!!
UGGGGGGG!
I've played the game 3-times and I finally decided not to play it
anymore until Firaxis releases a fix to the the tainted AI."
And in humorous reply to this on a Yahoo group: ""men [on] horses vs. the best modern armored defense vehicles"
From Time.com:
Sunday, Nov. 11, 2001
In the dead of night, horses poured from the hills. They came charging down
from the craggy ridges in groups of 10, their riders dressed in flowing
shalwar kameez and armed with AK-47s and grenade launchers. In the Kishindi
Valley below, 35 miles south of the prized northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif,
the few Taliban tanks in the area not destroyed by American bombs took aim at
the Northern Alliance cavalry galloping toward them. But the 600 horsemen had
been ordered to charge directly into the line of fire. "If you ride fast
enough, you can get to them," an Alliance spokesman later explained. "You
ride straight at them. The tank will only have time to get off one or two
rounds before you get there." The rebels were told to leap on top of the
tanks, pull the Taliban gunners out through the open hatches and kill them.
The first land battle in the century's first war began with a showdown from a
distant age: fearless men on horseback against modern artillery. America's
money was on the ponies. "
Those are the major points that I've found around the net. What I have noticed is that it does seem somewhat in the computers favor, even at the easy level. I haven't really noticed any one unit that seems to be broken all the time, just that the computers units seem to beat me more often than not.
Dread
"Taking an army of archers against a swordsman and getting your army waxed without even putting a dent in the swordsman isn't exactly right. Regular enemy swordsmen against a defending elite archer in a walled city with the Great Wall built in my country and the archer's get killed without even taking the swordman down one click. What's going on here?"
"One things Civ2 had going for it was the concept of hitpoints and firepower. When I first moved from civ1 to 2 I had no clue what it was about until I realized I wasn't losing a battleship after attacking a fortified phalinx in a city with citywalls anymore. Now they took it away and I saw an ARCHER take out a tank! An ARCHER! What are they using? Depleted uranium arrowheads?"
"#1 - The AI is too powerful. Even on the easiest levels it expands like a virus. I have not won a game yet, and I'm playing on [correction: Warlord] level. I am a veteran strategy gamer, if I can't win... well, let's just say that casual gamers, like my wife, simply don't have a chance. It is horribly frustrating, and I simply did not pay for this game to be frustrated like this, 5 days into it.
#2 - The AI cheats in combat. I did some statistics, and early on in the game: (all units regulars, all combat on grassland)
human archer vs computer archer loses 80% of the time. the algorhythm is, unbelievably, somehow saved before the actual combat takes place. I saved one game and I attacked the AI archer with my own... 30 times. I lost, 30 times, and not once did I do 1 damage to his archer. I wonder if restarting the game would have somehow "reset" the argorithm.
computer archer vs human archer wins over 95% of the time
human horseman (attack 2) vs AI swordsman (defense 2) loses about 80% of the time. again, saving the game and trying again resulted in the exact same sequence of events over two dozen times.
FIRAXIS, I understand that you want a strong AI to make it challenging for the top 0.001% Civ players. For the rest of us, please give us a fighting chance. Stop the cheating AI, or at least let us know what the odds really are.
Thank you."
"ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: (3 of 10)
The game cheats...like no other game I've played from the Civ series,
including the Call to Power series. To be honest with you, I'm
extremely pissed that the Firaxis team didn't properly tune the game
so that it wouldn't have to cheat as bad.
The extent to which Civ3 cheats hints that the development team
didn't put in the time to properly balance the gameplay. For
example, I had 3 Veteran Mechanized Infantry w/ defense of 18
attacked and defeated by 3 Calvary men (yes, men no horses vs. the
best modern armored defense vehicles)!!!
Over and over again, battles like these happen much more frequently
than you might imagine and I'm only playing at the 'Warlord' setting -
one setting above the easiest difficulty level! Don't get me
started on this...my army of tanks defeated by men on horses!!
UGGGGGGG!
I've played the game 3-times and I finally decided not to play it
anymore until Firaxis releases a fix to the the tainted AI."
And in humorous reply to this on a Yahoo group: ""men [on] horses vs. the best modern armored defense vehicles"
From Time.com:
Sunday, Nov. 11, 2001
In the dead of night, horses poured from the hills. They came charging down
from the craggy ridges in groups of 10, their riders dressed in flowing
shalwar kameez and armed with AK-47s and grenade launchers. In the Kishindi
Valley below, 35 miles south of the prized northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif,
the few Taliban tanks in the area not destroyed by American bombs took aim at
the Northern Alliance cavalry galloping toward them. But the 600 horsemen had
been ordered to charge directly into the line of fire. "If you ride fast
enough, you can get to them," an Alliance spokesman later explained. "You
ride straight at them. The tank will only have time to get off one or two
rounds before you get there." The rebels were told to leap on top of the
tanks, pull the Taliban gunners out through the open hatches and kill them.
The first land battle in the century's first war began with a showdown from a
distant age: fearless men on horseback against modern artillery. America's
money was on the ponies. "
Those are the major points that I've found around the net. What I have noticed is that it does seem somewhat in the computers favor, even at the easy level. I haven't really noticed any one unit that seems to be broken all the time, just that the computers units seem to beat me more often than not.
Dread
etj4Eagle
ACME Salesman
Well the loading and replaying the same battle and getting the same results everytime is well known. That was an anti-cheat prevent that they put in. When you save the game the random number generator seed is saved with your game. Hence when you reload the next set of random numbers will always be the same.
As for the combat results, your problem is not with units needing to be balanced but unbalanced. And I do agree that the combat system could use some tweaking. But it was a developer design decision to even out the units like they did. My suggestion is just look at the units stickly abstractly (having come from SMAC this is second nature for me, since the names did not convery any preconceived notions about the units).
As for the combat results, your problem is not with units needing to be balanced but unbalanced. And I do agree that the combat system could use some tweaking. But it was a developer design decision to even out the units like they did. My suggestion is just look at the units stickly abstractly (having come from SMAC this is second nature for me, since the names did not convery any preconceived notions about the units).
Zachriel
Kaiser
I think because of the fact that reloading doesn't change the win-loss, you may have a bad statistic. I play all the time, and the AI and me have essentially the same results, and on average as expected by the numbers.
Las Vegas was built on the existence of rare events. The chance of the Cavalry winning was probably 1 in a hundred, but sometimes desperate men (on horses) take chances, and sometimes they even win.
The level doesn't seem to affect combat results, at least in my games. The occassional strange results I usually imagine were due to incompetence on the battlefield.
If these events are not rare in your games, then either you are having quite different results, or you are very unlucky. I think as you play more you will find out battle tactics that will work for you.
DreadJester
Chieftain
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2001
- Messages
- 3
Please understand that the above is not solely from me but from several different persons in other Civ 3 forums. I was mearly trying to show that this is not a chance problem and that several persons are experiencing the same problems. If it starts and ends with quotes, then it came from someone else on another Forum.
Dread
Dread
Zachriel
Kaiser
You mean, "The views expressed are not necessarily yours."
In any case, I think a lot of people are just having trouble adjusting to the new combat system. I have had many a great wars, both winning and losing. I have never experienced combat that did not seem right. But of course, the occassional combat breaks bad., As Kennedy said, life is not fair.
Let's see one complaint was that archers (attack 2) were being defeated by a swordsman (defense 2) in a city (walls or size to defense 3 plus 25% for fortifide and terrain). Seems normal to me.
Another complaint is that a swordsman attacking an archer in a city defeated the archer. And it should! Why are you using an offensive unit on defence?
Finally, your results that you lost 30 out of 30 times only proves that the seed for the random number is always the same. Try another battle first then do the test. I bet the results will be different.
It was mentioned that changing the hit points will fix these battles. I believe this is true since most 'random number' events seem to be in a series of five numbers before changing.
Civ 3 just like Civ 2 has firepower and hitpoints. The firepower is in attack and defence ratings. And I'm sorry, but you may have played many computer games but you're no veteran when it comes to them if you're still losing. You are too fixated on YOUR strategy and not willing to find the WINNING strategy. You my dear man would get CREAMED in a multi-player game.
Another complaint is that a swordsman attacking an archer in a city defeated the archer. And it should! Why are you using an offensive unit on defence?
Finally, your results that you lost 30 out of 30 times only proves that the seed for the random number is always the same. Try another battle first then do the test. I bet the results will be different.
It was mentioned that changing the hit points will fix these battles. I believe this is true since most 'random number' events seem to be in a series of five numbers before changing.
Civ 3 just like Civ 2 has firepower and hitpoints. The firepower is in attack and defence ratings. And I'm sorry, but you may have played many computer games but you're no veteran when it comes to them if you're still losing. You are too fixated on YOUR strategy and not willing to find the WINNING strategy. You my dear man would get CREAMED in a multi-player game.
maddskillz
Lord Skillz The Angry One
I have been playing CIV 3 for about three weeks now, I must say it is without doubt the best strategy game out there in it's genre. I rarely cheat but at times we all get annoyed by the computer and maybe pull a reset here or there to "correct" a particiular battle as we think it should turn out. In my instance an Archer was unable to defeat a warrior in a city that was walled. Well, that's not that big of a stretch taking terrain and status into count (veteran warrior, veteran archer) this could happen. However we rationalize that it is absurd when it happens to us, and revel when it happens to the computer.
In short, when I went to reload the game and "reinact" the battle to a more "suitable" outcome, I couldn't help grinning from ear to ear as the random number generator had saved along with my game. Result, the same as before I decided to reboot and attempt and to get a more "fair" result.
Bravo I say! Makes the game fun, keeps you honest (as we are humans and at times weak), and challenges you each and every round.
This game is cutting edge, it may not be perfect, but the groundwork is amazing! Keep up the good work!
Sure you can save and try different units and combinations to alter the result, but it's a start. I now take what I am given, and play through, and honest game is the best game.
In short, when I went to reload the game and "reinact" the battle to a more "suitable" outcome, I couldn't help grinning from ear to ear as the random number generator had saved along with my game. Result, the same as before I decided to reboot and attempt and to get a more "fair" result.
Bravo I say! Makes the game fun, keeps you honest (as we are humans and at times weak), and challenges you each and every round.
This game is cutting edge, it may not be perfect, but the groundwork is amazing! Keep up the good work!
Sure you can save and try different units and combinations to alter the result, but it's a start. I now take what I am given, and play through, and honest game is the best game.
I'll second that. Although the random number generator is obviously beyond our control, if you knock your enemies down to one hit point before attacking, you REALLY increase your chances of winning, no matter what the odds. If the odds should have been on your side with the unit at full strength, then imagine how good they will be after some bombardment. Just because a combat result hurts you doesn't mean it was not fair. And if you don't like the way things worked out, find different ways of approaching the situation.
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