Units on the Charge

[greynite1]

Hey there folks

Brand new to the forums Rediscovering the joy that is Civilizations with the release of 3. Oh my god is this game
awesome. I can't get over its expansive replayability. anyways
I wanted to ask you all. Have you all noticed that when a battle
occurs between two units the one which initiates the attack tends to always do better then the defending unit. I had several 4 riflemen and 3 cavalry in a stack they were attacked by 2 pikemen and 2 swords man with one knight. My stack was sumarily wiped out in 2 turns of combat with these seemingly inferior foes attacking my units who were FORTIFIED....ON A MOUNTAIN.... IN A FORTRESS. I'm like what the hell?? The equation I calculated out said that all the attacking units should have died on 1 or 2 rifle men not the other way around. Any thoughts??

 

[Richard III]

Good to hear you are addicted. We can't help you with that here.

On the other hand, I'm sorry greynite, but posts on various forums and my own experience suggests otherwise about any offensive vs. defensive bias. If you dig around the forum, you will even find an inspiring tale in "stories and tales" about "The Great Swordsman." The german swordsman in question - as I remember the story - was repositioned to spend the rest of a game "drinking in retirement in a place of honour in Berlin" because it had miraculously held a key mountain alone over several turns against something like 10 barbarians and another dozen foreign units. Makes me weep.

I've seen it all myself. Defensive units crushed easily. AI offensive units cut to shreds in front of a flood plain fortress, and then the same river awash in the blood of my own failed counteroffensives. For all the complaining, the combat system seems just random enough and just balanced enough so far.

Could it have been the relative experience (e.g. elite vs. regular?) that brought your defeat on?

R.III

 

[greynite1]

Well it could just be me

but I have seen lots of the things you just mentioned. sometimes it seems like its totally randomn with a Warrior being able to cause almost fatal damage to Knights and Cavalry and one regular spearman on a hill being able to hold off several times its number of knights. When by the equations of the damage The Spearman should have died in a single turn. I guess I just really have to watch the tiles I attack from. My next question would be when you attack a unit is the territory you were attacking FROM taken into account for the equation say 2 knights are fighting on a hill one knight attacks the other is only the defenders territorial advantage taken into account??. I would assume not. thanks for your help in advance.

Greynite1
"You WILL ALL LIKE SHAKESPEARE"

 

[Dark Sheer]

At this point in time (without any patch) the current rules favor the defender. If you read the manual, civilopedia and scan through the rules file (Civ3mod.bic) you will find that most (I think its in fact ALL but can't remember for sure) terrain offer a defensive bonus, across river is a defensive bonus, fortified another, citizens again another. And there are NO bonus what so ever on attack

The only way to ensure a higher chance of victory is using the combined arms tactics (which of course is more useful in modern and industrial era than in ancient and medival time). Just blast the enemy with canon, artileries, tank fire (Oops, I forgot that I make my tank to have bombardment ability ) then attack with your best offensive unit and 99% of the time you win (1% reserved for bad roll ala killer spearman ) On many occasion I have seen an AI's Elit Calvary took out another AI's half dead tanks.

 

[Mad Dog]

The only thing I've noticed that might be anomalous is that a vet or elite unit sometimes acts as if it had higher numbers on attack/defense, as well as the superior hp when compared to less experience units. Other than that I'd say the combat seems pretty balanced. I wish they'd publish the exact combat odds calculations.

 

[ironfang]

I tend to disagree with Civ interpertation of ancient Combined Arms. Historicaly speakin, the civilizations that had effectively combined Infantry, Cavalry, and Archery, have been the most successfull, dominant nations on earth. Look at Rome, the Mongols, the British, etc.. Yet in Civ, Archers are portrayed as a direct combat unit. Hrm. Well, i guess there are better games for "war sims" than Civ (which I know it isnt designed to be). It just seems a littl... off is all.

ironfang

CIV IV would be AWESOME if it combined AoEII combat with CIV III nation building. Now THAT would be FAT A$$!