units, promotions, combat... and a cup of tea

[LlamaCat]

sometimes I would really prefer a unit limit in the game (or you can set your own limit under custom game)...

and I hate the fact that each time your unit does battle it either has to win OR lose and therefore go bye-bye forever
(except with the withdrawal promotions or abilities, which never go above 50% and in most cases is around 10% and is randomly decided by chance)
...it would be nice if you could selectively decide to pull the unit back if you know it's losing. somehow unit healing and other factors would have to be updated to balance this out. but unit limits would help with this part.

It's also a little silly and tiresome sometimes that sheer numbers will hold the line. If I bring 5 infantry to a city but the AI swoops in 10 knights, I won't take the city that turn no matter how much more technological firepower I have. This just enourages unit spamming by the dumb AIs. And once I brought 5 tanks to the city and he brought in 23 knights. Thankfully tanks have blitz which really means 5 tanks = 10 tanks for each turn, when your odds are 99% for each battle. But still he held the line in that case.

so one thing I've decided is that blitz is a huge ability - when you are ahead in the tech race, building tanks instead of infantry or mariness is so much better, it's like 2 for 1.

thoughts? have a nice day

 

[DigitalBoy]

and I hate the fact that each time your unit does battle it either has to win OR lose and therefore go bye-bye forever
(except with the withdrawal promotions or abilities, which never go above 50% and in most cases is around 10% and is randomly decided by chance)
...it would be nice if you could selectively decide to pull the unit back if you know it's losing. somehow unit healing and other factors would have to be updated to balance this out. but unit limits would help with this part.

I think the ideal combat system would be far more intricate than it is in Civilization, but for CivIV's purposes, the meatgrinder approach is fine and trying to complicate it would probably just mess up the game. I'm convinced that even though military tactics is almost non-existant, there's still plenty of strategy involved (if I'm not confusing my definitions there).

 

[6K Man]

I see your point. It would be even worse if there was no collateral damage in the game (I put that promotion on all my tanks). Collateral damage might, in fact, solve this problem - instead of making collateral damage inflict up to a specific %age of damage, it might (for example) inflict up to half the strength of the attacking unit. In other words, catapults could inflict a maximum of 2.5 points of collateral damage. Cannons, 6 points. Artillery, 9. And so on.

That would mean:
- use enough Artillery, and anything up to Musketmen would eventually be wiped out with collateral damage. Meaning that obsolete units would become worth much less as defenders.
- obsolete siege units like Catapults would be pretty much useless against modern units. Even a stack of Catapults would only be able to remove (with collateral damage) 2.5 points from defending units.

Anyway, as it stands, it's of course true that if you bring 5 non-blitz units to attack a city and the AI has 6 or more defenders, you cannot take that city that turn, regardless of the relative quality of the units. That's unrealistic.

However - the mechanics of the game punishes this approach. Your vastly superior units will gain promotions by killing the AIs obsolete units, making them even more superior. An AI with heavily promoted older units will lose all their promotions when these units die facing modern units. And, of course, you'll win the battle of attrition. So what if the AI can crank out 2 older units for every one modern one you build, if the AI loses 5 units for every one you lose.