unrealistic battle results

Look at it this way from a real life perspective. Even though a copper tipped wooden stick isn't going to do much damage to the armor of a tank eventually the tank crew will run out of fuel and ammo and wont be able to fight back and will end up starving to death but in the process of this loss a tank crew of 3 or 4 took out 10000 odd spearman.

The other thing is that the combat in the game is based purely on numbers and what is in effect a roll of the dice and not a copper tipped stick bashing away at a couple of inchs of steel.

If you look at the battle log it gives you a detailed rundown of the battle. And how each roll of the dice went. Here is a typical battle on noble level with no bonuses or promotions

Code:

             Battle  Tank   Spear  Tank     Spear     Tank  Spear
Battle      Odds    Str     Str     HP/ hit   HP/ hit    Hits   Hits
1             0.0     28.0    4.0       44         9          3       0
2             0.0     28.0    4.0       44         9          3       0
3             0.0     28.0    4.0       44         9          3       0
4             0.0     28.0    4.0       44         9          3       1
5             0.0     28.0    4.0       43         9          3       0 
6             0.0     28.0    4.0       43         9          3       1
7             0.0     28.0    4.0       42         9          3       0
8             0.0     28.0    4.0       42         9          3       0
9             0.0     28.0    4.0       42         9          3       1
10            0.0     28.0    4.0       42         9          3       1
11            0.0     28.0    4.0       41         9          3       1
12            0.0     28.0    4.0       41         9          3       1
13            0.3     28.0    4.0       40         9          3       1
14            5.4     28.0    4.0       39         9          3       1
15           22.9     28.0    4.0       38         9         2       3

As you can see a tank only needs to hit a spear 3 times while a spear has to hit a tank 11 times and the tank has more chance of inflicting a hit.

I ran it 10 times, the best was 7 spears to kill a tank, the worst 18. The average was 11.9.

The other thing is if your playing in the game and go up against an inferior opponent it pays to build a few tanks with specific promotions for the civs units. When i ran 10 battle with tanks having a melee promotion the average was 16.8.

I don't think any of these results are unrealistic and really why would you go and park a single tank next to a stack of 20 spears anyway and it simple enough to take a few extra turns to run through a civ by taking a break to heal.

At the end of the day battles are a roll of the dice and there is always the chance to get unlucky and lose.

 

A Tank, or other unit with the Blitz promotion, will only be able to make multiple attacks if it wins the first one easily, without taking much damage: alas, I can't put an exact figure to how much, but I rather think the second-attack capability vanishes around 70HPs - so a tank damaged to this extent enters a fight without the ability to make two attacks.
Damage caused by a successful hit is a function of the relative strengths of attacker and defender. At 50% odds, each will cause 20HP damage per hit, for example. The gretest damage I've seen was 54HP (Mech.Inf. with Combat 3 and City Raider 3, str. 41.6, vs. Trebuchet, str.1.14 and only 50HP left: a one-shot combat) and the lowest 7HP by a damaged Catapult being attacked by the same Mech.Inf.
It still remains possible for a Spearman to kill a Tank, however, though if both are unpromoted and at full strength the odds of the Spearman winning are less than 1%, and he would cause at most 10HP damage per hit to the tank's 35 or so. The tank wins when it has made 3 hits, while the spear needs 10. Only if the tank is seriously damaged does the spear have a plausible chance of victory. But, and I repeat BUT, I have known cases where a weak defender has made a series of 5 or 6 consecutive hits on a strong attacker and made a successful defence although the odds of the attacker winning were 99% and higher.

 

How many experience levels can your units get? I recently got a couple up to a 5, and they're working their way to the 26XP needed, if I remember correctly, for the next promotion. Does it continue until you're able to select all promotions available?

 

more or less. The greatest lvled unit ive seen in these forums is a lvl 21 helicoptor xd. Of course depending ont he type of unit, you are limited to what promotions u can recieve (ex. tanks cant get navigation) . However, u can grant units promotions using world builder in single player mode, in which it is possible to give a unit all promotions. 'shrug'. I remember my warrior going around obliterating whole civs with... er... right.

 

Not sure if anyone already mentioned this, but...

You get a certain number of free wins against barbs (though its restricted to lower difficulty levels iirc), so you were guaranteed to win that fight if it was your first one.