Weak units winning

[SesnOfWthr]

it is technically possible for a defending warrior to defeat an attacking tank. The problem lies with the probability. Every battle is dictated by a random number. If you attack a warrior with your tank, exactly at sunset, three days after a total solar eclipse, but only when that perfectly coincides with high tide, then you might lose the battle. Farfetched yes, but not impossible.

EDIT: cross post with alamo. You know, I'm starting to think that although it would be less fun, having predictable outcomes would at least spare us seeing the same thread over and over....

 

[Bibor]

Its less fun only because they dropped out the "unit special abilities" and unit creation from SMAC. There, you got a rather small luck modifier, but many unique abilities that could increase/decrease your chance of attack. I.e. you could build in smac a defensive unit that rocks vs. "fast units", but the next bomber would level it down. And vice versa. An AA defender would be suffering from mindworm attacks but one with a resonace armor would not so...

 

[Masquerouge]

Funny how the same threads keep popping up...

Okay, here's the Truth :

The Random number Generator is flawed. Intentionnaly. You see, Firaxis has this strange "ancient age units fetish". Sid Meier collects pictures of half-naked warriors, Jeff Brigs is a HUGE fan of Troy. So they made the Random Number Generator in such a way as to make spearmen win 65.54% of all their battles against tanks, and regular warriors win 87.56% against Mechanized Infantry.

Having realized this, I stopped building any units coming after mounted horsemen. Now my hordes of regular warriors roam the world and go on endless pillaging strikes against fortified MI on moutain metropolis with radar tower across a river and win EVERY TIME ! It's so great.

But the best part was watching my regular settler taking his baseball bat out when an ICBM hit him, and he sent it back to the town that launched it ! It was amazing to watch. I didn't know Firaxis made specials animations just for that.

...

Okay, enough sarcasm. The game is made in such a way as to allow low level units to win sometimes, just so backwards nations stand a chance. That can be great if YOU are the backwards nation, think of it

 

[Masrim]

I have to disagree with the AI getting bonuses to attack and defense at higher difficulty lvls.

I have had countless wars at demigod lvl where at least 30 cavalry beat about 40 of my infantry, in walled metros, on a regular basis. and also the revers in the same game earlier one when I had 12 cavalry who could not damage a single spearman in a town in the plains, no rivers in sight.

 

[Dogmeat]

EDIT: cross post with alamo. You know, I'm starting to think that although it would be less fun, having predictable outcomes would at least spare us seeing the same thread over and over....

The battles should be of the same "randomness" as the civ2 battles..
An attacking tank would ALWAYS damage a fortified mech inf. in a forest at least a little... And a warrior out in the open just MIGHT damage a healthy, attacking Cavalry a little but NEVER win.

 

[gazdeluxe11]

which is the way it should be. Throughout history vastly "superior" armies have been unable to hold ground or take ground when they should have had no problem. The Persians in the Persian War with the Greek city-states, for example. If you knew the outcome of a battle before you fought it, the game wouldnt be nearly as fun.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Here's a stupid combat question -- does the game have any kind of "fatigue" built in? I've noticed that if I attack a defender with 2 offensive units, my second one will invariably do much better. For example, let's say there's a city defended by a musketman (Defense 4) and I come at him with two Medieval Infantry (Attack 4). Invariably, my first attack will lose -- as you would expect, since the musketman is fortified in a city. What surprises me is that my second attacker wins more often than I'd expect. This is true even if my frist attacker didn't weaken the musketman at all. Is it because the musketman is flagged as "tired" after the first attack and therefore defends less well during the second attack? Or is it just my imagination?

surely your imagination.

In fact, i often imagined units to have a certain strength because often when a unit wins a battle with lower odds, he does so the next battle again.
So i think if you imagine the opposite, it is both our imagination.

 

[Dr Zlu]

The biggest flaw in this system shows when 2 identical units with identical ATT/DEF stats fight each other imho. More precisely I was really annoyed by naval battles in the Rise of Rome scenario, which were all random (apart from this 10% defender bonus I have heard of...). Triremes, triremes, triremes everywhere. I almost have the feeling the AI loves this kind of debilitating fights. I really don't.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

The biggest flaw in this system shows when 2 identical units with identical ATT/DEF stats fight each other imho. More precisely I was really annoyed by naval battles in the Rise of Rome scenario, which were all random (apart from this 10% defender bonus I have heard of...). Triremes, triremes, triremes everywhere. I almost have the feeling the AI loves this kind of debilitating fights. I really don't.

Yes normally you are used to having tactical advantage in battles because you know when and where to fight the AI units, on sea you have not.

I also found it a real problem in ROR when i first started it, i was having too few ships and had to check for possibilities to get past the units with my transports.
On sea there is a little tactical advantage as well though, if you fight with 2 ships against 4, you are pretty lucky if you manage to destroy 2 of them, but it is very possible some will only be damaged and you destroy less than 2. You should make sure you always have more ships than your opponent, so you dont need to leave his ships damaged but not dead.
Other tactical advantage you should use is alliance with the greeks and persians against carthage, try to have their ships do as much fighting as possible.

key to ROR is to immeadiately start building an over dosis of ships and be sure to have naval supriority over carthage while also having alliances against them.Take control of the western mediteranian by destroying all carthage ships and have at least 10 remaining yourself to destroy newly build ships and transport your units. Every ship you lose of those 10 should immeadiately be replaced.

 

[Masquerouge]

I have to disagree with the AI getting bonuses to attack and defense at higher difficulty lvls.

I have had countless wars at demigod lvl where at least 30 cavalry beat about 40 of my infantry, in walled metros, on a regular basis. and also the revers in the same game earlier one when I had 12 cavalry who could not damage a single spearman in a town in the plains, no rivers in sight.

I don't think the AI has any combat bonuses at higher levels. The only bonuses it gets are starting units, production bonuses, and trade between AI bonuses, IIRC

 

[Chieftess]

I one test I did, I added 3 regular AI modern armor with 50 warriors. The MA became elite, and spawned a GL, but the armor were all at 1/5 hp. Had I had 100 warriors, they probably would have won.