Who hates Civ3's combat system?

[DiamanteLouco]

I like the chaotic battles. I think that a sure victory of a strong unit vs. a weak unit wouldn´t make the game so attractive for so long. After a while, all the games would be more or less the same thing... it´s the surprises that makes the game so fun.

 

[dreamvirus]

I think any combat system has its drawbacks, unless you're planning to bring each battle down to a Tekken-type skill contest between each unit! I think the current combat system is a masterpiece of economy - the results are mostly accurate but also manage to be uncertain enough to be exciting. For anyone who feels like moaning when their cavalry loses to a spearman, I would ask them to be honest about how good it feels when your redlined warrior in a border city fights off two veteran archers...it's give and take, baby. For people who want something without any element of chance, I offer you...chess.

 

[yoshi]

Ah but see, few people on this earth play chess without making any mistakes. The problem with Civ3's system is that the results are too skewed (i.e. few players will make THAT big a mistake).

So, a redlined Warrior should be able to beat 1 Archer, but 2 should be extremely rare.

Personally, I hate it when one of my weak units (or anyone else's) wins against highly unfavorable odds. I feel jipped. I want to suffer for stupidly leaving my city barely defended.

I also don't like to waste my time putting together a group of many units and then losing them all to a few measly defenders--it didn't happen at Alamo and shouldn't happen in CIV (Davy was good but in Civ3 he'd have picked off all the Mexicans and suffered only minor wounds!).

 

[Death's lawyer]

I think it should be possible for a less powerful unit to beat a more powerful one (i.e, a spearman beating a knight). However, I think it would make it more realistic if the probability was lower- because for every example of Zulus armed with spears beating off riflemen, there's a dozen examples of riflemen massacring people with spears. Heck, just look at Israel- it's a dominant power in the Middle East now, not because it can field more soldiers than any other country (very much the opposite) but because it has access to American technology.

 

[Sadseh]

I don't understand why so many people point to the Zulu example. Yes, on occassion, the British troops were slaughtered. But that does not serve as a testament to any point other than "size matters."

The only reason the British colonial infantry lost those fights against the Zulu was because they were completely overrun. This does not mean that it is plausible for a single Zulu impi to attack a single rifleman and win that battle. Each single unit (at least of the same type, i.e. - ground infantry) represents the same amount of troops. In the case of a single impi attacking a signle rifleman, it is assumed that both those units have the same amount of manpower.

The only reasonable way to make a representation of the zulu victories against British military would be to have somewhere around 6 impi attack a single rifleman, each of the impi dealing around one point of worth damage, and perhaps one or two dying without dealing any damage.

The best way I see of fixing this problem is by doing the following:

Increasing the range of attack and defense values (as was suggested on the first page, and I'm sure on the following as well) so as to increase the probability rate of a realistic outcome.

Increasing the amount of various upgrades a unit can undergo. While a longbowman surely could not win a defensive battle against an attacking tank (as happened all too frequently to me), if one could upgrade that longbowman to some sort of a unit like a grenadier (of the early industrial age), it would become more acceptable as I'm sure there were tanks defeated by wily infantrymen that were poorly equipped.

In other words, I'm suggesting that each basic unit (a swordsman, for example) could upgrade at least 3 times per age). Instead of having a warrior be able to upgrade only to swordsman in ancient, one could add more interval units like a slingshot beforehand and a phalanx afterwards. This would also call for a more complex tech tree, and perhaps make each turn encompass a smaller period of time, but I doubt anyone would be against that.

Additionally, one could always make overlapping upgrade trees. Both the longbowman and medieval infantry (or their later interval units) could be upgraded to a guerrilla later on.

 

[A+ombomb]

I lost 10 veteran archers in a row ATTACKING an enemy archer on a normal grassland square before, I would qualify that as a whacky result lol.

 

[alamo]

Battles turn on random elements - training, discipline, supplies, tactical decisions made in the heat of battle, morale, weather, variations in individual performance, etc.

Greek hoplites held off a much larger Babylonian force in several battles using geography and fanatical morale.

Russian forces were outmatched by the Germans in the battle of Stalingrad, but they kept coming in waves and wore the attackers down.

Roman legionaires were not technically superior, but they were better trained and disciplined.

A completely deterministic combat system would be very boring. It would become a game of building cannon fodder. Nothing is more satisfying that taking a risk and emerging victorious.

 

[unscratchedfoot]

Originally posted by A+ombomb
I lost 10 veteran archers in a row ATTACKING an enemy archer on a normal grassland square before, I would qualify that as a whacky result lol.

I've had this happen too. It's weird how the ai gets on a winning roll and doesn't lose a single hitpoint while repeatedly defeating similar strength enemy units one after another. But just take your losses like a man (or woman whichever is appropriate) and remember that it builds character if you remain calm about it and never do silly reloads

 

[unscratchedfoot]

Okay, I had a very brief peak over this thread just now and then voted for #3 the combat system is fine already. I think people are just thinking too much and wishing the game becomes more needlessly complicated (and more buggy). I've never noticed a problem with civ3 combat results and the slight randomness is what enables a weaker unit to take on a stronger unit and have some chance of damaging it, ie: it makes the game fun to be unpredictable. Like I mean, if we know the outcome of every combat before it happens then I prefer to take a nap than play. And in real life it is the same.

Unusual results happen in real life too like at Borodino when the french broke into a Russian strongpoint which was a cannon position. The cannon crews quickly killed all the french attackers using only pikes! How about the japanese sinking of the hawaiian fleet or Custer's last stand? Poor Custer's rifles were jamming which explains how he was defeated by low stat savages despite being formed up on the best defensive terrain in the whole region.

In conclusion, let's be happy the civ3 combat system works so well!

 

[Highgeneral]

a weaker unit can defeat a stronger one in real life in1415 a few english longbowmen beat a army of french knights that outnumberd them 5 to 1 at Azincourt.

 

[Commander Bello]

The given examples have been stressed over and over again.

They aren't wrong, of course. Indeed, weaker units did defeat stronger ones in the past.
Nevertheless, Little Big Horn is famous because it was a surprise, not because it was something which was going to happen every sixteenth time...

The fact is that most complainers don't complain about random results to happen at all, but about them happening too often.
This is based on the unit stats, of course.
Comparing the infamous spear-tank incident, the tank has an attack of 16 vs the spear's defense of 2 (with some terrain modifications of 3). This ratio is way too low.
In real life, a tank would just not mention the spear being somewhere in it's path, but would keep rolling on.

The answer would be to inflate the combat stats of modern units considerably.
Unfortunately, this directly leads to the next problem:
Most players would complain about the fact that a more advanced nation would be much stronger than them. "A game, in which my enemy has tanks and I just have discovered iron working is unbalanced!!"
I agree to that. But it would be unbalanced not in regards to the tank being much stronger, but in regards to one nation having tanks and the other one just having spears / swords / catapults.

The combat system is so weak as it is (and seems to have to be that way) to hide the weaknesses in AI, in balancing the difficulty levels and so on.

After all, Civ3 is unbalanced in almost every aspect.
This has been discussed since ages and there is no solution, since the engine and the basic game factors are as they are.
Unfortunately, the editor is too much limited (since it only can allow to change some parameters, not the algorithms of the game) to allow for good corrections.
So, we will have to live with it for the moment being and to put our hopes into the development for Civ4 ..... hah hah hah... :-\)

 

[Micky Onimusha]

Ok, I read the 1st page and then got bored. Personally, when it comes to battle systems I prefer age of empires take on it.

Swordsman do extra damage vs Archers.
Pikeman do extra damage vs Horseman (Which they would...)

Stuff like that, it makes sense, whilst with civ there is no system like that, its just better in attack/defense/speed

 

[Black_Hole]

i have had the worst streak, I lost 15 veteran modern armor to 1 elite musketeer fortified on grassland..then that sixteenth modern armor wasnt scratched at all.... thats how the combat system can work. its part of the game

 

[frekk]

Originally posted by arthurfear
Good point - Modding shouldn't be overdone, but at the same time, the power of technology is vastly understated in Civ.

Horseback riding, for example, was an incredible leap forward, and those who didn't catch up were mostly wiped out. Jared Diamond, in Guns, Germs and Steel calls riders the "Sherman tanks of the ancient era." Same goes for iron. These discoveries were revolutionary.

But in Civ, horseman are nothing more than fast archers, and Swordsman only the smallest bit better. Knights should have much higher attack values - around 10 or 12, and should be way more expensive than they are. And so on. Usually I give knights 12 attack, horsemen 7, cavalry 18, tanks 28 etc. And of course, the correspending defensive units I make much better too.

Jared's got it wrong. Until the invention of firearms, only a very few armies were able to succesfully utilize horsemen as a major component in their militaries. The knight's action on the battlefield, for instance, is often overestimated: the only real role they could be utilized in was to maximize casualties against an enemy which was already losing, or as scouts - the latter being an incredible advantage in itself, however. But so long as formations were maintained, infantry had the advantage, until they broke ranks - a function usually performed by distance weapons combined with a close assault by several different types of foot soldier. Before the technologies which permitted knights - either the highback saddle or stirrups - horsemen were more or less useless in battle, certainly nowhere near as good as archers. None of the major military powers of the Classical era had much use for mounted warfare, even Alexander with his Companions based the backbone of his military on the phalanx, the Companions themselves being a very minor portion of his military. If you are going to give knights this kind of attack values, then longbowmen should be incredibly powerful, witness the Battle of Crecy. Mounted warriors certainly were not Sherman tanks, they were in fact extremely vulnerable to infantry formations which had not yet broken rank, and that's *after* they had the stirrup.
An exception should be mentioned. Riders armed with precise distance weapons - either the Mangudai with their recurve bows or later European cavalry with rifled barrels - were absolutely devastating. The combination of maneuvaribility, range and precision was unstoppable. But the earliest mounted warriors were little more than scouts and mop-up crews, the field of battle was primarily dominated by foot soldiers except for a few brief exceptions, such as the Mongol conquests or certain phases of the imperial era.

 

[frekk]

Originally posted by Highgeneral
a weaker unit can defeat a stronger one in real life in1415 a few english longbowmen beat a army of french knights that outnumberd them 5 to 1 at Azincourt.

The longbowmen were not a weaker unit. They were walking WMDs of the medieval era. It wasn't often that they were defeated by knights, in fact. The arrows from the longbow hit with enough force to pin an armoured rider to his mount and kill both of them. An archer could get off an estimated 10-12 shots per minute ... and it was said the average longbowmen could put an arrow through a visor at 250 yards ... a force of just 500 longbowmen, in a minute, would be letting loose around five or six thousand arrows, every one as lethal as a bullet, and within a certain range, as accurate as the fire from professional marksmen. The knights were in fact the weaker unit. Their armour may as well not have been worn since it was no protection from the English longbow, and they were slaughtered before they could even close the gap to their foes. England was still using a few companies of longbowmen well after the adoption of firearms by most militaries; in the end it was not the superiority of the gunpowder weapons of their time which rendered them obsolete, but the difference in the amount of training required.

 

[frekk]

Originally posted by Commander Bello
Chieftess,

exactly that movie shows that a rifleman shouldn't loose to the impi (as it would do with some frequency in Civ3), especially as it tells the story of a true battle (of course with some adoptions to the inherent laws of the movie business).
In the given movie, the British were outnumbered like hell and were exposed (for a certain time) to demoralizing effects (the Preacher). They were frightened and had to face an enemy of almost their own military discipline (normally, that was one of the main advantages of the European military forces compared to the ones of other nations).
Nevertheless, they did survive (as military unit, not every individual soldier of course). This mainly was caused due to the fact that they made correct use of their weaponry, thus inflicting so much damage upon their enemy that he finally withdrew from the battle.

As this discussion comes up again and again, we all know about the various arguments given.
"think of it as the one in a million effect", "there have been examples in history, when a weaker unit successfully has fought the stronger one", "if a stronger unit will win, the tech-leader will automatically win the game".
The opposition claims: "it is incredible that a spear will win against a tank", "gun powder made knights obsolete", "for what should I do military research, then?"

As I've stated often enough, I for my person tend to the later position.
Stronger units should win and military advances should pay off.
If I have to face an opponent with tanks and infantry, I should know, that my knights and pikes are going to loose. This doesn't mean, that I am going to loose the game. May be, I can catch up technically (although this would be almost impossible, if I am on the level of Feudalism, compared with the level of Replacable Parts), or I manage to survive by means of diplomacy.

I feel, that many people survive due to the grace of the RNG. This is something, I don't like in *my* games.
If am outnumbered, I am outnumbered. If I am outclassed, I am outclassed. If I am outnumbered and outclassed, I should loose and learn from that.

In fact, very rarely the weaker army won against the stronger one (all "modifiers" as weapons, tactical situation and so on taken into account).

The random factor is much too high in Civ3 and allows the human player to play around with battles.
This randomness is just the one thing which makes the AI survive military confrontations. This may be good for a given game, but it very bad since it loweres the necessity to improve AI gameplay (frankly, the term "AI" is almost a joke).

All the ingredients to improve the battle system are there, but the responsible company just seems to have no interest in making use of them. It could be done by giving units more hitpoints per experience level and by making use of more sophisticated allocation of combat stats.
And many players (as we learn from the various postings) are making use of it. But even that is thwarted, since with such modifications we are not longer allowed to save our results in the game's hall of fame.

While there may be the rare odd exception ... and it is historically true, a fairly modern Italian army was defeated at Adowa in 1896 by spearmen ... it is *never* the case in any civ game I have even heard of, that a nation so far behind in tech ... pikemen and knights versus, say, riflemen and cavalry ... has lost an entire war. Maybe one or two battles. If you go to war with knights and pikes against someone with tanks and infantry, you *will* lose the war ... somewhere along the way you might claim a single tank or infantry. You will *not* win the war.