Who hates Civ3's combat system?

[The Quirk]

S*** still happens.

I think the combat system and the RNG are the best attempt to date to craft a combat system for a game that involves millenia of combat in addition to diplomancy, resource management, and city control.

Heck, the Romans got whipped at Cannae, who saw that coming.

 

[microbe]

Originally posted by sealman


You are not in the minority. I think even some of the people who claim it happens to them alot rarely, if ever see it, or it is something like what happened in one of my games were I sent my damaged tank against a lone fortified across a river on a hill elite spearman and lost. I am not complaining because I knew it was a possibility.

Back onto topic. I think the combat system is fine the way it is.

My panzer lost to a pikeman in a city in my last game. That city was on a hill, though, and *maybe* there was a wall in it.

When people say "my so powerful and cherished unit lose to an ancient dog" they don't seem to always consider the defense bonus in that scenario, so it's not always a fair comparison.

 

[IglooDame]

Originally posted by Commander Bello


Absolutely wrong.

Civ3 explains a little bit about the working of a RNG and statistical procedures.

A MP game with good, experienced human players would explain Moltkes point of view.
Moltke knew, that a good, experienced opponent could cross you own plans with even better ones.

You mix this up with the disposing of randomness...

Forgive me, I was being flippant with someone who apparently desires zero randomness in their combat game.

However, and at the risk of overanalyzing this, von Moltke didn't say "the lesser opponent's battle plan never survives contact," he said NO battle plan (which presumably includes the best ones) survives contact. Now, that obviously isn't the case (the best example I can think of being Nelson's at Trafalgar - he called it perfectly) but to me he's talking as much about the fog of war and general unpredictability (read: randomness) as about the opposing commander's skills (or lack thereof, in the case of the AI).

 

[Sark6354201]

Originally posted by The Last Conformist


You're thinking of this epic battle as a series of duels between individual divisions? If you imagine that it was really only one great slugout between all units, you a) get a non-ridiculous view of the whole thing, b) don't have accept that a buncha musketmen on their own destroyed an armoured division, only that the presence of a few outdated troops was the straw that broke the back of your attack.

That said, if you've only got one last Tank left to deal with that last Musketman, you've either got screwed in the earlier stages of the battle, or failed to provide sufficient extra force to be able to absorb a few snafus. In neither case is the Musketman the real cause of your defeat.

I think a level of randomness can be achieved easily within the confines of the hitpoint system, the problem i have is when you lose completely.

Civ is an epic game, not one where quotes like no battle plan survives the enemy actually work. If my battle plans get screwed up, does that mean I lose automatically to inferior troops? On the larger scale, something of that sort would be represented by more hitpoints lost not the destruction of the whole unit which COULD happen and I'm not denying that. It just happens too often, the level of randomness IS too high.

Civ2's combat system was very well done because of the HP and Firepower values along with ADM. This allowed randomness but a higher degree of regularity that made more sense. I'm not saying it was perfect but IMHO it was better than Civ3's.

I am not WHINING either, just complaining

 

[The Last Conformist]

I'm not sure really what you're saying, but my point was that if you fail to take a city because the last attacker unexpectedly fails to take out the final defender, you've either not brought along sufficient extra force to deal with a moderate amount of bad luck, or suffered an immoderate amount of bad luck in needing all the other attackers to eliminate the other defenders. Suffering an immoderate amount of bad luck is colloquially known as getting screwed by the RNG.

 

[Cedrick]

Originally posted by IglooDude
*sigh* I feel sorta left out, I've never seen a spearman successfully defend against a tank in one of my games.

I have. Lost two tanks on one spearguy fortified on a hill in a mountain pass. Never seen the opposite though!
That is my spearman defeating an AI tank!

 

[Cedrick]

Originally posted by IglooDude


Forgive me, I was being flippant with someone who apparently desires zero randomness in their combat game.

However, and at the risk of overanalyzing this, von Moltke didn't say "the lesser opponent's battle plan never survives contact," he said NO battle plan (which presumably includes the best ones) survives contact. Now, that obviously isn't the case (the best example I can think of being Nelson's at Trafalgar - he called it perfectly) but to me he's talking as much about the fog of war and general unpredictability (read: randomness) as about the opposing commander's skills (or lack thereof, in the case of the AI).

It is interesting that you mention Trafalgar since Nelson was outnumbered, outgunned, and attacking a defensive position. (read lower Attack to Higher Defense values as is being discussed). Yet he won a decisive victory. All the admirals and leaders of his day was astounded by it happening. Afterall the French and the Spanish had the largest and best ships then known and they were never built again.
Civ 3 has some strange random outcomes which is why you do not think you are going to overrun a nation because you are the only one that has tanks and you have built one. You just might run into a Nelson and lose.

 

[Qpdaj]

I agree that there should be a random factor in the combat system, else it is just a numbers game, and that's no fun. Luck is a huge part of real combat, though training and technology can minimize that.

However, it does seem that the system is a bit *too* random. Perhaps upping the hitpoints of every unit (say conscripts start at 3 or 4 instead of 2) might balance this out a bit (though that would make battles even longer).

In the end, though, the system is livable. After all, Civ is not about a perfect combat system, it's about "building a civ to stand the test of time..."

 

[floydmcw]

" Just look at the Ethiopians and Italians. The Italians had an extremely poorly led military but easily defeated the the Ethiopians because of their technological advantages."

In 1936. Forty years earlier the Italians made their first attempt to conquer Ethiopia, and failed.

 

[Sark6354201]

Good point Floy.

 

[Commander Bello]

That was 1896.
But they took Eritrea and Somali in the 1890, which caused the British to secretly support Ethiopia in the following

 

[Bluemofia]

according to my friend, it is relitivly easy to blow up a tank (not a Modern Armor), just get under the turret, throw a gernade in, or destroy the tank treads. i think TETkurman did a good job moding those units in his map. he made transports not lose to galleys that often, and made the tanks reflect real life a bit.

you know why millions died in WWI? because of generals studying out of date tactics and having to resort to wave tactics and getting mowed down by machine guns. they lost soo many troops that way, and they gain an average of what, 5 miles every 6 months? i made a bit of a mod that is still under testing that sort of simmulates trench warfare. brutal. wave tactics being engaged. soo many troops lost due to accurate weapons.

 

[Commander Bello]

Originally posted by Bluemofia
[...] just get under the turret, throw a gernade in, or destroy the tank treads. [...]

 

[Amask]

Those of you who say that if the combat system is too precise it will ruin the fun have obviously never played any RTS-s. In age of mythology for example, a hoplite will always lose to an upgraded hoplite, and in age of empires a paladin will always defeat an archer, but that doesn't make the game any less fun and doesn't unbalance it, because there is somethign called the price of a unit. An army of 20 knights costs exactly the same as an army of 20 pikemen and 20 longbowmen. Even if the knights always win the attack, they will get slaughtered on the next turn by the fresh longbows. So even if the knights will win all the fights, that will not unbalance the game because there will be less of them than of the previous attacker, which costs less (say swordsman, 30 shields, knight is 70), but it would definitely make the results of important battles more predictable (and by important battles I do not mean your 100th tank killing the spearman in the last city of a civ that is 10 times as small as you, but an early army of 5 veteran archers losing to 2 spearmen - I am sure that has hapenned to many of us before. Really screws up a good start, doesn't it?). The randomness should still be there, but only as an addition, instead of a major feature of the current combat system. Stupid results should only occur once every 5-10 fights, that will not unbalance the game and will still keep it fun for those who do not like the same results over and over again. Maybe the knights could win 4 fights with different hp left, and lost every 5th fight (not actually every 5th fight, but on average). It will also decrease the dependency of the outcome of the entire game on some random factor, because especially on higher levels the armies are so small that a player can not afford to lose 3 swordsmen to a spearman, which will not only survive, but become an elite. So in conclusion the randomness should stay, but be less evident and have a lesser impact on the course of the game.

By the way, this is a game, and most of the famous quotes used in this thread are not applicable. Surely they make you look smart, but we are discussing how to make the game more fun, not how to make it follow some principles of warfare established by some 15-th century german general (or whoever said these things originally).

 

[Evie]

And those who compare RTS with Civilization obviously don't get the whole point that these are entirely different kind of games. Age of Empires and such are not per se STRATEGY games. They are TACTICAL-level games where you CAN reverse the results of battle using your own choices - ie, have your army withdraw, send reinforcements to your units, etc.

That is something you cannot do in civilization, (and which you should not be able to do, because that would be adding too much details to one game element at the expanse of others. Civilization is NOT a war-game). As such, the random numbers represent no only things you have no control over (weather, etc), but also the talent of the unit's commander.

In addition, RTS's resource system and Civilization's ressource system CANNOT be compared. In a RTS, you have a finite (or close) amount of ressource available in the scenario - so any gold you spend on a unit, you'll eventually become unable to replace (no more to mine). In Civ, once you have a productive core city there's virtually no difference (maybe 1 turn) between training an infantry unit and training a modern armor. So the cost doesn't serve to balance anything really in Civilization except in the early game - by the late game when tanks comes around it's entirely irrelevant with cities that churns out 60 shields a turn, and civilizations that makes 5000 GPT - probably enough to hurry tanks.

Yet in addition, the whole notion in RTS that unit X should ALWAYS win against unit Y is ludicrous. Especially the example you cited above - longbowmen have been known to do numbers on knights historically.

Finally you said odd-off results should happen only one-time-in-five or such. They happen a LOT less in the game, it's just that people who cry loudly about it makes it seems like it's far more common.

At most, I think that PERHAPS Industrial and Modern units should have +1 HP over Ancient and Medieval ones (which should DEFINITELY be close in term of their ability to beat each other. It wouldn't take all that much in terms of superior tactics, weather advantage or the like to allow a bunch of club-wielding warriors to defeat a pack of armored knights.

(Some cited the fall of the Inca as an example. In case people forgot, THAT was mostly due to the fact that the Incans were fighting each others when Pizzaro dropped by for a chat. I would have to check but I do not remember hearing of a pitched battle where the "handful of conquistadors" faced the "Throngs of Inca".

 

[akots]

I've read the posts and came up with this little ballad. Don't tell me it is off-topic.

Ballad of Civ combat system and pRNG

Oh, My Lord! At you command
Died today our mighty squad.
Dead they are on battlefield,
And few remnants blow retreat.
There was squad of knights and spears
In the morning on the hill.

For six years they had no fears
Charging foes at your strong will.
They have conquered, scourged and burned
Many countries of the world.
Greeks and Vikings, Franks and Rome,
And all-mighty Babylon
All lay stretched and lick your boot.
Full your coffers are with loot.

There was squad of knights and spears
In the morning on the hill.
Let their widows burst in tears
For that was your choice and will.
Charged they down. The end of story.
Cause defenders slaughtered all.
And their corpses dressed in glory
Lay abandoned at the wall.

Oh, My Lord! At you command
Died today our mighty squad.
Dead they are on battlefield,
Only few could then retreat.
Only few survived the fight,
Bleeding come at your blessed sight.
Just to tell the only thing:
Hail to you, My Noble King!

Sorry for the language. English is not my native. (I'm Russian). But for poetry it should be OK I hope. Version 1.1 probably better than previous.

 

[Gingerbread Man]

I can hardly see how I could exploit the random number generator. The idea of random is that it is unpredictable. How can I exploit something that I have no idea of predicting? I have never seen anybody exploit the RNG for their good.

In fact, I reckon the RNG is way too kind. An armoured division losing against spearmen in the mountains? Forget spearmen, the tanks should be losing to workers. Dig a hidden ditch, and down go the tanks. Sure, spearmen may have it hard, having to dig with their spearheads, but they could still give those tanks a run for their money.

And that doesn't count for using dirty tactics. I mean, cavemen could win if they had a lot of luck, and were prepared to forget about morals for a few moments.

By the way, most of this is joking. Most of it. But not all .

 

[Amask]

To Oda Nobunaga:

Civilization might not be a war game, but then why do most games eventually come down to one superpower killing the other? And how did those superpowers become what they are? Through war. In most scenarios the best way to get victory points is war. In multiplayer games never go without war, even if 2 players agreed to help each other, one will eventually betray the other when he sees that he is too powerful. There is no way to win together, so the best way to insure that it is you who wins is to kill the others. That's why I think that the most important aspect of the game should be improved, so victory does not depend on a run of bad luck. Right now it is exactly RUNS of bad luck that remove the fun for me. If 4 of my Med. Inf. win against pikemen and 2 lose it is okay. But if I am attacking a city with the only iron of the enemy and 4 of my med. inf. lose to one pikeman, that really annoys me, especially if those losses are "compensated" later by some unimportant wins against lonely units that could live for 1 turn longer without doing damage, but the city had to be taken.

As for the resource system I see your point but in late game losing one unit is not very important, so as long as it balances the game early on it is ok. But if the difference in cost in late game would be bigger that would be very nice too.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Oda Nobunaga
(Some cited the fall of the Inca as an example. In case people forgot, THAT was mostly due to the fact that the Incans were fighting each others when Pizzaro dropped by for a chat. I would have to check but I do not remember hearing of a pitched battle where the "handful of conquistadors" faced the "Throngs of Inca".

Not a pitched battle, but a small number of Spaniards fended off an impressive number of Incan troops at the siege of Cusco.

Translated into Civ terms, the conquistadores vs the Incas would be Knights/Cannon/Musketmen against Archers/Spearmen. That's already a huge advantage in my experience.

 

[Qpdaj]

Originally posted by akots
Balland of Civ combat system and pRNG

Very nice! I love it!