Who hates Civ3's combat system?

[general_kill]

Originally posted by Sark6354201


The problem I have with this is, Civ is supposed to be an Epic level game. Just how does a unit in civ relate to the real world. I'm willing to guess around a division. I don't care what you say, but a division of riflemen will never loose out to Longbows.

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.

The other problem I have is that, sometimes things like that are just plain impossible. I can't stand loosing modern tanks to regular tanks when in the real world an M1 Abram would never loose to a T-55 or T-72 etc.

You can prattle about balance until your red in the face, but Civ is about technology and on the battlefield you aren't properly rewarded for having that advantage.

May I refer u to the movie "the last samuri"? it came out a few months ago but it showed how it is possible in real life that make a unit such as a knight/samuri can win against a wimped out division of riflemen.

In civ 3, longbow have the same attack rating as the knight. There are many battles between the native americans and european colonies where archers and horsemen beat out muskets. Even during world war 2, Nazi supply line everywhere were often ambushed by unequipped soldiers with nothing more than a knife and the cover of darkness.

So its just a game and I dont see how there can be so many pages of useless posting on a simple combat engine that deals strickly with probabilities. Next time your modern armor lose to a musketman, imagine your tanks got stuck in tank ditches filled with gun powder and explosives when musket men shot the exhausted tank crews.

 

[nihilistvoid]

Originally posted by The Last Conformist
You're not havin Preserve Random Seed on by any chance?

What does this option do?

 

[Commander Bello]

Originally posted by nihilistvoid


What does this option do?

It keeps the current seed for the RNG. So, if you save a game, have a combat after the save which outcome you don't like and load the game, the result will be the same, given that you will have used / fought with your units in the same order.

 

[Qitai]

Anyway, just for comparison. For those who have played and like SMAC combat system. If I am correct, I think it uses the exact same mechanism, but it uses a fixed 10HP and the experience level gives it an attack bonus instead of HP bonus.

I like the more predictable results of SMAC combat system, with some cases of extreme luck.

 

[Naokaukodem]

I think that the system is good in itself indeed, but that it have some vicious problem... also i didn't have been happy with all of my games, especially the late ones, but here is a simple diagram:

Balanced battle system ----> high number of units (tendency - ask the AI!) ----> easy boring war
________________________+system simplicity-------------------------------->
________________________+conquered cities resistance---------------------->
________________________+overall power unbalances------------------------>

It's a pain to drag hundred units into each enemy towns in disorder, ok the keyboard shorcuts are happy but won't help for artillery or bombers [edit: it helps in fact], and the Civil Resistance make the mess bigger. However i have some suggestion to decrease some of its effects, beginning by applying a stronger anti-resistance ability to highest technology units? Also we could be able to do <examples> replacing resisters and random population by <shocked>, who according to the future field battles results could come back to normal or resisting again? [edit: anyway i think that C.R. is not 'in time' with movements troops, whiches aren't themselves with game time speed btw]

I believe the overall power unbalance to be a recurrent problem of Civilization, the better way to be fighted as I know would be to pump up the civilization number in a game!
Indeed i feel that or the randomness of the starting location have a good importance into this: My two last games unpleased to me, however i lost the first, and win goodly the second... the two in Emperor, the first with a half of a good starting location and a half of water, the second with more land and finally (with palace jump) a nearly perfect corruption-fitted comfortable landmass ball, attached to another irregular and average land (with FP taking effect in only one city?? my menus are bugged but well...). Not that i don't think that the diversity of situations would have to be reworked or something, but now i really hesitate to pass at a superior level, when i'm not sure to meet the badest situation but where i'm sure not to meet the worst, you will tell me: one less! But i became really suspicious looking at this diversity of conditions what could make the AI difficulty purely exponential... and i don't really think that i am the only weirdo who ever restarted a game, before to have play the Civ2 Iron Man mode that is. ;D So I have many suggestions of what does the AI be so agressive and randomly unbeatable.
First i would say it expands too fastly. Not only AIs civs trades like hell, but they are also dumb, especially against other AIs when it comes to defend! Also, the AI properly said is warmongering sided, so that some AI civs becomes fastly huge.
Second Civilization is expected to be a civilization game, so that it is not necessarily obvious that the only thing we would have to build in the game are military units. The more when war is more basic than the way of an escargot. So it is about the war system complexity again, and the way of playing at the whole game. I could have win (?) the first game, but at only one condition: never stop the war. Kill Persian. And match Babylon military Cavalry (still to be discovered) never stopping to build knights, and still i couldn't probably do it before (before what you ask? They declare war of course)
Third, trades and diplomacy. AI civs trades like hell, repeat. I can't really figure how they do it, how is it physically possible to reach such a trading rate and even how to measure it. I didn't finish to explore it yet. Babylon had nearly one age in advance in the first game, and they killed Zulus, Ottoman... about diplomacy, two things: the AI can form one big enemy regardless the number and the size of civs in less time it is needed to say it. So any puny lost civ from outter space could ask us to give salpeter or it declares war? O right cowboy, **** you, but, no, do not ally with my continental Babylonian enemy!! Argh too late. I'm dead. Ah ah, welcome in the world of Sunday-Circus-Civ! Treachery? Last thing about it is the way we ally with other civilizations... the Mutual Protection Pact must be truly perverted as we can't ally with more than 2 entities without every civilization declares war on us indeed.

In the other hand i don't feel it is such a pleasure to get lost in the middle of all those units and towns on each of which you have to click to verify the citizen mood every turns. Plus i hate the maneer of the AI to aim the town stupidly instead of having a good "fight".
The more when menus ain't coloured no more than our only opponent is exactly same coloured that you.

After a re-read i can notice that this talk not only about battle system in fact but as this one is quite thin it would have to include strategic conditions as well.

 

[Commander Bello]

Well, I guess that most of us have had the same feelings like you from time to time.
Since nearly every single point you mentioned has already been discussed in seperate threads here, I'm not going to comment them in detail.

Nevertheless, it seems that the general problem is about the weakness of the artificial intelligence. Although I like that expression less and less for the computer player's reactions.

To this complaint I wholeheartedly agree. In fact it seems to be ridiculous that this little nation at the other edge of the world first tries to get a tribute, and then manages to push the whole world to go to war.

How to overcome this within in the game, as it is given by now, is discussed (and most times described pretty well) in various threads around.

About the combat system I've just to say that it is not only the combat calculation which annoys me, but the "use" made of the units, as you have pointed out as well.
Here, massive work should be done - at least for the sake of Civ4. I just don't believe that we will have any major improvement for Civ3, since that would mean massive recoding.

 

[nihilistvoid]

****, I've always had "preserve random seed" enabled. I hope the people who tried out the sine wave testing did as well; you clearly won't get the same results if you don't.
Im a bit happier with it disabled, since if a bs roll rolls out, I can reload and not have to lose my tank to a spearman.

 

[The Last Conformist]

If there actually were a sine wave pattern in combat results, it would show up regardless of whether PRS was enabled or not.

 

[nihilistvoid]

Originally posted by The Last Conformist
If there actually were a sine wave pattern in combat results, it would show up regardless of whether PRS was enabled or not.

Yeah but it wouldnt be as obvious. With PRS enabled you can see it more clearly because you can play the same turn with the same rolls over and over again with different units and combinations.

 

[Sark6354201]

I don't have anything to add to this debate, some very excellent and interesting points made.

Besides, that math is beyond me

Thanks to all those who've voted, follows a nice bell curve (we need more yes!'s damnit! )

 

[gen.dragolen]

Sark,

What would it take to satisfy all of us who voted 'yes' ?

I keep thinking that there may not be a way to fix it, even with extensive modding and testing, so what next ? RTS format ?

The overall game design doesn't lend itself to a StarCraft type combat system, and it won't do to have an even more simplified system like in Third Reich or other strategic level wargames. I guess too many of us are too used to smaller units like in StarCraft, yet like the idea of being an immortal ruler/diety spanning history's ages.

The basic idea isn't bad, I just think that their execution lacks balance. Units strengths that are too close together for each age, too few hit points per unit and then the lack of combined arms. WW2 on down to the Iraq invasion show just how overwhelming the teamwork is...

My last spark of genius (or was it indigestion?) suggested that combat could be broken down into sub-turns where you decide if you want to exercise various options: continue the fight, add reserves to the line, weaken a flank to draw the enemy in, withdraw, etc... with the RNG giving some chaos to the scene. At least with your units laid out in a virtual battle field, you could pick the troops to face each other, assign formations, give some orders, etc...

It would have the game feel like you were an actual general instead of just the passive observer on the throne.

D.

 

[Sark6354201]

The problem with Civ3's combat system and my main gripe about it lies in the very origins of Civilization and it's purpose. The original Civilization was devised as a BUILDING game where WAR was meant to be minimized. This led to a very poor combat system that frustrated people extensivelly. However, it also meant building was more important and that military conquest was not needed nor the preffered form of victory.

Civilization II struck the perfect balance I believe. Military was simplistic and not complicated enough nor was it necessary at all to win the game. The system was improved to allow for more realistic results and satisfy those blood thirsty warmongers out there. But it also allowed you to become a perfectionist civ (possible even as a small civ) and win the space race. Again, military was not needed for victory nor was it necessary at all.

The reason why combat in Civilization III frustrates me so much is the fact that WAR has become just as important and sometimes more important than BUILDING. The problem is, Civ III's combat system was still not designed to be a full fledged and realistic mechanism that could be used in a war game per say. But what happened is that, it became exceedingly difficult to win without war or some sort of conquest. So for those who do not prefer to bulldoze everyone (I find conquest exceedingly boring many times) you tend to try to get a tech lead/create a specialized force or use fewer superior units to achieve victory. THATS where the combat system creates those random results that destroy your careful plans and might ultimately ruin your game. I have better things to do than click 100 artillery pieces or move 50 or 100 units around, its BORING AS HELL and it sucks.

The developers recognized what had happened in regards to the building aspect of the game. Stock Exchanges, Commercial Docks, The Internet all added to try to balance it out. But it doesn't work, and in the end it also comes back to that annoying corruption and the developer's inability to balance it.

So in regards to how to really fix it? Civ4 needs to get back to building, and make units more paper scissors rock. It's the simplest and most effective way to ensure realistic combat results that don't piss people off. I know that wouldn't represent the randomness of real combat, but there is no plague or random rebellions in Civ either, so I believe it would not be a huge change of direction.

 

[nihilistvoid]

Sarks... your post discloses how we've forgotten the very origins of our initial taking up of the civilization series. Suddenly, I remember how I used to play the game in a completely different manner than I do now, where the space race was the goal in civ2, and now all I do is try for military conquest in civ3, and usually end up quitting the game by the modern era after losing interest with having a million units and a million corrupted cities.

This game's essence lies in its building... in its Struktur. How did Husserl put it? Back to the things themselves!

 

[Sark6354201]

Originally posted by Qitai
Anyway, just for comparison. For those who have played and like SMAC combat system. If I am correct, I think it uses the exact same mechanism, but it uses a fixed 10HP and the experience level gives it an attack bonus instead of HP bonus.

You recieved +10 hp for each new power generator
Fusion 20
Quantum 30
Singularity 40

 

[gen.dragolen]

Sark635420,

Part of the challenge for the game is to try and balance the building against the combat.

And just to fuel the discussion, I would love to see Civ 4 include the SMAC style unit designs and combat engine. It would solve some of the conceptual problems and hopefully expand the scope for modding.

Then it could be 'Praise the Lord and pass the fusion rifle power packs"


D.

 

[yoshi]

Gen, I too have though about a combat order feature similar to what you described before. The thing is, Civ3 is so simplistic that to have such options each time a unit engages in combat would signifiy too much micromanagment for many players. The other thing is that as others mentioned previously, CIV is not technically a war game thus a faulty combat system will certainly not break the game. Nevertheless, it would be a nice touch to be able to tell a unit mid-combat to retreat, so perhaps such a feature, were it ever to be included, could be toggled on/off.

On combat outcomes in Civ3/C3C:

Combat could be a little bit more predictable in the vanilla game IMO, but it's not a big problem...there are worse ones believe me.

In scenarios, on the other hand, you may want to make combat more predictable if only for historical purposes.

A 'Base Combat Seed' field for each difficulty level in the Editor could easily deal with this --you could just the denominator to your preference without having to go to all the trouble of convincing designers to address the problem in a later patch (just one catch, you just have to convince them to add the stupid feature in the first place! ).

 

[tomart109]

Sorry to not read the entire thread, but.... Having played hundreds of wargames in the past 30 years, I have seen far better ways to game warfare - this system is simplistic, clunky, and unrealistic.

For example, who has ever fought wars by pitting one unit against one unit, while all the others watch?

The movement rates are beyond unrealistic: sometimes it takes hundreds of game years just to get to the enemy. You fight a distant enemy, and when you get home, hundreds of years have passed? What is this, relativity in action? And sea movement is far worse.

Many fundamentals are completely ignored: supply lines... ammunition limits... leadership... army organization... deployment... mobility...

Yes, the map scale and playability does limit complexity, but there are much better systems out there.

 

[#1 Person]

I dislike the system (Like how often a pikeman beats up my modern tank) but I works 87.3% of the time.

 

[wtiberon]

The combat system is of great concern in the MP community as well. I am an admin for a league website and new players will often accuse other players of cheating because they don't yet know how bad the RNG can be sometimes.

 

[gen.dragolen]

Tomart109,

I have played wargames of one sort or another for about 25 years and yes, there are much better ways to handle things. Here's what I've been contemplating:

I've looked at what Medieval: Total War is like, and I would think that it is at the extreme of what we could handle. It would be too processor intesive for most of the Civ'ers out there. On the other end, Risk is the casino model of combat.

What would be a playable balance ? Part of the problem is that you find units that are over 2000 years out of date in Civ 3 since maintaining units is too easy. Why disband a Spearman that's on MP duty when it costs the same to maintain as a Rifleman or Infantry ?

Multiple maintenance costs would be nice, as would an "Obsolete" flag where units that are facing a technologically superior opponent that is, say 2 eras more advanced, gets a 50%- 75% penalty on their defensive strength. That way, a Rifleman units would make short work of any ancient age unit. Rifles vs. shields and spears would result in many dead spearmen. Now with only a penalty on defense, this still allows for the Zulu Impi's to defeat Riflemen in open battle in the current design, but still doesn't account for the value of tactics or training.

This leads to another option, and that is allowing combat between stacks. Personally, I have been tinkering to see if the AI will build and use armies without needing GL's. Personally, I think that an army created by a GL should have increased A/D/M to reflect that the benefits of having an Alexander the Great versus Joe General appointed by a Leader. And you should be able to select which units are set to fight. A virtual battle field arrangement, but much more realistic than the battle screen in CTP2.

And that virtual battle field should be easy to apply. You get to arrange you army in 4 parts: left, right, center, and reserve. You can place units into each part, and in which order they will face the enemy. Add in any missle weapons and cavalry, with their own properties to do bombardment and flanking, and then put in basic orders like advance, withdraw and stand. Guess I would like to see something more than the RISK model when I fight. You still have the RNG deciding the outcome of the battles based on which units are facing each other.

This even works well for modern forces on the right scale. At division or regimental combat team level, this is the way the units are mapped out in their wargames. It would just be a question of revamping the combat engine to handle the added detail. It would likely require the borrowing of the combat engine from another game system that has more detailed combat and then reworking it to fit with the building side of the game.

Maybe something more like Panzer General. I could easily see that adapted to support ancient and renaissance age units. This would solve many of our concerns and then all we have to do is simplify it a little for those that don't want to do all the micro-management.

Personally, I would rather have more micro-management for units to make them as hard to manage as cities. Any professional soldier knows that logistics determine the effectiveness of the unit in the field. A modern armour division has about 10000 men, of which only a few hundred are riding in the tanks. The rest are mechanics, logistics and admin personnel. Even in an Infantry division, not all the people are in the line. This leads to my favourite failure of the game: not logistic trail.

With out considering logistics, the AI and players are able to do things that are completely ridiculous, like wandering over an entire pangea like continent in 2000 years of meandering. I keep thinking how nice it would be to attack a supply line or or destroying a supply depot in a suprise attack. It would make older units still useful and give a purpose for small units able to operate behind enemy lines.

So between an obselecense flag, stack vs. stack combat, and logistics added to a game engine like Panzer General, we might have something that would feel much more realistic and playable. Or so my sleep deprived brain seems to think.

Tomart109 et al, what can you add ? Am I going too far or not far enough ?


D.