Why there is at least 1 damage?

"Don't think of it as the little arrows plinking off the jet fighter's fuselage, think of it simply as the cost of engaging in combat, no matter who you attack."

 

But, again, "costs" of combat are not that large. Unless a baboon is commanding the army, they will be so small as to be insignificant. And large numbers of forces mean nothing to automatic weapons.

With this rule, if you have 10 units, you can kill anything, no matter what your 10 units are. Do you really think that guys in loincloths wielding clubs could take down a giant death robot? It doesn't matter how many warriors there are, the GDR will win every time.

 

I'm not so sure. Have you seen the technical specs for GDR's? I have. They are curiously vulnerable to asymmetrical warfare.

 

I guess the GDR just trip as he stomps those squishy loincloth wearers .

Well this don't make sense to me as well. I can't remember reading this but it could be a math problem. Like they round the damage and even if a warrior would make (for example) 6/150=0,04 dmg they round it up to 1 dmg flat. I don't know the formula but if they calculate damage like that it would make a change much more difficult.

Anyway I don't see any rationale for this 1 damage, at least in some cases.

 

Why does it cost supplies to have arrows rain down on you, without you doing anything but sitting in your tank?

And someone is going to answer my questions this time.
Seriously, it feels like when I make a point it's just getting ignored rather than addressed.

Why does it take 10% of a GDR's resources to move 1 tile and attack a warrior, but 0% to move across the world without attacking?

Why do my tanks take 10% damage when arrows hit them, even when they do nothing to retaliate and therefore shouldn't be using any supplies?

Why do my aircraft take 10% damage attacking spearmen and longswordsmen, who shouldn't be able to hit them. Or cannons for that matter, who should be technically capable of hitting them if they were flying low but have a rediculously low chance of hitting them.

Don't remember who said that, but I agree whole-heartedly.

Why do low tech, high number units need to be protected from high tech armies? This is why research is important! It's perfectly valid for a classical era civ to get steamrolled by an industrial/modern era civ, even if the advanced civ is smaller. It's just a different play style and there's no reason to disable it.

Also:

Why does my infantry take 1 damage attacking pikemen? The pikemen shouldn't be able to get close enough to hit them (unless they're really, really stupid). If it's food, what if they're in my territory sitting on a farm? Were the farmers cruel enough to starve two soldiers to death? If it's ammo, . There were only 12 pikemen charging directly at them. Even if all the soldiers are horrible shots, they couldn't have used more than say 36 bullets; once again they are in my territory.

If the damage represents ammo, why doesn't artillary or rocket artillary or cannons take 1 damage when they fire? Why don't archers?

If it's fuel, are my soldiers actually incapable of getting food from the environment? If so, that's something we should be teaching them in training, especially if it's in MY TERRITORY or worse, an improved tile?

"Because it's a game" is not a valid response to any of these questions. Having rules for the sake of rules is stupid.

 

Why do janissaries fully heal when they kill an enemy? It's just a game rule and rules are in there for balance and fun

 

1) But it makes the game less balanced and fun.
2) Since (I think most people would agree) "healing" means recruiting and sending people to reinforce a unit (since we clearly see soldiers die, unless we have researched reincarnation at the same time as Agriculture - this is the most logical explanation) - Janissaries fully heal because people see "Hey, these guys are winning, let's join the winning side so they don't kill us next" (or if the reinforcements come from your country, it's a burst of patriotism from military success)!

 

This example - and countless possible others - is why it's hard to take this thread seriously. Almost every argument made in its favor brings up extreme examples that are utterly irrelevant to the vast majority of situations (GDR vs warrior, MI vs archer, bomber vs riflemen, etc.). Intentional or not, it's a facet of the game that may well have a broader design underpinning - and doesn't negatively affect gameplay in the least. Well, except for that poor guy a few posts up who lost a GDR to an archer. (No comment on that one.)

 

That was a Repair + Logistic GDR, and what? I took 1 city and 1 samurai in one turn, and the next turn, he's dead. It's my mistake since I thought with Repair promotion, 3HP GDR is okay, but the samurai was outside of my territory, so he only get +1 from Repair, and 2HP highly-promoted GDR was killed by, as you say "loincloth" men.

Well, maybe some off-topic, back to the problem. I think the problem come from the rounding mechanism, so they can fix it easily, only the matter that can we prove them if it's neccessary. About reliastic, I absolutely agree with swmaniac. About gameplay, there's NO reason why take away 1HP from attacking melee unit if he's very very strong. It slows down the game, make player annoying (having Blizt for example, there's no use of this promotion, because if you attack 3 times, you have to stop 3 turn to heal if there's no Medic near).

 

It's quite clear that civ5 was designed with the board game paradigm. Hence why so many people support this rule: it fits in very well with a board game, and most of the people who didn't want a board game aren't on the civ5 forums anymore.

 

Please explain this 'board game' paradigm and how it plays into this 1 dmg discussion.

 

It's a lot less irritating now that there's a feature to "go inactive until healed" for air units.

 

The most evident consequence of this feature is the end of the good old "invincible" units, able to resist thousands of attacks without taking any damage (a bit unrealistic, in my opinion).

With the 1hp minimum damage, now ANY unit can be defeated, if you have a sufficient number of attackers (even behind in tech).
This could be a way to avoid to have unbeatable cities, and that the game stales in certain positions. If I fall behind in tech, I could always send 20 swordsmen agains a city with a rifleman, and even success to take it.
I could agree with it, everyone should ALWAYS have a chance to win, if he deserves it.

 

As ViterboKnight said, you really have to put "realism" aside and think this through.

Without this minimum damage, a single unit (a SINGLE unit) if advanced enough could destroy the entire world. Invincibility means you have zero chance.

So, if you get an era or two (whatever your threshold is) ahead of your enemy (ahem... Rifle rush anyone?) then your units are INVINCIBLE. The game is over. Kaput. I got Rifles, you got Spearmen, game over. No chance, even if I have only 2 and you have the production output to produce 1 spearman every turn. No dice. You lose. Game over. How fun is that!

It needs to be there in order to maintain SOME balance across the eras. Besides, if it is really hurting your game, just level your units up and get some March goodness. Now they are invincible again. If you let one unit get hit 10 times in 1 turn, you deserve to lose it anyway.

 

Maybe they should. Of course, assuming that they have the supply and logistics in place to effectively use that rifle for more than a few hours is probably also wrong.

I don't understand the question.

And it does protect tanks from club-wielding warriors. It just doesn't make them completely impervious to harm, and it shouldn't. Even if you assume (wrongly) that a tank is utterly impervious to a spearman, a unit of tanks in Civ represents the whole army group, and spearmen are quite capable of killing off some of that tank's infantry support.

 

It's pretty much self-explanatory. Civ5 utilizes rules that are similar to chess. And the 1 dmg rule is clearly a rule for the sake of having a rule, which you don't typically see with advanced computer games.

 

To say the 1 dmg rule is a rule just for the sake of having one is an unsubstantiated claim. It proves nothing.

And how are Civ5 rules similar to chess?

 

Personally I don't like the 1 dmg when it comes to units that are eras (read multiple) apart... Just because it simply makes no sense. So if an axeman takes on a knight, I can see how damage could be exchanged. Or how a swordsman can harm a musket man... but to say that an axeman can somehow dmg a modern infantry unit... absurd.

If they mean for players to take dmg because it's "represents support costs" then call them support points. Even then, logistics and support today are FAR more advanced than the last eras... so shouldn't we be taking LESS dmg?

If the units are one era removed I could tolerate it. But to say that a bomber takes dmg from a spearman is logical is nonsense.

If it's a game rule. Then that's fine. But let's not pretend it makes sense. The Spanish Conquistador's in South America and the British Redcoats in Africa (against the Zulu) are just two examples of battles that the opponents where so mismatched that it just played out as a slaughter. Now, factor in modern technology... I have a lot of difficulty believing that a Tank, could be dmg in any way, supply or otherwise, by anything other than maybe a rifleman.. and even then.. it's a feat.

For me the issue is that this "rule" makes no sense when you start looking at the "game changing" technologies... like Air and Tanks or Battleships and Gunships. For me, I can accept that an modern infantry unit MIGHT take some dmg if "rushed" by a bunch of axe wielding barbarians... It takes a real leap of faith to believe that an archer can do 10% dmg to a bomber.. In my mind.. if it's need oil... gunpowder is the bare minimum to inflict any kind of dmg.

I'm curious... can you explain how a wooden stick with a stone tip (maybe even a metal one) can dmg a modern tank in any way? Spearmen were barely viable once the modern empires of the world acquired gunpowder... (Spanish in South America and British in Africa) how could it be possible that they could harm a tank? I mean... A tank could simply run over someone with a spear.. or shoot him with machine guns... what can a spear do to a tank?

Never mind that most military support are lightly armed and would be more than capable of killing a spearman with his side arm...

 

When was this rule introduced into the game? I have currently only some old version and this rule is definitely not there yet.

In my opinion, if there is a fight between let's say tanks and spearmen, then it depends on what kind of spearmen are we talking about. If they never saw any modern weapons and are dumb enough to clash with the tanks in open ground (as a unit), then they will get slaughtered without inflicting any damage to the tanks.

If they are aware of what their opponents are using, then they will not engage them head on, but rather fight guerilla kind of war, small groups of warriors trying to catch them with their pants down, when they cannot fight (mind you each turn represents one or more years of time).

Even if the unit represents tanks, there is some support infantry with them usually, logistics teams etc, these can be killed if ambushed by people wielding primitive weapons. This is the actual damage done to, in this example, armoured army division. Of course, without food, fuel and other supplies, even tanks or bombers are less effective.

But these discussions do rarely get somewhere, as this game is a very simple abstraction of what is actually going on during those fights. For instance, tanks would never fight alone, they need support and they need infantry to seize the captured lands and finish off remaining enemy forces. In the game, though, these units act separately.

Still, I don't like the fact that such a rule is in place. Obviously, not always would primitive warriors be able to inflict any damage at all and some supplies and ammunition hardly make up for 10% casualties. Or refuelling and rearming a fighter at the base (which takes no more than few hours and the turn takes one year). I would simply randomize it or rework the combat formulae so that it happens more often, that advanced units lose some hitpoints even against low odds.

 

After doing some reading on anti tank warfare... I'm convinced... No gunpowder no damage. If you have anything less than black powder there should be zero dmg.