Why there is at least 1 damage?

[doctorfork]

If you're really interested in drawing a parallel between reality and Civ, take a look at the world. Are there any civilizations that rely on spearmen today? No? Good. With that in mind, let's assume there's probably never going to be a real world empirical test of spearmen versus GDRs.

In real reality-you simply can't have a technological gap where a civilization that takes up about 5% of the world are completely baffled by the idea of muskets while the rest of the world is using stealth bombers. You can say they're using older technology and not nearly as well organized militarily-but they're not still using spears. In fact, if you want a real world analogy-look at today's news. The US, (and the USSR before them) should have steamrolled through Afghanistan in 2 turns without taking so much as scratch of damage, right?

 

[KevinMiles90000]

In real reality-you simply can't have a technological gap where a civilization that takes up about 5% of the world are completely baffled by the idea of muskets while the rest of the world is using stealth bombers. You can say they're using older technology and not nearly as well organized militarily-but they're not still using spears. In fact, if you want a real world analogy-look at today's news. The US, (and the USSR before them) should have steamrolled through Afghanistan in 2 turns without taking so much as scratch of damage, right?

Yes, because if the US/USSR had acted like the AI in Civ 5 they just would have nuked it into oblivion.

 

[deanej]

The reason why the US and USSR couldn't sweep though Afghanistan like that is called civility. Had we opted to exterminate Afghanistan, I'm sure we could have swept through the area in a week.

Note: I am not advocating extermination. I am merely pointing out that it is easier to destroy than to control.

As for nations laughing at one that tries to build a GDR, other nations already laugh at America.

And combat does represent a single engagement. Remember, the year display is only cosmetic and means nothing.

And a good programmer makes sure his code works as intended even for fringe cases that should never come up. Including warrior vs. GDR.

 

[Coase]

I don't see the problem.

Spearmen vs tank? No, spears won't do a thing to the tank. But all that manpower can dig ditches, set traps, throw up blockades, etc. Will any of this *defeat* a tank? Hardly. Will it use up fuel and ammo? Yup. And so -1 sounds fine.

Archer vs. Bomber? Guerrilla warfare is rife with such stories: paint a $25 broken refrigerator to look like a Strategic Target, and cause the attacker to blow a $1000 bomb on it. Will it win the battle? Absolutely not. Waste supply? Yup.

These are the sort of things that won't happen when just traveling, which makes it different.

I don't see it as particularly ridiculous of a rule, from a gameplay or a realistic standpoint.

 

[Rex_Mundi]

I don't see the problem.

Spearmen vs tank? No, spears won't do a thing to the tank. But all that manpower can dig ditches, set traps, throw up blockades, etc. Will any of this *defeat* a tank? Hardly. Will it use up fuel and ammo? Yup. And so -1 sounds fine.

Archer vs. Bomber? Guerrilla warfare is rife with such stories: paint a $25 broken refrigerator to look like a Strategic Target, and cause the attacker to blow a $1000 bomb on it. Will it win the battle? Absolutely not. Waste supply? Yup.

These are the sort of things that won't happen when just traveling, which makes it different.

I don't see it as particularly ridiculous of a rule, from a gameplay or a realistic standpoint.

Can you explain why Canons and Artillery does not get -1 when they attack then?

This has been implimented for gamey reasons, and I'm fine with that.

 

[bryanw1995]

I think that a random -1 makes more sense than -1 every single time. Increase the odds of no damage based upon how dominant the superior unit is: ie: 32 cp vs 7 cp would likely still incur damage, but 222 cp vs 4 cp would almost never do so.

As stated, the current implementation gives a huge advantage to ottoman and aztec UU's.

 

[clearbeard]

Can you explain why Canons and Artillery does not get -1 when they attack then?

This has been implimented for gamey reasons, and I'm fine with that.

Actually, this is the one part of this whole debate I see as having real relevance: ranged combat. I'm okay with ranged units not taking damage in return when they bombard. That's what they're designed to do, and the cost of their normal operating munitions could be folded into upkeep. They're not going slogging through the Vietnam jungle or hunting through the Afghan badlands looking for their targets like infantry or tanks have to.

What I take issue with is that ranged attacks seem to now always inflict a minimum of 1 damage (unless I'm mis-remembering, which is possible as it's been a while since I played C5). A couple flights of arrows from neolithic bowmen certainly aren't going to do a whit of damage to my mech infantry well fortified on a hilltop or my GDR's armor. And yet, somehow, they wipe out 10% of my combat ability. Each.

 

[bryanw1995]

Even better than the archer example is a keshik army decimating several gdr's per turn.

 

[NukeAJS]

An exhausted unit is less able to fight than a rested one -- thus one damage.

When it comes to aircraft though -- the one damage should probably be removed unless the defending unit actually has a means of harming it. Refueling and whatnot is already incorporated into the logistics of how aircraft work.

 

[Callonia]

One minimum damage is very good move to make for u see, I vaguely remember stationing Mech Infantries and Giant Death Robots upon citadels and dare the enemy to march themselves to sacrifice themselves to my gods. While taking zero damage in return.

And now that I've had some experience with air force, I'll say it works perfectly, it makes a pause in the battle happen as you resupply and repair ur airforce I got jet fighters and stealth bombers with crazy promos. No way it'll stop u from winning unless u have a quite hilarious military that always win by luck and loses for same reason. xD The kind that goes into comedy movies.



Rome actually managed to get 3 era advantage on me, if it was civ 4 i would've world builded the units in and blow him to oblivion. But naw, Instead i opt'd to try and kick him back across the river to where they belongs. xD U see, Rome sent four tanks and a cavalry towards me while he was fighting bunch of advanced nations who were at renaissance or below.

I went nuts and start spammed everything I could debt? what's that? red numbers hah who cares! March! They will choke on our dead! Swarms of landsknechts with knights finishing tanks off worked. But not before losing quite a pretty chunk of my army. When that happened he left me alone for other bunch o turns which in due time I managed to get riflemen just before other roman assault. At same time, many many other ai nations just faded to romans.

Invincible units were so stupid. seriously who wants one immortal longbowman with a braveheart secretly training it protecting 50 near death longbowmen in a city slaying ur full armies. So yo!

1 minimum damage is likely here to stay, and i'm thankful for it.

Without it, how are you going to defeat citadels fortified with giant death robots and mech infantries and such. Short of dropping atomic bombs and nuclear missles. by god, we'll be able to take anything on!

 

[tommynt]

it seem to me this -1 allways rule doesnt count for Samurais

 

[joyous_gard]

The -1 rule is weak. 10 percent mandatory damage per attack for any melee or air unit. Weak indeed.

It's just some arbitrary thing that is put in there and everyone calls it "balance."

Why not balance it more and make it mandatory 2 damage or 3 damage. That balances things for the losers. So when the modern armor fights a pike it will lose more hit points so it is balanced for the loser.

 

[jagdtigerciv]

So many threads about this. Keep 1 minimum damage. Works for gameplay, balance and, as has been argued so many times, with "roleplay" as well.

 

[joyous_gard]

So many threads about this. Keep 1 minimum damage. Works for gameplay, balance and, as has been argued so many times, with "roleplay" as well.

It breaks roleplay which is why people complain about it. Some spearman isn't going to do 10% damage to a tank. It's obviously not some make-believe 10% "gas cost" of fighting a battle because then artillery would lose 10% of its strength to "gas cost."

This isn't real life anyway and they have so many other "IRL" problems with V that there's no way they were going for "10% damage is like how in real life planes need gas to fly."

Nobody asked for spearman-tank balance. It's a ludicrous thing to balance. Spearman tank is imbalanced. It's a one sided battle.

Drop 1 minimum damage for severe tech imbalance battles. Imbalanced unit matchups should not have "balanced" damage.

 

[squadbroken]

If you're using GDRs against spearmen you already have such a massive advantage that the only way you could possibly lose is if you are playing the game by rolling your face on the keyboard (and even that would be a stretch). The minimum damage at least gives the Settler AI/3 year old you are playing against a smidgen of a fighting chance.

 

[StarEye]

Maybe they should start using decimals when the tech difference is so vast? 1HP to represent loss of ammunation or time is a pretty big hit.

 

[Uncle Anton]

The -1 Damage flies in the face of reality. It just does.

Having a unit strength reduce by one and rationalise it by logistical loss or waste or wear and tear does seemingly hold up, until you consider the scale of the fighting force represented in one 'unit'. Even in Civ 4, which had infinitely more units by game design represented large, reasonably self-sufficient forces.

Even if it could be argued that a unit in CiV represented a formation as small as a Brigade (Which I doubt can be credibly argued), in real life units that large often have their own integrated support structures for resupply, maintenance and refit in the line as well as in reserve.

Take the tank example. As a serving soldier in an Armoured unit, the idea that we'd lose two percent combat efficiency (two percent representing 1/50th of our strength) after expending a lot of ammo salughtering a bunch of invading spearmen is just ridiculous.

Like I said, low on ammo? You get re-supped. Low on parts? Re-supped. Throw a track? Changed, and problem sorted within 15 minutes. Lose an entire vehicle due to bog? Recovered by the unit's echelon elements and back on the road within an hour or so. These are ROUTINE things guys which would occur within a Battalion or Regimental sized organisation, let alone the massive organisations that CiV abstractly represents as a 'unit' (eg Divisions etc). If there is some other abstract representation that the -1 damage is supposed to represent, I don't know what it is.

In it's current form, the -1 damage is bubkis. I challenge ANYONE with any knowledge of the way real military units work to justify it in it's current form.

Deanej is right, the current method of representing that kind of degradation of combat efficiency over time should be re-done, at the moment it's just not plain realistic.

 

[hmvkmv]

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

Very simple: because the Ottomans enlisted conquered peoples to form their Janissary corps. It therefore makes sense for Janissaries to be able to regain full strength (no. of combat-ready personnel) when they've incorporated the children of conquered (destroyed) units into their ranks.

The -10% firepower & health due to "operational unreadiness" is a very weak argument. Rules are there for balance, but all that this rule does is create both unrealistic situations and an imbalanced game - in favor of people who have fallen into or, worse, intentionally chosen the path of scientific and industrial backwardness.