Unit-unit-unit, who should win in battle

First there are going to be only 60 units total in the game. I wanted more, but that is another game. Let's try to keep this one on topic so if Dan M. is looking in it may be constructed. Question one; who should win a one-on-one or two-on-one, three-on-one? How many Warriors would it take to beat a Phalanx/Hoplite etc? Or how many Warriors to beat a Legion? We could discuss any combination of Units attacking or defending in the open or in a City with or without City walls.
In the other Civ. games, Phalanx/Hoplite were at a disadvantage in the open and normally loss almost to any one. Should that feature stay in the game or not?
As of now do we know how many unit per stack?
I believed 3 to 4 warriors could defeat one Phalanx/Hoplite in the open. However it should take at lease 4 or more warriors to defeat one Legion in the open because he can used his shield and short Sword.
Should a Sherman M-4 defeat a Abrams M-1. I say NO even if there are six, seven, eight, or even 10 because of the M-1 armor. (I was talking to a M-1 tank crewman at the Travis Air Force Base Open House on Sunday and he was talking about the Gulf War and we did not loose a single tank to enemy tank fire. We lost two M-1, one to Artillery fire and one mechanical problem that could not be repaired.)
The U.S.A.F. F-15 vs. Iraq. The US and Saudi F-15s recorded 36 of the 41 aerial victories or Iraqi aircraft with no looses (AirExpo 2001 and aerospace odyssey Travis AFB.). The F-15 record including all Air Forces 100.5 to 0, including four Mig-29 during the Balkan conflict.
A question here is do we want realization or a F-15 that can be defected from time to time by the Mig-29?

[Inverse Icarus]

IMO 20 warriors could take out a riflemen if they charged it.

or, realistically, 1,000 riflemen being onrished by 20,000 guys with pointy sticks.

you cant shoot them all.

and one could be a SUPER LEADER WARRIOR MAN.

bah. i like civ 2's battles.

why do you have to make stacks

wait, do you HAVE TO make stacks?

were allowed one stack per 4 cities, but do we HAVE TO stack them?

can we send them out in single unit form?

Originally posted by UberKruX
IMO 20 warriors could take out a riflemen if they charged it.
bah. I like civ 2's battles.
why do you have to make stacks
wait, do you HAVE TO make stacks?
were allowed one stack per 4 cities, but do we HAVE TO stack them?
can we send them out in single unit form?

20 warriors, it would depend on how far away from the riflemen they started. At 200 yard your 20 warriors would loose. At 20 yards they may win.
Stack are the new wave of thing to come, and beside if you don't build them the AI will and unless you have a tank against 9-12 Legion you will not win many battles.
No you do not have to stack, however the above answer applies.
Yes you can send them out as single until you go to war, after that I would not.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Ho wmany wariors would it take to shoot down an airplane???

Well they can only wait that the plane goes out of fuel

however my Civ 1&2 planes were shot down by calvary and even phalangs.

Sooo

mostly wahtever tehy do will be satisfying for me. CTP stacks were OK, maybe they need to be a bit more balanced, ie not to have attacking units defending and vice versa, but stacking certainly adds fun to the game.

3 warriors for a phalang

5 for a legion

[LaRusso]

Originally posted by joseph1944
Should a Sherman M-4 defeat a Abrams M-1. I say NO even if there are six, seven, eight, or even 10 because of the M-1 armor. (I was talking to a M-1 tank crewman at the Travis Air Force Base Open House on Sunday and he was talking about the Gulf War and we did not loose a single tank to enemy tank fire. We lost two M-1, one to Artillery fire and one mechanical problem that could not be repaired.)
The U.S.A.F. F-15 vs. Iraq. The US and Saudi F-15s recorded 36 of the 41 aerial victories or Iraqi aircraft with no looses (AirExpo 2001 and aerospace odyssey Travis AFB.). The F-15 record including all Air Forces 100.5 to 0, including four Mig-29 during the Balkan conflict.
A question here is do we want realization or a F-15 that can be defected from time to time by the Mig-29?

Well, you cannot really compare the effectiveness of the weapons when used by Iraqis or the chance of 30 Yugo MiGs against 700 NATO aircraft backed by several AWACS crews. If you gave F-15s and F-16s to Iraqis, they still wont be able to shoot down a single US plane.
As for the American tanks, they should beat granary as alternative to food storing space.

[Eddin]

Well, I myself prefer to play peacefully, but heck, sometimes they leave you no choice
One of the most important aspects of the game will be combat. But I have heard very little of how it is actually gonna progress. Will it be SMAC style, CTP style or perhaps will we have some Shogun like battlefield where we can spank an enemy 3 times our size

I would like to see an increase in strategy with some sort of conquest of the new world idea, but that might be too difficult, or too hard to handle. Dunno though

[Grumbold]

I would have liked to see more combat options but leaving that aside, I would expect as a general rule of thumb that 1 defensive unit of its age should kill 1.5 attacking units. Terrain bonuses then modify this so that a fortified hilltop will be more on the order of 1 defender lost to 5 attackers. Unfortunately the whole Civ system prevents intelligent tactics of dealing with "impregnable" defenders, i.e. sieges, ambushes, ranged attack etc. so I am more inclined to lean toward making it harder to defend in compensation.

Ideally I would prefer the CtP approach, where a defensive stack is very strong but you cannot afford to have each city fully defended. That allows the players to try and outmanoeuver each other to bring their full army stacks to bear on weaker targets. It is very satisfying to see huge army stacks disbanding because you have cut off the means to fund them instead of recklessly attacking and losing four times the casualties.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by UberKruX
IMO 20 warriors could take out a riflemen if they charged it.

or, realistically, 1,000 riflemen being onrished by 20,000 guys with pointy sticks.

you cant shoot them all.

Yes you can. The battle of Rorke's Drift. Look it up. 100 British riflemen holed up in a farm held off 4000 Zulus, killing 1000 of them. Now look up the battle of Isandlwana. It happened the day before Rorke's Drift, and 1300 British riflemen were annihilated by 15000 Zulus. Why? They got caught in the open. Kind of demonstrates the value of fortification, doesn't it?

Originally posted by UberKruX
why do you have to make stacks

wait, do you HAVE TO make stacks?

Let's say you have 20 warriors, and the AI has one rifleman. You can send your 20 warriors in individually, and they'll probably end up all dying. On the other hand, you can send in the 20 units at once, and their combat strengths get added together. No more rifleman.

Originally posted by UberKruX
were allowed one stack per 4 cities, but do we HAVE TO stack them?

can we send them out in single unit form?

That's a good question. If single units also count as armies, then Civ III will be a very different game from its predecessors. There will be no more garrisoning units in cities, since you could only defend 1/4 of them this way. This would fit in with the idea of making the countryside more important in Civ III. Does anyone (i.e. employees of a certain company whose name shall remain forever in the annals of Apolyton) have an answer as to whether this is the case or not?

[TechWins]

First there are going to be only 60 units total in the game.

Where did you read this at? Sorry about going off subject.

I think stacking units should be that if 20 warriors were to fight 1 riflemen all 20 warriors fight seperately but still together. Meaning that W1 will fight R1 until W1 gets ready to die then W2 will fight R1 until W2 gets ready to die then W3 will fight R1 until W3 gets ready to die and so on until the riflemen dies or all your turns are up. I think that's they way it's going to work. Not all 20 warriors strengths are added together.

W1=Warrior1
W2=Warrior2
W3=Warrior3
R1=Riflemen1

[KrazyHorse]

TechWins, the 60 units thing was in multiple reviews, but probably does not include unique units. Secondly, your postulated system destroys the utility of attacking with stacked units. "The art of warfare consists in concentrating the greatest possible strength at a single point". If any general in the world sent his troops in piecemeal as you suggest, they'd be cut to pieces and he'd be shot. The entire point behind the ability to stack units is that it allows multiple units to fight at the same time. One rifleman attacking five riflemen shouldn't be able to trade his life off for one of his enemy's.

[Frank80878]

The combat of civ 2 was always faulty and unrealistic, but i loved it anyway. But the one blasphemous error that i couldnt understand is why they made the marine unit the best infantry in the game. This really makes me mad that the creators fell into the classic american myth that marines are the gods of war. I served four years in the 82nd Airborne Division in 505th infantry. In those years we crossed trained with the marines all the time. AND WE NEVER LOST ONCE!!!!!!! My company went up against a battalion of marine 11-Bravos and we destroyed them all. And this isnt a one time lucky event, when we were outnumbering them on some exercises we would destroy them with even less effort. So civ always made me mad with th 8/5 marines, and the 6/4 paratroopers. Maybe i have a biased view, but there is no way a airborne division is worse than a stupid leg marine division. So maybe they should look realistically at the units instead of just following the American love for marines.

[Quantum]

Frank,
I'll stay out of the argument of whether marines or paratroopers are more powerful in real life, since I don't have any first-hand experience fighting either of them (thankfully! ). But you have to remember that realism is not the only factor that determines the relative strength of units. If as you suggest they made a paratrooper that had a really high attack value, that unit would in my opinion be overly powerful. In terms of game balance, you don't want a unit that has paradrop ability to also have the highest attack value. Otherwise there would be no reason to make any other units. For the sake of game balance you have to offset the paradrop ability with a slightly lower attack value.

And regardless of which unit you think is more powerful in real life, you have to admit that both marines and paratroopers have some inherent advantages and disadvantages. Virtually every large modern army has both types of troops - if one was inherently more powerful armies would only train that type of soldier. The game designers have to find a way to model the advantages/disadvantages of each unit type so that players want to build both types during the course of a game.

[Inverse Icarus]

stacked units get powers added together?

so if i had 20 catapults i could have an attack of 120?

[sebanaj]

I hope that a group of triremes won't sink a battleship!

[JMarks]

Originally posted by Grumbold
I would have liked to see more combat options but leaving that aside, I would expect as a general rule of thumb that 1 defensive unit of its age should kill 1.5 attacking units. Terrain bonuses then modify this so that a fortified hilltop will be more on the order of 1 defender lost to 5 attackers. Unfortunately the whole Civ system prevents intelligent tactics of dealing with "impregnable" defenders, i.e. sieges, ambushes, ranged attack etc. so I am more inclined to lean toward making it harder to defend in compensation.

Ideally I would prefer the CtP approach, where a defensive stack is very strong but you cannot afford to have each city fully defended. That allows the players to try and outmanoeuver each other to bring their full army stacks to bear on weaker targets. It is very satisfying to see huge army stacks disbanding because you have cut off the means to fund them instead of recklessly attacking and losing four times the casualties.

On the contrary, civ has made was great for sieges, and civ3 promises to be even better, at least where siege weapons are concerned. The only exception will be 'starving' units out, my favorite tactic in the civil war scenario. This may now be imposible and I really liked that tactic. Remember the Age of Discovery scenario? I used that tactic to take Europe and most of Asia, and if I hadn't gotten bored doing this I would have taken the rest. (ok, I know this was missing the point of the scenario)

Oh, and I do recall that stacked units fight individually then switch off (like in those stupid wrestling matches) to the next guy. Strong attackers first then to the weakest. If defending, then high defenders first, and so on. Now where was this reported? I can't remember, but there was a small uproar of contraversy when it was first heard.

Ioanes

[me_irate]

I personally like cpt 2 system. The battles work great, normal infanty attack 1 unit at a time, but ranged units can attack any unit as catipults do. And cavalry can attack any unit as long as no unit is in fron of it. I would be disapointed if it didn't have a system at least simular to this.

[TechWins]

stacked units get powers added together?

I doubt it will be like this. If it is this way I hope there is an option to disable it because that will really make the game suck. I mean the game will really suck if stacking a lot of crappy units like triremes will actually be able to defeat a battleship like sebanaj said.

[sebanaj]

or 4 swords beating a tank! it happens on CTP 2

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by sebanaj
or 4 swords beating a tank! it happens on CTP 2

I mean the game will really suck if stacking a lot of crappy units like triremes will actually be able to defeat a battleship like sebanaj said.

Please remember that - as OneFoot mentioned - the Civ system has aeroplanes being destroyed 1 on 1 by pikemen so lets not get too scathing about CtP where they have to gang up 20-1 to achieve the same result. In CtP you need to have units with range or flanking potential to exploit the stack advantage too.

I'm confident that triremes could not beat a battleship but massed galleons could. I'd also be willing to bet that if 4 swords units beat a tank it was because the tank attacked the swords while they were fortified in bad terrain. Given that scenario I think I could come up with some imaginative ways of ambushing and destroying the tanks just like the unequipped Afghans did when Russia tried it on.

The combat system rewards people for having high tech and rewards people for having combined arms. It can't make tech alone invulnerable because it would be historically wrong and also make the game a shallow tech race. An army big enough to outflank the opposition and shell it from range before close assaulting from three directions deserves the credit of an increased chance of victory.

Off topic, at Rourke's Drift the Zulu chiefs were impressed with the courage of the enemy and retreated voluntarily. It is only because they had that sense of honour and pride that Rourke's Drift is known today.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Grumbold
Off topic, at Rourke's Drift the Zulu chiefs were impressed with the courage of the enemy and retreated voluntarily. It is only because they had that sense of honour and pride that Rourke's Drift is known today.

Not true. You've been watching too many movies. The Zulus retreated for two reasons. Firstly, the destruction of a quarter of a fighting force has proved sufficient throughout the history of warfare to deter further attacks. Secondly, a British relief column that was moving in quickly to reinforce the defenders was spotted a few miles off.

Back on topic, I agree with your point that a technologically advanced civ should not be able to run roughshod over a less advanced one. This is why a single tank unit should get destroyed by an army of, say, 8 musketeers. Setting every unit as containing 1000 men, a tank unit should have something like 100-150 tanks in the field, given the large amount of behind-the-lines support required by modern units. The 8 musketeers would have something like 7000 men in the field. 50-70 musketeers per tank. The tank crews have to get out and refuel once in a while, you know...

[Myrddin]

CTP2 ground combat system worked fine, in that it encouraged technological development and armies combining ranged attack, close combat and flanking units. The balance of units wasn't perfect but it did give you the option of retreating when you realised that you were outgunned.

[MORON]

...there had been thousands of systems of combat proposed for civ 3.

Hope they picked a good one.

[Dr Strangelove]

It's also true that faced by a technologically superior force sometimes the less sophisticated force will steal weapons and develop tactics to fight back. After a couple hundred years of retreating from european encroachment the amerinds eventually adopted european weapons. In the past 2 centuries there have been numerous examples of technoligically unsophisticated peoples holding the forces of more developed nations.

This gives me some ideas. When your force invades a country that's significantly less developed the victim should have the chance to appeal to your rivals for aid. This aid might come in the form of a donation of technology or even some sort of mechanism for donating production, i.e. units produced by ther benefactor, but deployed in the recipient nation as the recipient's units. In fact the intervention could come at a variety of levels ranging from donations of technology and/or production, to sending units, to naval blockade, to outright war.
Another way to handle conflict between nations with a technological disparity would be to giver the forces of the less developed nation the chance to convert to partisans when attacked by a superior unit. There would need to be two levels of partisans, one for the modern era, the other for the age of muskets and rifles.

[Urban Ranger]

Since combat strength is based on units but we have no clue how big a unit is, so combat strength is just as arbitrary as it gets. No a unit is not the same as a division or what have you. It's just a "unit." A unit of battleship could be just a battleship but a unit of galleons could be 100 ships.

I am not going to bet on which unit will win.


Dr Strangelove,

That's a cool idea.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
When your force invades a country that's significantly less developed the victim should have the chance to appeal to your rivals for aid. This aid might come in the form of a donation of technology or even some sort of mechanism for donating production, i.e. units produced by ther benefactor, but deployed in the recipient nation as the recipient's units. In fact the intervention could come at a variety of levels ranging from donations of technology and/or production, to sending units, to naval blockade, to outright war.

The basic diplomatic tools have been there. Defensive alliances. Tech donations. Unit donations. All we need from Civ 3 is the AI capable of intelligently using these tools, and the reason to do so. I can remember a good column a few months ago on precisely that subject. With trade being important and cultural factors discouraging your own tactical invasion, protecting your trading partners becomes worthwhile. The AI just needs now to know how to do so effectively!

Originally posted by Grumbold
I'm confident that triremes could not beat a battleship but massed galleons could.

In the game yes it could happen. In life forget it. The Iowa class battleship carried 9, 16 inch guns and could fire a round 26 miles. Their 5 inch guns could fire a round about 15 miles.

[MORON]

Originally posted by Grumbold
I'm confident that triremes could not beat a battleship but massed galleons could.

In the game yes it could happen. In life forget it. The Iowa class battleship carried 9, 16 inch guns and could fire a round 26 miles. Their 5 inch guns could fire a round about 15 miles.

Not to say galleons burn easily under fire by explosive shells and its low velocity guns would bounce off battleship's steel armour easily.

Yamato class had 18inch guns

It's also true that faced by a technologically superior force sometimes the less sophisticated force will steal weapons and develop tactics to fight back.

Can we make spies steal tech from enemy units(of course only the ones that allows it to be build)? Sounds fun, fair and realistic.

Originally posted by MORON
Yamato class had 18inch guns
Can we make spies steal tech from enemy units(of course only the ones that allows it to be build)? Sounds fun, fair and realistic.

Yes I would agree it was very good luck for the U.S. in that they did not have to fight the Yamato Ship to Ship. I think we would have won because we had more battleship to fight with. But a lot of people would have died. It kind of funny that after Pearl Harbor no American battleships was sunk. The Bismark was sunk before we the U.S. enter the war and the Yamato was sunk by aircraft as was the Bismark.
I agree with the Spies. In the Game as in real life we should alow spies to steal from somebody or a city.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by joseph1944

In the game yes it could happen. In life forget it. The Iowa class battleship carried 9, 16 inch guns and could fire a round 26 miles. Their 5 inch guns could fire a round about 15 miles.

A little bit of bad weather would solve that in pre-radar days. One lucky shot can be all it takes. I'm not saying it is likely, but it needs to be possible. Even if they have to somehow trick the battleship into letting itself get boarded!

Originally posted by Grumbold


A little bit of bad weather would solve that in pre-radar days. One lucky shot can be all it takes. I'm not saying it is likely, but it needs to be possible. Even if they have to somehow trick the battleship into letting itself get boarded!

Hey there was a movie five or six years ago when Tommy Lee Jones took over the USS New Jersey or USS Missouri. The real bad thing if those boys in Yemen had boarded the USS Cole they may have taken the ship because all small arms are locked up except for the personnel on watch. That means there are only one or two .45 cal pistol at hand and maybe one M-16 carry by a crewman.