A question about Civ-3 combat-model

[Ralf]

Can you attack an enemy 15-unit army with a similar number of indevidual units (attacking one by one, all within the same turn), and still have the same attack-effect as if your 15 units where forged to an army instead?

I really hope not.

[TechWins]

This kind of goes with stacking armies, doesn't it? Ah it doesn't matter.

Anyways, no I think it will be much more valuable to stack your armies. When attacking with this army your best attacking unit (determined by attacking capabilities and health) will attack first, then the second best attacking unit, and so on. You may not need to start attacking with your second best attacking unit, you will only if your first unit can't kill the opposition. The thing is your first unit won't fight until death, unlike fighting individually. The same applies for defence.

The reason why you can't have all the units stats added up and combined as one unit is because that unit would become way too strong. If you took 10 tanks (10 att) and made them one army it would then have 100 att. So the way they have made stacking armies will not unbalance the game.

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by Ralf
Can you attack an enemy 15-unit army with a similar number of indevidual units (attacking one by one, all within the same turn), and still have the same attack-effect as if your 15 units where forged to an army instead?

I really hope not.

I don't think so. What we have heard of armies isn't mush, but I think they stated that: Units of an army would attack/defend one by one until they are almost dead, then retreat and let the next unit attack. In that way you would lose more units by attacking with single soldiers compared to attacking with an army.

[Ralf]

So the end result of 15 indevidual units attacking 15 similar units forged to an army, is that although you probably can wound all 15 of them to red/yellow-status, you can only do that at the (too high) prize of getting all your own indevidually attacking units killed off?

OK, I guess I suspected that already. I just wanted to be sure there werent any other factors involved.

[TechWins]

Ralf, your first paragraph was put together very unclearly for me, could you please re-write it again so I could understand? Thanks.

Also Ralf, what do you feel should have been done with stacking combat?

[MORON]

How about combined arms bouses?

[Inverse Icarus]

well they dont work together, they attack in succession.

but i did read that Catapults arent units in their own right, they muct be fired by other troops.

[TechWins]

but i did read that Catapults arent units in their own right, they muct be fired by other troops.

Yeah that's true, that will also apply to artillery. I've seen a screenshot that proves it. I will later try to find that particular screenshot.

[ByzCat]

Ooooo! That sounds fun. I always wished I could capture unattended seige weapons. Hopefully the unit doing all the firing will also add some defence points to it.

[Grumbold]

All the units line up and fight a tournament one by one. The opposition, being gentlemen too, allow any wounded unit to retire to the back of the queue when hurt. Eventually one side or the other will have no unwounded units left and promptly get massacred (one by one). No dirty tricks like exploiting superior numbers and flanking the enemy are allowed. To butcher a famous quote, God no longer fights on the side of the biggest legions, but the strongest individual ones.

It's been a long time since we heard anything about combat though so things may be different now. You can probably tell I'm hoping they reconsider their approach.

[Urban Ranger]

I certainly hope they would include combined arms bonuses, and also bonuses for certain unit types (e.g. Alphine troops in mountains, etc.).

[campmajor!]

I kind of liked the way ctp handled this: with an extra attribute called range. So if you fight with an army, your ranged units are behind the "footmen". I thought that was quite realistic!

I can only hope that civ3 will come up with a model that is as good or even better can the one of ctp...

[Grim Legacy]

Originally posted by Grumbold
All the units line up and fight a tournament one by one. The opposition, being gentlemen too, allow any wounded unit to retire to the back of the queue when hurt. Eventually one side or the other will have no unwounded units left and promptly get massacred (one by one). No dirty tricks like exploiting superior numbers and flanking the enemy are allowed. To buthser a famous quote, God no longer fights on the side of the biggest legions, but the strongest individual ones.

It's been a long time since we heard anything about combat though so things may be different now. You can probably tell I'm hoping they reconsider their approach.

Great post.

I do think, however, that this is one of the aspects of Civ3 that will have to be really playtested before it can be judged. Hmmm well then again, maybe that goes for all aspects of Civ3! :P

[Inverse Icarus]

No dirty tricks like exploiting superior numbers and flanking the enemy are allowed.

sure they are, now i can attack your stack of 10 with my 3 stacks of 15 from 3 different angles

[Inverse Icarus]

also, dont forget that until u get Nationalism you can only have 1 stack per every 2 cities, so chances are a lot of people will have the classic civ2 milirary style, flanking, gangbanging and all

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by UberKruX
also, dont forget that until u get Nationalism you can only have 1 stack per every 2 cities, so chances are a lot of people will have the classic civ2 milirary style, flanking, gangbanging and all

In Civ 2 it is impossible to meaningfully flank or mass attack. You get no bonus for being the first (or hundred and first) unit to attack a defender. There is absolutely no difference between manoeuvering to attack from two directions or running all the units one by one along a railway line from the other side of your empire and attacking the same side repeatedly until the opposition is dead.

[tniem]

Originally posted by Ralf
So the end result of 15 indevidual units attacking 15 similar units forged to an army, is that although you probably can wound all 15 of them to red/yellow-status, you can only do that at the (too high) prize of getting all your own indevidually attacking units killed off?

OK, I guess I suspected that already. I just wanted to be sure there werent any other factors involved.

From what I understand, yes.

[Darkknight]

I've heard that when you have an army the strongest units attack first then when almost dead they move back and let the weaker units finish it off. I assume that single units will just fight until they die.

[Lou Wigman]

Having played both the CTP games extensively I can only say that the combat system in civ3 sounds horribly inferior. I suspect that my enjoyment of the game will be seriously diminished because Firaxis refuses to acknowledge a good idea when they see it.

[Kenobi]

Originally posted by Grumbold


In Civ 2 it is impossible to meaningfully flank or mass attack. You get no bonus for being the first (or hundred and first) unit to attack a defender. There is absolutely no difference between manoeuvering to attack from two directions or running all the units one by one along a railway line from the other side of your empire and attacking the same side repeatedly until the opposition is dead.

'fraid so. Civ has never been a tactical game - you can only outflank in a strategic sense, e.g. moving around a unit to attack a city behind, landing troops on an undefended coast-line etc. Stacking will at least mean that slugfests are a little fairer.

[korn469]

Quote:

Yeah that's true, that will also apply to artillery. I've seen a screenshot that proves it. I will later try to find that particular screenshot.

Yeah that's true, that will also apply to artillery. I've seen a screenshot that proves it. I will later try to find that particular screenshot.

i so hope that this isn't so...techwins if you could find that screen shot i'd love to see it...i don't understand how making a catapult only half a unit improves game play...the bombard ability like in SMAC is a decent thing to add to civ3...since it didn't work properly in SMAC (they fixed it in SMACX) after the patches it was hardly ever used by the player or the AI...even when it did work properly bombard units weren't the most effective units ever...but to make a bombard unit, and then to make it basically nonfunctional just increases micromanagement without any real benefit...they should just properly balance the cost of a fully functioning unit with it's powers...you don't go and buy a brand new car that doesn't have an engine...plus would these units not be able to move without other units? if they do move, why couldn't the people who are moving them learn to shoot them too? what is firaxis thinking? will this also apply to modern weapons like artillary and howitzers? in the army it takes alot of training to learn how to properly operate a howitzer, same thing goes for infantry...it's not like the military doesn't have artillary crews...that adds little strategy to the game while it adds alot of micromanagement

as for armies, firaxis hasn't mentioned a combined arms bonus, all they have said is that when a unit becomes damaged the next most powerful unit will step up

so if you had five armor units and a rifleman in your army, the first armor unit would attack, then once it became damaged a more powerful unit would takes it place, instead of just going through the units i think it would always calculate the odds and the most powerful unit would always attack first, so that a damaged armor unit would attack before an undamaged rifleman, and even a partially damaged armor unit if it was vetern or elite would attack before an undamaged normal armor unit...then if a great leader is in the army i think the great leader would provide at least a small additional bonus to the army...what i wonder is

if two similar stacks of ten mech infantry attacked each other, could one stack be completely wiped out, while the other stack would have ten badly damaged units, or would it be possible for the both stacks to take losses? is all combat still to the death?

[Urban Ranger]

It depends on the dice rolls. Surely it's possible for a stack of 10 mech inf to totally destroy a similar stack. Com'on, we have all seen a Phalanx unit destroying a Battleship before

[splangy]

Originally posted by Lou Wigman
Having played both the CTP games extensively I can only say that the combat system in civ3 sounds horribly inferior. I suspect that my enjoyment of the game will be seriously diminished because Firaxis refuses to acknowledge a good idea when they see it.

yes, civ3's new system where if you have 0ne city you cant build 5 armys is so unreal

ctp sucked in so many other places i stoped playing very early, what a waste of time

i like it civ3's way better, its simpler, it makes a army unique, and in ctp it was 1v1 most of the time, its no different from civ3, we really know to litt;e know though

[korn469]

splangy

yes, civ3's new system where if you have 0ne city you cant build 5 armys is so unreal

to me you should be able to build as many armies as possible, or it should be dependent upon headquarters units...depending on one army per four cities sounds like something to encourage ICS, at least great leaders can let you form armies too

for one thing a bigger army is better than a smaller army, and to have a number of big armies you will have to pay to support them, so if you are a size one city and you have a number of large armies you are going to have support problems...and more importantly than that, i'm afraid that the AI won't recognize the significance of armies, and it will just make it easier for the player to beat the AI...but we still don't have all the details

Urban Ranger

yes one stack of ten units might be able to kill an equal stack of ten units, but if it doesn't lose a single unit then one turn in a barracks and that army is back to full fighting strength...this could make battles very lopsided

in civ2 if you had a armor and there was a city with ten musketeers you could still attack and have a good chance at killing one, but with the army system, most likely from the information we have available then the army of ten musketeers would probably kill the armor unit without losing any units...i'm not sure if that is a good thing

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by splangy yes, civ3's new system where if you have 0ne city you cant build 5 armys is so unreal

ctp sucked in so many other places i stoped playing very early, what a waste of time

i like it civ3's way better, its simpler, it makes a army unique, and in ctp it was 1v1 most of the time, its no different from civ3, we really know to litt;e know though

By your own admission you haven't played CtP enough to be a reliable judge of its style. There were many things that were unpopular but combat was probably its best strength. After patching the AI became very competent at forming army stacks and units would always form up into balanced groups before attacking.

[Grim Legacy]

Well I'm glad Civ3 won't meddle with RTS-esque tactical manoeuvering. I'm also glad there will not be any separate "battlefield screens", which would only disrupt the experience.

Stick to the basics of Empire Building!!

[Zanzin]

When you think about it thought, in CTP, the units did line up against each other and was basically one vs. one, but all at the same time.

I initially rejected the civ3 combat system, but it's started to grow on me, along with the rest of the game (my feelings about civ3 change with the moons based on new updates and screenshots!!!)

End of the day, it's pretty much similar to CTP, it's a simple system, and it seems appropriate for the game. The initial limitation of one army to 2 (or is 4) cities makes a lot of sense, because previously small civs could pump out tons and tons of units, which wasn't reflective of the size of their population.

[korn469]

Zanzin

from what we have heard it's one army for every four cities...

previously small civs could pump out tons and tons of units, which wasn't reflective of the size of their population.

well the number of cities isn't reflective of size of your population either, you could have eight size one cities and be able to have two armies while another player with just one size twenty city wouldn't be able to have an army at all...and the number of units still has nothing to do with the size of your population...you can build as many units as you like as long as you can support them

[Grim Legacy]

Originally posted by Zanzin
The initial limitation of one army to 2 (or is 4) cities makes a lot of sense, because previously small civs could pump out tons and tons of units, which wasn't reflective of the size of their population.

Hm no. The production of units was city-bound and that posed a sort of soft limit on your armies, depending on your type of government.

The new concept of nation-wide support for units necessitated the introduction of some other kind of upper limit to the army size. And I think it's a shame if it is going to be a hard limit. Previously, you had a choice of how heavy a production/happiness penalty you were willing to have just to field some troops. But then again, a hard limit may force the player to focus his efforts more to effective deployment, which could be interesting.

[korn469]

Hm no. The production of units was city-bound and that posed a sort of soft limit on your armies, depending on your type of government.

The new concept of nation-wide support for units necessitated the introduction of some other kind of upper limit to the army size. And I think it's a shame if it is going to be a hard limit. Previously, you had a choice of how heavy a production/happiness penalty you were willing to have just to field some troops. But then again, a hard limit may force the player to focus his efforts more to effective deployment, which could be interesting.

Grim Legacy

what are you talking about exactly? you can still build as many riflemen, armor units, submarines, etc as you can support...and that could be a large number of units, but armies (stacks of units that fight as one entity) are limited by the number of cities and great leaders you have (as far as we know), also there was hints in the pc.ign preview that nationalism was a government (which conflicted with the gamespot uk preview where it was only a tech) and that once you switched to it you could create as many armies as you wanted

so there is no hard limit on the amount of units you can build (which was what i got out of your post) but there is a hard limit to the amount of stacks you can have

i have another question and that is how many units can you have in a stack? has anyone heard anything about that?