Hitpoints/Firepower?

[BeBro]

Sorry if this has been discussed before, but all units we have seen so far in the "civ of the week" editions had only values for attack, defense and move. Is the HP/FP system gone?

[Tventano]

I really hope so. It is just one level extra of needless complexity. This HP/FP system can easily be simulated by higher Attack/Defense ratings.

Probably the number of hitpoints varies with the time period and the veteranness (veteran +1, elite +2) of the unit.

Because of this added complexity CivII was much more a wargame than CivI. I am happy they are getting closer to the original idea.

[BeBro]

Personally I like the FP/HP system, but mainly for scenario design reasons - it gives you more flexibility here.

[Admiral]

In one of the Ask the civ team'sit was mentioned that armis pooled their hit points. So at least hit points are in.

[Roman]

I also like the FP/HP system and we know at least hit points have been kept in civ 3.

[barefootbadass]

Having HP/FP to ramp up in modern times can help prevent the phalanx-beats-armor phenomenon. You need to have at least one of the two or you will have ancient units beating modern machines of war on occasion.

[Nemo]

I have seen no mention of FP, but they did say that in order to prevent phalax-tank issues, they have devised a 'class' system of some sort. Since the FP was originally designed to prevent the phalax-tank issues, I suppose that FP is out.

[hetairoi22]

I have read somewhere that the strength of ZOC depends on FP. F.x. it is harder to go past a tankt than to go past a Phalanx. I don't remember where I read it, though.

[Provost Harrison]

I think it would be a shame if HP/FP are gone. I would have hoped that the concept would have been improved upon, but kept nonetheless. I do not want to see a return to the civ1 combat system, which was too basic with it's 'phalanx beats battleship' incidents...

[barefootbadass]

Just because civ2 had fire power and phalanx vs tank was a problem sometimes doesn't mean it wasn't making the phalanx win less often. The reason it happened was because you could pile up too many defensive modifiers on the phalanx. If there hadn't been a differential FP/HP system in civ 2 this phenomenon would have happened a lot more often. I don't think there should be a class system such that unit A could never defeat unit B, but there should be a probability like system such that an ancient unit beating a modern one would be something like winning the lottery, i.e., the modern unit malfunctions or something. Btw, I'm pretty sure I never saw a phalanx beat a tank, except for when the tank started out in the red and the phalanx was green, and then it would be quite possible to see something malfunction.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Tventano
I really hope so. It is just one level extra of needless complexity. This HP/FP system can easily be simulated by higher Attack/Defense ratings.

But they have not made the attack/defence points any higher. Instead they have down-tuned them. Those 1-1-2 standard chariots for example, really seems quite worthless - heck they even need the horse-resource to be built at all. One can always tweak the Rules.txt files of course, and I guess the downtuned attack-values makes conquering cities without forged armies much harder. We dont know anything about the ADM-data for modern units yet, I admit.

Because of this added complexity CivII was much more a wargame than CivI. I am happy they are getting closer to the original idea.

Health bar (or damage-bar) for units may increase after each victory in combat. If a unit has won several battles, there is a small chance that unit could become a Great Leader. This ensures that HP and hopefully also FP (or some classification-system) is included and that indevidual combat-units will not fight in the same simple way that they did in Civ-1. Still, why not add HP and class-system also in the "civ of the week" at http://www.civ3.com/ ?

[BeBro]

Originally posted by Ralf
Still, why not add HP and class-system also in the "civ of the week"?

Yes, I also would like to see this. However, perhaps they are still finetunig this system, this may be a reason for "hiding" it.

[Cyclotron]

I must point out that in my opinion, it was the lack of hp and fp in CTP that destroyed the game and ruined its combat system. C'mon, guys! You can almost always determine who is going to win any battle with just attack and defense. Add up the terrain bonuses, the fortification bonuses, the veteran bonuses, compare the two numbers and you might as well just throw in the towel already if your number is lower. That's the way without hp/fp.

With these values, however, we can put more strategy and suspense/excitement into Civ3. A unit with a low attack but a high firepower doesn't hit an enemy very often, but when it does, it hits hard. Think bombers, early submarines, V-2 rockets, etc. Likewise, a unit could have a high attack but little firepower, thus delivering a lot of blows to the oppponent but each doing very little damage. Perhaps a lot of ranged units fit this description?

The same goes for defense and hit points. A tank has good armor (defense) but if a shell or bomb pierces it's armor shell, many vital systems and crewmen could be destroyed, thus taking out the tank.

Why settle for anything less? I am interested in what exactly Firaxis has in mind, and I hope that they will include hp and fp in some form, whether by unit, army, or whatever.

[SlowThinker]

FP has (almost) no effect (may be substituted by an increased HP).
A 10HP/2FP unit is almost equal to a 20HP/1FP unit.
Only the effect of the fortuity is lower in the case of the 20HP/1FP unit.

[BeBro]

I don´t believe that is true. I experimented a lot with HP/FP for my scenarios, and more FP can have an enormous effect...

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by BeBro
I don´t believe that is true. I experimented a lot with HP/FP for my scenarios, and more FP can have an enormous effect...

But more HP too...

[Urban Ranger]

I think firepower can be effectively removed if Firaxis would just adjust the attack and defense of units accordingly.

IIRC, a unit with a 10 attack and a 2 FP is the same as a unit with a 20 attack.

[Nenad]

I believe that ancient units had FP/HP both 1, and this is maybe the reason for their absence from "civ of the week" section - lack of importance for given units (so far).

I'm also convinced that FP/HP are in civ3, but can't tell why.
(Must be something that I read somewhere)

CTP and CTP2 had FP (the flags were all set to '2' initially in CTP1).

IIRC, a unit with a 10 attack and a 2 FP is the same as a unit with a 20 attack.

I think your wrong on that Urban Ranger. Didn't firepower have to do with how fast hitpoints were lost? So you could have a clumsy unit (say a steam-powered tank with a fixed turret) with a low attack but with a high firepower (say a f_cking big cannon mounted on said steam-powered tank). Unlikely the tank is going to hit anyhthing that can move quickly like a rifleman. But if the tank ever manages to hit the rifleman, the high firepower rating will take the rifleman down.

I could be wrong though . . .

[kolpo]

Firepower of other unit deteminates indeed how much Hp are lost when a unit loses 1 round.

An assasin unit with 1 attack, 10 firepower is really different then a good sword men with a weak sword with 10 attack 1 firepower.
Just create both units with civ2 editor and you will see. Randomness has a much bigger influence on the assasin then on the sword men. The sword men in this case will quite always beat "weaker" units(with no additional bonuses) and lose from stronger ones the assasin on the other hand will sometimes win from really stronger units and will sometimes lose from weaker units. FP is very important for scenario units.

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
IIRC, a unit with a 10 attack and a 2 FP is the same as a unit with a 20 attack.

This is wrong.
A 20AF (attack factor) 1FP unit has similar effect as 10AF 2FP unit against units with very different DF (defense factor) - much smaller (1 for example) or much higher (100 for example)
but has similar effect as 10AF 3FP unit against units with DF=10.

In other words, an increment (better a multiple) of the DF or AF is usually better than an increment in FP (or HP).

See the Info: Combat (GL) thread.

[n.c.]

The HP/FP system is the minimum acceptable.

There is a better way to ensure that phalanxes don't beat tanks: design the game so that ancient units cannot exist beyond a certain point. For example, once a civ has gunpowder it gets 10 turns to upgrade to musketeers or the older unit disappears.

But why would a game want to use historical reality and the best ideas from SMAC when you can have random-@ssed archers fighting paratroopers?

[Cyclotron]

The fp/hp system works roughly like this:

Each unit has 10 hp per "hit point number."
The attack and defense values dictate the probability of a sucessful attack.
When two units fight, the attack vs. defense numbers dictate who gets the first hit. Whoever sucessfully hits the opponents deals damage according to fire power, and may take a small amount of damage itself.

I'm not sure about the firepower exact values for damge, but a howitzer (3 hp, 2 fp) takes out a rifleman (2 hp, 1 fp) in two hits, so perhaps someone can extrapolate the values from there.

[isaac brock]

Originally posted by hetairoi22
I have read somewhere that the strength of ZOC depends on FP. F.x. it is harder to go past a tankt than to go past a Phalanx. I don't remember where I read it, though.

Yeah, I read that on civ fanatics. Faster units are not going to be stopped by a warrior. And settlers should not slow you down. I hate those bastards.

[Chronus]

This HP/FP system can easily be simulated by higher Attack/Defense ratings.

BOOOO!

HP/FP is good because it forces me to think BEYOND the current battle. If I win, I still have to consider what to do with my wounded unit(s). Do I attack a muskateer with my expensive battleship with only a red sliver left in my health bar? Should I crawl all my wounded troops back to the safety of a city before the enemy finishes them off or leave a couple behind on mountains to hopefully slow down my pursuers?

Having this system also gives more value to barracks, airports and sea ports.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by n.c.
There is a better way to ensure that phalanxes don't beat tanks: design the game so that ancient units cannot exist beyond a certain point. For example, once a civ has gunpowder it gets 10 turns to upgrade to musketeers or the older unit disappears.

I don't like that, nc. I can't tell you how annoying that would be to have to stop building an improvement or wonder just to make sure all my defense forces don't suddenly disappear. It's also untrue historically. Tanks should beat phalanxes because tanks are superior units and phalanxes are inferior, not because of some arbitrary cut-off point.

[barefootbadass]

Urban - My understanding of how battles were handled(in civ2) was that in each round of combat, a units chance of damaging the other unit would be like A / A + D for the attacker and D / A + D for the defender. This means that a 10 attack power unit with 2 FP would not be comparable to a 20 atack unit with 1 FP. The first unit would average 1 damage per round against a 10 defense unit and the second would average aboutt 2 / 3 damage per round. Anyway, I never tested this rigorously but the system seemed to work this way to me.

Chronus - I totally agree with you about the element of strategy it adds when you have to think about how weak your units will be when you win a battle. Of course, there would in any event have to be at least a flat 1/1 FP/HP system at the least, but I find a system with differing FP/HP to be more interesting.

[Urban Ranger]

I understand the attack rating affects how often an attacker hits the defender, and the firepower rating affects how much damage is done.

It seems to me that, however, a unit with 30 attack and 1fp is the same as a unit with 10 attack and 3 fp. The reason being that, the former unit has 3 times the chance to damage an opponent. Since there is no "armor" in Civ that reduces damage, these two units are statistically the same.


Chronus,

I don't see how that can be different. The strength of your units are determined by two things: how fast they can destroy their enemies and how tough they are to begin with. The former is determined by attack and fp while the latter by defense and hp. As I explained above attack and fp can be combined.

[kolpo]

It seems to me that, however, a unit with 30 attack and 1fp is the same as a unit with 10 attack and 3 fp.
.

I have done a the following test(it was all on grassland no unit was veteran or had other bonuses and all had full health):

the 2 units:
unit A: attack: 10 defense: 1 hp: 1 firepower: 3
unit B: attack: 30 defense: 1 hp: 1 firepower: 1

I have let them both attack each of the following 2 units 100 times(in 100 seperated fights for every combination so 400 fights in total where they all started with full health and had no bonuses):
unit C: attack: 1 defense: 12 hp: 1 firepower: 3
unit D: attack: 1 defense: 18 hp: 1 firepower: 2

The results where:

unit A attacks unit C: unit A has won 34 times
unit B attacks unit C: unit B has won 76 times
unit A attacks unit D: unit A has won 16 times
unit B attacks unit D: unit B has won 63 times

Conclusion: a unit with 30 attack and 1 fp is NOT the same as a unit with 10 attack and 3 fp.

[Sabre2th]

Conclusion: a unit with 30 attack and 1 fp is NOT the same as a unit with 10 attack and 3 fp.

Exactly.