Technological Superiority Doesn't Matter in War

[VetteroX]

No GP, your wrong. I play on Monarch and Emperor, and will soon move to Diety. (waiting for patch) I do not like it easy, but a musket man CAN NOT beat a tank. I know attacking a city is hard, I know all about stalingrad etc... thats not what im talking about. I specificly said in open terriotry tanks would annihilate knights and musketmen, and they would still annihilate musket men in a city. Uncertinty is fine if a modern armor attacks Mech Inf, but it is not ok when a tank attacks anything of lower tech then infantry. If its gonna be so random, why dont we not have units at all? Just role dice to determine weather or not we take a city.

BTW, someone said in Civ 2 Knights had an attack of 6, and riflemen were 4. Actuall knights were 4/2/2 1/1 and riflemen were 5/4/1 2/1. They had 2 health, which means compaired to a knight they are like 6 defence. I personally never saw a knight beat a healthy riflemen in any of my 200 or so games of Civ 2.

[WhiteElephants]

Originally posted by davwhitt
It takes a lot more resources and trainging to create a longbowman in real life than a rifleman. Anyone can pick up a rifle and shoot but not anyone can accurately fire a longbow. This is the primary reason the crossbow and later the musket took over from the longbow. If Civ3 were to be more accurate it would make the longbowman far more expensive than a rifleman or musketeer.

I was unaware that, as well as having two arms and one functioning eye, you also had to be a magician to use a longbow. I suppose cleaning and loading a rifle properly in order to prevent it from blowing up in your face is a regular walk in the park.

And lord knows mining for iron, melting in down, and forming it into a barrel, a chamber, a trigger, and a cocking arm that fit snuggly into a pre-craved length of wood is far easier than the tedium of chopping down a tree and carving it into a bow. We all know how scares trees are. And making bullets is as easy as tying your shoes.

[WhiteElephants]

China is building tanks.

Russian model tanks?

Israel is building tanks too.

American model tanks?

[Sevorak]

WhiteElephants,

You'd be surprised at how much training it required to successfully use the Welsh longbow effectively. The government had to mandate specified hours for the yeomen to train with it.

Serious training and practice was required. The use of a longbow isn't as easy as a crossbow or firearm, where you point it at the enemy and fire and your projectile goes straight towards your target. That's easy. With a longbow, the bowman points it at the sky, aiming to create an arc that ends at where your target will be at the time the arrow lands. Cleaning and loading a rifle properly is far simpler - there are tools to assist you in cleaning it out, and instructions as to how to load it. Using a longbow is relying on the eyeball Mark One and practice - learning how to fire those long arcs over hundreds of feet of distance.

In addition to the arcs, the longbowmen had to learn how to draw and fire quickly. A trained longbowman could unleash in excess of 40 arrows per minute, far exceeding the rate of fire of crossbows or firearms. That took training as well, and the combination of the skill needed to fire quickly and with accuracy was only accomplished through extensive, long-term, training. That's why, historically, the other European powers didn't simply pick up longbows and start countering the English longbow-for-longbow - they didn't even begin to have the trained population base the English had in Wales.

-Sev

[Karhgath]

On thing people seems to neglect...

"Offense is the best defense."

When you are attacking, you mostly have offensive units. So, why oh why, are you entrenching yourself in the just conquered town, waiting for the enemy to attack?

I mean, longbowman(if we are talking the english archers here) can easely wipeout cavalry when ATTACKING. I mean, heck, they could pierce thru plate armor worn by knights, so why couldn't they wipe out men with no armors standing on the other side, waiting for attackers? However, rush the archers with your cavalry, and see them run and be dealt with very very quickly.

Often, and more so when not in a city, ambushes and just plain surprise plays a big role on the battlefield(hey, the cavalry defending the city was sleeping or in the bar, taking a drink).

So, is the Civ3 combat broken? If we take the values of each units, and check it against the system used in Civ3, no, it isn't.

Is the Civ3 combat realistic? No. You would need to add a LOT more complexity. (unit X good vs Y, but bad vs Z, etc.) It would take a LOT more than only 2 variables like the way too abstracted Offense and Defense. Heck, there shouldn't even be those 2 distinctions.

Is the Civ3 combat like Civ2? No. It gives a LOT more rooms for chance. In Civ2, whoever had the tech edge wins, easy. So, if you are used to Civ2, sure, it's a LOT unerving and frustrating to see warriors killing you musketmen.

Is the Civ2 combat realistic? No way. While it is better than the very very simplified Civ1 combat system, it is in no way realistic. In my opinion, it's worse, reality-wise, than Civ3. Tech is everything, not fun and strategy, just conquer Europe with 1 tank and 1 howitzer and a flow of mech inf to fortify in the city you leave behind you, and you need just one defensive unit per city, more is useless. Howitzer was the only unit that had a chance against a fortified mech inf defending a city with a wall, the tank is just there to defend the howitzer by attacking close enemy units foolish enough to wander out of their city. And anyway, you have the tech edge, so they are still defending with musketeers. And, if you are unlucky and get attacked by another tank, you loose both your tank and howitzer, and all the rest in the stack. Talk about realistic here.

So, Civ3, while not being accurate, is NOT broken, just another combat system, with different rules and feel. Whether you LIKE IT or NOT is another thing completly, but it is NOT broken.

[CyberGnu]

GP, would you stop the patronizing? I beat the computer on Deity by exploiting the flaws in the combat system and early AI behaviour... I obviously don't need to 'learn to play better'. But winning that way isn't much fun. Feels the same way it would feel to win by using the billion gold bug...

The combat system is broken. Period. I think that both the combat system and the AI were optimized to play well in the modern age, with the result that all the other ages reek.

First of the math is screded up here. A warrior with attack 1 has a 14% chance of killing a defending rifleman with defense 6. But this is only for one hitpoint, right? So the chance of a regular warrior to kill a regular rifleman is only 2.3%.

While that is a fairly low probability, it is still way to high. Consider historically. How many battles have there been between nomadic warriors and riflemen? How many have the warriors won? Way less than 2%... As the now almost extinct natie americans can attest.

Now consider the next example, horsemen against riflemen. Horsemen attack 2, vs riflemen def 6. All of a sudden we have 10.3% probability. That is pretty high. Way to high for historical accuracy. And way to high for me to feel comfortable with.

The reason I and I think many others don't like this combat system is not because we want to kill the AI every time. It's because we don't get a intuitive feeling for the game.

Example:
I want to defend my border town against my evil but inferior neighbours. Seeing that right outside my border town there is a mountain range, my intuition (or rather, my sense of history and tactics) tells me that there is a good place to make a defensive stance. My intuition also tells me that if I station a modern infantry unit there, nothing less than a combined arms attack using artillery, mountain troops and aerial bombardment should be able to dislodge them.

Imagine my suprise when
1) His knights waltz past my infantry through the mountains. Sure, it takes him one turn, but that isn't much...
2) His knights without much trouble kills my infantry and spreads all over my heartland.

Ok, so the defense didn't work. I go on the attack. My tanks kills scores of his knights, but for some reason takes damage while doing so. Wear and tear, tracks falling off and such, I guess.

The next turn more of his knights arrive, and massacre my tanks out in the open. With the current rules, it only takes two knights to have a more than average chance of taking out one modern armor...


Now, compare to Civ 2. If your tank was suprised out in the open by a few knights, you still felt pretty safe. Occaisonally your tank would get killed, and it would piss you off, but you would usually claim it was the vagaries of war... As it should be. This is not the case in Civ 3. I'm not even suprised when my tanks get killed anymore...


Which leads me back to my original point... The combat system is broken. Not in the sense that a bike without a chain is broken, but more like a bike without a saddle. Sure, you can still use it, but it is not an enjoyable ride...

[CyberGnu]

Dobeln: GulGnu? Que?

Och vem fan aer stabil? Inte jag i alla fall... Labilare aen shockskadat nitroglycerin.

[Venger]

Originally posted by dexters
Sure blame the combat system.

We will - it's broken.

I've been using a combination of artillery, riflemen and older units (for fodder) to attack and i haven't had any problems.

I've done the same, and witnessed the same retarded results. Not only are the attack/defense values and entire combat model a little iffy, I've seen combat results that make no sense.

A veteran ironclad attacks a veteran caravel. Guess who loses 4 hits to 1? Now, in this combat model, the chance of scoring a hit for the ironclad should be 2/3 (4/4+2) and 1/3 for the caravel (2/4+2). The chance that after 4 rounds of combat the Ironclad should remain have only one hit on the caravel is only 16%. The chance that after 4 rounds the caravel would have scored 4 hits is 1% !!! The chance in that matchup for three rounds where the caravel hits and the ironclad doesn't is under .01%. But I've seen it more than once in ONE GAME. Something is not right here...

If you're just going to mindlessly throw units at the AI, you won't win.

Apparently that only works for the AI - he can mindless throw a longbowman against your in city fortified Cavalry and win...

Also, in Civ 3, you need a heck of a lot more units than in Civ 2. It's just how the game is played. So if you plan on making an effective attack with 10 units and no reinforcements from your cities, don't count on gaining a lot of ground.

Nothing wrong with that. I *LOVE* the fact that you must quell city resistance, this is a great add on.

Also, because of the new culture border system, there are no longer zones of control that forbids enemy units from moving into your territory.

The lack of ZOC is a frightening ommission!

Venger

[jbird]

A long time back in this thread, someone asked me how to use combined arms with cavalry and riflemen.

It's basically the same as with tanks and infantry with artillery.

The cavalry punches a hole in the enemy lines, and secures the lines of advance, taking particular care to secure high ground, chokepoints, and supply routes (roads). The city in question should be, ideally, isolated as much as possible by your military from resupply or reinforcement.

Doing things like cutting all roads coming into the city, as well as seizing any hilltops and/or mountians around is key. This prevents the town from producing any units that require resources, and strips them of any luxuries that were keeping them happy. Classic battlefield isolation.

Oh, and when I say "secure" the high ground and important terrain, you can't do this with just one unit per tile. These terrain features must be taken and *held*, as strongly as possible. The old Civ2 method of one unit holding out against superior numbers just doesn't work anymore, and I find it somewhat realistically challenging (your units are far from resupply, etc).

Now, as your cav moves in to secure the advance, there must be two separate efforts underway as well. One is the reinforcement for the cavalry. They can't hold out forever, they *need* infantry (not the Civ3 unit infantry, but whatever the strongest defense ground trooper you have is) support to hold that ground (which also frees them up to make local counter-attacks on any reinforcement attempts by the AI). Slap a Musketman on a mountain, and you completely hose the AI trying to move near it, giving you more turns to attack the city. (Your own obsolete swordsmen and the like are excellent for this task as well, as you're buying time and securing space, focusing on defense, with the Cav providing the mobile counterattack force)

The second force is the assault force. Ideally, some catapults (which stink) and/or cannon (which are okay) defended heavily by infantry (I generally stack two defensive units with two bombardment units) are the main punch of the force. The rest of the force are any other units with high attack ratings, everything from Knights to surplus Cavalry to whatever else you have lying around. Use the bombardment units to wear down the defending troops if possible (sometimes, they just won't get hurt with catapults and cannon), then when you're relatively sure of victory, attack with your ground units and take the city.

As to defend it, heck yes you need more than one ground unit in each city to defend it. Not only that, you need to station some other units with bombardment ability in there to help with the defense, as well as some units with some offensive punch to hit units like those longbowmen (which only have a defense of one).

Not only that, but you must *continue* to secure those important terrain features around the city. The same spots that prevented enemy reinforcement now prevent (or at least hinder) the enemy's attempts to retake the city.

In Civ2, you could use a single unit to hold a city, and a *very* small force to take one, without needing to isolate the battlefield. This is *not* the case in Civ3, and I for one *like* the new requirments to plan an assault in depth, use terrain, and methodically surround and reduce the enemy's city.

In Civ3, if you want to go to war, you have to PREPARE for war. A handful of units won't cut it. You must outnumber and out-think/out-execute the enemy, using any advantage (including but not necessarily advanced tech) that you can use. This includes strategic warfare as well. If they only have 2 supplies of horses, and one of them is vulnerable to either a quick dash of a pillaging mounted unit or an amphibous pillage mission, *do it*. It doesn't take away their last source, but they might have been trading that extra horse to another Civ, and if they were, they're now hosed, because the other civ is ticked at them. Same with luxuries or any other resource you can pillage. Deny use of it to the enemy, for even a couple turns, and he'll be hurting at *least* on some level.

You may even have to build up your military while you're at peace for 30 or 40 turns, so that you have the ability to take and *hold* what it is that you want.

==================================

Regarding tanks, read Jane's more often. America, Britian, Germany, France, Russia, China, and a couple others are all currently building their own tanks (not licensed from other countries). The German tanks have *superior* guns, and are truly a great weapon. The British units are actually quite good, and the American designs often steal their good ideas (just as they steal ours lol). The current russian offerings are also top-notch (the ones in Afghanistan and the Gulf War were outdated designs, not Russia's best stuff for the most part). Now France's armor leaves some things to be desired, but they've made a choice to sacrifice both firepower and armor for mobility and lower cost. I forget what this entire subtopic has to do with Civ3 anyway lol.

Jbird

[orc4hire]

Originally posted by SuiteSisterMary

Spelling aside, this example is poor.

Think to the most famous of Musketeers, The Three Musketeers. What are they best known for? Their awesome sword skills. Why? Because muskets were BLOODY USELESS WEAPONS!


Well, calvary lose their advantage in a city, and I'll point out that English Longbows had better range, accuracy and damage than civil war style rifles, which the rifleman represents.

I hate to break it to you, but The Three Musketeers was a MOVIE (well, it was a book first, but I doubt you've read it). If the musket was so useless, why did every nation that encountered it adopt it as soon as they could? And why did it blow pikes, swords, and bows off the battlefield? The fact is, the musket was quite effective. That's why people used it, you see.

'calvary' [sic] (hint: if you're going to bust someone on their spelling, be sure to get yours right.) may lose an advantage in the city, but the longbow was not a better weapon than a 19th century rifle-musket. The mythical powers ascribed to it by its fans are just that; mythical.

--Robert

[CyberGnu]

Jbird, I don't mind at all having to use more units. But only when it makes sense to do so!

WWI and II saw millions of men in uniform BECAUSE THE SIDES WERE EVENLY MATCHED. Contrarily, Cortez (IIRC) conquered the ~15 million Inca kingdom with a few hundred men... Armed with firearms and the knowledge of superior tactics.

[pchang]

And a deity myth which was an incredibly bad (for the natives anyway) coincidence with the appearance of Cortez and his men.

[Venger]

Originally posted by orc4hire


I hate to break it to you, but The Three Musketeers was a MOVIE (well, it was a book first, but I doubt you've read it). If the musket was so useless, why did every nation that encountered it adopt it as soon as they could? And why did it blow pikes, swords, and bows off the battlefield? The fact is, the musket was quite effective. That's why people used it, you see.

'calvary' [sic] (hint: if you're going to bust someone on their spelling, be sure to get yours right.) may lose an advantage in the city, but the longbow was not a better weapon than a 19th century rifle-musket. The mythical powers ascribed to it by its fans are just that; mythical.

--Robert

Hooray, he's here...

Venger
P.S. It wasn't so much a misspell on my part as the improper pluralization of legionary...

[WhiteElephants]

Serious training and practice was required. The use of a longbow isn't as easy as a crossbow or firearm, where you point it at the enemy and fire and your projectile goes straight towards your target. That's easy. With a longbow, the bowman points it at the sky, aiming to create an arc that ends at where your target will be at the time the arrow lands.

I can agree that using a longbow takes a bit more finesse, but I think the cost in terms of time and resources required to produce one rifle are far and away more expensive than the time and resources required to train a man to properly use a bow.

Thanks Jbird for the heads up on the tank issue.

Now back to the topic -- No, no one has convinced me yet that the combat is broken. I too am under the impressioin that the game changed, but the tactics the players are attempting to use has not.

[WhiteElephants]

Originally posted by CyberGnu
WWI and II saw millions of men in uniform BECAUSE THE SIDES WERE EVENLY MATCHED. Contrarily, Cortez (IIRC) conquered the ~15 million Inca kingdom with a few hundred men... Armed with firearms and the knowledge of superior tactics.

... and smallpox and influenza and...

[orc4hire]

Originally posted by dexters
LOL. The Euro centricity of the boards is painfully obvious.

The Japanese, during its a prolonged civil war in the 1600's have developed a layered musket firing formation where the front row would fire, the second row would aim, and the third row would reload. This cycle ensures constant pressure on the enemy as the firing line never pauses to reload because someone is always firing while the other lines are loading or aiming.

The man who devised this strategy was Oda Nobunaga a great Samurai who almost united Japan. He was betrayed by a top general in a rebellion and he committed suicide. The man who succeeded him, Tokugawa , is the Shogun you see in the game. It should also be said the formating firing strategy did not filter into Europe until about a hundred years a later.

Odo Nobunaga lived in the 1500s, not 1600s, which may be why you're confused, but multiple ranks of musketeers firing in turn was well known in Europe by that time. The Battle of Ceresole, for example in 1544... Oda was 10 years old at the time, I believe, not to mention on the other side of the world, so I'm not sure how much credit he can be given for the idea.

--Robert

[orc4hire]

Originally posted by mmike87
Dexter,
"Again, I ask you folks to be aware of defensive bonsuses in battle. And if one who likes to play the "reality" card, let me remind you that rag tag warriors hiding in rugged mountains can destroy entire Tank divisions as the Russians experienced in Afghanistan in the 1980s. So yes, defensive bonsuses are realistic. "

Not a fair comparison. Our freedom fighting friends were armed with heavy machine guns, anti-tank mines, and shoulder-launched anti-tank rockets. Not to mention Stinger missiles.

They did not have spears and longbows.

I do not dispute the formulas. I dispute the results that I see, over and over again.

Not to mention his example simply didn't happen.... The 'rag tag warriors' never came close to destroying anything resembling an entire armored division, though on a good day they might destroy an entire tank. Most likely not though. An APC, maybe, or more likely a truck. Let's do remember when talking about the Russian-Afghan war that the Russians lost 15,000, the Afghans 1,500,000. The main reason Afghanistan has been moderately resistant to conquest is that there isn't all that much there that people want to conquer....

--Robert

[Setsuna]

Originally posted by CyberGnu
Jbird, I don't mind at all having to use more units. But only when it makes sense to do so!

WWI and II saw millions of men in uniform BECAUSE THE SIDES WERE EVENLY MATCHED. Contrarily, Cortez (IIRC) conquered the ~15 million Inca kingdom with a few hundred men... Armed with firearms and the knowledge of superior tactics.

Er, I'm probably shooting myself in the foot here since I agree with your viewpoint, but as a matter of fact..

..The reason Cortez defeated the Aztecs was not just superior technology. It was cunning diplomacy, and the Aztecs piss poor political system that allowed them to be defeated.

The Aztecs, though they had subjugated many other tribes, never really assimilated them. They never left Aztec representatives there in order to maintain control; the only thing keeping them at their heel was the fact that the Aztecs could smash them to bits if they wanted to.

Then Cortez showed up. You can probably figure out what happened. Even still Cortez had a really rough time actually beating them (Even outnumbered the Aztecs were by NO means screwed - they even came close to killing Cortez.) Somewhere along the way it became a myth about how the Evil Europeans Came and Conquered the Helpless Natives (Ha!)

There was an interesting chapter in the book "What If?" about what would have happened if Cortez had been killed and his men routed. It speculates that the United States would have run into a native nation, replete with firearms. It would have hindered their expansion to say the least..

[CyberGnu]

WhiteElefant: If you spend 100 hours on making a rifle, at the end of those 100 hours you have a rifle. Period. If you spend a 100 hours training to use a longbow, that is less than one years worth of training... And a year later you need to do it again. And again. And again.

And surely you realize that there must be some reason the longbow never achieved widespread use... Not to mention why both bows and crossbows disappeared when the rifle was invented.

Also, I just told GP I beat the game on deity. I don't need 'better tactics'. In fact, a large part of my tactics was exploiting the flaws of the broken system... Swamping with low tech units, for example.

The questions remains, however: If combat doesn't have some sense of historical accuracy, why is the game called civilization?

[orc4hire]

Originally posted by WhiteElephants


I was unaware that, as well as having two arms and one functioning eye, you also had to be a magician to use a longbow. I suppose cleaning and loading a rifle properly in order to prevent it from blowing up in your face is a regular walk in the park.

And lord knows mining for iron, melting in down, and forming it into a barrel, a chamber, a trigger, and a cocking arm that fit snuggly into a pre-craved length of wood is far easier than the tedium of chopping down a tree and carving it into a bow. We all know how scares trees are. And making bullets is as easy as tying your shoes.

Not a magician, just trained all your life in its use. Ever wonder why only the English used the longbow, and them not very long? Because no one else could get the trained manpower. Even England had to pass laws requiring men to spend a certain number of hours each month practicing. There was a saying that to train a longbowman you began by training his grandfather. It's not something you can just pick up and use effectively. A bit of trivia for you; archaeologists can regularly identify longbowman skeletons by the misshapen vertebrae and shoulder bones, deformed by the constant practice with a 120# pull bow.

England also had to pass laws to protect the yew tree, which was getting scarce and the only good source of wood for the longbow. I believe it doesn't take as long to mine and smelt iron, etc., etc., as to plant a tree and wait for it to grow to maturity.

[CyberGnu]

Setsuna, IIRC, Cortez & Company didn't exactly kill all 15 million indians by themselves... But they did, however, kill roughly ten thousand warriors in their first violent conflict, taking the Emperor (Montezuma?) prisoner in the process.

This first conflict was very much technology driven. The indian weapons couldn't penetrate the iron armour of the Spaniards, while Spanish steel and gunpowder killed with every stroke...

In the end the Spaniards held the Emperor, effectively paralyzing the entire nation... Not to mention having killed a large portion of the nobility since they all formed the honorguard.

The next part of the conflict was driven by the spaniards vastly superior knowledge of statecraft, which in turn was possible because of literacy and a more advanced society.

Have you ever read 'Guns, Germs and Steel'? If you haven't, check it out, I'm sure you'll like it.

[davwhitt]

Originally posted by WhiteElephants
I can agree that using a longbow takes a bit more finesse, but I think the cost in terms of time and resources required to produce one rifle are far and away more expensive than the time and resources required to train a man to properly use a bow.

I guess that explains why the South lost - Lee should have been fighting Grant with longbowmen instead of riflemen! Seriously though you are wrong about the costs of producing one rifle vs one bow. The resources of an Industrialized nation (the sort which would produce riflemen) far outweigh the resources of a Medieval nation (the sort which would produce longbowmen) so while it may have cost Victorian England little to produce a rifle it would have cost Medieval England far more to produce the same rifle, assuming it even could.

[ProfessorPhobos]

Originally posted by F18fett
mharmless:

That's a different case. The Taliban's tanks are old pieces of crap. In Civ 3, it's assumed that they're the best ones you've got. American tanks have hatches that can lock. Also, the Northern Alliance uses grenades and other weapons like that to blow up the tanks while riding.

Not really......they've got T-55's, which aren't bad tanks. They're just 1950's vintage. Very reliable, and should do just fine against horsemen with grenades. Hell, would you call a Panzer an "Old Piece of Crap".(Provided it's been maintained.)

As for what countries are building tanks- the British have the Challenger, which is independent of the Abrams, the French have the LeClerc, the Germans the Leapard 2, the Russians the T-85, the Chinese the Type 90(or is it Type 97? I can't remember.) The T-85 and Type 90 are similiar but the Chinese have made quite a lot of improvements. Japan and Israel use Abrams designs, IIRC. I believe Sweden, Italy, and Switzerland all made their own tanks, but most of them aren't in use nowadays.

The best tanks in the world (by far!) are the Challenger and the Abrams. Both tanks can cut through lesser tank forces like butter.(When properly employed, with proper training.)

[Ludwig]

The combat system in CivIII is only frustrating if your sole frame of reference is the CivII combat system.

CivII's combat system contained the single most ludicrous element ever introduced into any remotely-military game EVER - namely, the "single unit kills stack of 20 units by attacking one unit" factor.

Because of this, we became conditioned to avoid stacks, when not in cities or fortresses. Actually, pretty much the key strategic challenge of combat in CivII was finding a way to avoid having your units end their turn in the open in stacks - and trying to find a way to see to it that your opponent's units DID end up that way. As a result, if you played CivII a lot, you ended up being a disciple of the Cult of the Single Unit.

Single units in movement.

Single units attacking.

Single units holding mountain fortresses.

Single units without support mowing through an enemy Civ from one ocean to the other.

Well, CivIII's combat system is different. It is more in the tradition of military simulations, like the old unit-intensive SSI and Avalon Hill games, then it is like the Chess-like system of CivI and CivII. And the combat system will frustrate and outrage you until you get over the Cult of the Single Unit and join the Church of Attrition.

You have to build LOTS of units. You have to move them and use them in large, powerful STACKS, preferably of combined arms. You have to be prepared to take casualties. You have to have reserves. You have to provide for reinforcement and replacement.

The single unit in the open is now, if the enemy can get at him in any strength, very quickly a single dead unit. And that is how it should be.

If a city is under determined enemy attack, you have to have defense in depth, or you have to be in a position to provide replacement troops, or the city will fall. And it doesn't matter if you have tanks and the other guy has knights. If you can't reinforce, you lose the position. If your stack is too weak, you lose the position.

Everyone is complaining about how they lost a city because the single tank they had defending it was killed by longbowmen. Good Lord, what led you to believe you could hold a city with a single unit? Funny, I haven't heard of pikemen taking a city that was defended by two tanks and three infantry - with potential reserves nearby connected by road or rail. Maybe that city's defenders would take casualties, but they wouldn't lose the city. If two tanks and three infantry were attacked in the open, they might take casualties, but they wouldn't lose the position.

If the defending forces were represented by two tanks and three infantry, and they were attacked by seven spearmen, and one of the infantry died and one of the tanks was damaged but the city was held - would this constitute a "broken" combat system? I don't think so. In any combat, regardless of relative technological superiority, you have to be prepared to lose SOME of your troops. The superior force just will lose fewer troops, and will hold the ground at the end of the day.

[F18fett]

Not really......they've got T-55's, which aren't bad tanks. They're just 1950's vintage. Very reliable, and should do just fine against horsemen with grenades. Hell, would you call a Panzer an "Old Piece of Crap".(Provided it's been maintained.)

The key word there is maintained. Do you think the Taliban has the resources to make sure their tanks are in the same condition as U.S. tanks? No wonder the Northern Alliance can open the hatch and kill everyone inside, the Taliban probably lost the lock on it long ago.

Ludwig:

The thing is the technology, not number of units. Civil War era cavalrymen would mop the floor with a longbowman. My war wasn't between two equal strength powers, it was between an Industrial Era power and an Ancient/Medieval power. I can't think of an unadvanced nation that managed to succesfully hold off a much more technologically advanced nation in combat.

[Venger]

Originally posted by Ludwig
The combat system in CivIII is only frustrating if your sole frame of reference is the CivII combat system.

CivII's combat system contained the single most ludicrous element ever introduced into any remotely-military game EVER - namely, the "single unit kills stack of 20 units by attacking one unit" factor.

This was the result simply of them not implementing a group attack function. Face it, if you stacked 20 units in defense, the only suitable attack would be with 20 combined units. That said, it was kinda lame...

Everyone is complaining about how they lost a city because the single tank they had defending it was killed by longbowmen. Good Lord, what led you to believe you could hold a city with a single unit?

A single unit of the 5th Panzer Division against some Iriquous arrow slingers!?! I would. Come on dude, a full strength panzer division does not fall to a bunch of spearchuckers...PERIOD.

Funny, I haven't heard of pikemen taking a city that was defended by two tanks and three infantry - with potential reserves nearby connected by road or rail. Maybe that city's defenders would take casualties, but they wouldn't lose the city. If two tanks and three infantry were attacked in the open, they might take casualties, but they wouldn't lose the position.

No one is complaining because you can't garrison a city with one unit. Look, if the Zulu nation descended on a lone tank unit in a city, sure, it could happen, but not without mass casualty. But to have a tank unit defeated by some god damned archers?!?! Do you people hear yourself when you defend that type of result?

Venger

[CyberGnu]

Ludwig, for the third time in this thread: I don't need better tactics.

But when I play a game called 'civilization' I expect some kind of historical accuracy.

If you want your knights to be able to defeat tanks in single combat, you should be playing Star Wars.

[Monoriu]

Why are people arguing whether civ 3 is realistic or not? In real world we operate by the physical rules of the real world, in civ 3 we operate by the rules set by Firaxis. Civ 3 is not a tactical war game, its not a simulation, it does not attempt create virtual reality. Its a game, designed to provide entertainment.

Combat is not broken. Its broken if there is no way to win, if bad strategy and good strategy doesn't make a difference, or there are no consistent rules. This isn't the case here.

I'll have to be blunt here. Its a bad idea to fortify cavalry in a city. Its a bad idea to defend a city with anything fewer than 2 defensive units (infantry, riflemen, musketmen, etc). Its a bad idea to send several units into enemy territory and expect to win just because they are technologically superior.

What I would have done in the original poster's situation to capture and hold the Aztec rubber city:

Before start of war:
Garrison each and every single city, choke point, important strategic resource with 2 defensive units each.
Station some defensive units at the borders on good defensive terrain. Build forts if necessary.
Make sure production is up and running and can produce lots of reinforcements at short notice.
Build an invasion force of at least 20 units. 10 should be riflemen, 5 artillery/cannon and 5 cavalry.

Conducting the offensive:
Position invasion force as single stack, and move toward target as one stack. Use bombardment to weaken enemy units in the field, and cavalry units to finish them. After winning the battles, cavalry units should withdraw back to the single stack, protected by riflemen. At the end of each turn, your invasion army should remain a single stack.

Approach enemy city, preferably the invasion force should sit on a tile with good terrain.

Bombard city, reduce population to below 6.

Attack city with 5-6 riflemen and 2-3 cavalry, and capture it. These units should all attack within a single turn so the city defenders have no chance to heal. Advance 2-3 full strength riflemen into the city, and leave at least 2 full strength riflemen back to protect the artillery and wounded units. That's why you need 10 riflemen at the start.

Never attack or defend with wounded units. Wounded units should be protected and should withdraw and heal.

I have done the above countless times, often against multiple infantry (6-10-1) garrisoned cities. It works most of the time.

Combat is NOT broken. It is much better than civ 2 in fact. If you have a good strategy and is well prepared, you'll win.

[Ludwig]

"No one is complaining because you can't garrison a city with one unit. Look, if the Zulu nation descended on a lone tank unit in a city, sure, it could happen, but not without mass casualty. But to have a tank unit defeated by some god damned archers?!?! Do you people hear yourself when you defend that type of result?"

Actually, that's exactly what you're complaining about. [Cybergnu just specifically did, by the way.]

The only way to implement a combat system where a very large number of technologically inferior troops can defeat a single modern unit is to give each inferior unit a small chance to inflict damage. Once that small unit is given that chance, it is possible for that small unit to win even when alone.

If you embarked on a campaign of tanks against archers with a total of 20 tank units, and you lost one of them, that would reflect an entirely appropriate casualty rate for the campaign. There would be nothing absurd or historically inaccurate about it. The problem is that sometimes the one tank you lose is in a place or situation where it really, really pisses you off. Particularly if it's all alone. OR, if you're the sort of player who doesn't notice the 19 tanks that live, and doesn't say to themselves, "Wow, 95% of my army got through that campaign intact! My general deserves a fifth star!"

The one tank you lose wouldn't make you so angry if it was supported by other tanks. Then you wouldn't lose a city, you wouldn't lose your position. You'd just have participated in a simulation where you [gasp!] suffered casualties during a successful military campaign.

And for Cybergnu:

"Ludwig, for the third time in this thread: I don't need better tactics.

But when I play a game called 'civilization' I expect some kind of historical accuracy.

If you want your knights to be able to defeat tanks in single combat, you should be playing Star Wars."

Tactics is entirely what it's about.

That's why you keep hearing it.

It keeps coming up because it's what makes you wrong. Since you keep repeating your point in the face of objections based on tactics, people assume you haven't understood, so they keep reiterating the point.

When an army goes on the offensive, some members of that army die. Period. Some of them die in battle. Some die of disease. Some shoot themselves in the foot or desert so they can go see their mommies. Some machines break down. Some machines drive into each other. Some soldiers are killed by partisans. Some die of heart attacks in whorehouses. And SOME are killed by grossly inferior opponents. The point of mutual unit support is to see to it that suffering marginal casualties doesn't effect the aggregate outcome.

If your units were in stacks, the issue would be moot. You wouldn't lose a BATTLE to an inferior opponent. You'd win the battles, and sometimes you'd have no casualties, sometimes you'd have minor casualties, and sometimes you'd suffer enough to necessitate a change in your order of battle. But you'd always WIN the battle in the aggregate. What's historically inaccurate about that?

I know you seem determined to want to use your units in "single combat", but that's precisely how small losses turn into gigantic strategic headaches. Again, there is nothing unrealistic about this at all. Technologically superior units poorly led, unsupported by friendly units, or called upon to do more than they are capable of will attrit at a high rate. Those are the breaks. If you throw your attack units out there one at a time, you might get some good results, but you'll get some disasters too. It happens. Ask General Paulus.

[Ludwig]

Actually, I was kind of mean and snippy in my last post, so I'll back up a bit and say one other thing:

My observations on the combat system are based on huge maps. I have no desire to play on anything but a huge map.

Huge maps means lots of cities. Lots of cities means lots of units.

It's easier to see the logic of the stack combat system when you have the luxury of employing multiple stacks of ten units.

Those of you who enjoy playing the game on a smaller map, with fewer cities and fewer units, may have more occasion to complain - as you do in the corruption debate.