Technological Superiority Doesn't Matter in War

[TCO]

Originally posted by davwhitt


Your analogies are flawed. The American Indians aquired guns through trade and theft, neither option are available in Civ3 unless you count the capture of artillery. The Afghans got their stinger missiles and machine guns from the United States - again no such concept in Civ3. You can give another Civ the technology to produce such weapons but not the actual weapons. You say when a swordsman defeats a tank you don't think he "just ran up to the tank and chipped it to pieces" yet when it happens in Civ3 that's exactly what you see him do. A swordsman uses a sword, not a bazooka, or did I miss that part in the Civ3 manual? If so, when does the low-tech civ's swordsmen aquire bazookas and can they only use them against a high-tech enemy's tanks or can they also use bazookas against another low-tech enemy's archers? Perhaps the archers should be equipped with laser-guided titanium arrows?

The combat ratings are such as to assume that the lesser units are able to get these things once the tech is around...

You're really reaching for things by trying to be overrealistic. Gueass what, phalanxes don't exist in modern days...

[WhiteElephants]

Originally posted by davwhitt


Your analogies are flawed. The American Indians aquired guns through trade and theft, neither option are available in Civ3 unless you count the capture of artillery. The Afghans got their stinger missiles and machine guns from the United States - again no such concept in Civ3. You can give another Civ the technology to produce such weapons but not the actual weapons. You say when a swordsman defeats a tank you don't think he "just ran up to the tank and chipped it to pieces" yet when it happens in Civ3 that's exactly what you see him do. A swordsman uses a sword, not a bazooka, or did I miss that part in the Civ3 manual? If so, when does the low-tech civ's swordsmen aquire bazookas and can they only use them against a high-tech enemy's tanks or can they also use bazookas against another low-tech enemy's archers? Perhaps the archers should be equipped with laser-guided titanium arrows?

So your complaint lies in the fact that the graphical inadequately represent what you're seeing happening, no? You also might take into account that the game fails to adequately represent where you population goes to the bathroom at. Perhaps this will also be addressed in the upcoming patch.

Here's my advice. Take the game back. Go to the shelf where you got the game. Side step on or two paces to your left or your right. Pick up game box that is in front of you. Before you were in the wrong section, you were in the strategy section, now you
re in the war game section. Good luck.

[dexters]

Speaking of realism, if you want it realistic, why not ask for the automatic upgrade system to be removed?

i don't think its realistic that you pay a few bucks and voila, your entire army of outdated spearman is now a formidable force of infantrymen. Is that realistic? No. But its there as a gameplay mechanism to speed things up and to avoid excessive micromanagement.

The combat system, like it or not, is designed the way it is as part of the gameplay.

As stated before, part of its job it to give obsolete units a fighting chance. If you don't have oil, at least you know you can try to hold off a Tank attack because you're units can actually fight and kill these things instea of having a totally hopeless situation. I would argue this is a positive element. If the situation is switched and you are the one with the Tanks, I can unstand why people want to roll over everybody. But a game where you dominate so utterly is no fun. If you want that, go play Civ2

[Velociryx]

I posted this in the strat section but thought it might be relevant to the discussion here as well, soooo.....

Okay, since I've been reading a lot of the threads over in the general section, it's got me thinking about something.

In the broadest sense of the word, you can break gamers down into two camps. You've got your scientific gamers and your romantic gamers.

Scientific gamers are all about the numbers. They want to know what the specific attack and defense numbers are and WHY. They want to change them if they don't suit (see the NUMEROUS threads in the general section re: combat). These guys are all about realism. Unfortunately, they'll probably find Civ3 not much to their liking. The reason for that is that Civ is not a wargame in the classic sense (certainly not in the sense of Panzer Blitz or Wester Theater). The kinds of detail in combat they're looking for are staples of the wargame genre, but have NEVER been implemented with great success in 4x games.

Why?

Mostly, because 4x games MUST, by their definition abstract combat in order to devote time to what the game is really about....that is, growing an empire!

Romantic gamers exist at the other end of the spectrum....they're the ones who see past the abstracted combat at what's going on behind the scenes. They're the ones who recognize that it's not "really" a spearman that just beat that tank, but an "ill-equipped partisan rebel" who somehow....somehow carried the day.

History is full of wildly romantic tales like that, and they tend to be our favorite stories.

From Thermopalye to the Russian withdrawl of Afghanistan, it sticks in our minds BIG TIME when the underdog pulls one out on the big dog.

And, IMO, since the game we're now playing represents the whole sweep of history, it's important that the combat system leave room for events like this.

Frustrating as it is when it happens to me, that's what history is all about....

-=Vel=-

[davwhitt]

Originally posted by GP


The combat ratings are such as to assume that the lesser units are able to get these things once the tech is around...

You're really reaching for things by trying to be overrealistic. Gueass what, phalanxes don't exist in modern days...

Oh my bad. I was assuming all along the phalanx was a phalanx and not a modern patisan unit. I suppose that chariot is really a futuristic hovercraft unit too?

[WhiteElephants]

Originally posted by davwhitt
Oh my bad. I was assuming all along the phalanx was a phalanx and not a modern patisan unit. I suppose that chariot is really a futuristic hovercraft unit too?

Well, I guess we're both at fault here because all along we were assuming a game was a game and not an accurate simulation of reality.

[davwhitt]

Originally posted by WhiteElephants
So your complaint lies in the fact that the graphical inadequately represent what you're seeing happening, no? You also might take into account that the game fails to adequately represent where you population goes to the bathroom at. Perhaps this will also be addressed in the upcoming patch.

I do not think I'm asking too much when a unit, say a spearman, is really a spearman as the game and documentation states and not a bazooka-toating mine-laying tank-killing partisan. I do not expect complete realism but I do expect the combat to be logical and consistent. I am aware that as a game it has certain limitations but the combat system should not be one of them.

Here's my advice. Take the game back. Go to the shelf where you got the game. Side step on or two paces to your left or your right. Pick up game box that is in front of you. Before you were in the wrong section, you were in the strategy section, now you
re in the war game section. Good luck.

A large enough portion of civilization is warfare so I believe it should have an accurate combat system. This isn't Sim City. Battles do take place and they should reflect reality.

[Venger]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Monoriu

Placing cavalry units unsupported out in the open is a mistake, a misuse of technology and you shouldn't complain if you lose it to ancient units with strong attack values.

Having under standard circumstances a longbow unit defeat a rifle unit is a mistake.

Venger

[Steve Clark]

Originally posted by davwhitt
A large enough portion of civilization is warfare so I believe it should have an accurate combat system. This isn't Sim City. Battles do take place and they should reflect reality.

Then it wouldn't be a 4x game, would it? Exterminate is just one of them and should only account for 25% of the game, ideally. What would you say to someone who favors eliminating all combat from the game? That's no different than one who favors much emphasis on military realism at the expense of all other elements in the game.

[Venger]

Originally posted by davwhitt


Your analogies are flawed. The American Indians aquired guns through trade and theft, neither option are available in Civ3 unless you count the capture of artillery. The Afghans got their stinger missiles and machine guns from the United States - again no such concept in Civ3. You can give another Civ the technology to produce such weapons but not the actual weapons.

This reiterates a good point, that trading units SHOULD be in the game. It allows countries without some resources to obtain high tech units they themselves cannot build. This is how nearly all nations of the world arm themselves...

Venger

[WhiteElephants]

Originally posted by davwhitt
I do not think I'm asking too much when a unit, say a spearman, is really a spearman as the game and documentation states and not a bazooka-toating mine-laying tank-killing partisan. I do not expect complete realism but I do expect the combat to be logical and consistent. I am aware that as a game it has certain limitations but the combat system should not be one of them.

And here is where your argument fails. If you really felt this was the case you would then be clamoring for several other modifications for the game. For example, when was the last time you went to a city with a functioning aqueduct? Granary? Pre-historic temple? City walls? SAM sites? Nuclear missile silos? When was the last time your hometown built part of the space shuttle? The list goes on.

They're all abstracts used for the purpose of playing the game. If you can't get over that then do as I've already suggested and pick up a copy of the latest war game where most, not all, relie heavily on historically accurate combat systems. Your differences would satisfied in that scenario.

[TCO]

Originally posted by davwhitt



Oh my bad. I was assuming all along the phalanx was a phalanx and not a modern patisan unit. I suppose that chariot is really a futuristic hovercraft unit too?

Well...maybe you should protest the fact that Phalanxes continue to exist in the game in the modern day.

[Kc7mxo]

Rationalization does not an argument make.

There are backward units in modern times. There are backward nations in modern times. Just because the US sends tanks into the amazonian jungle doesn't mean that the few barbaric tribes that are still there are suddenly going to be using stinger missles and anti tank rockets rather than the arrows they had a few minutes before.

I never felt this way when i played civ 2. For two reasons.

1) I understood the combat engine. I understood its numbers, so when a defense 4 riflemen, fortifed, behind city walls, hurt my tank, i knew that it was because that riflemen had a defense of 10 instead. (Walls are 200% right? or was it 100?)

2) In civ 2 while it was possible for primitive units to damage modern units, but because of the firepower and hitpoint system, the damage was rarely fatal. a frigate might hurt my destroyer, but it WOULD NOT SINK IT. In civ 3 I've watched ATTACKING destroyers at full health lose to a stinking ironclad that I bombarded.


Would someone please slap sid and ask him why he took firepower out?

[F18fett]

A few points:

1. To those that say spearmen are actually guerillas with modern weapons a la the Northern Alliance, that could work except for one thing. The Aztecs I am playing against don't even have gunpowder. How would they be able to have these sort of weapons without having any knowledge of gunpowder, or any prerequisite knowledge?

2. What is the point of researching new units if they lose to old ones? The AI is supposed to be challenging, so should it now be able to keep up with me in technology? In Civ 2, the civs that only had pikemen and knights were trampled by other civs with cavalry and artillery. It's just survival of the fittest. To fix the problem of there only being 3 AI and a human at the end of the game, they should've made it so that the AI can keep up with the human a little better. An AI that has crappy units shouldn't win against my modern army.

3. I have nothing against a weak unit winning because of terrain modifiers though. I lost a cavalry attacking knights in the jungle and I didn't mind. It makes sense that the knights knew the terrain and could've slaughtered my cavalry. What doesn't make sense is that my fortified cavalry defending a town were somehow slaughtered by longbowmen. As for the idea of a powder explosion, that should be considered a "random combat event" and specifically told to the player. It should have a higher chance of occuring the further away you get, but shouldn't be above 35-40% chance of occuring.

4. Nobody has told me how the riflemen defending a size 12 city managed to die to an attacking knight.

Also, does anyone have any ideas on what other paths I could use to capture the city? Combat and trying to buy the city haven't worked.

[Velociryx]

Hmmm....well, I dunno if this will convince you or no, but....

When America was colonizing deeper into the USA, the Indians there started off using bows.

They never did actually make their own gunpowder, but they sure were using lots of rifles and other begged, borrowed and stolen modern equipment to fight us.

Nonetheless, the image of the bow, or spear-wielding Indian stays with us in art and popular images today.

As to the point of research....as you climb the tech tree, your units not only get more deadly, but more versatile. Witness the transformation of horseman to knight to cavalry (extra movement in the case of the latter, ZOC in the case of the former)....those advances *alone* are worth the effort to research for.

Also keep in mind that if you plan your battles correctly, that longbowman *won't* win via attacking your rifleman (posted earlier in this thread) because you will out manuver him with better, faster units (cavalry) and attack him and his 1 defense first.

As to the rifleman/knight thing...I dunno....perhaps he caught the rifleman company napping a la Washington vs. the Hessians on Christmas Day in the Revolutionary war?

In short, I guess what I'm trying to say is that technology alone does not a victory make. If you don't use the technology properly to take command of the battlefield, there WILL be times when you lose to an inferior force.

-=Vel=-

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by Grim Legacy As for cheating on combat in Civ2: on Deity, combat odds were definitely stacked against you. Not that that helped the 'AI' much.

Originally posted by GP
I'm not sure of that. Sounds more like an urban legend (with a hint of whine). Have you proved it with tests? See this definitive thread on combat. Nothing is mentioned about deity level bonus to AI. And these guys have done lots of combat research and are pretty darn sophisticated.

FYI: I posted there to get some direct answer regarding your allegation.

The judge is coming...

On Civ2 deity there is no combat advantage for the AI (except barbs).

2 years of jail for Grim Legacy.

[Velociryx]

I'd also like to say that I have rarely had any difficulties with winning battles and keeping captured cities from reverting back.

I believe this is because I never underestimate my enemy.

Even if I've got tanks, and he's guarding the city with a spearman, here's generally how my attack plays out:

1) Cutting off reinforcements via the best defensive units in the game heading out to sever communications with the besieged city (delete roads to prevent reinforcement and occupy high ground around the city) In the late game, this can be accomplished with bombers long before the troops arrive.

2) Artillery to soften up the defenders (again, bombing runs in modern times)

3) Lead the attack with my best elite unit (to take out the best defender, always presented first). My little guys with less experience can take up the rest and gain experience and HP from it.

A properly executed attack will leave the opponent unable to respond and you'll not see the results you're talking about.

That you are, would suggest to me that you are not taking full advantage of your technological advantage, and you do so at your own peril.

-=Vel=-

[davwhitt]

I think we're beating a dead horse here. Originally the "other side" was stating there was nothing wrong with a knight or longbowman or spearman often defeating a cavalry, rifleman, or tank. After further debate they stated that we were just expecting too much realism - a view that implies our first position - that knights should not be able to defeat tanks - was realistic (and their own view, by default, was not). One person actually implied since the rest of the game wasn't 100% accurate why bother making the combat system accurate. So what if a bronze-age unit can defeat a Sherman tank, what do you think this is, a simulation...oh wait it is a simulation...but simulations aren't meant to simulate reality...oh wait they are...well the rest of the game is flawed so what do you expect from the combat system!?!

[WhiteElephants]

Hunh? Wha? Oh...

[Monoriu]

"Also, does anyone have any ideas on what other paths I could use to capture the city? Combat and trying to buy the city haven't worked."



k. Here is how.

Assuming you are playing in the industrial age, here is the minumum requirement for taking a city:

12 infantry
15 artillery
2-3 cavalry

Step 1
Position 2 infantry and 15 artillery within 2 tiles of the city, preferably on good defensive terrain.

Step 2
Advance 10 infantry and cavalry units as a single stack toward enemy city. The stack should sit on a tile next to the intended target on good defensive terrain, and make 200% sure that no river runs between the tile and the city.

Step 3
Bombard city with artillery until population is below 6. Nobody attacks before that.

Step 4
You must do this within a single turn, otherwise the enemy will heal: Bombard the city again, this time your aim is to reduce the health of the defenders as much as possible. Then attack the city with your stack of units next to it. This is very important: 4 of your infantry should NOT attack.

Step 5
After capturing/razing the city, advance 2 of your unused infantry into the city to protect your new city/protect the unit that first advanced into the city as a result of winning against the last defending unit.

Step 6
Fortify another 2 of the unused infantry to protect the wounded units of your army that first attacked the city.


Move on to the next city and repeat......I usually use 30 artillery pieces to bombard it in one turn, or 20 artillery to bombard for 2 turns. I also bring a lot more than 12 infantry. I play on the Monarth level now.

[F18fett]

They never did actually make their own gunpowder, but they sure were using lots of rifles and other begged, borrowed and stolen modern equipment to fight us.

I'm not sure or not if their neighbors had gunpowder, but they sure as heck got none from me.

As to the point of research....as you climb the tech tree, your units not only get more deadly, but more versatile. Witness the transformation of horseman to knight to cavalry (extra movement in the case of the latter, ZOC in the case of the former)....those advances *alone* are worth the effort to research for.

If my units are getting more deadly, why are they losing to medieval level units?

Also keep in mind that if you plan your battles correctly, that longbowman *won't* win via attacking your rifleman (posted earlier in this thread) because you will out manuver him with better, faster units (cavalry) and attack him and his 1 defense first.

But the cavalry was on defensive duty. I can't think of how a cavalry inside a town, armed with weapons with a better range than longbows, managed to die.

As to the rifleman/knight thing...I dunno....perhaps he caught the rifleman company napping a la Washington vs. the Hessians on Christmas Day in the Revolutionary war?

Once again, you should know if those sort of things happen. Mind you, my men weren't mercenaries forced into the war, they were fighting to preserve their homeland. Also, they were in a size 12 town. I suppose no one would notice the approaching knights?

Monoriu:

All that for one city? The city only had one spearman! There is no need for a force of that magnitude. Besides, my income would go into the negatives if I built an army that big.

[Monoriu]

"Monoriu:

All that for one city? The city only had one spearman! There is no need for a force of that magnitude. Besides, my income would go into the negatives if I built an army that big."


This army is designed to attack a city with 3-4 infantry/riflemen and maybe 2-3 cavalry/ancient units. This is typically what I face in my games. If you are sure that your opponents only have 1 spearmen (which I doubt) of course you don't need that much, but overkill never hurts.

No, not for 1 city, but for all the cities in the world. Trust me, build that army, and it can roll over any city in the world if you replace its losses. You can conquer a city with that every few turns.

Not sure about you but I have 10k gold and a 200+ income per turn, that's a communism government and I have 300+ units. I play on the Monarch level.

[F18fett]

This army is designed to attack a city with 3-4 infantry/riflemen and maybe 2-3 cavalry/ancient units. This is typically what I face in my games. If you are sure that your opponents only have 1 spearmen (which I doubt) of course you don't need that much, but overkill never hurts.

I've been attacking the city from a saved game, it only has one spearman.

Not sure about you but I have 10k gold and a 200+ income per turn, that's a communism government and I have 300+ units. I play on the Monarch level.

I only have +40-50 as a Republic. I spent some of it on science though as well as paying for all the units. I usually switch governments before trying to capture the city but by the time I get the option to choose a new government, some sort of combat imbalance has already shown up and ruined the game.

[mharmless]

Nukes would kill any unit. The end.

A knight cant kill a tank. The end.

A musketman cant kill a tank. The end.

You serriously overestimate the power of nukes and tanks. Somehow you have this romantic notion that they are invunerable and all powerfull.

Thermal radiation is the big killer from a nuke. The blast is immense, true. But unlike blast damage, the thermal radiation pretty much ignores objects in the way and it has a much longer reach. You can draw a neat little circle arround the point of detonation, and expect that all corpses found on that line will have nearly the same degree of burns.

A 1 megaton yeild will cause 3rd degree burns or worse to anybody inside a 12 km radius of the detonation point. For 20 megatons, you are looking at a 39 km radius for this serrious damage. Given a world 256 squares across, and that the earth has a circumference of 40,000 km at the equator, then your nuke is destroying life in less than one QUARTER of one square on the map.

Seems highly probable to have survivors to me. Doesn't it look that way to you?


Next up, tanks. The M1A1 Abrams is probably a good choice for modern armor equivlence. It has a .50 caliber heavy machine gun with one thousand rouds, its primary weapon for use against infantry or light vehicles. This weapon is mounted in a turret on the top of the vehicle, and it must be manned. The soldier useing the turret is an exposed target. The tank crews four people, and it -requires- two seperate soldiers to both move the tank and fire the howitzer. The howitzer has fourty rounds, and is largely ineffective against soft targets. The engine exhaust and intake are mounted high on the Abrams, to give it the ability to cross up water up to six feet deep.

I don't know how many tanks make up a modern armor unit. I don't know how many nobles are needed to form a knight unit. I don't know how many peasants it takes to form a musketmen unit. What I do know is that some body has to stick his head out of that Abrams to counter infantry, and that sombody can lose said head just as easily as any other man.

Call it improbable, but don't call it imposible. The end.

[Monoriu]

Fett, I am just trying to help. My numbers may not suit your situation but the spirit still stands. Bottom line is, build enough units (3-4 isn't enough for anything), plan the attack, bombard and weaken the enemy before you attack, use the units according to their roles (infantry type units for defence, cav type units for hit and run, artillery type for bombardment), exercise caution, protect your weak units, use the terrain to your advantage and don't fight against it, and you'll have no trouble fighting anyone with the same tech level as yours.

[calefein]

Originally posted by Venger


Having under standard circumstances a longbow unit defeat a rifle unit is a mistake.

Venger

Can we for a moment consider what would happen if your solution to the "problem" was
implemented and firepower was brought back from the dead. This would place a point
where a tech advance would put you vastly superior to everyone else.
This would be more realistic, but would it make for a more fun game? I think not. Players
would scramble up the tech tree to get to gunpowder, and afterwards they could slack of
tech wise because of the significant bonus of their new troops over their counterparts.
If the AI got gunpowder before you, you would try to get it at all costs knowing that your
troops had little chance of holding up. You would throw as much money as needed to
either bribe or steal it out of them. I hope I’m not wasting my breath here and you can at
least see where I'm coming from. This will put a huge hot spot, hump or what every you
want to call it right in the middle of the tech tree. Game strategy will be more based on
getting or not getting gunpowder than military tactics, and will ultimately decide many
more games than it does now. Should a knight be able to kill a cavalry unit just because
he was defending? Well yes because otherwise you would have trampled the AI because
of gunpowder, the game's combat system is designed to reward players for using units the
way the designers intended. The knight is an offensive unit, so is the cavalry, it's more
advanced but the cavalry was defending, you are penalized for using an offensive unit to
defend a city, and for only using one (two etc.). The bonus for superior tech in this game
is a bonus it's significant, but not so great as to lessen everything else.

Ok Flame away

[TCO]

All of you guys whining about losing battles, realize how rarely it occurs. Read the Probability and Combat thread.

[TCO]

Originally posted by Kc7mxo

1) I understood the combat engine. I understood its numbers, so when a defense 4 riflemen, fortifed, behind city walls, hurt my tank, i knew that it was because that riflemen had a defense of 10 instead. (Walls are 200% right? or was it 100?)

2) In civ 2 while it was possible for primitive units to damage modern units, but because of the firepower and hitpoint system, the damage was rarely fatal.

Kc7,

Actually you don't even understand the Civ2 combat system well. You need to go to the Civ2 strat section and read the Info:Combat thread so you know what city walls do. ALSO FP is IRRELEVANT to the tank vs piekman argument. THEY BOTH HAVE A FP OF 1.

[TCO]

Originally posted by davwhitt
I think we're beating a dead horse here. Originally the "other side" was stating there was nothing wrong with a knight or longbowman or spearman often defeating a cavalry, rifleman, or tank. After further debate they stated that we were just expecting too much realism - a view that implies our first position - that knights should not be able to defeat tanks - was realistic (and their own view, by default, was not). One person actually implied since the rest of the game wasn't 100% accurate why bother making the combat system accurate. So what if a bronze-age unit can defeat a Sherman tank, what do you think this is, a simulation...oh wait it is a simulation...but simulations aren't meant to simulate reality...oh wait they are...well the rest of the game is flawed so what do you expect from the combat system!?!

Ummm...ever heard of fun? playbalance? The system has to work as a whole. You can sit and dream about a perfect AI...but we have what we have. Changing the combat rules to allow players to do tank rushes would be a drag...for most people who like a challenge with some strategy.

[Setsuna]

Originally posted by Monoriu
Fett, I am just trying to help. My numbers may not suit your situation but the spirit still stands. Bottom line is, build enough units (3-4 isn't enough for anything), plan the attack, bombard and weaken the enemy before you attack, use the units according to their roles (infantry type units for defence, cav type units for hit and run, artillery type for bombardment), exercise caution, protect your weak units, use the terrain to your advantage and don't fight against it, and you'll have no trouble fighting anyone with the same tech level as yours.

This solution sounds more the end game of a Real-Time Strategy game.

Build a bunch of units and throw them at the computer until it dies. Rinse and repeat. Hey, isn't that taboo among this crowd?

If your strategy is to bombard cities until every defending unit is drooling teeth, a tech advantage would be moot. You could capture such cities with inferior equipment as long as the defenders only had one hit point (Under the current system.) No wonder you haven't been having any problems.

Shouldn't I be able to sweep in against a weak foe and capture the city relatively intact, and save the artillery for cities belonging to my equals and superiors? Why do I need to go all out against such a primitive force? What if that big force is needed elsewhere, but at the same time I need to quickly and easily impress some extra cities into my fold, or deal with a intellectual midget of a civ on my other flank? I guess I'm screwed since the only way to win is throw 100 units at the computer until it dies.

And the "tactics" you mentioned are basically common sense when playing the game. Given considerations, not intricate planning's.


On a somewhat unrelated note, it irks me that Knights take precedence over Pikeman for defense in a stack. Even against a mounted opponent. Grr..