You want the Reality? You can't handle the reality!

[Deornwulf]

A common complaint in many threads has been about Ancient Units like a Phalanx defeating Modern attacking units like tanks and such. This is totally unrealistic and unacceptable to many players but I doubt they would like the solution.

First, one must consider that to the computer, it is not a phalanx being faced by a tank but two sets of binary bits that have certain values attached to them (Attack/Defense/Hit Points). When that 1/2/3 unit is attacked by the 16/8/4 unit, the computer only crunches the numbers. I'm not a statistician but I know that the 1/2/3 unit will win a certain number of times.

A solution would be to add a flag that renders an unit from an ancient era useless against units of a superior era. Just think, he or she who controls the oil controls the world! You could go storming all over the board running roughshod over the puny computer and its silly spearmen with your tanks. The downside would be that the computer would be able to do it back to you and worse yet, to one another.

The options are limited to solve this "reality" question.

"But still, things like that can't happen in the real world!"

You only think you want realism! Here are some "realistic" ideas to consider.

For military units - Attrition, desertion, morale, supply lines, incompetent military leaders, weather, (un)friendly fire

For cities - plague, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, famine, drought, floods, collateral damage

For civilizations - Civil War, slave revolts, government scandals, iconclasm and heresy, religion, incompetent civil leaders, Osama bin Laden, scientist defections

I think the level of realism is just fine for the game. If it will take me 2 or 3 tanks to defeat a fortified spearman then so be it. I just think of it as a poorly armed militia unit. After all, it's hardly realistic to think that the phalanx recruited back in 2400 BC is still really armed with the original spears and shields.

I know this was a long post but this issue has always bothered me since I started playing the civ games.

[HugoHillbilly]

I agree, Civ3 isnt a war game, its an empire building game. War and combat are just different options/strategies you have to create and run your own empire. Using random numbers to determine outcomes of battles is unrealistic anyway.

[Moraelin]

Actually, I think it's simply an issue of "too close values, too little rounds". You don't really need any special flags to solve it. Just move the values to an exponential scale, and/or double the number of hitpoints.

It's also a problem that the attack and defense values are totally uninspired, to say the least. A lot of stuff that looks obvious and is historically accurate, actually works totally the wrong way around in the game. E.g., a Warrior attacking Longbowmen has a 50/50 chance to win. Agincourt, anyone? Right. The Warriors wouldn't be abled to get anywhere NEAR the longbowmen before they're mowed down.

So basically, what a lot of what people have been complaining about isn't really just that "spearmen can defeat tanks", but that you really have to think purely in terms of numbers, like in a maths class. Obvious assumptions, even within the same tech era, just don't work. E.g., common sense says that on flat ground Longbowmen vs Longbowmen should be an equal fight, or even favour the deffenders. I mean, wth, I'm willing to accept that, say, a cavalry charge gives the attacker an advantage, but you don't charge with a longbow. It should be equal, right? Bzzt, wrong. The attacker will win 9 times out of 10, common sense be damned. It's not a statistical fluke, it's broken by design.

That said, I have no problem with accepting a bit of randomness. It's more like what I wrote above that bothers me. I might accept that an unlikely situation happened once. WTH, nothing is 100% sure in war. I have more problems accepting that something is screwed up ALL the time.

That said, I DO think that Hoplites defending against Tanks is a bit silly. Again, not the fact that it happened once, but rather that it happens a tad too often. Why?

First, because a unit of hoplites might be something like a couple hundred people with spears. The hoplites had to provide their own weapons and armour, so only the relatively wealthy could afford the privilege.

In the famous battle of Thermopilae, the number of Spartan defenders who gave their lives was 300 men. That's all. Not thousands, not tens of thousands. Compared to a modern armour division, the infantry support alone is not just enough, but overkill to mow them all down. Even without the tanks themselves getting into the act at all. The whole Greek retreating ARMY for which King Leonidas was trying to buy some time, was something like 5000 hoplites. Again, that's not enough to pose any signifficant threat to a single modern division.

Second, because tactics have evolved. Historically, a Hoplite Phalanx was already obsolete in ancient times. Their compact formation may have looked like a wall of spear tips from the front, but was so slow to maneuver that it stopped being effective as soon as someone finally figured how to do a flanking maneuver. I.e., with more modern tactics, a modern officer would have no problem dispatching them even if he had no firearms. A modern unit with modern tactics, wouldn't even need more than swords to win that fight. With firearms, the Hoplites die before getting their spears anywhere near the modern unit.

And third, because in gameplay terms it make more sense to have to upgrade, than to go "oh, my pikemen should still hold those tanks for a couple of rounds". It's not like there are even that many upgrades you can go through, so taking at least every other upgrade is not that much to ask for.

[flbknight]

Just move the values to an exponential scale, and/or double the number of hitpoints.

I think this (and increasing the number of moves on some of the naval units) would indeed be better. I'm surprised there aren't any mods out yet that do this, that have fully reworked units.
Anybody know from such mods?

[Seeker]

Actually, in Civ 2 the calculation involved Attack, Defense, Firepower, and Hit Points.

Firepower was removed in Civ 2, and Hit Points were simplified. This was a mistake. There was only a snow balls chance in hell that a Phalanx could stop a tank in the open in Civ 2.

Examples of other strategy games:

In Panzer General, units have soft, hard, air, torpedo, and close att/defense values, modified by terrain.

I actually think that a Panzer General -like system would've been very good for Civ.

In the Operational Art of War, units have base combat stats like in Pz Gen, but modified by more than terrain.

Values were modified by supply route, force supply, morale, air interdiction value, etc. Too complex for Civ, but it is possible to approach realism.

one of your ideas was good, the ability to flag ancient, medieval, renaissance, and modern units. Civil War riflemen should be able to deal handily with medieval knights.

[jadlakha]

The solution for Civ III in solving all combat woes would have been to just copy verbatim the exact combat system of the Call To Power series. Combat was the best part of the series. Call To Power had quite the realistic combat system. To bad its not possible to implement the combat system of Call To Power into Civ III anymore now that its been released. With the new Air combat stuff and bombardment, it would have been interesting to see how combat played out combined with the Call to Power system. But to late for that..............

[yin26]

to the computer, it is not a phalanx being faced by a tank but two sets of binary bits that have certain values attached to them

Yep, and when the gamer is forced to adopt that same, stale way of thinking, you get a ... well ... stale product.

[Moraelin]

Actually, I wouldn't say "stale", I'd just say it seriously detracts from the immersion if I constantly have to think about numbers.

As for flbknight, actually I already have a mod that does exactly that kind of an exponential scale, and a lot of other changes that make it more historically accurate. (E.g., fighting in cities and metropolises favours the defenders A LOT more, and it's far harder to flatten a city with catapults. E.g., archers can bombard weakly, which doesn't really make them able to flatten cities, but makes them fire a volley before my pikemen are engaged. Stuff like that.)

Only problem is that currently I have no web site of my own. Does anyone want to host it?

[yin26]

Agreed. The immersion factor drops to the floor. And that, IMO, is a kiss of death.

[flbknight]

Moraelin,

you can email (blackknightofdoom@yahoo.com) it to me and i will put it up for you on my website. Or you can get a free account for you on geocities or another free webspace provider and host it there. it's the same, your call

BK

[Moraelin]

Thank you. I've sent you the files in an e-mail. Please tell me what you think of it. (E.g., whether I've totally screwed up the game)

[flbknight]

I sent you an email back with the location. to you the honors to announce it

[Moraelin]

I just did. Thanks again.

For the rest of the people who'd like some more historical accuracy, you can get it from the Creation forum (hopefully it will get promoted to the Files forum) or from flbknight's site:

http://www.blackknight.be.tf/
http://users.pandora.be/benedict.verheyen/

[dweez]

I think the problem is that people imagine the combat occuring on a big field with the units marching against each other. Wrong!

When the samurai defeats a tank, it's because they sneaked into the camp and cut the crew's throats.

Of course attacking archers defeat defending archers 9 times of 10. You just wait until they sit down to lunch and then rain arrows on them from a hidden position.

And so on, and so on.... just use your imagination a little bit.

[Moraelin]

Dweez, I've heard several rationales for the broken numbers, but somehow neither impressed me. Let's have a look:

1) Your idea that archers wait around until the enemy goes to lunch. I'd have no problem with that if it were some ninja unit, supposed to use stealth. Then ok, it makes sense that they kick righteous donkey if they caught you unaware, but will have a problem defending if you spotted them and attack with a regular army's superior numbers.

But somehow I have a problem with the idea that all of a city's defenders go to lunch at the same time, and only if they're archers. Why don't pikemen go to lunch, too? For that matter, why doesn't everyone go to lunch, so everyone just marches into an enemy city without any resistance?

2) The "but it's a long and epic battle, with attacks and counteratacks, searching for each other, ambushes, etc, over tens of miles, where spearmen can use potlids and surprise and any s**t can happen". THAT would be good and fine, but it would also defeat having separate attack and defense numbers.

I can accept that in a _short_ battle, say, Knights would get a massive attack bonus because of charging, but aren't that hot in defense if the enemy is all over them and they can't charge. Fine. Or that pikemen would be good in defense, but slow and unmaneuverable if they have to charge the enemy. (Guess why the Gauls' uncoordinated spear charges lost to the Romans' gladius and shield IRL. Right. The Romans' short stabbing sword was far better suited in close combat.)

But if we're talking a long convoluted engagement, then there's nothing preventing those knights from retreating and THEN charging in counterattack. And there's nothing preventing those longbowmen from sometimes being on the offensive, or from trying to set up an ambush, or whatnot. Briefly, you'd get an average of those numbers, NOT the Civ 3 screw-up.

Also in a long and epic situation, spanning many months and miles, I'd expect that all the units in a square fight together, not one by one. E.g., I wouldn't use only my pikemen to stop that knight charge, but also I'd use my own knights to harrass them, and my longbowmen for fire support.

Briefly: nice idea, but there's nothing in the current implementation to support it.

[Grim Legacy]

Originally posted by yin26
Agreed. The immersion factor drops to the floor. And that, IMO, is a kiss of death.

You eagerly jump onto the weak rhetoric deployed in this thread. In essence, ALL computer games boil down to dry calculations and can be broken down to binary values. Ergo, ALL computer games are stale?



(gotta love that smilie)

[Moraelin]

Grim Legacy, ANYTHING that has to do with a computer has some numbers underneath, but some are better at hiding that. I mean, really, if you have to remind the player at every single turn that it's just a dice game, you might as well animate the dice on the screen too. Would that be more immersive? Personally I'd say definitely not.

The whole idea of an immersive game is that I can think I'm Napoleon conquering Russia, and that those are my trusty cavalry and cannons against the Russians' cossacs and peasants with pichforks. Not that I'm playing dice with the Russians, and that's my generic 4/2/1 card against their generic 1/4/1 card. Let's roll the dice and see who won. Darn. Want to go for double or nothing, Catherine?

Some games also offer a lot more than dice rolling. (Again, even though we all know that deep under there must be some 2D10 rolls.) E.g., stepping outside the empire building, the Fallout series sure had some dice rolls there, but it also had more opportunities to actually role-play than any other computer game.

So no, I wouldn't say that simply having numbers underneath makes a game "stale" or "non-immersive". But if ALL you do in the game is number accountancy, well, it's a different story.

[Grim Legacy]

Originally posted by Moraelin
Grim Legacy, ANYTHING that has to do with a computer has some numbers underneath, but some are better at hiding that. I mean, really, if you have to remind the player at every single turn that it's just a dice game, you might as well animate the dice on the screen too. Would that be more immersive? Personally I'd say definitely not.

The whole idea of an immersive game is that I can think I'm Napoleon conquering Russia, and that those are my trusty cavalry and cannons against the Russians' cossacs and peasants with pichforks. Not that I'm playing dice with the Russians, and that's my generic 4/2/1 card against their generic 1/4/1 card. Let's roll the dice and see who won. Darn. Want to go for double or nothing, Catherine?

Some games also offer a lot more than dice rolling. (Again, even though we all know that deep under there must be some 2D10 rolls.) E.g., stepping outside the empire building, the Fallout series sure had some dice rolls there, but it also had more opportunities to actually role-play than any other computer game.

So no, I wouldn't say that simply having numbers underneath makes a game "stale" or "non-immersive". But if ALL you do in the game is number accountancy, well, it's a different story.

You talk about dice rolling. How would you then propose to model the combat system? To my knowledge, even the best combat games basically use a complex unit strength model (front armour, gunsize, terrain, weather, supply, movement, surpression etc etc) and use this against the similarly calculated opponent. The result is a gamble, with pre-determined odds. That's how it is.

Now, in Civ3, the system is more or less the same, except for the low number of combat rounds, making the sample of the battle very small and thus more prone to fluctuation.

Thus, this can yield weird results that may upset the player, but which also might add to the challenge.

[yin26]

Then why not just stare at number on a screen? I'll tell you why: Because you want to be immersed, to suspend your disbelief. A game that fails to realize that fundamental factor to any good computer game doesn't deserve to be published.

[Grim Legacy]

Originally posted by yin26
Then why not just stare at number on a screen? I'll tell you why: Because you want to be immersed, to suspend your disbelief. A game that fails to realize that fundamental factor to any good computer game doesn't deserve to be published.

You seem to contradict yourself. Now you don't want pre-determined combat? If we had pre-determined combat, we could indeed be looking at numbers on the screen. Civ2 came pretty close (still I liked it but that's beside the point).

Or perhaps you want randomness in combat? Civ3 is doing nicely there.

Hm maybe the best alternative would be some randomness, but with a 'suspension of disbelief-friendly' chance calculation. Is Civ3 doing so bad in this light? I think not.

Since the main gripe seems to be about the unbelievable combat events I might add here that preventing these flukes from occuring would require rewiring the whole system to the extent that not only these flukes have become impossible, but also so that the normal combat results get flattened (i.e. the tank always wins over the musketeer). Like in Civ2.

[madmario]

Originally posted by Moraelin
It's also a problem that the attack and defense values are totally uninspired.

Maybe it's a matter of game balance? Combine a bit of imagination (there arn't really spearmen in today's world! only poorly armed troops) and consideration in terms of balance.

-mario

[Segal]

Actually I would love to see all these things added.

Agincourt is a great example. How did an army of 4,500 men, mostly light infantry and longbowmen, defeat a army of 25,000 including some of the French's best knights?

Weather - A rainy night caused the battlefield to become a large mud pit. Heavily armored men could barely move in the muck and once they engaged were so exhausted that they could hardly defend themselves.

Terrain - The battlefield as set in a muddy plowed field with woodlands to either side. The narrow field virtually eliminated most of the advantage of superior numbers. The lightly armored Bowmen were able to move about the battlefield in response to threats while the heavily armored French were forced to move either forward or backward.

Morale - King Henry has the loyalty and confidence of his men, Morale was high. French nobles were trying to place themselves in the best position to gain glory in what was assumed to be a easy fight. The French bowman were moved to the back of the formation since such 'low-births' had no place at the front with the nobility. Morale dropped even more once the horsed knights were butchered as they slogged through the mud and had to retreat the field.

Leadership - King Henry had control of his small army while the French had no central command.

Though the Longbowmen won the day due to numerous factors as illustrated above. Without these factors, they would have been easily slaughtered in a straight up battle. It was the circumstances of the day that made all the difference.

I would love to see all this stuff in the game but I do see one point that others might be missing. Realism, to some degree, makes the battle less predictible, not more.

[Moraelin]

Segal, a longbowman was trained to shoot one arrow every five seconds, for pretty long periods of time. That's why they were more expensive than crossbowmen.

If you do the maths, the French faced a hail of almost 1000 arrows per second. If you're telling me that it counts as the archers being defenseless, then we have very different ideas of what defenseless means.

We're also talking Bodkin tip, which can not only go straight through a manequin in chain armor, it can also go straight through one dressed in a modern heavy kevlar vest.

Also take a look at those numbers you posted. Over 5 times the number of attackers as of defenders. So, yes, in THOSE conditions, yep, they probably needed all the circumstances they could get. Now think equal numbers. One unit against one unit, which is what's wrong in Civ 3. I do believe that if it were 4500 English against 4500 french, they probably wouldn't have needed any help from the weather.

BUT more importantly, exactly how would if have been differently if the archers were in attack, instead of defense? Even if we were to aggree that archers are supposed to be defenseless to knights, what difference does being on the attack make? What would keep those knights from slaughtering the archers in defense, just as well as in offense?

Either way you want to look at it, ranging from "archers are defenseless" to "archers kick righteous donkey", the current situation makes no sense.

THAT kind of illogical discrepancies is why I think the attack and defense numbers are one royal screw up.

[Venger]

Agincourt wasn't simply longbowmen against Knights - English knights dismounted and used their lances as pikes to defend the field. No matter how many times this has been stated, it wasn't a battle between of English archers vs. French combined arms.

Archers not supported will be ridden down every time.

Venger

[Moraelin]

Originally posted by Grim Legacy
You talk about dice rolling. How would you then propose to model the combat system? To my knowledge, even the best combat games basically use a complex unit strength model (front armour, gunsize, terrain, weather, supply, movement, surpression etc etc) and use this against the similarly calculated opponent. The result is a gamble, with pre-determined odds. That's how it is.

Could you please actually read (and maybe even try to understand) what's written before launching into that kind of pointless rhetoric?

Yes, I know there are some dice involved, and you may notice that I've already said I know that. Virtually all games have some dice rolling underneath. Yes. That I do know. But not all force me to remember the numbers involved.

Basically some models are better than others. Ssome actually attempt to model some realistic odds in that situation. Things CAN go pear shape, and often do, but at least the odds of that happening are within believable margins. And others, like Civ 3 just have some profoundly wrong numbers, pulled out of someone's rear end. Which make no sense, so you have to just memorize them as they are and simply play a game of numbers.

Also I've already stated that I have no problem with statistical flukes. If something incredible happens once in a while, sure, it's ok. But when it's no fluke, and it happens like that 9 times out of 10... then I do say there's a problem. No fluke happens THAT often. (Again, the Longbowmen vs Longbowmen situation is no fluke, is just use of wrong numbers in the first place.)

And again, the whole point of immersion is that I shouldn't have to remember the exact numbers on any unit. Dunno, maybe you're an accountant by trade, and think that numbers are the apex of quality entertainment. I'm not. When I'm playing "Steel Panthers" I don't even try to remember the exact numbers the game gave each tank. I can just think in terms of the real tanks, and apply some common sense. (Such as that it SHOULD have weaker armour on the sides, so maybe I can flank it.) I can think they ARE tanks, not sets of numbers. That's what immersion is all about. And that's why a good model is important.

[Ozymandous]

Originally posted by Seeker
Actually, in Civ 2 the calculation involved Attack, Defense, Firepower, and Hit Points.

Firepower was removed in Civ 2, and Hit Points were simplified. This was a mistake. There was only a snow balls chance in hell that a Phalanx could stop a tank in the open in Civ 2.

Examples of other strategy games:

In Panzer General, units have soft, hard, air, torpedo, and close att/defense values, modified by terrain.

I actually think that a Panzer General -like system would've been very good for Civ.

In the Operational Art of War, units have base combat stats like in Pz Gen, but modified by more than terrain.

Values were modified by supply route, force supply, morale, air interdiction value, etc. Too complex for Civ, but it is possible to approach realism.

one of your ideas was good, the ability to flag ancient, medieval, renaissance, and modern units. Civil War riflemen should be able to deal handily with medieval knights.

Umm, 'cuse but you're forgetting that BOTH of the games you mentioned were WAR GAMES and NOT EMPIRE BUILDING GAMES.

See the difference? In PG, PG2, Steel Panthers, OAW, etc, these figures HAD to be absolute because they were all you had. You didn't manage cities, or an economy (other than points to upgrade your units), or have to worry about culture, science, etc. So, OF COURSE, these games had all those details.

If you want to play a WAR SIMULATOR then go play one of the games mentioned above, if you want an some-what abstracted EMPIRE BUILDING GAME, then play Civ3. That's a simple concept to grasp, why do so many people have so much trouble with it?

[Ozymandous]

Originally posted by jadlakha
The solution for Civ III in solving all combat woes would have been to just copy verbatim the exact combat system of the Call To Power series. Combat was the best part of the series. Call To Power had quite the realistic combat system. To bad its not possible to implement the combat system of Call To Power into Civ III anymore now that its been released. With the new Air combat stuff and bombardment, it would have been interesting to see how combat played out combined with the Call to Power system. But to late for that..............

You are kidding right? When you say that the combat system in CTP was "realistic"?

Did you ever take 5 tanks in CTP and fight 10 knights backed by archers and samauri? Your tanks would lose, guarenteed.

CTP had good ideas about how to combine units into effective armies, with ranged units in back, flanking units on the sides, etc, but when you have PIKEMEN and archers beat TANKS in the CTP series you can NOT say that system is better than the one we have in Civ3 now.

At least in Civ3 you may lose a tank to a spearman occasionally but you won't have a large group of them lose to a group of less effective units SIMPLY because the lower powered units have twice the numbers. At least in my games.

[Moraelin]

Originally posted by Venger
Agincourt wasn't simply longbowmen against Knights - English knights dismounted and used their lances as pikes to defend the field. No matter how many times this has been stated, it wasn't a battle between of English archers vs. French combined arms.

1) And again, even assuming that archers are defenseless to knights, it's still wrong. OK, I believe you. Archers alone don't survive. Fine. But what difference does it make if they're on attack or defense? Are you telling me that archers vs knights aren't exactly as defenseless when they attack?

Let's take Agincourt again. If it was the French defending, and the English archers attacking... what difference would it have made? What would have kept the French knights from charging the Longbowmen in THAT situation? Wouldn't have those archers STILL needed some pikemen as defense?

2) Almost no combat since Thermopilae had one single kind of unit in either attack or defense, so that's irrelevant. Always the archers had some support, and swordsmen were always backed by some archers. E.g., most actual Roman legions weren't the Civ 3 "bunch of identical guys with swords", they also had integral cohorts of horsemen and archers.

E.g., a real WW2 Panzer division had only ONE regiment of actual tanks, but TWO regiments of infantry. It also had towed artillery, self propelled artillery, towed AT guns, SP AT guns, AA guns, 81mm mortar tubes, howitzers, and so on. Not just a few, but LOTS of them. I can give you the numbers if you want to.

In fact, if you want something more funky to think about dig the following equipment that was an integral part of an 1944 German _paratroopers_ division. You'd think it's just a bunch of guys with rifles jumping from airplanes, right? Actually, wrong:

2x 75mm light gun
8x HMG
8x 81mm mortar tubes
63x 120mm mortar tubes
76x bazookas
24x 105mm howitzers
12x 150mm howitzers
27x 20mm towed AA guns
12x 88mm towed AT guns
12x self-propelled 20mm AA guns
21x 75mm towed AT guns
14x 75mm self-propelled AT guns

(If you have to ask how do you para-drop an 150mm howitzer, you don't. That's what gliders are for.)

Well, that was the ideal organization on paper, so an actual unit may have differed a bit, but still. The whole point is that if we accept that one unit is a division, it already has combined arms IN it. Infantry is not just a bunch of guys with rifles, and armour isn't just the unsupported tanks that anyone can destroy with pot lids.

[Segal]

Hahaha, Sorry to hijack this thread on to a discussion about Agincourt.

Archers are awesome, but given a fight between 4500 Archers and 4500 Heavy Horse, I'll take the horse.

Agincourt was won by the Archers but they were given that chance by the footmen that defended the burns. The English carried their own fortifications with them and hammered them into the ground as the French Horse charged. Between the sloppy field, the spiked poles sticking out of the ground, and the footmen, the French were stopped cold.

Casualties were heaviest at the back the of French formation. Since the bowmen couldnt fire into the melee, they lofted flights of arrows at the ranks of French waiting to get the front. The English had so few footmen, a large portion of the bowmen dropped their bows and pulled sidearms to defend the lines.

The French had bows too, just didnt have any targets to fire at once the forces were locked together and the enlglish bowman were positioned directly behind the lines.

[Ozymandous]

Originally posted by Moraelin
Grim Legacy, ANYTHING that has to do with a computer has some numbers underneath, but some are better at hiding that. I mean, really, if you have to remind the player at every single turn that it's just a dice game, you might as well animate the dice on the screen too. Would that be more immersive? Personally I'd say definitely not.

The whole idea of an immersive game is that I can think I'm Napoleon conquering Russia, and that those are my trusty cavalry and cannons against the Russians' cossacs and peasants with pichforks. Not that I'm playing dice with the Russians, and that's my generic 4/2/1 card against their generic 1/4/1 card. Let's roll the dice and see who won. Darn. Want to go for double or nothing, Catherine?

Some games also offer a lot more than dice rolling. (Again, even though we all know that deep under there must be some 2D10 rolls.) E.g., stepping outside the empire building, the Fallout series sure had some dice rolls there, but it also had more opportunities to actually role-play than any other computer game.

So no, I wouldn't say that simply having numbers underneath makes a game "stale" or "non-immersive". But if ALL you do in the game is number accountancy, well, it's a different story.

You want to simulate the Napoleanic battles? Fine, then go buy that game. There are (or used to be) several good games that depict the wars during that time period. They have all the DETAILED, exact numbers and unit things you want.

If you want a somewhat realistic look at how you could potentially change REAL history, i.e. the stuff we live through daily, then go buy EU and maybe EU2 (I heard EU2 is more abstract and "main-stream" to be as true of a representaion than EU was).

Civ3 isn't realistic since 99% of the leaders didn't live in the time periods covered and some of the civilizations covered were never more than a very breif footnote in the hostiry of the world, yet people want to complain because the combat engine in Civ3 isn't up to par with other WAR GAMES or REAL history? Come on, sheesh...