Nothing irks me more than when a substantially inferior unit somehow miraculously kills a far superior unit - like say a Longbowman killing a Tank. I mean, get real. Even if the longbowman was lucky enough to get an arrow through a teeny eye-slit viewpiece to kill one crewmember, there are 2-3 other crewmen still running the tank.
So, to combat this and other irregular combat outcomes, I'll sometimes save my game right before I attack. I've learned something interesting...
No matter how many times I reload the game (and I've tried this a LOT) the combat result is ALWAYS THE SAME! This tells me that combat rolls are predetermined for each turn BEFORE the combat takes place!!
A recent example, I was about to crush the annoying Zulu tribe's last 2 cities - each defended by 2 Impi warriors (Def=2 + bonus for city) with a stack of 5 knights, and a musketeer for defence. I saved game before combat, then went to battle.
3 knights died killing first Impi, two remaining knights died killing last Impi. My musketman was left to march into city, but I was a bit perturbed that it took all five Knights to win, so I reloaded. Entered combat again, EXACT SAME RESULT... and I mean exact down to the exact same number of HP's lost per unit and timing of the HP losses. Curiosity piqued, I reloaded again, to the EXCAST same result. I tried it twice more, all with EXACT same result.
So I reloaded once more and decided to WAIT one turn to attack. Advanced to next turn, saved game prior to attacking city and invaded. This time I only lost 1 knight and killed both Impi. Curious, I reloaded and tried again from this new save game with the Exact same result. 1 lost Knight to take city.
Since this, I've used this strategy to reduce the number of times the AI has killed my Destroyers / Battleships with Pinnacles/Galleys whatever by making alternate moves instead.
Cheating? Somewhat. But I only use when some absurdly outrageous combat outcome pops up like a boat lobbing wooden arrows sinking a modern steel-armored battleship with 20-inch cannons.
Yes, miracles happen in war, which is why I don't always reload, but sometimes it just grates on my nerves to see it. If the game's combat rolls were truly random and a reload resulted in a similar loss, but through different rolls/HP loss counts, I'd be much more willing to accept it as a "miracle" than where I sit now knowing that the rolls are NOT random, but pre-determined.
Ugh. Lazy programming.
Otherwise, a great game!
-WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR ORK!
