If you were wondering why there is no Mplayer, here

[King of Rasslin]

I know many people have said that combat results favor the computer, and they are right. A unit with 4 attack should be = with a unit with 4 defence. No, thats not the way it is in the game.

But it got me to think that, because the combat results are rigged up to the computer, there is no multiplayer. If there was a multiplayer than the results would have to be fixed and apparently Firaxis doesn't want to do it.

So I know that the first thing I will do when multiplayer is available is: play single player! Because then I won't have to worry about rigged defence units, and very,very weak bombard units until the artillery.

[Ming]

Have you run significant trials to prove your "theory"?

Could you please post the results of your tests so we can all take a look for ourselves... Do you have a save file so we can see the proof...

[King of Rasslin]

Just ask the 5,000,000 Civ players that lose a rifleman to a spearman.

In a metropolis, the spearman is an = unit that is very, very cheap and can beat a rifleman.

I somewhat like the need to pillage and bombard first, but it only means more power to mounted units. You know as well as most other civ players that you need 3x the number of units in a city to effectively take it, even more depending on it's size.

Because the need to destroy improvements is very, very high now, I think it makes the stupid chariots and horsemen too powerful as they don't have to worry if they lose to a spearman- they can always fight another day!

And this is what is stupid. High power units with only 1 movement point like the archer, longbowman, and swordsman are far too weak.

I would rather have a horseman than a swordsman even though (in theory) the swordsman should easily beat and spearman and the horseman would lose.

My point is that units with high power/low movement cannot match power with defensive units and cannot pillage like the mounted units. Exactly how often do you see someone using a balanced team of longbowmen, musketmen, and cannons?

Duh.... Its all about Knights wrecking the land and ruining the economy of a nation.

So, here is my suggestion. Make it harder to destroy improvements with Knights and mounted units and easier to do it with bombarding units. The power of defensive units stops when you starve out a city or bomb it. But the length of time required to do this makes it far too difficult to take more than 1 city, and that resource can be 3+ cities away. To get at it, you need fast, powerful units that can heal themselves by retreating. You can see where this is getting at...

Battlefield Medicine should be available earlier to make units that can't move very fast more useful. I think it would be cool to make longbowmen even though you have the resources to make knights. What is unfair is that a war needs to be fought quickly, and your units need to heal as they will almost always lose to a unit with = defence because of city defence bonuses. You know what unit type i am talking about...

[Murtin]

In a metropolis, the spearman is an = unit that is very, very cheap and can beat a rifleman.

Sounds to me like you're treating even the various defence bonuses as bugs in the combat system.

Regarding combat, there are two things to keep in mind.
1. The combat system depends on random numbers. This means that victory for any unit in any battle is a matter of probabilities. There are no "for sure" outcomes.
2. A defending unit enjoys at least a 10% bonus, depending on terrain and other circumstances. Do you account for that when complaining that the AI wins a disproportionate amount of battles?

As for the real issue, I'm happily convinced that the combat system isn't broken in the way that 50/50-battles are more often won by the AI. And I'm even more convinced that such a problem wouldn't stop Firaxis from including MP.

[Ming]

Originally posted by King of Rasslin
You know as well as most other civ players that you need 3x the number of units in a city to effectively take it, even more depending on it's size.

Yeah, Civ players have learned what real life generals already know, it's easier to defend then attack. You always need a superior force to take out an entrenched army.

I think it makes the stupid chariots and horsemen too powerful as they don't have to worry if they lose to a spearman- they can always fight another day!

Yeah, but they can't run away from another mobile unit if they lose But seriously, that's the advantage of mobility. It is what it is.. The mongols and germans really unstood that principle.
And that's why it costs more to build them a spearman.

And this is what is stupid. High power units with only 1 movement point like the archer, longbowman, and swordsman are far too weak.

In the early game, and "army" of archers and swordsman are unbeatable... especially if you are using them on offense. I attack early with waves of archers or swordsman (iron willing). and I have no problem. The swordsman is a very powerful unit, because it not only can kill... it can defend itself on the battle field.

I would rather have a horseman than a swordsman even though in theory) the swordsman should easily beat and spearman and the horseman would lose.

I'd rather have an army with a mix of the two. A large army of horseman and swordsman is unstopable.

Exactly how often do you see someone using a balanced team of longbowmen, musketmen, and cannons?

Why would anybody unless mobile units aren't available.
A good early army has mobility, heavy guns, and foot soldiers.


Every unit has it's role. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. The more powerfull ones cost more.

Duh.... Its all about Knights wrecking the land and ruining the economy of a nation.

If I'm on the offensive, I usually want their cities, so I don't wreck my soon to be owned land

And I've had no problems stopping AI knights from doing it to my land, even when they come in hordes.

Battlefield Medicine should be available earlier to make units that can't move very fast more useful. I think it would be cool to make longbowmen even though you have the resources to make knights. What is unfair is that a war needs to be fought quickly, and your units need to heal as they will almost always lose to a unit with = defence because of city defence bonuses. You know what unit type i am talking about...

First.. battlefield medicine in those times meant saying a prayer
And I don't how it's unfair that injured units don't fight as well.
You need to alternate fresh and injured units... and bring enough units along to do the job in the first place. And if you attack when your units are injured... and you lose... that's your problem, not the games.

I see no reason why any of the issues you raise would effect MP play. All players would be under the same conditions. Like in Civ II, If you want to win, bring enough units along. Actually, it will probably add more warfare to games than Civ II. You can send 10 warriors at your enemy early, and easily take out his spearman. You just will have to worry where his ten warriors are

[Skanky Burns]

King of Rasslin, try this:

Start a game as the Aztecs. Build a horde of Jaguar Warriors. Attack an enemy defending with spearmen. See just how good spearmen really are.

Honestly, bring enough of them and you will crush every enemy unit you see, entrenched defender or not. Even though they have an attack value of 1 versus the defencive value of 2 ( + 10% and any other bonuses ) you will easily be able to see that battles dont always go the computer's way.

[DrFell]

Jaguar warriors are great up to the point when the AIs start defending cities with more than one spearman.

'In a metropolis, the spearman is an = unit that is very, very cheap and can beat a rifleman.'

Well, riflemen aren't attacking units. I know in theory this shouldn't happen and was extremely rare in civ2, but you shouldn't be attacking with these units and you must remember it's a game. Work out the defence bonuses etc. and see what the chances of losing really are. The AI isn't cheating, humans just have a built in 'unfairness factor'. You don't notice it when the AI loses very badly to your units, and most people don't whine about it (perhaps because few people attack with horsemen and archers throughout the game).

'And I've had no problems stopping AI knights from doing it to my land, even when they come in hordes.'

The AI sure has problems stopping me from doing it, and if you bring enough, you can destroy any empire. The only choice for units I feel is horsemen, knights, cavalry, etc. basically the fast units, as you lose so few of them. In my current game I've razed 20-30 cities and destroyed two empires, and am working on the third. I've only attacked with horsemen, riders, and now cavalry, and I've lost a grand total of 5 units (3 great leaders created too). I tried something similar with swordsmen and I lost as many of them destroying one much smaller empire. Conclusion: I'm using horsemen over swordsmen any day (unless I'm Persia).

[Kramsib]

Welcome to the old challenge where all your dreams come true.

The spirit of Numantia is very strong in Civ III because a simple spearman can defeat lots of units, whoo, hooo, make our neighbours crazy is really easy.

I think we have to adapt our way of playing to the new game because it is more realistic.

In a city the power of defense is very high and you need more than a little riflemen to take a city of brave resistants. You have also to use pillage (you never did in Civ II because that city was going to be yours anyway and you did not want to rebuild anything), the conquered citizens are very bad boys because they destruct all the improvements and you have to rebuild them (less destruction please firaxis, there were churches and markets wen the allies entered in Germany).

But now you have to organise a good plan of invasion before conquiring and prepare a good number of units, do not think you will conquer Rome in one hour.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by DrFell
Jaguar warriors are great up to the point when the AIs start defending cities with more than one spearman.

You didnt bring enough of them

[Dis]

Interesting use of logic...Not!!

[Terser]

Just MHO:

Unless or until firepower or some other system is included as an option, I have no interest whatsoever in multiplayer CivIII. It's aggravating enough losing a destroyer to a galleon in singleplayer mode. I simply cannot comprehend what it would be like experiencing this at the hands of an immature player.

"H4, my 733t g47730n 0\/\/n5 j00r d35720y32, 5ux02!!!!!!!!!"

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Well, we could always put a realtime l33t-to-English translator in there...

Dan

[notyoueither]

It would be worse in English!

Salve

[Kramsib]

Thank you for your visit Dan, is an honor for us, if we were in the same place I will give you some beer to celebrate the last victory of my galleon against a destroyer.

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Anyone who wants to give me some beer is OK in my book!




Dan

[Zoid]

Too bad you guys didn´t write the combat rules for WWII, coz then the SS Panzers would´ve been grinded to bits under the steel clad hooves of the fierce Polish Cavalry

[cutlerd]

During Italy's invasion of Ethiopia in the early 1930's, the Italian tanks were small two-man affairs and the hatch was built into the top of the tank in the turret where the gun was mounted.

Ethiopians with spears would wait in hiding until one of these Italian tanks came along, then sneak up to it all from one side and push and tip it over.

As the hatch was on top of the tank, by tipping it over the hatch was effectively blocked by the ground and could not open. The Italian soldiers inside would literally bake to death in the hot Ethiopian sun.

Spearmen CAN take out tanks.

The Russians found molotov cocktails and other home-brewed weapons effective against the lighter German tanks, especially in city warfare.

A molotov cocktail is essentially available to any culture that has discovered beer and fire. As the Sumerians developed beer, it is safe to say that even Warrior units have access to such weaponry.

Warriors CAN take out tanks.

The Japanese used to use human tank busters in WW2 by strapping explosives onto a person and having them charge a tank, blowing the person and the tank up in the process. Explosives are a function of gunpowder.

Musketmen CAN take out tanks.

Devin

[kimmygibler]

I've been guilty of "bashing" many things about civ3 and FIRAXIS in the past, but this argument is really insane. Combat is not rigged. This conclusion was reached on the basis of three main premises.
First of all, nobody has tested this in depth so all we have to rely on is anecdotal evidence of tanks losing to spearmen. You may not like the fact that this happens, and you may argue that a real tank would never lose to a real spearman, and this may be true, but it don't mean that combat is rigged.
Secondly, FIRAXIS has said that there is no combat advantage given to the cpu. You may think that they are lying to us, but why? Is there any logical reason why they would secretely fix combat rolls to favour the cpu but not tell anyone? I'll be waiting on this one...
Third. From my games, I have had no reason to suspect that combat favoured the cpu.

The first premise is an appeal to ignorance, but it must be said. With the lack of evidence I'll go with what FIRAXIS says since they have no reason to lie. The only thing that might have changed my mind would be if I had an unusual amount strange results. Then I might try to test it myself. However, just posting your claim based on minimal evidence and vague suppositions is idiotic.

[cutlerd]

I already posted this in another place, but I will do it here as well.

A study by a university basically gave people supposedly random results that they had a vested interest in. The results actually were not random but were fixed and were I believe set at dead odds on.

They then asked the subjects whether their results were better than average or worse than average (there were more events than a person could reasonably keep track of mathematically in their head). A startling 80% of the subjects said that they had had worse than average results!

The conclusion, proven by other studies and to me by over 25 years of gaming, is that people tend to only recall the bad or disfavourable events or at least recall them far more readily than the average or good events.

Because of this, it is ABSOLUTELY POINTLESS for ANYONE on these forums to ***** and whine about rigged combat results UNLESS AND ONLY UNLESS you have done a rigid survey of results over the course of a hundred or more combats, and then repeated those results over at least 3 or 4 more such surveys.

THEN AND ONLY THEN can you stand up and start talking about variations from standard deviances or variations from mean result and have any sort of backing for what you are talking about.

Until then, all you are doing is *****ing and moaning. After all, the studies show that even if Civ3 combat were PERFECTLY not-rigged, a full 80% of you people would still feel it was rigged against you.

Now, one could argue that we as hardcore gamers are less susceptible to such influences...and I might agree...but the fact remains that the human brain seems predilected to remember the bad.

Devin

(still waiting for someone to actually provide observed statistical data regarding CIV3 combat results)

[Oerdin]

Originally posted by cutlerd
The Russians found molotov cocktails and other home-brewed weapons effective against the lighter German tanks, especially in city warfare.

A molotov cocktail is essentially available to any culture that has discovered beer and fire. As the Sumerians developed beer, it is safe to say that even Warrior units have access to such weaponry.Devin

Molotov cocktails are most commonly made with gasoline or petroleum ether not beer.. I doubt anyone could even get beer to ignite. You need something like 150 proof alcohol or higher other wise there is simple to much water in the mix to get the volatiles to combust.
As for spearman defeating tanks; while it is true some small early tanks were defeated by relatively primative people (who never the less had guns) I doubt such a thing could happen to a modern M1 or Leopard tank. This is just another reason why Civ3 should have two tank units. One "early" and the other "modern.

[Murtin]

Originally posted by cutlerd
After all, the studies show that even if Civ3 combat were PERFECTLY not-rigged, a full 80% of you people would still feel it was rigged against you.

True. And there's another tendency regarding human perception of random events that I believe is making all this even worse. Presented with the task of generating a "random" sequence of results from tossing a coin, people will believe that the sequence HTHT is far more likely to occur than the sequence HHHH. Thus, they tend to severely underestimate the probability that a battle between to evenly matched veteran units ends with one unit winning without taking any damage at all. In fact, this probability is 1/8.

So not only will you selectively remember the occasions when the AI beat you, but you will also remember that the computer insulted you by coming up with an outrageously improbable sequence of hit point losses for your unit. No wonder people tend to perceive the unfairness of combat so obvious that it's just ridiculous for anyone to ask for hard evidence.

[cutlerd]

As for spearman defeating tanks; while it is true some small early tanks were defeated by relatively primative people (who never the less had guns) I doubt such a thing could happen to a modern M1 or Leopard tank. This is just another reason why Civ3 should have two tank units. One "early" and the other "modern.

Which is EXACTLY why CIV3 DOES have two tank units...one early and the other modern.

From the tone of your message it seems to me you are unaware of this fact.

Devin