The facts on Spear/Tank Phenomonon, please - Page 2

TitanTim · April 10, 2002, 22:37

Yup. I can understand freak events like this happening. Once again my argument is that it shouldn't happen again the next turn. (Not to mention that the Swarzenegger crewman should become a leader for winning such a lopsided battle).

Zachriel · April 11, 2002, 07:43

Quote:

Originally posted by TitanTim
I think the game would be more fair if units had 10 hit points and bonus attack ratings for experience of the unit as SMAC had (green @ -25% to elite @ +50%).

The more hitpoints, the more lag, as hitpoints equate to die rolls.

And yes, the "Arnold" unit should be promoted for defeating the alien warrior. Of course, the alien has a legitimate complaint about the combat system, and should email Firaxis.

Grumbold · April 11, 2002, 08:57

It didn't happe again the next turn, because your unit won that time (if only just).

The combat system heavily favours the stronger side already (but remember to add in all the defensive multipliers before attacking!) More hitpoints would make any fight with odds of worse than 60/40 a foregone conclusion for the stronger unit. Some people just draw an arbitrary line and say "unit X can never ever lose to unit Y therefore the combat system must change". They are trying to fix the outcome (widely disparate combat units in any age) rather than the cause (inadequate number of techs to give lots of unit types, AI that won't upgrade, no international arms trade selling rifles to 3rd world revolutionaries, all modern units dependant on certain resources etc)

planetfall · April 11, 2002, 10:44

Exceptionally well presented thread issue.

I also have read about the spearman/tank phenonemon. I concur that the uproar over the event is much greater than game reality. In current game lost several tanks to spearman, BUT all seemed reasonable. The panzers were weakened and usually not elite. They were attacked by a mass of 5-10 spearman/rifleman stacks. Yes I loss a few panzers, but they lost many more units than I did. What would be a horrible fix would be to make this impossible. This time I have tanks, but what if I don't have rubber. There has to be some hope of coming ahead.

There are far more important game play issues than the spearman vs tank issue. This does not seem to effect game play like excessive tech devaluation and lack of variety in winning play styles for late middle and end games.

Spec · April 11, 2002, 11:06

*reply to top post*

It happens on deity a bit and SOMETIMES on emperor. But the're called flukes. If they didn't happen and my tanks always won it would be a pretty dull game.

Spec.

Cyclotron · April 11, 2002, 14:36

It seems my recent observations are true. Nobody has yet posted that they thought Civ3 was unplayable because of the combat system. It would seem that the combat system is not flawed (the possiblility for flukes may make it more balanced than the foregone conclusion battles of Civ2). Rather, people simply percieve the results as unfair.

Grumbold brings up an excellent point that a more detailed tech and unit system would greatly reduce these problems, but this is more a matter of taste and preference than an actual flaw of the game.

For those who question the possibility of a tank defeating a spearman, I offer you this: Just because you are the only one who can make rifles doesn't mean you are the only one that has them. Iron-age people aren't stupid, they just don't have the techs and resources to equip mass forces with firearms and modern weapons. It's easy for me to imagine a ragtag band of spear-wielding natives who also have some old rifles or even grenades scrounged from the black market or the corpses of the few enemy soldiers they've killed. It's called arms diffusion; you can't control every gun your Civ has ever made.

Zachriel · April 11, 2002, 16:19

Tamil Tiger rebels, about as far from the center of civilization as possible. "Primitive warriors."

Deornwulf · April 11, 2002, 16:59

So what if the spearman destroys tank #22; #23 - #27 will probably do the trick......

Tuberski · April 11, 2002, 19:56

I think all the complaining comes from the people who save before combat, lose the combat, reload, and then lose it again!
I myself have done that on occasion, but I usually save so that if it goes really badly for me, I can reload and NOT choose to go to war. But I won't reload because I lost a unit.

Zachriel · April 11, 2002, 20:19

Everyone with tanks who is afraid of spearmen, raise your hand.

notyoueither · April 11, 2002, 20:28

Quote:

Originally posted by Tuberski
...I usually save so that if it goes really badly for me, I can reload and NOT choose to go to war. But I won't reload because I lost a unit.

Bad Tuberski. Baaaddddd.

You are biting the hand of Fortuna. Beware her revenge.

Zach.

I live in constant dread that the paint on my units will be scratched. I have night-mares about actually losing a Tank to anything. As such I am officially swearing off Civ3. It is bad for my mental health.

Zachriel · April 11, 2002, 20:39

Quote:

Originally posted by notyoueither
Zach.

I live in constant dread that the paint on my units will be scratched. I have night-mares about actually losing a Tank to anything. As such I am officially swearing off Civ3. It is bad for my mental health.

Maybe your therapist will let you play after your treatment.

Theodrik · April 11, 2002, 20:47

Ok, it's gonna take me a while to find it, but I know of a real-world occurance of spears vs tanks, well, spear-armed light horsemen vs. tanks. 1937, Italian occupationof Ethiopia, a Battallion of Itallian armor, advancing upon an Ethiopian strongpoint, unsupported by Infantry, was counter attacked by a horde of ethiopian light cavalry. The narrow bladed, thin shafted spears were able to enter the main gun barrels and view slots of the italian tanks, forcing the crews to open their hatches and fight with pistols and submachine guns against the swirlling mass of hosemen. The cav took lots of casulties, but the tanks lost. The late arriving, truck mounted infantry drove off the looting cav, but it was far too late. But then italian tanks were junk to start with, but I'd imagine the Italian commanding officer thinking; guns vs spears, tanks vs. horses, no problem, we'll just drive up there and they'll throw some rocks and run away!

Zachriel · April 11, 2002, 20:53

Quote:

Originally posted by Tuberski
I think all the complaining comes from the people who save before combat, lose the combat, reload, and then lose it again!
I myself have done that on occasion, but I usually save so that if it goes really badly for me, I can reload and NOT choose to go to war. But I won't reload because I lost a unit.

It's ok to reload, as long as you know you lost that game, and just want to find out if you could have won -- if.
Indeed, reloading is the very best way to learn how to play.

notyoueither · April 11, 2002, 21:57

Actually. Reloading is a completely valid way of debugging the game when 47 Mod Arm and 15 Mech Inf are lost to the culture flip of a large city. In my books anyway.

Go ahead. If cites are going to flip, great. Taking Patton's 3rd Army with them? It's a bug.

Tuberski · April 11, 2002, 22:56

Quote:

Originally posted by notyoueither
Actually. Reloading is a completely valid way of debugging the game when 47 Mod Arm and 15 Mech Inf are lost to the culture flip of a large city. In my books anyway.

Go ahead. If cites are going to flip, great. Taking Patton's 3rd Army with them? It's a bug.

I'm still only playing Warlord level, so I am not having problems with culture flipping...yet. I like to try various ideas on easier levels and weed out the ones that don't work.

But, when I get to the point that my cities start flipping, you can bet your A$$ that I will reload.

TitanTim · April 12, 2002, 00:05

Quote:

Originally posted by cyclotron7
It seems my recent observations are true. Nobody has yet posted that they thought Civ3 was unplayable because of the combat system. It would seem that the combat system is not flawed (the possiblility for flukes may make it more balanced than the foregone conclusion battles of Civ2). Rather, people simply percieve the results as unfair.

It seems you missed my comment that I no longer play Civ3 because I felt the combat system randomization aspect flawed.

I've come to realize that combat in Civ3 may be more balanced to real-life but I've also come to realize that part of the reason I hate it is that in peace time I must maintain lots of military units so that other Civ's don't attack me (attributable to real-life). But then again everything costs money (again real-life) and I can't seem to get enough money to pay for anything (real-life). That seems reasonable except, what government do you know that happens to work with no debt and is in the black financially with cash sitting on hand? What government could not work to get cash from another source other than taxes? This is where wealth should come in and allow me to gain some extra cash but wealth in Civ3 just plain blows.

Also, research comes from taxes and private companies. Where's that portrayed in Civ? In real-life we can raise taxes but that can result in citizen revolts. This part is not done well in Civ. I think that the unit support system should be handled like MoM. Raise the taxes, you get more money but more revolters. Research should come from a portion of your tax money and individual cities could receive luxuries (gleaned from sports complexes, temples, cathedrals, and such).

Zachriel · April 12, 2002, 07:50

Quote:

Originally posted by notyoueither
Actually. Reloading is a completely valid way of debugging the game when 47 Mod Arm and 15 Mech Inf are lost to the culture flip of a large city. In my books anyway.

Go ahead. If cites are going to flip, great. Taking Patton's 3rd Army with them? It's a bug.

Reload all you want, you still lose. Gotta control culture to win Civ3. (I almost never lose a city to flips, but I was of the understanding that a garrison of that size can't flip. Post a save game.)

bigvic · April 12, 2002, 15:32

Crazy combat results suck if they happen against you, are great when they happen in your favor. What seems to be missing in most observations here is a sense of abstraction and perception of what is represented. What is a spearman in modern times? A horde of primitves toting spears and shields as pictured in the game, or a poorly organized/equipped mob of ak-47/molotov coctail lobbing modern types? I prefer the latter. What is a galley that roams around in the modern age, a wooden oared ramming ship straight out of Ben Hur, or some crappy pt boat or something, like the thing that blasted the USS Cole in Yemen? I guess some future version of civ could convert all obsolete units on board into some kind of generic piece of crap looking, yet era appropriate unit, then no imagination would be required to justify unlikely combat results.

TitanTim · April 12, 2002, 17:50

Quote:

Originally posted by bigvic
Crazy combat results suck if they happen against you, are great when they happen in your favor. What seems to be missing in most observations here is a sense of abstraction and perception of what is represented. What is a spearman in modern times? A horde of primitves toting spears and shields as pictured in the game, or a poorly organized/equipped mob of ak-47/molotov coctail lobbing modern types? I prefer the latter. What is a galley that roams around in the modern age, a wooden oared ramming ship straight out of Ben Hur, or some crappy pt boat or something, like the thing that blasted the USS Cole in Yemen? I guess some future version of civ could convert all obsolete units on board into some kind of generic piece of crap looking, yet era appropriate unit, then no imagination would be required to justify unlikely combat results.

That is an excellent point. After all a tank could be a piece of machinery like Leonardo's conceptual drawing, a WWI tank, WWII tank, or the tanks of today.

Four to six graphics per unit (where needed) to represent that same type of unit in the various ages (determined by the most technologically advanced Civ) would do better to explain how a spearman (Molotov cocktail toting revolutionaries) could defeat a tank.

Maybe to even out the tech a bit, the most backward civilizations should also have an easier time of discovering tech. After all when 5 or 6 civ's around you know something you're bound to find out soon enough (maybe have a small wonder that gives you tech if you're the last to discover it). This would help to make it so that spearmen versus tanks could never happen and when it does it's a forgone conclusion.

Tuberski · April 12, 2002, 19:11

Quote:

Originally posted by TitanTim

That is an excellent point. After all a tank could be a piece of machinery like Leonardo's conceptual drawing, a WWI tank, WWII tank, or the tanks of today.

Four to six graphics per unit (where needed) to represent that same type of unit in the various ages (determined by the most technologically advanced Civ) would do better to explain how a spearman (Molotov cocktail toting revolutionaries) could defeat a tank.

Shuoldn't be TOO hard to do, they already do that with the worker units.

Quote:

[SIZE=1] Maybe to even out the tech a bit, the most backward civilizations should also have an easier time of discovering tech. After all when 5 or 6 civ's around you know something you're bound to find out soon enough (maybe have a small wonder that gives you tech if you're the last to discover it). This would help to make it so that spearmen versus tanks could never happen and when it does it's a forgone conclusion.

Tech already works that way. That's why you can never get a huge lead in tech on the other civs.

notyoueither · April 12, 2002, 19:49

Quote:

Originally posted by Zachriel
Reload all you want, you still lose. Gotta control culture to win Civ3. (I almost never lose a city to flips, but I was of the understanding that a garrison of that size can't flip. Post a save game.)

Thank you for your divine judgement. Us mere mortals will now scurry to conform to your dictates.

Post a saved game? Don't have 1. I raze my way through enemy empires. Even if my culture is superior, I find the whipped and abused citizens of AI cities to be of far less use than another bunch of slaves. Plus their spacing seldom suits my late game needs. I will keep cities with wonders though.

As for the possibility of still losing large numbers of units, read the transcript of the last chat. In it you will find the following exchange:

[Beard_Rinker] What's the dirt on completely suppressing a city's cultural reversion? My first experiments with this with the new patch cost me some good units.

[Soren_Johnson_Firaxis] beard: this will probably only be effective for cities with small risk of flipping. we were worried about the "I just lost 20 units when a size 1 city flipped!" issue.

BTW, I don't particularly give a rat's *ss about your judgements as to what constitutes a win for me, or anybody else for that matter. s'OK though. I'm sure I can be an annoying git sometimes too.

Tuberski · April 12, 2002, 22:00

Quote:

Originally posted by notyoueither

I'm sure I can be an annoying git sometimes too.

NO! Not you!

Zachriel · April 12, 2002, 22:16

Quote:

Originally posted by notyoueither
Thank you for your divine judgement. Us mere mortals will now scurry to conform to your dictates.
s'OK though.

You're right of course! Reload all you want.

Sorry 'bout your "luck" with the gazillion units, though.

bigvic · April 13, 2002, 00:21

Quote:

Originally posted by notyoueither

Thank you for your divine judgement. Us mere mortals will now scurry to conform to your dictates.

Post a saved game? Don't have 1. I raze my way through enemy empires. Even if my culture is superior, I find the whipped and abused citizens of AI cities to be of far less use than another bunch of slaves. Plus their spacing seldom suits my late game needs. I will keep cities with wonders though.

As for the possibility of still losing large numbers of units, read the transcript of the last chat. In it you will find the following exchange:

[Beard_Rinker] What's the dirt on completely suppressing a city's cultural reversion? My first experiments with this with the new patch cost me some good units.

[Soren_Johnson_Firaxis] beard: this will probably only be effective for cities with small risk of flipping. we were worried about the "I just lost 20 units when a size 1 city flipped!" issue.

BTW, I don't particularly give a rat's *ss about your judgements as to what constitutes a win for me, or anybody else for that matter. s'OK though. I'm sure I can be an annoying git sometimes too.

kool avatar

Venger · April 13, 2002, 12:09

Far be it from me to interrupt this lovefest for the Civ3 combat system...

Alas, many of those first users of Civ3 have moved on from the game, so you haven't really been seeing any real discussion regarding the numerous failures of the system, both in concept and execution.

I recommend for a more balanced sampling, reading some of the combat system posts from a few months ago, which will detail many of the faults many found in combat, without totally rehashing them here...

Venger

Constantine · April 13, 2002, 17:26

I seem to have a problem with killing longbowmen. I lost three knights (regulars) on the offensive to one longbowman on a hill! I lost a modern armour when attacking a longbowman also, that's probably like a 1 in 1,000,000,000 chance. I lose tank by the tens againt the 20-unit stacks of longbowmen. It cant be bad luck can it?

Cyclotron · April 13, 2002, 22:43

Quote:

Originally posted by Venger
Far be it from me to interrupt this lovefest for the Civ3 combat system...

Thanks for misinterpreting, Venger. Perhaps you just love to hate?

Quote:

Alas, many of those first users of Civ3 have moved on from the game, so you haven't really been seeing any real discussion regarding the numerous failures of the system, both in concept and execution.

I'm not so much asking for discussion, really, as asking for actual examples of "unfair" unit battles to truly and fairly evaluate the combat system. I found that previous threads were pretty barren when it comes to actual, played-out unit battles. I wanted to satisfy my own curiosity of why people complain about the combat system, and observe whether such battles are flukes or not, as well as guage people's opinions.

Please, come back when you have something of meaning and import to say. I'm quite aware of what has been posted in the past, and although I thank you for your reminder I must remind you, in turn, that this topic is not out to praise Firaxis or the combat system, but to do a little research into the factual nature of this "spear vs. tank" phenomonon.

Hurricane · April 15, 2002, 07:38

Quote:

Originally posted by bigvic
Crazy combat results suck if they happen against you, are great when they happen in your favor. What seems to be missing in most observations here is a sense of abstraction and perception of what is represented. What is a spearman in modern times? A horde of primitves toting spears and shields as pictured in the game, or a poorly organized/equipped mob of ak-47/molotov coctail lobbing modern types? I prefer the latter. What is a galley that roams around in the modern age, a wooden oared ramming ship straight out of Ben Hur, or some crappy pt boat or something, like the thing that blasted the USS Cole in Yemen? I guess some future version of civ could convert all obsolete units on board into some kind of generic piece of crap looking, yet era appropriate unit, then no imagination would be required to justify unlikely combat results.

YES! This would not only quiet the spearman beats tank rants, but also the numerous flame-fests where people argue over real-world examples of tanks against spearmen.

V.O.C.'02 · April 15, 2002, 10:45

I did hear about this game played a little while ago, in which this civ, (i believe the Americans) whiped out 2 ( Japanese) metro's in Just one turn only using 2 bombers and some additional firepower.