Still no solution to spearman vs tank problem. - Page 2

alva · April 20, 2002, 22:17

Quote:

Originally posted by notyoueither
BTW. I agree wholeheartedly that auto upgrade of obsolete units from previous eras would be a good idea. It would be the end of this... interesting topic once and for all.

just a new 'graphic' might do the trick IMHO

notyoueither · April 20, 2002, 22:19

Quote:

Originally posted by alva848

just a new 'graphic' might do the trick IMHO

And the name 'Militia'

Cort Haus · April 21, 2002, 08:00

Well, maybe the spearman got hold of 'Panzerfausts'

. (a great leveller btw tanks and infantry, as the Red Army found out to their cost in Berlin. One sixteen yr-old could take out a tank.)

Or, the tanks ran out of fuel, broke down, got lost, got stuck down a narrow street or in tank traps. Hey, even a spearman could dig a tank trap...

Grrr · April 22, 2002, 01:40

Wouldn't that still be regardable as "Militia", Cort Haus.

Tingkai · April 22, 2002, 02:10

Quote:

Originally posted by Grrr
I switched the Autosave off because of the lag of compression,

Does this speed up the game a lot?

The Thinker · April 22, 2002, 03:38

"Still no solution to spearman vs tank problem."

The solution is simple: Never think that just because you have a better unit on paper that you will win the battle.

Grumbold · April 22, 2002, 05:37

I'm relieved to see far more people in the "its not a problem" camp. The last time I was involved in a thread which suggested thinking of modern day spearmen as partisan militias with makeshift weapons the suggestion was attacked on all fronts. There is no doubt that changing the icons would certainly help with the visualisation. Now that the icon limits are starting to be lifted there is some hope of this being possible to program in the future.

The global arms market being what it is, only lost jungle tribes would really have only spears to confront modern armies with and they are represented by the barbarian encampments. We don't need any of the player positions to be that easy to defeat. Provided players make use of artillery the risk of losing a tank to a spearman is minimal, even an elite one fortified in a large hilltop city. A well planned attack is already so low on casualties for the technologically superior side that any further changes in their favour would be foolish.

Zachriel · April 22, 2002, 09:41

Quote:

Originally posted by The Thinker
"Still no solution to spearman vs tank problem."

The solution is simple: Never think that just because you have a better unit on paper that you will win the battle.

That must be why you are called "The Thinker."

Cort Haus · April 22, 2002, 09:45

Quote:

Originally posted by Grrr
Wouldn't that still be regardable as "Militia", Cort Haus.

Yes, I think Grumbold (below) sums it up well. I expect that your example was a major case of 'bad strings' of pseudo-random numbers - something not unique to Civ3. I've been playing Axis & Allies (the PC version of the board game) recently where combat is resolved on dice rolls which you actually see on the screen. The distribution looks very uneven, eg - clusters of 1's, then none for ages (like the fabled London buses) - and you'd get shocking combat results regularly.

Having said that - I used to play a lot of dice games using real dice and often the results were even wierder. An 'on-form' player enjoying his or her game would be rolling superbly, whilst someone getting p*issed-off with 'bad' rolls would continue to roll badly. Made us wonder a lot about 'mind over matter', and even now I focus 'beams of will' at the screen while my cavalry is grawing away at a rifleman - even though I know the outcome is mathematically predetermined by the seed. Hmmm - I wonder if the religious determinists see God as a pre-seeded random number algorithm?

Cort Haus · April 22, 2002, 09:48

Quote:

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Yes, I think Grumbold (below) ...

Er, I mean 'above'

that is ... above my post and below yours ...

notyoueither · April 22, 2002, 14:01

Quote:

Originally posted by Cort Haus
I focus 'beams of will' at the screen while my cavalry is grawing away at a rifleman - even though I know the outcome is mathematically predetermined by the seed.

Don't we all?

steelehc · April 22, 2002, 14:35

No-one has yet managed to post a screenshot or a save. And yet more people have claimed to have this problem. As I said, I will not take it seriously until I see some evidence of some sort.

In any case, it shouldn't be happening. Unless you consider the spearmen to be militia, they should be instantly wiped out, no matter what happens to the tanks.

Steele

Grrr · April 22, 2002, 15:13

Quote:

Does this speed up the game a lot?

Yes. It does. Just remember to save now and then in case your computer crashes.

kimmygibler · April 22, 2002, 15:19

I agree a new graphic for modern times would end all the complaining. It is realistic to think that a modern country would not make a 'spearman' unit. There are so many guns nowadays you would have to think that your citezens are putting down their guns, dressing up in animal skins, making spears out of simple tools and then going to fight against tanks. Can't we all agree that spearmen in modern times are the equivilant of a bunch of untrained guys with random modern weapons?

Also, to the first guy who posted "Still no solution to spearman vs tank problem."

...

...

Are you dumb? Even if you have never read any of the countless fixes for this "problem" you should still be able to figure out how to use the editor.

Grrr · April 22, 2002, 15:22

Still no OFFICIAL solution then. That better?

louiethelesbo · April 22, 2002, 16:39

Tanks can always be defeated by a spearman with a good aim. It is not difficult to throw a nuclear tipped spear into an unsuspecting tank..the results are devastating for the tank. Now play the game and enjoy it.

Cort Haus · April 22, 2002, 17:02

DU-Spearmen... love it!

Conqueror · April 22, 2002, 17:20

Quote:

Originally posted by Grrr
This morning, I attacked Reading, with 20 tanks. They killed the musketmen, and riflemen, and then I lost 4 tanks on 5 spearmen! Is that bad enough for you?

I have tough time believing that, i cant remember ever losing tanks to spearmen, unless, ofcourse you use low health tanks to attack full health elite spearmen.

Lower your difficulty level if you cant handle losing units ?

And dont talk about "but it must be like in real life", would you seriously state that spearmen or other units survive for thousands of years in real life.

Dom Pedro II · April 22, 2002, 17:21

steelehc : I don't have a screenshot for you, but it DID happen to me once that a Modern Armor was turned back by a spearman... why should you believe me rather than anybody else? Simply because I'm not one of the people attacking the current combat system. It's fine. I like it. The battle was a fluke, and like I said, I was attacking a full-grown city.

To All: BTW, I heard mention of Militia... whatever happened to the Partisan units? I liked those... I think they should be brought back because that way combining that with being unable to use enemy roads/railroads and cultural reversion will make invasions a real pain in the a$$!

I'm not being sarcastic either. I like the challenge of it all. I hate when I break the back of my enemy and know that it's only a matter of time.

P.S. I do like the idea of upgrading the unit icon for the Spearman. It could work like the worker and how it changes from era to era. Personally, I thought civilization just should have had the "Man" unit and whatever supplies you give it fluctuates their attack capabilities. I suppose that's the Unit Workshop concept? Ah well, one step at a time.

Kc7mxo · April 22, 2002, 18:59

I find that the discussion isn't really about a tank losing to a spearman, its about my tank losing to a cavalry, my cavalry losing to spearmen, its about any unlikely event that causes frustration. people simply use the tank vs spearmen as an extreme example.

what always annoyed me about the situation is that Civ2 had the perfect system for dealing with this, and yet Civ3 doesn't use it.

Cyclotron · April 22, 2002, 19:12

But the civ2 system also meant that any even slightly advanced unit could easily crush its last-era counterparts. True, combat was much closer to real life in Civ2, but in Civ3 you can no longer smash the computer because of just a slight lead in tech... a more balanced game.

It's one of the trade offs... for the most part, the spearman vs. tank phenomonon is more of a perception problem (that would never happen in real life) than an actual gameplay issue... which classifies it as a change more appropriate for a mod than for a new patch from Firaxis.

Zachriel · April 22, 2002, 19:16

Based on what has been posted on this thread, I have changed my tactics. From now on, I will use spearmen in the modern age to protect all my cities and my stacks of attack artillery. I can't wait till those enemy tanks try to take me on now!

Mu ha ha . . .

Grrr · April 23, 2002, 00:13

Quote:

Originally posted by Conqueror

I have tough time believing that, i cant remember ever losing tanks to spearmen, unless, ofcourse you use low health tanks to attack full health elite spearmen.

Lower your difficulty level if you cant handle losing units ?

And dont talk about "but it must be like in real life", would you seriously state that spearmen or other units survive for thousands of years in real life.

Conscript tanks, elite spearman, all on full health.

Sadly, unlike Apolyton, we can't go down to 'village idiot' level

Units are constantly replenished with new people, so yes, a spearman unit could survive thousands of years.

notyoueither · April 23, 2002, 00:44

steele.

I have a seen a save of the dreaded phenomena, I think. Unfortunately I did not keep the save. Maybe Ethelred has it. I believe he may collect such oddities.

Of course, old saves would be useless, since the random seed of old saves is reset on load with 1.21

notyoueither · April 23, 2002, 00:46

Quote:

Originally posted by Grrr

Conscript tanks

ROFLMAO. How did you pull that trick?

Grrr · April 23, 2002, 00:50

I picked them up from the AI I think.

star mouse · April 23, 2002, 01:08

If the spearman is fortified in a big city, it's going to get the fortify bonus, the big city bonus, and any terrain bonus. It could have a fairly decent chance of winning in that case.

You can tweak the hit points of the units, but here's another idea to combine with it. Increase the base hit points of all the experience levels. I use these:

Conscript 4
Regular 6
Veteran 9
Elite 12

These are double the original values, with +1 point to Veteran and +2 points to Elite. This leads to more combat "rounds", and swings the odds towards the more powerful unit and the units with more experience. Combine with age-related hit point bonuses and this could be interesting.

Ethelred · April 23, 2002, 02:26

Quote:

Originally posted by notyoueither
steele.

I have a seen a save of the dreaded phenomena, I think. Unfortunately I did not keep the save. Maybe Ethelred has it. I believe he may collect such oddities.

Of course, old saves would be useless, since the random seed of old saves is reset on load with 1.21

I just try to help people with their problems. It is kind of fun to see what I can do with someone elses problem. After that I usually get rid of the saves.

I have never lost a tank to a speaman. I have been playing since the day after the game came out. However I am not that big on combat and have only a couple of games on larger than standard maps. I am sure it happens. The closest I came the speaman was a Hoplite in a metropolis. I came within one hit of losing my tank.

This a complaint in search of a real problem. Some people just can't handle losing a unit every two or three hundred attacks.

The random seed is only set on reload if you set up the game that way. Its in with the victory conditions. Default has the seed saved. I don't know what happens in pre 1.21f saves. I would guess it goes with the default.

notyoueither · April 23, 2002, 02:32

Nope. Interestingly, 1.17 saves have the seed reset on reload.

Evil_Eric_4 · April 23, 2002, 14:52

Quote:

Conscript 4
Regular 6
Veteran 9
Elite 12

I set mine at 3-5-6-8
Then I set Medieval units +1 HP
Industrial units +2--with Inf., tanks, marines, airborne at +3 HP early fighters and bombers +2 HP--Stealth bombers +3-- jet fighters +4 HP-- Helos + 2
Modern units +4 HP

I also gave all ships that use oil +4 HP

A veteran modern tank has 10 HP --elite 12 HP
A veteran ancient unit has 6 HP

These settings have 2 good effects.
1.I never lose a tank to an ancient or a BB to a wooden ship or IC
2.The AI understands the added worth and never (as far as I can see) builds inferior units when somethig better is available.(which cuts down even more the likelyhood of #1 happening)

In my current game at these settings I just got done conquering the Russians. In that campaign I sent waves of tanks(they didnt have any oil) against their cities.
EVERY city was defended by loads of Inf. and art. I never saw a single rifleman let alone anything less.
And of course they had lots of cossacks running around.
Anyway I lost only 1 tank in the whole operation.I had lots of retreats and tanks being beaten down to 1 HP though.
The 1 tank I lost was in attacking a city before I beat it down to size 6.

The war was very believable-with me bombarding the hell out of cities while moving inf. and tanks into position- then the tanks killing the defenders and moving on while the inf.occupied the town.

BTW-I have NEVER lost a spearman to a tank