retreat

[nap2]

How come my modern armor doesn't retreat when losing a battle against say an infantry... my unit is faster.

Not that it matter too much, sometimes my armor makes a furious comeback to kill the enemy with only one life left, and I have 412 modern armor and 394 mech inf. on the map right now....but its just the principle.

[Theseus]

First off: Buff military.

Second, and in response: On the last hp, your attacker will retreat some of the time, but not always. It's related to experience; I'm pretty sure it works as follows:

Conscript: 40%
Regular: 50%
Veteran: 60%
Elite: 70%

[AIL]

This was changed in I think 1.17f... The always retreat made Certain Units like Mounted Warriors and Cavalry too powerful and so it was tweaked.

In 1.21 the AI reacted to that balance change by building less Horsemen and more Swordmen and later on more Riflemen and Infantry instead of Cavalry.

[zulu9812]

I think they should put it back in - fast units should have that advantage

[Lucilla]

Originally posted by zulu9812
I think they should put it back in - fast units should have that advantage

They would be almost immortal, if they'd always retreat. I like it the way it is. You could always change the likelyhood for retreating with the editor, of course.

I just looked it up there, and the correct values are (if retreat bonus is the same as likelyhood for retreating???):
Conscript - 34
Regular - 50
Veteran - 58
Elite - 66

So in general it's a bit lower than Theseus thought.

[nap2]

Yeah, one of the most annoying things, especially early in the game was an attack by 20 jaguar warriors, none of which die and none of which get through. But they just keep coming...

It was so damn annoying....

[Theseus]

Thanks Lucilla, I may have been quoting old numbers.

Still, I find this concept absolutely compelling... when you "add" the likelihood of retreat to the odds of destroying the defender, the argument for only using experienced units becomes stunning.

I played around over the last few days with the "Civilization Calculator" which is the only accurate approach to combat odds I've found... consider the difference in Cav vs. Rifleman combat:

[The experience levels below are for the Cav; assume the Rifleman is reg, and unfortified on open ground]

Reg - 46%
Vet - 61%
Elite - 73%

Now consider that with the retreat probabilities!

[Theseus]

BTW:

http://www.columbia.edu/~sdc2002/civulator.html

[Solver]

Of course, with retreating always on some units were overpowered. Before 1.17f, my general strategy was to go for Feudalism if I got Horses and Iron, build Knights almost exclusively, and run over 2 or 3 other civs. They would retreat, so I would lose less units than produce as reinforcements.

Also, Cavalry seemed damn powerful to many, now it's tuned down thusly.

[Lucilla]

Very useful link, Theseus. Thanks!

[Stuie]

I thought it was toned down too much, so I switched it to the following in my bic file:

Conscript - 34
Regular - 50
Veteran - 60
Elite - 75

Veterans get a little more of an edge, and Elite units act as they should: Elite.

[punkbass2000]

Making elites 100% would be interesting. It would really boost militariatic, though.

[SpacemanSpiff]

Originally posted by nap2
How come my modern armor doesn't retreat when losing a battle against say an infantry... my unit is faster.

Is it Infantry or Mechanized Infantry? Modern Armor will never retreat from Mechanized Infantry even though Modern Armor's 3 movemnet is faster that Mechanized Infantry's 2 movement. Any (land) unit with movement greater than 1 is classified "fast mover" and is able to retreat from any non-"fast movers" and will prevent and "fast movers" from retreating from it - even if the other "fast mover" is even faster.

Though if you're attacking standard Infantry, with it's movement of 1 you have a "fast mover" v a "slow mover" and should be able to retreat with the %s others have mentioned.

Of course I'm not much of a war-monger (at least in Civ III), so I don't have much practical experience to back this up, so feel free to correct me if someone has contradictory info.

Spiff