Thread Tools
Old October 28, 2002, 08:19   #1
jshelr
Civilization III PBEMIron CiversC3CDG Ankh-Morpork
Emperor
 
jshelr's Avatar
 
Local Time: 05:57
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: pittsburgh
Posts: 4,132
Tanks versus Infantry / Arty combo
Can anyone help the statistically challenged individual who can't figure the odds of a vet tank attacking a vet infantry unit "protected" by an artillery? Thanks
jshelr is offline  
Old October 28, 2002, 12:02   #2
fittstim
Warlord
 
fittstim's Avatar
 
Local Time: 10:57
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Posts: 265
Well it's not so cut and dry as you might want to think but I'll make a stab at an answer.

It's a 50-50 proposition.

Here's why:

If the infantry is FORTIFIED and NOT on Hill/Mnt/For/Jung/City/Fortification tile, then the straight odds are:

15:16 in favor of the tank.

If the infantry is NOT FORTIFIED and not protected as described above, then the odds are:

10:16 in favor of the tank.

For/Hill/Jung/: 13:16 for tank
Mount: 15:16 for tank

The odds change in favor of the fortified infantry (sometimes heavily - fortified in a metropolis on a hill = 25:16 for the infantry = a >60% victory chance per round) dependent on the terrain.

The artillery is sort of a joke (IMO). Don't know what the ratios are but my guess is around a 25% success rate. This is provided that your artillery didn't attack during your round of attacks - otherwise it won't fire in defensive support.
fittstim is offline  
Old October 28, 2002, 12:32   #3
jshelr
Civilization III PBEMIron CiversC3CDG Ankh-Morpork
Emperor
 
jshelr's Avatar
 
Local Time: 05:57
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: pittsburgh
Posts: 4,132
Thanks.

The reason I ask is that, playing as Babylon, we saw our settlers decimated by barbarians in the early game and ended up way behind the curve. The game boiled down to Russia in the middle of a complex pangea map, with survivors Japan, Rome and Babs surrounding. Russia has tanks, but is at war with everyone after a little bribery on the Babs part. The three allies are on combustion.

With nothing else to do, the Babs walked a large stack of arty/infantry into Russia's territory. Russia left them alone and they were able to decimate two cities (so far) with few infantry losses taken in the process of killing red-lined defenders. I was just wondering if the AI knew something I didn't know about tank vs arty-covered-infantry battles to explain why Russia didn't use its tank advantage to trim the infantry stack??

Your response indicates the fight is even without arty. If the arty knocks a hit point down on the tank 25% of the time, it looks like the result would shift to infantry winning more than 50%. Given relative unit costs, Russia may have a serious problem.
jshelr is offline  
Old October 28, 2002, 12:59   #4
Solver
lifer
Civilization IV CreatorsAge of Nations TeamApolytoners Hall of FamePolyCast TeamBtS Tri-LeagueThe Courts of Candle'BreC4WDG Team Apolyton
Deity
 
Solver's Avatar
 
Local Time: 12:57
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Latvia, Riga
Posts: 18,355
Uhmm, attacking with Infantry still doesn't seem an exciting option to me, if he defends with Infantry as well. My best bet would be to scatter the infantry around his land, pillaging stuff and getting to sit in Mountains, and also have artillery do casual bombing of cities and improvements.
__________________
Solver, WePlayCiv Co-Administrator
Contact: solver-at-weplayciv-dot-com
I can kill you whenever I please... but not today. - The Cigarette Smoking Man
Solver is offline  
Old October 28, 2002, 13:37   #5
jshelr
Civilization III PBEMIron CiversC3CDG Ankh-Morpork
Emperor
 
jshelr's Avatar
 
Local Time: 05:57
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: pittsburgh
Posts: 4,132
Solver

Your skepticism is well founded. I started this thread because I was shocked at the success of the infantry attack and wondered if others had been successful with the "infantry/arty" rush, or this was a special case.

The arty stack were able to drop every infantry defender in a city to one hit point left. After that, the infantry attackers succeeded very often and we got some promotions as well, which partly made up for the losses. "Rush" is a misleading term in this case. It's slow and a bit tedious to move and bombard.
__________________
Illegitimi Non Carborundum
jshelr is offline  
Old October 28, 2002, 14:05   #6
Random Passerby
Warlord
 
Local Time: 09:57
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Jan 2002
Posts: 187
The infantry/artillery combo is very effective in terms of attack power; its weakness is a matter of speed alone. Your attacking infantry should never face A:D ratios of worse than roughly 1:3 (since you can just as easily bombard cities to rubble), but they have at least 4 hitpoints to the defender's likely 1. If you can tolerate moving at such a speed, once you catch up you might want to try an infantry/artillery/tank combo; it is all but impossible to ever take any casualties in your main offensive forces if you use your infantry/artillery stacks to bomb their defending infantry down to 1 hp and then bring in tanks.

Still, since tanks are so absurdly inexpensive to build and so vastly powerful, it's often generally more effective to just build nothing but tanks and throw them in large numbers at things until they break.
Random Passerby is offline  
Old October 28, 2002, 14:18   #7
Solver
lifer
Civilization IV CreatorsAge of Nations TeamApolytoners Hall of FamePolyCast TeamBtS Tri-LeagueThe Courts of Candle'BreC4WDG Team Apolyton
Deity
 
Solver's Avatar
 
Local Time: 12:57
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Latvia, Riga
Posts: 18,355
For the record, I really like infantry as a unit. It makes an excellent defender, it can also attack reasonably well in the field, but again, I prefer to send in some two transports of these and just scatter them around.

For my liking, though, the game has Artillery too low chances to hit their target. It should be higher somewhat, IMO.
__________________
Solver, WePlayCiv Co-Administrator
Contact: solver-at-weplayciv-dot-com
I can kill you whenever I please... but not today. - The Cigarette Smoking Man
Solver is offline  
Old October 28, 2002, 14:59   #8
jshelr
Civilization III PBEMIron CiversC3CDG Ankh-Morpork
Emperor
 
jshelr's Avatar
 
Local Time: 05:57
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: pittsburgh
Posts: 4,132
"Still, since tanks are so absurdly inexpensive to build and so vastly powerful, it's often generally more effective to just build nothing but tanks and throw them in large numbers at things until they break."

Ain't it the truth!
jshelr is offline  
 

Bookmarks

Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is On

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 05:57.


Design by Vjacheslav Trushkin, color scheme by ColorizeIt!.
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.2
Copyright ©2000 - 2010, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Apolyton Civilization Site | Copyright © The Apolyton Team