Warfare Calculation

[cavebear]

Help! I must be missing something about calculating warfare outcomes. I have fortified Alpine units within city walls. My cities are being attacked by Armor. The Alpine units get killed and the Armor only goes red.

That shouldn't happen. The Alpine unit should have a defense of 15 just from city walls alone (and being fortified should increase that) and the Armor has only 10 attack. What am I misunderstanding? Or is it just a run of bad luck?

[Smash]

probably just bad luck.I've lost battleships to tanks.Dragoons to phalanx.I even killed a fortified archer on a hill with a friggin warrior.Go figure.My opponent must have been shocked.

"What is this?.Oh just a piddly warrior.No worries"

[shamrock]

Remember that there's much more to the calculations than attack and defense stats. Don't forget about hit point values - these can have a huge impact. I think Armor has 3 hit points where Alpine Troops have just 2. And, of course, it may have been a vet tank...

[Bohlen]

It's most definitely because of the hit points involved. The tank may have less of a chance to successfully hit, but when it does causes greater damage during the combat round.

[cavebear]

Thanks everyone -

It's a game where one AI went Fundie and the other AI (allied together) stayed Rep. I had to go to Fundie to move units around and up my military strength. The Fundie AI has been attacking 2 cities with an endless column of armor for at least 20 turns, 2 or 3 units per turn. I can kill the artillery with fighter units, but they can't kill the armor and marines even on bare ground (and there is a string of hills leading to my 2 cities).

I guess the hit points are the problem. I *did* manage to steal Armor, but I wasn't building it because the defense was the same as Alpine. I see my error now. I should have packed the cities with Armor in spite of the cost.

[cavebear]

Calculations: An attacking Armor vs an Alpine unit.

The Armor has 10 attack with 3 hit points. The Alpine unit has 5 defense with 2 hit points, and is fortified behind city walls on plain grassland.

Armor should be 30, Alpine 30 (doesn't being fortified in the city help? I can't find that in the manual). Still, over a long period of time, my Alpine units lose much more than half the time.

Does being fortified in addition to city walls help?

The Alpines would be worth 60 if the city was on a hill and 90 if on a mountain?

[Indiana Jones]

Firepower also has something to do with it. Check out poison gas units in some of the scenarios. Their A/D stats are not impressive, but they have high fire power and inflict a lot of damage when they win a round.

[DaveV]

Cavebear - there is no additional bonus to fortifying behind city walls. Your unit is x3 whether it's sleeping, waiting for orders, or fortified. I believe the same applies to fortresses.

So city walls really only double the defense of your units (x3 vs. x1.5), and fortresses only provide a 33% boost (x2 vs. x1.5).

[Venger]

quote: Originally posted by DaveV on 05-01-2000 08:09 AM Cavebear - there is no additional bonus to fortifying behind city walls. Your unit is x3 whether it's sleeping, waiting for orders, or fortified. I believe the same applies to fortresses. So city walls really only double the defense of your units (x3 vs. x1.5), and fortresses only provide a 33% boost (x2 vs. x1.5).

Is this documented somewhere? I haven't seen that before...

Venger

Neither have I

------------------
Long live the Communists!
-- SilverDragon

[DaveV]

I haven't seen it anywhere in the Civ2 documentation. In the Civ1 FAQ (a great document; I wish there were something equivalent for Civ2) it states clearly that you will get the maximum of fortification bonus OR fortress bonus OR city walls bonus. In many instances, Civ2 uses the same rules as Civ1, and I thought it was generally agreed these defensive bonus rules still apply (if not, time for some testing).

It is worth fortifying your defenders behind city walls if they're likely to face howitzers, boats, or bombers - they would pick up the fortified bonus although they would lose the city walls bonus.

[Sieve Too]

Dave V is correct that you only get 1 fortification bonus.

After much experimentation, it was found that in general defense values are calculated this way:

defense = D * V * T * F

where

D = the unit's stated defensive value
V = 1.5 for veterans, 1 for non vets
T = the terrain bonus:
3 for mountains
2 for hills
1.5 for forest, swamp, jungle, river
1 for all others
F = the largest applicable of:
3 for city walls
2 for fortress
1.5 for fortifying
1 none of the above

Unfortunately, I never tested any of the other special defense modifiers like Coastal Fortress vs. ship, SAM vs. air, AEGIS bonus, etc. But for defending ground units, the above does hold.