Technological Superiority Doesn't Matter in War

[F18fett]

That's what the combat system in Civ 3 keeps wanting me to believe! Here's a story from a recent game...

I was playing as the French, and was bordering the Aztecs. I was very far ahead of the Aztecs in terms of technology, and had Riflemen, Cavalry, and Artillery. My Aztec neighbors were guarding their border with knights, longbowmen, and spearmen. I discovered Replaceable Parts and found to my dismay, that I had no rubber. I looked on the border and saw two rubber resources in Montezuma's empire. I figured I could capture just one and be fine. I gathered a force of cavalry and an artillery piece and moved into his land to capture the city with the rubber. First, one of my cavalry (that was fortified in the jungle) was killed by a knight. I wondered how armor clad men with swords could wipe out my mounted and fortified riflemen, but went on. I used my artillery to decimate the knight and had another cavalry kill it. I then assaulted the city, captured it, and garrisoned it with two cavalry.

Then the Aztecs attacked. Their all powerful, fear inspiring, longbowman attacked the fortified cavalry and won. How could men armed with bows and arrows shoot into a city guarded by men with rifles? It makes zero sense. Another longbowman attacked and killed the last valiant cavalry, and retook the city. If this had been Civ2, my cavalry would've repulsed every pathetic unit in their ancient/medieval era army. Please Firaxis, do something about this combat discrepancy.

Also, for anyone wondering, I was playing on Chieftan level. I wouldn't mind if this happened on Diety, but Chieftan?

[Transcend]

Zulus with only spears and arrows wiped out an British Army of several thousands at Isandlwhana in 1879.

Afghan Tribesman destroyed an British force of 12000 in 1842.

Ethiopian warriors armed with primitive rifles destroyed an Italian Tank Division in 1934.

A Morrocan insurrection of few thousands tribesmen destroyed a Spanish Army of at least 30,000 men, killing as many as 19,000.

English Longbowmen massacred over 10,000 French knights at Battle of Agincourt. The French army outnumber the English by 5:1.

History is full of example of weaker force wiping out the stronger one. Your cavalry has a defense value of 3, while the longbowmen has 4. It's no wonder that your cavalry got massacred here. Next, show some better leadership and garrison the city with riflemen and infantry.

[jbird]

In Civ3, in my experience, combined arms are essential. Simply attacking with a horde of advanced units of all one type is not enough.

Heck, even in later times, tanks unsupported by artillery and infantry are quite vulnerable. Also, tanks on defensive duty are pretty vulnerable as well. I've found that i've needed to drastically alter my tactics from Civ2, and now use tanks to break through enemy lines and provide an alley for my infantry to advance with artillery support. Then, the tanks have to seize the high ground in strength, and protect the flanks from fast-moving raiders that might try to hit my infantry. Then, the infantry moves up covering the artillery, the artillery hits the city, and the infantry move in to take it.

I'm actually finding that Civ3's combat, while different from Civ2 and sometimes having strange results, requires much more of a tactical mindset, and that combined arms are the *only* way to go.

Jbird

[Setsuna]

That's all well and good against a scientific equal jbird, but not against someone who hasn't even figured out that the Earth revolves around the Sun.

[F18fett]

Zulus with only spears and arrows wiped out an British Army of several thousands at Isandlwhana in 1879.

And then 100 British riflemen held off 4000 Zulus at Rorke's Drift. It was also only 1500 British and Native soldiers. If you haven't noticed, my favorite movie is Zulu.

But the thing is, you posted many exceptions. The Italian Army wasn't exactly all that great either. The British and French thing I could understand, since they were both of the same time period. But a lot of your examples rely on the use of terrain. Terrain was in my favor, not their's.

History is full of example of weaker force wiping out the stronger one. Your cavalry has a defense value of 3, while the longbowmen has 4. It's no wonder that your cavalry got massacred here. Next, show some better leadership and garrison the city with riflemen and infantry.

My cavalry were fortified though. That provides a 50% increase. 50% of 3 is 1.5 so my total defense was 4.5, a little larger than the longbowman's attack. However, shouldn't it be taken into account that my men were fighting from within a city, and with more powerful weapons?

jbird:

How could I have used combined arms in my situation?

[Venger]

Originally posted by Transcend
Zulus with only spears and arrows wiped out an British Army of several thousands at Isandlwhana in 1879.

And a tiny band of British defended against a mass of Zulu at Rourke's Drift...numbers will outweigh technology. Quantity has a quality all it's own. But technology can make one man fight as many...

Afghan Tribesman destroyed an British force of 12000 in 1842.

Again outnumbered by what? 10 to 1? 100 to 1?

Ethiopian warriors armed with primitive rifles destroyed an Italian Tank Division in 1934.

Numbers...and hey, they were Italian!

A Morrocan insurrection of few thousands tribesmen destroyed a Spanish Army of at least 30,000 men, killing as many as 19,000.

Don't know nothing about this...

English Longbowmen massacred over 10,000 French knights at Battle of Agincourt. The French army outnumber the English by 5:1.

Got to love the ranged attack...

The original point...leaps in military technology aren't reflected on the Civ3 battlefield. In fact, it is likely that your musketeers will be defeated attacking my legionarys. Dude, THATS $@#ED UP!!! Civ2 for all of it's combat faults had the best trans era rules concept, firepower. A legion should not be able to defeat musketeers. But that is the defacto occurence under the default combat rules. And it's dumb as all hell. 2000 years of military advancement between the legion and musketeers and all I got was a lousy T-shirt...

History is full of example of weaker force wiping out the stronger one.

It's filled with far more examples of stronger forces defeating weaker ones. The reason you remember the "weaker" unit victories is because they are anamolous...

Your cavalry has a defense value of 3, while the longbowmen has 4.

Cavalry should savage a non-gunpowder unit. Why does the knight have the same defense as the cavalry?

It's no wonder that your cavalry got massacred here. Next, show some better leadership and garrison the city with riflemen and infantry.

The same riflemen that cannot attack and defeat Persian immortals?!?

The solution is probably beyond a patch...firepower needs to be reinstituted. Instead, we're gonna have to monkey with all the attack values to make them work...and that sucks.

Venger

[Soapyfrog]

You should have had musketmen or riflemen following up to garrison the city. Cavalry blows hard on defence. In any case an archer has an even chance of taking out a fortified cavalry of equal experience level... sounds like you were unlucky, to boot (that does happen you know!). A single rifleman probably would have killed both archers no sweat.

In my experience the offensive units are very poor defenders, and should always be backed up by a defensive unit. It makes warfare a little more challenging and thought-provoking instead of the blitzkreig that always occurred in Civ2.

[Provost Harrison]

Perhaps someone needs to modify all the attack and defence values in the game, it isn't too hard a task, just requires a bit of thought...

[dexters]

Let me put it as lightly as I can.

Forget Civ 2 and relearn Civ 3. It's a different game. don't expect to use the same strategy in battle.

Gone are the days of boring combat. Good riddance.

[Setsuna]

Neither was SMAC, but that didn't mean we had to put up with Impact Chaos Rovers being defeated by Synthmetal Sentinals.

Your point is irrelevant.

[Venger]

Originally posted by dexters
Let me put it as lightly as I can.

Forget Civ 2 and relearn Civ 3.

Let me put it as lightly as I can.

Screw your patronization. Civ3 has a broken combat system.

It's a different game. don't expect to use the same strategy in battle.

What strategy is that? Oh, of using more modern units against older units, because now it's just a crapshoot in every battle. Civ3 combat is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.

Gone are the days of boring combat. Good riddance.

Yeah, I just hate it when game results make sense, much more fun to go back to the days of the phalanx battleship scenario.

Civ3 suffers from a total lack of gameplay testing. And it shows.

Venger

[RichM]

Quantity is much more important than quality in this game. 15 of anything will overrun 2 mech infantry. That was not the case in previous civs.

[Evan]

"In fact, it is likely that your musketeers will be defeated attacking my legionarys. Dude, THATS $@#ED UP!!! "

?????

An essentially defensive unit losing when trying to attack is f-ed up? Sounds right to me.

Musketeer's guns are pretty much single shot guns. While that make work pretty good on defense when you can duck behind cover to reload, it is pretty tough to do while advancing on the attack.

Muskeeteers losing while attacking a fortified melee group is perfectly reasonable.

[dexters]

Quantity is much more important than quality in this game. 15 of anything will overrun 2 mech infantry. That was not the case in previous civs.

That is true, but I prefer this style of play over the overwhelming superiority you get in Civ 2 once you get ahead technologically.

If you talk in real terms, things aren't that simple. An advance army will still find tough resistance from an outdated obsolete army.

And because the battlefield is more even, tactics and strategy matter much more than in previous games where you basically line up a few units and know you'll win.

(don't get the false impression technology doesn't matter. having better units is a major ADVANTAGE but its not the only advantage. Knowing how to use your units matters very much)

[SuiteSisterMary]

musketeers will be defeated attacking my legionarys

Spelling aside, this example is poor.

Think to the most famous of Musketeers, The Three Musketeers. What are they best known for? Their awesome sword skills. Why? Because muskets were BLOODY USELESS WEAPONS!

Longbowmen take out calvary in a city

Well, calvary lose their advantage in a city, and I'll point out that English Longbows had better range, accuracy and damage than civil war style rifles, which the rifleman represents.

[Soapyfrog]

Venger, I beg to disagree.

The fact is that until the early 19th century, the primary cause of death on the battlefield was cold steel. Muskets were simple not usefull in massed formations at a range much greater than 50 paces or so, and the fixed bayonet (or mounted cavalry) charge remained the primary method of driving the ememy from the field, a tactic that remained in use until WWI.

I am quite sure that a well drilled Roman legion would receive such a charge and cut it to pieces having a) far better armor and b) a much greater familiarty with the tools of hand to hand combat.

In any case, the cavalry depicted in Civ3 is misleading, since it portrays cavalry firing carbines form horseback, a tactic that was almost universally ineffective since it's inception except as a skirmishing/harrassing tactic, and in fact right up until WWI (unless employed as mounted light infantry, whereupon they would fight dismounted) cavalry used the sabre and the lance as their main weapons, and were generally inffective against well formed infantry.

The big technological jumps are artillery, rifles, tanks, and flight, which are well represented by the dramatic increase in combat power of those units in the game.

[mmike87]

Granted, spearman CAN defeat rifleman. But it should not be a regular occurance. Here's what i would like to see:

1) Combat system with modifiers for what age the unit if from. Make it harder for Conscript Warriors to defeat Elite Rifleman. Not 100% impossible, but it should not happen as often as it does.
2) Fortifying units. Unit defense bonus should increase slightly as time goes by. The longer the unit is "dug in" they should get a better bonus.
3) Armies. We need to be able to have groups of units attack/defend as one. At least we don't lose the whole stack now, and I DO like the retreating. This LEADER stuff is for the birds. Armies should be available as soon as some advanced tacticts are discovered.
4) Aircraft should be able to destroy shipping. This is a major f*** up in my opinion. It was done for game balance, geeze just give the ships more AA capability.
5) Horses should NOT be a strategic resource. They can be bred, and once introduced my forces would capture and breed our own horses. Horses as a SR was a bad idea, although I generally like the idea overall.
6) Seems that air combat is broken entirely anyway.
7) When a city reverts to it's original civ, why do I lose ALL my unit garrisoned in that city? I lost 6 armor units once, and it took me 5 units destroyed to take the city in the first place. Of course, the computer was ready to exploit this, and went on to kick my butt. Coincidence? I think not. I have yet to EVER have one of my cities revert back to me, and that's messed up. if the city reverts, kick my units out, maybe kill off one of them, but 6 armor units? Killed by a city with a population of 3? NO WAY.

It's frustrating to attack with multiple advanced, expensive armor and mechanized units only to have the invasion thawrted by a bunch of spearman!

Let's fix this combat system!

[dexters]

LOL. The Euro centricity of the boards is painfully obvious.

The Japanese, during its a prolonged civil war in the 1600's have developed a layered musket firing formation where the front row would fire, the second row would aim, and the third row would reload. This cycle ensures constant pressure on the enemy as the firing line never pauses to reload because someone is always firing while the other lines are loading or aiming.

The man who devised this strategy was Oda Nobunaga a great Samurai who almost united Japan. He was betrayed by a top general in a rebellion and he committed suicide. The man who succeeded him, Tokugawa , is the Shogun you see in the game. It should also be said the formating firing strategy did not filter into Europe until about a hundred years a later.

[dexters]

Originally posted by mmike87
Granted, spearman CAN defeat rifleman. But it should not be a regular occurance.

I'm not sure which planet you're from but a spearman has an attack rating of 1, and a defense rating of 2.

A rifleman has an attack rating of 3, and a defense rating of 6.

If you bothered to read the manual, you'll see that combat is calculated like this. If a spearman attacks a rifleman, 1 (its attack rating) is added to 6 (rifleman's defense rating) = 7

and then you use 1 divided by 7 = 14.2% So a spearman has 14.2 % chance of defeating a rifleman. Not counting any defensive bonsuses.

Again, I ask you folks to be aware of defensive bonsuses in battle. And if one who likes to play the "reality" card, let me remind you that rag tag warriors hiding in rugged mountains can destroy entire Tank divisions as the Russians experienced in Afghanistan in the 1980s. So yes, defensive bonsuses are realistic.

Units stationed on mountains get 100% defensive bonus, so their defense rating doubles from their original number. If its 2, it goes up to 4.

If you have a rifleman attack a spearman on a mountain, spearman has defensive rating of 2, multiply that by 100% and you get a defensive rating of 4. Rifleman has an attack rating of 3. Using the same formula, 3 + 4 = 7, 3 divide by 7 = 42%

so a rifleman has a 42% chance. And you also have to factor in whether the unit is elite , veteran, regular or conscript. Hitpoints matter.

[TCO]

Originally posted by Soapyfrog
Venger, I beg to disagree.

The fact is that until the early 19th century, the primary cause of death on the battlefield was cold steel. Muskets were simple not usefull in massed formations at a range much greater than 50 paces or so, and the fixed bayonet (or mounted cavalry) charge remained the primary method of driving the ememy from the field, a tactic that remained in use until WWI.

Bayonets are still used nowadays. Not that often, though. The commander of the Ranger forces in the big Somalia battle was a stickler for making his troops carry all their equipment. The one time he let up and told them to leave their bayonets home was the time they needed them. As the forces were trapped inside a hellish, hostile city overnight*

*Read Blackhawk Down for more detail. The US forces succecfully wethered the night and extricated over ground. In the process, completing the assigned snatch mission (emerging with their target), killing 100s of Somalis and losing 18 US soldiers. It could have easily been a complet rout.

[TCO]

Dexter, you're wasting your time. These wimps just want to steamroller over the AI. They can't handle more uncertainty in their strategic planning. And they want the game to be easier. They probably never played above king in Civ2.

[Trifna]

Originally posted by Transcend
Zulus with only spears and arrows wiped out an British Army of several thousands at Isandlwhana in 1879.

Afghan Tribesman destroyed an British force of 12000 in 1842.

Ethiopian warriors armed with primitive rifles destroyed an Italian Tank Division in 1934.

A Morrocan insurrection of few thousands tribesmen destroyed a Spanish Army of at least 30,000 men, killing as many as 19,000.

English Longbowmen massacred over 10,000 French knights at Battle of Agincourt. The French army outnumber the English by 5:1.

History is full of example of weaker force wiping out the stronger one. Your cavalry has a defense value of 3, while the longbowmen has 4. It's no wonder that your cavalry got massacred here. Next, show some better leadership and garrison the city with riflemen and infantry.

Yeah yeah... so does it make it a general case? I guess Civ III has some serious tuning to do...

[mmike87]

Dexter, I did read the manual. And, I am quite aware of your little formula. However, it is my observations, across several games, that either 1) The formula as implemented in the game is wrong or 2) The random number generator is producing poor results.

If you had bothered to read what I said, I stated that it should not be impossible for the Spearmen to defeat the rifleman. But it should be unlikely. Your 14% figure is probably a fair assessment of how this battle should go.

And, if I thought the game was actually producing these odds I would not have said that in the first place. I lose advanced unites to stone age units MUCH more often that ~14% of the time.

That is what I am saying.

[F18fett]

No one has shown how a longbowman could defeat entrenched cavalry twice.

[mmike87]

GP - I suppose that the fact the air superiority seems to seldom work, if at all is a feature in your eyes? The features in the game that are not working correctly add to the uncertainty of battle and should be viewed as a realism enhancing element?

[TCO]

mmike. I've posted in few of the air superiority threads. I'm on your side on that issue. Don't try to make it all black or white. Even if you are this way, I'm not.

[mmike87]

Just because some people think the combat system needs some tuning does not make us "wimps." It's not all black and white.

I want to play at a higher shill level against a challenging AI - not against idiosyncracies that are simply frustrating.

For record, I like the game. It just needs some tweaks.

[Venger]

Originally posted by SuiteSisterMary

Spelling aside, this example is poor.

Think to the most famous of Musketeers, The Three Musketeers. What are they best known for? Their awesome sword skills. Why? Because muskets were BLOODY USELESS WEAPONS!

So who would win in a battle, the 10th Regiment of Foot or the First Cohort of Rome? Hint - it isn't the Romans.

Well, calvary lose their advantage in a city,

Why? You think they stay on horseback defending in the city? Cavalry was quite often, one could argue most, most effectively used as dragoons, or mounted infantry. The horses just moved them from point a to b. The days of the mounted charge into the line was over with the invention of the bayonet...

and I'll point out that English Longbows had better range, accuracy and damage than civil war style rifles, which the rifleman represents.

The bow and arrow is an effective weapon, ask Custer... however the Massachusetts 54th would savage the Kings Footemen, attacking or defending. So would have any cavalry unit from the Civil War.

The battles with all the British longbowmen fail to mention the English Knights holding the line, dismounted using their lances for pikes (thanks Robert for the reference...). Knights against Longbowmen is a slaughter. But longbowmen supported by pikemen are extremely powerful.

And yes f18, you should have seen a better showing from your unit. Actually, cavalry should have similar attack and defense ratings - their advantage is in their mobility.

Venger

[Soapyfrog]

F18fett - 2 rolls of @50% chance. Definitely well within the realm of possiblity. You want to improve your chances dramatically, make sure your are defending with entrenched riflemen.

BTW having engaed in a TON of combat throughout the game, I find that obsolete units winning combats is quite rare, and often more a product of my overconfidence and/or carelessness (attacking a spearman defending a size 14 city with a heaviliy damaged cavalry...)

Usually if you have the tech edge you can dramatically stack the odds in your favour. I just fought a war in which the enemy outnumbered me about 5:1 but he had cavalry, musketmen, and war elephants where I had infantry and tanks. I defeated his invasion with minimal unit loss and did not lose a single city before switching over to the offensive and easily capturing 6 cities in quick succession with only one casualty.

I think it is more a function of obsolete units winning a combat being startling to the point that you notice it more than the twenty other times the obsolete unit was killed...

[mmike87]

Dexter,
"Again, I ask you folks to be aware of defensive bonsuses in battle. And if one who likes to play the "reality" card, let me remind you that rag tag warriors hiding in rugged mountains can destroy entire Tank divisions as the Russians experienced in Afghanistan in the 1980s. So yes, defensive bonsuses are realistic. "

Not a fair comparison. Our freedom fighting friends were armed with heavy machine guns, anti-tank mines, and shoulder-launched anti-tank rockets. Not to mention Stinger missiles.

They did not have spears and longbows.

I do not dispute the formulas. I dispute the results that I see, over and over again.