Still Don't Like the Combat system

[Andrew Cory]

Originally posted by Brutus66

Mea culpa, I suppose. The Civil War thing is an interesting topic, and there's a lot of intelligent, educated folks on these boards. A post like Andrew's is like bait to a big mouth bass, and we went right for it.

Yeah, I probobly should appologize for that, I wasn't having a very good day that day, and seeing a post calling Lee a hero sent me into a feeding frenzy...

Sorry guys!

[Andrew Cory]

Originally posted by player1
And, besides...

Non Americans are not interested in American civil war too much.

At least as much as Americans are interested in first Serbian rebellion against Turks.

You might be surprized. I don't know a whole lot about that, but I _am_ interested in such things.

[Dom Pedro II]

Darnedest thing in the last game I was playing. Myself and about a half dozen other nations were in a gang-looting of German cities, and I was bringing up all of my recently upgraded Artillery and using it to blast Infantry units to mulch before attacking with Cavalry... I captured one city this way only to feel like a fool the next turn when my Chinese allies just went head-first with their Cavalry and were easily taking over German cities. With 3 or 4 Cavalry, they were taking German cities with 1-3 Infantry defenders (no preliminary bombardment either). Then I tried it myself, and it was actually working fairly well!


And as a follow-up on my contreversial statement about the Civil War:

France & Britain's intervention on behalf of the Confederacy would have had important ramifications for the Polish Rebellion of January 1863. Russia was hoping that the two European powers would not seek to recognize the CSA for fear of their intervention in Poland. In fact, the Tsar even had his navy sent to the USA for "moral support" of the Union to keep from having it blown to bits if war broke out that year.

If the Great Powers had intervened in America only a few months before, the already skiddish tsar and distrustful Minister Gorchakov never would have agreed to sign an alliance with Bismarck in February, 1863 pledging to crush Polish insurrection. (In reality, Napoleon III tried unsuccessfully to rally the Great Powers to declare war on Prussia and Russia because of this treaty, so fear was not unfounded). Bismarck, who already believed that Napoleon and Gorchakov were conspiring to create an independent Polish state out of Prussian Poland as a Russian puppet state, would have used his back-up plan: Make a Dual Monarchy of Prussia-Poland from Russian Poland.

If this had happened, the Danish conflict of 1864 would have been more like a general European war. The king of Denmark in that year incorporated the German provinces of Schleswig-Holstein into the kingdom of Denmark. A combined Prussian/Austrian army invaded the territories, which precipated the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. England's Parliament failed to pass a declaration of war against Prussia for its unlawful invasion by just the slimmest of margins. Now, had Bismarck made the rather provacative move of declaring the Dual Monarchy, England and France would most likely have been much more wary of Bismarck's policy toward Denmark. Furthermore, the diplomatic disaster of the Polish conflict never would have happened, and the Anglo-French bonds would not have been permanently severed, so a cooperative effort against the Prussians was still likely. If that had happened, that would have been the end of Bismarck's reign as chancellor right there, and his German Empire would have been stillborn.

But for those skeptics out there who doubt that such a series of events could have taken place, there is still more... Even if everything had played out in Europe exactly the same right up until 1869, the Franco-Prussian War would still have taken a very different turn because the catalyst for the war never would have happened. Back in 1864, the Spanish invaded a series of Peruvian islands and almost certainly would have sparked war with the United States for violation of the Monroe Doctrine (not to mention the fact that at the same time they were trying to force the island of Santo Domingo (Domican Republic today) back into a colony) had not the country been embroiled in the Civil War. Now, had the South pulled off a victory in 1862 and Britain and France had recognized the CSA, the US troops would have been freed up by 1864 and William H Seward would have had a deep anamosity towards those meddling Europeans. To further back up that Seward probably would have prodded the President to seek war against Spain, in 1861, Seward advised going to war to capture Cuba because expansionist Southern Democrats would have rallied behind the cause and asked to rejoin the Union. Lincoln wisely dismissed the idea in 1861, but the situation would have been a very different one in 1864 especially if it were Hannibal Hamlin as our 17th President.

The importance of ALL that is that one of the primary leaders of the rebellion to overthrow Queen Isabella of Spain was the man who invaded the Peruvian islands in 1864. When the Queen was overthrown, Napoleon III wanted to put a Bourbon on the throne, but Bismarck rudely prodded the French by insisting on a Hohenzollern monarch. This was the catalyst for the Franco-Prussian War... Now, had the Spanish-American War been in 1864 instead of 1898, that lead rebel would have been scrapped along with his navy in Havana Harbor five years before he was supposed to depose his queen.

Probably Bismarck would have found some other way to goad the French into war, but how long would it have taken? In the early part of the 1870s, a situation was brewing that would have wrecked his plans. Russia and Britain, who had been competing for power in the Mid East since before the Crimean War were getting ready to go at it again in the 1870s. Trouble had begun again between Turkey and Russia, and the Russians sent a huge army down toward Constantinople... the tactless Russian general declared a new Russian puppet state known as "Big Bulgaria" that threatened to disrupt the entire political system of Southeastern Europe. By 1876, the situation had grown tense, and only Bismarck, as leader of the unified German Empire, stopped it from sparking a general European war. Without his Three Emperor's Alliance, formed after the unification, he would have been trying to stop a moving train with his bare hands. And even if the Franco-Prussian War had come beforehand in 1871 or '72, there's no guarantee that France would not have won. It was bad luck primarily that led to France's defeat, and Bismarck's whirlwind victory might have become a long, drawn-out campaign.

And for those who STILL are not satisfied, there are a few more historical markers that would have made the difference. The Algecirus Conference of 1906 that stopped war between France and Germany would have been tough without Teddy Roosevelt to mediate it particularly since he had set this precedent from his mediation in the Russo-Japanese War. There might well have been war in 1906 localized just between Germany and France in a Second Franco-Prussian War. In that case, Germany would have been the likely victor, and the conflict would have been over rather quickly... And even if THAT is not enough, then let's assume that World War I started exactly as it did in real life. Germany offered Britain an armistice in 1916, which Britain promptly rejected fully convinced the Americans would be along shortly to giving the Germans a good thumping. Even if America was not still harboring some resentment towards Britain and France's intervention in the Civil War, the country would not have been in that imperialist, glorified, nationalistic fervor it was in during the early 20th century, and it likely would have remained like its sister republic the CSA a neutral player in the Great War.

Of course, maybe something entirely different would have happened. Maybe NONE of what I said would have happened, and NONE of what really did happen would have happened, and maybe none of what really did happen would have happened, and instead it would have been some third alternative. Who knows... its just a theory afterall. But I would have rather taken my chances than to have had the terrible history of bloodshed we have had in this century as well as the rise of imperialist America.

Well, no doubt I'll be receiving criticism for this, so I step down for the egging...

[Encomium]

Dom Pedro II,

Jeez!! My head is swimming with all that. Talk about history interlocking, and one event effecting all of history.

I had wondered why the Russians were favoring and friendly to Lincoln, documents on that I had seen and knew about.

A reasonable bottom line is that if the South had won the Civil War it would have been a calamity not just for the slaves, but for history. With expansion and rivalries in the West, in the Caribbean, and overseas, another war was inevitable. Eventually the South would have ben reconquered, especially with Northern industry and population growing so fast.

But by then, America would have been so weakened it would never have been able to successfully intervene in Europeam Wars in the 20th century, and might never have become the world power it did, leaving a power vacuum to whom? Germany? A victorious Hitler?

Thankfully, the North won the Civil War, and America was able to perform a positive role in history. For any America-haters out there who do not think it was positive, bleep off.

[Encomium]

.

[Whoha]

the combat system can be dealt with, doubling the hitpoints(except for conscripts, they should be weak anyways, though if they get a moral upgrade they get some power) seems to do the trick as far as land units are concerned.

[Dienstag]

*increasingly sorry that I mentioned Cav vs Infantry*
Before anyone mentions unit stats or WWI anecdotes again, or offers more tips on the subject, just lemme say I wasn't complaining that I was losing cavalry units to infantry. I was just lamenting what I'm still pretty sure was a long string of Even-Lower-Than-Statistically-Probable results, or so I thought. It was also such an unlikely strategic situation that lead to those attacks, that I'm really not worried about it ever happening again. Furthermore, it really doesn't have that much to do with the combat system anyway, and maybe even less so given this:...

Darnedest thing in the last game I was playing. Myself and about a half dozen other nations were in a gang-looting of German cities, and I was bringing up all of my recently upgraded Artillery and using it to blast Infantry units to mulch before attacking with Cavalry... I captured one city this way only to feel like a fool the next turn when my Chinese allies just went head-first with their Cavalry and were easily taking over German cities. With 3 or 4 Cavalry, they were taking German cities with 1-3 Infantry defenders (no preliminary bombardment either). Then I tried it myself, and it was actually working fairly well!

Go figure...


Doubling the hitpoints, as Whoha mentioned, is a positive step, in my opinion. But we still can't reproduce combat factors from CivII like firepower. That would surely be nice, for a start.

[Kilroy_Alpha]

THE OFFICIAL CIVIL WAR THREAD

Ok, since no one could do it themselves, I started a thread about the Civil War in OFF-TOPIC, where it belongs, so you can volley back and forth about the Civil War all you want. Honestly, I don't expect anyone to follow this link, and my attempt to save this thread will end in utter failure. But, suffice to say, anyone who continues to post about the Civil War in THIS THREAD is a giant ass and probably really stupid, too.

[Whoha]

no one wants to post about the civil war in that thread, maybe we can start a combat system discussion there free of off topic hijackings

[Snorklis]

I have stopped playing Civ3. why do you ask? Well, it basicly comes down to the way battles are calculated and how the random generated numbers are saved with the gamefile.
Also a big factor is, it would be soooo much more fun to play against my pals and not the computer. Lack of MP in this kind of game is crazy really, I been waiting long now for it to arrive but....

If the game only had a battlecalculatingsystem like Warlords 3, It has a few years since it came, but its still fun cause I can play it against my mates!!!

Signing off... //Johan

(anyone wanna buy my copy?)

[Lewsir]

Has there been any discussion (like by Firaxis reps) of adding a display of the battle odds? SMAC has this and it's pretty helpful - especially nice in that it indicates how the modifiers factor in.

So many of the elegant features of SMAC are not in CIV3, it's a shame.