Can I fire my shipbuilders?

Sleestax · July 26, 2002, 12:50

The sea battles in CivIII are frustrating me to no end. It seems that unless I have an overwhelming superiority in a sea battle, I always lose them to the AI.

I lost 2 frigates to a friggen galleon in one game. I nearly lost a battleship to a frigate in another game (these were on warlord level).

On high levels it's worse. I can't think of a single naval victory when I have played on a difficulty higher than warlord.

Am I doing something wrong? Is the game borked? Or is it a combination of both?

Colonel D. · July 26, 2002, 13:12

Civ 3 needs to bring back the combat system they used in Civ 2. In that game you not only had varying levels of hit points your units could absorb, but you also had varying numbers of attacks a given unit had in a given combat round.

Thus, if a battleship came upon a trireme in Civ 2, the trireme would have one shot with a very weak weapon for every three shots from a very powerful weapon in the battleship.

It was theoretically possible for the trieme to win, but the odds were astronomically against it.

Col D.

Jaybe · July 26, 2002, 14:25

Sleestax, you are either (1) experiencing a bad run of luck, or (2) not focusing on your victories.

Yes, and I have had a tank repulsed (retreated) while I was attacking a spearman fortified in a town (which is almost the same as your BB vs. frigate). You have to remember that those "friggen galleons" are armed. At sea, just as on land, you really want to have numerical superiority, and a little luck.*

*What I have done is given all my 'modern' naval units "blitz" capability. This also enables them to bombard multiple times, and the AI also uses it.

HazieDaVampire · July 26, 2002, 14:54

i wish units were part of a set weapons class, and armor class!
A cannon ball cant damage a battleship!
Their was a battle between two ironclads (Real life), and the two of them had cannons in their turret, they eventualy ran out off ammo cuz their cannon balls couldn't hurt eachother!

Jaybe · July 26, 2002, 15:06

Hey! Wudda think, that a battleship unit is composed of just a single battleship??
I say NO, a battleship unit is a "heavy flotilla" or "heavy task force" composed of some battleships, with cruisers and destroyers.

When you are out of ammunition you lose combat capability, so you lose hit points.

Arrian · July 26, 2002, 15:15

There are two solutions:

1) learn to use force concentration and bombardment to increase you odds of victory,

2) mod the game.

I use #1. I stack naval vessels... the first ship bombards the enemy ship, the second attacks it. I usually don't have offensive naval vessels until Destroyers, so my experience is with them and Battleships. I like the 2 destroyer/1 Battleship task force. The 2 destroyers bombard, the Battlewagon sinks things. It works well.

-Arrian

Theseus · July 26, 2002, 15:41

Sleestax, using your original example, losing 2 Frigates to a Galleon is like losing 2 Archers to a Spearmen... is that so surprising?

I do the same as Arrian. It works at lower levels too... Frigates bombard, then an Ironclad to sink things.

It's no different than using Arty and Cavs.

In general, you want overwhelming, and concentrated, force.

Panzer · July 26, 2002, 18:33

Quote:

In general, you want overwhelming, and concentrated, force.

Blitzkrieg!

Yesterday I experienced the much dreaded 'spearman-defeats-tank' scenario (well, it actually was an Impi, but hey, they're the same thing

). I toke note and obliterated the little sod with my next tank. It was the first time I've encoutered this and it waspretty funny to look at

.

Blake · July 26, 2002, 19:05

My most memorable "hmmm" combat was when an archer attacked a tank, forcing it to retreat. The concept is preposterous enough to be amusing.

Just remember, whenever your units lose to a vastly inferior military force, it is due to gross incompentence. Try imaging just how incompetent your troops would have to be. I find it fun.

Non Flammable · July 27, 2002, 01:51

I've found that tweaking the modern units with slight HP upgrades(graded by era, max being +4 for the late modern age units) helps for more realistic combat results without being amazingly unbalanced.

Of course, thats a small step to fixing the problem. Slight att, cost, def, RoF, etc. etc. tweaks are the only way to truly fix some of the imbalances in the game. Do what works for you.

notyoueither · July 27, 2002, 02:35

I finally lost a Tank to a Pikeman. Still no Spearman though. It will happen. The odds say it will. Just not yet.

/Edit. On topic. No, I have not noticed losing a lot of combats at sea where I had an advantage in equipment. Very bad luck for you.

NeoStar · July 27, 2002, 06:55

Quote:

Originally posted by Sleestax
...On high levels it's worse. I can't think of a single naval victory when I have played on a difficulty higher than warlord...

Eh? I haven't noticed any of that-for me the only combat difference b/w chieften and deity is fighting with barbarians.

Maybe it is slightly modified, but I think it's just bad luck

spy14 · July 27, 2002, 07:02

I find that my ships lose out about 80% of the time to the same class of unit, regardless of whether they are attacking or defending. Maybe releases in differant countrys are tweaked slightly differantly?? That would explain why some of experience this and some dont. And I liked the Civ 2 system where the more modern units also got more shots

Zachriel · July 27, 2002, 09:53

Bombard, bombard, bombard. God gave you gunpowder propelled projectiles for a reason.

seano1 · July 28, 2002, 18:45

Quote:

Originally posted by Colonel D.
Civ 3 needs to bring back the combat system they used in Civ 2. In that game you not only had varying levels of hit points your units could absorb, but you also had varying numbers of attacks a given unit had in a given combat round.

Thus, if a battleship came upon a trireme in Civ 2, the trireme would have one shot with a very weak weapon for every three shots from a very powerful weapon in the battleship.

It was theoretically possible for the trieme to win, but the odds were astronomically against it.

Col D.

I remember a Murphy’s Rule about peasant militia being able to sink battleships in Civ1.

In the Civ2 manual, it said that hit points were deigned to make more advanced units more powerful. Now there used to represent experience, which isn’t bad, but nothing replaced that old balancing factor.

GhengisFarb™ · July 29, 2002, 12:44

Historically, frigates lost to galleons quite often in the Carribbean. Galleons were built to protect treasure FROM frigates.

Fighter · August 6, 2002, 17:14

I got realy realy annoyed when I had a Trireme running around bombarding me so I went to build a ship, laughed for a moment to see that trireme was obsolete so I built the newest ship, cant remember since I almost never build ships before battleships. So my ship finished production, I went out to fight the trireme and was sunk with no damage to the trireme!!

In my game now Im going up against this guy using Modern Armour, hes using old tanks. If I attack one of his regular tanks with my modern armour, my modern armour unfailingly goes into the red zone before winning! Ive had this happen over and over again, how is it possible that WW1 style tanks can stand up against something that looks like it could school an M1 A1 Abrams???

Cyclotron · August 6, 2002, 20:01

Quote:

Originally posted by Fighter
I got realy realy annoyed when I had a Trireme running around bombarding me

What mod is this, that triremes can bombard?

DeepO · August 6, 2002, 20:39

The Civ 2 Mod

Nowadays they are called galleys

DeepO

Theseus · August 6, 2002, 20:40

Nice avatar.

DeepO · August 6, 2002, 21:27

Thanks Theseus

DeepO

Coracle · August 7, 2002, 01:01

I simply canot believe anyone is still using the ludicrous unit values Firaxis gave us, and that is especially so with naval units. Mod it.

Quote:

Historically, frigates lost to galleons quite often in the Carribbean. Galleons were built to protect treasure FROM frigates.

Absolute non-historical rubbish and nonsense. Absurd.
Frigates came long AFTER galleons. But in Civ 3 a lot of reality is out the window.

Harovan · August 7, 2002, 03:32

Quote:

Originally posted by notyoueither
I finally lost a Tank to a Pikeman. Still no Spearman though. It will happen. The odds say it will. Just not yet.

I lost with a vet Modern Armor to a regular Spearman in Minitourney 3. It just got not killed, but retreated in shame. Does this count?

Btw: The Spearman got not even promoted.

On topic: Yes, bombard, and bombard again. Then attack. Even if you aren't able to attack, because you have only one ship there, the enemy ship will most likely head home to heal.

vondrack · August 7, 2002, 03:49

Quote:

Originally posted by Coracle

Quote:

Originally posted by GhengisFarb
Historically, frigates lost to galleons quite often in the Carribbean. Galleons were built to protect treasure FROM frigates.

Frigates came long AFTER galleons.

Coracle is right about this. Frigates were naval vessels in 17th-19th centuries, whereas galleons ruled high seas much earlier, in 15th-17th centuries (I have just checked the numbers in Encyclopaedia Britannica).

seano1 · August 7, 2002, 06:24

Perhaps they could replace Gallons with merchantmen, which would have no attack and a defense of 1. Then they could then add Spain to the list of civs, and make the Gallon there special unit.