F3 Strong/Average/Weak

nbarclay · March 4, 2003, 17:36

Does anyone know much about what standards are used to define a player's civ as having a "strong," "average," or "weak" military compared with another civ on the F3 screen?

Jurimax · March 4, 2003, 20:17

IMHO I believe that you are weak when you have less military, average when you have about the same amount and strong when you have more. However, I don't think it's in the number of units. Last night I was playing and I was weak compared to an AI, after upgrading a Warrior to Swordsman my Military advisor told me we were average compared to that AI (was during same turn, so the upgrade was all that happened to either military).

Greetings Jurimax

Konquest02 · March 4, 2003, 23:30

Just a guess, but they might add all the points (A/D) of all your units and compare the total between all civs. If this number is roughly the same, you are average, if etc...

This is a wild guess, and the roughly needs to be determined but it could be a good way to quantify military power...

Catt · March 4, 2003, 23:45

I have nothing definitive to add. But will contribute that Firaxian's posted on several occasions that the F3 military advisor was modified in one of the patches to adopt the "strength evaluation" process of the AI in general, i.e., taking into account both numbers of units and the A and D vales of such units. IIRC, in earlier versions of Civ, an army of 200 workers was "strong" compared to an army of 100 infantry (but the Firaxians always insisted that AI-civ evaluations of the enemy took into account A and D values for purposes of declarations of war, etc.). At v1.21 or perhaps v1.29 of vanilla civ, the military advisor's advice was apparently modified to decrease the weighting of unitnumbers and increase the weighting of unit power. Perhaps in one of the ReadMe's to the vanilla patches there is a reference to this? No idea with respect to MP.

Catt

CerberusIV · March 5, 2003, 05:54

I was always under the impression that the total attack value of a civs units was the main factor. Upgrading units always seems to significantly boost my military rating. I tend to have more defensive units than offensive and introducing musketmen or riflemen tends to dramatically improve my rating and deter the AI civs from attacking.

I just lost three knights (out of fourteen) in my current game and this seems to have reduced my military power sufficiently for the Spanish to try a sneak attack whilst I am crushing the English. Since I have nearly 30 cities, all with a couple of spears or pikes garrisoning them this suggests that A and D values are now far more important than unit numbers.

DaveMcW · March 5, 2003, 10:18

I did a *very* quick test in debug mode.

10 warriors / 8 warriors = Stronger
10 warriors / 9 warriors = Average
10 warriors / 13 warriors = Average
10 warriors / 14 warriors = Weaker

10 warriors / 1 tank = Weaker
11 warriors / 1 tank = Average
16 warriors / 1 tank = Average
17 warriors / 1 tank = Stronger

Datajack Franit · March 5, 2003, 12:03

The advisors are so damn stupid.. who is paying attention to them anymore?

CerberusIV · March 5, 2003, 12:21

The only reason I look at the F3 advisor is to check how the AI civs perceive my military. As long as I am strong compared to them they usually won't start a war. Occasionally, as now with the Spanish, one of them has a suicidal impulse but not very often.

Harovan · March 5, 2003, 12:54

In SP, this may be of limited value, but for MP could be useful, if we know the mechanism.

The warrior example looks like weaker, when the attack (or defense?) points are less than 75%, average between 75% and 125%, and stronger above 125%.

The tank example looks similar (what was a tank again, 12.8.2, I forgot), but not entirely.

May be the number +/- 25% has to be tweaked a bit, but probably not much.

Arrian · March 5, 2003, 13:19

SR,

Tanks are 16.8.2

-Arrian

alexman · March 5, 2003, 13:35

Judging from this limited test, it looks like attack gets a 2:1 or 3:1 weight over defense.

Also, if the ratios are 0.75 and 1.25, since they are not the inverse of each other, you can get your advisor saying that you are average, but your opponent's advisor saying they are strong compared to you.

nbarclay · March 5, 2003, 15:57

It would be interesting to see whether movement rate plays any role (e.g. do the calculations regard a Gallic Swordsman as worth more than a conventional one).

Chemical Ollie · March 6, 2003, 07:49

Quote:

Originally posted by Datajack Franit
The advisors are so damn stupid.. who is paying attention to them anymore?

I liked the video animated advisors of CIV 2, with Elvis and Schwartzkopf look-a-likes. They never got boring.

Datajack Franit · March 6, 2003, 08:54

Schwartzkopf sounds more like some kind of German brand of shampoo

Napolean · March 8, 2003, 09:41

hey, point taken there. the civ2's advisors are so cute, esp the science advisor.

Manya · March 8, 2003, 11:00

the advisors aren't good, they tell you what's obvious

badams52 · March 8, 2003, 12:23

Quote:

Originally posted by Olaf Hårfagre

I liked the video animated advisors of CIV 2, with Elvis and Schwartzkopf look-a-likes. They never got boring.

"You're letting our crack troops go to waste, sir. Let's go bonk some heads."

"All the world marvels at our superior intellect, sire."

Can't believe I still have some of them memorized.

Dis · March 10, 2003, 02:23

they ruled!

oh how I missed them

player1 · March 10, 2003, 07:52

Quote:

Originally posted by DaveMcW
I did a *very* quick test in debug mode.

10 warriors / 8 warriors = Stronger
10 warriors / 9 warriors = Average
10 warriors / 13 warriors = Average
10 warriors / 14 warriors = Weaker

10 warriors / 1 tank = Weaker
11 warriors / 1 tank = Average
16 warriors / 1 tank = Average
17 warriors / 1 tank = Stronger

Actually those 17 Warriors could definety take out enemy Tank.
He has 8 defense, but he still has just 4hps.

nbarclay · March 10, 2003, 09:18

Quote:

Originally posted by player1

Actually those 17 Warriors could definety take out enemy Tank.
He has 8 defense, but he still has just 4hps.

Five hitpoints, unless one of the first two warriors destroys it, since its second victory would be guaranteed to get the tank promoted to elite. And "definitely" may be pushing it. 17x4 = 68, while 8x5=40. So if odds correspond roughly to those multiples (and I'm not sure to what extent they do), the tank probably has a chance at fending off all seventeen. Of course if the tank is fortified...

yxhuvud · March 10, 2003, 09:33

Someone mentioned that it seems like it favors offensive units over defensive. I would say there isn't enough evidence to decide, since no defensive units have been tested.

badams52 · March 11, 2003, 00:04

Taking a look at Zachriel's civ combat simulator, I ran the numbers regarding a veterab tank on flat land vs. 17 veteran attacking warriors and it isn't very close. I ran 1000 simulations and the 17 warriors won around 90% of the time and on average had 8 survivors. When fortified, the victory drops to 80%. Fortified in a city drops it further to 60%.

For comparison sake, 10 veteran warriors against a veteran tank on flatland not fortified wins 60% of the time. So I would suggest that the weak/average/strong guy doesn't have much of a clue as to who is truly stronger.

Dominae · March 11, 2003, 11:14

Ah, so we should be saving up on those Warriors to take out Tanks in the late Industrial? Now there's a strategy I would never have figured out myself...

Dominae

minke19104 · March 11, 2003, 12:26

Do they consider nukes?? What if I have little or no military other than a huge reseves of nukes?

I'd like to see if any AI would dare to attack me....

Arrian · March 11, 2003, 12:45

Does the game take hitpoints into account?

Would the weak, average, strong rating change if the same warriors v. tank test was done, but the warriors were made regulars & the tank elite? Would that change the numbers? It should.

-Arrian

Konquest02 · March 11, 2003, 18:43

We should test an hypothetical 4/4/4 unit against a variety of other units to see if movement points, nukes, etc. change something in how all of this is counted...

--Kon--

Brizey · March 11, 2003, 23:24

Don't forget artillery.

My guess is the algorithm is very simple, probably a directly calculated formula.

Zach's combat simulator does not take into account defender retreat.

Woops. I had posted an old version of my odds calculator. I'll look for the latest.

Brizey · March 11, 2003, 23:37

Here is the correct calculator.

And here is the results for a warrior attacking a fortified tank on grasslands (both regular):

Attacker Wins:

Percentage Chance: 0.20%
Defender Hit Points Left:
5 0.00%
4 0.00%
3 0.02%
2 0.04%
1 0.14%

Defender Wins:

Percentage Chance: 98.93%
Attacker Hit Points Left:
5 0.00%
4 0.00%
3 79.80%
2 17.35%
1 1.78%

Attacker Retreats:

Percentage Chance: 0.00%
Defender Hit Points Left:
5 0.00%
4 0.00%
3 0.00%
2 0.00%
1 0.00%

Defender Retreats:

Percentage Chance: 0.87%
Attacker Hit Points Left:
5 0.00%
4 0.00%
3 0.26%
2 0.61%
1 0.00%

So, the pertinent thing here is that a little more than 17% of the time, the warrior does at least one hp of damage. Eventually, with enough warriors, the tank will bite it.

Brizey · March 11, 2003, 23:41

Whoops. I reversed who had hit points left in the first two data groups.

badams52 · March 12, 2003, 00:03

Quote:

Originally posted by Brizey
Zach's combat simulator does not take into account defender retreat.

Yes, I wondered about that as well, but would you be able to simulate multiple warriors attacking? I think that is more pertinent to our current discussion.