why do cavalry defeat infantry easier than other infantry do?

[brianshapiro]

this has been my experience in game, both have the same attack but infantry has higher defense

[dexters]

You made no mention of experience levels.

An elite cavalry is going to do better against an regular infantry vis a vis a regular infantry vs a regular infantry.

Since Cavalry arrive sooner, people who don't have sun tzu, usually have an experience gap, where their older units are primarily veteran and or elite and their newer units are veteran and regular.

[Fosse]

Also, cavalry retreat, meaning that it may seem like they do better because they aren't dying all of the time.

This actually slightly lessens their odds of beating an infantry, but makes up for that by staying alive longer.

[Hurricane]

I also get that strange impression. I guess it has something to do with the cavalry's retreat capability. Since both only have around 50% chance of a victory, you should expect them to die in heaps, but since the cavalries sometimes just retreat, it looks like infantry somehow are worse.

[Arrian]

It's probably a combination of the retreat capability and a limited sample size. Over the course of a few games, things may "seem" to work a certain way, but that doesn't mean the game is actually coded that way. I once crushed Carthage with Horsemen + Legionaries. I expected that war to be extremely bloody, but Lady Luck was with me, and I took very light casualties. But if I start next to Carthage in a new game, I'm not gonna think "ah, I can just waste 'em with horsies & swords, no problem." I got lucky that one time.

-Arrian

[brianshapiro]

nno ive experienced cavalry having a better chance of marking off damage from an infantry, same expierience level.

[Arrian]

That's just a run of good luck for your Cavalry (or bad luck for your infantry). Both units have a 6 attack. Over a large enough sample size, the chances of damaging enemy infantry would be the same (though the overall kill ratio would be different because of Cav's ability to retreat).

Other factors which could be effecting things would be terrain bonuses, fortification (or lack thereof), etc. Attacking an infantry unit fortified in a metropolis is a very different thing than hitting an infantry unit unforitifed on grassland.

-Arrian

[vmxa1]

Arrians point about the lack of samples is correct. statistically anyone of us is not going to generate enough combat to be considered relevant.
We would need at least 10's of thousands, better if it was much more to get a true deviation.
This is not to even take into account that are memories are not reliable to report the outcome.
If you think you are recalling the battle correctly, try a test.
When I use to play in tournaments (straight pool/9 ball), I some times practical aimlessly. I would finish and think back and believe I was not missing that often.
I reality I was do worse than I let myself think.
I true test was to use a drill. Play a rack with 6 balls.
Break and take ball in hand. You must now run out, no misses. You count the games and must do it 10 times in a row to move to 7 balls. If you miss at any point you start all over. Now you really know how you are doing.
When I got to 22 times in a row I would then add a ball.
This deminstrates are lack of perception.
I am sure that Civ III battles are no exception. we are a bit convient in how we "see" things after the fact.
Ask eye witness, if you still are unsure.

[Hurricane]

Of course, this is easy enough to test. Every time you are about to attack with a stack with combined infantry/cavalry, save your game. Then attack with either one, and write down the result. Reload, and do the same attack, but this time with the other type of unit. You will get excactly the same results, except for possible retreats.

This of course requires that you have "preserve random seed" turned on.

[Demerzel]

if it was real life then naturally cavalry would trounce infantry far easier than infantry would beat other infantry.

sadly certain units superiority over other units probably won't have been included in the game, so probably just the combination of factors mentioned by others above.

[Cruddy]

I wonder - is it because of the way Civ2 combat worked?

If you only had part of a movement point left to attack with, the attack was computed at a lower strength.

So an infantry moves down a road and uses up part of it's movement point, then attacks... while a cavalry still has a whole movement point left and so doesn't get the negative impact on its attack.

This is PURE speculation and I'm probably quite wrong. But it does seem to me that units with higher movement factors are better at attacking, attack strengths being equal.

[Arrian]

CivIII combat doesn't work that way. A unit with 1/3 movement left attacks at 100%.

I had forgotten about the way it worked in CivII. Wow.

-Arrian

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Hurricane
Of course, this is easy enough to test. Every time you are about to attack with a stack with combined infantry/cavalry, save your game. Then attack with either one, and write down the result. Reload, and do the same attack, but this time with the other type of unit. You will get excactly the same results, except for possible retreats.

This of course requires that you have "preserve random seed" turned on.

The point we are making is that the results are statistically meaningless. You will need to do this tens of thousands of times to get a true picture. A few runs is what is known as anecdotal. Interesting, but not valid.
You can not draw conclusion from such a narrow perspective.

[pedrojedi]

With 200 samples, you can have a good number of times to make a normal curve, using some probabilistic calculations, assuming an alfa error of 0,05... Which means that you can have an "almost normal" curve of results with 5% error of not being that curve correct. 10's of thousands would really give you almost the exact figure, since the exact figure for probability, well, only God knows.

edit: at least mathematically speaking.

[Master Zen]

Statistically there is nothing to prove that units with the same attack cause diferent amounts of damage. However, do to the nature of the Civ3 combat system, it is much more likely to get skewered results from combat than in Civ2. The HP system is the problem as a max of 5 is just to little to present an accurate representation of the damage levels each unit has.

Thus, just like you seem to have Cavalry do better than Infantry, and Arrian was lucky with Legions, so too I've been lucky/unlucky in some circumstances and others worked fine. In the AU SG I suffered appaling casualties assaulting a Arabia with Rome when arabia had the Great Wall. The odds were 3 vs 3 and casulaties were rough.

I really, TRULY, hope that the next civ game has a better HP system. Civ2 and SMAC's combat systems had much more realistic damage portrayal making a tank Lose against a phalanx much more unlikely than a tank losing to a Spearman...

-MZ

[dexters]

Statistically there is nothing to prove that units with the same attack cause diferent amounts of damage. However, do to the nature of the Civ3 combat system, it is much more likely to get skewered results from combat than in Civ2. The HP system is the problem as a max of 5 is just to little to present an accurate representation of the damage levels each unit has.

Uhhh... if you know statistics, yoiu'll know that probabilistically speaking two evenly matched units offensively and defensively will, with a large sample, show no significant difference.

If people still insist, they we can have someone get the data and conduct a hypothesis test. A simple variance from the mean doesn't mean it's significant. As long as the range of the variance falls within 0, it is considerend insignificant. Given a certain level of significance.

In anycase, I'm a strong supporter of the probabalistic random number generator system userd in Civ3.

For starters, it evens the playing field, and introduces the concept of risk. No matter how advanced you are, you don't win every battle. Civ 3 is not a war game, and has no need for specific military commands like "Ambush" or "guerilla warfare" and thus, when an outdated unit take down a more advanced unitr, it is I believe a built in system of introducing this variability into battle.

People who want to get their tanks and win all the time against all units isn't playing the right game. The Russians in their tanks were slaughtered by what were essentially ragtag units in Afghanistan.

[Master Zen]

Dexters, re-read my post, that's exactly what I said

Statistically given a large enough sample, the results will show there is no difference, but as I said, the low HP levels will make some games tend to show differences when they really don't exist. It's the classic my-Battleship-got-killed-by-a-Phalanx, i.e. bad luck repeated. Civ1 units had just one HP which made this scenario very common. In Civ2 units had a much greater range of damage which reduced these occurances even though the units had basically the same stats. Civ3 lowered the range of damage, making wierd results more likely.

[dexters]

I added a bit more to my post. And no, I absolutely hate the Civ2 battle system. It's outdated and simplistic. A risk based probabilistic model is superior. If they can refine this in Civ 4, I'm all for it. But I'm pretty sure they won't go to the old system used in Civ2, which I suspect was used primarily for conveniance given the more limited computer power of the time.

Edit: Regarding your comments on statistics, I apologize if I misunderstood you.

[The Templar]

Hmmm, I've never seen anything except hordes of cavalry charging to their deaths against infantry. Real charge of the light brigade stuff. (Although, old cav are useful for softening infantry before the tanks roll up.)

[dexters]

[vmxa1]

I am not a fan of the RNG used in Civ III. If you turn it off and run the same battle over and over you got too much variance to suit me. I like the idea, but would like the variation to be smaller. Then the outcome is not a given, but is fairly consistent. I did not care for CivII combat either, but the FP factor could have been used to smooth out the combat in CivIII in regards to out dated units.
I understand they wanted to have obsolete units be less of a waste, but I am against it. FP wold have reduce the likely hood of those low level units winning against 3 levels improved nits.

[Cruddy]

Personally, I think all combat systems are a waste of my time. Painstakinlgly calculating odds and trying to get away with building minimum units to ensure victory... It's a pain.

I'd rather just order a set of AI generals to get out there and do their stuff. Ah, the joys of building. Of course, I'd still have to build the generals the tools to do the job - I just think warfare is a waste of my time when there is a dirty great processor there to do all the hard work for me.

Hoping for something radically different for Civ4, but not really expecting it will arrive.

[georges bonbon]

What's even more intriguing is - for me - that both units come out of a different age. Cavalry is the attacking unit against riflemen. As tanks are fighting against infantry. Etc...

So to be fair cavalry should not have superior odds over infantry.

[Murtin]

Originally posted by dexters
I absolutely hate the Civ2 battle system. It's outdated and simplistic. A risk based probabilistic model is superior. If they can refine this in Civ 4, I'm all for it. But I'm pretty sure they won't go to the old system used in Civ2, which I suspect was used primarily for conveniance given the more limited computer power of the time.

I must have missed something important about the Civ2 battle system. Up till now I was certain that Civ 1, 2, 3 used the very same battle system, except that in Civ2 there was the concept of firepower, and the fact that the number of hit points for a unit ranged from 10 to 40 whereas in Civ3 the range is 2 to 5. Have I been completely misinformed? Was Civ2 not using a random number generator?

[vmxa1]

Just for starters, CivII you fought one unit in the stack and if the unit lost, you lost the whole stack.
CivIII each unit gets its turn and goes against the best defender.

[gunkulator]

It's a shame bombarment doesn't affect the whole stack because really there's no penalty in Civ3 for creating SODs.

CivIII combat strikes a balance between too many hps in CivII(10 - 40) and too few in CivI(1).

[Murtin]

Originally posted by vmxa1
I like the idea, but would like the variation to be smaller. Then the outcome is not a given, but is fairly consistent. I did not care for CivII combat either, but the FP factor could have been used to smooth out the combat in CivIII in regards to out dated units.

If the variation is what bothers you then it is actually more hitpoints you want. It will have that effect.

Just for starters, CivII you fought one unit in the stack and if the unit lost, you lost the whole stack.
CivIII each unit gets its turn and goes against the best defender.

Well, ok, that's a difference I forgot to mention. But what about the RNG? Isn't Civ2 combat (pseudo)probabilistic?

[Theseus]

1. Cruddy, I'll be your General, happily.

2. I am a big fan of combat as represented in Civ3... I'm a Marine, and although I never was in combat, I'll tell you that just moving troops from here to there has more error-potential than you'd imagine. So fine, give me an odds-driven combat model, with the rare Spear-beats-Tank phenomenon... that's actually RL to me, as in "Company... TENHUT... we will be facing an enemy battalion today, and you will KICK ASS AND TAKE NAMES."

Marines have done it.

[Master Zen]

I truly doubt that a real life Tank company would ever lose to even a Spearman brigade

Me, gimme a REAL wargame like TOAW. Civ3 combat is sadly eons behind in terms of realism which is sad since IMO just a few things could be tinkered with to make it great....(not that I don't enjoy it of course.... )

[dexters]

Originally posted by Master Zen
I truly doubt that a real life Tank company would ever lose to even a Spearman brigade

Me, gimme a REAL wargame like TOAW. Civ3 combat is sadly eons behind in terms of realism which is sad since IMO just a few things could be tinkered with to make it great....(not that I don't enjoy it of course.... )

Far inferior units have slaughtered technologically superior ones throughout world history. Get off the case about technology and firepower.