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Todd Hawks
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May I quote Sid himself (here on his game "Covert Action"):
quote:
The enduring memory I have from Covert Action is what I call the "Covert Action Rule," which is: It's better to have one good game than two great games. The mistake I think I made in Covert Action is actually having two games in there kind of competing with each other. There was kind of an action game where you break into a building and do all sorts of picking up clues and things like that, and then there was the story which involved a plot where you had to figure out who the mastermind was and the different roles and what cities they were in, and it was a kind of an involved mystery-type plot.
I think, individually, those each could have been good games. Together, they fought with each other. You would have this mystery that you were trying to solve, then you would be facing this action sequence, and you'd do this cool action thing, and you'd get on the building, and you'd say, "What was the mystery I was trying to solve?" Covert Action integrated a story and action poorly, because the action was actually too intense. In Pirates!, you would do a sword fight or a ship battle, and a minute or two later, you were kind of back on your way. In Covert Action, you'd spend ten minutes or so of real time in a mission, and by the time you got out of [the mission], you had no idea of what was going on in the world.
So I call it the Covert Action Rule. Don't try to do too many games in one package. And that's actually done me a lot of good. You can look at the games I've done since Civilization, and there's always opportunities to throw in more stuff. When two units get together in Civilization and have a battle, why don't we drop out to a wargame and spend ten minutes or so in duking out this battle? Well, the Covert Action Rule. Focus on what the game is. |
You may have a different opinion but I wholeheartedly agree with him. Civ is about strategy, not tactics. If that tank was vital to you, you did something wrong.
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crowatbitemedotcom
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Texas
Dec 1999
time: 23:33
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I would think that option would really extend the playing time, especially in the late game. Might be okay to implement in a scenario though.
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joncha
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North of FOPOG
Jan 2003
time: 21:33
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I think a better solution for the "spearman problem" is to have unit strengths increase exponentially rather than geometrically.
As it stands, units (especially early on) tend to increase A/D strengths by 1 point at each upgrade. This is fine for ancient units, but the further up the development chain you go, the less important that 1 point becomes.
If, on the other hand, the increase is by powers of ten instead of by ones, the tank-spearman problem, while statistically possible, disappears. One way to balance problems this may cause it to have small increases within eras (as per the old system) and save the big jump for when you move from era to era.
I'm sure this will create some balance/game play problems that will need to be ironed out, but it will definitely solve forever the "spearman problem," thus saving online forums from the weekly thread complaining about it.
It will also force long-time players to rethink old strategies (warrior/horseman rush? fuhget-about-it!). All in all, I think it at least warrants a mod (if one doesn't already exist) to see how it plays out.
jon.
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MrWhereItsAt
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New Year's Resolution: 2005 is the year of Where It's At - come get some.
Nov 2001
time: 17:33
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If you lose a Tank to a Spearman once in a while it's just the luck of the draw. Think of the numerous ridiculous results from battles throughout history, from the Spanish Armada to Thermopylae, (**)It happens.
If you lose afew Tanks to Spears within a few battles of each other, it may be time to rethink your strategy. THAT is the real answer in Civ, IMO. If you start losing too much, think of a way to make your opponent lose. Whether it involves better positioning, ecnomic bombardment first to weaken your opponent or simply more Artillery, there is a large scope for changing strategies to get the job done. That is why there are defense bonuses for certain terrain, and units like Marines and Paratroopers exist. If there's a specific thorny problem then that's what this forum is for (well, perhaps the strategy forum would be best). If it is just a case of you losing Tanks when you attack Elite Spearmen fortified in Metropolises with Walls or on Mountain Fortresses, DUH. 
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Comrade Tassadar
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When I Played civ3, I would have superior units lose to lesser ones all the time.
This wouldn't be a problem....if the AI didn't decide to solve everything by war. Ralph says it's not a wargame, but if you reject too many diplomatic deals, demand they respect your territory, not give into their ridiculous demands...They force you into war.
A loss every once and a while is OK. But I had to build huge stacks of modern armour to blow through the backwards AI army and even then I suffered massive casualties.
In fact...I remember my first game. I was Russia and had allied with India against some civ. I built up a bunch of some unit...and I pictured a huge army just going up and fighting.
But instead, it looked like only two units were fighting each other. I lost. Repeatedly.
"What? I have a ton of these, I just be winning by a mile."
And each time I "lost", they would gain experience. Admitantly I wasn't doing the wise thing by repteadly engaging, but it still was just frustrating seeing superior numbers of superior technology lose because they can't fight together.
I mean then war in civ becomes "Oh yeah? Well I can build 200 tanks, so  " which just isn't fun at all.
Before I sold Civ3, I gave it a chance by playing and it was quite fun...until an alliance of AI nations declared war on me. I was vastly ahead of them, again, and had superior numbers but I suffered massive losses...I won, yes, but I hated how I simply had to produce these en masse in order to win against inferior units.
IMO, Civ3 need(ed)s to somehow tilt it a little more towards superior units.
And it became more frustrating when people began to post "This never happens! You lie!" to someone who posted that it happens. I mean, I saw it happening on the screen, so trust me its happening!
People did the calulations to "prove" its highly unlikely, etc etc....But it still did not quite stop it from happening.
Eventually I just got fed up with it, and sold it to some sucker. I used the funds to buy Morrowind (which was a great investment BTW).
Now I'm kind of wanting to give it another chance, but there are no vanilla Civ3s in my area (that are cheap. There are 2 at Fred Meier for $50, but when you have Civ3 gold for $40 right next to it......)
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Tall Stranger
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Northern Virginia
Nov 2002
time: 00:33
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As Sir Ralph so clearly stated (repeatedly!), Civ is NOT NOT NOT a wargame. Period.
I, for one, would be very displeased if Firaxis wasted the time, money and effort to graft a tactical military game to Civ. If I wanted such a game, I'd go buy one. I'd much rather they used those resources to, for example, improve the AI.
I've had strings of bad luck. Heck, I once lost a full-strength Ancient Cav army to a spearman. The stream of profanity I hurled at the computer was both graphic and colorful. The reality is that this stuff rarely happens, both in the game and in real life. Deal with it. As others have pointed out, if your game is ruined by a single tank being lost, you're doing something seriously wrong.
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gunkulator
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For those of you wishing for superior units to win just about every time, might I suggest the following:
1) Uninstall Civ3
2) Reinstall Civ2
3) Get a key tech lead (monotheism, leadership, tactics, etc.)
4) Build killer unit
5) Win 100% of the time
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dworkin
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What in Ifni's name is the Spearman problem?
If the spearman unit defeats your tank, crush the blighter with your other tanks! Or does your industrial era unit mysteriously not come with an industrial era infrastructure?
And in the industrial era one has access to support units like the bomber and artillary. Use them.
As for a simulated combat arena, will your sim put in such diverse factors as these:
Whether the commander is an incompetant or a genius.
The morale of the troops. Are they elite forces or penal conscripts. Are they fighting for home and hearth or are they oppotunistic adventurers.
Has either side has caught a nasty disease.
An 'act of god' wiping out 90% of one side in an earthquake, volcanic eruption, flood etc.
The opinion on the home front. After 10 well reported casualties are the folks back home screaming 'bring our boys back'.
Does a unit commander of one side defect to the other?
Are your weapons/munitions top grade or sabotaged duds? Or have they merely been badly made by slave labor in concentration camps?
Does one side even have a general? Was the general killed eating beans confidantly saying "they coudn't hit an elephant at this dist...".
Has one side recieved superior weapons/training from a sympathetic third party?
Does your supply center suddenly get destroyed by supposedly loyal citizens revolting?
All these and more have been features of human warfare since we came up with the idea. I don't think any wargame on a PC could cover all these (and the ones I've forgotten) currently.
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ErikM
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quote:
Originally posted by vmxa1
We maybe could stand a tweak to the streaky RNG, but only if it is not drastic. This may not be easy to accomplish. |
I don't think that the RNG is streaky. It is just it has too much variance.
Combat system probably works as follows. Chahces for winning a single round of combat are A/(A+D)*100%, where A is the attacker's A value and D is the defender's D value. For a tank versus fortified spear in a city that would be 16/(16+4)=80% (I could be wrong about the way defensive boni are applied). So the game draws a random number in a range 1...100. Values 1-80 are a win for a tank, values 81-100 are a win for a spear.
The problem with this model is that extreme outcomes are just as likely as average ones (getting a RN of 1 is just as likely as drawing 100 and just as likely as drawing 50). Thus, there is too much variance around the mean.
It's like a statement "the average winter temperature in a country X is zero degrees Celsius" could potentially mean different things:
(i) on any given winter day the temperature is just as likely to be -30 as it is to be +30 as it is to be at zero.
(ii) on any given winter day the temperature is likely to be around zero, quite likely in the range -5...+5, with extreme temperature values possible, but very unlikely.
Our experience tells us that (ii) is more likely but Civ III really uses (i). It is just a property of uniform distribution that extreme outcomes are just as likely as "average" ones (like in normal distribution).
The easiest way to reduce the variance in combat is to increase the number of rounds (ie hitpoints for all units) so that the law of averages would come into play. With just three hitpoints losing against the spear is quite possible. With 30 hitpoints for both attacker/defender losing againdt the spear would be very unlikely.
Technically 30 hitpoints is probably too much. 6-10 hitpoints for combat units instead of 3-5 will go a long way towards reducing the variance in combat.
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WackenOpenAir
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civ not a war game?
then why are far most of the things you can build military units?
then why can you win the game by defeating your enemies?
in civ2, defeating your enemies was the normal way to win the game, in civ3 they added more ways. Those are additions. Civ still is a war game.
its called a strategy game. Strategy as in strategy of war.
Most of all however, civilisation is a game that represents human history. Unfortunately, war is a HUGE part of human history (and present and future)
Dunno what people are even trying to say or achieve with the statement that siv is not a wargame, but it is the biggest bullshit i have yet found on these forums.
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20-01-2004 03:54
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