quote: Originally posted by MarkG on 01-02-2001 05:49 AM the ctp1/2 battle screen is there to show you WHY you won or lost the battle, and if to give you an idea what kind/how many units would be needed to do better

Well, the battle view reall y doesn't tell you all that much. You just see the goons firing about. You'll be better of i f you can anticipate the likey result off the battle from the hp/a/d stats of the enemy units, and then assemble your attacking stack on that basis.

If not RTS (sorry about that one), at least you should be able to tell the units, IF YOU WANT TO, which particular units to concentrate their fire on and stuff like that.

YOU WILL STILL HAVE THE OPTION, SET AS DEFAULT, FOR NORMAL CIV BATTLES.

quote: Originally posted by MarkG on 01-03-2001 02:23 AM perhaps i'm imagining things --dont you see how your units are placed depending on the number of each type you have in your stacks?

Yes, but you can't pick the placing yourself. The game just smacks them on the field in some pretermined pattern according to the type of the units. You can't try your own strategies or formations, since you can't move the units about the battle view.

quote: --dont you see the sequence in which each side fires?

Exactly. You see it, but you can't set the firing sequence you want for your units. The game does all that. Again, no strategies to be played there.

quote: --dont you see the damage made by each side according to what units are on each side?

quote: Originally posted by MarkG on 01-03-2001 05:00 PM well, 95% of the time the way the units are placed are the best...

"Best" is a very relative thing. Maby you would like to try something innovative sometime, something the AI or a human opponen in MP would not be prepared for.

quote: again, the strategy is your choice of units to participate in the battle

Exactly. Even if we see the units bash it away, the battleview has no effect on the outcome of the fight. The winner will be determined by the a/d/hp/fp stats associated with the units on either side, and to an extent by a random number generator. In other words, the battleview is nothing but eyecandy. If you get bored with it and turn the feature of, you will loose nothing. In fact, you'll use less time per turn when you don't have the battleview enabled, and time is often of essence when playing MP.

quote: and the drop in the power is according to the unit that caused the damage

Quite. You would also see this if you do the battle just on the map, IIRC.

quote: i think the issue is that you're just watching instead of seeing...

quote: Originally posted by MarkG on 01-04-2001 02:23 AM guess what? the battle system is hardly explained in the manual. if it werent for the battle screen you would most probably have no clue

I only glanced through the manual anyway. It's so pathetic even by appearance that it just didn't seem worth it. And I haven't kept the battleview enabled when I play since the first couple of games. One just has to learn the battle system through experience or through other sources.

- No more stacks eliminated when the top unit dies

- You get to see the composition of a defending force even if you lose the battle.

- The battle displays are pretty quick. Each unit dies about as fast as in Civ 2, but each one has to be killed individually

- The AI is not brilliant and sometimes the placements can be a little absurd

- A 20th C rifleman/machinegunner is classified as short range which is absurd when confronted by pikemen guarding long-range archers or musketeers

- You are not able to influence your troops or fire upon the long-range enemy until the short range stuff is wiped out. This can be infuriating when a city assault (by land) allows two artillery pieces to be protected by a screen of transport ships!

I do hope that Civ3 takes this further, and allows a simple but effective battle system where the players can influence the outcome. Something like Imperialism II/HoMM3. Naturally this should be toggled to quick display/AI fights both sides for MP gaming unless all sides agree otherwise. I see this as essential if Civ3 is going to allow army stacks and combined arms tactics rather than just 1 piece v 1 piece combat.

I enjoyed wargames that briefly pop-up a smal window to show me a short animated battle (just eye-candy, I agree, not interactive) where you can see the involved unit "expanded" to single component (i.e. a 14/20 hit points tank unit will be showed on battle map as 14 proper tanks) that become destroyed as enemy hit you (same for enemy, of course), till one win and the battle is resolved.

To avoid too much interrupt, this show must be automatically limited to relevant battles (e.g. when the opposing forces are of similar power, or you are about to crush the last defender of a city or fortification: there is no fun to see lot of "musketeer massacred by elite marines" scene).

Pressing "esc" you should always be able to skip the scene.

Of course, when two stack are fighting, you can see a proper coordinated battle (who cares of showed formation, we are playing a Civilization level game, not a Squad level one! ), for short time, i.e. not longer than around 10 seconds.

Of course this will look better if the game is played in Simultaneous turns, because you can see the whole battle "clip" one after another, more like watching a war movie (while the main map on background will move to center on fighting position).

Battle replay can be implemented, too.

I know computer resources will be used for "not interactive" reason, but I feel that for a better "game immersion" it will be worth the hassle. I enjoyed it a lot on Battle Isle 2 and 3, only skipping when they where boring.

Just a last detail: in BI2 & 3 the battle scene where simple but rendered on-the-fly, showing appropriate surrounding (e.g. road or mountains) according to main map landscape, the camera moved and zoomed in and out to add deepth, explosions and debris where quite good for that old state of the graphics. Nothing where more thrilling to see your and enemy tanks firing and exploding until the winner won the battle!

As for the stuff about having to peer at battlemaps to figure out how units work ...