I am the defense minister of a smaller civ that is trying to defeat a much larger civ due to the big civ bug. They are way ahead in techs but a few active players all banded together and built up a big army.
I am wondering if it is better to have the troops in the heroic stance or just to leave them as they are?
Having been the DM of 4 Victorious battles thus far, I would advise you to go all Heroic on every occasion. I think it's something that should be addressed after the bugs are worked out. Unit Strength and weather conditions seem to trump everything else, and heroic put's your side at a much higher overall strength. Even when your loosing numbers if your over all strength is higher (because of heroic) the slider bar will continue in your favor.
One more thing to mention, is that being defense minister it's pretty easy to manipulate things to ensure that you win the battle medal every time, and continue to hold that position. Probably something that should be looked at down the road to fix as well.
Heroic will get your troops more losses, and if you have all your guys on heroic, and the numbers are close to even, you may end up losing the battle because you lose more troops more quickly.
Putting your troops on heroic just before the turn change may help you get more attacks.
well, we gave it our all and set some to heroic but they always were just slightly ahead of us in troop numbers and we never got to attack. They would hit us 3-5 times before we went once.
About what omnimutant said that it's a problem that the DM can set heroic or not, so he would do that to win the medal for himself:
Well, a DM would do that if he:
1) doesn't understand the game
2) has the luck to be in the only active civ (or by far the most active one) in his game...
The last thing springs up too much these days with the opening up, thousands of people logging in... once... and never coming back. So I guess this opinion comes out of this situation.
BUT, I can assure you, once you would get into a REAL game, where there's a lot of active civs, there's really no room for such selfish matters. This game is a social game. It's the idea that you work together with your civmates to win the game. These kinda tactics don't go well together with that teamplay-idea.
And well, as said... this idea is just a necessity if you play against other active civs! Me and one or two people more (3-people, closed borders civ...) that have played this game as a team already quite a few times would beat ANY civ that is just a collection of individuals trying to win personally before thinking about the civ, doing these things like retreating troops, building ginormous buildings without caring, inventing techs without thinking who is with you in that tech, ...
Oh, or the most ridiculous one of all... Bidding against each other. Hilarious when I see people of the same civ bidding against each other, that gives me more room to win the game... Or spending huge money on the auction to be King...
Really, to everyone that thinks this game can be won by being very selfish in a civ: I wish you a game against one of the collectives that are still around (but a bit frustrated about all the people not understanding that this is a team-game)
it cant be a team game
there is only one winner
if your civ wins - you get nothing
And if your civ doesn't win, you get even less...
If your civ wins, you will be probably in top10 place, if your civ doesn't win, it will be difficult to be in that top10 place.
Is this SOOOOO hard to understand? As said before, and is shown many many times in games played...: The civ that plays as a team will ALWAYS beat the civ that are a collection of individuals, even when it's a lot of them and being active... And thus one person in that winning team-civ will ALWAYS win personally (not that close teams actually really care who personally wins, as long as it was a good and fun and winning game)
Best game (okay, arguably, but nevertheless, some of the 'veterans' (inside joke: "Jing, you old woman!") will agree on this one) ever played in Civworld was by 5 university students after their exams, sitting in two adjacent rooms, coordinating and planning EVERY little thing together. They massively destroyed two other 'veteran teams'...! Why? Because they were playing as a TEAM even more than the other 2 vet teams did. Oooh, and the other civs in that game...? The ones with the individuals...? They were a laugh. Mind you, this was in times that actually at least half of players in a game were really active (pre-opening-beta).
It only takes a very good look at game mechanics to understand the playing as a team by the way... Maybe I'm giving too much away here now, but here it goes:
1) Planning science thoroughly makes a HUGE difference. Keep mazes that are easy, don't invent any tech with an easy maze-sequence... Carefully planned VoD's and the follow up on that (insider again: Stoplight Rocky :-)). Only THIS will win a game against a non-team
2) Carefully plan a sequence of people taking construction medals and getting the interior ministry... LOTS of extra harvests
3) Plan and prepare battles thoroughly, knowing what team-members will be able to add and when. When people will be online... Plan battles so maximum number of a team will be online to smite the opponents with Call to Arms/Secret Weapon/Taking Samurai Castle/Leonardo's workshop (I remember a very nice battle between two teams where Samurai Castle changed hands 4 times)
4) Team puzzle preparing and playing
5) Roles in a team
And so on and so on... I would guess that there's so many people not realizing this because it has been easy to them, because they have been playing a game where only 20 or so people are actually active. Then things are easy. If you would play a game against a team, you would very much lose, even if you have double or more active players (individuals) in your civ.
But go ahead, play as an individual, but you won't be with me in my closed borders team civ. We will be having all the fun and win the game, that's for sure... You'll have some medals and end the game with 50 fame on 15th place overall personally...
I have the luck of being in a civ that could care less about fame but would rather work together. As a result we are the best civ and win 4 of every 5 era victories. We have won every science victory since the game began and have been able to overcome difficult times. For instance, we just finished a battle where both sides had 6k in power. Through teamwork we were able to take Samurai Castle with thirty minutes before the battle began. (At this point it was pretty expensive). We coordinated who would send in what troops and, who would replace the troops they had when the other stack was destroyed. Because of this coordination we were able to pull off an amazing victory and our civ holds all the top 10 spots.
To make a long story short, team work is important in CivWorld, without teamwork you can not expect to win. Without team work, don't expect to be one of the victors of the game.
I'm looking forward to actually getting to play as a team. Right now, I talk to my team, and I'm never sure if I'm just shouting into a void. I don't even know if the messages get through to offline members, though I've had a couple conversations when I happen to catch someone online.
On the 2 servers i have been so far the players are casual and don't plan much/at all
No one there will let you have a medal for the benefit of the civ
To me it seems that the most selfish person in one of the 2 big civs will win
Like the person above me said. you need luck to find a civ that actually tries to cooperate
Its an FB game, and most people treat it as such, rather than an RTS
I think heroic is best used if you want one type of unit to do the attacking, as if he were jumping up and down saying "Pick me! Pick me!" If you've thrown all your units into a battle, choose heroic if the weather favors that unit, or if it's an uncontested type, etc.
On the other hand, I think defensive is best if you've brought your Phalanxes (att:1, def:4) to an attack. They'd be used much better if they were defending, so you minimize the number of times they're selected to participate in the attack. ...Or just don't include your phalanxes when attacking. Also, if you're being attacked, and you're trying to get that extra hour of time for reinforcements to arrive from other players, I think you'd draw out the battle time, just with worse odds.
I haven't had enough battle time to really get a feel for if I'm right or not, so take all this with a grain of salt.
Puting an unit on heroic or not does not change it's chance of being picked as attacking unit. The force of attacking unit does not influence the damage they take. Phalanxes should not be put into fortify automatically, the attacking side always uses attacking force, nation being invaded always defense strenght, it does not depends on which turn they are being attacked or attacking.Originally Posted by Gruntcow
There is a fast summary of basic combat overview in FAQ
Jing my friend, I have to report my observation I did yesterday during a nightly fight. My civ had like 15 different stacks on the battlefield, my stack with 1,000 Riflemen was the largest with a huge gap to next strongest. All our stacks were on normal. My 1k stack executed 5 attacks in a row, then I put it at defending stance and this seemed to make another of our stacks attack. After this other attack I've put my Riflemen on heroic and voila, they were the attacking stack again.
Now reproduce it at least three times in true scientific method
That's interesting to know.
I will start my response by saying, IMHO, civworld has the worst combat system of all the civs.
What you have to do is throw away your normal strategy concepts.
The first two important concepts to pay attention to is the total number of each force on the left of the screen. Second is the direction the arrow is pointing and how far to each side the arrow is. The team with the highest number and with the arrow pointed at the opposite side gets more attacks.
Unlike previous civs you do not take damage from attacks. Its more like Risk than civ. Your team attacks they take damage and if they get a turn they attack you and you take damage and so on.
Flanking matters but not the way you think. For instance if they have 20 cavalry and you have none their cavalry will now get to attack your infantry, but it gives them no other apparent advantage. In fact I have held off an opposing forces much larger cavalry several times with a single cavalry unit to prevent that. (Never would happen in real life mind you)
Unlike previous civs fortification does not take your attack bonus and increase your defense bonus. Instead it just lowers your total number value. It does reduce your losses however if the other team does attack. I find it is used best when you completely overwhelm the other-side and want to reduce your losses for future combats.
Heroic is great to bump that number up on your side, but if the bar is pointed at you and their number is greater your going to have high losses. If you cant muster more forces or pull a mini wonder I have found its best to withdraw depending on the gap. (say they have 1500 and the best you have is 150)
As a side note: It was literally 3 weeks before I saw an entire combat, because almost every fight starts sometime after midnight EST and doesn't finish until 5 am. I have obligations keeping me from attending that. For that reason I have asked many times in these forums that the DM be appointed or elected. Invariably I would form the civ and win key battles and not be able to stop being DM, very frustrating for the whole team.
My advice for you is to keep looking till you find a team of players that work together. Next since there are almost always zombie civs you can get a feel for combat by defending another civ from barbarians.
Good luck
Last edited by DanielR; 07-17-2011 at 05:16 AM. Reason: spelling
20 cav vs 0 cav makes the 20 cav have double attack/defense.
Perhaps it says this on the wiki, but I have never seen any unit change its bonus based on this.
Open your eyes then. It works. (maybe too avoid missunderstandings I should replace the "cav" in my post with "mobile units")
After careful observation I can see it does double the cavalry/mobile unit only. It does not affect infantry nor does it affect archers. I also observe it seems to work for boats. However the other units seem to get no bonus from not having a counterpart. It is a very subtle change as most cavalry have little effect on the combat so I probably didnt notice it before.
Interesting... Have to say I haven't really being paying much attention at which of my units get chosen as attacking stack as it doesn't really matter. Maybe then!
I've seen it working on all 4 unit types (mobile, melee, naval, ranged) flawlessly in all my games.
Just went through a battle where heroic played a big part. In the end the strengths were so close both sides were going full out on heroic. Messy but there was a lot of switching stnaces as both sides tried to minimize losses while still inflict damage on the other side.
Just because it is so beautiful:
Look at this and then read Mattijs post (again) who is playing with us in the Mongolian Horde in this game.
Looks to me like the Mongolians got a massive amount of Bugged Free tech Victories. Whats that have to do with Battle Stances?
Heroic or not: The answer is depends on the unit's strength and defense numbers. During attack, the attacking side sums up all it's attack numbers. Units with high attack numbers and low defense numbers are best used in Heroic stance for this portion of the combat.
During defense, the defending side uses the sum of all it's defense numbers. To get the best mileage out of your troops, units with high defense numbers (and low attack numbers) should be in Fortify stance. These are usually the infantry units.
I have to summarise this because I'm seeing some strange ideas popping up even after DanielR's post... as simple as I can put it.
If you are the attacking civ: your battle strength depends upon your total attack numbers, irrespective of if you are attacking or defending on your turn.
If you are the defending civ: your battle strength depends upon your total defense numbers, irrespective of if you are attacking or defending on your turn.
Being chosen to attack on a particular round seems to be pretty much random on each and fairly irrelevant. Even if you are defending on that round if your overall strength is higher then you will push the arrow toward their side. The easiest way to minimise losses is to win the battle as quickly as possible.
In my experience: do whatever you can to get the highest number when the clock ticks over. Heroic troops if you have to, but be selective (if you can do it with just one stack on heroic do that to minimise losses). If you seriously outnumber your opponent put stacks on to fortify to conserve them. If you know someone from your civ has troops they can place to help and has said they will be there for the battle, wait.
To answer the first question: a small civ trying to defeat a large civ? Don't attack them. Make them want to attack you. Lock in some wonders before they go obsolete so you become a tempting target. Store production so that you look weak. Draw them in. Build enough troops in battle lead-up so you look like you are trying to raise an army but not so much that they realise how strong you are and retreat for a draw. Check the battlefield so you don't waste production on troops you can't use. If you can upgrade some good defense units just before the battle. Once the battle begins put the rest of your troops in, use the mini-wonders if you can, build wonders that help (or if they have Leonardo and you can, build it off them). THEN look at your stances and if you need to go heroic to get the number up do so.
What about Gladiators, the civic that gives you a boost to heroic? Only if, and only if, you have sufficient votes in your civ online during the battle to take it back off again. Gladiators is a death sentence for your troops if you can't get it back off.
Oh, also, you'll notice that when a lot of alpha and beta players are together they fight to NOT be defense minister.
hehehehe, the responsibility and all...! Horrible...! The group pressure...!
- "YOU HAVE TO BE ONLINE AT 5AM IN THE MORNING MATT, BECAUSE THERE'S A BATTLE!!!!!!!"
- "No, I can't, I have a life, you know"
- "NO, Matt, this is REALLY important"
- "But my wife is giving birth tonight" (I'm just putting myself in Daddyo Grzeg's place for the sake of conversation)
- "Yes, that's all good, but don't worry, that baby will be around for a while, whereas this battle will be OVER AND LOST if you're not online at 5AM IN THE MORNING!!!"
- "Okay, okay, I'm texting my wife now..."
Every single one of these era victories is legit.
I posted in this thread because I refer to Mattijs post which is also in here.
That is not how it works. Fortify still decreases your defensive units' strength by half, where heroic doubles it. Don't do the mistake of fortifying cause you are defending, or cause the unit is defensive unit. Just like AngelaR said.
That means whatever game your in is actually NOT affected by the Tech win Bug? You should send the game info to the Dev's so they can fix everyone elses game. I've yet to see a single instance, where the Science Era victory was awarded to the correct Civ.Every single one of these era victories is legit.
I don't know where your getting that information from. Every time I go to war it uses the combined unit strength of all my units weather I'm defending or attacking. Some units are better for defending sure, but that doesn't mean you put them on fortify... Only fortify if you can do so while keeping a distinct advantage in your overall Strength Number.During defense, the defending side uses the sum of all it's defense numbers. To get the best mileage out of your troops, units with high defense numbers (and low attack numbers) should be in Fortify stance. These are usually the infantry units.
Our game MIGHT have been affected by the no-King/join wrong civ bug, I don't know. I can however tell you that our civ wasn't affected by any bug. All the victories were earned legitimately with our own science points.
Last edited by BoMbaStiXxX; 07-19-2011 at 05:04 AM.
see the game results thread for the full story about the game by the way... There wasn't any eras awarded to another civ in this game, weirdly enough.
Actually, in the game before that, in the first civ I was (huge civ, clearly because of join-wrong-civ-bug) every time science victory WAS awarded to another one person nation, but then I switched civs with the active people of my civ, from then on all science victories were actually awarded to the right nation, being us.
I was in Game 1014 and we went ahead on science and where correctly attributed the tech. We'd formed about four/six hours after the start of the game and I think had players who hadn't joined any of the civs that had been tainted by early join/throw outs. (you know, civs with the same king, reporting 3 players on one screen and only having one, that sort of stuff). If you wait for the traffic to slow down on the game and what looks to be reversion errors sorting out you are apparently okay.
@Lenny, not every game has the missing king (giving tech and victories to the wrong civ) bug. I have had one game since the Open Beta where I didn't get the joining bug, and another where I DID get the bug, but there is no civ with a missing king, so the victories are still correct.
Just so you know, not every game that has this bug is missing a king either. In 1347, I purposefully waited out the civ joining rush, so I wouldn't get moved around to different Civ's. Once things calmed down I founded the Aztecs. For about 2 days I was the only member of the Aztecs and doing fine. However I still lost era's from Tech wins to other nations, when I had actually won the tech. I was rewarded with knowing the tech obviously, but another Civ got credit, the win, the fame points, medals and promotions. This happened twice BEFORE people started joining my Civ.
I'm still in first place in my Game, however, with more and more people joining my civ,(Aztecs) my progress has heavily stagnated.
LOL, one more thing to mention is that being defense minister it's pretty easy to manipulate things to ensure that SOMEONE ELSE becomes defense minister, so you don't have to stay up all night every night!
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