[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Artillery and sea units (PR#1476)

[Brandon Craig Rhodes <brandon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanasis Kinias <tkinias@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> scripsit Brandon Craig Rhodes:
>
> > *why* do units in cities and forts have to be taken out one at a
> > time, while units sharing the same square otherwise all
> > mysteriously and tragically disappear when the first one is taken
> > down?
> 
> Because that's how it was done in Civ 1 ... If you couldn't attack
> with more than one unit, you couldn't have more than one unit defend
> or attacking would be impossible.

The one-against-one model is quite acceptable, and was not my worry;
since Civ games are designed for expansion and empire building, it
makes sense for combat to be simple and slow so that people are
encouraged to concentrate on (what else?) building a civilization
rather than massing huge armies.

> Having all but one unit untouched by the combat in cities and forts
> was a kluge to make up for the fact that only one unit's strength
> was included in the combat.

To me the situation when the units are `outdoors' seems to be the far
greater kludge.  That two units fighting each risk death makes sense;
but why should several other units fall over dead who contributed
neither attack nor defense strength in the defense of their square?
That is what to me seems inexplicable.

Why not have the one-on-one rule work in the open fields as well as in
cities?  The simple city combat algorithm, that deletes a single unit
when it loses, could so easily have been applied to field combat as
well.  Instead, someone wrote a more complicated version that iterates
across a bunch of units not even involved in the combat and destroys
them as well.

The only explanation I can think of is that the Civ map shows only one
enemy unit in a square, even if several are present; in which case the
rule that the whole stack dies with its first defender makes sense if
the original game designers did not want you surprised to find other
units hidden under the one you had just so carefully defeated.  So to
prevent nasty surprises, they guaranteed that the square will be wiped
clean if you defeat the one enemy you can see.

But this seems to me simply indefensible.  The game has no problem
showing multiple units of yours - it just puts a `+' in the corner and
shows the stack if you click on them.  Why should it not show enemy
stacks as well?  What about a phalanx lets it hide two units of enemy
warriors on the exact same spot?  In what period of history were
components of an army able to make themselves invisible?

Obviously I am ranting.  Suffice it to say I would keep only the rule
that all transported units go down with their ship, and also that
nukes affect all units in a square simultaneously; otherwise combat
should be strictly pair-wise and enemy stacks should be visible for
what they are.

-- 
Brandon Craig Rhodes   brandon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx   http://rhodesmill.org/brandon