CIV 5 - A new Idea for Combat on Chess like Board

MosheLevi

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Did anyone here play “Heroes of Might and Magic V”?
I am playing this game lately and I am enjoying the combat more than the combat in CIV 4.

In “Heroes of Might and Magic V” players also have a stack of units such as Knights, Archers, Peasants, and so on (similar to CIV 4).
However, the battle takes place on Chess like board.

The player can place his units anyway he wants on the first two lines and even divide his archers (as example) to occupy two or more spaces.
So the stack is divided to sub-stacks of unit types.

When the battle starts each sub-stack takes its turn.
Bigger sub-stacks will inflict more damage according to the number of units in the sub-stack.

Combat will then continue until resolution.

I find this type of combat much more strategic than the current combat of CIV 4 because each side chooses which units to attack.
In addition to that the actual movement of units inside the Chess board is much more strategic.

So I think that this formula can work well for CIV 5.
 
Yes I had thought of trying to mod Civ for this style combat. But since I have no programming skills whatsoever, well....

You should check out an old board game by Avalon Hill called 'Titan.' The game was mainly played on a 'strategic' board, but when to armies met for combat the action moved to a 'tactical' Battleground and the resulting fight ensued. There were several maps, one for each terrain type (hills, desert, plains, marsh, city, etc) and certain tiles had special terrain features which affected die rolls, defense, etc.

There's even a free computer version you can play http://colossus.sourceforge.net/

To answer your question, this would undoubtedly add to the crack-like quality of the civilization series.
 
I find this type of combat much more strategic than the current combat of CIV 4 because each side chooses which units to attack.
In addition to that the actual movement of units inside the Chess board is much more strategic.

So I think that this formula can work well for CIV 5.

That's not strategic, dude, that's tactical. I am opposed to this notion in sixty-foot-high letters of fire.
 
I agree with many things you have to say Moshe, but cannot do so here. As cool as Rome Total War is; a turn-based repllication of Heroes of Might and Magic is even more granular than I like.
 
I think you are attempting to put tactics into the game to too high a degree. There are other games that allow you to do that, but Civ shouldn't become one of them. Whilst you don't want SoDs to be prevalent everywhere (which would be the opposite of chess-board type warfare), this is too complicated and tactical to be a good thing for the game.
 
Guys,

Did anyone here play “Heroes of Might and Magic V”?

The turn base tactical battle in this game is a great fun, especially when you have two large stacks going against each other.
It plays and feels similar to a Chess game.

The battles in Civ 4 are fun at first but then later on when stacks have many units, battles become tedious and repetitive.

The tactical battles in Chess like grid are much more fun, and you won’t know how much fun it is until you try it…

There is noting wrong with making CIV 5 more tactical in nature.
Besides, the “Auto Resolve” option should always be available.
 
MosheLevi:

I've played tactical battle games. I don't like them.

I've played Civ and I like the way Civ does battles.

Is this reasonably clear ?
 
I like only a select few tactical games, and even then, when I feel like it. Chess is more of a strategic game. I still agree with Camikaze and rysmiel: civ is, and should not become, a tactical game.
 
It sounds a lot like Pirates! when you attack a city. Sometimes I'm in the mood for that. It's fun.
Usually I'd enter this discussion on the tactical vs. strategic.

Today it strikes me as a "If we can micromanage workers and cities to play at higher levels, why can't we micromanage battles?" kind of question.

While micromanaging a battle can be fun for me, there are other games to do that. There are many ways I'd like to change this game, and most of them would make the game more complex, But if I had to chose between a tactical battlefield feature which would add a layer to micro-management OR a "to do list" for a group of workers which would simplfy worker and tile management, I'd go with the "to do list".
 
Today it strikes me as a "If we can micromanage workers and cities to play at higher levels, why can't we micromanage battles?" kind of question.

The scale is different. Moving one unit at a time as we do now is micromanaging the battle on the same scale as we micromanage workers. Do you want starting a worker working on a tile improvement to open up a tactical screen ?
 
It sounds a lot like Pirates! when you attack a city. Sometimes I'm in the mood for that. It's fun.
Yes, I played Pirates when it came out and it was fun to attack cities in a Chess like mode.

“Heroes V” is even more fun in that respect because it also incorporates unit abilities.
Just imagine if we can play tactical battles in a Chess grid where we can use special weapons/abilities (with limitations) such as Bazooka, sticky bombs, and grenades for infantry.

This can be a lot of fun…..

Downside of tactical combat is that it slows down multi player enormously.

Tactical combat on a Chess grid can take less time when we have 50+ units in a stack.
That is because on a Chess grid these units are grouped together in sub-stacks causing more damage the more units you have.
 
i wouldn't mind civ 5 having a combat subsystem that mimic a jrpg/strategy game like warsong(sega), but think that would just sound like more micromanagement than i would like. civ iv already made war a lot more complex than the previous civs. i think of civ games as something for people who like to see the "big picture", rather than a bunch of small skirmishes on a chessboard..
 
i wouldn't mind civ 5 having a combat subsystem that mimic a jrpg/strategy game like warsong(sega), but think that would just sound like more micromanagement than i would like. civ iv already made war a lot more complex than the previous civs. i think of civ games as something for people who like to see the "big picture", rather than a bunch of small skirmishes on a chessboard..

A combat subsystem would be good since a whole stack of units can be rearranged to fight an enemy stack. Priority can be placed on expendable units and valued units. A great military leader with a combination of Level 7+ promoted units would make a battle more tactical. Perhaps an automation of the combat subsystem could remove the micromanagement.

Each new civ game builds upon the pervious so complexity isn't surprising. The big picture of a chessboard is to kill the king.
 
Tactical combat on a Chess grid can take less time when we have 50+ units in a stack.
That is because on a Chess grid these units are grouped together in sub-stacks causing more damage the more units you have.

So you want to a tactical grid, but then essentially to have people make mini-Stacks-of-Doom on the tactical grid ?

This makes even less sense to me.
 
So you want to a tactical grid, but then essentially to have people make mini-Stacks-of-Doom on the tactical grid ?

This makes even less sense to me.

Yes, mini stacks on a Chess board where each mini stack is made of one unit type.
For example, let us say you have 20 artillery, 20 tanks, 10 mech infantry, and 10 helicopters.
You will then have each one of these units types occupy a separate square on the chess board.
You can also split them up as you wish (e.g. splitting the 20 artillery units to two stacks of 10 artillery each).

These mini stacks fight as a group causing more damage the more units are in the mini stack.
As a result, fights between two huge stacks won’t take forever like they do today.

This battle mechanics is very similar to a Chess game.
That is how “Heroes V” plays out and it is a great fun because this game mechanics also includes various units abilities that can affect the outcome of the battle greatly.

It is like playing a Chess game with different rules.

“Heroes V” has great reviews partly because of the Chess like battle mechanics.
I therefore don’t see why Civ 5 can’t implement the same battle mechanics.
FA already did something similar to that in “Pirates”.
 
The scale is different. Moving one unit at a time as we do now is micromanaging the battle on the same scale as we micromanage workers. Do you want starting a worker working on a tile improvement to open up a tactical screen ?

Well, I think iI miss some of the commands from civ 3, although I no longer recall which ones. Maybe the equivalent of the colony one- build a road to the resource and improve it.

But I would like to be able to que what the worker does, whether that's from a city-type fat cross screen, or if I could just point and click tile a )Road, Mine, tile d) Road cottage, etc.

Somtimes I tire of telling the workers what to do every turn, much like telling the airships where to recon. There would be time savings over the course of the game if I could give orders less often.
 
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