Unit Movement and Healing

Illinus · Jan 19, 2014

Two Issues I am wishing to get some thoughts on:
Does healing require more than one movement? Meaning I have a unit with two available unit, then move one tile and clock 'Fortify & Heal.' The unit will not start healing until the next turn. If you can't heal after moving, why would the game even give you the option to do so?

Similarly, why in the world will a healing unit continue to 'sleep' while being attacked? It's infuriating when I have a recon/scouting unit long from home and while healing, it is being attacked until it dies. I mean workers wake up at the faintest sniff of danger and my far-away scout just pours salt in his wounds half-way across the world. :mad:

sendos · Jan 19, 2014

If you spend 1 movement point then heal then it takes 2 turns (end of that turn after fortifying and the turn after) to heal. The unit doesn't fortify until next turn. If you don't spend 1 movement point and fortify straight away, you heal going into next turn.

Try using the alert function more often, or keep a tab on your exploring units rather than jumping straight to end turn.

GhostSalsa · Jan 19, 2014

Illinus said:
If you can't heal after moving, why would the game even give you the option to do so?

Similarly, why in the world will a healing unit continue to 'sleep' while being attacked? It's infuriating when I have a recon/scouting unit long from home and while healing, it is being attacked until it dies. I mean workers wake up at the faintest sniff of danger and my far-away scout just pours salt in his wounds half-way across the world.

You have intuited a good UI improvement here. The only available turn-ending button when there is not enough movement to heal should be Do Nothing. It was like 10 full games before I realized why this wasn't working. One time I was trying to patrol-and-heal with a single half-health frigate for 30 turns.

As for the scout, well that's the advantage of having attack animations turned on until you are totally used to micromanaging every unit every turn even without prompts. A sidebar icon for healing unit attacked might work (like the one for units killed), but it's hard to implement without turning wartime into a spam zone.

Illinus · Jan 19, 2014

GhostSalsa said:
You have intuited a good UI improvement here. The only available turn-ending button when there is not enough movement to heal should be Do Nothing. It was like 10 full games before I realized why this wasn't working. One time I was trying to patrol-and-heal with a single half-health frigate for 30 turns.

Exactly. I understand the mechanics I guess. You can only heal if you haven't done anything else during a turn. But it's misleading because the option is still clickable. In many cases it would make more sense to use up all of your movement (get away from danger), end your turn, and start healing next turn.

Browd · Jan 19, 2014

Because the option is clickable with one MP left, you can move the unit to the tile you want, then hit fortify/heal, and forget about the unit until it heals. If all you could do is hit the "do nothing" button (or the spacebar), you would still have to manually select fortify/heal on the next turn. Depending on how many units you have to manage, having to take action on two successive turns, vs. just 1 turn is either no big deal or an irritating waste of time and clicks.

Agree, however, that the existence of the healing option is an endless source of confusion, notwithstanding the Civilopedia's clear statement: "To heal damage, a unit must remain inactive for a turn."

GhostSalsa · Jan 19, 2014

Browd said:
"To heal damage, a unit must remain inactive for a turn."

That's not a clear statement, it's legalize - it depends on a pre-existing familiarity with game mechanics and language (inactive as in not attacking, not moving, not being even clicked on or looked at - a novice reader has no reason to feel certain about an answer) which makes the entire existence of a manual and sensible user interface superfluous - and anyway it's inaccurate, Denmark can move and heal when disembarking.

Browd · Jan 19, 2014

As can a unit with March, or an air unit with Air Repair.

caiman0815 · Jan 20, 2014

the function of the alert button should be incorporated in the heal button. if a unit use the button, it should be set to heal until an enemy approaches or it is fully healed

Browd · Jan 20, 2014

Frankly, you could dispense with the fortify until healed button if the game provided that any turn on which a wounded unit takes no action resulted in healing. In that case, fortify, alert and do nothing would all result in healing if the unit took no other action that turn.

The only differences would be when the unit wakes up and asks for direction: if do nothing, it asks on the next turn; if alert it asks when something comes to its attention; if fortify, never. Currently the only advantage of the heal/fortify is that the unit wakes up from fortify when it is fully healed (otherwise you might forget it exists). But as others note, the downside is they don't even wake up when attacked.

Barghaest · Jan 21, 2014

Browd said:
Frankly, you could dispense with the fortify until healed button if the game provided that any turn on which a wounded unit takes no action resulted in healing. In that case, fortify, alert and do nothing would all result in healing if the unit took no other action that turn.

Already does. I seldom use Fortify Until Healed... just hit Do Nothing to heal the unit so I can jump back to it next turn and see if I need to move or have healed enough for another attack to be effective - via combat preview results (especially early game when I got a pair of scouts tag teaming a barb camp).

Illinus · Jan 21, 2014

Barghaest said:
Already does. I seldom use Fortify Until Healed... just hit Do Nothing to heal the unit .

I don't believe the "do nothing" function heals the unit at all.

Browd · Jan 21, 2014

It does, as does alert and fortify. The only differences among the four options -- do nothing, alert, fortify and fortify until healed -- is when the unit will awake and whether the unit gets a defensive/fortification bonus while healing.

The point I meant to make above was not stated very well. Fortify until healed has no advantage over Alert (both get fortify bonus), but has one distinct disadvantage -- your healing unit won't wake up when under attack. The fortify until healed option could be eliminated from the game with no negative consequences -- just use Alert. Or if you don't care about the fortification bonus and want to monitor the unit every turn, choose do nothing.

Carazycool · Jan 21, 2014

Browd said:
Fortify until healed has no advantage over Alert (both get fortify bonus), but has one distinct disadvantage -- your healing unit won't wake up when under attack. The fortify until healed option could be eliminated from the game with no negative consequences -- just use Alert. Or if you don't care about the fortification bonus and want to monitor the unit every turn, choose do nothing.

While I see your point and think you are mostly correct that "Alert" is more useful than "Fortify until healed," the one advantage of "Fortify until healed" is that if you put an injured unit (a scout for example) on "Alert," you may forget about him and after he has fully healed he's just sitting there. However, I must say that more than a handful of times I have left a unit as "Fortify until healed" and an enemy unit starts attacking it and eventually kills it and I had no idea that it was even being attacked (I play with quick combat). Makes me want to turn quick combat off for the early part of the game actually. I should do that.

The only real foolproof thing is to check on the unit that is healing/fortified every turn and decide whether to remain fortified for one more turn or to move the unit.

Browd · Jan 21, 2014

Which is probably why Barghaest says he more frequently uses the do nothing option -- no defensive bonus, but no risk of overlooking/forgetting your unit.

Illinus · Jan 21, 2014

Browd said:
It does, as does alert and fortify. The only differences among the four options -- do nothing, alert, fortify and fortify until healed -- is when the unit will awake and whether the unit gets a defensive/fortification bonus while healing.

Aha! Well that does make a degree of sense now from a development standpoint. And I understand some of the previous comments better as well. One would think such a basic game element would be a bit more straightforward or better explained, such as when hovering on the corresponding buttons.

Thanks for the input.

Barghaest · Jan 21, 2014

Browd said:
Which is probably why Barghaest says he more frequently uses the do nothing option -- no defensive bonus, but no risk of overlooking/forgetting your unit.

Actually, from my experience playing Hotseat against myself... Do Nothing does give you fortification bonuses... they're applied same as healing - if you do nothing else that turn, you gain the bonus (which accumulates for each consecutive turn to the maximum - meaning if I keep hitting Do Nothing for three turns in a row, I've got the best fortification bonus).

Fortify is likewise handled like Fortify Until Healed... if you move one space then hit Fortify, you won't get the bonus during the other players' turns... it won't kick in until you've done nothing else for a turn (exactly the way healing works).

The only difference between the actions is how/when you unit "awakens".

Gamewizard · Jan 21, 2014

Barghaest said:
Actually, from my experience playing Hotseat against myself... Do Nothing does give you fortification bonuses... they're applied same as healing - if you do nothing else that turn, you gain the bonus (which accumulates for each consecutive turn to the maximum - meaning if I keep hitting Do Nothing for three turns in a row, I've got the best fortification bonus).

Fortify is likewise handled like Fortify Until Healed... if you move one space then hit Fortify, you won't get the bonus during the other players' turns... it won't kick in until you've done nothing else for a turn (exactly the way healing works).

The only difference between the actions is how/when you unit "awakens".

I would really like someone to co-sign this. I've been semi-wondering about the differences between all those buttons available since the game came out but never really bothered to figure it out.

In my games I usually use the fortify until-healed or alert, and rarely use wait a turn button. I always get stuck worrying about the defensive bonus being worth it, but if you get it anyways then I don't need to spend any time debating.

Barghaest · Jan 21, 2014

Gamewizard said:
I would really like someone to co-sign this. I've been semi-wondering about the differences between all those buttons available since the game came out but never really bothered to figure it out.

In my games I usually use the fortify until-healed or alert, and rarely use wait a turn button. I always get stuck worrying about the defensive bonus being worth it, but if you get it anyways then I don't need to spend any time debating.

Easily verified or disproved. Start a Hotseat game with two human opponents on a duel size pangea. Go to war with each other and test the different actions. Combat preview should show what modifiers you get and healing should be obvious.

Browd · Jan 21, 2014

Just fired up a hotseat duel game and set the two opposing warriors in adjacent tiles. A warrior set to fortify will get max (40%) fortification bonus in 2 turns. A warrior on alert never gets above 20% (he wakes up each turn and has to be reset to alert). A warrior on do nothing never gets a fortification bonus.

Gamewizard · Jan 21, 2014

Browd said:
Just fired up a hotseat duel game and set the two opposing warriors in adjacent tiles. A warrior set to fortify will get max (40%) fortification bonus in 2 turns. A warrior on alert never gets above 20% (he wakes up each turn and has to be reset to alert). A warrior on do nothing never gets a fortification bonus.

Thank you sir. Guess there is a difference to all them buttons after all. I am surprised that alert doesn't get you to the max 40% fortification bonus. 1500 hours logged and still learning things about this game.

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