Civilization V - Units: Disappointment

Earthling said:

I've not seen a single person on these forums I know to have a solid knowledge of Civilization and other strategy and tactical games that thinks the one-unit-per-tile limit will ultimately result in greater depth of gameplay, and that's even if they give enough credit that it wouldn't become a terrible micromanagement timesink in the first place.

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I see. So apparently anyone who disagrees with you or people who love SODs does not have a solid knowledge of Civilization games or other tactical games?

Right...

I can name one person and I guarantee he's more knowledgeable than you or the others.

You are probably quite familiar with the individual.

Can you guess who this person is?
















































Jon Shafer

I trust him more than you or the other so called experts that are bashing the 1UTP.

Relax.

Lets examine the strategy & tactics of waging war under the SoD and 1UPT models:

SoD) build a stack of all units needed for the coming offensive; advance towards necessary objective(s) - best appropriate unit will defend stack if attacked; when adjacent to enemy units choose the most appropriate unit with which to attack (if any).

1UPT) gather the units needed for the coming offensive; arrange them across the front in the desired order; advance towards necessary objective(s) - keeping in mind that units on edges and in the front are vulnerable to enemy attacks (best defenders may not be best attackers); when adjacent to the enemy, consider whether the current order of battle is the best/most appropriate, and rearrange as necessary (again, best defenders may not be best attackers).

Which offers the greater "depth of gameplay"?

SoD model requires two decision points: which units to add to the stack, which units to attack with.

1UPT model requires the following decision points:
1) Which units to gather for the offensive;
2) Initial OoB (Order of Battle), also known as 'which units go where';
3) Which units to move and in which order;
4) Repeat steps 2 & 3 anytime any of the following situations occur:
___a) The front narrows or expands;
___b) There is an immediate threat from or contact with enemy units;
___c) Any friendly unit is damaged;

My point was more towards the AI, not the human player. I would love to have seen more SoD used by the AI against me instead of what they do now, it would make the games a little more challenging. Knowing how weak the AI defend themselves, even at higher difficulties (and Soren's AI), they couldn't even do something simple as enmassing units; which does not give me much confidence in knowing what would be required of them in Civ5.

Thyrwyn said:

Lets examine the strategy & tactics of waging war under the SoD and 1UPT models:

SoD) build a stack of all units needed for the coming offensive; advance towards necessary objective(s) - best appropriate unit will defend stack if attacked; when adjacent to enemy units choose the most appropriate unit with which to attack (if any).

1UPT) gather the units needed for the coming offensive; arrange them across the front in the desired order; advance towards necessary objective(s) - keeping in mind that units on edges and in the front are vulnerable to enemy attacks (best defenders may not be best attackers); when adjacent to the enemy, consider whether the current order of battle is the best/most appropriate, and rearrange as necessary (again, best defenders may not be best attackers).

Which offers the greater "depth of gameplay"?

SoD model requires two decision points: which units to add to the stack, which units to attack with.

1UPT model requires the following decision points:
1) Which units to gather for the offensive;
2) Initial OoB (Order of Battle), also known as 'which units go where';
3) Which units to move and in which order;
4) Repeat steps 2 & 3 anytime any of the following situations occur:
___a) The front narrows or expands;
___b) There is an immediate threat from or contact with enemy units;
___c) Any friendly unit is damaged;

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Get ready for micromanagement HELL!!! If they really wanted to go this route with the 1UPT, then they would have been better off sticking with the stacks and "zooming in" to a tactical map for the battles. Mark my words, unless Jon Schafer and Firaxis pull of a divine miracle, 1UPT is going to be the thorn in Civ V's side after release.

You can be certain that I will be here after the game's release to see how everybody "loves" this concept in a civilization game.

I worry about the level of micro that will be introduced by 1Upt, but I also wonder what number of troops you can support. If each city can only support 1-3 units depending on age and economy then this may be how they keep it under control.

I wonder if the fact that cities defend themselves is a sign of this. If done right this could be a huge boon in running larger maps as there will be a great deal less for the ai to have to move and calculate each turn. In earlier civs you could have easily have hundreds or more of units on the board for the computer to keep track of and move each turn.

Thorburne said:

Mark my words, unless Jon Schafer and Firaxis pull of a divine miracle, 1UPT is going to be the thorn in Civ V's side after release.

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I don't think there is anything fundamental to Civilization that will make the addition of 1UPT a failure, micromanagement is already very much a part of Civ. I think it's simply a matter of personal preference, thankfully I'm in the luxurious position of not caring.

Thorburne said:

Get ready for micromanagement HELL!!!

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Strategy in a strategy game. What a horrible concept.

Less units, more complex and interesting tactics behind them - perhaps you want a mindless war game but many people want to actually have to engage their brains to win wars rather than just massing units.

Nobody is forcing you to play Civ 5, stick with Civ 4.

Stupid thread is stupid.

I´m very dissapointed, that units in Civ 5 in my eyes are as ugly as in Civ 4. (of course this is only my opinion). On the other side the combat mechanics of PG in my eyes could be a real progress , when they take it from the original PG and not from the latest versions of the PG series as this would be to close to the promotion system of Civ 4, what in my eyes is somewhat ridiculous for an epic game.

Tamman said:

I worry about the level of micro that will be introduced by 1Upt, but I also wonder what number of troops you can support. If each city can only support 1-3 units depending on age and economy then this may be how they keep it under control.

I wonder if the fact that cities defend themselves is a sign of this. If done right this could be a huge boon in running larger maps as there will be a great deal less for the ai to have to move and calculate each turn. In earlier civs you could have easily have hundreds or more of units on the board for the computer to keep track of and move each turn.

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1-3 units at a time... that would truly suck! If they force limit the number of units too much, than that will destroy the game.

And how would this be smoother? The units would be spread out and have to be moved individually. That will be a lot to have to move, especially when trying to move them together toward a target.

cf_nz said:

I don't think there is anything fundamental to Civilization that will make the addition of 1UPT a failure, micromanagement is already very much a part of Civ. I think it's simply a matter of personal preference, thankfully I'm in the luxurious position of not caring.

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So, increasing the micromanagement will make it better. Civilization has its elements of micromanagement which I can except given the scope of the game. To me, 1UPT will be pushing it to (beyond, even) the limits.

Chalks said:

Strategy in a strategy game. What a horrible concept.

Less units, more complex and interesting tactics behind them - perhaps you want a mindless war game but many people want to actually have to engage their brains to win wars rather than just massing units.

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I sorry... I too dumb for strategee!!!

Yes, I would like to engage my brain, but I also want the game to match the scope. If you like the style that they are pushing so much, here's a suggestion... go play Panzer General. I want to play Civilization...

trickofthehand said:

Nobody is forcing you to play Civ 5, stick with Civ 4.

Stupid thread is stupid.

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You are right, nobody is forcing me to play Civ V. So you are saying that I can't express my disappointment over the direction that they are taking it and should stick with the previous versions. Whether I will play it still remains to be seen, but I have the right to express my feelings about it.

How about this, nobody is forcing you to read or respond to this thread... stick with the other threads that sing almighty praises of Civ V and claim it to be the best game ever, despite the fact that none of us have played it (yes, the same argument that many of you use to "shut up" those of us who are not happy with the direction).

Civinator said:

I´m very dissapointed, that units in Civ 5 in my eyes are as ugly as in Civ 4. (of course this is only my opinion). On the other side the combat mechanics of PG in my eyes could be a real progress , when they take it from the original PG and not from the latest versions of the PG series as this would be to close to the promotion system of Civ 4, what in my eyes is somewhat ridiculous for an epic game.

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The combat mechanics for PG may be good... for PG, not Civ (IMHO). If I wanted the PG/Advanced Wars style of gaming, I would play those games. I want to play Civilization! Why is that so hard to understand?

Expressing concerns about either:
a) micromanagement quantity (from too many units) or
b) lack of scope (from too few units)
is entirely reasonable. I'm worried about both issues, along with too much bombardment (long-range naval bombardment of 4-5 tiles makes me pretty nervous), because long-range bombardment eliminates one of the main purposes of 1Upt, which is to make positioning matter.

But I'm still willing to try almost anything that gets away from Stacks of Doom, where unit placement is relatively unimportant.

I think Thrwyn's point about 1UpT requiring more tactical decisions is true. Whether this also makes the game better/more fun depends on the extent to which we run into a) and b) above.

They might pull it off, they might not, we won't know until we try the game.

Thorburne said:

Yes, I would like to engage my brain, but I also want the game to match the scope. If you like the style that they are pushing so much, here's a suggestion... go play Panzer General. I want to play Civilization...

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What history books are you reading where great military leaders had no say about the deployment of their troops on the battlefield?

If your idea of Civilization is piling up great big stacks of units on the same tile and then saying "ZERG RUSH GO GO GO!" then you probably won't enjoy the change, but to say that this is what civilization building is all about is ridiculous.

Guess what, if you pick a feature at random and say "do not want" then you're not going to be happy about the feature being included. It doesn't mean it's a bad feature or that it's nothing to do with civilization just because you can't be bothered with it.

Thorburne said:

I want to play Civilization! Why is that so hard to understand?

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Sorry to comment this: You want to play Civ 4 - not Civilization!

I never liked Civ 4 -especially not these ugly 3d units - and so with every change from Civ 4, Civilization can only become better in my eyes.

Ahriman said:

Expressing concerns about either:
a) micromanagement quantity (from too many units) or
b) lack of scope (from too few units)
is entirely reasonable. I'm worried about both issues, along with too much bombardment (long-range naval bombardment of 4-5 tiles makes me pretty nervous), because long-range bombardment eliminates one of the main purposes of 1Upt, which is to make positioning matter.

But I'm still willing to try almost anything that gets away from Stacks of Doom, where unit placement is relatively unimportant.

I think Thrwyn's point about 1UpT requiring more tactical decisions is true. Whether this also makes the game better/more fun depends on the extent to which we run into a) and b) above.

They might pull it off, they might not, we won't know until we try the game.

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I don't mind the tactics part, but I think that it would be better served in a seperate "battle map" as opposed to a world map. Of course, that sparks a whole different debate. I am willing to give it a try (pending further details), but I can't help but to believe that the system will be passable at best and will tend to take the player out of what makes Civilization, well, Civilization.

Chalks said:

What history books are you reading where great military leaders had no say about the deployment of their troops on the battlefield?

If your idea of Civilization is piling up great big stacks of units on the same tile and then saying "ZERG RUSH GO GO GO!" then you probably won't enjoy the change, but to say that this is what civilization building is all about is ridiculous.

Guess what, if you pick a feature at random and say "do not want" then you're not going to be happy about the feature being included. It doesn't mean it's a bad feature or that it's nothing to do with civilization just because you can't be bothered with it.

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What history books have you read that detail battles where the army of one side spans, say, the entire region of France, while the opposing army spans the entire Iberian Peninsula? It is funny how if I say that my example is not realistic, that people will respond saying that you have to suspend disbelief, yet they can't do it with the "stacks of doom". The fact (which has been stated over and over on these forums, yet people still don't understand) is that one tile in Civilization represents miles and miles of land. A stack of units in one tile would be plainly filling in those miles (with room to spare). A little imagination goes a long way in filling in the gaps.

Oh, and I picked this feature, not at random, but out of my own true concerns.

Civinator said:

Sorry to comment this: You want to play Civ 4 - not Civilization!

I never liked Civ 4 -especially not these ugly 3d units - and so with every change from Civ 4, Civilization can only become better in my eyes.

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No, I want to play Civilization. I want to play a game where I start out in a small region with little knowledge of the world, explore surrounding areas, meet other civilizations, build my armies, advance my technology through human history...

Panzer General and Advanced Wars are NOT Civilization. The only thing that they have in common is that they are turned based. If tactical warfare was included in Civ V in the form of "battle maps" I would be much more willing to try it out. I would still be skeptical because it would likely mean that the game would be drawn out even longer, but being as I like the long epic games, I probably wouldn't mind, personally. At least it would be more believable.

I don't mind the tactics part, but I think that it would be better served in a seperate "battle map" as opposed to a world map. Of course, that sparks a whole different debate. I am willing to give it a try (pending further details), but I can't help but to believe that the system will be passable at best and will tend to take the player out of what makes Civilization, well, Civilization.

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I think you will have difficulty convincing people (including me) that adopting a separate battle map would be a smaller change in terms of "civ being civ" than adopting a 1 unit per tile system.

What history books have you read that detail battles where the army of one side spans, say, the entire region of France, while the opposing army spans the entire Iberian Peninsula?

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Anything books about WW1 or WW2. How long was the eastern front?

It is funny how if I say that my example is not realistic, that people will respond saying that you have to suspend disbelief, yet they can't do it with the "stacks of doom

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Our problem with Stacks of Doom is nothing to do with realism, its to do with gameplay. We find them boring, because there are few strategic decisions to make. I build an army, combine them all into a big stack, and then advance that stack towards my objective. After deciding to do that, there are relatively few gameplay decisions to make. That's why we don't like big stacks; they make unit placement unimportant.

The fact (which has been stated over and over on these forums, yet people still don't understand) is that one tile in Civilization represents miles and miles of land

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People understand just fine, asserting that they don't is pretty condescending. Many of us just feel that gameplay is more important than realism, and we don't mind unrealistic scaling issues in order to capture a more tactical element and to make combat more interesting.
And that we'd prefer to do it all on a single map, rather than separating the game.

If you value realism highly and have a low interest in tactical warfare decisions, that's entirely your right. But that's not how a lot of others feel.

No, I want to play Civilization. I want to play a game where I start out in a small region with little knowledge of the world, explore surrounding areas, meet other civilizations, build my armies, advance my technology through human history...

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I dare say this will still be possible in Civ5.

Apparently some people can't deal with certain kinds of abstraction. Having the same leader for over 6000 years is ok but one unit per tile where the scale may be slightly out of whack is way too much for them. That indicates to me that really it's not the abstraction that's the problem as much as just grousing about change.

It's a crap excuse for not wanting to deal with an entirely new combat system and having to change their linear way of thinking.

Game play styles will have to change and that's a good thing. The old way was stale and in dire need of refreshing.

Thorburne said:

Oh, and I picked this feature, not at random, but out of my own true concerns.

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Your "true concern" is "I can't be bothered with this". Pick any other aspect of the game and I guarantee you that this argument will be just as valid.

Your selective laziness is not a valid comment on the gameplay.

"I hope this system doesn't hurt the game by forcing too much micro management" is a significantly different concern - it's a concern that everyone has. Everyone hopes that these changes do not damage the game.

Firaxis have already stated that they are trying to slim the game down so it is extremely unlikely that the end result will be more of a micromanagement burden than the current offering. As long as the gameplay is not damaged by this system, your complains boil down to "I don't wanna because I can't be bothered".

Your "true concern" is "I can't be bothered with this". Pick any other aspect of the game and I guarantee you that this argument will be just as valid.
Your selective laziness is not a valid comment on the gameplay.

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Come on, you guys caren't being fair. This is the single biggest change to the whole game. Its reasonable to be more concerned with such a major change than with the other changes they've announced. Its a bigger departure from previous versions, and its more subject to love-it-or-hate-it personal preference than a lot of other game features.

Grishnash said:

In Civilization V, Firaxis has decided to implement unit tile-restriction and ranged bombardment. As opposed to previous Civilizations which allowed unlimited unit stacks on any given tile.

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Sort of. There may have been stacking in civ1 (can't remember) but in civ1 and 2 you never wanted to stack if you could avoid it. This was because there could only be 1 defender in a stack, the one with the highest defence. If it lost, the whole stack was gone. So ... it was not really stacking per se.

Civ3 introduced the SOD. It simply didn't exist in previous versions - you tried not to stack when you were near enemy forces. The SOD was bitterly complained about by nearly everyone, so in civ4 they introduced the suicide artillery with collateral damage, in an attempt to get rid of the SOD. It was a bizarre idea (suicide artillery?) and it didn't work - the SOD remained, it just had alot of catapults now. So they are abandoning stacking, going back to something closer to pre-civ3. I think it is a great idea - the SOD just has to go, and it will bring war back out of the cities. For me, this is a big relief.

In Civilization 1 to Civilization III, units have been represented by one image, one unit.

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Meh. Graphics. Not really a rules issue.

And no unit has had the ability to shoot across tile lines, except for siege weapons against cities or with modifications by players.

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Not true - civ3 featured ranged bombardment. This was not a mod, or even an expansion, but vanilla civ3.

For the same reasons that many units may enter a tile square, no unit should possess the ability to bombard. Even an unit of Longbowmen, eqiped with the greatest longbows, could not fire an arrow from Seattle to Everett (←A nearby city), it just is not happening.

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I abhor the idea of ranged bombardment for archers etc. It should really only be possessed by artillery and things like battleships. I'll agree with you here. What they should do, is just revert to civ3 ranged bombardment, which did not have it for archers and so forth.

Firaxis, how is this in keeping with the core fundamental principles of Civilization? Who is the target market?

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Believe it or not, I believe Firaxis is targetting the core demographic. Hexes and so on are ideas that have been floating around here and Apolyton for years and years now. Ranged bombardment for archers was obviously adopted from popular civ4 mods featured here.

I’m sorry if this seems like a rant, but when I read about tile-restriction I thought how stupid that was and what else would be changed in Civ V, like no espionage or religion which is also very untasteful in my opinion. Not that it matters, but I think I’ll ride out on Civ IV for some time after CIV V with the way things are going ☹

Civilization V, so far, is nothing more then a Disappointment for me

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Let me guess: this is your first time switching to a new version of civ. It's like this every time, except possibly the switch from 1 to 2 (I don't think there is anyone who minded that one). Everyone gets terribly upset about the new changes. Once the game is out, it picks up some new players, but among the old players, there are three groups. One group will never play it - they will be civ2 or civ3 or civ4 fanatics forever, and will never play another version. Another group will readily take to it. The largest group will groan a bit and avoid it at first, try it out, grudgingly accept there are some nice elements to it. They'll get frustrated and go back to the old version for periods, but over time, they'll eventually abandon it and play only the new version. This is just how it goes.

After a while you just come to accept that there are always going to be some imperfections or ideas you disagree with in new versions; that's what mods are for.

Ahriman said:

Come on, you guys caren't being fair. This is the single biggest change to the whole game. Its reasonable to be more concerned with such a major change than with the other changes they've announced. Its a bigger departure from previous versions, and its more subject to love-it-or-hate-it personal preference than a lot of other game features.

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I'm not saying there aren't reasons for people to be concerned about the feature. I'm saying that without having played the game or even finding out how the actual mechanics will work you cannot possibly say that you "hate" the idea since the previous incarnation - stacking units to infinity then zerg rushing the opponent - was neither interesting, challenging or realistic. The concept may work badly, it may work really well, but you can't hate something without knowing how it will play.

The stance of "I can't be bothered to do this" isn't a valid concern, because I could just as easily say "I can't be bothered to build cities". If you are opposed to a concept even if its implementation is the absolute height of gaming perfection and it turns Civ 5 into a masterpiece, then the problem isn't with the gameplay, the problem is with your attitude towards change.