Improving 1UPT

mitsho · Apr 23, 2013

Jabberwockxeno said:
The maps need to be bigger to allow for the lack of stacks. Simple as that. This would also mean scaling up the amount of movements units can make, and IMO, making cities be larger than 1 tile.

I feel that's an important point. In civ5, there's no true battlefields as cities dominate the landscape and the armies of the middle to late game become too big. Pretty much everything would need to be scaled up: The minimum distance between cities, tile acquisition rate, the number of population, production and all other costs, etc. ... That's huge balance issue and most computer probably wouldn't be able to handle it. And of course the map would look much emptier.

Jabberwockxeno said:
I REALLY like this idea. Would love to see somebody mod it hinthintcoughcough.

It does seem like a good idea by phoinix. The important question - as always - however is how the AI would handle it?

To be prepared for surprise attacks, wouldn't your army still need to be in 'defensive mode' and thus when attacked there would be no time to pull all units together to a stack for movement (as you would lose one turn to move it?).

Cyberian · Apr 23, 2013

I can't understand why they don't allow civilian unit stacking. It is so obviously a good thing.

Maybe they just don't do it to not give in to those ppl who are completely against 1UPT.
"give an inch and they'll take a mile"

manacerace · Apr 23, 2013

First I must say I'm a fan of the 1 UPT mechanic. Basically, I think it makes the game more "strategic", even if I know that it has some drawbacks: for example, in some situations units blocking each other can be a little messy, or when you have to invade another continent you must spread all your troops along the coastline.
One solution, or a compromise, that came to my mind is this (if it has already been proposed I apologize in advance

): there could be stacks of SAME UNIT TYPE, such as archers, WWI infantry, lancers, and so on. When you stack 2 (or more, maybe with a maximum) units, you actually "merge" them in a super-unit, so that the result is a UNIQUE unit but with health and strength which are the sum of all the others.
For example, if you have 3 WWI infantry, you could merge them in 1 WWI infantry unit, with x3 health and x3 strength (or maybe a percentage of that x3 strength, like 80%).
What do you think?

EDIT: also in real-life armies there is something like that: for example squads which group into platoons which group into battalions which group into divisions etc...

Trias · Apr 23, 2013

Cyberian said:
I can't understand why they don't allow civilian unit stacking. It is so obviously a good thing.

Maybe they just don't do it to not give in to those ppl who are completely against 1UPT.
"give an inch and they'll take a mile"

I think this is probably an interface decision. One of the things made possible by 1UPT is an increased clarity of the interface by having ALL units shown on the map. I.e. you do not have to click on a tile to see what units are on it, (as you would in previous iterations).

This decision was probably made early in development, and may not be that easy to change. It would certainly need some non-trivial changes to the interface. It could even be that the technical implementation of how the game handles units and their relation to the map, may not be that amenable to and extension allowing multiple units in the same layer/type to exist in one tile.

I do think that it is likely that a next iteration of civ will see the return of civilian unit stacking. That is, if there are worker units represented on the map, if the next iteration has some different mechanism for producing tile improvements (also a good possibility!) then the need for civilian unit stacking may be severely reduced.

Luckystrike77 · Apr 23, 2013

Buccaneer said:
I am an Immortal player and I find the chess-like moving of pieces to be one of the more interesting and fun parts of civ5. It would be too easy and not any fun to build large stacks of anything and it takes away a key tactical component. Moving missionaries in foreign territories should not be easy, esp when the goal is to convert. Why dumb this down just because players don't have the patience to move pieces in a finite manner?

Ditto!

Some people seem to not understand that limited possibilities for movement is what makes the system strategically/tactically deep. You have to carefully plan positioning, and think more turns ahead. The system also gives roads both a strategical and tactical role.

Dida said:
Why? How about because this is a game that's supposed to be fun to play? Just because you have limitless time to sit around moving each piece around in whatever intricate ways you see fit, does not mean other people enjoy doing the same.

You, sir, are among those people I refer to.

Brimstone · Apr 23, 2013

Sulla was right. All this praise for the 'tactical' side of 1UPT is hilarious. I play Immortal and almost always go for domination with a fall back on science if it becomes way to tedious. And that happens a lot. Carpet of doom much? 1UPT is fail on so many levels. Social policy perk trees are a joke. Economy is the same thing every game.

Too many peeps raised on consoles now have low expectations therefore think CiV is awesome.

Luckystrike77 · Apr 23, 2013

One of the issues here is the difference between multiplayer and singleplayer. In multiplayer the changes has done warfare alot more fun. No doubt in my mind about that.

When it comes to playing versus the AI, that can't offer the same tactical depth in its thinking, I guess the old less tactical system of Civ4 worked better in making the AI player a challenge in war. The reason is simply that its easier to get an AI to use such a system more comparably to a human.

Trias · Apr 23, 2013

Luckystrike77 said:
When it comes to playing versus the AI, that can't offer the same tactical depth in its thinking, I guess the old less tactical system of Civ4 worked better in making the AI player a challenge in war. The reason is simply that its easier to get an AI to use such a system more comparably to a human.

Part of the reason why the AI in civ4 was more challenging, was because the bonuses that the AI got were much easier the lever in combat (and much more effectively compensated for the lack of skill from the AI). In civ4, more units == bigger stacks. The bigger stacks of the AI compensated quite well for bad strategical decisions that AI made.

On the higher difficulty levels, exchanging unit with the AI at a ratio of 2:1 often still meant that you would loose.

Gamewizard · Apr 23, 2013

Brimstone said:
Sulla was right. All this praise for the 'tactical' side of 1UPT is hilarious. I play Immortal and almost always go for domination with a fall back on science if it becomes way to tedious. And that happens a lot. Carpet of doom much? 1UPT is fail on so many levels. Social policy perk trees are a joke. Economy is the same thing every game.

Too many peeps raised on consoles now have low expectations therefore think CiV is awesome.

Considering how well Civ V has sold and the thousand plus hours many players have put into the game, I would say Sulla is clearly wrong. Just because YOU get bored of moving your units around doesn't mean everyone else gets bored too.

And what does the policy tree and economy side of the game have to do with the 1UPT argument? These 2 things are being reworked in BNW anyways, but clearly you just wanted someplace to rant and insult others, so bravo and a good day to you sir.

Simplicity2 · Apr 23, 2013

1upt is not really the problem. The carpet of doom is the problem. It was a bad decision to let the AI bonus be in the NUMBER of units it can field as opposed to the tech or strength of those units.

Facing an unending wave of units from the AI obliterates the fun involved in the 1upt strategic placing. If they just made AI live within their means like normal human players, they wouldn't field so many units. Give them a science bonus instead. Or just a plain +25% strength.

albie_123 · Apr 23, 2013

The AI will sometimes lose the game, despite having all spaceship parts built, because it can't find a way to move them to the capital thanks to a carpet of units.

That, in itself, is so damning of 1UPT that until it's fixed there can really be no argument on the subject.

Teodosio · Apr 23, 2013

mitsho said:
I feel that's an important point. In civ5, there's no true battlefields as cities dominate the landscape and the armies of the middle to late game become too big. Pretty much everything would need to be scaled up: The minimum distance between cities, tile acquisition rate, the number of population, production and all other costs, etc. ... That's huge balance issue and most computer probably wouldn't be able to handle it. And of course the map would look much emptier.

I agree, terrain features (as cities and resources) should be scaled up compared to units.
As in the attached image, each hex could be divided in seven smaller hexes. The larger ones should be used for cities, resources and terrain improvements (current scale), the smaller ones should be used for units (smaller scale).

meowschwitz · Apr 23, 2013

Teodosio said:
I agree, terrain features (as cities and resources) should be scaled up compared to units.
As in the attached image, each hex could be divided in seven smaller hexes. The larger ones should be used for cities, resources and terrain improvements (current scale), the smaller ones should be used for units (smaller scale).

So different units, improvements, terrain features, and cities should all take up different amounts of hexes? That sounds like a cool idea that could solve some of the issues in the game currently. That could be the basis for civ6.

AriochIV · Apr 23, 2013

DemonMaster said:
les berceaux said:

Have you guys noticed how the AI often gets to cheat the 1UPT rule during wars

Click to expand...

No ...............

Yes, especially around cities. AI units stacked in a city are each allowed to attack and then move out, whereas if there are two units in player's city, neither can attack until one moves out. I've seen an AI launch five attacks from a city in one turn: the city bombardment, two ranged unit attacks, and two ranged naval unit attacks.

Gucumatz · Apr 23, 2013

AriochIV said:
Yes, especially around cities. AI units stacked in a city are each allowed to attack and then move out, whereas if there are two units in player's city, neither can attack until one moves out. I've seen an AI launch five attacks from a city in one turn: the city bombardment, two ranged unit attacks, and two ranged naval unit attacks.

The Human can do the same often, I think that's a bug in the feature. I have noticed this happen often in multiplayer where when I am defending a city in a rough spot that has troops of both sides next to it, I can sometimes have more than 1 ranged unit attack in a city with no problem

gaiko · Apr 23, 2013

Buccaneer said:
1upt is the most brilliant thing about civ5 and it's fine like it is. I can understand about a civilian unit passing through another but just say no to more stacking beyond what we have now.

Too bad Jon Shafer doesn't agree. He thinks it was the biggest design mistake. I'm dealing with yet another carpet blob of doom in my current game. It is like trying to solve one of those old plastic sliding-letter puzzles. That is why I usually go for peaceful small empire games, to avoid the traffic jam tedium.

To see an appropriate PG style 1upt usage, try Commander: The Great War.

Aaron90495 · Apr 23, 2013

gaiko said:
Too bad Jon Shafer doesn't agree. He thinks it was the biggest design mistake. I'm dealing with yet another carpet blob of doom in my current game. It is like trying to solve one of those old plastic sliding-letter puzzles. That is why I usually go for peaceful small empire games, to avoid the traffic jam tedium.

To see an appropriate PG style 1upt usage, try Commander: The Great War.

Thing is, Shafer diminished all the great possibilities of 1UPT in an obvious attempt to win over spurned fans for his new game. Listen to a recent PolyCast (166 or 167, I believe) if you think I'm the only one that believes this.

Was 1UPT absolutely awful at release? Yup. Is it awful now? It's actually pretty decent, and Firaxis specifically said it will be significantly better in BNW. With enough time and work (which Firaxis obviously didn't have prior to release), 1UPT - even in its current form - is a major improvement on Stacks of Doom.

Now, there's definitely room for improvement. There should be unlimited civilian stacking, and units should be smaller compared to cities/resources/etc. But with a few relatively minor tweaks, 1UPT will blow away unlimited stacking. Completely revamping one of a franchise's major mechanics takes time, and doing so means there's going to be some problems before a definitive version of the new mechanic is nailed down.

Gucumatz · Apr 23, 2013

Aaron90495 said:
Thing is, Shafer diminished all the great possibilities of 1UPT in an obvious attempt to win over spurned fans for his new game. Listen to a recent PolyCast (166 or 167, I believe) if you think I'm the only one that believes this.

Was 1UPT absolutely awful at release? Yup. Is it awful now? It's actually pretty decent, and Firaxis specifically said it will be significantly better in BNW. With enough time and work (which Firaxis obviously didn't have prior to release), 1UPT - even in its current form - is a major improvement on Stacks of Doom.

Now, there's definitely room for improvement. There should be unlimited civilian stacking, and units should be smaller compared to cities/resources/etc. But with a few relatively minor tweaks, 1UPT will blow away unlimited stacking. Completely revamping one of a franchise's major mechanics takes time, and doing so means there's going to be some problems before a definitive version of the new mechanic is nailed down.

This ^

People love 1UPT. Some still can't get that in their minds. I will check out Schafer's game, but its a clear marketing offensive to try and get people to check out his new game.

AriochIV · Apr 23, 2013

Hmmm, let's see.... Civ V under Jon Shafer: disaster! Civ V with almost exactly the same features under Ed Beach: success! So yeah, I really give a damn what Jon Shafer thinks about 1UPT. He couldn't even keep a job at Stardock, and that's saying something.

Aaron90495 said:
Was 1UPT absolutely awful at release? Yup. Is it awful now? It's actually pretty decent, and Firaxis specifically said it will be significantly better in BNW. With enough time and work (which Firaxis obviously didn't have prior to release), 1UPT - even in its current form - is a major improvement on Stacks of Doom.

I don't think 1UPT was ever "awful" -- the 1UPT system is one of the only things in Civ V that hasn't really changed at all since day 1 release... the AI handles it much better, but even with the tactical AI at its worst, 1UPT is tons more fun than stack-bashing.

albie_123 · Apr 23, 2013

Aaron90495 said:
Was 1UPT absolutely awful at release? Yup. Is it awful now? It's actually pretty decent, and Firaxis specifically said it will be significantly better in BNW.

Just like the combat and naval AI was going to get better with GaK, right? :mischief:

Improving 1UPT

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