Improving 1UPT

I don't think AI is a good argument against stacking; 1UPT is much harder to manage than stacks. The Civ IV AI did a much better job managing stacks than the Civ V AI does with 1UPT.

Yes but at the expense of making combat very tedious for the Civ4 human player to play. While the AI has a harder time with 1upt (as the AI does in every computerized traditional war game), it is still not easy at higher levels (try spawning next to Greece or Aztecs). Plus the AI compensates for it in other ways, which makes the end results a much more fun game to play with some challenges at higher levels.

Wow, I can't believe so many people who hate 1UPT are playing Civ5!

I wouldn't assume they are even playing the game.
 
Unlimited civilian stacking, and stacking on foreign units during peacetime, would rectify a major currently existing issue (who hasn't been annoyed by foriegn workers/scouts/missionaries in your lands preventing you from improving your tiles/moving your army?) without breaking the game in any way. It just makes sense.

I agree that this has always been a problem, but since I started playing Civ5, I have rarely come across such situations. Civs 2, 2 Test of Time, 3, and 4 were always painful in these situations, but Civ5 seems to handle the situation much better.

If anything, allowing missionaries right of way through your units eliminates a sure fire way of blocking a religious attack on your cities. Many a time I've had two or three units blocking the path of an enemy Great Prophet so that my religion can remain strong. I'd much prefer to keep this method of defence and have a slightly more tricky attack, than have missionaries granted easy access for everyone.

Now if they're really causing you a problem, make sure they have no reason to be in your territory. Build cities on the land behind you (unless it's useless snow, etc), make sure your don't give open borders to neighbours who have an enemy on the other side of you, or if there are choke points, fill them with two rows of units so they cannot pass.
 
For me the scale issue is a little awkward in the renaissance when transitioning between iron and gunpowder, but otherwise it matters not even a little. I gladly sacrifice that little aspect in favor of getting real tactical combat.

Tactical > scale

Sure, Civ IV's combat was less than great, it was a little tedious just throwing stacks at each other, mainly, I think because any unit you chose always fought the best suited defender, and so units fought one at a time, until one side was outnumbered and destroyed.

I think there needs to be a mix somewhere. Maybe an engine that allows stacks of a limited size (20 units max maybe), where the units fight each other simultaneously. The system would encourage a mixed army composition; not just stacks of archers, which in reality would be very ineffective - archers are used to thin out enemy units, not destroy them entirely.

Yes but at the expense of making combat very tedious for the Civ4 human player to play. While the AI has a harder time with 1upt (as the AI does in every computerized traditional war game), it is still not easy at higher levels (try spawning next to Greece or Aztecs). Plus the AI compensates for it in other ways, which makes the end results a much more fun game to play with some challenges at higher levels.

I wouldn't assume they are even playing the game.

If you get killed early by Aztec or Greece, its usually because they surprise dow you with an infinite spam of basic units they can get only because of their production boost handicap. This does not equal better tactics, just a dull carpet of death highlighting the production bonus, especially for monty who usually starts in production starved jungles. Besides which, you can still win easily by popping a citadel down, and watch as the ai suicides its entire huge army into it, then surrenders a few turns later.
 
Unlimited civilian stacking, and stacking on foreign units during peacetime, would rectify a major currently existing issue (who hasn't been annoyed by foriegn workers/scouts/missionaries in your lands preventing you from improving your tiles/moving your army?) without breaking the game in any way. It just makes sense.

I hardly ever get annoyed because I hardly ever agree to Open Borders. It doesn't really give you much benefit, so why do it?
 
To be fair, most of the arguments against CivV's 1UPT could be applied to CivIV's combat system, which is remarkable for managing to be even worst. I really can't tell the difference betweeen 10 archers in a stack and 1 archer on a hex with ranged bombard other than CivV archers were more useful than CivIV archers. In the end, scale doesn't really matter since no one even agrees how big a "unit" is. A combat system that emphasis the importance of a few number of units versus gigantic stacks of mass produced units is at least more entertaining.
 
I hardly ever get annoyed because I hardly ever agree to Open Borders. It doesn't really give you much benefit, so why do it?

Currently, it seems to keep civs "friendly" a lot more.......but after BNW, open borders should provide more benefits as far as trade routes are concerned....
 
350 gold (assuming 7 opponents) every 30 turns adds up. You're gimping yourself by not trading ob whenever possible. The units that mill about in your borders are a pita, but not enough to forego the economic benefit. Now please don't call this a 'strategic decision' or I might combust on the spot. It's nothing but tedium, which I'm amazed to find many people love, opposing a no-brainer FIX to the game 'cause 'lul, PURE 1upt no questions asked!!1'. :lol:
 
Currently, it seems to keep civs "friendly" a lot more.......but after BNW, open borders should provide more benefits as far as trade routes are concerned....

In my experience "Open Borders" means "if you accept I will surround your capital with units and DOW". I hope this behavior is remedied in BNW, I would like the pros to outweight the cons of having open borders with my supposed allies.
 
To be fair, most of the arguments against CivV's 1UPT could be applied to CivIV's combat system, which is remarkable for managing to be even worst. I really can't tell the difference betweeen 10 archers in a stack and 1 archer on a hex with ranged bombard other than CivV archers were more useful than CivIV archers. In the end, scale doesn't really matter since no one even agrees how big a "unit" is. A combat system that emphasis the importance of a few number of units versus gigantic stacks of mass produced units is at least more entertaining.

Except for terrain, zone of control, command influence and returning fire. If this was a simple chessboard with freedom of movement, then it would not be as fun. But try placing three ranged units, two siege units and a couple of melee units in a space only for five while avoiding crossfires and reenforcements. That's a whole lot more fun and challenging than only needing one tile to attack.
 
Anyone suggesting to completely getting rid of 1UPT is just being a dinosaur. Go play other Civ games, 1UPT is the main point of playing Civ5 instead of Civ4. It would be senseless to revert this change.

Good thing that the actual reason for this thread is to suggest something completely different, like stacking of civilian units and/or more free passage of military units over them. For those, I fully agree.
 
The only issues I've had with 1UPT, beyond the usual "why can't my civvie get through this military unit" and general civvie stacking woes, all revolve a round high unit build costs. Since the game revolves around fewer units, there are many points where the time it takes to produce a unit, I'm another tech or two down the line. Lulzy for the Iron Working->Civil Service jump due to the high-tech unit of Iron Working being immediately useless just a dozen turns later even on marathon.

The AI also has yet to learn that the solution to all problems isn't "more artillery". It seems like for every front melee unit built, they build two or three artillery pieces. This is annoying, since later on artillery does like, 6 points of damage to a Mechanized Infantry and the AI artillery pieces are blocking the flow of actual troops to the front.

In other words, most problems are still AI-end, not actually gameplay end.
 
Also, the subject of the thread is improving 1UPT, not removing 1UPT. That's obviously not going to happen, so there's not much point in talking about it.

I think that allowing more stacking of civilian units would improve the game, but as I mentioned there are some obstacles to that happening. I don't see that AI is one of them, however.
 
In my experience "Open Borders" means "if you accept I will surround your capital with units and DOW". I hope this behavior is remedied in BNW, I would like the pros to outweight the cons of having open borders with my supposed allies.

yeah, I learned that the hard way bordering Germany on one of my first playthroughs LoL, I thought, hey Ill be your friend and accepted OB, then I noticed about 10 units headed my way, so i started trying to build up, but it was too late....and I lost my first and only city I had :lol: on Prince difficulty (embarassing right)

But recently I started accepting OB, and this current game I spawned in South Africa with Greece up north, and the DOW'd me early game, but I held them at bay with primarily crossbowmen and 2 swordsman, against their Pikeman, Knights, and Trebuchet's.....I was aided by Belgrade who gifted me a few crossbowan, and held my own (I wasn't even close to unlocking pikemen....as they were ahead of me in technologies).....I credit that to the hex tiles and 1UPT.......as I 6-sided New York with crossbowmen and used my 2 swordsman to eliminate their strikers...

Off the tangent, throughout the game I accepted OB with everyone (12 civ, huge Earth map on Prince).....and after my war with Greece, that was it...no one even denounced me.....with the exception of Babylon (only because I stole 3 techs from them....they hated me the rest of the game LoL)..........but interestingly North Korea....I was friends with them from the time I met them up until the 1900's, and everyone started denouncing them, so I followed suit and stop our OB agreement, and they started slowly losing "graces" level until they denounced me in the 1960's. I think it was a combo of DoF'ing with their enemies and the kicker of stopping OB with them........idk for sure though
 
Anyone suggesting to completely getting rid of 1UPT is just being a dinosaur. Go play other Civ games, 1UPT is the main point of playing Civ5 instead of Civ4. It would be senseless to revert this change.

Good thing that the actual reason for this thread is to suggest something completely different, like stacking of civilian units and/or more free passage of military units over them. For those, I fully agree.

Yeah I don't see why this isn't possible.......I had a GP stuck in hostile territory (not at war) and they surrounded it against a mountain (just because, you know, they were a-holes), I couldn't do anything.....the GP has a range of 4 and there was only 1 unit in the way on any side, but I couldn't use my 4 moves?......GTFO
 
Sullla is a legendary Civ player who bashed Civ V at its inception - with good reason, as vanilla Civ V was more of an insult than a game. I do wish he'd re-evaluate Civ V after G&K, or at least after BNW, as so much has changed.The AI remains the chief issue due to 1upt though, but tbh the earlier Civ AIs were easy to decimate, too, once you got the hang of it. Enough catapults or their equivalent properly promoted made short work of huge AI stacks if you waited with the attack and struck at the right spot.

A quick look at Sulla's post history brought this post, which suggests he doesn't think the fundamentals have changed enough to warrant another review. I think that's probably right: the balance patches have smoothed over a lot of the early bugs/exploits, but the central criticisms of his review still hold.

That's not to say the game can't overcome them, of course, since I still enjoy playing it. I think the tactical combat of 1UPT is a good feature, but it could be improved with better unit management. Looking back at Sulla's review, by the way, unit management is one of his "core" complaints with the game.
 
Its clear that you don't understand that the immersion issue is simply a matter of scale. All those 'issues' you have mentioned are a fundamental part of civ, we are playing a sandbox empire building game, not a history simulator.

What is is stupid about the scale in Civ V is that if you were playing a 'real' Earth map, then an Longbowman garrisoned in London could easily 'bombard' the city of Paris. I mean yep, that's just great isn't it!? :lol:

The only current solution is to simply play bigger 'real world' maps to compensate this. In Civ IV this isn't really an issue because the army (stack) would have to march at least two tiles to get to the other city, and the size of each tile isn't as important, because your not saying that the distance an army can move in 50 years and the distance an archer can fire are the same thing...
So basically the game is not a simulator, then it becomes one with scale? Your viewpoint isn't very consistent.
Besides this issue isn't with 1UPT, but with ranged bombardment
 
Just make it so you can stack two allied units from different civs inside the same hex, allowing limited stacks based on diplomacy and making military alliances far more important in the process. There, problem solved. 1UPT is a great thing, it just needed a bit more of adjustment.
 
A quick look at Sulla's post history brought this post, which suggests he doesn't think the fundamentals have changed enough to warrant another review. I think that's probably right: the balance patches have smoothed over a lot of the early bugs/exploits, but the central criticisms of his review still hold.

That's not to say the game can't overcome them, of course, since I still enjoy playing it. I think the tactical combat of 1UPT is a good feature, but it could be improved with better unit management. Looking back at Sulla's review, by the way, unit management is one of his "core" complaints with the game.

Sulla's supposedly authorative view on the game is undermined by the fact that his opinion means little in the face of a financially and critically successful Gods and Kings. Sulla, bless his heart, just didn't like the game and so stumbled and complain his way through a review and, to keep up his monolithic "authority", decided not to review the game again. Make no mistake, he lives in a fantasy land if he thinks Civilization IV Beyond the Sword is playable without mods in the first place.

So basically the game is not a simulator, then it becomes one with scale? Your viewpoint isn't very consistent.
Besides this issue isn't with 1UPT, but with ranged bombardment

Which itself really isn't a problem compared to CivIV's loltastic method of you needing to send several suicide siege units first into battle to weaken a stack.
 
Well, seeing as this 1UPT garbage isn't likely to go away before Civ 6, we can at least hope they reduce some of the stupidity of it by allowing friendly or neutral stacking... I'm sick of seeing CS requesting conversion as a mission, but when u try to send a missionary there, he can't get next to the city... why? because the CS units dance around in front of the city, and seeing as you can't stack with them or even pass through them... Its a frustrating as it is stupid.
 
Civ games have always been rather abstract, Civ 5 (finally) has a flavour of tactics in it as well as strategy.

When it comes to civilians I can agree that they should be allowed to stack. I do think (or at least hope) that this will be the case because if they (re)introduce a caravan unit this will be hell otherwise, even if the caravan unit itself is automated to go back and forth between two cities, if stacking of civilians aren't allowed it can end up in a less funny spinning dance.
 
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