One Unit per Tile Debate

1980ajw said:

I like the 1upt mechanic.

That said, I think it would be nice to be able to stack Workers, to enable them to complete improvements faster (as in CivIII; I never played CivIV).

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I'd just be happy if they always stacked for movement, I'm happy with a improvement-work-per-turn limit. There's no reason Civilian units should block each other's path.

Lord Tirian said:

I'd just be happy if they always stacked for movement, I'm happy with a improvement-work-per-turn limit. There's no reason Civilian units should block each other's path.

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I do love 1UPT, but definitely this is the area that they should improve. Cvilians should have infinite, un-penalized stacking.

In fact, I'd go further and say that military units should also have infinite stacking, but penalized: stacked military units should not be able to attack or counter-attack and they should all take damage when the tile is attacked. So, in combat the player would be forced to keep each unit in a tile, but in all other situations he could keep them stacked and make his life easier.

CaterpillarKing said:

Yeah, but compared to the civ IV forum this seemed LESS biased.

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Why don't you post a poll in the Civ IV forum and in the Civ BE forum as well? Then you'd probably get a more unbiased response.

Also, including a third option for Limited Stacking would also yield more accurate results.

How 1upt was realized in civ V always seemed strange for me.Archers, catapults etc. that can throw arrows and rocks 2 tiles away and bazookas and machine guns that can only shoot one tile away seems too unrealistic.I don't know why on one tile there can only stand a troop of archers but not one spearman at all.Armies are mixed up usually.In civ V the mixture is supposed to gain over more than 1 tile instead of inside of one tile although one tile in realism is big enough.I understand that it makes a difference in playing with armies but why have great persons to follow the 1upt rule?I never understood it why 2 great scientists cannot sleep in the same city.
I prefere the civ IV rules to the civ V ones.There is also some kind of ranged attack because the archers and machine guns etc. can make "first attacks".So before the enemy unit arrives infront of the archers for example, the archers are already shooting on them and can make some damage before the battle began.That's the ranged attack.It was ok like this but civ V made it so unrealistic...

The poll is so black and white. How about a grayer option: "limited stacking".

Stacks of Doom aren't very fun, but the AI can simply use dumb brute force to be competitive.

1UPT "looks" more elegant, but the scale of the maps (and other things) within Civ5 aren't really optimal for it and, most importantly, it demands a much greater AI to compete with humans (throw in some chokes and water and the AI is already crippled).

Surely, a system utilizing limited stacking could be designed to base the rest of the game off of. It doesn't even need to be that high, a value of 3 already nearly triples the amount of available space for armies to navigate through and operate (and to "hide" before an assault ). Carpets of Doom become Mats of Doom.

We need to mention the elephant in the room. They designed 1UPT and then neglected a proper user interface to move armies with one click. Frankly, I am still upset about this. It makes playing strategic warfare tedious and goes against the spirit of previous civ games.

I think the 1UPT is fine the way it is because you could simply put the units to sleep when you dont need them and when you cant move them all.

Lord Tirian said:

You might find it less biased because it aligns with your own bias ("1UPT is the best thing since sliced bread")!

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Well considering most people here have played civ IV but not necessarily vice versa. I will admit civ IV is superior in its homeliness and how many more choices I had as an empire. Pardon me for saying this but civ v almost feels TOO refined. I loved the tiny little bug that made an aqueduct go all the way across Asia for a an oasis. I'm going to stop rambling now. Sorry.


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1 upt is an absolute disaster - surely there is a happy medium between 1 UPT and Civ IV style stacks? Even 2 UPT would be a huge improvement!

Barathor said:

The poll is so black and white. How about a grayer option: "limited stacking".

Stacks of Doom aren't very fun, but the AI can simply use dumb brute force to be competitive.

1UPT "looks" more elegant, but the scale of the maps (and other things) within Civ5 aren't really optimal for it and, most importantly, it demands a much greater AI to compete with humans (throw in some chokes and water and the AI is already crippled).

Surely, a system utilizing limited stacking could be designed to base the rest of the game off of. It doesn't even need to be that high, a value of 3 already nearly triples the amount of available space for armies to navigate through and operate (and to "hide" before an assault ). Carpets of Doom become Mats of Doom.

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Spot on - agree with everything you say here!

1upt is much more visual, thats why i like it
the tactics aspect is quite interesting too - sod 'battles' werent any entertaining

Quintillus said:

Although Civ4 vs Civ5 is often the exception to that - since last July, the Civ4 forum has almost as many posts as Civ5, indicating nearly equal interest and activity.

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there are much more places for civ5 activity now besides this forum, while for civ4 its quite exclusive

e.g. most civ5 modders ignore civfanatic's mod db

I way prefer 1UPT, but I wish it were implemented better. They've certainly made improvements, like allowing a civilian and a military unit to occupy the same tile, however there are still a couple of things I would like to see changed.
1) Your civilians should be able to share tiles with friendly or non-hostile military units, and your military units should be able to share tiles with friendly or non-hostile civilians. This would eliminate a lot of headaches.
2) I really wish there was a way I could select all of my units at the same time and tell them all to rally around a certain point, like an RTS. This would make late-game war WAY less of a pain in the butt.

It is amazing that even after all this time, there are still people in this forum who realise that the AI can handle the stack a lot better than 1UPT, and performance of AI is key for making a TBS game more balanced, immersive experience with long lasting appeal.

99.99% of the population who gave up on 1UPT idiocy, neither plays Civ V anymore, nor visits this forum, so to the other 13 of you

Civ V including 1UPT is not bad in the sense of the "rest" of what you have out there and that people try to play (in terms of games, strategy or otherwise), it's main issue is that many of the design choices that were made are inferior to the games that were released under Civ name in the past, 1UPT is one of them.

OneFootInThe... said:

It is amazing that even after all this time, there are still people in this forum who realise that the AI can handle the stack a lot better than 1UPT

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That's not true, the AI can handle 1UPT (a stack is, for the AI, 1 big unit with blitz promotion to move around), it's the combination of all factors (1UPT + ranged gameplay + auto-embark + ability to kill a unit in 2-3 strike) that penalize the AI.

Atreju said:

.Archers, catapults etc. that can throw arrows and rocks 2 tiles away and bazookas and machine guns that can only shoot one tile away seems too unrealistic.I don't know why on one tile there can only stand a troop of archers but not one spearman at all.Armies are mixed up usually
... but why have great persons to follow the 1upt rule?I never understood it why 2 great scientists cannot sleep in the same city.

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This gets to the heart of it, to a large degree. Heck "combined arms" is the name of a tech, isn't it? But it doesn't allow combined arms or change unit utility in any meaningful way.
Something like 1 Unit TYPE Per Tile might be a good alternative. The you could drop bows to 1-range and use them as support troops. I.e. warrior+archer could together approximate the tactical benefit of the Civ4 first strike promotion. The best strongest defending unit would defend against attacks, just like in Civ4; but when attacked, every unit in the stack would be damaged as much as the defending unit. That way the tactical and convenience advantages would be offset by some greater risk.

Alternatively, something a mod could probably do, make a unit promotion or Great General ability allowing a unit to commandeer another unit nearby. The two units would disappear and be replaced by a new unit that combines the advantages of both. Like a Civ3 army. Hmmm... you'd have to refine this idea (probably siege units should be disallowed).

Haven't played early Civ games but 1upt is quite good.

subtledoctor said:

Something like 1 Unit TYPE Per Tile might be a good alternative

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What a good idea, would have loved that, moving from Civ4 to 5. That way the unit graphics would have been meaningful. Depending on how many units of the same type are stacked is how many units are displayed. With 1UPT the number of units displayed in the tile starts out as arbitrary even if it indicates damage.

limited stacking. 1upt wont really work until the hexes can be made so small and so many, because of truly huge more realistic scale maps. by this i mean i love hexes much better than squares; but they are too big for one unit to occupy it and no others to fit. cities should be able to grow out of one hex tile when truly huge. but it cant be done on civ v due to the map size and scale restrictions. its so hard to describe what i am imagining but like a river would be able to have bridges built across in one hex, but look realistic compared to the cities. as ages progress and population expands, cities do also forcing you to chose which hexes to concrete over or protect. roads and rails would be able to be built AND VISIBLY SEPARATE but still looking correct scale, as would units when you zoomed in. wars would become truly like the world wars when you have to build a massive military, and maybe dig trench systems across from coast to coast...with that kind of more accurate scale, then the units would be able to be 1upt and be more realistic than now. ranged combat would be too. especially naval. and you could have accurate numbers of aircraft and types on carriers.

right now and even if maps get twices as big and hexes half the size they are now, limited stacking is only accurate way to represent armies fighting in wars rather than small scale units in local battles.

I'm happy with 1 UPT for military. Any smaller hexes, or any concessions on stacking would really break the idea and I have enjoyed the tactical side and the look of armies quite a bit more since 1 UPT.

However, I think civilian units should stack. There is no reason for them not to stack and it is super annoying when I can't even buy a missionary in my city because a general is there or vice versa. Also, automated workers are forever less efficient because they can now get in each other's way as they're plotting their courses. I also miss being able to double production speed by doubling workers. I do not think this is OP because it requires you to sacrifice building elsewhere, it just allows you to rush hooking up certain tiles in particular which is a realistic thing for a civ game. Soviets did it all the time in real history. this 1 UPT for workers is like watching government road crews. Takes 'em 3 years to finish the simplest things.