Sid Meier's Civilization IV Prerelease Information

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Yes, but everything is relative. Right now it's pretty much impossible for an attacker to outflank a defender because the defender will always have the advantage of roads for 3x movement or rails for ?-infinite movement. This forces the attacker to slog in 1 tile at a time, or 2 tiles if he's lucky enough to have horses (or later Tanks).

While the wars themselves may be slow, this style of warfare belongs almost uniquely to the Western Front in WWI. Sieges can be represented by bonuses for units in cities, but I would like to see the actual battlefields themselves be as fluid as history has shown them to be. If I'm an attacker, I want the possibility of outflanking or cutting off an enemy army. With the current system that's impossible, whatever the era.
 
When has flanking ever been carried out on the scale of hundreds of miles?

Inch'on? That's like loading a few units onto a ship in port, moving a tile, and offloading on the tile behind the enemy. Whooptedoo in Civ terms.

Blitzkrieg through Belgium? Nah. That is like moving around the small line of forts called the Magninot Line. We're talking ONE TILE's worth of flanking, and in Civ3 strategic terms, the game accounts for that on par with what it was really worth.

Methinks you are too married to the nonsense "official" stance that tiles only represent ten square miles. Care to bet cash they don't stick with that line when it comes to Civ4? :lol:


The defender is already GREATLY disadvantaged by the vulnerability of fixed positions to defend. The SoD phenonomenon advantages attackers all the way. The attacker can pile all his forces into one stack, then charge. No risk. For defender to pile all his forces into one stack, he has to choose one point to defend and leave the rest wide open.

And you want to give the attacking SoD access to roads as well? What are you smoking? :smoke: [pimp]

There's already a game with all offense, no defense. It's called GalCiv. :lol:


- Sirian
 
Personally, I would just be happy if enemy roads-under normal circumstances-simply NEGATED the movement penalty of any underlying terrain. This would basically reflect the fact that the units are getting the overarching BENEFIT of the road (a nice, clear, relatively flat and graded surface) but are having to move slower because they ARE in enemy territory! Alternatively, if you were to give units full or partial use of enemy roads, but give them a limited range of operation in enemy territory, I would be equally happy!
Also, I think that imposing stack limits will be a good way of defeating both the Stack O Death AND the Fortress City strategy! After all, as I said in a previous thread, when was the last time anyone saw the equivalent of 6 units worth of troops in even a metropolis like London or New York? With Stack limits, cities would be limited to around 4-6 units, at BEST, thus forcing sides to fight on battlefields more often, rather than within cities as currently often happens!!
Having too many troops in a city proper should be the most effective way of making the population incredibly unhappy-even in wartime! Also, improved representation of sieges in the game might also be a good way of balancing offense with defense!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
 
Sirian said:
When has flanking ever been carried out on the scale of hundreds of miles?

Inch'on? That's like loading a few units onto a ship in port, moving a tile, and offloading on the tile behind the enemy. Whooptedoo in Civ terms.

Blitzkrieg through Belgium? Nah. That is like moving around the small line of forts called the Magninot Line. We're talking ONE TILE's worth of flanking, and in Civ3 strategic terms, the game accounts for that on par with what it was really worth.

Methinks you are too married to the nonsense "official" stance that tiles only represent ten square miles. Care to bet cash they don't stick with that line when it comes to Civ4? :lol:

The defender is already GREATLY disadvantaged by the vulnerability of fixed positions to defend. The SoD phenonomenon advantages attackers all the way. The attacker can pile all his forces into one stack, then charge. No risk. For defender to pile all his forces into one stack, he has to choose one point to defend and leave the rest wide open.

And you want to give the attacking SoD access to roads as well? What are you smoking? :smoke: [pimp]

There's already a game with all offense, no defense. It's called GalCiv. :lol:
Bob, ever heard of Napoleon's Maneuver of Ulm? Napoleon jumped hundreds of miles, outflanked the Austrian Army and forced it to surrender with nary a shot fired. All the way across Germany, and then Napoleon went on to win the battle of Austerlitz. There are other cases... what happened in the Soviet Union in 1941 is another example. And not even you can trim that down to a single tile. ;)

In the end it depends on one's taste. You're entitled to believe that things are already in favor of the attacker, but I disagree. ;) The ability to muster your units at a border and use 3x normal movement to concentrate on things heading your way seems very defensive to me. I don't consider that fun. Every battle ends up like WWI where the attacker faces a horrible wrath of the defender. You need numbers to win, which isn't historical and isn't fun. That's not how I want to play my games. And before anyone says "well the larger army usually did win," I say that I'd rather have a chance to win with my smaller army by using strategy than by relying on the RNG to give me a few gifts. I don't play Civ to dance with the RNG.

And I thought we didn't really care about "realism," but only gameplay? If so, then throw out your miles-per-tile argument and focus solely on the gameplay concerns. I don't like things as they stand now, and assuming Firaxis does something like create a unit which damages all units in a stack (the long-requested "Collateral Damage") that will be even worse... just keep a few of these guys in reserve, throw them at the approaching enemy stack and watch it burn.

Yes, allowing attackers to use those roads would definitely cause a shift towards the attacker, but other things can be brought into the mix to help reestablish the balance again. For example, attrition, like exists in Rise of Nations. However long you sit in enemy territory your units lose HP. Give units a higher defensive bonus while in cities... that way the attacker can road around the countryside while the defender remains holed up in the cities or the forts. If that doesn't mimic history, then I don't know what does.

My point is that I like mobile warfare. :p War in the past has often been a race between armies to acquire the superior position, the upper ground, the "good spot." This doesn't exist in Civ right now. Strategic vs. tactical concerns aren't really as much of an issue because in the past, even large armies often had trouble finding each other. Right now you can instantly see anything heading your way and prepare to meet it, knowing exactly where it is at all times and knowing exactly when to strike it.

Things like this are lost through abstraction, the necessary evil. In Civ, finding and engaging enemy troops is a matter of scrolling around the screen. One of the things I'd like to see is something which balances out attacker vs. defender on the battlefield, rather than the defender getting the first strike being a foregone conclusion. There are ways to prevent the attacker from running wild. I just want my wars to be more interesting.
 
Well, here is a thought for you: Profile and Spotting Number.

The former relates to how VISIBLE a unit is, the higher the number the easier it is to see. Units in a stack combine their profiles for the purposes of determining visibility.

The latter number determines how easy it is to SEE an enemy unit. The spotting number of a stack would be equivalent to the highest number in the group. Both of the numbers would be effected by the DISTANCE between units, and the terrain that each set of units is in. This could mean that a stack of units might not SEE enemy unit(s) sitting in a square, and could end up their movement turn in the same square with these units. If the latter units DID spot them, then they could get the jump on them-giving each unit in the stack a free attack.
This idea would work best with a seperate movement/combat system, and it could be possible for units to actively HIDE in terrain, thus decreasing their profile! Lastly, it would also make scouting units very useful too, as they would have a MUCH better chance of spotting units in a square that its stack is about to enter!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
 
Trip said:
In the end it depends on one's taste. You're entitled to believe that things are already in favor of the attacker, but I disagree. ;) The ability to muster your units at a border and use 3x normal movement to concentrate on things heading your way seems very defensive to me. I don't consider that fun. Every battle ends up like WWI where the attacker faces a horrible wrath of the defender. You need numbers to win, which isn't historical and isn't fun. That's not how I want to play my games. And before anyone says "well the larger army usually did win," I say that I'd rather have a chance to win with my smaller army by using strategy than by relying on the RNG to give me a few gifts. I don't play Civ to dance with the RNG.

Yes, this is correct. One historical fact of this is between Alexander and Dorius.
Dorius once had an army of 200,000. Alexander with just 40,000, won the battle when they met. How did he do it? And what did Dorius do wrong?
The thing is that Alexander knew his enemy, and so he went for the weak point. He cut through Dorius's forces and headed for Dorius himself. What Dorius did wrong is that he did not stand his ground, like a real leader should have. He simply ran away, because he was a weak leader. And what about his army? Well, an army without a commander is no good (no matter how big it is), so they dispersed as well. The thing is, Alexander won more than a few times against him, and all in the same manner. I guess Dorius never learned his lesson.

The point here is, how do you model this into CivIV? Well, as I think, it has probably been done already. IF morale is in, I guess it will no longer depend on who has more forces. The thing we do not know is how it will be modeled, and what depends on it. If Firaxis does this right, it can indeed make for interesting wars.
 
You see, though, this is why if you have the following:

Operational Range; Stack Limits; Morale; Profile and Spotting No., then you can simulate a large number of effects much better, and move away from the simple 'I have more units so I will now win'. Fighting wars closer to the home front (where possible), capturing important cities and fortresses nearer to your border, to secure supply lines, ambushing, outflanking, gaining the high ground and scouting/reconnaisance would ALL become vital parts of Civ4 strategy IF those 5 things I mentioned above were added-IMHO!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker
 
As far as the roads are concerned, there needs to be a difference in movement from the pre-motor vehicle days to the post-motor vehicle days. This kind of mixes in with the rails... after a significant amount of rails had been laid, it was a boon to movement of armies, since forces otherwise had to march where they were going. The horses were limited to pulling supply wagons, cannon and caisson. The cavalry had their horses, obviously. Just like a fleet is as fast as it's slowest ship, the bulk of the mounted units had to stay with the foot units. Obviously this all changed after armies switched to vehicles. After then, the rail became the way to move heavy supplies, and masses of men long distances. Of course, there is a limited amount of things that can move on a rail system at any one time. Then you have to figure the resources that move on the same rail system to industrial centers, and finished goods to depot.

I don't know if you want to even worry about these things in a civ game, but there ought to be some limit to how many units can be on a rail or road at any time. At the very least some kind of stack limit.(which should be in effect everywhere, IMO) Simulating road an rail capacity is probably much to detailed for civ. The only logical, albeit clumsy way to do this is to build railheads, either as a city improvement or a worker function similar to airfields. Units loaded on rail were virtually useless for combat. The problem is turns are 1+ years in civ, so you can't really simulate loading/unloading time.

I've never been a big fan of the roading/railing of every bloody tile in site, and there definateley shouldn't be so many road/rail connections between different civs. The upside to roads or rails in was the faster movement, the downside was it put you in an tactical disadvantage, since your forces where concentrated on the road/rail, and movement was limited to ahead or backwards.

It would probably add too much micromanagement to implement these things. So, I've probably wasted alot of time and space to say there needs to be stack limits, and no complete road/rail coverage. :crazyeye:
 
jfuesting said:
The problem is turns are 1+ years in civ, so you can't really simulate loading/unloading time.
I'm going to ignore your entire post because you said this. :p

You've just prompted me to change my sig. SHAME ON YOU!!! :cry:
 
Yes. Your sig is now appropriately monochrome, and I feel better now. :lol:

By the way, we cannot advance this discussion for now because we've used all our movement on this turn. :crazyeye:


- Sirian
 
Civ4 sounds like fun!

I hope it will come with a built-in cheats/editor like civ2 does. Making units in civ3 is a hell of a danged headache!
 
dh_epic said:
What I'm most excited about (so far): Non-linear tech tree
What I'm least excited about (so far): Religion

Just sayin ;) I could name a handful of things more requested than religion.

Most excited i'm about the possiblity to occupy territory without building cities. It's about time... Hope one can trade territory as well. I want to buy alaska for a couple of milions from the russians or manhatten from the indians for $50...
 
chriguhose said:
Most excited i'm about the possiblity to occupy territory without building cities.

Are you sure it's not just some wishes people had? I mean, if it were true, I think we'd have picked it up pretty fast. :)
 
Yeah, I reckon that he has read this on another forum, and believes its going to be IN the game!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
 
I reckon that this is the first / only post he's read so he assumes that we're wishing, and so he's joining in.

We're more analyzing and rephrasing than wishing.
 
I found the whole spearmen vs tank thing quite amusing, personally. Though, I can see how that can be annoying. Ah well. Never actually happened to me.

Heh. I can just imagine the whole being able to use the rail thing. A warrior steps onto a rail...

"WHAT are you doing?"

"What do you think? Im going strait to the capital!"

"Whats that sound in the distance?"

WHAMMO!


Would the railroad enginner guy just stop? OH! That looks like a lovely bunch of chaps. Wonder if they need a ride somewhere?

Anyways, so far its sounding pretty good. Im a little nervous on somethings, but so is life.
 
I watched a hoplite wipe out EIGHT TANKS while fortified in a mountain tile, AI on AI warfare, in RBCiv Epic Fifteen.

I lost plenty of battleships attacking settlers in Civ1.

Tank vs Spear is alive and well. Not sure how it will work in Civ4, though. Each Civ game has made progress reducing it. Civ2 added hit points, and Civ3 added tank ability to retreat. Maybe Civ4 will add something else good.


- Sirian
 
You see, the problem here is that under the circumstances you have described, Sirrian, I can understand that these Hoplites would be VERY difficult to dislodge (though not impossible given the power of a tanks main gun!) At the same time, though, I don't think that said tanks should recieve any kind of SIGNIFICANT damage when they try to dislodge said hoplites. This is why I feel that we need some kind of 'stacked combat' and 'attack/counterattack' mechanism. In this instance, the defense bonus gained by the hoplites would make it very difficult for the tanks to dislodge them, but the counterattack (if any) by the Hoplites would also fail to damage the tanks (except under very rare situations). If morale is also implemented, then the position of the Hoplites-if it becomes dire enough (surrounded by units in all adjacent squares, for instance)-might lead them to abandon their fortification and flee the square-giving much the same result as the tanks owners wanted!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
 
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