Ideas on how to Make Civ 5 more Fan strategically in the Modern Age

Did you ever wonder why SoD’s are so popular?

The answer is simple: That is the only viable strategy attackers have.

SoD’s are indestructible because there are always units left with full health to capture a city once the SoD reaches it.
Splitting one huge stack into several smaller stacks and trying to capture several cities simultaneously is not an option because the other player can destroy these stacks one by one with no problem.

Why is that? Because the defender has 10 movements points compared to 2 movement points the attacker has.

The attacker is facing another problem where he cannot anticipate the movement of enemy units because of their high movement points.

I believe that CIV 5 can be more fun with lower movement points where players can look at the big picture and calculate/anticipate the movements that the enemy can do.
I am talking about CIV 5 that is a Chess like game.
A CIV 5 game that is about out-maneuvering your opponent where you can see his forces and anticipate his actions.

Huge SoD’s should be discouraged but at the same time attackers have to be given additional tools and advantages to replace the SoD strategy.

So here are a few ideas how can that be done:

1. First, Collateral damage should NOT have hard limit.
The limit for units that are affected by collateral damage should be based on percentage.
The more units in the stack – the more units get damaged via collateral damage.
This should discourage huge SoD’s.

2. Defenders should have 4 maximum movement/attack points VS attackers with 2 movement points.
Defenders can still move up to 10 tiles (via railroad) but they CANNOT attack on that turn.
This will make the game more like a chess game where players try to out-maneuver each other.

3. Attackers should be able to use air-drops and air lift-offs deep in enemy territory (with certain unit limitation).
This will allow attackers to conduct small raids to take undefended cities by surprise.

4. Introduce additional vehicles such as trucks to transport infantry units in enemy territory.
This will allow infantry units to move 2 tiles instead of 1.

5. Give Jets promotions for more range so they can defend the troops that are in enemy territory.
Players should be able to set jets to either defend friendly territory or air cover for units in enemy territory.

6. More range for paratroopers so they can be dropped deeper in enemy territory.

7. More ideas are welcome……..

EDIT:

Moderator,

Please change “Fan” to “Fun” in the title.
I misspelled that word, lol.

I think all the ideas in the SoD thread would work (the ideas that I agree with, anyway ).

The supply line thing also would make it better, as would naval improvement, increasing economic warfare.

This thread is not just about SoD’s.
It’s about ideas to make CIV 5 more strategic when it comes to combat (more Chess like).

The huge SoD’s is only one aspect, and as you said, there are several ideas out there on how to minimize huge SoD’s.

However, huge SoD’s is not the only issue.
Another issue is that defenders have 10 tile movement with railroads and there is no possible way to anticipate or calculate the movement of such units.

I played other TBS game and noticed that it is very important to be able to anticipate/calculate enemy movement/attack.
With 4 tile attack limit and 10 tile movement only limit (for defenders) CIV 5 can be more like a Chess game where players can see all (or most) units that are on the battlefield and they are able to out-maneuver each other’s forces.

MosheLevi said:

This thread is not just about SoD’s.
It’s about ideas to make CIV 5 more strategic when it comes to combat (more Chess like).

The huge SoD’s is only one aspect, and as you said, there are several ideas out there on how to minimize huge SoD’s.

However, huge SoD’s is not the only issue.
Another issue is that defenders have 10 tile movement with railroads and there is no possible way to anticipate or calculate the movement of such units.

I played other TBS game and noticed that it is very important to be able to anticipate/calculate enemy movement/attack.
With 4 tile attack limit and 10 tile movement only limit (for defenders) CIV 5 can be more like a Chess game where players can see all (or most) units that are on the battlefield and they are able to out-maneuver each other’s forces.

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the enemy should not be able to fully utilize your transportation system. i think a 20%-40% more movement cost would suffice, but firaxis thought differently.

To make it more fun, you don't want to be adding to many military tactics into the game. It may be fun for the experienced soldier, but not for the general TBS player.

Actually, the change that I am proposing regarding attack movement in friendly territory is going to be more user friendly to casual TBS players.
That is because right now enemy units can attack you from 10 tiles away, so it is like they are attacking from nowhere.
There is no way to anticipate attacks from 10 tiles away.
First, it is very hard to cover such a large area with spies, so the player cannot see many of these units in the first place.
Secondly, the number of attack combination (from 10 tiles away) is enormous.

So players take the brainless approach and compile 100+ unit SoD’s and they have nothing to worry about because such SoD will survive anything.

Now, limiting the size of SoD’s is a death sentence to warmongers, so warmongers have to be given a different advantage.
Such advantage can be simple – reducing the number of tiles for attack that the enemy has in its own territory.

Reducing attacks from 10 to 4 tiles (for armor and other vehicles) is manageable.
Of course, the 10 tile movement can still be in the game.
It just that players cannot attack from 10 tiles away.
So if the player moves its units 10 tiles he won’t be able to attack that turn.

This way all (or most) enemy units can be visible to the player who is in enemy territory and he can calculate their attack possibilities due to the lower attack movement.

Of course, gunships are exception.
They should probably get 6 tile attack movement in friendly territory.

The use against building up military rces in WWI and WWII (and modern day, but I'm not interested) was to either A) Shell the enemy buildup with artillery; or B) Bomb/strafe them with aircraft. Bombarding, or bombing, units should be able to damage multiple units at a time. You shoube able to see the enemy forces unless you send a scout (or equivalent) to fing out, fog-of-war is vy useful and very accurate. It should not be taken out.

I agree with you about the railroad movement and attack, as it can be quite out of hand. It encourages defenders to be lazy. I usually just mass a military force somewhere central in my empire and maneuver them to defend when I need to. However, I don't think limiting the effectiveness of SOD's would be good for gameplay or realistic. In real all out warfare, such as was seen in WWII, the only effective offensives occurred because of massed troops. However, an interesting idea would be to introduce some type of guerrilla unit, like one that could stealth in forests or something like that. Thus, you could use that unit for sabotage, and to destroy lone units in enemy territory, kind of like the Underground movement during WWII.

I agree, you should NOT limit the effectiveness of SoDs. If by guerilla units, you mean partisans, then you are on the right idea, but it's not perfect. In the "War Against SoD's", the effects of collateral damage (as explained in post #7), and partisans should be combined. Neither partisans, or bombardment (unless by a specialized attack plane or dive bomber) should be able to 'kill' any unit; for "no matter how hard we shell them, there are always some still alive and fighting". The same with partisans, since they only sabotage, not exterminate.

I agree with you about the railroad movement and attack, as it can be quite out of hand. It encourages defenders to be lazy. I usually just mass a military force somewhere central in my empire and maneuver them to defend when I need to.

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Yes, that is a very good point.
It is just too easy to defend this way without having to put too much effort into strategy and tactics.

However, I don't think limiting the effectiveness of SOD's would be good for gameplay or realistic. In real all out warfare, such as was seen in WWII, the only effective offensives occurred because of massed troops.

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Massing a huge SoD’s is another lazy practice that is being used by attackers.
Just make a huge SoD and send it to the nearest enemy’s city.
There is no strategy in that.

The game would be more interesting if players utilize several smaller SoD’s and maneuver them in enemy territory in a way that they work together and backout each other.
There is more potential strategy and tactics with this method.

I played other TBS games that allow only for one unit per tile and the strategy and tactics in these games are much more involved than in CIV 4.
Frankly I am surprised that Civ 4 didn’t get it right yet.
Civ 4/5 should play more like a Chess game.
In order for that to happen, huge SoD’s have to go away and smaller SoD’s have to take their place.

Removing the limit for collateral damage will limit the size of SoD’s.
The more units in SoD, the more units will suffer collateral damage.
With this approach SoD’s will not go away, but it will make more sense to make smaller SoD’s.

an interesting idea would be to introduce some type of guerrilla unit, like one that could stealth in forests or something like that. Thus, you could use that unit for sabotage, and to destroy lone units in enemy territory, kind of like the Underground movement during WWII.

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Yes, that will be a nice add-on for the next CIV game.

We already have a thread with this kind of idea, see:
“Ambush” – New Idea for CIV 5

Seems to me like another push to make attacking easier in the modern age. I mean, sure, if that's what floats your boat. But, I disagree with that idea.

@ Argetnyx- With the SoDs, the problem does not lie so much in a mass of troops attacking a position, but in a proportion of troops attacking a position. With SoDs in Civ 4, basically all of an armed force is used in the one stack. this is just ridiculous. There should be a fair spread of units, to reflect reality. And then having 10 stacks of 100 units against 10 stacks of 100 units is the same as having the same with 10% of the troops, it's just a matter of scale.

In Civ3, there are multiple stacks used by the AIs, but most of the units are low quality medieval (or even ancient!) units, so I either bomb, bombard, or whittle away by attacking (or a combination of each) untill they are no longer a threat. If they do not reach your cities, you are in luck and can now attack with much less resistance than before, or if they do reach your cities, the defenders will probably still prevail.

Sure, there are ways to beat them, but with no supply feature, and limited bombarding, it can be near impossible to beat them, and nearly impossible to counterattack (in order to cut off their supply, would be the idea). They are disproportionately large and powerful.

There should be a penalty when too many units are on the same square. Maybe: The square is automatically pillaged, each unit needs more supplies, nearby cities (belonging to anybody) get upset by all the soldiers. Those are just some possibilities. Any ideas?

That's what the ideas about penalties for SoDs are trying to do.

Well the first sentence of this thread is about SoD's, so we can talk about it here.

Yeah, yeah, that's fine. I was just saying that the ideas to limit the power of SoDs are things that do that effectively.

There should be a penalty when too many units are on the same square.

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Collateral damage should affect more units the more units are in a stack.
That is a simple and realistic solution.
It is NOT going to kill SoD’s, but it will encourage players to split their huge SoD to a few smaller ones.

This will penalize attackers somewhat, so in return I suggested that defenders cannot attack if they move their vehicle units more than 4 tiles.
They can still move these units 10 tiles but they won’t be able to attack on the same turn.
However, they can still attack from 4 tiles away (VS 2 tiles for the attacker).

4 tiles, 10 TILES?!?! How fast are these units? The maps are significantly smaller in civ4 than they are in Civ3, so how does a unit move TEN TILES?

Argetnyx said:

4 tiles, 10 TILES?!?! How fast are these units? The maps are significantly smaller in civ4 than they are in Civ3, so how does a unit move TEN TILES?

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With Railroads units can move 10 tiles and even attack from 10 tiles away in friendly in territory.
That gives defenders huge advantage in the modern age.

The only thing that the attackers have going for them is the ability to compile a huge SoD and march to the nearest enemy city.
As a result combat can be boring sometimes….

Argetnyx,

Perhaps it is time for you to play a few CIV 4 games...