Combat in Civilization V

I know there are several Civilization V threads out there already, but this one is to deal exclusively with combat mechanics. This is what I would like to see:

1) Add in flanking bonuses to all units. This means if you split your SoD into two, potentially weakening it, you can gain better odds when attacking with either one of them. The bonus will be small for only occupying 2 or 3 tiles, but if you manage to completely surround somewhere you will have a large advantage.

2) Bring back ranged bombardment. Instead of having collateral damage when siege units attack, this would allow the siege to function how they are supposed to; from range with little threat of counterattack. Some siege weapons could even be specifically developed to counter other siege, i.e. ballistas early on and later culverins. When calculating collateral damage, more damage will be dealt if the unti stack is larger, making siege nearly useless against a single unit.

3) Occupied Tiles. When you have military units on a tile, you gain a percentage of control for that tile. After fortifying on a tile for several(5+) turns, that tile passes under your control. Obviously this wouldn't happen during peacetime, but if you already have military units on a tile, it will remain under your control if another civilization's borders would normally take it over. This potentially allows for supply chains(securing a route for reinforcements into enemy territory that can use roads), keeping strategic resources(if you have a source of uranium near the border with a fort and troops on it, some guy playing a song in a nearby city will be unable to take ti form you) and holding military territory during peacetime(keeping a fort in conquered territory even if you don't take the cities).

onionsoilder said:

1) add in flanking bonuses to all units. This means if you split your sod into two, potentially weakening it, you can gain better odds when attacking with either one of them. The bonus will be small for only occupying 2 or 3 tiles, but if you manage to completely surround somewhere you will have a large advantage.

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onionsoilder said:

2) bring back ranged bombardment. Instead of having collateral damage when siege units attack, this would allow the siege to function how they are supposed to; from range with little threat of counterattack. Some siege weapons could even be specifically developed to counter other siege, i.e. Ballistas early on and later culverins. When calculating collateral damage, more damage will be dealt if the unti stack is larger, making siege nearly useless against a single unit.

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onionsoilder said:

3) occupied tiles. When you have military units on a tile, you gain a percentage of control for that tile. After fortifying on a tile for several(5+) turns, that tile passes under your control. Obviously this wouldn't happen during peacetime, but if you already have military units on a tile, it will remain under your control if another civilization's borders would normally take it over. This potentially allows for supply chains(securing a route for reinforcements into enemy territory that can use roads), keeping strategic resources(if you have a source of uranium near the border with a fort and troops on it, some guy playing a song in a nearby city will be unable to take ti form you) and holding military territory during peacetime(keeping a fort in conquered territory even if you don't take the cities).

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I like these ideas. Yes, definitely to some "flanking" calculation (I just realised I left that out of my calculations; but they were simple for the first milestone anyway.

The benefit of flanking could be more-so the further apart the units are... e.g. on a hex grid, if you have troops on N and NE, then it's not that big a deal (really only one line of defence still) - but if you attack from N and S then you are forcing them to split and face two lines of defence - big bonus.

For ranged bombardment of the catapult kind, I think they need to redo the whole range concept. e.g. an archer should get a range, but they still have to be next to each other on the tile. e.g. an archer might have range of 100 metres, but a tile represents 1,000.

1) Add in flanking bonuses to all units. This means if you split your SoD into two, potentially weakening it, you can gain better odds when attacking with either one of them. The bonus will be small for only occupying 2 or 3 tiles, but if you manage to completely surround somewhere you will have a large advantage.

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Don't like this. Seige units weaken SOD enough as it is. Maybe you could do a -5% combat penalty for being in a stack, but nothing too drastic.

2) Bring back ranged bombardment. Instead of having collateral damage when siege units attack, this would allow the siege to function how they are supposed to; from range with little threat of counterattack. Some siege weapons could even be specifically developed to counter other siege, i.e. ballistas early on and later culverins. When calculating collateral damage, more damage will be dealt if the unti stack is larger, making siege nearly useless against a single unit.

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Disagree. A unit shooting that far is somewhat ridiculous. Even modern artillery, considering the scale of the maps (such as the Earth 18 civs map) can shoot nowhere near as far. I like the system the way it is. It's perfect, in fact. Otherwise, artillery would be untouchable.

3) Occupied Tiles. When you have military units on a tile, you gain a percentage of control for that tile. After fortifying on a tile for several(5+) turns, that tile passes under your control. Obviously this wouldn't happen during peacetime, but if you already have military units on a tile, it will remain under your control if another civilization's borders would normally take it over. This potentially allows for supply chains(securing a route for reinforcements into enemy territory that can use roads), keeping strategic resources(if you have a source of uranium near the border with a fort and troops on it, some guy playing a song in a nearby city will be unable to take ti form you) and holding military territory during peacetime(keeping a fort in conquered territory even if you don't take the cities)

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I really like that idea. Nice and uncomplicated. I could see Firaxis implementing that.

chris. said:

Disagree. A unit shooting that far is somewhat ridiculous. Even modern artillery, considering the scale of the maps (such as the Earth 18 civs map) can shoot nowhere near as far. I like the system the way it is. It's perfect, in fact. Otherwise, artillery would be untouchable.
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What? Attacking from an adjacent tile is too big of a distance? Doesn't everything already do that? The only difference between this and the current version is that instead of engaging in normal combat(usually leading to 6-7 attacks from both combatants) the siege launches one attack from a distance(1 attack from the siege, no counterattack).I don't see the problem with that, it's not like axemen could lead a counterattack against a trebuchet after one bombards them.

2) bring back ranged bombardment. Instead of having collateral damage when siege units attack, this would allow the siege to function how they are supposed to; from range with little threat of counterattack. Some siege weapons could even be specifically developed to counter other siege, i.e. Ballistas early on and later culverins. When calculating collateral damage, more damage will be dealt if the unti stack is larger, making siege nearly useless against a single unit.

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YESSSS!!!!!

3) occupied tiles. When you have military units on a tile, you gain a percentage of control for that tile. After fortifying on a tile for several(5+) turns, that tile passes under your control. Obviously this wouldn't happen during peacetime, but if you already have military units on a tile, it will remain under your control if another civilization's borders would normally take it over. This potentially allows for supply chains(securing a route for reinforcements into enemy territory that can use roads), keeping strategic resources(if you have a source of uranium near the border with a fort and troops on it, some guy playing a song in a nearby city will be unable to take ti form you) and holding military territory during peacetime(keeping a fort in conquered territory even if you don't take the cities

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Remember that 5 turns is like 500-5 years.

I like the system the way it is. It's perfect, in fact. Otherwise, artillery would be untouchable.

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No way, just because artillery can bombard, doesn't mean that they kill other units. The system now (in civ4 at least) is very flawed. Mainly in the fact that artillery is purely a suicidal attack unit. Many times artillery is only destroyed after every other unit is destroyed.

Onionsoilder said:

1) Add in flanking bonuses to all units. This means if you split your SoD into two, potentially weakening it, you can gain better odds when attacking with either one of them. The bonus will be small for only occupying 2 or 3 tiles, but if you manage to completely surround somewhere you will have a large advantage.

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Flanking could be interesting if only one unit is allowed in a square, and possibly if ZOCs are back. But that would change a lot of aspects of th egame only for this feature, wich is not crucial as we do good without it in all Civs.

2) Bring back ranged bombardment. Instead of having collateral damage when siege units attack, this would allow the siege to function how they are supposed to; from range with little threat of counterattack. Some siege weapons could even be specifically developed to counter other siege, i.e. ballistas early on and later culverins. When calculating collateral damage, more damage will be dealt if the unti stack is larger, making siege nearly useless against a single unit.

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+1. I hate suicidal catapults, the more when they trigger War Weariness!!!

3) Occupied Tiles. When you have military units on a tile, you gain a percentage of control for that tile. After fortifying on a tile for several(5+) turns, that tile passes under your control. Obviously this wouldn't happen during peacetime, but if you already have military units on a tile, it will remain under your control if another civilization's borders would normally take it over. This potentially allows for supply chains(securing a route for reinforcements into enemy territory that can use roads), keeping strategic resources(if you have a source of uranium near the border with a fort and troops on it, some guy playing a song in a nearby city will be unable to take ti form you) and holding military territory during peacetime(keeping a fort in conquered territory even if you don't take the cities).

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Why is this notion of time everytime i see this idea? Units shoud make a land ours as soon as it puts its feet on it, just like in civ2. (you could recover some enemy land -only in BFCs- by declaring war and placing a unit on the claimed land)

Onionsoilder said:

I know there are several Civilization V threads out there already, but this one is to deal exclusively with combat mechanics. This is what I would like to see:

1) Add in flanking bonuses to all units. This means if you split your SoD into two, potentially weakening it, you can gain better odds when attacking with either one of them. The bonus will be small for only occupying 2 or 3 tiles, but if you manage to completely surround somewhere you will have a large advantage.

Click to expand...

Flanking bonuses should play some part in battle, but perhaps not to this degree. This would be hard to utilise in game, also. It would take many turns to be able to have a balanced single battle, i.e. one that isn't one-sided. By this I mean that if Player A declares war and surrounds a player, then they have created a one-sided battle. But subsequently, Player B will be able to do the same, before Player A could again flank Player B, etc. This wouldn't really be good for game balance. Basically, there are better ways of limiting SoDs, and better ways of instituting flanking. But, yes, I agree that flanking should definitely be incorporated to a fair degree.

2) Bring back ranged bombardment. Instead of having collateral damage when siege units attack, this would allow the siege to function how they are supposed to; from range with little threat of counterattack. Some siege weapons could even be specifically developed to counter other siege, i.e. ballistas early on and later culverins. When calculating collateral damage, more damage will be dealt if the unti stack is larger, making siege nearly useless against a single unit.

Click to expand...

I prefer my idea of making siege weapons attachments to other weapons, but this is a reasonably good method. So long as it is only applied realistically.

3) Occupied Tiles. When you have military units on a tile, you gain a percentage of control for that tile. After fortifying on a tile for several(5+) turns, that tile passes under your control. Obviously this wouldn't happen during peacetime, but if you already have military units on a tile, it will remain under your control if another civilization's borders would normally take it over. This potentially allows for supply chains(securing a route for reinforcements into enemy territory that can use roads), keeping strategic resources(if you have a source of uranium near the border with a fort and troops on it, some guy playing a song in a nearby city will be unable to take ti form you) and holding military territory during peacetime(keeping a fort in conquered territory even if you don't take the cities).

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I like this idea, but I think there should be the ability to culturally dislodge you from this fortified tile. Perhaps additional riots on the tile, or diplomatic penalties for holding back a tile that would be in another civ's cultural borders.

Flanking bonuses should play some part in battle, but perhaps not to this degree. This would be hard to utilise in game, also. It would take many turns to be able to have a balanced single battle, i.e. one that isn't one-sided. By this I mean that if Player A declares war and surrounds a player, then they have created a one-sided battle. But subsequently, Player B will be able to do the same, before Player A could again flank Player B, etc. This wouldn't really be good for game balance. Basically, there are better ways of limiting SoDs, and better ways of instituting flanking. But, yes, I agree that flanking should definitely be incorporated to a fair degree.

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Flanking on its own is a tactical method, not for Civ. We have already discussed another method of 'surrounding' an enemy which would have the same effect: Cutting off supply lines.

I prefer my idea of making siege weapons attachments to other weapons, but this is a reasonably good method. So long as it is only applied realistically.

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I agree.

I like this idea, but I think there should be the ability to culturally dislodge you from this fortified tile. Perhaps additional riots on the tile, or diplomatic penalties for holding back a tile that would be in another civ's cultural borders.

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I think 5+ turns is way too long, we're talking years here.

1) I think tactical considerations are best represented by promotions for the purposes of a strategic game.

2)You should try a modpack which includes "Dale's Combat Mod". Combine that with Camikaze's artillery attachment concept, and I think we'd really have something.

3)You should try a modpack which includes "Moctezuma's Influence Driven War".

DCM, MIDW, and "The BUG Mod "( user interface ) are very popular enhancements, and I hope they or something like them will be incorporated into CIV V.

Argetnyx said:

YESSSS!!!!!

Remember that 5 turns is like 500-5 years.

No way, just because artillery can bombard, doesn't mean that they kill other units. The system now (in civ4 at least) is very flawed. Mainly in the fact that artillery is purely a suicidal attack unit. Many times artillery is only destroyed after every other unit is destroyed.

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does mean that they may and will kill other units. and the "after" part: i believe it can be overcome. think beyond civ4! education limits imagination. (yes, you can quote me).

Argetnyx said:

Flanking on its own is a tactical method, not for Civ. We have already discussed another method of 'surrounding' an enemy which would have the same effect: Cutting off supply lines.
I think 5+ turns is way too long, we're talking years here.

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what if 1 turn is 1 day, 1 week?

Argetnyx said:

Flanking on its own is a tactical method, not for Civ. We have already discussed another method of 'surrounding' an enemy which would have the same effect: Cutting off supply lines.

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Yeah, that what I was getting at. But I was also saying that flanking as a promotion (as Rusty Edge said) works well, and should definitely be included in the game to a fair degree.

i believe it can be overcome. think beyond civ4!).

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A facepalm is in order... That's what I've been trying to say!

2)You should try a modpack which includes "Dale's Combat Mod". Combine that with Camikaze's artillery attachment concept, and I think we'd really have something.

3)You should try a modpack which includes "Moctezuma's Influence Driven War".

DCM, MIDW, and "The BUG Mod "( user interface ) are very popular enhancements, and I hope they or something like them will be incorporated into CIV V.

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We shouldn't be talking about mods untill after the game is finished.

Yeah, that what I was getting at. But I was also saying that flanking as a promotion (as Rusty Edge said) works well, and should definitely be included in the game to a fair degree.

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Another facepalm, promotions are a bad idea anyway, and flanking has been established as a tactical maneuver, not civ.

OK, a thought:

I think we need to keep in mind the difference between strategy and tactics. I won't go into definitions here, except to say that strategy is generally a "big picture" look at the conflict, while tactics is usualy thought of as maneuvers involving individual units and individual battles.

Civ is, at heart, a strategic game. We build cities, fight wars on large scales. Each turn can be many years, and each unit represent hundreds (or more) men and pieces of equipment. I think that any action that mixes in tactics (such as the flanking discussed above) risks trying to mix tactics into what functions best as a strategic-level abstract simulation.

Don't misunderstand - tactics are important, and we simulate that already in the use of seige, the use of unit counters, choice of terrain, etc. I'm not saying tactics have no place - I'm just saying I don't want to shift the balance away from the strategic here, and I'm afraid too much emphasis on flanking and unit placement may do that.

Remember, each square is huge - so, really, we have no control over how each unit sets up in a square. Are they enveloping the enemy lines when they attack the neighboring unit? Trying to punch through into the rear positions? Fighting a battle of attrition? You can imagine it any way you want, but I always thought of these as 'behind the scenes' type calculations, built in to the civ engine - and I'd prefer they stay that way...

This is why I think the promotions system (as implemented) works well for me - it allows tailoring of 'tactics' in a way, without taking away from the strategic.

I hope this makes sense in some way - I'm trying to type this before I run out the door, so I probably got in a hurry and got tangled up in what I was trying to say....

Anyway, just my thought. Hapy civving!

The only thing I don't agree with you on is the promotions system (the one new to civ). 'Flanking', 'Sentry', 'Shock', 'Cover', Ambush', 'Charge', 'Medic', 'Guerilla' aren't all of these tactical?

Argetnyx, if that's at me - yeah, that's actualy what I was trying to say, just not very well.... that there are elements of tactics already in civ IV, and I think the current balance of tactics vs strategy is about right - so I'd kinda be leery of any additional tactical elements for fear of shifting that balance.

Promotions are not really what I would call tactical. They kind of rest on the middle ground between strategy and tactics, but they aren't one or the other. They aren't the best idea, but I can't recall an idea that I preferred. So, assuming that promotions will still be in the next civ, flanking should be one of those promotions, or at least a beginning ability for some units, that acts similarly to how siege bombardment would.

Straight up, I hope the current devs of Civ5 have taken a look at the HotTK mod for new combat mechanic ideas. That mod has some excellent new ideas that should be included, or straight up ported to the next version.

History of the Three Kingdoms


Also Civ5 needs to put the nail in the coffin of the stack of doom. It needs to go. I think the easiest way would be to incorporate a legion system like the above mod with a hardcap, but the devs may come up with better ideas. Either way the SoD needs to go, and HotTK has some good novel ideas of how to improve battle mechanics for future civ games.

Again, from both a strategic and a tactical perspective, I'm not sure what is wrong with the stack of doom concept. It's a tenet of warfare - the idea of mass, or power; simply applying more combat force than the opponent can resist. It's not necessary to ouitnumber the enemy forces overall, if you can gain a local advantage by outnumbering the bad guys in the region you're fighting in. It's true in real life, and true in Civ.

To be honest, I think this is one of those lessons people learn as they climb up the difficulty ladder - that you just can't keep enough defense in all your cities to successfully defend against a determined attacker - not everywhere. Instead, you keep a few good units in all cities, beef up defense in a few key points (along likely invasion routes) and have a couple of locations strategically located where your own army is parked, ready to march out and reclaim any land the attackers manage to get.

...or, at least, that's how it seems to me... Purely my own opinion - I guess the stack of doom idea just doesn't bother me all that much. It does have counters (particulary after bombers show up) and I can't think of any cap/size/stack/unit limit idea that I've seen that I like better.

Again, from both a strategic and a tactical perspective, I'm not sure what is wrong with the stack of doom concept. It's a tenet of warfare - the idea of mass, or power; simply applying more combat force than the opponent can resist. It's not necessary to ouitnumber the enemy forces overall, if you can gain a local advantage by outnumbering the bad guys in the region you're fighting in. It's true in real life, and true in Civ.

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Same opinion here, it's just the gamers that are too worried about gameplay to worry about it being accurate.

To be honest, I think this is one of those lessons people learn as they climb up the difficulty ladder - that you just can't keep enough defense in all your cities to successfully defend against a determined attacker - not everywhere. Instead, you keep a few good units in all cities, beef up defense in a few key points (along likely invasion routes) and have a couple of locations strategically located where your own army is parked, ready to march out and reclaim any land the attackers manage to get.

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In Civ3 (dunno about civ4), the AIs always attack you nearest weakest city. Even if you strengthen it, they will still go after it.

...or, at least, that's how it seems to me... Purely my own opinion - I guess the stack of doom idea just doesn't bother me all that much. It does have counters (particulary after bombers show up) and I can't think of any cap/size/stack/unit limit idea that I've seen that I like better.

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