Life or Death Style Combat - still in Civ5?

[Yong]

First of all, apologize that I did not follow the forum closely in the past few days so I don't know if this question has been raised before.

Currently in Civ4 or Civ3, most combat ends up with a "life or death" situation:
the winner survive, the loser perish; of course with the exceptional case of "retreat".

On the other hand, in Panzer General (rumor says Civ5 got "inspired" from it)
and many similar games with the "one-unit-per-tile" rule,
one round of combat just incurs some damage to both the attacker and defender side.
Unit dies only when it burdens too much damage.

Since now Civ5 also adopts "one-unit-per-tile" (too me it's the most shocking news so far),
is it possible that the "life or death" style combat will be abandoned as well?

If it this is true, it may mitigate the "too few unit" complain since every unit becomes more durable.
We can still fight some timely war even with fewer units.

[pi-r8]

I think this would just make war take way too long. You're already attacking with 1 unit at a time, and now you want it to take multiple combats to kill a unit?

On the other hand, I do like the concept of the "withdraw" ability in Civ 4. If a unit has higher mobility, and it's attacking, give it a chance to run away when it's losing.

[Truronian]

I would be very suprised if combat was Civ3/4 style insta-lethal, as that would somewhat undermine the games territorial control aspect. If every turn of war 4 or 5 tiles are opening up due to unit death it will just promote glaciering (like flooding, but slower ) of units into the front lines which only serve to punish the player that thought carefully about what units should go where. It would also make archers/artillery a bit rubbish... why would you waste a square on a unit that can't kill an enemy outright?

[duckstab]

What would be the alternative to a complete kill? A losing defender is forced to retreat? What if there's no available hex to retreat to?

[Ahriman]

Total victory (loser destroyed, winner can eventually heal back to full strength) is hopelessly unrealistic, but as a simple game mechanic, it works really well.

Much less well though if they really do go 1-unit per tile, and make warfare about territorial control and not destroying the enemy army.

That would certainly be a radical shift.

[Feyd Rautha]

I think there is a place for this in Civilization without glaciering or the like. Think back to history and all the shattered armies that were rallied back to victory when replenished. The solution I think would be "standing orders."

If you play more in line with previous versions of Civ then you'd have a "no retreat, no surrender" option. Your units would receive a slight strength boost, but would take heavy damage and if routed would be destroyed.

If you want to hedge your bets, you'd have "standard engagement" orders which would mean if your unit is defeated then remnant units are pushed out of the tile. These remnants are much weaker versions of the initial unit, but a number of them can be joined together to make a replacement unit.

Finally, if you are completely undermanned you could have a "guerilla" option. You inflict damage on attacking units, but cannot defeat them in a fight.

Personally, I think they need to return to an offensive and defensive score for each unit in order to emphasize roles. Not sure what will come of Civ V, but I will definitely be following the game now that it is coming soon.

[Ahriman]

The solution I think would be "standing orders."

So I have to issue standing orders to every single one of my units, in addition to moving them around?

Sounds like tedious micromanagement.

Simple is better - particularly when they have to write an AI that can play this game.

[Luckystrike77]

The units will represent something like a division or a brigade I think, and take some hits to be destroyed. If the unit is down to very few units/hitpoints left, you better retreat before you lose it and all it's experience with it.

I'm surprised how hard it is for alot of the fans to understand how the new system can work, and how well it will work. If people think it's still one attack one kill, I'm not surprised they oppose the new "one" unit per tile system. Think of the new units (one in each hex) as many units in the same hex, they are just of a simular unit kind (cavalry, archers, spearmen etc), it will take some time to kill 'em all.

Surroundings and flanking will be important, rivers and lakes will be more vital, terrain will matter. And of course, artillery can be used in the role it has in real warfare. This will be grand, trust it!

[Yakk]

Common in war board games:
Attacker can be damaged, or not. This can scale.
Defender can be damaged, or not. This can scale.

Defender can be "pressed". If a pressed unit has a square it can retreat into, it does. If not, it takes more damage, or possibly is destroyed.

Attackers can "follow", or not, the retreating (or destroyed) enemy unit.

You could imagine a unit having a "Advance percentage" (the percent chance it advances into a square of a unit it defeats), a "Retreat" percentage (a value that is used to increase the chance of being pressed instead of just taking damage), an "attack commitment" (which increases the ability to "follow through" on an attack, increasing the percent damage both sides take) and maybe a "defence evasion" or "defence entrapment" stats (which, respectively, make attacking it less decisive when the odds are against it, or more decisive when the odds are for it).

Cavalry may have high retreat percentages. Higher morale might boost attack commitment. Infantry with lower retreat percentages might be better for holding some lines, while Cavalry would be more useful when you aren't trying to hold a line...

One could even see these things varying between civilisations, or with social policies.

[zehcoutinho]

This posts takes 1 unit pert tile as a given. Is it already confirmed?

[Truronian]

Originally Posted by zehcoutinho

This posts takes 1 unit pert tile as a given. Is it already confirmed?

There is a quote from Jon Shafer floating around saying it's true for military units... it's in a number of threads.