Theoretical discussion: 2 UpT

If a patch comes out soon here are some things that would make the game better.

Add vassals and/or colonies. Add a dreadnought and a biplane, with techs etc. Expand the tech tree a bit, to fill a few historical tech holes here and there. Make 18th century navies be able to build frigates and ships of the line. Give the Brits Manowar(their improved SOTL) and redcoats.

Allow two unit stacking for one turn. I grew up playing Avalon Hill games, mostly about battles during the Napoleonic Wars. Say you have a rifleman, you should be able to stack a cannon with it, which supports the rifles, giving the unit better defense. In the same case you can have the rifle and cannon stack for offensive purposes, giving the rifle some close artillery fire support. In game this should be simply some extra combat strength for the attacking or defending rifle unit. Of course this is only one case where this rule could be applicable. In another example you have an injured rifle unit, which needs support before it is destroyed, so you send a healthy rifle from the rear to stack with it, to protect your line from breaking (or a cavalry, artillery could be used for the same purpose). If cavalry is offensive support, they would have a charge value as well as added combat strength applied to the main unit in the hex, be it infantry or another calvary. In this case the healthy unit takes over as the main unit in the hex, while the injured unit is relegated to a emergency support role adding a slight combat strength advantage to the healthy reserve unit just sent in to the hex. So these stacked units are just there for support purposes, a unit used in a support role does not get its own attack, it is there simply to fortify on defense and add some advantage on offense to the main unit in the hex. These rules would add some depth to strategy within the game. They could be used in earlier eras as well. A hurt spearman could be supported by another spear, horse, or archer etc.

These rules would help unit congestion with 1UPT (you would be able to move an army with less hexes used, because any two units can be stacked together for only one turn unless... The units remained in the same hex, which means in this case, the units would have to switch roles. Say you had a main unit, which was a phalanx with 2 hp left, and a half strength companion cavalry in support. On the second turn if these units remained in the same hex their roles within the hex would be reversed. The companion cavalry would be the main unit, and the injured phalanx the support. If you do not want stacked units to switch roles, then they must be moved. This is just one idea to break the congestion of hexes in CiV. The question is could the AI be programmed to understand this better than it does with 1UPT? It seemed to understand stacking quite well, even though this is two units for one turn, I believe it is a step in the right direction. The rule could be simplified to two units per hex as well. I believe two unit stacking would help the game become better and more interesting militarily.

So, have a different game? 2 unit stacking defeats half the point and would give an overwhelmingly disproportionate power to ranged units.

As for colonies and vassals. I hated Civ4 vassals. They were basically a way to deprive you of conquest. Also a good way to get an ally to declare war on you if they happened to hate your vassal. They also were imbalanced since it only worked for AI players and could never apply to you. The Civ4 vassal-colonies are at least slightly better in the sense that they don't deprive you of victories. If you mean Civ3 colonies, I might be interested, provided they dramatically improve them (a natural defense for one and a chance to grow into a city for another).

If you mean entirely different mechanisms and call them vassals and colonies, I might be interested depending on how they work. I think City-State mechanisms work well already for vassals, though, so it's really colonies that are the question.

Louis XXIV said:

So, have a different game? 2 unit stacking defeats half the point and would give an overwhelmingly disproportionate power to ranged units.

As for colonies and vassals. I hated Civ4 vassals. They were basically a way to deprive you of conquest. Also a good way to get an ally to declare war on you if they happened to hate your vassal. They also were imbalanced since it only worked for AI players and could never apply to you. The Civ4 vassal-colonies are at least slightly better in the sense that they don't deprive you of victories. If you mean Civ3 colonies, I might be interested, provided they dramatically improve them (a natural defense for one and a chance to grow into a city for another).

If you mean entirely different mechanisms and call them vassals and colonies, I might be interested depending on how they work. I think City-State mechanisms work well already for vassals, though, so it's really colonies that are the question.

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Vassals would need some significant improvements before I'd want them back in the game. Having vassalization only last for 30 turns would probably help a lot. Colonies might be fun. They would have to include some sort of hit, maybe 50% of the SP cost of an additional city, in order to keep them from being overpowered.

Louis XXIV said:

So, have a different game? 2 unit stacking defeats half the point and would give an overwhelmingly disproportionate power to ranged units.

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Yes, essentially the game would be different tactically. 2 unit stacking would give an overwhelmingly disproportionate power to ranged units. How so? Both sides would benefit from respective bonuses making the odds even. Many of these stacking rules go hand in hand with quite a proportion of hex based map wargames since 1961. These rules have been balanced and ironed out over time. I do understand however that civ 5 has not been designed at this point to apply these combat changes. Perhaps a mod down the road will look into changing the game in this direction at some point. In the meantime IMHO, I would just like to see the game evolve. In order for this to happen things would have to change. All suggestions should be looked into. I am not saying these changes would work for this game, but know one will know before its tried.

The real reason unit stacking should be added is because there are too many units over a wide area and unit movement gets congested and bogged down. It makes combat many times confusing. Some say increasing movement range would help. I do believe it would.

Louis XXIV said:

If you mean entirely different mechanisms and call them vassals and colonies, I might be interested depending on how they work. I think City-State mechanisms work well already for vassals, though, so it's really colonies that are the question.

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I am not sure how colonies could be applied to CiV. I agree it would have to be applied in a whole new workable way. I will think on it.

I changed the PLOT_UNIT_LIMIT to 2 to try stacked combat. The AI really mowed me down on emperor. It had overwhelming forces to begin with. I had 4 longswordman, 1 pike, 1 archer, 1 general, and 1 catapult. Suleiman had about 8 pike, 4 swords, 3 horsemen, 2 generals, and 3 catapults. He attacked while I was trying to build up my strength. The ability to stack two units in a hex really seems to help the AI's fighting capability. It was moving swordsman through pikemen and attacking my longswords. The AI was also attacking with a pike against a longsword, and the combat ended with both units hurt, so he'd just bring a fresh pike into that same hex where his injured pike was and attack my longsword again, destroying it. It took back the city of Erdine in about three moves. It smashed my front line, but while it was doing that it began bombarding my city with two catapults every turn. On the third turn it wiped out my last surrounded longsword, and captured the city in one felt swoop. Amazing battle, the AI is 100% better at fighting with two units per hex. Granted it caught me with my pants down, but it was able to move its forces so much more easily and very effectively. The AI was very determined as well.

I think down the road a patch should look into applying two units per hex. I lost the battle and an AI captured my city with ease. Even though I lost it was so fun, whens the last time you can say that about a civ game? For me it was CiIV BTS.

I'd rather see them have the AI actually differentiate between ranged, artillery, and melee units, than I would have them and a 2-unit stack. The AI is fine at moving its units, the issue is that it isn't capable of planning a siege.

nokmirt said:

I changed the PLOT_UNIT_LIMIT to 2 to try stacked combat. The AI really mowed me down on emperor. It had overwhelming forces to begin with. I had 4 longswordman, 1 pike, 1 archer, 1 general, and 1 catapult. Suleiman had about 8 pike, 4 swords, 3 horsemen, 2 generals, and 3 catapults. He attacked while I was trying to build up my strength. The ability to stack two units in a hex really seems to help the AI's fighting capability. It was moving swordsman through pikemen and attacking my longswords. The AI was also attacking with a pike against a longsword, and the combat ended with both units hurt, so he'd just bring a fresh pike into that same hex where his injured pike was and attack my longsword again, destroying it. It took back the city of Erdine in about three moves. It smashed my front line, but while it was doing that it began bombarding my city with two catapults every turn. On the third turn it wiped out my last surrounded longsword, and captured the city in one felt swoop. Amazing battle, the AI is 100% better at fighting with two units per hex. Granted it caught me with my pants down, but it was able to move its forces so much more easily and very effectively. The AI was very determined as well.

I think down the road a patch should look into applying two units per hex. I lost the battle and an AI captured my city with ease. Even though I lost it was so fun, whens the last time you can say that about a civ game? For me it was CiIV BTS.

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This is why they could handle Prince on Civ IV so easily (okay it was called Noble, but same thing).
In this game, they aren't that great on their Chieftain level.

nokmirt said:

Yes, essentially the game would be different tactically. 2 unit stacking would give an overwhelmingly disproportionate power to ranged units. How so? Both sides would benefit from respective bonuses making the odds even.

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A side with one archer and one escort unit would have an advantage over two melee units because it could attack without risk of harm (while the other side could only risk harm). The way the game is set up is you can outflank the melee units and attack the soft ranged units. If you add stacking, you will lose this option.

The real reason unit stacking should be added is because there are too many units over a wide area and unit movement gets congested and bogged down. It makes combat many times confusing. Some say increasing movement range would help. I do believe it would.

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Short of modded games with cheaper unit costs, I haven't had many problems with too many units. Also, the game is pretty intuitive to move units around and swap them, so congestion isn't a problem. The only time it is a problem is in attacks on cities, where it's an intentional restriction (good defensive cities on a peninsula).

The only thing that I find annoying about 1UPT is moving large armies across the map, where it may take 10+ turns to reach their destination.

If another unit enters the tile that I told my unit to move to (even though my unit is still 8 turns away), my unit immediately stops and asks for orders. This is very annoying. I would like this system changed so that the unit always moves to the tile that would get it to its destination in the shortest amount of time, and only asks for new orders if it is 1 turn away from the destination and gets blocked.

Other than that, I am enjoying combat far, far more than in any other Civ iteration.

ShahJahanII said:

This is why they could handle Prince on Civ IV so easily (okay it was called Noble, but same thing).
In this game, they aren't that great on their Chieftain level.

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Indeed, with the AI using 2 units per hex, it was far superior in waging war. The AI also can capture a city much easier. It cannot use 1UPT effectively that is why it is so easy to defeat with those rules in place. The AI in CiV is left over from CiIV, it knows how to use stacking much more effectively. That may also be why it is so poor at naval AI. In CiIV the AI stacked escorts for its troops transports in the same square, it has not been programmed to understand that it cannot stack in the same hex as an embarked unit. So it does not bother building escort ships for the most part. In seven recent AI amphibious landings I have seen in recent games, only one time did a frigate come along to escort an Arabian seaborne army. The frigate did not even fire on my coastal city, it just stood off the coast dumbfounded. In this game the AI does not understand hexes like it should, the thing that does make it easier for the AI is 2UPT. If any of you want more of a challenge try playing with two units per hex. I just started playing on emperor, I think I may need to revert back to prince level. I think I will start a game on Prince just to see how good the AI is with 2UPT. I believe there is a trooptransport mod. This will be enabled unless their is a way to stack with embarked units with 2UPT this should be able to be done.

In cities now garrisons can have two ranged units, and a ship. Nice! Garrisons will be more important as will walls and defenses. Battles will be able to be conducted on a more narrow front utilizing good terrain for flanks. Unit congestion should be reduced significantly. If I was to make a 2UPT thread with screenshots where could it be posted? Stories and Tales for one. When I get my main pc back from the shop. I think I will try that, in the meantime I will play with 2UPT and see how it goes.

nokmirt said:

Indeed, with the AI using 2 units per hex, it was far superior in waging war. The AI also can capture a city much easier. It cannot use 1UPT effectively that is why it is so easy to defeat with those rules in place. The AI in CiV is left over from CiIV, it knows how to use stacking much more effectively. That may also be why it is so poor at naval AI. In CiIV the AI stacked escorts for its troops transports in the same square, it has not been programmed to understand that it cannot stack in the same hex as an embarked unit. So it does not bother building escort ships for the most part. In seven recent AI amphibious landings I have seen in recent games, only one time did a frigate come along to escort an Arabian seaborne army. The frigate did not even fire on my coastal city, it just stood off the coast dumbfounded. In this game the AI does not understand hexes like it should, the thing that does make it easier for the AI is 2UPT. If any of you want more of a challenge try playing with two units per hex. I just started playing on emperor, I think I may need to revert back to prince level. I think I will start a game on Prince just to see how good the AI is with 2UPT. I believe there is a trooptransport mod. This will be enabled unless their is a way to stack with embarked units with 2UPT this should be able to be done.

In cities now garrisons can have two ranged units, and a ship. Nice! Garrisons will be more important as will walls and defenses. Battles will be able to be conducted on a more narrow front utilizing good terrain for flanks. Unit congestion should be reduced significantly. If I was to make a 2UPT thread with screenshots where could it be posted? Stories and Tales for one. When I get my main pc back from the shop. I think I will try that, in the meantime I will play with 2UPT and see how it goes.

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I'd be very interested to see your results and some screenshots. I may have to give this a go myself.

nokmirt said:

I changed the PLOT_UNIT_LIMIT to 2....Even though I lost it was so fun, whens the last time you can say that about a civ game? For me it was CiIV BTS.

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It's worth a try Nokmirt. Even if Civ does not go to 2UPT, the information you find is still valuable. It's a big change to how range bombard works I'd have to agree. You are essentially doing research and development which is always useful. The other angle to help the AI is to increase the intercity distance from 4 to 5 which gives the AI more tiles and room to maneuver and attack, clear single city targets, less zone of control issues and less range bombard problems from two cities hitting the attackers. Until Firaxis release the AI code what else can we do but to play around at the edges?

Cheers

glider1 said:

It's worth a try Nokmirt. Even if Civ does not go to 2UPT, the information you find is still valuable. It's a big change to how range bombard works I'd have to agree. You are essentially doing research and development which is always useful. The other angle to help the AI is to increase the intercity distance from 4 to 5 which gives the AI more tiles and room to maneuver and attack, clear single city targets, less zone of control issues and less range bombard problems from two cities hitting the attackers. Until Firaxis release the AI code what else can we do but to play around at the edges?

Cheers

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Yes, I have increased the space between cities to 5. This should also help ICS in a big way. Once I get my other pc back from the shop, then I will start a thread about this idea and put up some screenies.

Louis XXIV said:

A side with one archer and one escort unit would have an advantage over two melee units because it could attack without risk of harm (while the other side could only risk harm). The way the game is set up is you can outflank the melee units and attack the soft ranged units. If you add stacking, you will lose this option.



Short of modded games with cheaper unit costs, I haven't had many problems with too many units. Also, the game is pretty intuitive to move units around and swap them, so congestion isn't a problem. The only time it is a problem is in attacks on cities, where it's an intentional restriction (good defensive cities on a peninsula).

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the best solution it is mix of 2UpT and OneLooseAllDie rule. I solve stack def. problem.

Louis XXIV said:

I interpret it as, regardless of whether or not we have plans, if I say something, I'll get in trouble. He's answering questions of other people asking if there are plans. His answer is essentially a more elaborate "No Comment."



So a modification of Civ2's combat rules? I would like that with one slight change as well. Either make it so the weaker of the two units defends or that there is a massive combat penalty for stacked units. That way stacking is purely for moving units, not for a combat advantage.

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Sorry but I disagree. What commander in his right mind is going to defend a hex with a weak unit, when he has a strong unit available? You mentioned as well having an archer in the same hex as a melee unit and getting to attack without worrying about be wiped out in the next round. Isn't the name of the game on the battlefield to protect your archers and siege units? With 2UPT you have to find new ways to outsmart your enemy. It would give battles a whole new feel and both sides would be able to use similar tactics against each other. Also increasing all units movement points by 1 would really help with moving units more easily. Battles are going to be much more intense.

However the one thing that needs to be added is this particular rule. If an enemy army's unit/units are in your units ZOC, you should be able to see if an enemy has stacked units. In this case stacked units should display the same as if a great general was sitting on top of a pikeman. Both unit icons should be visible. As technology increases the enemy's army should become more visible. For instance, with aircraft recon much more can be seen beyond line of sight or with a telescope.

nokmirt said:

Yes, I have increased the space between cities to 5. This should also help ICS in a big way. Once I get my other pc back from the shop, then I will start a thread about this idea and put up some screenies.

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Looking forward to it. I've done a similar thing with IC5 and am really enjoying it. The point to make is that we are not trying to argue about 1v2UPT. We are trying to find anything possible to make the AI more competitive during this interim period in which we cannot rely on anything that Firaxis say about what they are going to release either with patches or AI code. Doesn't matter how we make the AI more competitive for now. If the AI is fighting better, we can play on a lower difficulty level and reduce the bonuses, which is always a good thing.

In the mean time we the players just try to find any method we can to keep the interest up in civ. I think 2UPT research fits this really well, remembering that it is just a research idea that is based on the correct observation that the AI has trouble sensibly moving units in cramped space, and that is a really simple change (one line in the XML). In terms of making the stacked units visible, that shouldn't be too much of an issue, we can mod it so that the unit icons stack as well. One of the potential problems I foresee with 2UPT is that the AI is going to do stupid things like stack two catapults on top of each other next to a city, and let them be destroyed next turn by the garrison, but may be not! Let's have an open mind and pray that one day Firaxis will live up to their word and release the AI code in it's entirety, or at least give us a decent patch that fixes so many of the small software logic bugs that are present in the AI code right now.

Cheers

glider1 said:

Looking forward to it. I've done a similar thing with IC5 and am really enjoying it. The point to make is that we are not trying to argue about 1v2UPT. We are trying to find anything possible to make the AI more competitive during this interim period in which we cannot rely on anything that Firaxis say about what they are going to release either with patches or AI code. Doesn't matter how we make the AI more competitive for now. If the AI is fighting better, we can play on a lower difficulty level and reduce the bonuses, which is always a good thing.

In the mean time we the players just try to find any method we can to keep the interest up in civ. I think 2UPT research fits this really well, remembering that it is just a research idea that is based on the correct observation that the AI has trouble sensibly moving units in cramped space, and that is a really simple change (one line in the XML). In terms of making the stacked units visible, that shouldn't be too much of an issue, we can mod it so that the unit icons stack as well. One of the potential problems I foresee with 2UPT is that the AI is going to do stupid things like stack two catapults on top of each other next to a city, and let them be destroyed next turn by the garrison, but may be not! Let's have an open mind and pray that one day Firaxis will live up to their word and release the AI code in it's entirety, or at least give us a decent patch that fixes so many of the small software logic bugs that are present in the AI code right now.

Cheers

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I agree it is about making the AI more competitive not 1UPT vs 2UPT. As far as tactics the AI use, well thats what I plan to find out. I started my game already. Standard continents map, I decided to add an extra civ and decrease the CS's to 12. I am playing on Prince with some mods(info addict, a resource panel mod(those I use for all games), end at industrial era(just because that should be enough to show how the AI uses tanks, and aircraft etc.), I also took out research agreements.

I am interested to see if the AI will stack escort ships with embarked units, as it did in CiIV. I was think of moving unit hit points up to 15, but I left it alone, one step at a time. I decided to play as the French and I have already met Monty first and Korea second. I am going to try to stick to one city in the beginning to get to Great library and National College.

I also have reduced all leaders warmonger hate to 0, and warmonger opinion hits I have cut in half. I did this to see if more this stops worldwide wars against the human player. I am hoping for more factions to form. I do not want to get rid of war just make the odds more even. Hopefully this reduces the "They believe you are a warmongering menace to the world."

Cheers to you as well mate.

nokmirt said:

Sorry but I disagree. What commander in his right mind is going to defend a hex with a weak unit, when he has a strong unit available? You mentioned as well having an archer in the same hex as a melee unit and getting to attack without worrying about be wiped out in the next round. Isn't the name of the game on the battlefield to protect your archers and siege units? With 2UPT you have to find new ways to outsmart your enemy. It would give battles a whole new feel and both sides would be able to use similar tactics against each other. Also increasing all units movement points by 1 would really help with moving units more easily. Battles are going to be much more intense.

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The point is supposed to be a gameplay compromise. The game is already set up to have a system where you protect your ranged units. It's called having a front line of defenders. Stacking wouldn't be for that purpose, it would just be to facilitate the moving of units. Think of it not as defending units, but literally mixing them. You don't have a line of soldiers that alternate archers and spearmen (and if they were slingers, you certainly wouldn't do this). Tercios have a row of pikes in front of the Muskets, not side by side. If you want another historical example of stacking being bad, look at Cannae. The Romans lost all maneuverability advantages that Legions normally had.

My main reasons are gameplay, though. You wouldn't find new ways to outsmart your enemies, you'd have a greater number of two-unit stacks with the mix of one defender and one archer. And all sides would use the same tactics against each other. Cavalry would become even less important. Terrain would matter less. Most of the benefits of Civ5's combat system would disappear, but you'd still have most of the complaints about carpets of doom that are thrown at it. It's quite literally the worst of both worlds.

2upt doesn't improve strategy or AI effeciency, it removes strategy (and does nothing for the AI).
The issue with 1upt is that the AI doesn't inherently view artillery different than infantry. Allowing stacking doesn't fix that, it just beats around the bush, at the sacrifice of gameplay.

Nevertheless I am still going to research 2UPT, things can always be done later to make it better. Any combat system in any game has shortcomings of some sort. I do know this, that the AI when being able to use 2UPT, defeated me easily, whereas with it using 1UPT, did not have a chance in hades of gaining any kind of advantage on me. The games AI is left over from CiIV, look at the code (you can tell because of the recurring references to religion). Keep in mind we are not trying to compare 1UPT to 2UPT. We are trying to find out how the AI uses 2UPT in the game. We are also trying to see if the AI can be more competitive and thus far with 2UPT it has been. I believe it is a step in the right direction to make this game better.

Another thing, Civ Oasis says it will beat around the bush with 2UPT, but I have noticed the opposite, it took one of my cities and destroyed my army in 3 turns. Before I changed the game to 2UPT the AI tried for 50 turns using 1UPT to take that city and never could. It never even came close to doing that.

So if we were to compare (since some folks want a comparison)initial results, let's take a look.

AI with 1UPT never takes city in 50+ turns.

AI with 2PT takes city and destroys army in 3 turns.

Initially to me, the AI as horrible as it is, does perform remarkably better being able to use 2UPT. Until I see otherwise I will use 2UPT rules. I am sick of the AI not being able to fight its way out of a wet paper bag with 1UPT rules. In one game I played the AI had two of my cities surrounded with tons of cannons and rifles, and would never take the cities, though it could with ease. It was, to put it bluntly, rather pathetic, as if McClellans ghost was in charge of their army. So thats what I think about the current 1UPT rules in the game. They are disastrous!

I am doing this to try to see if the combat is more fun with 2UPT. If the new patch fixes the AI so it knows how to finally fight and win militarily, then I'd be overjoyed with the current 1UPT rules. Until then we as players need to find some way of making the AI a bit more competitive. Under the current rules the AI simply has no chance it is getting old. It is not fun to win so easily.