Why I will never accept 1upt, or buy future Civ games.

The simple fact that one must spread their troops out all over the field and the fact island nations like great britain(or even better taiwan) can no longer be recreated bothers me.

The ranged combat is too unrealistic for me. I really don't like the scale of civ 5. I don't like how canons can bombard ships at sea over whole cities. I really don't like archers shooting over bays.

I know the combat is more tactical than previous civ games but, if I want to use tactics in battles I'll play Total war. War in civ should have remained abstract and not so tactical and ridiculous. I don't like the fact that the next iteration of civ games will more than likely adopt this same 1upt and unrealistic ranged combat system.

I liked how smaller island nations could house hundreds of troops I really liked the massive scale, and the numbers aspect. They had the right amount of abstraction and simulation.

This simple gameplay feature is important to me, and because of that I'm hard pressed to find any point in continuing buying any sequels with this style of gameplay.

hehe, yeah I roll on the floor laughing when ciV'ers state that 1UPT combat is more realistic

And so, I will not be surprised if civ6 turns out to be a first person shooting game, only in TBS.

Civ6 will introduce the strategic world of warcraft, with orc huts instead of cities

Yeah, I don't like the 1upt system either. And for another reason and that is micromanagement. Having to move units around is fun in the early game when you don't have that many and every move matters. Late game, with a vast empire under your command, the fun of pushing units around is gone. I love that in civ4 we can combine units into armies and instead of moving around 40+ units it can be reduced to one or a few armies.

Also, with 1upt you cannot rally troops and counting how many and of what kind is not a matter of just looking how many have gathered, you have to zoom over an entire area and count.

Played the demo and that put me off (so saved the dough). Didn't like how everything was about money, in addition to what you mention above. Waging war wasn't really all that much about tactics, it just became a micromanagement hell. Can you imagine moving a kick-ass huge army over a large stretch of land, with mountains and/or land bridges and whatnot?

Then there is the steamitis. That's a red line for me alone.

You know what is strange? Supposedly, Civ 5 was created with bigger input from community, than any other Civ ever, and yet it turns out that only very few people had represented the said community. So, the game ended up being what they thought it should be. What went wrong, I wonder? Don't Fraxis want to sell more copis of their games? Prolonged alpha/beta-testing would generate the same comments we see right now and all the mistakes would be avoided. Game would be released one year later, but reception and revenues would make it worthwhile.

If you agree that Civ 2 and Civ 4 reached almost to iconic status -- what they did with Civ 5 is almost sacrilegious.

Mylene said:

Civ6 will introduce the strategic world of warcraft, with orc huts instead of cities

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Blizzard might actually be able to make a very quality civ title since they do understand balance and the company is among the best with UI/engine stuff...could they mimic the strategic depth in the framework of civ? Probably. I'm still a bit disappointed that they somewhat dumbed down economy in their RTS after warcraft II ---> warcraft II was headed in the right direction with the 3rd resource IMO although later games did more with race variety by leaps and bounds (SC pioneered that best in the 'craft series).

The one major flaw if Blizzard did civ, is that it would probably not release it for a good 10 years or so .

Prolonged alpha/beta-testing would generate the same comments we see right now and all the mistakes would be avoided.

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That depends on what was said and also on whether some of the huge issues happened before the beta.

I don't know about the pre-beta process, but whoever made the engine in civ V botched it horridly just like civ IV. I was encouraged that they were making a new engine from scratch; it could have been streamlined and very efficient! Nope!

Game would be released one year later, but reception and revenues would make it worthwhile.

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Unfortunately not. People buy things just for their names now, so even some major travesties (no MP functionality past 2 people in a game, cities changing tiles worked and starving you, "ranged attack" moving your siege, vanilla prepatch horsemen > all, game crashes, AI giving up early in wars and surrendering 5+ cities to name a few) were completely overlooked/hidden by review publications (remember kids, non-functional MP is worth a 9.5/10 and no mention of it!) and ignored by much of the community that wanted to like the game no matter what. Marketing > quality product in gaming.

Want proof? Call of Duty. That's proof of marking > quality. Call of duty is using net code from what, the 90's? It will add 100's of ping to you to ensure that skill isn't relevant. They churn out a new title with a couple tweaks every year...and even though mw3 was complete trash with the lag comp/fake ping issues blops 2 did it also and blops 2 also got away with it from a "mass sales" standpoint.

MW3 trounced Gears 3 up, down, and sideways in sales...despite that Gears:

1. Has dedicated servers (lag? Cheat 300-600 fake ping added? NOPE! Just good connections)
2. Requires significant strategy to be effective (actually this is probably a downside for it)
3. Has excellent incentive to fight rather than hide (CoD encourages hiding) due to power weapons
4. Has a gun with a freaking chainsaw bayonet!
5. Requires far more teamwork (again, perhaps a downside)
6. Has a longer, coop campaign for people looking for that side of things.

Why? Because little kids with below-average intelligence can still play the mass-selling game (albeit not well, they usually cost their team but they're too stupid to realize that on their own or accept it), but they'll just die over and over again in gears.

Firaxis went to the $$$, and that's a rational choice. Build a game with tons of problems/shoddy controls/completely broken MP element quickly, market it hard, buy off major publications (I don't see how else the VANILLA release consistently got 9+/10), and you're set. Quality isn't required.

TheMeInTeam said:

Blizzard might actually be able to make a very quality civ title since they do understand balance and the company is among the best with UI/engine stuff...could they mimic the strategic depth in the framework of civ? Probably. I'm still a bit disappointed that they somewhat dumbed down economy in their RTS after warcraft II ---> warcraft II was headed in the right direction with the 3rd resource IMO although later games did more with race variety by leaps and bounds (SC pioneered that best in the 'craft series).

The one major flaw if Blizzard did civ, is that it would probably not release it for a good 10 years or so .

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blizzard lately is more crazy with their developement caring more about $$ then quality.
It's pretty evident with World of Warcraft and Diablo III.

I doubt they would be interested in such low market title like Civ (from their viewpoint of course...anything bellow couple of million buyers is low market for them)

edit: and while I am here spitting at Blizzard...what you think about their strategy with Starcraft II? Seemed to me like classic ripoff as much money as you can from blind consumers...

blizzard lately is more crazy with their developement caring more about $$ then quality.
It's pretty evident with World of Warcraft and Diablo III.

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I didn't pick up diablo III, only had a look at it via my sister/brother in law. Hack and slash doesn't do it for me; I HATE the grind of that once progress starts to slow in terms of leveling.

WoW, however, isn't about "low quality", it's about the milking. You don't need to do much but keep slapping in new content and you can extend the life of that game for years and millions of $. I dislike it for the same grinding problem D III suffers, but AFAIK the game itself plays pretty well.

edit: and while I am here spitting at Blizzard...what you think about their strategy with Starcraft II? Seemed to me like classic ripoff as much money as you can from blind consumers...

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If by "classic", you mean "everyone has done this since even before blizzard was on the map as a major player in strategy games".

Warlords and HOMM III each released expansions. Civ II, III, and IV all have had multiple expansions too. I don't see how splitting WoL, HOTS, and whatever the 3rd iteration will be is materially different from splitting vanilla, warlords, and BTS civ IV.

I'm not saying I like it, because I don't...but Blizzard certainly doesn't deserve a demerit for any kind of *unusual* practice in this regard. Even civ V will probably go that route.

TheMeInTeam said:

I didn't pick up diablo III, only had a look at it via my sister/brother in law. Hack and slash doesn't do it for me; I HATE the grind of that once progress starts to slow in terms of leveling.

WoW, however, isn't about "low quality", it's about the milking. You don't need to do much but keep slapping in new content and you can extend the life of that game for years and millions of $. I dislike it for the same grinding problem D III suffers, but AFAIK the game itself plays pretty well.



If by "classic", you mean "everyone has done this since even before blizzard was on the map as a major player in strategy games".

Warlords and HOMM III each released expansions. Civ II, III, and IV all have had multiple expansions too. I don't see how splitting WoL, HOTS, and whatever the 3rd iteration will be is materially different from splitting vanilla, warlords, and BTS civ IV.

I'm not saying I like it, because I don't...but Blizzard certainly doesn't deserve a demerit for any kind of *unusual* practice in this regard. Even civ V will probably go that route.

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well pandas and monks? come on... like really... there is milking and milking... this one is really !@$#!@$%@$

as per SC2... at least with stacraft 1 they offered 3 campaigns in first game and in expansion added units (and more campaigns).
This whole "1 game 1 campaign" thing turned me really up...

But you're of course right that every developer does datadisks, but lately more DLC's with taking content right before release out and marketing it then as DLC (free - antipiracy or paid).

Btw if your sister in law likes hack and slash... I would advise to pick her Torchlight II. I bought it in sale on steam for 10 € (in US 10$), but most probably it's back to full price of 20$ now.
Played it today and in the first 10 levels I played (2 hours) I think this is how i wanted to diablo III be...

I see Civ6 being more like the Grand Theft Auto series. With some CoD and Warcraft thrown in for good measure.

And, of course, released in pre-alpha state with the parts to make the game actually work as DLC.

Cristoval said:

The ranged combat is too unrealistic for me. I really don't like the scale of civ 5. I don't like how canons can bombard ships at sea over whole cities. I really don't like archers shooting over bays.

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Whereas in Civ 4 the way it can take your starting warrior 40 years to walk to the boundaries of your city makes perfect sense?

OP I agree with you entirely. This 1UPT nonsense is the single most terrible idea ever to be implemented in a civ game and it ruins the game entirely on many different levels:

- it totally distorts the scale and thereby breaks realism. We have front lines which are thousands of kilometers wide, archer units shooting hundreds of miles and outranging gunpowder units (some even outranging modern artillery!), and units which are so large that they apparently take up space half the size of Italy. Epic wars are now fought with 3 tanks, 2 artillery and a general.

- what's worse is that it shifts the focus of the game towards tactics. Civ is now no longer primarily an empire building game, in which wars are mainly decided by who has the stonger economy and better inner stability, but by tactical operations. This turns Civ into a wargame which I have no desire to play, at least not when I play Civ.

- the AI is apparently completely incapable of handling the system, which ruins any kind of challenge and fun.

- it leads to massive tedious and pointless micromanagement. Now we must move each unit seperately, I mean wtf?! I guess this could somehow be addressed in a future iteration, but at the moment having to move every single unit in our army, with units constantly blocking eachother or being blocked by other civ's units, and always paying attention that our melee units are in the front, archers behind, and horses on the sides, is like a 20 year leap back in time in regard to computer games. Being successful at war has much more to do with having enough patience in solving traffic jams or slide puzzles than being a tactical genius.

- it breaks many other aspects of the game. As armies cannot be too large, it encourages low tile yields and long building costs, which are both extremely boring, as well as a fast research pace, which leads to imbalance between tech progression and available units/buildings. In general cities may not become too strong, which furthers ICS.


I'm sure I forgot to mention some other aspects, but for me it is clear that like the OP I will never spend money on a Civ game with this 1UPT travesty. However, unlike the OP I am carefully optimistic that Firaxis doesn't consist solely of douchebags and that they will recognize that 1UPT was the worst thing to do in the history of civ and abandon this madness. Provided of course they get someone halfway decent as a designer, not like the Panzer General loving boy who created this horridness in the first place.

Well civ 5 at least doesn't have random dice rolls in combat I have 99,9 procent to win oh damn I lost

Thats why I thinx civ 5 combat is way better then civ 4

If civ 6 ever comes out I hope its a combination of both able to stack units and not random dice combat

Well, 4 was far better than 3 was.... Spearmen vs. Tank, anyone?

And I recall the days of losing my attacking units to a settler in Civ 1....

Funky said:

- it totally distorts the scale and thereby breaks realism.

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Because the time and distance scales in any previous Civ game made sense.

(I'm not a fan of Civ V, but this argument is absurd. Civ combat has never been realistic.)

apocalypse105 said:

Well civ 5 at least doesn't have random dice rolls in combat

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Er - yes, it does. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=432238 says "Rolls a dice from 0 to the modified spread amount and adds that to the minimum damage".

Of course a Civ V unit can't be one-shotted unexpectedly by a much weaker unit - but then, a single unit in Civ IV is much less important.

IMHO best way to show tactical combat in a full scale strategy game is how it was done in games like:

HOMM-3
Master of Orion-2
Medieval Total War

While not everyone may like medieval real time combat model, HOMM-3 should be suitable for most turn base fans.

ChaosSlayer said:

IMHO best way to show tactical combat in a full scale strategy game is how it was done in games like:

HOMM-3
Master of Orion-2
Medieval Total War

While not everyone may like medieval real time combat model, HOMM-3 should be suitable for most turn base fans.

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But the ultimate problem is that most games with a tactical combat system (AoW does it better than HOMM 3 IMHO) is that they tend to focus mostly around combat. In Heroes, Master of Orion, even the Total War series, the game is about doing things to make you better at combat. Civ still has that element to an extent, but offers far more in terms of empire building.

In other words, tactical combat would make Civ cool, yes, but it would also make it nearly unplayable as a multiplayer game due to the time commitment involved.


My ideal solution, and one I've pitched before, is a stack cap, i.e. you can only have a certain amount of units stacked in one tile. This limit could be increased through traits, wonders, civics, and technologies, and represents your civ's strategic capabilities in terms of organizing troops, maintaining supply lines, etc, without having to actually work those things in and complicate the game ever more.

Someone should make a noupt mod for Civ V. Do something like make military might a numerical figure. There would actually be no units at all. When you fight an enemy, some dice are rolled and from the outcome, whatever territory is closest between the civs gains or looses influence depending on if the military one or lost. When it reaches 0/100, it is flipped. There of course would be plenty of other modifying factors-- generals, spies, etc.

I think Civ V actually would be a decent game if it weren't for having spend hours pushing tedious units around a hex map.