Limiting Exploration

[AffineConstant]

I don't see how comparing to a completely unrelated game makes a case against any stacking at all in Civ.

Civ doesn't need it.

You're going to get confused with stacking, everyone is. "What units are even here, where can they move, what are the movement mechanics, how strong is this?" All are questions implicitly already answered by not stacking. The fundamental complaint is not "stacking is better", but "I'm not having enough fun with non stacking". If you're not having enough fun with non stacking, that can be solved without adding stacking. Stacking just creates confusion, and isn't necessarily better in any way, shape, or form. "War" in Civ VII just needs a better design, stacking will just make everything worse.

 

[Patine]

Civ doesn't need it.

You're going to get confused with stacking, everyone is. "What units are even here, where can they move, what are the movement mechanics, how strong is this?" All are questions implicitly already answered by not stacking. The fundamental complaint is not "stacking is better", but "I'm not having enough fun with non stacking". If you're not having enough fun with non stacking, that can be solved without adding stacking. Stacking just creates confusion, and isn't necessarily better in any way, shape, or form. "War" in Civ VII just needs a better design, stacking will just make everything worse.

"Need," is not the issue. I'm viewing by other factors, which I've stated many of. I'm afraid I am not convinced by your arguements, and do not agree, and, indeed, areas of, "problems-and-solutions," to address actually differ in a number of areas between us.

 

[Marla_Singer]

Civ doesn't need it.

You're going to get confused with stacking, everyone is. "What units are even here, where can they move, what are the movement mechanics, how strong is this?" All are questions implicitly already answered by not stacking. The fundamental complaint is not "stacking is better", but "I'm not having enough fun with non stacking". If you're not having enough fun with non stacking, that can be solved without adding stacking. Stacking just creates confusion, and isn't necessarily better in any way, shape, or form. "War" in Civ VII just needs a better design, stacking will just make everything worse.

Sorry but that statement is incorrect. The ability to easily see what's in a stack is just an UI question. I've never seen anyone complaining about how it was done in Civ4. Yes, stacks were definitely overpowered in Civ4, but knowing which units were on a tile has never been a problem.

 

[Marla_Singer]

The biggest problem with 1UPT is having to solve a sliding tile puzzle every time you move your units. This is extremely tedious, and is also tough for an AI to do. The biggest advantage is seeing your entire army at a glance at normal map scale.

The biggest problem with large stacks is not being able to see the contents of a stack without a seperate sub menu you have to click and drill down to. You cannot see your army at a glance. Often a seperate Stack Management system is needed. The biggest advantage is not having to solve a sliding tile puzzle.

3 UPT has the advantages of both and the downsides of neither. 3 units in a hex is few enough you can show them all at normal map scales. It removes the sliding tile puzzle, yet you don’t have to fuss with Stack Management either

Blam, I Kobayashi Maru’d the whole interview process.

I agree that having to solve a sliding puzzle is the major problem with 1UPT. However if you enlarge that to 3UPT without any mechanism to make stacks less effective, then everyone will build little armies of 3 units instead of 1 because that would be the optimal way to play the game, and the sliding puzzle game will start again.

To me, limiting the number of units per tile is the wrong way to look at the issue. It makes everything incredibly tedious for no good reason, discouraging the players to go for large scale wars later in the game, preventing it to reach epic proportions, basically destroying the fun of the game.

Whereas since Civ5, Firaxis forced us to think that the reason why "stack of doom" was a problem was because of the "stack" part of it, I actually believe the problem comes from the "of doom" part of it. The right way to prevent players from stacking in combat while still maintaining a reasonable fluidity for units is simply to make them more vulnerable when stacked. This way, you don't need any longer a limit because the more you would have being stacked, the worse it would be.

 

[GeneralZIft]

I don't quite understand why you wouldn't have the sliding puzzle problem but just with stacks of 3 instead of 1? What's the difference?

I am quite happy with Civ6's pseudo stack system to be honest. Best of all worlds, works perfectly fine.

 

[pokiehl]

I don't think hard-limited stacking solves any of the problems that people have with 1UPT. It just leads to 1UPT problems but with a couple units on a tile instead of 1.

Civ needs to commit. Either go back to stacking (but with more abstract limits like attrition like Paradox games have) or stick with 1UPT. I hope we go back to full stacking.

 

[Patine]

I don't quite understand why you wouldn't have the sliding puzzle problem but just with stacks of 3 instead of 1? What's the difference?

I am quite happy with Civ6's pseudo stack system to be honest. Best of all worlds, works perfectly fine.

No, it's not the best of any world, and is one of the biggest flaws of Civ6.

 

[Patine]

I don't think hard-limited stacking solves any of the problems that people have with 1UPT. It just leads to 1UPT problems but with a couple units on a tile instead of 1.

Civ needs to commit. Either go back to stacking (but with more abstract limits like attrition like Paradox games have) or stick with 1UPT. I hope we go back to full stacking.

Stacking that isn't unlimited doesn't need to be one across-the-board cap, or a small one.

 

[GeneralZIft]

Could think of about a dozen worse flaws of the game besides the (lack of) stacking.

Well it's an improvement on Civ5 1UPT for sure.

Sometimes I feel like I must play the game totally different to you lot because my armies in either game (esp. 6), never reach some point where I wish they could all sit on the same couple tiles.
Must be just me

 

[pokiehl]

Sure there are a lot of other flaws but that doesn’t mean we can’t discuss this one.

Civ 6 unit pathing due to 1UPT is worse than it’s ever been in the series, and Civ 5 + Civ 6 have both shown that we shouldn’t expect an AI that can handle 1UPT very well. And personally for me, the less time I spend on combat the better. I think stacks make everything streamlined.

 

[Patine]

Could think of about a dozen worse flaws of the game besides the (lack of) stacking.

Well it's an improvement on Civ5 1UPT for sure.

Sometimes I feel like I must play the game totally different to you lot because my armies in either game (esp. 6), never reach some point where I wish they could all sit on the same couple tiles.
Must be just me

I've never played Civ5, as I've said, but one 1UPT mechanic being better than another doesn't interest me, because I feel 1UPT should go.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

It can be worked differently. In a composite system armies will act like 1UPT but will be formed by a customizable mix of units+formation/stand/order. This way they would usually have at least some front line of meele units to deffend the back line of ranged units (both lines still are part of the same 1UPT army). So you can send them with a volley and hold order from a defensive position forcing the enemy to charge against your wall of shields and pikes or they would retreat if dont want to keep being harrased. Other options like a hit and run tactic would be more effective with recon units from a forested position of by light cavalry units in open terrain.

The point is that you can built your own armies that usually would be something more than a helpless solitary unit, still the different proportion of units in each army, their types, battle formation, stand, promotion, tactical orders, terrain, etc. Would add variety and strategic without need to move dozens of conga line ping-ponging units neither watching stacks of JRPG slapping units. Most of the annoying parts of those extreme systems are simplified without lost their positive strategic and tactical elements.

This was regarding if they keep them having the 1 UPT approach. I agree that if Archers were in some form of formation with other units on the same tile, they would probably work differently.

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

I would rather have ai automated combat with stacks of doom. Assign AI generals to your armies so they can fight (you still move them). Then watch the simulated battle. Fighting is over in a single turn. Want to win more wars? Get better troops, better logistics, pick better battles, pick better wars, and pick better AI generals. You have to work for all of this.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I would rather have ai automated combat with stacks of doom. Assign AI generals to your armies so they can fight (you still move them). Then watch the simulated battle. Fighting is over in a single turn. Want to win more wars? Get better troops, better logistics, pick better battles, pick better wars, and pick better AI generals. You have to work for all of this.

With slight adjustments:

1. No Stacks of Dum, but Stacks of Possible - what you can Possibly concentrate in one tile changes with the Terrain, Biome, Technology, etc and continues to change as the game progresses. This is such a no-brainer it has been adopted by two recent additions to the '4x' genre: Humankind and Millennia, and I believe the Still Developing ARA has a version of it.

2. Provide some agency to the gamer in the Battle. That can be as little as deploy the army on a battlefield and give a very general order: Defend, Attack, Flank Them, etc or, for those that like tactical interludes in a Grand Strategy game, move the units or combinations of units. That latter should NOT be the default, but a chosen option for them what likes it.

3. DON'T provide complete control of a Battle. First, because it never existed, but second and more important, because it inevitably leads people to want to exercise that control to Maximize their chances of victory. That simply puts 1UPT down on the battlefield and makes gthe battlefield a distraction from the 'real' Grand Strategy Game you are supposed to be playing. This is a fine balancing act, but there are Clues how to Achieve it:

Great Generals - could be attached to a Unit or combination of Units to provide complete control of those elements Only - see the common action of such IRL generals as Alexander the Great or virtually any European Medieval commander or even such recent Generals as Rommel or Guderian in WWII, who both showed up wherever the fighting was tense and important.

Uniques - Both Unique Units and even Unique Tactics applicable to the battlefield: everything from the frequent Roman tactic of having an un-named Tribune grab a bunch of Centuries, Maniples or Cohorts and take them where they were never originally intended to go and win the battle, to the ability of more modern forces like the Grand Armee French or German troops using Auftragstaktik to do much the same thing regularly.

Professionals - troops that have been doing this battle thing for a while full-time learn things that are nearly impossible to teach to amateurs: so units with Promotions could allow you to give them more precise orders or order them to do things other (amateur) troops simply cannot do.

Bottom line, an army of units that are Professional and/or Unique and led by a Great General should be a very fearsome thing: they should, on a regular basis, mop the floor with even larger armies of Amateurs led by a Less Than Great General, and do it without the gamer having to give them every order and move every single unit.

 

[Naokaukodem]

It can be worked differently. In a composite system armies will act like 1UPT but will be formed by a customizable mix of units+formation/stand/order. This way they would usually have at least some front line of meele units to deffend the back line of ranged units (both lines still are part of the same 1UPT army). So you can send them with a volley and hold order from a defensive position forcing the enemy to charge against your wall of shields and pikes or they would retreat if dont want to keep being harrased. Other options like a hit and run tactic would be more effective with recon units from a forested position of by light cavalry units in open terrain.

The point is that you can built your own armies that usually would be something more than a helpless solitary unit, still the different proportion of units in each army, their types, battle formation, stand, promotion, tactical orders, terrain, etc. Would add variety and strategic without need to move dozens of conga line ping-ponging units neither watching stacks of JRPG slapping units. Most of the annoying parts of those extreme systems are simplified without lost their positive strategic and tactical elements.

This, this ! You sumed up my preferences and thoughts perfectly about what should be a realist "unit". Now, stays how to translate it in terms of simple gameplay.
If anything, I would make all units melee, like in every Civ before 5, and maybe give every unit a free shot (possibly more under some circumstances), just because ranged units in Civ5 and Civ6 are overpowered.

 

[GeneralZIft]

I would rather have ai automated combat with stacks of doom. Assign AI generals to your armies so they can fight (you still move them). Then watch the simulated battle. Fighting is over in a single turn. Want to win more wars? Get better troops, better logistics, pick better battles, pick better wars, and pick better AI generals. You have to work for all of this.

I would not prefer this. This is would be like if the game managed your cities for you and you just chose a guy to do it for you.
The point of the military combat is to actually... decide the combat. I am NOT for more and more of this automated, probability based stuff. It's more "realistic" but it means less, and its less fun than winning a military engagement because you placed your units on the map correctly and attacked / moved in the right order.
You have to "work" for it by just buying a better AI general? Not a fan, sorry. I understand the appeal, but I like the game the way it is.

With slight adjustments:

1. No Stacks of Dum, but Stacks of Possible - what you can Possibly concentrate in one tile changes with the Terrain, Biome, Technology, etc and continues to change as the game progresses. This is such a no-brainer it has been adopted by two recent additions to the '4x' genre: Humankind and Millennia, and I believe the Still Developing ARA has a version of it.

2. Provide some agency to the gamer in the Battle. That can be as little as deploy the army on a battlefield and give a very general order: Defend, Attack, Flank Them, etc or, for those that like tactical interludes in a Grand Strategy game, move the units or combinations of units. That latter should NOT be the default, but a chosen option for them what likes it.

3. DON'T provide complete control of a Battle. First, because it never existed, but second and more important, because it inevitably leads people to want to exercise that control to Maximize their chances of victory. That simply puts 1UPT down on the battlefield and makes gthe battlefield a distraction from the 'real' Grand Strategy Game you are supposed to be playing. This is a fine balancing act, but there are Clues how to Achieve it:

Great Generals - could be attached to a Unit or combination of Units to provide complete control of those elements Only - see the common action of such IRL generals as Alexander the Great or virtually any European Medieval commander or even such recent Generals as Rommel or Guderian in WWII, who both showed up wherever the fighting was tense and important.

Uniques - Both Unique Units and even Unique Tactics applicable to the battlefield: everything from the frequent Roman tactic of having an un-named Tribune grab a bunch of Centuries, Maniples or Cohorts and take them where they were never originally intended to go and win the battle, to the ability of more modern forces like the Grand Armee French or German troops using Auftragstaktik to do much the same thing regularly.

Professionals - troops that have been doing this battle thing for a while full-time learn things that are nearly impossible to teach to amateurs: so units with Promotions could allow you to give them more precise orders or order them to do things other (amateur) troops simply cannot do.

Bottom line, an army of units that are Professional and/or Unique and led by a Great General should be a very fearsome thing: they should, on a regular basis, mop the floor with even larger armies of Amateurs led by a Less Than Great General, and do it without the gamer having to give them every order and move every single unit.

Such a "no brainer" its been adopted by two 4X games that also immediately failed. Maybe the design choices you make are inherently related to your chance of success in this genre?? Or it could be a load of other failed "innovations" (sorry to be a pessimist today)
Provide basic agency but not total control. I mean, this is really removing the fun from combat. It would be so boring if your entire army was jumbled into one stack, and you don't even do any of the combat, they all moved as a group, the warring was controlled by an AI, determined by probability, I mean what's the point?
I'm sure I'm not the only person who feels this way.

This, this ! You sumed up my preferences and thoughts perfectly about what should be a realist "unit". Now, stays how to translate it in terms of simple gameplay.
If anything, I would make all units melee, like in every Civ before 5, and maybe give every unit a free shot (possibly more under some circumstances), just because ranged units in Civ5 and Civ6 are overpowered.

And this too. Now why not remove all variety entirely? Just make units into generic "Armies" that represent only Manpower and that's all. It would be the absolute most realistic scenario possible, but not fun at all. You see what I'm getting at?


Again, sorry for being a pessimist. I just think these types of mechanics fit other games better (like Total War or something)

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Such a "no brainer" its been adopted by two 4X games that also immediately failed. Maybe the design choices you make are inherently related to your chance of success in this genre?? Or it could be a load of other failed "innovations" (sorry to be a pessimist today)
Provide basic agency but not total control. I mean, this is really removing the fun from combat. It would be so boring if your entire army was jumbled into one stack, and you don't even do any of the combat, they all moved as a group, the warring was controlled by an AI, determined by probability, I mean what's the point?
I'm sure I'm not the only person who feels this way.

Neither game 'failed' because of their stacking rules. But Humankind did and does get a lot of negative comment because of its combat rules, which are exactly what you say you want: individual control over every unit on the battlefield, battles fought out as multiple-unit combats with all the variations in ranged and melee combat, flank attacks, supporting units, etc.

And I underdstand you perfectly. I played miniatures almost exclusively for almost 30 years: all tactical combat, all the time. And I enjoyed the Humankind combat system when I first played it.

But.

The more I played it, the less I liked it. Every battle was a separate game, requiring that you 'drop out' of the regular game and fight a tactical action. And, frankly, you could not trust the AI to fight them for you very well, so to be competitive, unless you had overwhelming numerical/technological overkill, you had to fight out each and every battle. In the last game I tried, in the late game in a major war I had 6 battles in one turn, and that turn took well over an hour to play, fighting out each battle separately.

I'm sorry, life's too short. A Grand Strategy 4X game already takes multiple scores of hours to play from Start (10,000, 4,000 BCE) to Finish (2000 CE?): stretching a single turn out to 5 - 6 times greater time requirements just to get a tactical 'fix' makes no sense.

OF COURSE that's not a universal opinion, and I am well aware that you prefer to fight out every battle, every time, and you are not alone. But Humankind shows that you are probably not a majority. And the continuing debate over 1UPT versus SoD shows that the current offerings in combat systems leave a lot to be desired with a lot of gamers.

 

[Naokaukodem]

And this too. Now why not remove all variety entirely? Just make units into generic "Armies" that represent only Manpower and that's all. It would be the absolute most realistic scenario possible, but not fun at all. You see what I'm getting at?


Again, sorry for being a pessimist. I just think these types of mechanics fit other games better (like Total War or something)

Well, that's actually a nice idea ! That would connect manpower with armies best, if anything. As to the variety, it could be shown graphically, changing with technologies/resources. (probably linked with real capacity too)

You know, it's not much of a change from Civ4, when your suicide catapults ALL attacked first eventhough other units in the stack had better chance to win. (from Civ4 vanilla, where your selected stack does not attack in one time if right clicked on an enemy, but one unit per unit instead, not like in the expansions where everything attacked if selected IIRC, or maybe it was just for multiplayer)

As to player control, it's kind of relative. You technically don't have any control in Civ6 or Civ5 on the battle results, EXCEPT that there is a preview. You just need to know that there's a possible small gap between what's shown and what will happen (RNG). Same for every game. So, following that logic of preview, the game could, if the player do not do everything manually, display a preview of a battle of your army vs. another one. What would differ ? Potentially nothing. Now, I watched a little bit of Age of Wonders 4 in Youtube, and armies limit is a real problem, because you can potentially lose all your armies in one battle easily. The battle mode is here to save you, but personnally I don't like it too much. It would be better if there was no limit in number of armies engagement and only "auto-resolve". (again, you would have to out-produce the AI to win, or do better use of diplomacy, war fronts, etc. all strategic things that are not inexistent in Civ, but inherently present with no kind of highlights gameplay-developping wise : when this happens, it's not "well anyway I play on Deity", it's "how the hell can I manage this ? GAME OVER")

 

[GeneralZIft]

Neither game 'failed' because of their stacking rules. But Humankind did and does get a lot of negative comment because of its combat rules, which are exactly what you say you want: individual control over every unit on the battlefield, battles fought out as multiple-unit combats with all the variations in ranged and melee combat, flank attacks, supporting units, etc.

And I underdstand you perfectly. I played miniatures almost exclusively for almost 30 years: all tactical combat, all the time. And I enjoyed the Humankind combat system when I first played it.

But.

The more I played it, the less I liked it. Every battle was a separate game, requiring that you 'drop out' of the regular game and fight a tactical action. And, frankly, you could not trust the AI to fight them for you very well, so to be competitive, unless you had overwhelming numerical/technological overkill, you had to fight out each and every battle. In the last game I tried, in the late game in a major war I had 6 battles in one turn, and that turn took well over an hour to play, fighting out each battle separately.

I'm sorry, life's too short. A Grand Strategy 4X game already takes multiple scores of hours to play from Start (10,000, 4,000 BCE) to Finish (2000 CE?): stretching a single turn out to 5 - 6 times greater time requirements just to get a tactical 'fix' makes no sense.

OF COURSE that's not a universal opinion, and I am well aware that you prefer to fight out every battle, every time, and you are not alone. But Humankind shows that you are probably not a majority. And the continuing debate over 1UPT versus SoD shows that the current offerings in combat systems leave a lot to be desired with a lot of gamers.

Actually I dislike Humankind's combat system, and it's not exactly what I want.

In fact, it's more similar to some midpoint between stack enjoyers, 1upt enjoyers, auto resolve enjoyers and tactical gameplay enjoyers, in an unholy system that does not really work very well


Yes I'm not a fan of the (move as a group) -> (spread across the whole territory and capture a flag) system. {This makes no sense by the way}

Yes I'm not a fan of auto resolve (at all)
Yes I'm not a fan of having to take multiple turns of combat in one turn.

Obviously, when you play Civ normally, there's a perfect balance between how much you spend in combat and how much you spent doing other stuff like diplomacy and city building.

So having to stop and resolve a battle for a couple minutes is not ideal. I agree.

 

[BuchiTaton]

I would not prefer this. This is would be like if the game managed your cities for you and you just chose a guy to do it for you.
The point of the military combat is to actually... decide the combat. I am NOT for more and more of this automated, probability based stuff. It's more "realistic" but it means less, and its less fun than winning a military engagement because you placed your units on the map correctly and attacked / moved in the right order.
You have to "work" for it by just buying a better AI general? Not a fan, sorry. I understand the appeal, but I like the game the way it is.

I think maybe others have a different idea of what an "AI General" role would be, but for me the General should not actually manage the battle they would be a variable that add special abilities, bonus and chances to your army.
Maybe even the use of "Army" and "Generals" is making this sound like something too big, call it Corps, Divions or whatever we still can have various of these composite group being part of the same "battle", this model is not very different from 1UPT see it more like a change of scale of 1UPT were you move less of these "groups" but in exchange each of these groups is more customizable and significative.

Such a "no brainer" its been adopted by two 4X games that also immediately failed. Maybe the design choices you make are inherently related to your chance of success in this genre?? Or it could be a load of other failed "innovations" (sorry to be a pessimist today)
Provide basic agency but not total control. I mean, this is really removing the fun from combat. It would be so boring if your entire army was jumbled into one stack, and you don't even do any of the combat, they all moved as a group, the warring was controlled by an AI, determined by probability, I mean what's the point?
I'm sure I'm not the only person who feels this way.

We can do better than blame a common part of still different combat system from different games that have many more obvious reason of why they are far from impact CIV. For example just Millennia combat system was mostly criticized by the wacky and cheap battle animation in a different window, something is in no way necesary or relevant for the rest of the system.

And this too. Now why not remove all variety entirely? Just make units into generic "Armies" that represent only Manpower and that's all. It would be the absolute most realistic scenario possible, but not fun at all. You see what I'm getting at?


Again, sorry for being a pessimist. I just think these types of mechanics fit other games better (like Total War or something)

The proposed system is actually trying to add both variety and handy resolution.