On why civ5's combat system is nothing more than a good idea...

[drachasor]

@Roxlimn

As the OP explains there are really only two things that can happen under the 1UPT system and BOTH are bad. As you appear not to understand, let me explain his point again and perhaps I can do a good job to make it more clear.

1) Few units: This works great for 1UPT in the sense that you don't have to shuffle units around and can maneuver freely. But the huge drawback of course is that each unit now becomes so much more valuable and if one side loses its five units, then it is left totally defenseless.

Okay so we can fix this by allowing for many units, right? Well then you get
2) Infinite Unit Sprawl: Because of 1UPT, now you have a situation where almost every tile is occupied by a unit. Moving units now require tedious shuffling. And fighting wars now comes down to slogging through tons of battles unit by unit, tile by tile. This is actually just as bad if not worse than SoD vs SoD!

Under the current 1UPT system, there are only two possibilities. It is either (1) or (2) and both are seriously flawed. That is the point!

We call that a Bifurcation Fallacy. There's most certainly a middle ground.

 

[Exterminas]

Huh. While the initial post is pretty good, I fail to grasp a thing:

Where do you see the correlation between "1 unit per tile" and "I won't be able to recover, If the ai defeats me in the field"? More logical correlations for me are "low tile yields" to "I won't recover". The one unit per tilesystem helps you, if you have to defend and are outnumbered, because most battles won't take place on a green meadow.

 

[polypheus]

polypheus:

No. I clearly explained that it was not.

You can maintain a modest army as well as good gold reserves in case of invasion. In fact, maintaining a small army gives you good gold reserves because units have high maintenance costs in Civ V.

So, keep a small army, then buy reinforcements as necessary. The Blanket of Doom really only happens on Deity AI. You don't need that many forces to win, precisely because 1UPT means that only the front units are the only ones that really matter.

His dichotomy is false because the two states are not the only states that exist, as I explained already. If you have difficulty reinforcing your army, you have crappy production, or you have crappy gold. You can't have neither one of those and have problems with reinforcement.

And how exactly can you avoid the "blanket of doom" while still having adequate reserves??? You have frontline units doing the fighting. So where exactly are the reserves sitting? That's right on the tiles behind the frontline tiles! Which leads to the blanket of doom.

 

[drachasor]

And how exactly can you avoid the "blanket of doom" while still having adequate reserves??? You have frontline units doing the fighting. So where exactly are the reserves sitting? That's right on the tiles behind the frontline tiles! Which leads to the blanket of doom.

Did you not even read his post?

 

[r_rolo1]

r rolo1:

I'm not sure what you mean, exactly. The issue the OP brings up is that it's easier to steamroll in Civ V. Not only was this mindbendingly easy to do in Civ IV, it's also not easier to do in Civ V.

If anything, you'd think criticisms would go the other way - Civs are too hard to steamroll efficiently.

When playing defense, each ungarrisoned city in Civ V buys you at least one turn, because cities in Civ V are that tough. If you put Walls and Castles in them as the City States do, they're even tougher.

This gets you the time you need to move your forces. Even with an army in the 20's, it shouldn't take you more than three turns to move your forces entirely cross-continent, shorter if they're not as far.

At that point, you can use defenses and territorial control to exert power over your cities.

My assessment of Civ V defense is not made from when I'm defending - it's when I'm attacking. I can obliterate entire Civs in one turn in Civ IV. I can't do that anymore in Civ V, and that means that Civ V favors defense more than Civ IV, not the other way around.

Ok , let me explain what I meant:

Defensive can be seen as 2 parts, static defense and active defense ( aka counter attack , both before the enemy offensive or after). You argued that static defense was easier in civ V than in IV. I don't disagree that static defense is easier in V , if you can preplace units in time in orderly fashion ... unlike SOD , 1upt penalizes harshly you if you can't place your units in good order ( as you can see easily when the AI sends archers to the frontline ). If you can't put your units in place in time you are far better served with a SoD And the fact that 1 upt promotes clogging of the transport network only makes you have more troubles to put your units in place in time ... unless you are playing against someone predictable and not very smart. Cities now bombing and having hit points as well is also a good buff to the defense, but, like i said, I'm not sold to the idea that they are better than pure unit stacking in all circumstances.

The second part of the defense, the active part, also suffers from the 1 upt clogging, and it is only the ranged units that disguise that ... otherwise you would have serious dificulties in mopping up a enemy attack. It is worth mentioning that neither civ IV or V AI do any decent active defesne, but in civ IV human-human warfare, they make the defense pend badly to the defender side. In civ V, probaly not so much.

If you sum all, the defense in civ V is clearly not as strong as it was in civ IV, unlike you were sugesting.... It might look harder to beat if you only consider the static part of it ( but not always ), but if you add the counter strike measures, things do not pend to the side of defense as much as in civ IV. This makes steamrolling easier , not harder ...

P.S you can still take entire civs out in one turn if you have easy acess to the cities. The only thing that they did to stop that was a serious nerfing on the dropping of units inside cities in one turn and with enough shelling power that can be overcome with some ease. Oh and the fact that gunships + paratroopers duos don't work as good as they did in civ IV.

Anyway it is pretty abusive comparing one turn of civ V with one turn of civ V when a unit will rarely die in one turn in civ V... it would not be fairer and more constructive to get back to the comparison between wars ?

 

[Roxlimn]

The reserves are in your bank account, sitting in the form of gold. Which you spend. To buy troops.

Open the city screen. Press "purchase." Select unit of choice. Reinforcement complete.

 

[Elliot]

I agree with the OP, this is a huge AI flaw. Just setup your military in a good position, declare war and fight off the horde. Then swoop in and take undefended cities.

I would like to see unit maintenance drastically cut inside your own borders. This would make it easier to keep a defensive force while your army is out attacking, and it would also prevent workers/great people from costing you the same as your main fighting force.

 

[Roxlimn]

r_rolo1:

1UPT only penalizes you harshly if you don't have defensive plans in place and if you don't have fallback measures. If you are willing to cede cities to buy time, you can fall back and mount a counter-offensive even when you're caught off-guard.

It true that if you're tactically inept, then 1UPT and terrain will punish you harshly, but I gather that that was generally the intent of the game's tactical side.

There are many factors in favor of the defense in Civ V. I'm aware that there are also many factors in favor in Civ IV, but in terms of sheer number and power, defenses in Civ V are really, really buff. You can really hold off a superior enemy forever if you can find the terrain and have the wherewithal to outsmart him.

P.S you can still take entire civs out in one turn if you have easy access to the cities. The only thing that they did to stop that was a serious nerfing on the dropping of units inside cities in one turn and with enough shelling power that can be overcome with some ease. Oh and the fact that gunships + paratroopers duos don't work as good as they did in civ IV.

Anyway it is pretty abusive comparing one turn of civ V with one turn of civ V when a unit will rarely die in one turn in civ V... it would not be fairer and more constructive to get back to the comparison between wars?

I'm sure I can take out a 1-city Civ in Civ V in one turn. That's not really what I'm talking about. OP was talking about ease of steamrolling. You can take over an entire continent in Civ IV in one turn. This is because cities do not have active defenses and their garrisons are usually weak.

You can no longer do this in Civ V because movement is nerfed, fast units are not as fast, and cities are very, very tough - easily tougher than just one unit.

You can use a variety of tactics to do one-turn wars in Civ 4. Paras + Helis, Spies + Tanks, Bombers + Tanks, take your pick. Can't do that in Civ V without really, really, really good planning, and that speaks directly to what the OP was saying.

 

[Jediron]

The reserves are in your bank account, sitting in the form of gold. Which you spend. To buy troops.

Open the city screen. Press "purchase." Select unit of choice. Reinforcement complete.

Yeah right, before 0 BC, where you are loads in cash, right ?
Seriously, are you on the payroll of FireAxis or are you just so painfully in love with the CIV 5 mechanics ?

Anyway, i love to fight epic battles; also PRE 0BC. I don't like fighting with a handfull of units which is what we have now, in the old ages. That ain't armies, that are some solely units, moving around the map. Real Epic like, not ? Not.

I'm sure I can take out a 1-city Civ in Civ V in one turn. That's not really what I'm talking about. OP was talking about ease of steamrolling. You can take over an entire continent in Civ IV in one turn. This is because cities do not have active defenses and their garrisons are usually weak.

You speak of the later ages, with rail all over the place. You could not do it before rails, in Civ IV. Period. Now CIV 5, aha. That's another story. Yuo can steamroll a continent, before or just after 0 BC. Really, as onesided you may think we sound; you sound onesided also.

 

[Roxlimn]

Jediron:

Actually, I just finished off a war as Persia using Immortals where I rush-bought like, half of my army. I had 3 Warriors, 6 Immortals, and 2 Archers. They were fairly covering the map as I rushed down Paris. The early units are cheap enough that if you have lots of gold, you can buy units in substantial amounts and not keep them around to drain your bank before your attack.

Songhai with their +75 gold per Encampment taken also gets a lot of gold, too.

I'm not that in love with Civ V. I have lots of things that I want fixed with it, but after the fix, I want it to be Civ V, not Civ IV - the V expansion.

 

[MkLh]

OP could you explain why the difference in unit movement leads to winner-takes-all battles in Civ 5 and not so in Civ 4? From my experience, it's much easier to hold off the AI in this game with reserve units positioned in key defensive positions, rather than in Civ 4 where the stack o' death steamrolls everything.

Exactly. The underdog has better chances with 1UPT than it had with SoDs because the stronger one can't throw all his troops in battle at once. Everything in the OP about winner-takes-it-all wars is more true with SoDs than it is with 1UPT. Therefore I find the OP a bit pointless.

 

[mrt144]

Is that a flame? Oooh. I'm burnt.

I've been playing Civ since '91. How long have you been playing?

Since 1991. Fact is though, if you suffered through the combat of every previous iteration of Civ's facile combat, then I don't really see how you can say that it's so important to you.

 

[mrt144]

Exactly. The underdog has better chances with 1UPT than it had with SoDs because the stronger one can't throw all his troops in battle at once. Everything in the OP about winner-takes-it-all wars is more true with SoDs than it is with 1UPT. Therefore I find the OP a bit pointless.

It's because theres a greater percent of units lost in each battle relative to the entire amount of units you're fielding in 1UPT

 

[Roxlimn]

mrt144:

Total nonsense. The amount of units you lose in 1UPT is exactly the same as the amount of units you would lose if your SoD got royally owned by the enemy SoD - which is exactly how much of your entire army you decided to engage in that particular battle.

Each unit in the SoD costs less of course, but that doesn't matter in the slightest, because the entire SoD is going to die anyway.

 

[r_rolo1]

r_rolo1:

1UPT only penalizes you harshly if you don't have defensive plans in place and if you don't have fallback measures. If you are willing to cede cities to buy time, you can fall back and mount a counter-offensive even when you're caught off-guard.

It true that if you're tactically inept, then 1UPT and terrain will punish you harshly, but I gather that that was generally the intent of the game's tactical side.

There are many factors in favor of the defense in Civ V. I'm aware that there are also many factors in favor in Civ IV, but in terms of sheer number and power, defenses in Civ V are really, really buff. You can really hold off a superior enemy forever if you can find the terrain and have the wherewithal to outsmart him.

You misunderstood me ... again. My point is that you don't need to be tactical inept to be caught off guard or with your army in a delicate tactical position .. you might have just been caught in a unfortunate and hard to predict chain of events. You can only predict everything when your adversaries are predictable enough

I am really not sold to the idea of giving land to gain time. In civ V , probably more than in civ IV by a order of magnitude, land is power and losing land is a sure sign that you will lose your army if your oponent is as smart as you are. But i digress ... Anyway giving land by time was more powerful in civ IV due to the way you continued to have control of a lot of tiles where you had more speed than the offender even if you lost the city ... and the fact that cities in there have literally no defense after being taken in most of the times. You sould make your city into a empty fort and siege your enemy inside or to force him into a long march inside enemy terrain until the next city. Neither of this is possible in civ V

Now on your last point, it is clear to me that you had little times where you had to pull out your defensive gallons in civ IV against a inteligent foe. The name of the game in civ IV defense is to counter attack the enemy using the superior velocity you have against your enemy inside your land and if you add that to the static defenses, while doing the same math to civ V, civ IV wins hands down ( it is extremely hard to take a enemy of a similar military strenght in civ IV if he is as smart as you ... you have to stick to defensive terrain, be very careful on your moves and pray for a miscalculation of his. Otherwise you will be surely defeated ). OFC that neither civ Iv or civ V AI do active defense, but that is a Ai shortcoming , not a inherent feature of the combat system ...

I'm sure I can take out a 1-city Civ in Civ V in one turn. That's not really what I'm talking about. OP was talking about ease of steamrolling. You can take over an entire continent in Civ IV in one turn. This is because cities do not have active defenses and their garrisons are usually weak.

You can no longer do this in Civ V because movement is nerfed, fast units are not as fast, and cities are very, very tough - easily tougher than just one unit.

You can use a variety of tactics to do one-turn wars in Civ 4. Paras + Helis, Spies + Tanks, Bombers + Tanks, take your pick. Can't do that in Civ V without really, really, really good planning, and that speaks directly to what the OP was saying.

I am sure you can take whole civs out in civ V as well and civs with more that one city You still have bombers, you can shell the city defenses from the sea, you still have nukes....

The only real diference between very fast conquers in civ IV and V is what you said: less means of making the cities defenseless fast, less range of those that exist in general and increased dificulty to concentrate those at will. This makes things diferent in degree at best, not diferent in kind. Anyway, the 1 upt also makes harder for the defender to regroup in the targetted areas to defend them, so I would probably call that even ground , not a civ V advantage.

P.S Just to make sure, you know that taking a whole civ in civ IV in one turn or little more than that also requires a lot of good planning ?

 

[zuraffo]

no, I address the interaction between the combat system and other systems of the game, and how they seem to be incompatible... the scale of a civ game just does not fit a wargame structure, and that is what civ5's combat system is: a wargame out of scale (both in space and time). Given the multiple declarations of Shafer about his love with Panzer General, that is not a surprise... but this is not Panzer General, and never will be.

This is Civ trying to be Panzer General.

And because of how the game is structured, it makes Wu the undisputed leader of the game.

 

[JLoZeppeli]

mrt144:

Total nonsense. The amount of units you lose in 1UPT is exactly the same as the amount of units you would lose if your SoD got royally owned by the enemy SoD - which is exactly how much of your entire army you decided to engage in that particular battle.

Each unit in the SoD costs less of course, but that doesn't matter in the slightest, because the entire SoD is going to die anyway.

Are you serious?? In my seven full run on Civ V i almost produced per game 1/10 of the troops when in Civ IV. In my first run on King I was so "good" to win over four civilizations with only 10 unit, the same from the start... In less than 50 turns...

I repeat the question: are you serious?

 

[Roxlimn]

r_rolo1:

You misunderstood me ... again. My point is that you don't need to be tactical inept to be caught off guard or with your army in a delicate tactical position .. you might have just been caught in a unfortunate and hard to predict chain of events. You can only predict everything when your adversaries are predictable enough.

That is untrue. You have control of the terrain within your border, and you can therefore plan your defenses ahead of time. Active defense means that you have a plan for transporting your forces to where they're needed when they're needed there. If you are caught unawares, then you are not tactically inept. You are strategically inept. Every time you move your troops, you can estimate how much time it would take for them to move back.

Once you know the disposition of your forces, planning the terrain to have a defensive line and several fallbacks is a matter of foresight. Use hills to block line of sight against ranged units. Force the melee units to go through open terrain so your guys can slaughter them. Clear forests, even, to generate this fallback point.

I am really not sold to the idea of giving land to gain time. In civ V , probably more than in civ IV by a order of magnitude, land is power and losing land is a sure sign that you will lose your army if your opponent is as smart as you are. But i digress ... Anyway giving land by time was more powerful in civ IV due to the way you continued to have control of a lot of tiles where you had more speed than the offender even if you lost the city ... and the fact that cities in there have literally no defense after being taken in most of the times. You could make your city into a empty fort and siege your enemy inside or to force him into a long march inside enemy terrain until the next city. Neither of this is possible in civ V

Land is not power in Civ IV, and neither is it in Civ V. True power comes from having people, and the more population you have, the more powerful you are. Having land to work is just an initial requirement that becomes more optional as the game progresses. A Civ with more land isn't necessarily more powerful.

Losing cities and land isn't that big of a deal in Civ IV if that city is just a puppet or a non-core city. Sure, you might lose some gold or science, but isn't anything that isn't repairable once you win.

Ceding land to set up your opponent for brutal bombing and shelling is murderously effective in Civ V. You may not even have to lose the city. You just need his units in open terrain around it.

Now on your last point, it is clear to me that you had little times where you had to pull out your defensive gallons in civ IV against a inteligent foe. The name of the game in civ IV defense is to counter attack the enemy using the superior velocity you have against your enemy inside your land and if you add that to the static defenses, while doing the same math to civ V, civ IV wins hands down ( it is extremely hard to take a enemy of a similar military strength in civ IV if he is as smart as you ... you have to stick to defensive terrain, be very careful on your moves and pray for a miscalculation of his. Otherwise you will be surely defeated ). OFC that neither civ Iv or civ V AI do active defense, but that is a Ai shortcoming , not a inherent feature of the combat system ...

I take it that you haven't played with Civ V's battle system much. Probably win all the time through Horsemen or some such.

Defenders have monstrous advantages in Civ V. Quite apart from City Walls, Castles, and the like, you have the Great Wall, Himeji Castle, and preset terrain. You can win in Civ IV with a fraction of the strength of the army that is attacking you, if your dispositions are correct. Given unfavorable terrain, it can be not only difficult, but impossible to unseat a like-strength defender.

The only real diference between very fast conquers in civ IV and V is what you said: less means of making the cities defenseless fast, less range of those that exist in general and increased dificulty to concentrate those at will. This makes things diferent in degree at best, not diferent in kind. Anyway, the 1 upt also makes harder for the defender to regroup in the targeted areas to defend them, so I would probably call that even ground , not a civ V advantage.

Eh. Defense is defense. The differences are there, you concede, and it makes taking cities harder, allowing the defender to get reinforcements and choose his terrain. 1UPT making it harder for the defender to regroup also makes it hard for the attacker to maintain attack cohesion. The best attack is only just enough and rather fragile - very much like Panzer General, actually. The right strike at the right time brings it all down. Anything less than that isn't a well-enough planned attack.

 

[Roxlimn]

JLoZeppeli:

Question:

If you have 1000 units in your Civ and put it all in your SoD, what percentage of your Civ's force do you lose when you lose that SoD?

If you have 10 units in your army and you put it all in one battle and lose them all, what percentage of your forces do you lose?

 

[Jediron]

Jediron:
Actually, I just finished off a war as Persia using Immortals where I rush-bought like, half of my army. I had 3 Warriors, 6 Immortals, and 2 Archers. They were fairly covering the map as I rushed down Paris. The early units are cheap enough that if you have lots of gold, you can buy units in substantial amounts and not keep them around to drain your bank before your attack.

That's exactly my point; you buy yourself to succes. It's all too easy.

I'm not that in love with Civ V. I have lots of things that I want fixed with it, but after the fix, I want it to be Civ V, not Civ IV - the V expansion.

I don't expect the fix comes from FireAxis. Maybe a good mod, who knows. But it won't heal the 1 upt properly, i am afraid. In the late ages, i want a frontline, just as in civ3, with "panzergruppe" to spearhead a Blitzkrieg strategy. With the current 1 upt, all you get is one carpet of doom, jig-sawing your "army" all over the place. Tell me; do you think they gonna fix that ?
I gues not. What you get is a frontline, filling every hex on the planet, floating on sea to fill the gaps, etc.
That's grand battles in CIV 5, folks. Love it or hate it.