Scale

[Windsor]

I think of it like this: When you watch a swordsman battle an axeman, you're not watching the real battle. The real battle would be much more complex, with thousands of men (and women) fighting upon the battlefield. But what you see is just a representation. The adding of long range fire by archers is the same thing.

It's not the same at all. We all know a unit represents more than one guy. Adding long range fire on archers is giving them an ability they shouldn't have. Long range fire doesn't represent anything realistic. A sword battling an axe represents something very realistic.

It is VERY strange if (on totally open ground) a swordsman whom is within firing range of an archer cannot engage that archer in close combat. It will be even worse if a longbow can attack a musketman without the musket beeing able to defend.

CivIV gets this quite right, the archer gets a first strike representing that first wave of arrows, but then the battle begins for real.

 

[22bebo]

Yes, I do agree that the first strikes where much more realistic. But archers didn't just do that. They also had the ability to just rain arrows on a group of enemies from a distance, while the other infantry men closed in. I think it's supposed to be like that.

 

[MeteorPunch]

I think they are going for, "Hey wouldn't it be fun to give archers 2 bombard range? YEAH." At the scale that you see the units, it makes sense, but on the world scale it doesn't. It seems they want to combine small-scale and large-scale, which in the end just screws with both. I've always wondered how civ would play if we could zoom in on battles and have more control there, but not like this, directly mixing small and large scales.

 

[Windsor]

Yes, I do agree that the first strikes where much more realistic. But archers didn't just do that. They also had the ability to just rain arrows on a group of enemies from a distance, while the other infantry men closed in. I think it's supposed to be like that.

And here is the major scaling problem. The distance an archer can shoot is quite limited, say 100 meters. On a Civ-map 100 meters is nothing at all so giving them a 2-tile range doesn't make sense except for it to be required for the new combat system to work gameplay-wise. But the 2-range does look like it will be a big flaw in the credibility in how warfare is portrayed.

 

[Panzeh]

It's going to look strange, but it'll give archers an actual role in skilled play in the one unit per hex gameplay.

I've come to terms that it's not realistic, but at least there'll be more to combat, it'll make terrain more meaningful and draw the fight out into the countryside instead of everything taking place at the cities.

 

[Cashew]

It's not the same at all. We all know a unit represents more than one guy. Adding long range fire on archers is giving them an ability they shouldn't have. Long range fire doesn't represent anything realistic. A sword battling an axe represents something very realistic.

It is VERY strange if (on totally open ground) a swordsman whom is within firing range of an archer cannot engage that archer in close combat. It will be even worse if a longbow can attack a musketman without the musket beeing able to defend.

CivIV gets this quite right, the archer gets a first strike representing that first wave of arrows, but then the battle begins for real.

All this talk about "should have" or "not realistic" is nonsensical since this is a game. Trying to make aspects of the game realistic would have made previous versions of Civ unplayable.

The important thing about archers getting ranged bombardment is that it (hopefully) introduces more tactical and strategic elements to the game. If you guys want to take that out because it's unrealistic then go shoot some deer with a bow in your backyard or something.

 

[Tholish]

On the converse, if you just want an abstract game why not play with abstract symbols and no art? Atmosphere is a big part of it, as is evident by so much being lavished on it, and part of atmosphere is credibility. Until now civ has basically been rationalizable. Your eyes adjust as it were. But bad enough scale discrepancy can be as bad game mechanics or art. Is it worth it?

I think MeteorPunch is right, civ gets away with some mixing small and large scales, it being only a game, but some things you can only stretch so far before they break. Both scales are sullied.

 

[squadbroken]

On the converse, if you just want an abstract game why not play with abstract symbols and no art? Atmosphere is a big part of it, as is evident by so much being lavished on it, and part of atmosphere is credibility. Until now civ has basically been rationalizable. Your eyes adjust as it were. But bad enough scale discrepancy can be as bad game mechanics or art. Is it worth it?

Rationalize a battleship dying to a phalanx.

 

[Cashew]

A certain level of detail makes things more readily identifiable. There's a practical reason to having things look like what they're supposed to be. Beyond being able to identify what things are I could care less about how detailed they look. Really, the only "aesthetic" concern I submit as being valid is the colors/lighting of the game since that can have an effect on how strained your eyes become over prolonged periods of play.

And besides that, most people stop appreciating the aesthetics realism (or inaccuracies) after playing it for a while. Conversely, the strategic elements of a game only become more sophisticated as people explore them further.

Pretty effects and stunning new levels of realism are what get casual players to buy a game. Substantial game-play and the potential for a competitive community are what keep dedicated fans coming back for more.

 

[AlpsStranger]

On the converse, if you just want an abstract game why not play with abstract symbols and no art?

Because I don't want to. I *want* a fun, abstract, and playable version of what is vaguely world history. Roman Legions and Celtic Warriors are more fun even if they aren't represented in a very accurate fashion.

When I play the Romans in Civ4, I don't play it under any delusion that I am the historical Romans. Instead I think of myself as "Rome flavored." Civilization will never be more historical than that without sacrificing its ability to clarify and improve its rules.

What realism advocates fail to appreciate is mechanical cleanliness. A game developer will sacrifice a *lot* of other facets to create a clean razor blade of a mechanic. Then a layman who finds it unrealistic ( or otherwise unsatisfying ) will hand him a blueprint to some kind of steam-powered double bladed chainsaw covered in Christmas lights as an "improvement." The layman doesn't know or care about the big picture; the layman "knows what he likes."

One unit per tile is a far cleaner and bolder game mechanic than "four units divided by the map size to the power of the game speed plus the number of relevant techs and the cube root of the population of the nearest city times five add one if a river is nearby or just sometimes add one for the hell of it"

You can insult me by calling it "dumbing down" if you like, but I like cleanliness in my core rules. The complexity should arise from the objects those simple rules govern interacting in interesting ways.

 

[Arakhor]

Rationalize a battleship dying to a phalanx.

A backed-up toilet "killed" a U-boat in WWII

 

[22bebo]

I wouldn't mind one unit per tile, except for the impossible movement it would created. Perhaps a limit on how long more than one unit can be in a tile, or something, but it wouldn't be any fun to not be able to move through the.

Rationalize a battleship dying to a phalanx.

A group of swordsmen could beat a tank if they really organized their attack, and several flukes happened. That's why they usually have that 0.01 percent to win. Represents the really, really, really unlikely chance that they would defeat a modern day tank.

 

[Cashew]

A backed-up toilet "killed" a U-boat in WWII

Yeah, but the Phalanx just stood there and watched, he didn't actually sink the submarine ;P

 

[Danger Bird]

What realism advocates fail to appreciate is mechanical cleanliness. A game developer will sacrifice a *lot* of other facets to create a clean razor blade of a mechanic. Then a layman who finds it unrealistic ( or otherwise unsatisfying ) will hand him a blueprint to some kind of steam-powered double bladed chainsaw covered in Christmas lights as an "improvement." The layman doesn't know or care about the big picture; the layman "knows what he likes."

One unit per tile is a far cleaner and bolder game mechanic than "four units divided by the map size to the power of the game speed plus the number of relevant techs and the cube root of the population of the nearest city times five add one if a river is nearby or just sometimes add one for the hell of it"

You can insult me by calling it "dumbing down" if you like, but I like cleanliness in my core rules. The complexity should arise from the objects those simple rules govern interacting in interesting ways.

I agree that the one-unit-per-tile is a clean rule that will have interesting tactical implications for the player.

But the no-limit-to-stacks was also a clean rule, and kept things abstract without messing around with tactical realism.

A possible improvement would be to keep the stack but to have a kind of default stack attack (as opposed to the prresent series of one-on-one battles). The success of a stack vs. another would be based on an algorithm that takes into account the terrain, leaders, the make up of the stacks, and all of the tactics that would normally be employed by the units in the stack (kind of like EU3 I guess).

But why do we have to see and play all of the battlefield tactics? In a game of this scale, what's wrong with having it all abstract and hidden, but accounted for in the combat calculations?

Now, if you answer the questions above, 'Because we want the battlefield realism', well, fair enough. I'm just saying that I don't really want it, if it's going to mess up the sense of scale. But if Civ 5 becomes that kind of game, I'll either live with it or go off and play a grand strategy game.

 

[_hero_]

If the realism of bombardment and scale is too much for some of you just think of it this way. The ranged units can shoot a volley at the enemy and retreat behind the front lines before enemy melee units can retaliate. Just imagine they aren't truly shooting two tiles away but rather performing a hit and run.

 

[Skyre Noktis]

I understand that it is just a game. A game meant to give the feel of the history of civilisations.

Regarding the battle system, if indeed 'the majority seems to think it's broke,' Why do they think so? From the comments I've seen in favour of the one-unit-per-tile system and ranged attacks, it seems they want more tactical realism. I'm actually the one saying that you can't have that kind of realism in a strategy game, without it feeling very weird from the point of view of scale.

So we are all concerned with realism to some degree, as are the designers of the game. I guess we just prioritise different aspects.

No, you miss the point. People want the combat system to change so that it will offer more possibilities, more challenge, and in turn be more *fun*. People think it's broken because there is currently one single tactic (the stack of death) that is guaranteed to work every single time. That is boring, and it makes fighting wars repetitive.

 

[AlpsStranger]

But the no-limit-to-stacks was also a clean rule, and kept things abstract without messing around with tactical realism.

It certainly was a very clean rule. I would argue that it is cleaner than one unit per tile. Unfortunately I do not feel the side effects are worth it.

- Larger nations autopwn smaller ones fairly quickly

- SoDs are irritating on almost every conceivable level

- "Warfare is a bus ride between cities" as another fanatic put it

One unit per hex is the cleanest way I can imagine to solve these problems.

We'll see what happens. I hope for a very clean and deep game to come of it, but I could be mistaken.

 

[Set]

I agree with danger bird on the whole thing I mean on an earth map there is only one tile between denmark and norway at least in civ 4. should your archer be able to easily fire a volley of arrows from denmark to norway? to fix this you could probably mod in smaller tiles maybe 1/4 but even this would not totally fix scale.

 

[Junuxx]

Short answer: the scale is flexible.

 

[Hypernova]

Argh I'm so fed up with all these scale complaints, a lot of people on this very thread have just chipped in to parrot the obvious - that the scale is messed up. Yeah yeah, big deal. As has already been pointed out, it always has been. As for the "OK scale has always been messed up, but now they're just taking things too far" arguments, well why is ranged archers taking it further than hundreds of years for my ancient era army to reach my neighbour? That seems pretty extreme to me. Besides the fact that in all cases other than the few where they happen to be firing over a city or a lake, an archers two tile range will look fine, so long as you don't consider the context, which is pretty much true of all Civ scale distortions - your Chariots may be taking hundreds of years to reach that neighbour, but local scale is kept, because his units are at least moving at the same pace.

Since I've noticed one unit per tile has been brought up I'll mention another thing which is literally never considered by anyone, which I have brought up a few times. It is that improvements have always been one per tile, and this has exactly the same scale ramifications as 1UPT. If people using the scale argument against 1UPT were consistent they would argue for us to be able to stack improvements (more than just road and other).

Ranged archers will certainly increase fun a lot, and fun > realism, however what is always overlooked is that it will also vastly increase realism in a way unrelated to scale. In real history, archers were very prevalent on the battlefield, especially in the Ancient epoch (and actually less so in the Medieval era), in Civ IV they are basically city defenders, this is extremely unrealistic, and the fact that they will be important on the battlefield increases realism far more than pedantic scale worries reduce it. People may argue that archers can be brought onto the battlefield without giving them the 2 tile range, perhaps by incorporating them into the rock-paper-scissors system. However, the best way to incorporate a ranged soldier that was weak at close combat and usually fired from behind melee troops is to... make it a ranged unit, that is weak at close combat and can fire from behind melee units!

One final note for people demanding this be Grand Strategy and stay away from tactics - the intricacies of battle have at many times in history had huge ramifications on a Grand Strategic scale, so I don't see why Civ has to be stuck with a system which is basically an often tedious comparison of military size to decide the victor of war.