Tactics in Civ2.

[Buck2005]

Hello!

I ask for advice in the theoretical change of tactics in Civ2.

I thought about using tactical techniques of encirclement, flank strikes, and so on. I want to understand, firstly, whether it is possible to implement this in the Civ2 game mechanics (for example, using Lua), and how difficult it is in practical implementation. And secondly, does it even make sense? Will it require excessive micromanagement from the player?
Perhaps this issue has already been discussed earlier, I would be grateful for the link.


In the upper part of the illustration, a Roman unit (the red arrow indicates the direction of movement to the southeast) attacks a Japanese unit. In the base game, there are no differences in the defense of the unit, when attacking it from any side. However, if we imagine that at the end of the round the Japanese player will indicate the direction of movement of his unit (for example, in the upper part of the picture the green arrow points to the southwest), then the attack of the Roman unit will be directed at the flank of the Japanese. Accordingly, probably a Japanese defending unit must have reduced defense indicators.

At the bottom of the picture, a green arrow shows the direction of movement of the Japanese Legion to the southeast. The Roman unit (red arrow) attacks him in the rear. Naturally, the Japanese should have the lowest defense score.

Questions:
1). Is the combat defense system-attack based on the direction of movement of the unit feasible in practice?
2). How is it more or less visually acceptable for a player to implement a pointer to stop the movement of a unit after the movement points are fully used for this unit.
3). Well, and the most important thing: is it worth trying to implement this new combat system, or will it complicate and spoil the gameplay extremely?

 

[JPetroski]

Since we can identify the location of units on a map, we can also identify their location relative to other units. Thus, it would be possible to, say, see if a defending unit has units on multiple sides of it (I'd look at it in degrees vs. "rear"/"flank") and then adjust combat values to take consideration of this. However, the AI won't "think" to do this, but could accidentally trigger the effect. It would likely be one of those things that the human player can exploit much more readily.

As to your 3rd question, it's one I struggle with in my scenarios. Changing a game that's stood the test of time for 20 years can be off-putting to some. On the other hand, it can be really cool to others.

 

[Dadais]

Lua allow such a system to be set indeed.

Howether, how to accuratly picture the direction of units so that can be used properly by humans seems to me an issue.

Also, massive and heavy work with Lua to alter AI gameplay would be necessary to allow AI to exploit this properly and keep some balance to the game.

.

About the pleasure born from such a system, that would be up to each player to like, support, or dislike it.
The single important point is, are the one going to put blood and heart in this project passionate enough to enjoy it themselves then share their enthousiasm to others.

Pioneering gives its own sufferings and satisfactions !

 

[Buck2005]

JPetroski and Dadais, thank you for your comments. First of all, I want to say that I am interested in criticizing this idea. I understand that the practical implementation requires a huge amount of work. Therefore, I would prefer to make sure that this alternative tactical system is worse than the basic one.

In short, how I imagine the implementation.


1. Land units.

The unit can move in 8 possible directions. If at the end of the round you fix the direction of its movement on one of the neighboring squares (as far as I understand, the game can do this in certain situations, judging by the picture
:

), then you can probably use the code to link the direction of movement with the strength of defense and attack. For example, the code records that at the end of the N round, the unit was moving north. Therefore, when attacking the enemy from the north, the unit's defense force should be equal to 8. When attacking from the west or east (flanks) - 4. When attacking from the south (rear) - 1. If the player does not want his units to move in this round, he presses the space bar. In order for the attacking player to understand where the unit is moving and assess the strength of its defense, he must hover the cursor over it and look at the coordinates of its movement (as in the picture above). This is a minimalist option. Ideally, of course, it would be much more convenient if, when pointing at enemy units, a certain visualized arrow would pop up indicating the direction of its movement. However, apparently this is already from the realm of fiction. )

What are the advantages of this tactical system? It is obvious that the player will be forced to think much more carefully about the placement of his units on the map, rather than simply fortifying a unit with maximum protection indicators on the mountain, and watch dozens of catapults or howitzers crash to death on it. To create 100% impenetrable circular defense on a single square, he will need 8 units already, the direction of movement of which will be indicated on all approaches to the square. It would be much more rational not to concentrate all the defensive units in one square, as it happens in the base game, but to distribute them evenly across the map, which will lead to the formation of front lines, like the First World War. For the attacking player, it will be possible to act non-linearly, and to think over and implement tactical methods of breaking through in certain places of the enemy's defense, introducing mobile units into the breakthrough, and destroying defenses from the flanks and rear.

Now the disadvantages of this system. It is unclear what to do with fortification, and finding units in cities, as well as the "sleep" of the unit. The fortified state of the unit implies a state of "complete rest". How will the code calculate the protection of the unit? If we assume that the fortified unit has switched to a circular defense, and the strength of its defense is equal to 8 from all sides, then this will completely lose the meaning of the new system. Since it will return the problem of the unkillable defender on the mountain. It is probably worth fixing its last direction of movement in the code in some way (for example, to the north). When moving to fortification, its protection indicators from this direction will be doubled.

2. Naval units.

It is obvious that the ship is most reliably protected when attacking it from the bow. And the most vulnerable is when attacked from the sides. However, and the attacking power of the ship is highest with sides (except for ramming attack, and boarding). However, in the civ2 game mechanics, the player will in any case be forced to attack with the "nose" of the ship, since this will indicate the direction of its movement. So, regarding naval units, alternative tactics will not work. Or it will require the development of some completely different principle, the opposite of the tactics of land units. Which, again, will lead to colossal amounts of work on writing code.


In general, these are general sketches of a new concept at the idea level. I will be glad to make sure that it is not viable, and the usual basic tactical system civ2 is quite acceptable. )

 

[Dadais]

-First, if not mistaken, GotoOrders do vannish once ennemy is met.
One should be able to keep track of every units last move with Lua of course. Yet, that would consume many resources (for the pc).
That doesn't solve the lack of exposure of units direction either.

Solution shall lay with how "Fantasy gameplay" goes with its units to have these issues easy fixed (don't know how to build that through, nor connecting that to the lua code).
Just tested it, sprites exists for each direction. Dunno where is that information stocked.

-About your development of ground units, I don't see mention of IgnoreZoC units ? Balance should be found here too.
Indeed, exceptions can be set in Lua for fortified units, units in cities, fortress-like unit types, or even unit type you may choose manually whenever whished. Not an issue at all.

-And to repeat, that's nuts if you don't tweak AI to properly used it.

 

[JPetroski]

I mean you can do whatever you want to do, and don't let me discourage you from trying something. But I'll just point out that in my years of tinkering, the effects I'm most satisfied with are the ones that don't dramatically alter the base gameplay, but instead use it as a prompt to build something better. For example, the strategic bombing mechanism that Knighttime built me for OTR and which he uses in MM is about, in my mind, the perfect blend of lua and the base game. All you or the AI needs to do to make it work is build city improvements, and attack units, both of which the AI is totally capable of handling. In exchange you get true strategic bombardment that we've been wishing for since the game came out.

You start getting into things that don't leverage actual the AI thought process and you start building stuff out that is going to imbalance the game towards the human. Even some stuff that you can get the AI to do, like munitions, does slightly favor the human player because they are trying to achieve it whereas the AI has to be tricked into doing it under certain circumstances. MM is a great mod and it does get the AI to use munitions very well, but then Knighttime had to change the way the human got to use it to make it even (he took away the key press and had the munition happen if the unit was near enemy units, just as he has it work for the AI - it is fair). Even with this accommodation, the human is going to strategize to use it whereas the AI falls into it.

Now, that's not to say my own scenarios aren't littered with different scripts that are going to be best utilized by the human, but if you're proposing to change the entire way combat works, you might have wonky results. Just my opinion.

 

[Buck2005]

-And to repeat, that's nuts if you don't tweak AI to properly used it.

Ummm, for me the AI functionality is at the very bottom of the priorities. Probably, somewhere after the design of the throne room. ) I'm certainly not against the presence of AI in the game, but if its presence requires some kind of investment in mod development, then it's easier for me to abandon AI altogether. The thing is, I only use civ2 for multiplayer.

-About your development of ground units, I don't see mention of IgnoreZoC units ? Balance should be found here too.

The balance will be that all units using IgnoreZoC will be deprived of this flag. As you know, this option is associated with a well-known trick based on a bug in the basic game mechanics of civ2. Usually, players in multiplayer introduce a special home rule prohibiting the use of such units (caravans, diplomats) in a combat zone. The simplest solution is to remove the IgnoreZoC option from the game altogether.


In general, most likely the full implementation of the new tactics requires a complete revision of the entire mechanics of the movement of units. For example, the movement points of each unit should take into account its turns in all 8 directions from the beginning of the movement. I will not go into further details, since it is already obvious that this is far beyond the game mechanics of civ2. This requires a different gaming platform. Least of all I would like to get the result of disabled units, hung on all sides with crutches in the form of gigabytes of code. As JPetroski rightly put it, it will scare away the players rather than attract them.