Were "stacks of doom" really that bad?

[Bnel]

combat is simplistic/unfun because unit design is simplistic.

Cav, infantry, and ranged. it doesn't matter what board you play R/P/S on, it's never going to be a great game of involved tactical maneuvers, you have to deepen the RPS. Even then the RPS civ battles are based on pale to advantages of running a better empire. The best civ military strat has always been "be a tech ahead". knights run over spearmen, pikemen trounce archers, crossbowmen beat horsemen.

The way to make civ combat interesting is to expand unit choices and customization, until then neither 1UPT or stacks are really going to make much difference. That's just not the game civ is. The AI being a giant monkey is irrelevant to the fact that you don't have more than 3-4 different units to choose from at the same time until you get to planes.

 

[Carver]

Let me just say first that I am a semi-veteran of civ and I would also obviously know about stacks of doom. I've played civ 5 a little bit and know that they wanted one unit per tile so to make warfare more realistic, but I'm not convinced I actually seen it as making it worst could some tell me what I'm not seeing?

No, stacks of doom were not that bad. The ease of use, and the realism, of SOD are enjoyable to work with. They don't clutter the screen and it's closer to how real militaries operate. Militaries want to concentrate their power to make significant changes on the battlefield one step at a time (or, one spot at a time).

 

[SGRaaize]

Stacks of Doom were terrible, easily the worst aspect of CIV

 

[Louis XXIV]

No, stacks of doom were not that bad. The ease of use, and the realism, of SOD are enjoyable to work with. They don't clutter the screen and it's closer to how real militaries operate. Militaries want to concentrate their power to make significant changes on the battlefield one step at a time (or, one spot at a time).

I don't think this page would have lasted 9 pages if there were unanimity in agreement here. The simple fact is armies didn't engage in one on one engagements when they were massed together, so, even though they concentrated their strength, the SoD doesn't accurately represent this either (to be honest, nothing short of a Total War style battle, even the automatically resolve combat version, would fix this). The aspects of SoD I found unfun can be translated into realism arguments without much difficulty ("all battles became city battles" and "battles were fought in a mind-numbing series of one on one combats where the better defender always responded" could become "there are no pitched battles and city battles are assaults, rather than sieges starving them out" and "armies are incapable of maneuvering to use the advantage of the initiative to create tactical advantages, such as exposing archers without cover so they're vulnerable to a cavalry charge").

 

[Necrotaur]

I didn't mind SoD, but what really bothers me about 1UPT is I have no place to put my army. They are forced to wander my lands like vagrants. 1 army unit in a garrison in a city, fine... but let me put 2-3 units in a fort/citadel!

Also it bugs me I have to move a unit out of the city to rush produce something of the same type.

 

[Iranon]

The combat system was never particularly brilliant. The one in Civ4 did its job though, despite clunky maths and ridiculous artillery suicide charges: It was robust, didn't get in the way and allowed for more depth than people give it credit for.

Civ5 made the mistake of picking a tricky system that wouldn't shine in the game (hard to create adequate tactical AI in this context, hard to mask inadequate AI, not enough space for meaningful tactical movement) that is also fragile and required extreme concessions.
Pacing seems determined entirely by the need to give you enough production for the early game to feel alive, but to restrict it later on to prevent a gridhexlock. This comes at the cost of mismatches everywhere else (production vs. science, vertical growth vs. rewards of such growth, efficiency of early vs. late buildings, terrain vs. output).

If you're willing to severely compromise a good part of the game for your favourite feature, you should make sure your pet feature can be implemented well enough to be worth the sacrifice.
An interesting question in my opinion: Would we be better off starting with a wargame and tacking on civvy features rather than the other way round?

 

[pi-r8]

An interesting question in my opinion: Would we be better off starting with a wargame and tacking on civvy features rather than the other way round?

I keep thinking that if they insist on doing 1UPT combat, they should go all the way with it. Increase the minimum distance between cities to about 6, and cut away about 3/4 of the tech tree and buildings so that you can actually finish everything in a 3 hour MP game. Also, add in some of the more complicated warfare rules like initiative and defensive artillery fire, so that moving first with your units isn't such a crushing advantage.

I admit, it wouldn't really feel like civ any more. But, I think it would be a much deeper and less frustrating game.

 

[Mathalamus]

I keep thinking that if they insist on doing 1UPT combat, they should go all the way with it. Increase the minimum distance between cities to about 6, and cut away about 3/4 of the tech tree and buildings so that you can actually everything in a 3 hour MP game. Also, add in some of the more complicated warfare rules like initiative and defensive artillery fire, so that moving first with your units isn't such a crushing advantage.

I admit, it wouldn't really feel like civ any more. But, I think it would be a much deeper and less frustrating game.

much deeper...? cutting away 3/4 of the game makes it deeper? what?

someone else explain why this is a horrible idea.

 

[larries]

I keep thinking that if they insist on doing 1UPT combat, they should go all the way with it. Increase the minimum distance between cities to about 6, and cut away about 3/4 of the tech tree and buildings so that you can actually finish everything in a 3 hour MP game. Also, add in some of the more complicated warfare rules like initiative and defensive artillery fire, so that moving first with your units isn't such a crushing advantage.

I admit, it wouldn't really feel like civ any more. But, I think it would be a much deeper and less frustrating game.

Well, then this game is not Civilization anymore. It can be a fun game, but please, call it something else.

 

[Windsor]

An interesting question in my opinion: Would we be better off starting with a wargame and tacking on civvy features rather than the other way round?

Well, I would say if you dare to ditch core concept of cities working tiles giving food/hammers/gold on a per turn basis a lot of issues with Civ would be easier to solve. That includes but is not limited to warfare.

And you might say that Civ5 already takes one step in that direction. They are hiding tile management which is the very core of the game and to be honest, I notice that I really don't micro tiles in Civ5 a lot. So, if players already skip tile management, why keep this as the fundamental mechanic for the game?

 

[pazmacats]

...
If you're willing to severely compromise a good part of the game for your favourite feature [=UPT], you should make sure your pet feature can be implemented well enough to be worth the sacrifice. ...

Well said.

Phase 1 was done: Compromise the game.
Phase 2 is missing: Create value (aka fun) by using the new feature.

I hope that instead of canceling the changes from phase 1 they get some creativity working for a change and add some serious buff to the whole (newly created) gameplay area.

some ideas:
Every unit is important -> produce/research special equipment, add generals to units

traffic jam: have restrictions about number of units any player can have in the field at any given time (aka pop from RTS)

1UPT (restriction) -> research military doctrines (get rid of restriction),

importance of "fronts" and terrain: create defensive structures (trenches),

cities are combat units: have different civics for different city attack bonuses,

impossible to handle for AI: have some kind of a resupply concept that can help the AI to replenish its losses (and gain an advantage in fighting STRENGTH not NUMBERS) (e.g. spent production on war material to "buy back" lost HP)

and most importantly: Get rid of all the eye candy and at least triple the number of hexes on a standard map.

 

[Mathalamus]

and most importantly: Get rid of all the eye candy and at least triple the number of hexes on a standard map.

no one will play a game that looks like to be made in 1998.

 

[Iranon]

Easy fix: make it look like it was made in 1978 then... there are possibly more truly fantastic games in ASCII than there are in lovingly rendered 3d.

 

[Mathalamus]

i would never buy such a graphically outdated game.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Yeah, games like that are offered for free on the internet these days (through flash games made by hobby programmers). I don't want a game that will kill my system, but some pretty eye candy is always nice.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

no one will play a game that looks like to be made in 1998.

I would and older too if the gameplay is good enough. Frankly looks are probably the least important of all the selling points available for any game. A good engine, gameplay, storyline and challenge will sell a lot more games over how shiny the game looks when installed.

 

[apotheoser]

i would never buy such a graphically outdated game.

You probably never should have started playing Civ in the first place then.

 

[Mathalamus]

civ4 isn't graphically outdated...

 

[Louis XXIV]

I started with Civ2. Civ2's graphics weren't anything unusually bad compared to games at the time. It's continued that way. They improve to be roughly on par, but not cutting edge.

 

[pazmacats]

no one will play a game that looks like to be made in 1998.

Well I don't play Civ 5 as it is atm. If I want eye-candy, I watch a movie or leave the house.

A hex game needs hexes. The more the better. It should be declared a crime to make a strategy game in 3D actually. 3D doesnt add anything to a game like Civ. I am sure bigger maps with more hexes would be possible if 3D was kicked out.