Well, empire size and map size aren't the same thing, you can easily play on a huge map with 4 civs.
1 unit per hex: failed experiment
- Thread starter ohioastronomy
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Well, empire size and map size aren't the same thing, you can easily play on a huge map with 4 civs.
The thing with modding 1upt away is that then one should code a new AI too. If you just add the ability to stack units, the AI will be even worse than it is now. The human gets a huge advantage of stacking while the AI has no idea either how to use it or how to defend against it.
boredatwork
Warlord
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If available you can soften up with some siege. If you are playing with RoM, just use archer's ranged attack for softening
Yes but that merely reverses the problem - whoever gets off his siege suicide squads first wins.
Ultimately what the game really needs, 1UPT or Stacks, is a mechanic that would allow simultaneous combat resolution - ie if you attacked me with sieges I would have the option of attacking back with any sieges in my stack before you threw your melee units in.
Because you are categorically wrong, and no such games have ever had a competent AI.
@the OP - one of the best OPs on any of the civ5 forums in weeks. Point is well made and I agree entirely - the choice of 1upt was a very poor design flaw. Especially as it doesn't scale to different game sizes, takes up way too much time, and of course led to poor AI balance.
The AI in civ5 requires at least twice the number and technological advantage the AI in civ4 did. AI's in civ4 would be very dangerous with only 2:1 units and a tech advantage - that's not even close to true in civ5. The overpowered promotion and experience system is part of the problem but the AI isn't really close to as good.
Yes, because now you have to move those 50 units around one at a time. It takes several times longer to micromanage and is horribly annoying - only people absolutely obssessed with spending hours moving and positioning units around because they love such wargame tactics are fans.
You are "doing something wrong" in your words, though it's more like you just aren't playing the game the same way. Either you are not yet very good at the game or goofing off at low difficulties, or you are playing on small map sizes - not trying to play on a larger map or have a large empire from the start.
that's true. Imagine an AI in Civ IV bts attacking you with midaeval units while you're still stuck with ancient/classical units, and they also outnumber you 2:1. There's really not much you can do except die. But in Civ 5, that sort of war is routine, and there's no threat at all- horsemen, catapults, and swords can easily hold off longswords, crossbows, and trebs. It's not until the AI gets artillery (which is much less hampered by 1UPT due to it's long range) that there's a real threat.
Barking Iguana
Chieftain
I still like Civ 1 combat. You can stack, but if the stack is attacked and loses, the whole stack is gone. So the only stacking you'll want to do is protecting offensive units with a single defensive unit. No problem with long road journeys, though, because until you get to the front, all units can travel together. (Oh, and phalanxes occasionally 'beating' tanks is *not* a problem. IN real life, the residents of the Warsaw Ghetto, took out a bunch of German tanks. Just because they weren't trained and equipped any better than 'warriors' didn't mean they couldn't steal hand grenades to throw under the treads.
Teodosio
Warlord
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Anybody knows that SoD was terrible, it was certainly the worst feature of Civ4.
Limited stacking, as someone advocates, is just the same. You stack togheter infantry, artillery and anti-air and there is no counter for your very very small stack.
It is not good as an human player of course... but I find it good enough, it can give a good challenge indeed more than often.
The military A.I. in Civ5 is still a bit poor but I am confident they will improve it.
I say let's bury deep SoD and enjoy 1upt
Limited stacking, as someone advocates, is just the same. You stack togheter infantry, artillery and anti-air and there is no counter for your very very small stack.
Battle for Wesnoth has 1upt, hexes and ranged combat and the A.I. is quite decent.
It is not good as an human player of course... but I find it good enough, it can give a good challenge indeed more than often.
The military A.I. in Civ5 is still a bit poor but I am confident they will improve it.
I say let's bury deep SoD and enjoy 1upt
Barking Iguana
Chieftain
As with the board game Diplomacy, everybody should input their orders and then there should be simultaneous resolution.
One thing that I haven't seen mentioned yet on the boards is the averaging out of combat results. In CIV4 you could have a strong attack and win 89% of the time but you'd still lose that 11%. Over time those small percentages would inflict losses and could halt an invasion force which didn't have fresh reserves. In CIV5 you can manage your attacks so that you take wounds but never take chances on losing units. Since battles have little risk the wars have little risk and casualties only slow down an assault a couple of turns. This leads to wise human players absolutely overrunning a careless AI opponent once they get the upper hand in a conflict, without ever expanding their army. You don't now even need to back garrison any captured cities.
I see this as a bigger balance problem than one unit per hex. I don't think it's a necessary consequence of one unit per hex. A change to the battle mechanics would be needed to fix this, not just improvements to the AI.
I see this as a bigger balance problem than one unit per hex. I don't think it's a necessary consequence of one unit per hex. A change to the battle mechanics would be needed to fix this, not just improvements to the AI.
I think these are actually fast calculations.
This could be changed with a mod. I'm thinking of increasing the minimum distance between cities to at least 5, maybe even 10, so that there's more space between cities to maneuver. You'd have to tweak a lot of other things to make this work of course- like decrease the culture/gold cost of buying new tiles, decrease the maintenence cost of roads, and maybe decrease the food cost of each additional citizen. You'd also want to decrease the standard number of civs on each map size. But I think this could work.
So if I understand the primary argument against 1UPT is scale... and movement. Wouldn't giving each unit more moves and allow movement through (non-waring) civilian units pretty much solve the problem in terms of scale? Or am I missing something where stacking units is preferable to 1UPT for an even more important reason?
TheHarshax
Warlord
>>>>> Modern wargames have things like opportunity fire (e.g. when you move in range of my city, or artillery, then I attack you *first* as you charge at me.)
This would be a great promotion or unit ability for units that end their turn with moves left.
In general 1UPT is awesome, although I would have liked to see a mix of 1UPT and 2UPT, ala Third Reich and other classic board games from Avalon Hill. In those games, infantry could double stack, aircraft could triple stack on an airfield, tanks could single stack, and then there was the dreaded beach-head where you could stack tons of units. (If there was a beach-head mechanic, I'd want a rule that said an attacker who wins against the best unit defending a beach-head kills all the units on said beach-head in the event of a decisive victory). But 1UPT is still lots better for strategic play than SODs. Always.
As for movement:
I would like unit movement to scale with game speed. Normal speed, normal movement. Quick speed, double movement. Epic/Marathon speed, half movement.
This would be a great promotion or unit ability for units that end their turn with moves left.
In general 1UPT is awesome, although I would have liked to see a mix of 1UPT and 2UPT, ala Third Reich and other classic board games from Avalon Hill. In those games, infantry could double stack, aircraft could triple stack on an airfield, tanks could single stack, and then there was the dreaded beach-head where you could stack tons of units. (If there was a beach-head mechanic, I'd want a rule that said an attacker who wins against the best unit defending a beach-head kills all the units on said beach-head in the event of a decisive victory). But 1UPT is still lots better for strategic play than SODs. Always.
As for movement:
I would like unit movement to scale with game speed. Normal speed, normal movement. Quick speed, double movement. Epic/Marathon speed, half movement.
hewhoknowsall
Warlord
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The scale problem is archers shooting across 2 hexes when one hex can fit a mountain and archers outranging modern day infantry.
Well, they should be, but you can see the delay in pathfinding even when you set a path for single one of your own units.
So why not add a ranged attack to gun units/tanks*? Would that help with scale, too? I'm just trying to understand how to make 1UPT work for Civ 5.
*Note: In the coding they'd need to not be treated as ranged units so that they could still take cities. You'd also want to give tanks ranged attacks, too.
TheHarshax
Warlord
The whole improbable range issue could be solved if 1 ranged unit could stack with one non-ranged unit.
Archers: Range 1
Longbows: Range 1, +1 attack strength
Seige weapons: Range 2 or 3 for artillery/rockets
Still a fan of 1UPT, or very limited units per stack.
Archers: Range 1
Longbows: Range 1, +1 attack strength
Seige weapons: Range 2 or 3 for artillery/rockets
Still a fan of 1UPT, or very limited units per stack.
Alter Hase
Chieftain
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- Jun 26, 2009
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There are some illogical decisions regarding archer/infantry (lack of) ranged combat but other than that i fin the iuph a success.
You mentioned how units cant move fast using one road...... do you know how many offensives and plans got ruined because roads and infrastructure were inefficient ?
Type in Winter war and Suomussalmi for a very good example.
You mentioned how units cant move fast using one road...... do you know how many offensives and plans got ruined because roads and infrastructure were inefficient ?
Type in Winter war and Suomussalmi for a very good example.
Conspirator
Prince
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I still don't understand why they didn't use Civ 2's stacking system, i.e. stack to your hearts content, but if one unit in the stack dies, the whole stack dies. It would have worked so much better.
First, to the OP, absolute agreement.
I've posted this several times and agree - limited units per stack , and old era ranged units only adjacent hex range. It's so simple, so natural, so sensible.... modern artillery/rocket artillery can get two hex range.
I saw mention of a bonus for armies with combined arms - I think the bonus is natural in it's composition, I'd be wary of handing out bonuses, just being able to field a competently designed army is bonus enough. Two melee, a ranged, and a flanking unit is a nice, dangerous army that I believe stands on it's own.
I've posted this several times and agree - limited units per stack , and old era ranged units only adjacent hex range. It's so simple, so natural, so sensible.... modern artillery/rocket artillery can get two hex range.
I saw mention of a bonus for armies with combined arms - I think the bonus is natural in it's composition, I'd be wary of handing out bonuses, just being able to field a competently designed army is bonus enough. Two melee, a ranged, and a flanking unit is a nice, dangerous army that I believe stands on it's own.
