Not necessary so, since you may optimize previous codes as well before introducing additional depth into it. But basically you are right, and yes I wouldnt care if a higher spec would be required. Though Civ5 is dumbed down it still requires higher spec. Now that makes no sense at all.
You say Civ 5 is dumbed down and yet it requires higher specs. If all of these other things that you want added in (the separate tactical combat window and the mechanics that go with it, plus a couple of other things I can't remember and am too tired to go looking for), the required specs would be even higher, making Civ 5 even more inaccessable to people and reducing the sales of Civ 5. No business in their right mind would make their product more inaccessable unless they were going to charge more for their product which would in turn make it even more inaccessable. That is not how the gaming industry works.
So to stay competative, the Civ games need to be able to be played be more people while also balancing out staying up to date on graphics, etc. The hard core gamers are the people who have the higher end machines and Civ is not geared toward the hard core gamer. It's geared toward the Civvers, who encompass a wide variety of people, many of whom aren't going to have those high end machines.
Controls are facilities which make up the feature itself, since without them the feature would be of no use.
I include first 3 for both and last two for neighter.
Exactly!!!
First, Im really surprised that you are actually reading my posts and make intelligent replies. And here you are actually right. MUPT would have been a much more fit word for what I was discussing. So thechnically it would have been more proper to use MUPT instead of SOD, the only reason I used SOD is that its a better known notion here on the forums. So but again, all I wanted is to separate core mechanics of a feature, mechanics and controls which realize the feature itself independent of its environment - from their consequnces and their surroundings for the purpose of a clearer argumentation and to show that in terms of core mechanics and control facilities MUPT is more complex, more difficult to implement and opens more possibilities and variations for the gameplay.
To separate a feature from its environment, would make the feature pointless and thus useless. Additionally, the consequences and results of a feature are important because if those consequences and results of the feature cause a negative reaction, then the feature is more than useless, it is hurting the thing (I couldn't think of a better word to use) it is a part of.
But for the moment, I'll look at only the mechanics and controls and leave everything else out.
SOD as it existed in Civ 4 had more controls and more mechanics to it than 1UPT in Civ 5 does. That does not necessarily make it better. Why? Because it makes it more complex and just because something is more complex doesn't mean it is better. Let's look at your list from post #88 again:
4) Yoy can move more than one unit to a tile thus creating a stack. The stack is not just a notion but a human and AI managable feature.
Not really a mechanic or control but just a fact of the system.
5) Units of a stack are displayed and are managed in a seperate control panel.
Definately a mechanic that is not found in 1UPT.
6) On the control panel you can select one unit, multiple units, or a group of units of a given type.
A control not found in 1UPT.
7) Any selection can be activated in for example combat, like you can attack with single units, with arbitrary multiple units or with a chosen group.
I guess this would be both a mechanic and a control.
8) Collaterate damage is distributed accross enemy stack units in a scriptable way. In Civ5 1UPT collatarate damage doesnt even make sense...
Mechanic.
9) There is difference between defending and attacking units during combat, since for example strongest defender is chosen to defend when you are attacked.
Mechanic again.
10) Marksman units attack the weakest unit in a stack.
Yet another mechanic.
11) Several actions, like healing, take into account not just a single unit, but all units in the stack, which means that it has a limit of units being
affected and strength of the effect per unit.
A mechanic but without a longer list, can not really be said to be limited to SOD. With healing as the only example and the only thing that effects healing other than time being a unit with the Medic promotion, this is something that exists in Civ 5's 1UPT, they just can't be in the same tile.
So setting aside #4 and 11 for the moment, you have 6 additional mechanics and controls that do not exist in Civ 5 1UPT.
5) This was just one more thing that you had to deal with in the UI. In earlier versions of Civ 4, this involved a single line across the bottom of the screen and if there were more units than could fit in the screen there was either a scroll bar or arrows you had to click to get to more units (it's been a while so I don't remember which it was). The units listed at the bottom was fine but when it came to having to scroll to see more units, it made the task more tedious and took more time than most people would probably want to spend given the option.
In later versions of Civ 4, the single line was changed so that if there were more units than could fill that single line, a new line was started above it. While having one or two and possibly even three lines wasn't that big of a deal, more lines would get a bit visually confusing since they started taking up more of the screen and blocking out what you wanted to be looking at as you were moving this massive stack.
So arguably, this mechanic made the game less fun due to the time and visual interference it created.
6) Goes somewhat along with #5. With a few units it was fine but the more unit in the stack, the more tedious it got. Once #5 was changed to multiple lines, this control got better and easier to use and I would say was actually beneficial. That's just looking at the control itself, not what the mechanic did to the UI and screen.
7) I'm going to add to this that you could also move these selections together instead of having to move a since unit at time. This is by far a better mechanic and something I do somewhat miss, although I'm not really sure it could be implemented well in 1UPT due to the effects of terrain on different units in the formation.
8) Collateral damage was not fun. It made Seige units far too overpowered and with enough seige units attacking the enemy, made all enemy units basically pointless. Just collateral damage enough of them and let your own army wipe out the enemy.
Now it could be argued that Seige units in Civ 5 have a similar function in that they can wipe out an enemy with their ranged attack so that your melee, mobile or gunpowder units can just walk right thru. I agree with this. I enjoy the ranged aspect of seige units in Civ 5 but think it should not be possible for them to completely kill and enemy. This would include archers as well but exclude the ranged attack of cities.
I think that at most a unit should only be reduced to two or three hp from ranged attacks (again excluding city attack). This would make combat a bit more challenging and would remove the overpowered aspect of seige and archer units. Right now as long as you have enough units to defend your seige/archer units, you can just kill everything from a distance and then walk in with melee/mobile/gunpowder units. That's not really fun.
This should also effect cities. Ranged attacks should only be able to reduce a city's defenses to say 25% of their strength. You would have to do the rest with your other units.
9) This is a mechanic that has never been good in Civ. In 1-3 it was represented by units having attack and defense values. In 4, it was changed so that all units had a single value, but abilities promotions would alter that value to cause the unit to be favored one way or another. In 1-3 it was Spearmen -> Mech Infantry that were for defense and Swordsmen -> Medieval Infantry (or whatever the game equivalent was until they upgraded to Musket/Riflemen and became defensive units) and Horseman/Chariot -> Modern Armor that were for attacking. In 4, Archery and Gunpowder units were for city defense and Melee and Armor that were for city attack.
In Civ 5, that whole mess has been done away with. All units can be used to attack and all units can be used to defend. You can give units promotions that will make them better for attacking cities but with cities having their own defense value, there is no need to have city defense promotions. The units strength is just added to the city's.
10) This mechanic was just plain annoying. It totally destroyed the mechanic of #9. I have this huge stack of units and unless I build my own Marksmen to defend, I'm going to lose the units that I want to protect the most. It was just one more thing to complicate combat.
And that brings me back to complexity. That's all these extra mechanics and controls did, make the game mor complex. While I agree that some level of comlexity is required to make a game fun, there is a limit. By the end of Civ 4, that limit and been passed.
You had to build 6 (random number) different units to put into your stacks that were used to attack or defend against certain other units. You had to have some of those units with certain promotions to attack or defend against certain other promotions.
You had to click on a bunch of different units to group them together so you could move them. When you reached your destination, you had to separate that group out into smaller groups so you could further move them or attack with them. Then you recombined part or all of the original group so you could continue to move or whatever. All the while, having to deal with the sometimes clunky UI mechanic/control that was introduced for the sole purpose of making these groups even slightly manageable.
Overall, the only reason these various mechanics or controls were any good was they were needed to make SODs work. Without them, SODs would be even more hard to manage and warfare would not have been fun at all. So what you end up with is a highly complex and unfun (is that a word) system of warfare that was made slightly more manageable by adding more controls and mechanics that made the game harder to understand and get into.
So yeah, I guess you are right to some extent. 1UPT is simpler than SOD, but it is more fun.
Now add environment back in. With SOD, environment was mostly irrelevant. All that mattered was who's stack was bigger and who's stack had a better makeup. Yeah if the defending stack was on a hill it would have an advantage but if the attacking stack was bigger or had a better makeup, the extra defense from the hill would be irrelevant.
With 1UPT, environment matters. That line of hills and forest between you and a rival civ will make it a lot harder if not impossible for them to attack you. In my Gandhi 3 City Culture Vic, I had a much weaker army than the Ottomans (who were southeast) and Chinese (who were east). However due to a line of hills that ran mosst of my border with both of them and some forests in front of those, I was able to fend off both their separate assaults as well as the one time the both DoWed me within a few turns of eachother and I only took a handful of casualties while I was defending.
Yes, this was in part due to the AIs problems with 1UPT combat but not entirely. In other games, I have not had that defensive advantage and have been wiped out.
And again I have created a monster post. Just a couple of more paragraphs and I'm done.
Yes if you look at only the mechanics and controls, 1UPT is simpler than SOD. That doesn't mean it isn't a feature. In a car, you can have either manual windows or power windows. Both are features. Manual windows are the basic feature while power windows are a more advanced feature, but they are both still features.
You can't look at one part of something and define what it is. If you look at a brick in a wall, it's nothing special, it's just a brick. If you look at the wall, it becomes something more and better and more important than just that brick.
To finish off:
First, Im really surprised that you are actually reading my posts and make intelligent replies.
Thanks.

A discussion/debate/whatever isn't any fun if it's just taking parts and ignoring the whole. Kind of like featurs in a game.
