1upt

[Ranos]

There is difference between different game experience and features. Adding features is not the only way to change game experience. In Civ5 1UPT the game experience changed (in a negative direction - but thats just an oppinion) by removing a feature. This is a very cheap and unfair way to create a new game. And saying stuff like, 1UPT is the best feature simply encourages companies to create cheap games and hiding the fact of emptyness behing pseudo features that are no more than a very simple and small change (from a mechanical point of view, not from the point of view of gameplay experience).

Stacked units was a feature. 1UPT is a feature. So they removed one feature and replaced it with another. As has already been said, due to the nature of units and the existence of SOD in previous Civs, 1UPT was not an option. Now I'm sure it could have been modded in but guess what, SOD can and has been modded in to Civ 5.

1UPT was not a simple and small change in any way, shape or form. Yeah to force 1UPT it may have only required adding in a few lines to restrict the number of units to 1 per tile but to get the AI to understand how it works, that is a massive undertaking that is still going on. If people were being honest with themselves, we would all admit that due to the AI's issues with 1UPT along with its problems with embarkation and trans-ocean invasions, we are basically playing Civ 6 Beta and we are paying to do it.

Now I'm sure that a number of Civ 5 haters will jump on this and say. "That's my point!" But lets consider Civ 1-4. Civ 1 was a good game, but lacking in a number of things. It was simple. Simple mechanics, simple graphics, etc. As each version came out, things improved and got better until we reached Civ 4, the ultimate, polished, almost perfect version of the Civ franchise (after Warlords and BTS).

What could they do next? How can you improve on perfection? The only way is to go back and start over. So many features were removed and while they did add something to the game, their loss is not a major blow to the game. Yeah it would be nice to have some of them in, but they are polish. That polish will return, but it will take time while the bugs of the new combat system are worked out.

That IS a part of the game. The responsibility stays the same, the game mechanics stays the same. This is only about user interface!

Current interface:
- Select unit 1. Order it to move from A1 to B1
- Select unit 2. Order it to move from A2 to B2

Better inferface:
- Select unit1+unit2. Order them to move from A1 and A2 to B1 and B2.

Less clicks, exactly the same outcome in terms of formation, vulnerability, choke point and so on. Scale this to 30-40 units and you'll save a bunch of clicks.

And how would you implement this? Select both units together and then click on the two squares to move them to? How is that different from what you do now?

Maybe select both units and then press an arrow key and move them in the same direction? That might work but why program something that is only going to save a few seconds of time? And like a front in real life, fronts in Civ 5 aren't static, they are fluid. Due to the placement of cities and different terrain, you don't want or can't have the front move the same every turn.

I agree that the pathfinding needs work so units aren't leaving roads when the tile it wants to finish on that turn isn't available. Just one more thing they need to work on.

No, I have stressed this several times, that 1UPT (the word or the notion 1UPT) is just what it is, and it does not imply anything which it influences or for which it could be a cause for including that something else. For example, ranged attack would work with SOD as well - so it is not tied to the notion of 1UPT in any way.

They did this in Civ 3. It didn't work well because of the nature of SOD combat and how many units you could have in the game. You just built an army of seige units with an army of melee or mounted units to protect it. Bombard all of the defending units out of existence and walk in untouched with a single unit. It made Civ 3 pretty boring IMO.

Now you can still bombard units out of existence with Seige units in Civ 5 but without the ability to stack or to build unlimited units, you can't wipe out an enemy with seige units alone and it actually takes more than one turn to take a city.

Finally, anyone complaining about having to micromanage all of the units with 1UPT, there was a lot more of that in Civ 4. Build dozens of units, move them to where you want them, decide on and implement the composition of your stack or stacks. Smash your stack into the enemy stack. Build new units to replace the ones you lost. Smash into more stacks, take cities, repeat, repeat, repeat.

Lets not forget workers. You had twice as many workers in Civ 4 and were building a lot more. You also has more cities that you had to manage which meant even more time. Games in Civ 5 go much faster.

In all my time playing Civ 4, I didn't actually finish more than a few games. This is because of the tediousness of the endgame in Civ 4. All of the units that had to be moved, all of the cities that had to be managed. By the time the modern age came around, I already knew I was going to win and the tediousness of managing all of the mess that was my empire was just too much.

I only played a couple of games of Civ 5 in the first month it came out and didn't finish either of them due to the issues Civ 5 launched with. I didn't touch the game from early November unit late March. Since March, I have actually finished about a dozen games. So in five months, I have finished more games of Civ 5 than I did in four (?) years of playing Civ 4.

Overall, Civ 5 is an improvement and as more patches, DLCs and maybe expansions come out, it will continue to improve. And in a few years when Civ 6 comes out, it will be even better because of what the Devs learned with Civ 5.

 

[Windsor]

And how would you implement this? Select both units together and then click on the two squares to move them to? How is that different from what you do now?

Well you'll need a couple of shortcuts, like alt+click to select units and all adjacent units, select units of same type and you should have an ability to create groups(which gets remembered so that next time you click on a unit in that group, all gets selected)

Then with all units selected you have one leader (the one you actually clicked on/the one you clicked on first). You only click on the tile that leader should move to. The game automatically figures out where the rest should go showing you the end formations with the followers in a semi-transparent color. If the end-position doesn't match perfectly (a mountain or something is in the way) then the game should still be able to calculate the closest thing. Note, the units doesn't have to keep the formation strictly at all times.

Really, this isn't hard to code at all and the potential for time saving is substantial.

 

[dexters]

It's always ironic when people complain about Civ5 being simplified when Civ4 featured a massively simplified trading system compared to 3 that bamboozled players into faux complexity by throwing in a lot of resources, but all the underlying principles is 1-1 trade, might as well combine all those into a single trade, there's no difference. Civ4 lacked trade packages, no haggling, no loans to the AI repaid in GPT. At least civ5 brought back Civ3's interesting and complex trading.

Now you can still bombard units out of existence with Seige units in Civ 5 but without the ability to stack or to build unlimited units, you can't wipe out an enemy with seige units alone and it actually takes more than one turn to take a city.

Finally, anyone complaining about having to micromanage all of the units with 1UPT, there was a lot more of that in Civ 4. Build dozens of units, move them to where you want them, decide on and implement the composition of your stack or stacks. Smash your stack into the enemy stack. Build new units to replace the ones you lost. Smash into more stacks, take cities, repeat, repeat, repeat.

Lets not forget workers. You had twice as many workers in Civ 4 and were building a lot more. You also has more cities that you had to manage which meant even more time. Games in Civ 5 go much faster.

I think microers truly love microing all that stuff so removing them is akin to making Civ5 less immersive and less about 'driving' your empire.

Each to his own, but moving armies 1UPT is certainly a learned skill and like playing chess, once you know how units work, you can move them in formation and flank/retreat.

Took me a while to master the Mongolian Keshik rush. This is something SOD/stacking system could not support as it would be way OP, or rather it would be another Overpowered mechanic to add to the quiver of the stacks of doom.

 

[Ex.plode]

Oh jeez, I don't even want to think about a SOD with Keshiks & the ranged attack :|


Arty that moves fast and has a defensive value......

 

[ShahJahanII]

de ja vu.
Did we not see a thread a week on this 11 months ago when CivV came out?
I love 1UPT.
It is more realistic and fun in general.
I would see why you wouldn't like them if you don't like micromanaging.

 

[trueblue]

(remember the turn times in vanilla CivIII, will all those units, painful. and i think for a while the mass move didnt work?)

anyway.

we've seen many threads like this.


but this is the best post....

Stacked units was a feature. 1UPT is a feature. So they removed one feature and replaced it with another. As has already been said, due to the nature of units and the existence of SOD in previous Civs, 1UPT was not an option. Now I'm sure it could have been modded in but guess what, SOD can and has been modded in to Civ 5.

1UPT was not a simple and small change in any way, shape or form. Yeah to force 1UPT it may have only required adding in a few lines to restrict the number of units to 1 per tile but to get the AI to understand how it works, that is a massive undertaking that is still going on. If people were being honest with themselves, we would all admit that due to the AI's issues with 1UPT along with its problems with embarkation and trans-ocean invasions, we are basically playing Civ 6 Beta and we are paying to do it.

Now I'm sure that a number of Civ 5 haters will jump on this and say. "That's my point!" But lets consider Civ 1-4. Civ 1 was a good game, but lacking in a number of things. It was simple. Simple mechanics, simple graphics, etc. As each version came out, things improved and got better until we reached Civ 4, the ultimate, polished, almost perfect version of the Civ franchise (after Warlords and BTS).

What could they do next? How can you improve on perfection? The only way is to go back and start over. So many features were removed and while they did add something to the game, their loss is not a major blow to the game. Yeah it would be nice to have some of them in, but they are polish. That polish will return, but it will take time while the bugs of the new combat system are worked out.



And how would you implement this? Select both units together and then click on the two squares to move them to? How is that different from what you do now?

Maybe select both units and then press an arrow key and move them in the same direction? That might work but why program something that is only going to save a few seconds of time? And like a front in real life, fronts in Civ 5 aren't static, they are fluid. Due to the placement of cities and different terrain, you don't want or can't have the front move the same every turn.

I agree that the pathfinding needs work so units aren't leaving roads when the tile it wants to finish on that turn isn't available. Just one more thing they need to work on.



They did this in Civ 3. It didn't work well because of the nature of SOD combat and how many units you could have in the game. You just built an army of seige units with an army of melee or mounted units to protect it. Bombard all of the defending units out of existence and walk in untouched with a single unit. It made Civ 3 pretty boring IMO.

Now you can still bombard units out of existence with Seige units in Civ 5 but without the ability to stack or to build unlimited units, you can't wipe out an enemy with seige units alone and it actually takes more than one turn to take a city.

Finally, anyone complaining about having to micromanage all of the units with 1UPT, there was a lot more of that in Civ 4. Build dozens of units, move them to where you want them, decide on and implement the composition of your stack or stacks. Smash your stack into the enemy stack. Build new units to replace the ones you lost. Smash into more stacks, take cities, repeat, repeat, repeat.

Lets not forget workers. You had twice as many workers in Civ 4 and were building a lot more. You also has more cities that you had to manage which meant even more time. Games in Civ 5 go much faster.

In all my time playing Civ 4, I didn't actually finish more than a few games. This is because of the tediousness of the endgame in Civ 4. All of the units that had to be moved, all of the cities that had to be managed. By the time the modern age came around, I already knew I was going to win and the tediousness of managing all of the mess that was my empire was just too much.

I only played a couple of games of Civ 5 in the first month it came out and didn't finish either of them due to the issues Civ 5 launched with. I didn't touch the game from early November unit late March. Since March, I have actually finished about a dozen games. So in five months, I have finished more games of Civ 5 than I did in four (?) years of playing Civ 4.

Overall, Civ 5 is an improvement and as more patches, DLCs and maybe expansions come out, it will continue to improve. And in a few years when Civ 6 comes out, it will be even better because of what the Devs learned with Civ 5.

 

[Ex.plode]

That was an excellent post, sums up the thread perfectly.

 

[glider1]

I think 1upt is a good system, but it needs some tweaking to avoid "traffic jams":

• Allow great generals to be attached to military units. Having to move a military unit to a tile and then the great general to the same tile is unnecessary micromanagement and boring IMO.
• Allow the stacking of two units of different Civilizations when they not are at war. That way, you could always build improvements in your territory without having to wait a foreign wandering unit to leave.
• Allow the stacking of a submarine and enemy ships that can't detect it, even if both civs are at war.

Your post kinda got lost in the discussion on this thread Pep. Totally agreed that 1UPT is overall a great thing for civ. That is coming from a person that really enjoyed Civ4 and spent many years on it. The issue is that 1UPT is too strict. You are probably correct that 3UPT would do the job because situations where more than two military units from different civs being on the same tile would be very rare and not worth capturing.

The benefits of allowing military units of different civs that are not at war to occupy the same tile are worthy to explore:

• The AI will find it easier to calculate path which will produce quicker turn times and make it easier for the AI to execute tactics more competently.
• There are exploits in 1UPT where a few scouts can stop another civ's army dead in it's track or make an attack practically impossible. The only reason we are not seeing them more in our games is that we are actually playing the game to enjoy it, rather than to exploit it.

The issue is, what do we do if military units are at peace on the same tile, but there is a war declaration and the units are now at war. How is that resolved?

Here are Krikkitone's ideas from another thread on the subject:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10764555&postcount=12

Cheers

 

[Jediron]

Comparing CIv 5 with Panzer General is a joke. The units in PG have more room to manouvre, the maps are on a more detailed scale. In PG it is perfectly possible to defend your artillery or other units while advancing, try that in Civ 5. Ow wait, that is impossible; your archers/catapults etc WILL be exposed while on the offensive. Tactics? My ass.

When i want tacticts, i play PG like games. When i want strategy/diplomacy, i play CIV. But not CIV 5 with all that childies crap, like City states and 1Upt (for the lazy/quick gamers).

Moderator Action: Not relevant to the discussion, just looking to provoke a negative reaction.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Aristos]

comparing civ 5 with panzer general is a joke. The units in pg have more room to manouvre, the maps are on a more detailed scale. In pg it is perfectly possible to defend your artillery or other units while advancing, try that in civ 5. Ow wait, that is impossible; your archers/catapults etc will be exposed while on the offensive. Tactics? My ass.

When i want tacticts, i play pg like games. When i want strategy/diplomacy, i play civ. But not civ 5 with all that childies crap, like city states and 1upt (for the lazy/quick gamers).

this.

 

[headcase]

While it does add a tactical dimension to the game, it's one that's completely misaligned with the geographic scale, hence the problem of archers firing on targets 500 miles away. Also, I find the log jams of units much more frustrating than SODs ever were.

The core concept of 1UPT is great, but I agree here. I think they found that their engine couldn't handle smaller (ie more) hexes on non-high-level vidcards, so they compromised with these huge hexes, which really goes against the spirit of 1UPT.

It also really takes away from the supposed scale of the game. I guess they didn't want units to take so many turns to get around but the hexes are too big in any case.

 

[WuphonsReach]

In my opinion this is one of the best additions to the franchise, SOD's were incredibly annoying in previous titles. And I find that wars are much more fun, very strategical, and you have to have your unit's in a good location to do well.

I'm pretty sure there is alot of people who dislike this, but I'm a pretty big fan

It's a nice concept in theory, but the scale is a big issue.

The tiles needed to be about 1/2 the current size (so split every existing hex tile into 6 smaller tiles). And really, the tiles need to be about 1/4 the size but that would crush any PC made in the next few years (36x more tiles).

With the big tiles, they really should have gone with limited stacking (no more then 6 units on a single tile).

(And the core issue as to why Civ5 was a bit of a wreck? The devs failed to learn from those who went before in Civ1 to Civ4. They threw out dozens of features and lessons learned from how Civ3 and Civ4 played. So I don't hold much hope that Civ6 will be that fabulous.)

 

[Becomedeath]

It's a nice concept in theory, but the scale is a big issue.

The tiles needed to be about 1/2 the current size (so split every existing hex tile into 6 smaller tiles). And really, the tiles need to be about 1/4 the size but that would crush any PC made in the next few years (36x more tiles).

That doesn't work as a theory, all you'd end up with is 6 artillery holding a hill position surrounded by an inpenetrable wall of self supplying tanks in the surrounding forrest.

Each tile represents a single unit of terrain, that terrain has bonuses, dividing it into 6 smaller sections makes the game cease to function.

Think of the impact on cities. Your few desert tiles that you could just ignore have become a crippling factor in your city.

Fixing one aspect of a game of this intricacy will cause more problems further down the line. That's why I get irritated with people who harp on about one feature, you can't look at something like this as a collection of features, which is what makes it so complicated to achieve perfection in it.

 

[Ranos]

The core concept of 1UPT is great, but I agree here. I think they found that their engine couldn't handle smaller (ie more) hexes on non-high-level vidcards, so they compromised with these huge hexes, which really goes against the spirit of 1UPT.

It also really takes away from the supposed scale of the game. I guess they didn't want units to take so many turns to get around but the hexes are too big in any case.

It's a nice concept in theory, but the scale is a big issue.

The tiles needed to be about 1/2 the current size (so split every existing hex tile into 6 smaller tiles). And really, the tiles need to be about 1/4 the size but that would crush any PC made in the next few years (36x more tiles).

With the big tiles, they really should have gone with limited stacking (no more then 6 units on a single tile).

(And the core issue as to why Civ5 was a bit of a wreck? The devs failed to learn from those who went before in Civ1 to Civ4. They threw out dozens of features and lessons learned from how Civ3 and Civ4 played. So I don't hold much hope that Civ6 will be that fabulous.)

Civ 4 Map Sizes from Civ Fanatics: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/reference/map_scripts_guide.php

Civ 5 Map Sizes from Steam Froums (scroll down to the second section): http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1580535

If you didn't follow the links, a Civ 4 standard map is 84 x 52 which gives a total of 4368 tiles on the map. A Civ 5 standard map is 80 x 52 which gives a total 4160 tiles on the map. So Civ 5 maps are a bit under 5% smaller than Civ 4.

To still keep the same basic hex setup, it would require each hex to be divided by 7. Now you have to decide if each hex should be the same size, making the map seven times the size or keep the map the same size and make the hexes 1/7 the original size? Do you allow seven times the cities on the map making for a micromanagement nightmare or change the way cities work?

No matter what you do, the balance of the game is thrown off and it becomes far more tedious than it is fun.

The game works fine the way it is. Just because everything isn't to scale, doesn't detroy the fun of it.

 

[Tantor]

As a Panzer General veteran I do like the 1upt concept, bit i think it is poorly implemented in CiV. I hope it will get better with patches, DLC`s etc.
What i think is lacking is the concept of fire support form ranged units, suppression and automatic withdrawal.

In PG all artillery units adjacent to another unit provided defensive artillery support if they had not moved or fired in their own turn. I think units in CiV should get bonuses based on what units they have in neighbouring hexes. This would include an combined arms tactical perspective.

Ranged units should be reworked, especially naval units. No unit with a gun sits idle and lets itself be shot at without returning fire if the have the possibility to return fire.

The concept of suppression and withdrawal should be introduced. If the total damage and supression value exceeds the remaining hit points of the unit, it withdraws if possible. If it is not possible, it is destroyed.

Implement these features and I`ll be very happy

 

[bitula]

To clarify it for the third time:
1) 1UPT is a cheap simplification of SOD.
2) The work being done because of this fatal choice of gameplay system may as well be huge - so I donot reject anywhere, that its conseuencies donot generate lots of extra work.
3) Micromanagement of army transportation is boring.
4) Micromanagement of army formation before combat is not boring.
5) A separate tactical submap would have eliminated issue 3).
6) 1UPT implementation with submap would not have been cheap. And it would have been a real feature, because:
7) Adjusting AI to make use of 1UPT in itself is not a feature, because programming AI is anyway an inavitable work to do.
8) Altogather it may be, that lots of work went into the game, but all went for nothing, because:
9) Civ5 is boring.
10) For me. OK? Not for other people.

 

[dexters]

To clarify it for the third time:
1) 1UPT is a cheap simplification of SOD..

Seriously, how can you go around asserting this and expect to be taken seriously?

smh

 

[Ranos]

As a Panzer General veteran I do like the 1upt concept, bit i think it is poorly implemented in CiV. I hope it will get better with patches, DLC`s etc.
What i think is lacking is the concept of fire support form ranged units, suppression and automatic withdrawal.

In PG all artillery units adjacent to another unit provided defensive artillery support if they had not moved or fired in their own turn. I think units in CiV should get bonuses based on what units they have in neighbouring hexes. This would include an combined arms tactical perspective.

Ranged units should be reworked, especially naval units. No unit with a gun sits idle and lets itself be shot at without returning fire if the have the possibility to return fire.

The concept of suppression and withdrawal should be introduced. If the total damage and supression value exceeds the remaining hit points of the unit, it withdraws if possible. If it is not possible, it is destroyed.

Implement these features and I`ll be very happy

These would all definately be nice things to see.

To clarify it for the third time:
1) 1UPT is a cheap simplification of SOD.
2) The work being done because of this fatal choice of gameplay system may as well be huge - so I donot reject anywhere, that its conseuencies donot generate lots of extra work.
3) Micromanagement of army transportation is boring.
4) Micromanagement of army formation before combat is not boring.
5) A separate tactical submap would have eliminated issue 3).
6) 1UPT implementation with submap would not have been cheap. And it would have been a real feature, because:
7) Adjusting AI to make use of 1UPT in itself is not a feature, because programming AI is anyway an inavitable work to do.
8) Altogather it may be, that lots of work went into the game, but all went for nothing, because:
9) Civ5 is boring.
10) For me. OK? Not for other people.

Thank you for clarifying what you already stated in previous posts. I think most everybody who has read this topic understood what you said previously. Let me make sure I really do understand it.

1) You don't like 1UPT the way it works.
2) If the main map was SOD and then there was a different map with 1UPT, that would be okay. How these two maps would work together is something that only you understand.
3)You would have been fine with Civ 5 taking more time to program, being more complicated and requiring higher spec machines to run, thus making it less accessable to the majority of the population.

I think that sums up everything you said.

Now here's a question for you: If Civ 5 is so boring, why do you waste your time coming on the Civ 5 forums to complain about everything and repeat yourself multiple times? Do you really think you are going to change people's minds and make them hate Civ 5? Or are you just doing it to be a troll? Moderator Action: Please don't troll your fellow users.

 

[Aristos]

Now here's a question for you: If Civ 5 is so boring, why do you waste your time coming on the Civ 5 forums to complain about everything and repeat yourself multiple times? Do you really think you are going to change people's minds and make them hate Civ 5? Or are you just doing it to be a troll?

I could risk guessing: he is probably here because the game is boring. If it weren't, he would be playing it to death.

Now, the really interesting question is: if you love the game so much, what are YOU doing here in any case? You should be playing it.

The beauty of contradictions...
Moderator Action: Don't troll around.

 

[dexters]

I could risk guessing: he is probably here because the game is boring. If it weren't, he would be playing it to death.

Now, the really interesting question is: if you love the game so much, what are YOU doing here in any case? You should be playing it.

The beauty of contradictions...

We're here to discuss the game. Are you saying you can't post if you enjoy a game because you need to always be playing it?

And why are you here ?