1upt

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If you understand this, why can't you see that stacking is a simplification of 1upt, because it removes an obstacle to think about?

(PS. please learn how to use quote tags>)

You still dont understand the difference between something and consequences of that something. You still dont see, that I am talking about that "something" and not the consequence of that something. I fail to understand how one cannot understand that "from A follows B" does not mean that "A equals B". I really think you are just joking though. Right? But its not funny to be sincere...
 
You do of course realise that by that rationale and your own regulation for this discussion, that it is only permissible to discuss the One Unit Per Tile concept, but subsequently not permissable to discuss units, movement, terrain, combat mechanics, strategic placement, attack and defense theory, collateral damage cause by units capable of such attacks, ranged attacks, city placement, hexagonal vs square maps etc etc etc.

A may come before B and B may be a consequence of A, but A cannot exist without B and B no more exist without it than C.

It's all interlinked and connected. If you cannot appreciate that, then I invite you to lay out the discussion under your own rules by not interacting with any other aspect of the game than the tile structure.

Any mention of units, movement, combat etc (detailed above) forfeits your own rules and is considered to be an acceptance that a concept cannot stand in isolation from it's dependant or precedent components and a complete detraction from your increasingly bizzare metaphysical argument.

Never, have I seen such stubborn heel digging without purpose.
 
Bitula:

It is obvious that you have absolutely no background in computer programming. It is utterly insulting for you to make uninformed statements about the complexity of software development given your background. I have 14 years of software development experience and know exactly how much work can go into adding restrictions into existing and new systems.

Your insistence that adding a restriction requires only deletion of code could not be any less correct. Consider the Towers of Hanoi. Your claim that 1UPT is simply a cheap restriction of the SoD is akin to saying the Tower of Hanoi with restrictions (i.e. you can place a disk only on a larger disk) is easily derived from the Tower of Hanoi without restrictions (i.e. you can place a disk on any other disk). That is factually incorrect. The most efficient representation of the restriction-less version takes fewer lines of code and virtually no logic as compared to the version with restrictions.

Beyond that, the developers are not only responsible for development of the puzzle (combat) but the solution (AI). Even the imperfect AI present in Civ5 takes a considerable amount of work. Dealing with an environment with restrictions often increases the complexity of a solution. But if you don't believe me, how about we run a little test. I'll play a 64 disk version of The Towers of Hanoi your way (the Civ4 way), with no restrictions as to what disks can be moved. You play the 64 disk version of The Towers of Hanoi my way (the Civ5 way), by only allowing smaller disks on larger ones. Let me know when you have won, then we can further discuss complexity in software systems.

You do not have to enjoy 1UPT, but disparaging the hard work that goes into its implementation without any knowledge of the complexity is unfounded.
 
1UPT is a restriction. Properly applied restrictions make a game more fun. SoD allowed more combinations of possibilities, but (arguably) less rational possibilities. Chess and Go have 1UPT and they've both been lauded for their complexity; I can't think of any games from those times that are still popular now that used nUPT rules, and I'm sure someone thought of it. I know comparing Chess to Civ is dumb but I think it's somewhat comparable for this subject.

My fav things I like about 1UPT are:
- military strength is a little harder to hide.
- bottlenecks, surrounding cities, etc is more interesting
- No organizing SoDs which I just didn't like doing personally
- A little more critical thought - if this goes here then this should go here etc instead of charging a stack which was often the most lucrative option in 4.

It's all opinion, there are things to hate about it and there are certainly things to hate about its implementation, but I don't see how it makes the game any more shallow.
 
Wow lots of posts in the last few hours. Where to start and how to manage it so my post isn't a Stack of Doom. :lol:

Whats the problem? Cant you imagine a sub-level combat map, like in HOMM, POD etc?
I have no idea what those stand for so I have deinfately never played the games.

Yes, except for the higher spec.
If you add in a bunch of additional features while keeping all of the existing features, the game will require more memory and processing power to run at the same level and you would therefore need a higher spec machine to run.

Im not sure, I think this part: 1UPT is a simplification of SOD is not well understood, so let me elaborate:

First let us see what is 1UPT? 1UPT is One Unit Per Tile. As a feature it implies that you have these:
1) Units.
2) Tiles
3) The ability of a unit to occupy a single tile or move onto a tile in a way that it partially hides the terrain characteristics.

SOD has all these, and additionally (these are all features):
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.
5) Units of a stack are displayed and are managed in a seperate control panel.
6) On the control panel you can select one unit, multiple units, or a group of units of a given type.
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.
8) Collaterate damage is distributed accross enemy stack units in a scriptable way. In Civ5 1UPT collatarate damage doesnt even make sense...
9) There is difference between defending and attacking units during combat, since for example strongest defender is chosen to defend when you are attacked.
10) Marksman units attack the weakest unit in a stack.
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.

Without quoting other posts, this is the problem in your arguement. You want to take three basic facts of 1UPT and limit it to that while giving SOD a bunch of other facts and then saying it's better. If you are going to limit 1UPT to the first three options, then this is what SOD is:

First let us see what is SOD? SOD is Stack Of Doom. As a feature it implies that you have these:
1) A Stack
2) Doom

Since the name indicates only those items, thats all SOD must be.

Now lets go a little more realistic:

First let us see what is SOD? SOD is Stack Of Doom indicating you have a large stack of units occupying a single tile. As a feature it implies that you have these:
1) Units
2) Tiles
3) The ability of a multiple units to occupy a single tile or move onto a tile in a way that it partially hides the terrain characteristics.

Everything else that SOD comes with is irrelevant because:

When talking about 1UPT I think of the word in its most strict sense:
one unit per tile. At this point I donot want to express my thoughts about related
issues like tactics and AI. Without involving these additional notions one
may still express his oppinion about the simple concept behind the meaning of the word. You cannot automatically involve every possible connotation and concequence of a word, doing so would render an argument sensless because you would need to say too much in a very generic, unspecific manner. This argument would be fruitless, because ignoring well defined meanings of the argued phenomenon leads to chaos. There will be no common ground of understanding, since you involve arbitrary additional meanings, which are not part of the base notion or expression.
What I said is a simple statement, which as well may not be of a grand importance. However if we cannot agree on simple semantics and syntax we cant even go on discussing subsequent topics like tactics. Note, tactics and 1UPT are two different concepts even if they coincide in civ5. If you are going to talk about tacticst use the word tactics. If you are talking about 1UPT, use the word one 1UPT. Using these in an interchangable way is just a poor way of argumentation and hinders any meaningful outcome because of all those connotations which may or may not belong to
the concept itself. Thus for any argument one must first have well defined notions and expressions so as to have something to build on.

Why is it that you looke at 1UPT in its "most strict sense" but you don't look at SOD the same way? If you are going to elaborate on more than the basics of SOD, you have to allow for elaboration on more than the basics of 1UPT.

You don't want to express your thoughts about AI and tactics for 1UPT and so you don't consider those parts of our arguements. So how about I say that I don't want to express my thoughts on controls, UI or combat. That eliminates all of your additional arguements for SOD, thus simplifying it down to its most basic concept.

If you want to include controls, UI and combat for SOD, then tactics, AI, combat, etc must be allowed for 1UPT. So here is my list of features of 1UPT in addition to the three listed above:

4) You cannot move more than one unit onto a tile so you have to choose which units will be where and properly prepare and manage your movement.
5) There is no need for an additional UI feature that
6) sometimes requires you to spend minutes scrolling thru a list to find the unit or units you are looking for and selecting each and everyone one of them to form them into smaller stacks for whatever your current purposes are.
7) You just have to worry about selecting a single unit on a single tile and telling it what to do. No need to remember which units in your ginormous stack belonged to which group you wanted to use.
8) There is no collateral damage. You don't have to worry about a handfull of artillery units doing enough damage to dozens of your strongest units so that the enemy can come in and wipe you out easily with his stack of nice fresh units.
9) You don't have to worry about defending or attacking units since all uints do both just fine.
10) No need for additional Marksman units that you have to build in addition to all of the othersince there are no stacks.
11) Healing still works with medic units and you just move your more damaged units back and bring your fresh units forward. Actions are more limited and simplified thus making it easier for everyone, including people who are new to the game, to move and attack with units.

In addition to the above, 1UPT adds the following:

12) You actually have to think about combat now. No more smashing one giant stack into another. This makes the game more fun.
13) Terraina actually matters now. Instead of hills and forests just being in the way, they actually mean you can have a better defense around your cities and can be beneficial when you are attacking someone else's cities. It also makes it more challenging when the enemy uses the terrain to their advantage.
14) Terrain improvements are more important now since you can no longer take a stack of workers and complete them in one turn.
15) Protecting your territory instead of just your cities is important now because of # 14. If the enemy pillages your improvements, it takes longer to fix them.
16) Due to the limitations of 1UPT, you no longer have to have hundreds of units to successfully play a game. You only need to build a few dozen and can then focus on actually building up your cities.
17) Every unit is important now since you don't have as many. You actually want to try to keep your units alive instead of having a select few that are your God units while everything else is cannon fodder to be smashed against the enemy's defenses.

I could probably think of more if I wanted to take the time, but that should do.

No, I want you to understand fish before we talk about water... I hope this now clarifies everything for you. Or in an other way: we cannot go from A to B before we did not clarify what is A.

Yes lets understand the fish.

SOD = School of fish. You see the videos of the schools of fish swimming together moving in the same direction and while they are nice to look at, you usually just say, "Wow that's a lot of fish."
1UPT = Shark. You see the videos of sharks and your reaction is different. It's more like, "Wow look at that shark!"

The fish are interesting because of how many there are. The shark is interesting because its a shark.

You still dont understand the difference between something and consequences of that something. You still dont see, that I am talking about that "something" and not the consequence of that something. I fail to understand how one cannot understand that "from A follows B" does not mean that "A equals B". I really think you are just joking though. Right? But its not funny to be sincere...

You seem to be focusing on the mechanics and additional programming for SOD and saying that doesn't exist for 1UPT. To some extent you are right but to say that SOD and all of it's mechanics and programming are something and 1UPT is only the 1UPT and nothing else is a bit short sighted. The additional mechanics and programming of SOD is also a consequence of SOD.

It would have been easy enough for the programmers of Civ 4 to just give the player the ability to click on units and move them. This would have resulted in you having to cycle thru units using the keyboard instead of having the nice UI where you could select multiple units at the same time.

Every single one of the things you listed in post #88 are consequences of SOD, not SOD itself. So if 1UPT is only Units, Tiles and Moving 1 unit onto 1 tile, then SOD is only Units, Tiles and Moving Multiple units onto 1 tile.

If SOD is all the extra programming, mechanics and features you listed, then 1UPT is also all of the extra programming, mechanics and features I listed.

Unfortunately, I think my post has become a SOD so before it gets any bigger, I think I should make my closing statement.

You seem to be focusing on the name that each feature, function or whatever yiou call it has been given (SOD and 1UPT) and focusing completely on what the name implies. If you want to do that, then the names should either be MUPT (Multiple Units per Tile) and 1UPT or SOD and TUC (Tactical Unit Combat).

The reason for this is that SOD implies the function or the results of having multiple units per tile. It got the name Stack of Doom because of the number of units that were coming at you at once. It would kind of be like a tsunami coming at you. You are going to get hit hard and there is nothing you can do about it.

So take your pick, is it SOD and TUC or MUPT and 1UPT? Or do you want to keep it SOD and 1UPT while remembering that they are just names and do not encompass the entire meaning of the features?
 
To wade in an immediately out of this thread...

I detest 1UPT. It is a tedious immersion breaking scabpick. The binary thinking between infinite vs. 1UPT is so shallow as to betray the real reasoning behind 1UPT - the consolization of Civ. There simply is no other explanation.

Anyone thinking 1UPT is a more nuanced and intellectual system than iUPT is both kidding and flattering themselves - it is simply different, with a different set of issues for the player.

I have never had a more frustrating experience than trying to move a worker across a crowded map. What, my worker can't go down the road because Nation X has a Scout next to him on the road? Simply maddening.

There is a smarter way than iUPT or 1UPT. Hopefully, Civ 6 will discover it. Unless gaming continues down the consolization path, in which case expect things to get worse, not better.
 
Oh thank the maker for more responses, I thought I was going mad for a moment!
 
To wade in an immediately out of this thread...

I detest 1UPT. It is a tedious immersion breaking scabpick. The binary thinking between infinite vs. 1UPT is so shallow as to betray the real reasoning behind 1UPT - the consolization of Civ. There simply is no other explanation.

Anyone thinking 1UPT is a more nuanced and intellectual system than iUPT is both kidding and flattering themselves - it is simply different, with a different set of issues for the player.

I have never had a more frustrating experience than trying to move a worker across a crowded map. What, my worker can't go down the road because Nation X has a Scout next to him on the road? Simply maddening.

There is a smarter way than iUPT or 1UPT. Hopefully, Civ 6 will discover it. Unless gaming continues down the consolization path, in which case expect things to get worse, not better.

1UPT is a better system, but it is also in its infancy. Look at Civ 1. You could have multiple units per tile but if the stack got attacked and defeated, you would lose all units in the stack. Each version of Civ (1-4) got progressively better. In Civ 5, a lot was changed and it will take another version or two before this new type of Civ gets to the level Civ 4 was at.

I agree that it is annoying to have civillian units blocked by military units. If this was intentional, then it was a bad decision. If it's a bug, then they are sure taking their sweet time in addressing it. Hopefully it will get changed either soon in Civ 5 or when they make Civ 6.

I think a smart way to implement 1UPT is to have it be 1UPT per civ. As long as civs are on friendly terms, their units should be able to occupy the same tile. This would completely eliminate the roadblock problem that currently exists. And that is really the only problem I can see with the current setup of 1UPT.

Oh thank the maker for more responses, I thought I was going mad for a moment!

Haha not everyone finds this as interesting and the ones who do can't post 24/7. I was sleeping when you were posting earlier.
 
The binary thinking between infinite vs. 1UPT is so shallow as to betray the real reasoning behind 1UPT - the consolization of Civ. There simply is no other explanation.

Not to be rude, but if 1upt was introduced for the "consolization" of the Civilization series why does CivRev allow stacking?
 
What if every tile had a limit to how many units could occupy it.
Mountain (yes they should be passable somewhat) = 1
Hill = 4
Flatland = 8
The numbers would need better balance but I like the idea that your entire army cannot march through a 1 tile wide pass at once.

Some units such as helicopters would operate on different rules. Say because they can fly then 10 air units may occupy any given square.

Perhaps strategic value to certain buildings could be added. Barracks adds more space for military units in the city tile. Or airfield tile improvements could house say 20 aircraft.
 
Not to be rude, but if 1upt was introduced for the "consolization" of the Civilization series why does CivRev allow stacking?

Not taken as rude at all, no worries. CivRev did allow stacking, along with caravans, infinite naval lading, armies, none of which necessarily should be considered de facto console touchstones. CivRev was developed distinctly from the PC Civ line - whereas I have a feeling there was a great deal of discussion about unifying the product line on this version, as the feel of it is decidedly less PC and much more console like. Note this occurs across the entire product, not just in the unit/tile area...
 
You do of course realise that by that rationale and your own regulation for this discussion, that it is only permissible to discuss the One Unit Per Tile concept, but subsequently not permissable to discuss units, movement, terrain, combat mechanics, strategic placement, attack and defense theory, collateral damage cause by units capable of such attacks, ranged attacks, city placement, hexagonal vs square maps etc etc etc.

Whom are you addressing? Ive never said that you are not permitted to talk about tactics and AI in relation to 1UPT. Please read my posts instead of falsifying them.
 
Bitula:It is obvious that you have absolutely no background in computer programming. It is utterly insulting for you to make uninformed statements about the complexity of software development given your background. I have 14 years of software development experience and know exactly how much work can go into adding restrictions into existing and new systems.

Mercury, I am a programmer with 20 years of experience in software development. Currently Im working for Siemens as a C++ programmer. One of my first works - when I was young - was a tactical game written in pascal which included random continent generator, climates, 15 AI civilizations. The game was 1UPT.
 
If you add in a bunch of additional features while keeping all of the existing features, the game will require more memory and processing power to run at the same level and you would therefore need a higher spec machine to run.

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.


So how about I say that I don't want to express my thoughts on controls, UI or combat.

Controls are facilities which make up the feature itself, since without them the feature would be of no use.

If you want to include controls, UI and combat for SOD, then tactics, AI, combat, etc must be allowed for 1UPT.

I include first 3 for both and last two for neighter.


You seem to be focusing on the mechanics and additional programming for SOD and saying that doesn't exist for 1UPT.

Exactly!!!


You seem to be focusing on the name that each feature, function or whatever yiou call it has been given (SOD and 1UPT) and focusing completely on what the name implies. If you want to do that, then the names should either be MUPT (Multiple Units per Tile) and 1UPT or SOD and TUC (Tactical Unit Combat).

The reason for this is that SOD implies the function or the results of having multiple units per tile. It got the name Stack of Doom because of the number of units that were coming at you at once. It would kind of be like a tsunami coming at you. You are going to get hit hard and there is nothing you can do about it.

So take your pick, is it SOD and TUC or MUPT and 1UPT? Or do you want to keep it SOD and 1UPT while remembering that they are just names and do not encompass the entire meaning of the features?

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.
 
I have no idea what those stand for so I have deinfately never played the games.

In Heroes of Might and Magic and ex. Pool of Darkness (really old game) you have a main map and a tactical map. You can move your units on the main map in a single stack represented by one of the units or a hero for example. When battle occurs you are being put onto a separate chess-like NXN combat map. In preparation phase you arrange your units on opposite ends of the map, like in chess (except that to a certain limit ofcoures you can put them as you will). After that combat is 1UPT. On the combat map you may have as much of obstacles and terrain feature as you want. Such implementation would have been cool, and way better than SOD.
 
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. ;)
 
I think a smart way to implement 1UPT is to have it be 1UPT per civ. As long as civs are on friendly terms, their units should be able to occupy the same tile. This would completely eliminate the roadblock problem that currently exists. And that is really the only problem I can see with the current setup of 1UPT.
The problem with that solution is to determine what happens when the two go to war. The game must decide where all the units go, the moment one of the players declares war. Because of the 1upt restriction finding a solution is not easy, and in fact may not always exist.

A second problem occurs when two friendly nations go to war with a third. If they are allowed to have a unit per tile per civ, the allies will have a game breaking advantage over a single enemy.

The later problem can be avoided in an alternative option where different players are allowed to have civilian units on a tile and a civilian unit is allowed to occupy the same tile as a friendly military unit. This eliminates a lot of movement problems for (automated) workers. (The issue of what happens when the players go to war, can simply be resolved by having all civilians be captured if they share a tile with an (now) enemy military unit.

In fact, it would help a lot for a lot of issues of the stacking restriction was lifted for civilian units. This would solve a lot of problems with pathing. To prevent exploits, the number of workers that is allowed to preform actions on a tile in a turn should probably still be limited to one.
 
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.

I completely forgot to respond to part of this. My reason for bringing up MUPT/1UPT and SOD/TUC is to try to make the point that with 1UPT, you are focusing simply on the words in the phrase. One Unit Per Tile. This is shown in your post here:

First let us see what is 1UPT? 1UPT is One Unit Per Tile. As a feature it implies that you have these:
1) Units.
2) Tiles
3) The ability of a unit to occupy a single tile or move onto a tile in a way that it partially hides the terrain characteristics.

You focused completely on the words and their basic meaning: Units, tiles and only one unit on a tile. With SOD, you were taking in the complete meaning of the phrase which encompasses the basics as well as the controls, mechanics and the way they effect the game.

If you simply want to focus on the words, then SOD should be MUPT. This would result in the basic meaning of the words being: Units, tiles and mulitple units on a tile.

If you want to take the complete meaning of the phrase, then SOD stays the same, but 1UPT changes to TUC. This would encompass the basics but also any controls, mechanics and the way the game is effected. So you would then have to look at the tactical aspect of it as well as the simplified UI and the things that make 1UPT better than SOD (at least in my opinion).
 
If you understand this, why can't you see that stacking is a simplification of 1upt, because it removes an obstacle to think about?

(PS. please learn how to use quote tags>)

You still dont understand the difference between something and consequences of that something. You still dont see, that I am talking about that "something" and not the consequence of that something. I fail to understand how one cannot understand that "from A follows B" does not mean that "A equals B". I really think you are just joking though. Right? But its not funny to be sincere...

This remark has absolutely no bearing on what I said.

What I said was that adding a restriction (typically) makes game more complex, both for coding and for playing.

In its rawest form infinite units per tile takes less code to program, simply because the game does not need to constantly check if a tile is already occupied.

Same goes for playing the game (and consequently programming the AI).

The only thing that truly becomes simpler for 1upt is the interface. (note that none of the interface "features" you mentioned for are actually truly necessary for a infinite stacking system (as witnessed by earlier incarnations of civ!) without them stacks are just more effort to manage.
 
The problem with that solution is to determine what happens when the two go to war. The game must decide where all the units go, the moment one of the players declares war. Because of the 1upt restriction finding a solution is not easy, and in fact may not always exist.

A second problem occurs when two friendly nations go to war with a third. If they are allowed to have a unit per tile per civ, the allies will have a game breaking advantage over a single enemy.

The later problem can be avoided in an alternative option where different players are allowed to have civilian units on a tile and a civilian unit is allowed to occupy the same tile as a friendly military unit. This eliminates a lot of movement problems for (automated) workers. (The issue of what happens when the players go to war, can simply be resolved by having all civilians be captured if they share a tile with an (now) enemy military unit.

In fact, it would help a lot for a lot of issues of the stacking restriction was lifted for civilian units. This would solve a lot of problems with pathing. To prevent exploits, the number of workers that is allowed to preform actions on a tile in a turn should probably still be limited to one.

The solutions here are simple.

For the first problem, the same thing would happen as happned in Civ 4. I honestly don't remember what that was for sure but I think that whichever side declared was would have their unit removed from the tile. You could also still attack an enemy unit even when a friendly unit was occupying the same tile.

For the second problem, this is like saying the allies would have an advantage in war in Civ 4. Two allies with two SODs vs. one enemy with one SOD. It would definately make it more challenging to win but no different than what has been in previous Civ versions.

The problem is also not only your workers getting messed up because of another civs scout, it's also about your military campaign getting messed up by a scout sitting in the wrong spot. The only way to solve this is to allow military units from different civs to occupy the same tile.
 
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