A finer grain hex?

[Jharii]

The concept I'd worked on used fractal landscape generation for the tactical map. All it needed to know were the parameters for the current and all surrounding hexes, which would already be in memory. The rest would be generated using a known seed, then discarded when done. Since the seed was preserved, the tactical hex would be identically generated the next time you entered it.

Roads would be a bit tricky, particularly those outside of your AoC.

 

[atteSmythe]

Roads would be a bit tricky, particularly those outside of your AoC.

Yes - some of the eventual design details slip my mind, we were undecided as to how specific the tactical maps should be...it got a little mindblowing when you were talking about how/whether to work in buildings, roads, how everything would be placed, etc. It started looking more like some ACW games I'd played years ago - and then the big decision was about how long you should expect each tactical combat to take. Seeing as you could have a few of these per turn during war, and each one would likely take as long as managing the rest of your strat-level empire, there was a definite pressure to simplify and abstract.

 

[WileyWilson]

I would also recommend removing the worker unit all together. You can instead, apply your city's production for a few turns to a nearby tile in the fat cross to make an improvement. Or you can buy improvements out-right, similar to buildings. This would prevent having to move workers around your lands, while still keeping some strategy on when to build improvements.

It is really nice capturing enemy workers though and forcing them into slavery

 

[MuonConspiracy]

The concept I'd worked on used fractal landscape generation for the tactical map. All it needed to know were the parameters for the current and all surrounding hexes, which would already be in memory. The rest would be generated using a known seed, then discarded when done. Since the seed was preserved, the tactical hex would be identically generated the next time you entered it.

Well that solves any possible memory issues! Awesome idea, I would love to see it implemented!

 

[stormerne]

Nice idea, 7 small hexes where one large one is now. BUT... can you imagine the time between turns on a larger or late-game map?!!!!

 

[Junuxx]

I think this would be a great idea. More units on the front, less overcrowding problems and a much better scale of cities and front depth.

This doesn't need to be a tiled hex system like the overland. It's just an added layer of strategy.

You could also divide a hex in 3 subdiamonds instead of 7 subhexes.

  ____
 /   /\
/___/  \
\   \  /
 \___\/

Like this, more or less.

Should be enough to achieve the similar effects on tactics (frontline, flanking, ranged attack).

 

[MuonConspiracy]

Nice idea, 7 small hexes where one large one is now. BUT... can you imagine the time between turns on a larger or late-game map?!!!!

I'm going to presume you mean battles initiated by the AI against the human and not AI v. AI battles (no way would you want to let AI v. AI simulate the tactical combat unless you're one of the code monkeys testing the AI's movement capabilities!). Yeah that could add a LOT of time to the game potentially.

 

[Jharii]

Nice idea, 7 small hexes where one large one is now. BUT... can you imagine the time between turns on a larger or late-game map?!!!!

Wouldn't be bad at all if you can move all units on the hex as one unit.

 

[Fizpez2]

Wouldn't be bad at all if you can move all units on the hex as one unit.

Yeah I kind of envisioned some sort of group movement (limited by lowest number of moves)... kind of a mini stack of doom (mSoD) Right now the game feels like chinese checkers at times as I slide units in and out.

I could see how you could go full tactical zoom every time a battle is joined - I think that gets pretty far away from CIV and into basically a second game. It would be like playing CIV one minute and a tactical turn base strategy the next... good, I dont know, interesting? Sure...

 

[eric_]

Good stuff. I definitely like the idea of being able to field combined arms on individual tiles.

I think it would be great if you retained the 2mpt in open terrain, and made it so reorganizing units within a single tile would constitute 1 move for all units in that tile. That way, if a unit finds its formation suboptimal in the face of advancing attackers, it could either attack in current formation OR rearrange and fortify in one turn, but not attack (melee, fire archer volleys, etc).

Or, they can move as a group across 2 large tiles of open terrain. Horses can either be fielded together for swift flanking maneuvers (3 - 4 mpt, open terrain) or as part of a formation with slower units, in which case they receive a mpt "penalty", unless of course they break out of formation to attack exposed enemy flanks.

I already love the new combat style in ciV; a change like this would make it just exactly perfect.

 

[Jharii]

Yeah I kind of envisioned some sort of group movement (limited by lowest number of moves)... kind of a mini stack of doom (mSoD) Right now the game feels like chinese checkers at times as I slide units in and out.

I could see how you could go full tactical zoom every time a battle is joined - I think that gets pretty far away from CIV and into basically a second game. It would be like playing CIV one minute and a tactical turn base strategy the next... good, I dont know, interesting? Sure...

Yeah, that's the Master of Magic/Elemental method.

But with this system, you wouldn't even need to go to a tactical mode. You could just use the hexes and subhexes as they are.

 

[eric_]

A less micro-managy version would be to allow you a certain number of upt (say, 6) and you get certain bonuses based on what you choose. Pike + Cata + Horses = bonus against horses and melee + ranged attack. Sword + Archer + Pike = good city attack, ranged attack, protection against horses. Etc.

A bit like cIV, but no SoD due to restricted number of upt.

Or, if you keep the ability to arrange units on subhexes, instead of zooming for battle, just have a "tile screen", like the city screen, that allows you to arrange troops in the tile, then battles occur on the scale we see now. Might even be interesting if certain sub tiles had defense bonus due to being at the base of a hill in the next large tile or at the edge of the next tile's forest.

 

[JLoZeppeli]

This is actually a really cool idea. Would solve all of your problems with unit moving Istnarch.

Have units stack in a hex, but during combat, they zoom down and each hex breaks up into a several hex size 1 upt battlefield!

Omg that would rock.

it is called call to power dude

 

[eric_]

Hrm, one thing, though: how would a single unit on a large tile work? Like, what if an archer is at the back of a tile relative to a swordsman at the back (relative to the archer) of an adjacent tile? Would it be one move for the archer to get to the "front" of its current tile, and another to shoot? Would it be two moves for the swordsman to get to and attack the archer?

And, if you have 6 sub tiles per large tile, can two enemy units occupy a subtile on the same tile? What about two non-enemy units from different civs?

 

[toccoto]

If you want to change the system so dramatically, I would be a fan of building an army. Basically having a certain amount of 'spots' on a hex to build an army. Front for swordsman, sides for cavalry, back for archers, for example. And as you move forward in technology you can unlock different battle formations that fit with that era.

Like when you get to the 1700's you could unlock more gurilla styles like the minutemen used. (Basically they'd receive a bonus to armies still in formations)

Things like that.

 

[snoochems]

I've been thinking about this exact idea. The only reason I see it failing.... system requirements. You're effectively multiplying the required tiles on a given size map by 6.

 

[Junuxx]

I've been thinking about this exact idea. The only reason I see it failing.... system requirements. You're effectively multiplying the required tiles on a given size map by 6.

Not so. The number of tiles as far as terrain, improvements and tile yields are concerned is unchanged. For pathfinding it only changes for the start and end tiles, and memory requirements increase by a single digit per unit, to indicate its subtile.

It would mean more units on screen though.. But if you draw them smaller you could do with fewer polygons.

 

[sleepingbear]

nevermind, spent too much time eating, not enough typing.

 

[secondbest]

Wow. this is incredible. At a totally different thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=392335&page=13) I had written this. About half an hour before this topic was created. And o was thinking of opening a topic about it.

lurker here:

I agree with all the points sullla has made in various posts and also on his site. Also the 'borg analogy' in this thread is dead on I think. But considering this new problem of "war burnout"... I was thinking about it in the last few days. As I was reading the last post by sullla it struck me

In the end, there's very little to do in this game other than go to war with the AI, and as tactical war games go, this is a rather mediocre one. The AI stinks, and other games just do it better. Civ5 tries to be both an empire building game and a tactical war game, and ends up doing both rather poorly.

The empire building aspect need many fixes and many many good suggestions are all around this forum. Some mods made great strides. I especially like the 'city states mod'.

Anyway back to 'trying to be two games at once' I think the game definately needs to seperate the two. It is quite weird to play tactical warfare on a strategic map anyway then why not sandbox it? I mean let the armies travel on a single hex like stacks of doom but when a fight occurs take it to another tactical map where all units should occupy one hex. If any of you played heroes of might and magic or the new brilliant king's bounty you might get the picture. Let the strategic map be strategic. Let the tactical map be a hex map of just one tile. The fight can occur on one tile but a totally new tactical map can be generated. If the tile is desert the tactical map can have more desert squares and stuff. A city siege might be wayyy better. You can make cities cover more than one tile according to their size making the tactical aspect much different. I am sure there are many things that can be done.

I don't know how can you integrate this to number of turns but I think it can be handled.

I think this is a great way to go. And just not with 4-5 hexes. A battleground can be opened. So this way a multidimensional army consisting of differentiated units can work in cohesion. AI might do well on this too. You could place your armies at the beggining. Swordsmen and pikes in the middle, archers at the back, horsemen flanking and so on. Modern warfare would be awesome. Maybe 5 turns of battle might be one game turn. I don't know. It can be figured out. A one-dimensional army would be butchered, the warfare would be a game in itself.

 

[MuonConspiracy]

Wow. this is incredible. At a totally different thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=392335&page=13) I had written this. About half an hour before this topic was created. And o was thinking of opening a topic about it.




I think this is a great way to go. And just not with 4-5 hexes. A battleground can be opened. So this way a multidimensional army consisting of differentiated units can work in cohesion. AI might do well on this too. You could place your armies at the beggining. Swordsmen and pikes in the middle, archers at the back, horsemen flanking and so on. Modern warfare would be awesome. Maybe 5 turns of battle might be one game turn. I don't know. It can be figured out. A one-dimensional army would be butchered, the warfare would be a game in itself.

Yep!! This is precisely what I was envisioning. The placing of the armies in the tactical map is very similar to Romance of the 3 Kingdoms. In that game, the entire tactical aspect of the battle can be simulated if you don't want to play through it but the results are never as good as if you command all the tactical aspects yourself, obviously.