A question about 1UPT, and how I'd solve it for 6

[frenzyfol]

Forgive my lack of knowledge, I gave up on Civ5 within weeks of its release so I'm not sure if they solved the problems I had with 1UPT.

Were all the micromanagement of units resulting from 1UPT fixed in subsequent patches /expansions for civ5? Primarily, when units pass each other on a single road does one of the units still have to get off the road?. There are many other problems cause by UPT, Sulla sums it up nicely in http://www.sullla.com/Civ5/whatwentwrong.html, but this road shuffle always bugged me in particular.

I understand the reason for adding 1UPT was to remove mega stacks, but the downside of unit micromanagement and knock-on production effects broke the game in my opinion.

So how do you remove mega stacks without the problems?

How about some kind of additional unit scale. Treat the entire stack as a single unit and add its cumulative attack strength with scaling. Here's an example with 20% scale.
1 Swordman (strength 10).
2 Swordman (strength 10 + 0.8*10) = 18
3 Swordman (strength 10 + 0.8*10 + 0.6*10) = 24

and so on.

The % modifier can be set at 50% for all I care, it doesn't matter

If the stack looses in combat ALL the units are lost.

This somewhat emulates the effectiveness of large armies. Larger armies ARE more powerful, but they are also less mobile, harder to supply, and susceptible to massive collapse (Battle of Agincourt).

Now you have a decision to make. Keep your units separate and more effective, or stack them for more power and higher risk. You also don't need to micro units in and out of cities, as they pass each other on roads, etc.

Thoughts?

Does anyone know what civ6 is doing with regard to 1UPT ?

 

[joncnunn]

Moderator Action: Moved to Ideas & Suggestions

 

[Human Crouton]

That is what they are doing.

 

[Chinese American]

In V, 90% of the time is spent manipulating units because there isn't much else to do (city management and planning is a joke.) Unfortunately, 1UPT makes wars and battles boring and tedious.

So just return to stacks because 1) they are funner and awesomer 2) makes the AI more challenging 3) less micromanagement. Moreover, need for convoy units to rapidly transport other units en masse across land and sea.

 

[frenzyfol]

That is what they are doing.

Care to elaborate with a source?

 

[Ryika]

So just return to stacks

No, thanks.


@topic:
That's rather similar to what Civ VI is doing, however, I don't think allowing too much stacking is really the issue. The issue is the amount of units that you can realistically field. Wars in the medieval era are manageable, it's only in the later eras, when Gold becomes relatively meaningless and tons of Air Units flood in that the system goes completely overboard with unit-spam.

That's what I think they need to find a solution for, something that hard-caps your army size in width, so that additional strength comes only from combining units into armies.

 

[stiiknafuulia]

... If the stack looses in combat ALL the units are lost. ...

1996 called, Civ II needs this dismaying mechanic back in order to preserve my tear-soaked childhood years intact. (Seriously, if you lost 3-4 units to this, with a 5 % chance, would you *ever* not simply reload? The decrease in strength is a good deterrent to excessive stacking, along with damage from bombing to the whole stack; there's no need to go back to 1996. )

 

[frenzyfol]

No, thanks.


@topic:
, something that hard-caps your army size .

I agree the late game super stacks can be ridiculous. I just played a civ4 deity where Shaka hit me with 47 cav and 30 something rifles in a single stack.

Maybe,
Some form of war weariness?
A cap on available soldier numbers?
Higher scaling military maintenance costs for late game units?

Still, If I have to micromanage two units passing each other on a road I'm going to be super pissed off..

 

[stiiknafuulia]

Still, If I have to micromanage two units passing each other on a road I'm going to be super pissed off..

I agree that something needs to be done about this... Supposedly there's a command in Civ VI to move your units in a 'carpet' or 'formation' (the equivalent of a stack in 1upt), where they will keep their relative position as they move all at once. But with the different movement rates of the units and the restrictive terrain (mountains etc), I fail to see how they could've made this work smooth enough for it to be truly useful.

 

[qwerty25]

To the OP. The main problem i see with your approach is how do you resolve the damahe dealt bh other units and others. For instance if you have both a swordsman and archer on the same tile and a enemy attacks it will it just damahe both equally? And if it does so then why bother with having your archer on a separate tile? The degradation of protection is at a slow rate compared with each unit added. Or to put it frankly would you not just end up with a new say 7 UPT where 7 is the number of warriors/whatever before the penalty of stacking is too high?

Still, If I have to micromanage two units passing each other on a road I'm going to be super pissed off..

To both the OP and frenzy, I suggested elsewhere which i guess is kinda similar to OPs idea, but geared mainly for only avoiding traffic jams. The idea was to let units transform into marching mode where one selects the end destination and they will be able to move through and stay on with any friendly unit.

Think of it like a warrior turning itself into caravan (which cannot attack) until it reaches its destination and changing itself back. So you could have say 5 warriors moving north your road and another 5 move south the same road without colliding (just like caravans) and of course they cant have the same destination.

(Though this only solves specifically the road congestiom problem of 1UPT and not the overproduction of units)


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[Mike Louis]

What I would've done for Civ 5 and now for Civ 6 is to keep the stacks on the main / strategic map that will still have squares since the stack(s) represents an army / frontline. Keeping the squares for the strategic map also makes city placement easier. Once a battle begins, you can then zoom to a tactical map with hexes that'll use 1upt to simulate battle tactics. Having separate strategic and tactical maps would've allowed for the use of 1upt without having the map being a traffic jam of units in the late game. It also would've enabled the game designers to port over the Civ 4 mechanics that worked onto both Civ 5 and now Civ 6. Until a separate tactical map is introduced to the Civ series, 1upt simply doesn't work properly without huge map sizes, which also present problems of its own via the memory usage requirements.

 

[Jaybe]

Civ5 used 1 unit per hex to simulate the mobility limitations of large forces.

The basic problem in Civ5 was that without micromanagement your units would leave the road because they insisted on using their full movement even though it delayed their getting to their destination. Even 1/10th of a movement point remaining would permit a unit to move onto a hill. Stay on the road you dimbulbs!

Personally, I don't have much of a problem with the micro since I'm not a speed fanatic in playing the game.

In Civ6 units will require the full movement requirement to move into a hex, though I presume you will always be able to move 1 hex regardless of terrain.

 

[Fromage10x]

I just kinda suggested this on a naval post, but I really think the best solution to the 1UPT problem (at least, beyond simply scrapping it) is to introduce transport units that can load a certain amount of units and have minimal attack abilities but enhanced movement.

This makes moving troops across the map simpler and keeps 1UPT mechanics intact. If you wanted to abstract it, you could even have it be based in a city and have a unit have an option to "load trucks" and then select a destination within a certain distance of the city.

 

[qwerty25]

I just kinda suggested this on a naval post, but I really think the best solution to the 1UPT problem (at least, beyond simply scrapping it) is to introduce transport units that can load a certain amount of units and have minimal attack abilities but enhanced movement.

This makes moving troops across the map simpler and keeps 1UPT mechanics intact. If you wanted to abstract it, you could even have it be based in a city and have a unit have an option to "load trucks" and then select a destination within a certain distance of the city.

Ehhh i like the general idea, but i dont see the need for another transport unit. (For land especially) Why not just let the spearman/rifleman/whatever just turn into marching mode and be like the transport unit you referred.

It might work for the sea to have a transport unit

 

[Fromage10x]

That would be acceptable to me...I still think there's room for an actual land transport unit but having a march mode would be better than how it stands currently to be sure.

 

[qwerty25]

That would be acceptable to me...I still think there's room for an actual land transport unit but having a march mode would be better than how it stands currently to be sure.

Yeah... I think practically theres an issue between moving in combat vs moving to the destination.




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[Socrates99]

Trying to wrap my head around something here. I don't understand how people can complain about micromanaging 1upt and at the same time profess distaste for the lack of micromanaging necessary to run V's cities. Isn't number crunching builds, micromanaging citizens and adjusting sliders similarly tedious? I mean either you like micromanaging or you don't, right?

 

[qwerty25]

Trying to wrap my head around something here. I don't understand how people can complain about micromanaging 1upt and at the same time profess distaste for the lack of micromanaging necessary to run V's cities. Isn't number crunching builds, micromanaging citizens and adjusting sliders similarly tedious? I mean either you like micromanaging or you don't, right?

There's micromanaging that offers a benefit to your civ in the building one. You have to react versus your goals.

For 1upt sometime the micro managing could just be moving twenty units across the map. It really doesn't matter how they get there. There really isn't an easy way to move them, but you still need to do it.

Micromanaging during battles is fine for most people I think. (Well until we get to carpet of doom)

 

[Socrates99]

There's micromanaging that offers a benefit to your civ in the building one. You have to react versus your goals.

For 1upt sometime the micro managing could just be moving twenty units across the map. It really doesn't matter how they get there. There really isn't an easy way to move them, but you still need to do it.

Micromanaging during battles is fine for most people I think. (Well until we get to carpet of doom)

For moving across the map couldn't you just pick a rally point relatively close to your destination and send them there en masse then just micromanage last couple turns?

 

[qwerty25]

For moving across the map couldn't you just pick a rally point relatively close to your destination and send them there en masse then just micromanage last couple turns?

Youve never had your units run into each. Other on the way there?