Although Civ5 makes improvements, combat remains the series' weak point

[Brawndo]

I applaud the changes made in Civ5 combat from the super stacks in Civ3 and Civ4, but in the end it's still inherently flawed and completely unrealistic. War is not fought as 1v1 duels between units stretched over thousands of miles of terrain (if you think of each hex as hundreds of miles). Ever since the massive armies fielded in Ancient China and Mesopotamia, war has been about combined arms and tactical maneuvering. Civ5 once again fails to capture this accurately.

In my opinion, combat was the closest to reality in the Civilization-clone Call to Power II, where units fought in armies. Even though the player could not control the action, the fighting was remarkably intelligent: spearmen and other melee units would form the first ranks and clash with the enemy. Archers form up behind them, providing support fire, while knights and other mounted cavalry attacked from the flanks. Dale's Combat Mod for Civ4 used similar mechanics.

Oh and before people say "it's just a game" in response to how unrealistic Civ5 combat is, keep in mind this game strives to be a historical simulator of sorts, so realism should be high on the priority list.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

It also doesn't take hundreds of years to march an army across a continent.

I don't know if the new warfare will be better or not, but have you played CivV? Seems a tad premature to bring down judgment.

 

[Brawndo]

It also doesn't take hundreds of years to march an army across a continent.

I don't know if the new warfare will be better or not, but have you played CivV? Seems a tad premature to bring down judgment.

Perhaps I'm using my Jumping to Conclusions Mat a bit to early, but from what I've seen from the confirmed features, there will be no armies and units are limited to one per hex, so combat remains a 1v1 affair where your archer gets destroyed by a horseman even though your pikeman is right next to it.

I'm not trying to have the Civ series become like Total War, but combat in the Civ series has always been about stats and random chance, which leads to tedious war-making

 

[Wieke]

Perhaps I'm using my Jumping to Conclusions Mat a bit to early, but from what I've seen from the confirmed features, there will be no armies and units are limited to one per hex, so combat remains a 1v1 affair where your archer gets destroyed by a horseman even though your pikeman is right next to it.

I'm not trying to have the Civ series become like Total War, but combat in the Civ series has always been about stats and random chance, which leads to tedious war-making

Well they're introducing a zone-of-controll system (alpha centauri had one) which will prevent enemies from simply bypassing your spearman. Also combat no longer requires one of the units to die, so if your archer was at full health it will most likely survive.

As i understand it armies will be represented by groups of units on the map. The whole deal with flanking, etc, (which you seemed to like in call to power) will now take place on the normal map. Yes when compared to the size of the hex the scale at which combat takes place is rather silly. But the only alternatives would be some kind of seperate battle system, making the hexes smaller or stacking, none of which appeal to me.

I'm not saying combat will be perfect, but i do expect it to be a lot better when compared to the previous games.

 

[dra]

I fail to see the fun factor in armies. Played Call to Power and never really liked this idea. Although it may not be entirely realistic as they plan it in civ5, I still think it is gonna be a lot more interesting and brain crunching than "put 2 spears, 1 archer and 2 knights into army, than march towards another similar army and see what happens". As example of Westnoth shows, hexagonal 1upt system seems to work even when AI is dumber than my right hand's thumb.

 

[Brawndo]

I fail to see the fun factor in armies. Played Call to Power and never really liked this idea. Although it may not be entirely realistic as they plan it in civ5, I still think it is gonna be a lot more interesting and brain crunching than "put 2 spears, 1 archer and 2 knights into army, than march towards another similar army and see what happens". As example of Westnoth shows, hexagonal 1upt system seems to work even when AI is dumber than my right hand's thumb.

They could make the battle between armies controllable, even down to the unit level where you march troops around on a battle map instead of the world map.

 

[Wieke]

They kinda did that, only instead of including a different battle map, tactical combat will take place on the normal map, over the course of normal turns. Yeah it screws with the scale of things, but adding a battle map system, imho, would diverge too much from traditional civ.

 

[JonoLith]

Perhaps I'm using my Jumping to Conclusions Mat a bit to early...

I would say that this is an accurate assessment of the situation.

Although +1 for an Office Space reference.

 

[12agnar0k]

"the distance" in a tile is very debateable, as is the "size of the units, they are bigger than cities o.0", civ has never been realistic, its been fun and it will continue to do so.
Negative person be gone!

 

[LDiCesare]

Perhaps I'm using my Jumping to Conclusions Mat a bit to early, but from what I've seen from the confirmed features, there will be no armies and units are limited to one per hex, so combat remains a 1v1 affair where your archer gets destroyed by a horseman even though your pikeman is right next to it.

There are effects from neighbouring units, both units that border an enemy unit, and units that border a unit of the same kind. These flanking and support effects provide a 15% bonus if I read screenshots correctly.
Furthermore, the game is inspired by Panzer General for warfare, in which artillery (archers in Fantasy General) provided support to attacked units by striking the attacker first.

The real problem with historic accuracy is that wars don't last thousands of years but are usually rather short events with a few battles. Units, as buildings, don't require centuries to build, so the game will never be realistic.

 

[Calouste]

They kinda did that, only instead of including a different battle map, tactical combat will take place on the normal map, over the course of normal turns. Yeah it screws with the scale of things, but adding a battle map system, imho, would diverge too much from traditional civ.

That's the way I see it as well.

When battle takes place, Civ magically zooms in from the world view to a battlefield with an appropriate size for the era (a few hundred meters per hex early on, a few kilometers later), and the terrain is also magically an exact copy of the world map on a smaller scale.

OP: you don't make a complaint about the combat system, you make a complaint about whether Civ is close enough to reality. But gameplay trumps reality, and from my experience a combat system like Civ5's gives pretty good gameplay.

 

[bjbrains]

As always, gameplay trumps realism every time. A fun combat system is what civ should deliver, regardless of realism.

 

[Calouste]

There are effects from neighbouring units, both units that border an enemy unit, and units that border a unit of the same kind. These flanking and support effects provide a 15% bonus if I read screenshots correctly.
Furthermore, the game is inspired by Panzer General for warfare, in which artillery (archers in Fantasy General) provided support to attacked units by striking the attacker first.

The real problem with historic accuracy is that wars don't last thousands of years but are usually rather short events with a few battles. Units, as buildings, don't require centuries to build, so the game will never be realistic.

Wars tended to be long term affairs at certain points in history, specially Medieaval and Renaissance Europe. We have the 100 year war, the 80 year war, the 30 year war. The Punic wars stretched over more than a century, with the first two lasting about 2 decades each.

 

[Abremms]

like BJ said, Gameplay > Realism.

i've never been able to realy grasp why people want thier games to be uber-realistic. there is nothing fun about realistic war. its tragic and bloody and even if it is sometimes necessary, it isn't FUN.

bottom line, its a game. its supposed to be fun. if "fun" for you is having the most starkly realistic simulator possible, then there are other games for you.

 

[Le Sage]

The new battle system is actually what I am looking forward to the most. I think it will be awesome. I hate the Stack of Doom and the other idea presented here with battles being fought on a different battle screen is not realistic, sounds really boring and not fun at all.

In Civ 5 we'll be able to engage in real battles with fronts, centres, flanks, advance guards, reserves and rear guards. That's a vast improvement on the SoD and I'm really happy with this. The battles are going to be fought out in the terrain and not be just a series of great sieges. Sure there are downsides with the representation of the battle being too large for being realistic (I wonder what the Battle of Waterloo would look like on a Civ5 map of Europe), but this is really something I can take as long as I get a chance to conduct real battle strategy and not just march my SoD at the enemy capital to win the war. It's all symbolic. This is the downside, but there are so many fun possibilities with the new combat system that I can only applaud it.

 

[Calouste]

bottom line, its a game. its supposed to be fun. if "fun" for you is having the most starkly realistic simulator possible, then there are other games for you.

Or Excel.

 

[Davor]

like BJ said, Gameplay > Realism.

i've never been able to realy grasp why people want thier games to be uber-realistic. there is nothing fun about realistic war. its tragic and bloody and even if it is sometimes necessary, it isn't FUN.

bottom line, its a game. its supposed to be fun. if "fun" for you is having the most starkly realistic simulator possible, then there are other games for you.

I don't think it's realism people want, but some, like me are tired of "ping pong ball" combat. After 15 years or more and they are on their 5th title, I think people don't want Civ V to have ping pong ball combat that is all.

Is having something different so bad after all?

 

[Abremms]

I don't think it's realism people want, but some, like me are tired of "ping pong ball" combat. After 15 years or more and they are on their 5th title, I think people don't want Civ V to have ping pong ball combat that is all.

Is having something different so bad after all?

they do have something different this time around. drasticaly so. 1upt is a huge change. it looks like it will be fun, but not much more realistic than before. I don't really know what you mean by "ping pong ball combat" though.

the OP was asking for realism. thats what i was responding to. realism isn't generally fun. it tends to be tedious and boring. put gameplay before realism and you have a much better chance of ending up with a fun game.

 

[Zhahz]

but have you played CivV? Seems a tad premature to bring down judgment.

Yep.

I think combat in Civ has generally been weak but for different reasons.

Obviously Civ is not a war game and it abstracts and condenses thousands of years into turns completed in hours, so obviously the level of detail in civ is not what it would be in a true war game.

If you want to play a war game, civ is not the game for you, IMO. Civ is a game that has war in it, not a war game.

My issue has always been that the combat is exploitive in that the AI has never been that great at combat and players can usually easily take advantage of AI flaws. That and mechanisms of cheese like ranged bombardment. Stacks of doom suck. A focus on taking cities and no real value to controlling the land itself. That kind of thing.

I hardly expect any level of realism out of the combat, because that's now what the game is about.

But I do expect rock solid AI.

I think the combat changes for Civ 5 have the potential of making combat in Civ 5 drastically superior to that of any previous version. But only if the AI is rock solid at release. We can't endure another repeat of Civ IV AI requireing 2 expacs and numerous user mods to make the combat AI worth a crap.

 

[brianshapiro]

realism isn't generally fun. it tends to be tedious and boring. put gameplay before realism and you have a much better chance of ending up with a fun game.

I think this is a really weird idea, that realism is always is the inverse of good gameplay, so the more realism you have the worse the gameplay you have, and the less realism, the better gameplay.

Obviously people generally like the realism thats been added to the game since the first Civ, they like cultural borders, and they like that your stack isn't defeated with one unit. Having more realism in the game won't automatically make it like Europa Universalis.