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

[Davor]

Its 1 unit total. So only 1 spear-man or warrior or whatever in the tile. The exception is military and civilian units. you can have a worker or a great person in the same time with the military unit

Thank you. So far I do not like the idea, just having one unit, but I do like that they are trying to do something different.

I think it will work out, because if it hadn't, they would have found out by now and have changed it.

 

[toft]

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.

Tell me how they should deal with a map of my backyard - its 5 by 5 meters. And then tell me how that should also handle a map of the world.

If you, likewise, compare the flightsimulators that pilots are training in to regular games, then you know zero, nada, nothing about how to have a fun time.

Games that are extremely accurate and close-to-real-life does not serve it's purpose - entertaining. Either you like civilization or you dont. Either you like history channel or you dont.

If you want something close to real, then go strap on some rubber and go play in the woods with all the other roleplayers.

 

[PeterWimsey]

Realism.

More than 70% of casualties in WWII were caused by artillery. The most common US artillery piece was the 105mm howitzer. Although it could fire faster for short periods of time, the sustained rate of fire was 3 rounds/minute. The smallest unit in which these guns were grouped were four gun batteries (usually there were a lot more). A 4 gun battery firing for 8 hours will fire approximately 5,700 shells. Standard military trucks (2 1/2 ton trucks) could carry a load of 36 shells. That means that it took 160 *truckloads* of ammunition for one 4-gun battery to fire for 8 hours one 1 day. There were *thousands* of artillery batteries in WWII.

Most people's jobs in wartime involves things like making sure that the factories produce enough of the right kind of shells, that the shells are sent to the right ships, that the ships go to the right port with the right cargo, that there are enough trucks and fuel to transport the shells at the port, that the trucks know who needs the shells (and what kind), and that the roads are good enough to get the shells to the artillery battery. So that the relatively small number of soldiers who are directly engaging with the enemy can do their job.

That's what realism in war is mostly about, and that's why the saying is "Amateurs discuss tactics, professionals talk about logistics."

On the other hand, logistics are really boring; afaik there are no logistics wargames. But that's what a realistic wargame might look like.

(And of course this is all moot if paratroopers capture your shell factory).

 

[Earthling]

I think the 1upt is going to be a great change for the single player game.

I think the 1upt is going to be a huge disaster for multiplayer.

I also disagree, not exactly sure what the elaboration on this is. I think it could be neutral or an improvement for multiplayer in general, particularly people who basically just want to have a game with ancient era wars. (Or start in modern era and have wars with tanks, or whatever) And people playing custom/modded/general roleplaying settings probably won't be too fazed, they won't have to obsess over combat.

It will be roughest on single player, because moving and positioning, too many units around could take absurd amounts of time, and of course because the AI will most likely be more devastated and exploited with the new combat mechanics.

 

[Disgustipated]

I have hopes for 1upt, even for multiplayer. Although I don't actually play mp, so I could be wrong there.

Just pretend the tiles aren't 100 miles wide and pretend it's a much smaller space. I see no problem with this. I think this is the best way to make combat fun and give the ai a chance.

I just wanted to say one thing about gameplay over realism. We do need some realism in a game. People are saying it's completely unimportant. Why not have tanks shoot lasers then? It's all abstract numbers, right?

 

[MisterBenn]

Forgive me for suddenly weighing in on this, I only just read this thread!

It seems to me that the concerns over combat realism arise out of the fact that Civ games are designed with the maps and turns retaining both a strategic and a tactical context at the same time. In the strategic context (city development) a forest tile represents miles of dense forest, river tiles are able to represent networks of river and natural irrigation, and hill tiles are capable of whole areas of hilly terrain. In this context a turn passing represents a strategic amount of time passing, as the game date shows.

In the tactical context (combat), the mechanics are set up on a much smaller scale as resembles Battle for Wesnoth. A forest is merely a collection of trees large enough to conceal an army and provide defence, a river tile represents a single river that can be fortified behind and a hill tile is a single piece of high ground that could be exploited by soldiers and archers and the like. The passing of a turn in this context represents a far shorter amount of time, perhaps even just 5 minutes within a battle for specific combat tactics to be executed.

This retention of both the contexts simultaneously is what makes Civ so accessible. By representing both the tactical and the strategic in a single set of graphics on screen you can keep the presentation very clean and uncluttered and most importantly it enables the player to understand both the strategic and tactical situation by merely casting an eye over the map.

The tactical combat mechanics - using relatively small amounts of units to execute entire wars is merely an abstraction as has been already mentioned. It's not the same as the detailed simulation of war that features in other games, but it's part of the magic recipe of Civ that helps them to streamline the gameplay. I don't think that will change, it's as much a defining feature of Civ as the real time tactical combat resolution of the Empire Series. At least those who want to make a realism mod to move towards a singular strategic representation of both civ development and war, will be able to do so and distribute it easily and build a community round it more easily in Civ 5.

As regards the new 1upT mechanic specifically, I think it's very promising. It means that throwing large armies against someone won't require sifting through stacks to predict how attacking will pan out, as all the units will be laid out over the terrain and the situation can be scrutinised and understood by eye. It's more of the same accessibility that Civ is known for and other games have shown that that style of combat can be great fun.

 

[AlpsStranger]

Forgive me for suddenly weighing in on this, I only just read this thread!

It seems to me that the concerns over combat realism arise out of the fact that Civ games are designed with the maps and turns retaining both a strategic and a tactical context at the same time. In the strategic context (city development) a forest tile represents miles of dense forest, river tiles are able to represent networks of river and natural irrigation, and hill tiles are capable of whole areas of hilly terrain. In this context a turn passing represents a strategic amount of time passing, as the game date shows.

In the tactical context (combat), the mechanics are set up on a much smaller scale as resembles Battle for Wesnoth. A forest is merely a collection of trees large enough to conceal an army and provide defence, a river tile represents a single river that can be fortified behind and a hill tile is a single piece of high ground that could be exploited by soldiers and archers and the like. The passing of a turn in this context represents a far shorter amount of time, perhaps even just 5 minutes within a battle for specific combat tactics to be executed.

This retention of both the contexts simultaneously is what makes Civ so accessible. By representing both the tactical and the strategic in a single set of graphics on screen you can keep the presentation very clean and uncluttered and most importantly it enables the player to understand both the strategic and tactical situation by merely casting an eye over the map.

The tactical combat mechanics - using relatively small amounts of units to execute entire wars is merely an abstraction as has been already mentioned. It's not the same as the detailed simulation of war that features in other games, but it's part of the magic recipe of Civ that helps them to streamline the gameplay. I don't think that will change, it's as much a defining feature of Civ as the real time tactical combat resolution of the Empire Series. At least those who want to make a realism mod to move towards a singular strategic representation of both civ development and war, will be able to do so and distribute it easily and build a community round it more easily in Civ 5.

As regards the new 1upT mechanic specifically, I think it's very promising. It means that throwing large armies against someone won't require sifting through stacks to predict how attacking will pan out, as all the units will be laid out over the terrain and the situation can be scrutinised and understood by eye. It's more of the same accessibility that Civ is known for and other games have shown that that style of combat can be great fun.

Don't bother speaking to fools. They won't be happy until someone bastardizes Civ into some unplayable morass of SimCity and Total War. Fortunately, the developers seem keen on keeping Civ right where it needs to be despite their constant protests.