Greetings all.
Civ V's expansions have, so far, done an excellent job of re-introducing old concepts (religion, spies) as well as providing new ones (trade routes, tourism) which have enriched the game experience. One aspect of the game however, which was almost certainly the most controversial at release, remains untouched. I speak, of course, of Civ V's combat.
IUPT was a bold step that fell somewhat flat. Though it killed off the much maligned stack of doom, it had major impacts on city production and did much to remove what realism the Civilization series had. By far the biggest issue however remains the AI's lack of ability to utilize IUPT correctly. Jon Shafer himself admitted
However, on a smaller playing field, AI's capable of handing turn based combat have been around for a very long time. Anyone familiar with the Heroes of Might and Magic series will be very familiar with turn based combat on a small playing field. Even closer to home, the Call to Power series featured army on army combat, once again, in a sub-screen based on local terrain.
Hence, armies. Armies are groups of units that all occupy the same tile. They move at the rate of the slowest unit, and when they enter combat, the game screen changes to a tactical screen, extremely similar to that found in HoMM. For those unfamiliar, click here. Terrain would naturally change depending on the terrain the armies were fighting in. Attacking cities would produce a larger battle where you fight into the city itself, breaching walls and driving out defenders.
But how best to do this without bringing back the dreaded stacks of doom? After all, if we start cramming units onto the same tile again, won't that mean people just slamming all their forces together into one uber-army? People do that in HoMM after all.
My response is two fold. The first draws inspiration (translation: blatantly steals) from the Civ-in-space game Endless Space. In Endless Space, your starships, which comprise your entire military, can be grouped together in fleets. However the maximum size of fleets is determined by technologies you research, and occasionally by your choice of civilization. Hence, fleets tend to start out small and get bigger as the game goes on, but there is always a cap on their size. I believe this system could translate over to Civ quite well.
The second comes from trade routes, introduced in Brave New World. One of my first reactions upon seeing trade routes in game was to think "Wow, supply lines for military forces based around this would be awesome." Supply has always been a critical part of warfare, and the strategic options it's inclusion would open up are major. Raid enemy supply lines to cut off over-extended troops, surround enemy forces and cities, Stalingrad style, and starve out defenders. But it would be too difficult, given the size of 1UPT armies, to co-ordinate individual supply routes for all of them.
Not so with armies. Imagine the Civilization tech tree, and it's various techs that unlock an additional trade route. Well now imagine that, but with supply routes included as well. Each supply route allows a Civ to produce an additional army. You could still have single units wandering around of course, but they'd stand little to no chance against an enemy army. Armies are the foundation of any civilization's military.
To start an army, build a supply train. Supply trains, once built, let you found armies. The supply train then travels back and forth from it's army to it's city. Supply routes can be pillages just like trade routes can. An army without supply will start to lose health each turn. They can pillage to counter this (living off the land) but obviously they can't do this indefinitely. Unless supplies are reconnected, the army will eventually wither and fall, cut off a long way from home.
To expand the idea, Great Generals and Admirals could take on greatly enhanced roles. Now these men and women actually lead their armies and earn experience. This could unlock skills that let their armies move faster, survive longer without supplies, extend the reach of supply routes, boost city attack or any number of things. Killing a high ranking enemy general could be a turning point in a war.
None of these are really new ideas. They're merely taking ideas from other places and throwing them together. However, I believe that the end result could be something that not only fixes the combat in Civ V, but makes it truly engaging and interesting at the same time.
Civ V's expansions have, so far, done an excellent job of re-introducing old concepts (religion, spies) as well as providing new ones (trade routes, tourism) which have enriched the game experience. One aspect of the game however, which was almost certainly the most controversial at release, remains untouched. I speak, of course, of Civ V's combat.
IUPT was a bold step that fell somewhat flat. Though it killed off the much maligned stack of doom, it had major impacts on city production and did much to remove what realism the Civilization series had. By far the biggest issue however remains the AI's lack of ability to utilize IUPT correctly. Jon Shafer himself admitted
However, on a smaller playing field, AI's capable of handing turn based combat have been around for a very long time. Anyone familiar with the Heroes of Might and Magic series will be very familiar with turn based combat on a small playing field. Even closer to home, the Call to Power series featured army on army combat, once again, in a sub-screen based on local terrain.
Hence, armies. Armies are groups of units that all occupy the same tile. They move at the rate of the slowest unit, and when they enter combat, the game screen changes to a tactical screen, extremely similar to that found in HoMM. For those unfamiliar, click here. Terrain would naturally change depending on the terrain the armies were fighting in. Attacking cities would produce a larger battle where you fight into the city itself, breaching walls and driving out defenders.
But how best to do this without bringing back the dreaded stacks of doom? After all, if we start cramming units onto the same tile again, won't that mean people just slamming all their forces together into one uber-army? People do that in HoMM after all.
My response is two fold. The first draws inspiration (translation: blatantly steals) from the Civ-in-space game Endless Space. In Endless Space, your starships, which comprise your entire military, can be grouped together in fleets. However the maximum size of fleets is determined by technologies you research, and occasionally by your choice of civilization. Hence, fleets tend to start out small and get bigger as the game goes on, but there is always a cap on their size. I believe this system could translate over to Civ quite well.
The second comes from trade routes, introduced in Brave New World. One of my first reactions upon seeing trade routes in game was to think "Wow, supply lines for military forces based around this would be awesome." Supply has always been a critical part of warfare, and the strategic options it's inclusion would open up are major. Raid enemy supply lines to cut off over-extended troops, surround enemy forces and cities, Stalingrad style, and starve out defenders. But it would be too difficult, given the size of 1UPT armies, to co-ordinate individual supply routes for all of them.
Not so with armies. Imagine the Civilization tech tree, and it's various techs that unlock an additional trade route. Well now imagine that, but with supply routes included as well. Each supply route allows a Civ to produce an additional army. You could still have single units wandering around of course, but they'd stand little to no chance against an enemy army. Armies are the foundation of any civilization's military.
To start an army, build a supply train. Supply trains, once built, let you found armies. The supply train then travels back and forth from it's army to it's city. Supply routes can be pillages just like trade routes can. An army without supply will start to lose health each turn. They can pillage to counter this (living off the land) but obviously they can't do this indefinitely. Unless supplies are reconnected, the army will eventually wither and fall, cut off a long way from home.
To expand the idea, Great Generals and Admirals could take on greatly enhanced roles. Now these men and women actually lead their armies and earn experience. This could unlock skills that let their armies move faster, survive longer without supplies, extend the reach of supply routes, boost city attack or any number of things. Killing a high ranking enemy general could be a turning point in a war.
None of these are really new ideas. They're merely taking ideas from other places and throwing them together. However, I believe that the end result could be something that not only fixes the combat in Civ V, but makes it truly engaging and interesting at the same time.
