Battle of Kursk

[Woodreaux]

I'll be honest I'm not optimistic about the new direction Civ is going with the 1 unit per tile rule, but I am hoping to be pleasantly surprised. I'd rather be wrong and enjoy the game than be correct and stuck waiting for Civ VI.

I know Civ isn't meant to be a simulation, but part of the greatness of the game is the possibility that an historic event can occur in a game, especially events of great strategic importance. So here's what bugs me, how can an event like the Battle of Kursk or a highly plausible alternate history event (which the Civilizations series is really about) like the Fulda Gap, be represented in Civ V if there's only 1 unit allowed in a tile? At Kursk, there were OVER 9,000!?! tanks and combat aircraft involved. These were actual SoD's in action, in real life. Civ II, III and IV all made this possible. Will Civ V really deny us this?

Or can mass combat involving great concentrations of forces be reconciled with the 1 unit per hex rule? Does any one have any thoughts that might comfort me?

 

[Doviello]

So you miss SoD's and you use memes in normal conversation.

It might comfort you that civ V will rock your socks, so don't worry.

 

[Insanity_X]

Well, first things first *slaps Woodreaux*. Realism is not a reason for anything beyond the basics in a Civ game. Sid and Jon both take this view. It's not up for discussion.

Secondly, how do you reenact such battles? two ways, first is to imagine that your single units count for a lot more than is shown on the map (whicg the game supports by them resembling regiments more than ever) the second is by actually putting your troops in strategic locations and figinting a set piece battle. I hate using this arguement, but I will anyway. Take the battle of Mohi, by strategic placement ant manouvering of his army, Subutai was able to wipe out pretty much the entire Polish army. This was something that previous Civ games didnt support.

*slaps self* Let's see how the game plays before passing judgement on its battle system.

Also, there were over 9000 tanks and planes used at Kursk, so the meme may have been unintentional.

 

[cardgame]

@ Insanity, the capitalization of OVER as opposed to bolding or italiscizing as well as the use of !?! afterwards convinces me it was an intentional use of the meme.

@ OP: Civ is not to scale. You do not have 3 warriors attacking a city, you have thousands or more.

 

[AlpsStranger]

Sid and Jon both take this view. It's not up for discussion.

It may not be up for discussion, but that doesn't seem to be stopping anyone

 

[Che Guava]

Speaking of scale, how is it that that more than one unit can't occupy the same space if one tile represents at least ~10 km^2? FOr that matter, how are archers managing to hit targets 20-30 km away??? And am I seriously overthinking this...?

 

[AlpsStranger]

Speaking of scale, how is it that that more than one unit can't occupy the same space if one tile represents at least ~10 km^2? FOr that matter, how are archers managing to hit targets 20-30 km away??? And am I seriously overthinking this...?

Please be joking.

These irrelevant realism complaints never stop

 

[Insanity_X]

*Slaps Che Guava*. Yes you're over thinking things. Archers (usually) have a two tile range to accomodate for battle mechanics and ballance.

 

[Che Guava]

Please be joking.

These irrelevant realism complaints never stop

If I had my way, the game would be 10x more realistic and completely unplayable.

Last time I nearly swore off the whole series when I saw animals running around in the screenshots, but here I am still playing it today. So I'm sure I'll make my peace with whatever realism issues arise....

 

[Earthling]

So you miss SoD's and you use memes in normal conversation.

I just don't...why does a troll/noob account have a name relating to a great civ IV mod who apparently hates civ IV?

Anyway, I'm very worried about the balance going into one unit per tile too. But there's really been a lot of talk about it lately that's not going to actually result in anything, I probably shouldn't bother with these debates anymore either.

Oh and hey Che Guava! Nice to see you around.

 

[Che Guava]

Well hello, I didn't think anyone 'round these parts would still remember me...

But if there's one thing I do recall of civfanatics, it's that there's no debate so pointless that it can't be beaten into the ground (only to be bumped again 4 months later), so please feel free...

 

[Woodreaux]

Yes, I'm aware that Over 9,000 is a DBZ spawned internet meme. Most accounts of the battle for Kursk have the combined tank count at half a dozen thousand, so I threw in the combat aircraft to push the tally over 10K, hence literally satisfying the meme reference to an arbitrarily large number.

Now I'm not complaining about realism here. I'll readily trade some realism to gain moar fun and better gameplay. What I object to, is loosing fun and the diminishing our ability to create epic, massive blood baths. Conquering a planet is a strategic operation, not a tactical one.

As for rebuttals stating that game units represent battalions, squadrons, batteries, corps, etc... I've held this view since Civ II, you're preaching to choir on that subject but barking up the wrong tree. My issue is I do not see how, based on what I think I know about the upcoming game, rival civilizations can concentrate their forces while bringing to bear the full might of their military-industrial complex within the geographical constraints. Having the hammer production capacity to build 8,16, or 32 tanks per turn, but only being able to use 2 per turn to attack because of the way continents are shaped just seems silly.

I realize choke-points are real actual things, Thermopylae comes to mind, but these are the exceptions not the rule. Likewise, if unit capacity within a tile is the only way the designers can think of balance the game, then it aught match terrain types, as in: mountains := 1, hills := 3, forests := 6, deserts, plains := 32 or something like this. Building a fort could increase this capacity as well as give defense bonuses. Further, the units types themselves should have intrinsic volume values to allow some types to be packed in denser than others, this could reflect differences in various military unit sizes, on top of that attrition could lower this size (sort of like the remnants of several depleted divisions might occupy the space of one brigade). But 1 unit to a tile seems to be an extreme solution to a problem that doesn't exist. It's not elegant, it's frustrating and mystifying.

 

[Jaybe]

It's not elegant, it's frustrating and mystifying.

Hey, mystifying is good.

IF industrial unit-build capacity is adequate, I can imagine a Kursk-like fortified salient of some 6x4 hexes filled with UNSEEN reserve units. If not unseen, I canNOT imagine a human player (in his right mind) trying to take it on.

I remember trying to take on that Kursk salient (SPI's Battle of Kursk, I think it was on 2 2x3 foot maps, roughly 50x60 hexes). It was VERY frustrating experience.

 

[Takeda]

i think we are meant to assume that as time progresses in the game, the number of troops represented by a single unit would increase. For instance, in the stone age, the number of soldiers in a warrior unit would be dependent upon their ability to forage off the land. In the modern age, however, advanced support and logistics would be able to support orders of magnitude more soldiers in that same plot of land.

As for archers shooting 50 Km at opposing troops, it doesn't make any sense does it? But then again, tanks requiring 5 years to travel 30 miles doesn't make any sense either. It's just an abstraction. Civ has always been abstract in that sense. If it bothers you, then just imagine that what you're seeing is a magnified version of what's going on on a much smaller scale.

Finally, I appreciate the new tactical depth this system offers over CivIV's stacking. This game will also focus on much smaller unit totals, so the concern about choke points being overpowering is a little overblown. Why not wait and see how it turns out before complaining?

 

[kurtkage]

Having the hammer production capacity to build 8,16, or 32 tanks per turn

I'm not sure that this is going to be a problem. First there seem to be unit limits in place with strategic resources. Also I've read a couple of reviews saying that upkeep costs and production costs are higher. hmm I can't find them all but here is one that I posted the quote from on another thread.

http://gdc.gamespot.com/story/625324...st-look?page=2 says "units will take longer to produce and will eventually come to have upkeep costs associated with them" and says "generally speaking, you and your neighbors will have fewer military units in play than you might have had in previous games in the series, and they'll last longer and be more valuable."

 

[Andrew_Jay]

There's absolutely no reason you couldn't have a battle that looks like this:



With 1UPT.

None.

Silly thread is silly.

 

[GePap]

Sorry, but you couldn't recreate a battle like Kursk, or any real battle ever, in any of the civ games that have ever existed.

The giant stack of doom is just as unrealistic as just one unit per hex, and it makes trying to immitate a real giant battle like Kursk just as impossible. Yes. there were thousands of combat vehicles at Kursk, along with millions of men - how could you recreate that in Civ4? A giant German stack O' doom vs. a Giant Russian Stack o' doom? Except that that has nothing in common with a real battles, which have everything to do with positioning and the ability to concentrate your forces on the right spot at the right time

I don't think that one unit a hex is the best possible decision, but a hex limit on the number of military units IS. I would like it to be higher, say ten or five, not one, but in general the hex limit concept is the right one.

Heck, if it were up to me, Civ would copy the the combat system of MOO2, in which you have a strategic map, and if you want to be able to fight battles, also a tactical map. Armies, made up of units, would ne handled as one group in the strategic map, but in the tactical map you would have the chance to position its constituent units in a battlefield, and there you would have the whole concept of positioning and so forth.

 

[bonafide11]

I find it funny when people argue for the realism of the stack of doom. As if countries can realistically just roll with a massive army through another country unimpeded and then sit outside one of their major cities and attack them there. If anything, the Battle of Kursk can be represented much more realistically with 1UPT than with the SoD since now wars will be fought in the country and over a large amount of land instead of just fighting over a single tile.

 

[snipperrabbit!!]

Speaking of scale, how is it that that more than one unit can't occupy the same space if one tile represents at least ~10 km^2? FOr that matter, how are archers managing to hit targets 20-30 km away??? And am I seriously overthinking this...?

In Civ 4, one equatorial tile is about 190000 Km² for standard map .

 

[Doviello]

I love andrew Jay picture, thats what i think we will see very often in Civ V. I've had countless SoD's battles since Civ II, and the only memorable ones are those where i won by a very short margin, or those where all my muskets died to a longbow, or something like that. In FfH on the other hand, so many things cause collateral damage, that you force yourself to spread your army, and i always thought wars looked more realistic in that fantasy mod than in the vanilla game just because of that. And with units not dying in one combat/being more resilient, i think we will play some awesome multiple front attrition wars.

Also, on a chokepoint, it's been said that your units will have a basic move of two, but thats infantry, i suppose tanks/horses will be faster, so there will be definitely opportunities to attack a choke with more than two units per turn. And simulating something like thermopillas will be cooler too, because in civ IV you can simulate that battle with a single unit against a SoD, but unless you got some serious promotions you will lose, while in V, since less units will attack per turn, heroic choke defenses will happen more often IMO.

1UPT > SoD