Battle of Kursk

[bearbomber]

With that amount of controversies around SOD and One unit system I can only why did't Firaxis chose the most logical system and didn't use enlarged battlefield system like the one in Age of Wonders or Heroes of Might and Magic. It allows players to stack unit, add depth to combat and deals with archers shooting from Paris to London problem.

 

[Jabba]

No one seems to have realised what is - IMHO - the essence of the problem. The nature of warfare changed over time.

Civilization style "stack-of-doom" warfare was, in fact, pretty much exactly the way wars were fought for most of history. Rolling up with a single large army to besiege one enemy city after another is exactly what happened in ancient and medieval warfare.

For most of history, populations and therefore armies were too small to defend entire frontiers. Armies were concentrated in one place, and would move around the country as a concentrated mass. This is how Hannibal roamed around Italy, and it was also the way war was waged in the Crusades, in the Hundred Years' War or the 30 Years War.

It was Napoleon who changed this by introducing Army Corps in the early 19th Century. Conscription also meant that armies became larger and could therefore cover more front. But in general, Napoleonic armies still moved "point-to-point" rather than along a broad front.

By the 20th Century, armies were so large that continuous front lines became the norm. This was never the case at any previous time in history.

I am frankly concerned by the one-unit-per-hex, Panzer General style model that is being introduced, because it implies that all warfare down the ages is being modelled as though it were 20th Century, continuous front warfare. Ideally, the combat dynamic should be able to mirror the changing character of warfare down the ages.

It looks to me like the new combat system will treat the world as though it were a tactical battlefield (putting spearmen on the flanks, archers behind "firing over lakes" etc). I find this disappointing because it has little in common with actual military strategy as it was practiced throughout most of history.

 

[Thormodr]

No one seems to have realised what is - IMHO - the essence of the problem. The nature of warfare changed over time.

Civilization style "stack-of-doom" warfare was, in fact, pretty much exactly the way wars were fought for most of history. Rolling up with a single large army to besiege one enemy city after another is exactly what happened in ancient and medieval warfare.

For most of history, populations and therefore armies were too small to defend entire frontiers. Armies were concentrated in one place, and would move around the country as a concentrated mass. This is how Hannibal roamed around Italy, and it was also the way war was waged in the Crusades, in the Hundred Years' War or the 30 Years War.

It was Napoleon who changed this by introducing Army Corps in the early 19th Century. Conscription also meant that armies became larger and could therefore cover more front. But in general, Napoleonic armies still moved "point-to-point" rather than along a broad front.

By the 20th Century, armies were so large that continuous front lines became the norm. This was never the case at any previous time in history.

I am frankly concerned by the one-unit-per-hex, Panzer General style model that is being introduced, because it implies that all warfare down the ages is being modelled as though it were 20th Century, continuous front warfare. Ideally, the combat dynamic should be able to mirror the changing character of warfare down the ages.

It looks to me like the new combat system will treat the world as though it were a tactical battlefield (putting spearmen on the flanks, archers behind "firing over lakes" etc). I find this disappointing because it has little in common with actual military strategy as it was practiced throughout most of history.

I must admit, that was an excellent post.

 

[Ahriman]

I think that this misses the point. It is true that, for most of history, warfare has been big armies wandering around and engaging in siege and sometimes battle.

But to conclude that this means that the Civ-style Stack of Doom combat system is at all realistic is absurd. In real war, the defender didn't always get to defend against a particular unit with its strongest defender. Cavalry didn't charge headlong into spearmen or pikemen. Gunships didn't only attack the enemy's SAM troops.

In real war, the attacker's initiative is a potent strategic advantage. In civ it is just the opposite; with the sole exception of collateral damage, the defender has *all* the advantages, of terrain and of getting to defend with the best specialist unit.
The more specialized the units are, the more the combat system favors the defender.

More importantly, the system means that the actual strategic content of warfare is basically zero. Warfare is; build a big stack and advance towards the enemy. No consideration for placement, or for using specialist units in different ways.

I am more than willing to suffer the historical inaccuracy of wars being held in long fronts (really replicating a tactical battle line) in order to get a combat system with some more depth and more options.

 

[Jabba]

I don't think anyone is arguing that there shouldn't be changes to the combat system. The question is whether they aren't going too far, losing certain positive features that were intrinsic to the game. There are already many other games that use the Panzer General system, so Civ will lose part of its unique charm.

By the way, I always found that there were lots of strategic or tactical choices to be made when conducting "stack-of-doom" warfare. For example, it sometimes makes sense to divide the stack and attack from different directions (or distances, in the case of mobile units). This is to limit the risk of collateral damage from the defenders' artillery.

The order of attacking is also extremely important. Do you attack immediately with your strongest units to increase the chances of success (and risk losing them, with all their hard-earned promotions)? Or do you throw in cannon fodder first to soften up the defender? These choices always depend on the specific situation.

Whether the Civ warfare model was ideal is certainly debatable, but I've always had a lot of fun with it.

 

[Carver]

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

Good point. However, in the ancient era, I think we are talking more about hundreds of warriors, not thousands.

 

[Gliese 581]

Here is a random screenshot from Panzer General:

http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/panzer-general/screenshots/gameShotId,60856/

It should be readilly apparent why this type of game, however simplistic in its simulation, is able to model a battle like Kursk far better than any civ game has heretofore ever done.

 

[Jabba]

However, in the ancient era, I think we are talking more about hundreds of warriors, not thousands.

You can always see how big your army is supposed to be by looking at the Demographics screen.

It starts off at 7,000-8,000, and is soon in the tens of thousands. Later in the game it is in the hundreds of thousands. A single warrior unit therefore represents thousands of men.

This is entirely logical. Even in 4000 BC you are playing an entire nation.

 

[Andrew_Jay]

No one seems to have realised what is - IMHO - the essence of the problem. The nature of warfare changed over time.

Civilization style "stack-of-doom" warfare was, in fact, pretty much exactly the way wars were fought for most of history. Rolling up with a single large army to besiege one enemy city after another is exactly what happened in ancient and medieval warfare.

For most of history, populations and therefore armies were too small to defend entire frontiers. Armies were concentrated in one place, and would move around the country as a concentrated mass. This is how Hannibal roamed around Italy, and it was also the way war was waged in the Crusades, in the Hundred Years' War or the 30 Years War.

It was Napoleon who changed this by introducing Army Corps in the early 19th Century. Conscription also meant that armies became larger and could therefore cover more front. But in general, Napoleonic armies still moved "point-to-point" rather than along a broad front.

By the 20th Century, armies were so large that continuous front lines became the norm. This was never the case at any previous time in history.

I am frankly concerned by the one-unit-per-hex, Panzer General style model that is being introduced, because it implies that all warfare down the ages is being modelled as though it were 20th Century, continuous front warfare. Ideally, the combat dynamic should be able to mirror the changing character of warfare down the ages.

It looks to me like the new combat system will treat the world as though it were a tactical battlefield (putting spearmen on the flanks, archers behind "firing over lakes" etc). I find this disappointing because it has little in common with actual military strategy as it was practiced throughout most of history.

I'm just going to re-post what I posted in another thread:

That was originally my view - a SOD-killer is great for modern wars, but SOD still makes sense pre-20th century. Problem is, how do you implement that? Allow stacking in the beginning but progressively take it away? It would be a weird mechanic to try and build into the game and open to exploits (example: if the tile limit were decreased with technology, players have an incentive to avoid that technology, etc.).

Also, I've come around to thinking that it's really just an issue of abstracting the scale (which already happens in the game).

This is the kind of battle that the 1UPT system will simulate very well:

Units spread along a front, breakthroughs exploited to maneuver and surround the enemy, etc. The battle overall taking up a lot of physical space.

Now, consider a battle that we would consider so small as to take place within a single tile (and thus best simulated with a SOD):

The mechanics are still the same. You have armies that consist of multiple units arranged in a line, facing units opposite them. Breakthroughs and flanks are exploited to give the armies advantages on the field, etc.

Sure, it might be weird to have the latter battle take up half of the Italian peninsula, but that's the kind of abstraction players have always dealt with in Civilization. The best part is that it allows all eras to make use of the opportunities provided by 1UPT.

It would be far weirder if the game basically said that hoplites, legions and cavalry (and knights and pikemen and longbowmen and musketeers and grenadiers etc. etc. etc.) were just units to be haphazardly tossed at an enemy stack while reserving an entirely different system, with its own set of deep and nuanced rules (maneuver, flanking, fronts, ranged attack, etc.) for modern infantry, armour and marines.

 

[Jabba]

Sure, it might be weird to have the latter battle take up half of the Italian peninsula, but that's the kind of abstraction players have always dealt with in Civilization.

And we get to the nub of the issue. One guy's abstraction is another guy's unhistorical nonsense. The battlefield of Cannae simply isn't the whole of Russia, and any comparison between the two would strike most people as absurd.

It would be far weirder if the game basically said that hoplites, legions and cavalry (and knights and pikemen and longbowmen and musketeers and grenadiers etc. etc. etc.) were just units to be haphazardly tossed at an enemy stack

This has never been the way I have managed combat in Civ. Far from being haphazard it has always involved considerable micromanagement. Anyone who attacks any-old-how doesn't know how to handle his units properly.

Actually I might like the new combat system if it means a bit less micromanagement, which it probably will.

while reserving an entirely different system, with its own set of deep and nuanced rules (maneuver, flanking, fronts, ranged attack, etc.) for modern infantry, armour and marines.

The ideal would not be too different sub-systems, but one system that captured the changes in military strategy as technology evolved. In other words, as armies become larger and more mobile, they take up longer fronts. As siege artillery becomes more powerful, the defensive importance of cities declines and it makes more sense to fight in the open.

I doubt one-unit-per-hex can mimic the evolution of warfare, if it means that medieval armies are spread out across a thousand miles like in Operation Barbarossa. But we shall see. May be if the armies are kept relatively small and grow larger over time, you'll still get a sense of how warfare changed.

I always loved Panzer General and its derivatives by the way. But I liked the siege warfare emphasis in Civ because it was quirky, and felt a lot like history on a grand scale.

The Europa Universalis games are also pretty fun, yet the combat system revolves around besieging cities with stacks of doom. Just because you're not figuring out which flank to put your archers on doesn't mean you aren't taking tactical decisions or having nail-biting fun.

 

[Che Guava]

Interesting stuff, Jabba/Andrew. I have to agree that I never had too much of a problem with the SOD, because, given the scale of things, civ was never a game to me about actual battlefield tactics, just overal war strategy. The seemingly random way in which units in a stack attacked cities is a bit odd, but overall I think it averages out to something sufficiently realistic, even if certain units seem to bear the brunt of attacks.

The only major changes I would have made would be to increase the cost of units so that you couldn't end up with the massive, nearly unstopable stacks you find in civIV, and increase the number of units that could cause collateral damage to all cavalry and attacking archer units....

 

[Ahriman]

I doubt one-unit-per-hex can mimic the evolution of warfare

I doubt *any* system can really mimic the historic evolution of warfare over time. A system that works for modern war will be ahistoric for older battles, and a system that works for ancient/medieval war will be inaccurate for modern war.

So pick something fun, instead.

 

[Thormodr]

I doubt *any* system can really mimic the historic evolution of warfare over time. A system that works for modern war will be ahistoric for older battles, and a system that works for ancient/medieval war will be inaccurate for modern war.

So pick something fun, instead.

Amen. I think 1UPT will be a lot funner and more interesting.

Complaining about realism is ridiculous because we might as well just cancel the whole game then. It's a game with a historical flavour. Not a military or historical simulator.

 

[migkillertwo]

I doubt *any* system can really mimic the historic evolution of warfare over time. A system that works for modern war will be ahistoric for older battles, and a system that works for ancient/medieval war will be inaccurate for modern war.

So pick something fun, instead.

I disagree, I think its entirely possible. If you had more than 1UPT, and had armies get progressively larger as civilization goes on then you could mimic the evolution of warfare. This way you could have SOD war in ancient times since you can only muster pathetically small (by today's standards at least) and relatively immobile forces. However, as technology improves, armies get larger and more mobile, so there could still be dynamic-front warfare.

 

[Jabba]

I rather agree with migkillertwo. What is obviously true is that there are a lot of alternatives in between the two extremes under discussion.

It isn’t correct to assume that one either has to have UNLIMITED stacking per tile, as in Civ IV, or else NO stacking per hex, as in Civ V. Clearly, limited stacking would represent a happy medium.

It seems obvious to me that this would better mimic warfare (in any century) at this scale, while also leaving plenty of scope for maneuver and tactical flexibility.

 

[Woodreaux]

I rather agree with migkillertwo. What is obviously true is that there are a lot of alternatives in between the two extremes under discussion.

It isn’t correct to assume that one either has to have UNLIMITED stacking per tile, as in Civ IV, or else NO stacking per hex, as in Civ V. Clearly, limited stacking would represent a happy medium.

It seems obvious to me that this would better mimic warfare (in any century) at this scale, while also leaving plenty of scope for maneuver and tactical flexibility.

I agree, it's exactly what I outlined in my last post. Tiles having intrinsic unit capacity values, like the way they have , and .

If that isn't enough, constrain it further by requiring logistic support, via roads/railroads that connect to the trade network. They could even increase the number of route types and include log-pack/convoy units. This way the game mechanics will drastically reduce the ability to stack units without a pointless, arbitrary rule that has "no more SoD" written all over it. Aspects of Railroads! could be incorporated. I don't want to hear "that'll make the game too complicated". They already stripped out and . If they make it any simpler, then it'll be Civ-Rev w/hexes, 86 SoD.

Just so readers are clear, I know a single unit represents more than one man, like a battalion. So what if I want to attack a battalion with a brigade or a division?

 

[Andrew_Jay]

It would be far weirder if the game basically said that hoplites, legions and cavalry (and knights and pikemen and longbowmen and musketeers and grenadiers etc. etc. etc.) were just units to be haphazardly tossed at an enemy stack while reserving an entirely different system, with its own set of deep and nuanced rules (maneuver, flanking, fronts, ranged attack, etc.) for modern infantry, armour and marines.

This has never been the way I have managed combat in Civ. Far from being haphazard it has always involved considerable micromanagement. Anyone who attacks any-old-how doesn't know how to handle his units properly.

Obviously there is a process to the whole thing and some decisions to make (but not many): first you bombard the city to reduce its defences over a couple of turns, then you first attack with artillery to cause collateral damage and finally you throw units at the enemy depending on combat strengths/bonuses (raiders first, if the enemy has a stack of spearmen you're not going to attack with chariots, etc.).

But that's about all there is to it in terms of strategy.

Like I said, it would be weird if the game had a system where units could maneuver, flank, etc. through 1UPT, but in ancient eras used a SOD and the only strategy involved was 1) deciding what tile to park your SOD on, and 2) deciding what order to use when throwing your units at the enemy.

I would rather the game allowed you to fight the battle of Cannae by driving off the enemy cavalry with your own, surrounding the enemy infantry and attacking them from all sides, regardless of whether that takes up more space in the game world than it is "supposed" to.

You're really losing out if you simply represent the battle with a stack of Carthaginian infantry and cavalry facing a larger stack of Roman legions and cavalry.

 

[migkillertwo]

I agree, it's exactly what I outlined in my last post. Tiles having intrinsic unit capacity values, like the way they have , and .

If that isn't enough, constrain it further by requiring logistic support, via roads/railroads that connect to the trade network. They could even increase the number of route types and include log-pack/convoy units. This way the game mechanics will drastically reduce the ability to stack units without a pointless, arbitrary rule that has "no more SoD" written all over it. Aspects of Railroads! could be incorporated. I don't want to hear "that'll make the game too complicated". They already stripped out and . If they make it any simpler, then it'll be Civ-Rev w/hexes, 86 SoD.

Just so readers are clear, I know a single unit represents more than one man, like a battalion. So what if I want to attack a battalion with a brigade or a division?

I've suggested logistics before. Apparently it'd be too complex. I dont see why, I think its a great way to stress the importance of maneuver in modern warfare.