Civ 5 - less units!?

[tom2050]

From what I've heard, world size is either smaller or the same as Civ 4... I seriously don't believe it will be larger. Not with 1 unit per tile and less units overall.

Much smaller worlds should be expected, along with less cities, less units, less... everything.

Tom

 

[thungrim]

Where did you read that world size would be equal or less?
Why should we expect smaller worlds?

 

[tom2050]

That pretty much has to be the case, or you would have vast tracks of empty land.

Do you think that they are going to go back to the Civ 3 method of having 512 cities on a map?

Dennis Shirk:
Units take longer to build now, they're more expensive, and they're a lot more important to you, because you need to keep them alive. You can't just spam tons and tons of units. You could before, but we wanted to make it more interesting. So you have to make more decisions, advance in technology faster, and work towards building stronger units.

With units that are much more expensive to build, and each occupies a tile, having absolutely huge maps would make the game unplayable. Better 3d graphics and faster game speed also means maps will not be huge.

It fits in with everything else we know... therefore it is reasonable to expect map sizes are of Civ 4 proportions, and in my guess, probably a bit smaller; with the base game. Hopefully this all can be modded.

Tom

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I think we probably will have equal or less. And I am somewhat disappointed by that.

Especially since it seems a more productive empire will have to rely on Attrition to defeat a lesser productive one... replacing their units more rapidly (assuming equal techs).

Hopefully there is a wide 'cost range' of units... and easy ability to 'pool production' as the game goes on.

so that late game I can have a 100 cost Light Infantry unit, 240 cost Heavy Infantry, or a 500 cost Mech Infantry unit (being built by 4 cities pooling their resources either through some explicit mechanism or rush buying).. each with slightly different characteristics but a similar role.

 

[Senethro]

If you mindlessly want less, then wish for the game to have 1 unit, and pretend it's 1000.

It's about balance, instead of seeking a balance, they went to an extreme. Civ 4 combat is actually close to the same as Civ 3 combat, with minor changes. The single number system with bonus' works in the end the same way as 2 number system and no bonus'. Civ 4 had more options, but basically they are similar. Other than that, unit numbers were nerfed. And now nerfed again. See the trend?

It's easier for casual players to play a game with very few units... this is their goal, the casual player market is a huge money pile.

Civ 5 is now becoming like Tiger Woods Golf... they change things just to change things, with no thought on actually improving what made Civilization such a success initially.

Tom

All I'm seeing here is floods of tears for not being forced to spend 15 minutes on a late game turn moving all your units around.

Small is better. I forgot to make it clear in my previous post that I did not enjoy having to manage 500 units in Alpha Centauri by the equivalent of 1000AD. Reducing unit numbers is not a nerf unless you're the kind of guy who should be playing Dwarf Fortress instead.

 

[Steve the Noble]

I'm still curious as to the definition of a "unit". Could they be combined/split/altered/grown?

 

[Haydos]

The problem with this trend is that it IS NOT CIVILIZATION... It's some twisted sick form of it. Civ 6 you will end up with 1 unit the whole game and 1 city.

Tom

How about you stick with Civ4?

 

[Insanity_X]

No. Unit = Warrior/Swordsman/Worker/Settler. Combining units to make them stronger would replace SODs with uberunits of doom that can still roll over a city in one of two turns. They are trying to move away from SODs. Don't try to think of ways to make units stronger outside of promotions and upgrades.

 

[President]

I congratulate the game developers over this decision. In Civilization IV, it essentially felt as though all my ground units were just three men I strung together to go out and fight. They also die out, if they lose after one battle, even though we all know that battles between true armies have been mostly battles of attrition throughout history, or at least modern history. Making armies harder to create, but more valuable and harder to die, definitely makes this game more realistic, and therefore more strategic. These groups of men as a unit for your military now do actually seem like an army you can use and maneuver, as best you see fit. Now, in terms of upgrades and whatnot, let's remember that the Civilization series' primary love is from its incredible realism. With that, I admit that an army may become more experienced here and there, but that experience isn't necessarily substantial at all to prove to be a considerable leverage.

In war, however, technology is essential. The most experienced swordsmen couldn't fight off the inexperienced guns of the colonial powers, and so it is with great compliment I believe Sid Meier recognizes that. This will also solve the problem of horsemen chopping down a helicopter as well. This is a move towards realism, which is what the franchise has traditionally been doing since the beginning.

 

[tom2050]

Since everyone takes offense to my opinion.. I have changed it.

I absolutely love small numbers of units! Woo hoo!

 

[Solid]

My thoughts are that one unit per tile and a smaller number of units is good a good thing that will make warfare more realistic. The key thing her is to move the fighting outside of the cities, to create real fronts in the war. You will have to stop the enemy before he enters your land.

In my opinion this will also move the game towards a more diplomatic style of play, where war will be costly and something that the leaders of the world would dread. Hopefully (in my opinion as a builder at heart) this will make the wars fewer, shorter but so much more important. If you enter a war and lose it that should really hurt. (No more 5 century wars...)

Military strategy will probably also be much more important even on lower levels. Where do I place my units, and with what unit should I attack that swordman.
The base movement for units will be two hexes, this will make flanking a real possibility for cavalry units. Imagine your knight making it across a river around the enemies frontline to attack those pesky catapults hammering away on your infantry troops. That would be so cool and satisfying.

 

[Grawss]

As far as I can tell we have yet to hear any hard numbers on how many units we can have.

The developers aren't stupid; they know a lot of players want to finish a sixteen hour marathon game in a cold sweat after destroying Elizabeth's last few cities with their 200 units.

I know this may come as a shock to most of you complainers, but this game will not be limited to a single mode of game play with a single map size. Not only will a huge map likely feed your unit spamming tendencies, it will also give you all the micromanagement you desire.

Not enough units attacking a city? You will have six points of attack, then ranged attackers behind those, and siege behind those. Are you sure you've actually thought about this, or are you complaining just to complain?

I for one love the change, because it introduces actual strategy and will put a lot more people into the multiplayer scene. Rather than stacking as many units as possible, the game will revolve further upon intelligent army formations and movement in the battlefield. Fights will actually take intelligence rather than the simple matter of stack attacking and hoping you get lucky.

It's a change for the better, period.

 

[Gliese 581]

I think it's hard to argue that the PG system is superior for warfare over cIV's system. Now as to the question of how much of PG can be used in ciV that remians to be seen.
They could easily add features. I would not assume that SODs will be replaced by simple battle-lines. For one as a war progress one or the other side is likely to press forward at weakly defended spots, creating bulges and gaps that can be utilized for sending through fast units like cavalry, tanks etc, to strike at weaker support units in the rear like archers, artillery.
It would also be quite easy to add flanking attack bonuses for example giving a +flanking bonus to attacking units that grows proportionally to how many times the defending unit has already been attacked in the same turn. This would encourage panzer style pincher movements to put pressure at key spots and so on..

Like some people have pointed out, it's very hard to defend the countryside against an advancing SOD in cIV unless you can match it in number of units because smaller groups will be picked off and then be unavailable for city defense.
With the 1upt system it's much more feasible for a smaller army to hold off a larger army as the developers have indeed described by utilizing strong defensive terrain and chokepoints, this is not possible in cIV except in rare circumstances where you can block of a large area by 1 or 2 tiles, more than that and you rapidly start to dilute your stacks too much against any reasonable enemy SOD and leaving but 1 space unoccupied means they can ignore all your fortifications and simply pass you by.

 

[Takeda]

Like pi-r8, I have my worries about less units cranking up the luck factor. If units are fewer, what's to keep one unlucky roll of the dice from completely squashing your army?

Because units will no longer be destroyed by one lucky roll of the dice. Units in Civ V need to be defeated multiple times before they will be destroyed. Most of the time they will merely take damage/lose strength when they are defeated and will retreat. If you hit them when their already badly damaged, however, then you will kill them.

So that mitigates the luck factor just fine.

 

[SMA333M]

In Civilization, 1 unit is like an entire division... so if you have 1 Modern Armor on a tile, is like having an entire division of modern armors... so it's better to have less units, but more powerful ones. Just imagine the tactics of Civ 5 wars ! Like: you kill the units from a side and then send your horsemans to kill archers/artillery. The enemy units on front will then be surrounded and without support...

 

[Grawss]

My units will fight to the death or I will kill them myself.

 

[66th of Foot]

All the 'improvements' the devs have talked about...1upt,instant sea transport,longer time to build units,most likely not being destroyed in 1 turn,less cities etc...are all elements you see in a tactical battlefield game not in a strategic empire building game.The way I see their focus was designed to pull the game down to the level of the unit on the front line whereas the focus of previous incarnations of Civ,with flawed game mechanics,was at the level of the leader on a grand strategic level.We all play Civ our own way so basically something was there that kept us there,changing the overall game focus will draw new players in but also alienate some old line Civvers too.I prefer to see the whole forest not just an individual tree,if I want to look at 1 tree I'd play Total War or PG,if I want to see the whole forest I'll play Civ,flawed as it is,but at that level.

 

[the343danny]

CiV has been kind of a dream come true with these things. A few months ago, I was thinking "Only if wars were tactical, and not just about who gets to attack with siege first. I wish I can have a world war one scenario with a huge front. Nah, only in my dreams"

Well, not precisely that, but I think you get my point. Less units makes things more tactical, especially with the taking away of losing=instant death, and takes away what made late game such a drag to play.

 

[Cashew]

Smaller does not equal less complex. The gameplay will hopefully still be complex, and the smaller map sizes or whatever will simply clean up the management of units and such.

 

[esalkin]

Not enough units attacking a city? You will have six points of attack, then ranged attackers behind those, and siege behind those.

Which brings me back to my original point. How are you going to defend a city if you can only have one unit on the city tile !!! ???

Yea, I know - wait and see