Civ 8 And Commanders/1UPT/Doomstacks

[tman2000]

Not really a Civ 8 forum here, but that's what I want to discuss. I suppose the appropriate place is where there are "lessons learned" from Civ VII, so Civ VII players would be the most appropriate audience for the discussion.

I was just thinking of how Civ 8 at this point needs to just try to be advanced Civ 4 with better graphics. Civ 9 can strive to be the "nuCiv 5". I think we need 4 again (I'd be partial to converting the villa concept into a specialty district lite)

That said, Civ 7's army commanders provides an interesting update to the 1UPT concept, which is probably somewhat here to stay for two reasons:

1. Hexes are better
2. Doomstacks hearken to an era of visual abstraction that modern graphics don't require. Seeing your units on a map, tactically and tactilely moving them is just part and parcel of modern graphics.

Even so, army commanders (the concept) could accommodate a hybrid 1UPT/DS system.

• What I imagine is that you have a field officer, which is an abstracted unit assigned anytime you have an orphan unit with no officer.
• These "units" can upgrade over time.
• When you place more than one unit on a tile, they are all under the command of the officer, so there cannot be more than one officer per tile.
• In the officer tooltip/menu, you can arrange the order of battle for the units on that tile. The top unit is the main unit and will appear visually on the tile.
• Adjacent officers can permit shuffling of units across multiple adjacent tiles with the unlocked officer ability.
• Adjacent officers can support each other, say a few soft volleys of arrows automatically from adjacent tiles if a melee unit is defending. With the requisite unlocked ability.
• Adjacent officers can provide combat bonuses, with the requisite abilities.
• Like in Civ 7, with the right abilities, officers can stack many units to move across the map faster, heal quicker, etc.
• The main unit in a stack will have full combat ability, creating a 1UPT emphasis. However, the other units are "reserve" and weaken with each order of battle. This would make them "stacks" rather than "doom stacks".

This system would still emphasis 1UPT tactics and thinking, but make movement and map management trivial. The adjacencies and officer abilities would make arranging units on a battlefield tremendously fun, especially with support abilities like auto-ranged and auto-cavalry attacks. However, you can still play by sending a massive wave of stacked units against a city gates either way. I imagine the AI would be a kind of bootstrap where it can be programmed to do a few "smart" things like arranged ranged units and cavalry to take advantage of bonuses, but otherwise it thinks in terms of stacks to simplify decision making.

This would also allow for unique unit variety. Some archers may be slightly better at support on defending, others slightly better at support on attacks, others just generally better at direct volleys.

Civ 7 army commander users, what do you think? Does this concept help bridge 1UPT and DS or is it a mess of its own?

 

[MutilationWave]

I like your ideas. I would play that game.

I think commanders were the best addition to 7 by far. What I worry about is turning people off by further complicating the system.

How many players think to use their commanders to their full potential in 7? One example is right now I've got two commanders in a long navigable river. I use them like bridges to get my units across without movement loss. It took me many hours of play to think of using them this way, but that is less complex than what you suggest.

Like I said, I think they are good ideas, and this is coming from someone who hated doomstacks. 1UPT was a huge upgrade for me, despite the problems inherent to it.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I think the biggest problem with both 1upt and stacks is too many units. When you have too many units in 1upt, it leads to carpet of doom where units obstruct each other's path. It becomes tedious and frustrating to move and fight. I would add that while civ7 made moving units easier with commanders and the packing ability, since combat is still fought 1upt style, it can still be frustrating to move units in combat when you have a lot of units on the front line. And when you have too many units with stacks, it leads to stacks of doom where stacks get so big and powerful that any tactics become meaningless.

So I think the best way to fix 1upt and stacks is by simply limiting the number of total units an empire can have and limiting the number of units in a stack. If you do this, I think you can have the best of both worlds. You can have stacks that make it easier to move units around. If the stacks are small then they don't become stacks of doom. And if you have several small stacks, then each stack can be like a unit and you can still have 1upt style tactics. For example, you could have a stack of 3 swordsmen, a stack of 2 archers, a stack of 2 catapults, and a stack of 1 swordsmen and 2 horsemen. And you can do tactics with each stack similar to 1upt. You could put your archer stack behind the swordsmen stack for support. You could use the stack of catapults on a nearby hill to hit the city etc...

And I think this could work with your idea of officers. You could have stacks of 2 units with an officer. You could still have commanders that allow you to stack 4+ units with the extra abilities that come from commander promotions. Your commander stacks could fight as a stack by simply attacking with each unit one by one. Or you could number the slots in the commander to determine the order in which units can attack.

I also think giving the player that flexibility where they can scatter some units 1upt to cover more territory or assembe 2-stacks, or have a commander leader a stack of 4, allows for more strategy. And it allows the player the ability to group some units as they see fit for tactics or to give themselves more space to maneuver to avoid congestion. And as long as the total number of units is reasonable for the map size, things will be manageable.