The naval game is fairly boring, naval invasion really is not a big thing apart from Kupe where is is a preferred method in some ways. You would probably need a higher res map and smaller timeline to make it more logically viable.
Embarking only from harbours make sense for large armies but earlier raiding units, I am not so convinced, Civ just keeps simple rules over the game which in this case I think is the right choice here.
First thought? You don't need to yell at me
:thumbsup:
 
The naval game is fairly boring, naval invasion really is not a big thing apart from Kupe where is is a preferred method in some ways. You would probably need a higher res map and smaller timeline to make it more logically viable.
Embarking only from harbours make sense for large armies but earlier raiding units, I am not so convinced, Civ just keeps simple rules over the game which in this case I think is the right choice here.

:thumbsup:

Simplicity in game design is usually a virtue

For most of human history, a sandy shore that you could safely beach your galley and dudes could climb out and then a tide lifts the empty vessel out was sufficient.
 
First thought? You don't need to yell at me. :mischief:

In general, I like these kind of mechanics also for the fact that other civs, like Maori or the Vikings, could then have bonuses like "are allowed to embark from non-cliff tiles".

Personally, what I would really like to see is some sort of sphere in which your units do not get damaged. People here spoke about healing outside your territory already, but I would like to see it reversed.

I imagine some sort of sphere of influence, not the same as your own territory, in which your units can operate without getting damaged. Beyond that, the further they go the quicker they get damaged. This would simulate the lack of information, lack of supply chains, dangers of new territory, etc.

This sphere would grow throughout the ages with various technologies, and thus would impact scouts and other units in the early stages of the game, leaving more exploration until later in the game. Personally, that's one of my major gripes. Because players explore the whole map by the medieval age (at the latest I'd say), there are no major decisions much longer after that.

I think your on to something please explain more. Possibly examples
 
Even the Spanish Armada surely did not expect a harbour free to land in.

No your missing what Im saying, as time advances so should game mechanics, the game should become more complex and difficult as history progress. So should warfare. I'm not saying this mechanic should exist in the early eras but the late eras to provide complexity. Just as warfare now and forever will be more and more complex.
 
Just as warfare now and forever will be more and more complex.
… as long as we stay within MAD then perhaps. Until someone develops solar powered micro killer drones that randomly stop and start to avoid EMP.
@Boris Gudenuf is modern stuff now building in a non reliance on satellites?
 
Historically directly assaulting a port tended to end horribly and was avoided whenever possible, including the modern era.
 
Historically directly assaulting a port tended to end horribly and was avoided whenever possible, including the modern era.

The WW2 Battle of the Coral Sea was all about stopping the invasion of Port Moresby. Cleary important ports were important enough to risk Carrier strike groups
 
The WW2 Battle of the Coral Sea was all about stopping the invasion of Port Moresby. Cleary important ports were important enough to risk Carrier strike groups

Even assuming the Japanese were intending to directly assault the port itself (which is an enormous assumption on your part) literally every single major amphibious operation of both world wars with one significant exception that proves the rule actively avoided directly assaulting a defended port for very good reasons

The exception was Dieppe, which was a proof of concept of assaulting a port, and it ended in a horrible massacre for the attackers. The Allies drew the correct conclusions and picked Normandy for OverLord.

Even the absolute best case scenario, the raid on St Naziere, which featured elite British commandos with direct support from MGB’s achieving total strategic and tactical surprise against a 4rth rate German garrison of Sgt Shultz’s, and the attackers making no attempt to actually hold the port, they still took heavy losses.
 
… as long as we stay within MAD then perhaps. Until someone develops solar powered micro killer drones that randomly stop and start to avoid EMP.
@Boris Gudenuf is modern stuff now building in a non reliance on satellites?

At the cutting edge of military technology, in the USA and Russia for sure and possibly in China, there is a trend now to 'devolve' from satellites to drones and more specific and controllable platforms. Satellites are seen as potentially too hard to protect from an enemy with the requisite capabilities, as the recent Russian anti-satellite test in orbit shows.
Although, for at least 30 years now both Russia/USSR and the USA have been including various protective/stealth technologies in their military satellites, most of which are still classified Tippy Top Secret because satellite protection is so important and so ephemeral - the next new technology/capability may make all your satellites vulnerable, and upgrading them is hideously expensive


The WW2 Battle of the Coral Sea was all about stopping the invasion of Port Moresby. Cleary important ports were important enough to risk Carrier strike groups

That's because everywhere else on the coast of New Guinea is jungle: lots of places to land, no place to go after you landed, and no way to sustain any landed force bigger than a battalion unless you seized a port. ALL amphibious invasions that planned to invade rather than raid needed port facilities to sustain the force: only the USA ever developed capabilities to sustain over the beaches, and that only for a short time - even Normandy aimed at seizing a port as soon as possible.
Do not confuse Amphibious Invasion with Amphibious Sustainment, they are two different things requiring two different sets of terrain/infrastructure and force. As noted, attacking a port from the sea was usually considered suicidal (see Dieppe, or the Napoleonic maxim among sailors that "only a fool would fight a fort"). You land on the beach, and take the port from the land side by preference - see the North African invasions of 1942, the invasions of Sicily and Italy in 1943 - 44, in which only a single attempt (in North Africa) was made to land troops in the port itself, and that was a disaster.
 
At the cutting edge of military technology, in the USA and Russia for sure and possibly in China, there is a trend now to 'devolve' from satellites to drones and more specific and controllable platforms. Satellites are seen as potentially too hard to protect from an enemy with the requisite capabilities, as the recent Russian anti-satellite test in orbit shows.
Although, for at least 30 years now both Russia/USSR and the USA have been including various protective/stealth technologies in their military satellites, most of which are still classified Tippy Top Secret because satellite protection is so important and so ephemeral - the next new technology/capability may make all your satellites vulnerable, and upgrading them is hideously expensive




That's because everywhere else on the coast of New Guinea is jungle: lots of places to land, no place to go after you landed, and no way to sustain any landed force bigger than a battalion unless you seized a port. ALL amphibious invasions that planned to invade rather than raid needed port facilities to sustain the force: only the USA ever developed capabilities to sustain over the beaches, and that only for a short time - even Normandy aimed at seizing a port as soon as possible.
Do not confuse Amphibious Invasion with Amphibious Sustainment, they are two different things requiring two different sets of terrain/infrastructure and force. As noted, attacking a port from the sea was usually considered suicidal (see Dieppe, or the Napoleonic maxim among sailors that "only a fool would fight a fort"). You land on the beach, and take the port from the land side by preference - see the North African invasions of 1942, the invasions of Sicily and Italy in 1943 - 44, in which only a single attempt (in North Africa) was made to land troops in the port itself, and that was a disaster.

I think trying to model logistics at that level of detail is definitly beyond the scope of Civ6.

Logistics are more or less abstracted into the different healing rates in the game, and I don’t know that it would be smart to get more granular, except possibly having modifiers for terrain
 
I think trying to model logistics at that level of detail is definitly beyond the scope of Civ6.

Logistics are more or less abstracted into the different healing rates in the game, and I don’t know that it would be smart to get more granular, except possibly having modifiers for terrain
we need a CIV game combined with a hearts of iron type game.
 
I think trying to model logistics at that level of detail is definitly beyond the scope of Civ6.

Logistics are more or less abstracted into the different healing rates in the game, and I don’t know that it would be smart to get more granular, except possibly having modifiers for terrain

I think logistics could be modeled in a way that would not make gamers want to throw the computer out the nearest window in frustration, but it would require moving away from the Computer As Board Game and make full use of the computer's capabilities.

For instance, I would start with the absolute Priority of Keeping It As Simple As Possible, in that even with computers there is no reason to differentiate among types of supply: you are in supply or not, you don't worry about having enough bread, ammunition, spare parts, or other fiddling details (no matter how important they are to actual Supply Officers) Supply Lines would be automatically traced to the nearest Supply Point, and those would be kept really simple: friendly City, friendly Fortress, late-game Specially Built Log (Logistics) Center which might, as an example, require Military Engineer(s) and a major investment in Gold or Production. Variations in length of allowed supply lines due to terrain, climate, and technology would be figured by the computer and shown to you as you move a unit as a simple tint or 'halo' around the unit graphic: Green = In Supply, Red = Out of Supply, Penalties applied (by the computer) at the beginning of your next turn if you end the Unit's turn with a red 'halo'.
The supply line could show on the map as a string of appropriate graphics: carts, pack animals, wagons, trucks, etc.
Given the 1 year or more scale of Game Turns, effects of being out of supply would affect the start of your next turn: early in the game it would be loss of Health, late-game would be reduction in Combat Factors and Movement Factors since the most important late game supplies are Fuel and Ammunition rather than Food (In WWII, Ammunition amounted to 90% of an infantry division's supply requirements, Food/Rations for troops only 10%. IF the division used horse-drawn transport, fodder for the horses could by weight be as much as twice the amount required for humans, but was still dwarfed by the amount of ammunition that artillery and automatic weapons could consume)

Assuming the customers want supply lines/logistics at all I would not want anything more complex than that, and definitely nothing that requires the gamer to figure out length of supply lines or amount of supplies required: that would change Civ from a game to a form of sadistic punishment, IMHO . . .
 
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I think logistics could be modeled in a way that would not make gamers at to throw the computer out the nearest window in frustration, but it would require moving away from the Computer As Board Game and make full use of the computer's capabilities.

For instance, I would start with the absolute Priority of Keeping It As Simple As Possible, in that even with computers there is no reason to differentiate among types of supply: you are in supply or not, you don't worry about having enough bread, ammunition, spare parts, or other fiddling details (no matter how important they are to actual Supply Officers) Supply Lines would be automatically traced to the nearest Supply Point, and those would be kept really simple: friendly City, friendly Fortress, late-game Specially Built Log (Logistics) Center which might, as an example, require Military Engineer(s) and a major investment in Gold or Production. Variations in length of allowed supply lines due to terrain, climate, and technology would be figured by the computer and shown to you as you move a unit as a simple tint or 'halo' around the unit graphic: Green = In Supply, Red = Out of Supply, Penalties applied (by the computer) at rthe beginning of your next turn if you end the Unit's turn with a red 'halo'.
The supply line could show on the map as a string of appropriate graphics: carts, pack animals, wagons, trucks, etc.
Given the 1 year or more scale of Game Turns, effects of being out of supply would affect the start of your next turn: early in the game it would be loss of Health, late-game would be reduction in Combat Factors and Movement Factors since the most important late game supplies are Fuel and Ammunition rather than Food (In WWII, Ammunition amounted to 90% of an infantry division's supply requirements, Food/Rations for troops only 10%. IF the division used horse-drawn transport, fodder for the horses could by weight be as much as twice the amount required for humans, but was still dwarfed by the amount of ammunition that artillery and automatic weapons could consume)

Assuming the customers want supply lines/logistics at all I would not want anything more complex than that, and definitely nothing that requires the gamer to figure out length of supply lines or amount of supplies required: that would change Civ from a game to a form of sadistic punishment, IMHO . . .


I just think Combat and Warfare need a MAJR overhaul for CIV 7. Warfare at this stage in CIV games is very basic and bland. Yet Warfare is so important to the games core function. Warfare in General has shaped history. Honestly if were being honest a lot of Civilization needs and Overhauls to more accurately represent history and Nation/Empire building. The fact of the matter is Civilization is an history Nation building game that stretches through history. Hopefully CIV 7 will take advantage core ideals of the game.
 
Yet Warfare is so important to the games core function.
Is it, though? I mean, it certainly can be. Domination is a possible victory type, and several civs like the Zulu aren't very good at much else. But Civ isn't a "war game" per se. I've said elsewhere and I'll say again here that if combat takes more than 5 seconds to resolve it's taking too much of my time. This is one of the things I hate about Humankind: you're at a disadvantage if you auto-resolve combat, yet combat itself is woefully tedious. At Civ's scale, introducing tactical complexity to combat makes no sense.

The fact of the matter is Civilization is an history Nation building game that stretches through history.
Yes, this is the crux of the matter. At the core, Civilization is a civilization building game (I'd prefer avoiding the term "nation" here as it carries a great deal of baggage that I don't care to get into the weeds about). Making combat more granular just distracts from the building aspects. Not to say that combat couldn't use some rethinking (I'm certainly not one to offer suggestions on the topic as I avoid combat whenever possible), but it doesn't need more complexity than it already has.

Honestly if were being honest a lot of Civilization needs and Overhauls to more accurately represent history and Nation/Empire building.
I agree, with caveats. Civ is not a simulation nor a grand strategy game, and it shouldn't attempt to be one. There are levels of complexity that don't suit the genre, and at the end of the day some compromises with abstraction have to be made for playability. At the top of my wishlist is a more nuanced and less state-centric portrayal of religion, expanded diplomacy without resorting to the ever-unpopular World Congress, ethnic/cultural identity for population, and better AI personalities. All of these are possible without overcomplicating the game, as can be demonstrated either by other 4X games or even previous Civ games.
 
I think logistics could be modeled in a way that would not make gamers want to throw the computer out the nearest window in frustration, but it would require moving away from the Computer As Board Game and make full use of the computer's capabilities.

For instance, I would start with the absolute Priority of Keeping It As Simple As Possible, in that even with computers there is no reason to differentiate among types of supply: you are in supply or not, you don't worry about having enough bread, ammunition, spare parts, or other fiddling details (no matter how important they are to actual Supply Officers) Supply Lines would be automatically traced to the nearest Supply Point, and those would be kept really simple: friendly City, friendly Fortress, late-game Specially Built Log (Logistics) Center which might, as an example, require Military Engineer(s) and a major investment in Gold or Production. Variations in length of allowed supply lines due to terrain, climate, and technology would be figured by the computer and shown to you as you move a unit as a simple tint or 'halo' around the unit graphic: Green = In Supply, Red = Out of Supply, Penalties applied (by the computer) at the beginning of your next turn if you end the Unit's turn with a red 'halo'.
The supply line could show on the map as a string of appropriate graphics: carts, pack animals, wagons, trucks, etc.
Given the 1 year or more scale of Game Turns, effects of being out of supply would affect the start of your next turn: early in the game it would be loss of Health, late-game would be reduction in Combat Factors and Movement Factors since the most important late game supplies are Fuel and Ammunition rather than Food (In WWII, Ammunition amounted to 90% of an infantry division's supply requirements, Food/Rations for troops only 10%. IF the division used horse-drawn transport, fodder for the horses could by weight be as much as twice the amount required for humans, but was still dwarfed by the amount of ammunition that artillery and automatic weapons could consume)

Assuming the customers want supply lines/logistics at all I would not want anything more complex than that, and definitely nothing that requires the gamer to figure out length of supply lines or amount of supplies required: that would change Civ from a game to a form of sadistic punishment, IMHO . . .

I would stick with the model of health and healing rates, it’s simple, intuitive and readily apparent. Have a “how far are you from a supply head” mechanic. The closer you are, the higher your healing rate; this neatly bundles together both supply and replacements. At a certain point your healing rate becomes zero, and past that you lose health per turn.

A supply head is a friendly city, fortress or naval unit.

The supply chain had a certain number of movement points as if a phantom unit was “walking” from your unit to a supply head. This automatically factors in terrain and enemy ZOC’s. It also factors in roads. If you are tracing to a ship a friendly harbor really helps.

The number of movement points varies with certain techs; things like Animal Husbandry, The Wheel etc extend it. Certain resources like Horses, Coal and Oil do as well. Yes I know that oxen were usually the prime movers over horses (till you had horse collars) but let’s keep it simple.

The one thing I’m not sure about is how to cleanly and simply portray this on the map. I may be overthinking this of course.

This mechanic also seamlessly integrates living off the land as plundering farms restores health

Finally I would make recon class units immune from supply issues. Something to make this otherwise almost useless unit class more attractive to build.

Edit: I would lower the move cost of water hexes by at least half; seaborne supply lines are dramatically more efficient than overland ones
 
The one thing I’m not sure about is how to cleanly and simply portray this on the map.
Just have a lense. Different shades for different supply levels, darker means more supply. Striped for where there are two different civs with supply. Alternatively, only one civ can have supply in a given hex - that might make sieges interesting. Or might make walls even more OP against the AI.
 
Assuming the customers want supply lines/logistics at all I would not want anything more complex than that, and definitely nothing that requires the gamer to figure out length of supply lines or amount of supplies required: that would change Civ from a game to a form of sadistic punishment, IMHO . . .
Ooh!!:nuke: Campaign For North Africa (SPI). Awesome game, for me only as study material & portrayal of 'real logistics.' Played a scenario of it once with a friend ...
and as a sole player (instead of having a STAFF of players assisting me), I found that my organizational capabilities were not, not, NOT up to the task. :(
 
OK I’ll take a crack at Enhanced But Still Simple Combat Mechanics for Civ

I like most of the way combat works in Civ6 and I think it’s an appropriate level of detail but I have two issues with it.

First, the Carpet of Doom. Strict 1UPT means you have to basically solve a sliding tile puzzle every time you have an army larger than a few units. It’s not even remotely fun. Worse, it’s hilariously ahistorical, even for a game that is not trying to be a simulation

Second is ranged units and LOS. The 1UPT means that units have to have multi hex range to be effective. This just feels all sorts of wrong at the scale of Civ6. Adding LOS mechanics compounds the sliding tile problem and adds to frustration.

My attempt at fixing this is a simple mechanics change that would alleviate those problems while adding a lot of nuance to combat. Have a semi-1UPT where you can stack one of each class of unit in a hex, and then reduce the range of all ranged class units to one.

Bam. Unit congestion dramatically reduced and LOS head aches gone.

Combat follows the following rules:

Ranged units firing at a stack hit everyone there.

Ranged units cannot be attacked by non ranged units unless they are alone in the hex. They can only be bombarded by other ranged units

When a stack is attacked, the unit attacked follows the following priority list

Melee
Anti-Cav
Cavalry
Scout
Ranged

The Rock Paper Scissor bonuses and penalties still apply, and they apply to the whole hex. For example I have a melee unit stacked with an anti cav unit. It is attacked by cavalry. The cavalry bonus against melee is cancelled by the presence of the anti cav unit.

Finally, when you attack an enemy hex, you don’t get the “Combat Odds Preview” screen and the option to bail on the attack unless you have a scout adjacent to the hex.

The presence of an enemy unit in a hex puts the hex into “fog of war” unless you have a scout adjacent to the hex

The recon class now has a very important role.

Bam. Combined Arms with zero added complexity for the player.





Just have a lense. Different shades for different supply levels, darker means more supply. Striped for where there are two different civs with supply. Alternatively, only one civ can have supply in a given hex - that might make sieges interesting. Or might make walls even more OP against the AI.

Ya. That could work. The feedback effect of units healing at different rates will train the player as well

Ooh!!:nuke: Campaign For North Africa (SPI). Awesome game, for me only as study material & portrayal of 'real logistics.' Played a scenario of it once with a friend ...
and as a sole player (instead of having a STAFF of players assisting me), I found that my organizational capabilities were not, not, NOT up to the task. :(

Oh My God. The Italian units needing extra water to boil their pasta bwa ha ha
 
OK I’ll take a crack at Enhanced But Still Simple Combat Mechanics for Civ

I like most of the way combat works in Civ6 and I think it’s an appropriate level of detail but I have two issues with it.

First, the Carpet of Doom. Strict 1UPT means you have to basically solve a sliding tile puzzle every time you have an army larger than a few units. It’s not even remotely fun. Worse, it’s hilariously ahistorical, even for a game that is not trying to be a simulation

Second is ranged units and LOS. The 1UPT means that units have to have multi hex range to be effective. This just feels all sorts of wrong at the scale of Civ6. Adding LOS mechanics compounds the sliding tile problem and adds to frustration.

My attempt at fixing this is a simple mechanics change that would alleviate those problems while adding a lot of nuance to combat. Have a semi-1UPT where you can stack one of each class of unit in a hex, and then reduce the range of all ranged class units to one.

Bam. Unit congestion dramatically reduced and LOS head aches gone.

Combat follows the following rules:

Ranged units firing at a stack hit everyone there.

Ranged units cannot be attacked by non ranged units unless they are alone in the hex. They can only be bombarded by other ranged units

When a stack is attacked, the unit attacked follows the following priority list

Melee
Anti-Cav
Cavalry
Scout
Ranged

The Rock Paper Scissor bonuses and penalties still apply, and they apply to the whole hex. For example I have a melee unit stacked with an anti cav unit. It is attacked by cavalry. The cavalry bonus against melee is cancelled by the presence of the anti cav unit.

Finally, when you attack an enemy hex, you don’t get the “Combat Odds Preview” screen and the option to bail on the attack unless you have a scout adjacent to the hex.

The presence of an enemy unit in a hex puts the hex into “fog of war” unless you have a scout adjacent to the hex

The recon class now has a very important role.

Bam. Combined Arms with zero added complexity for the player.







Ya. That could work. The feedback effect of units healing at different rates will train the player as well



Oh My God. The Italian units needing extra water to boil their pasta bwa ha ha

Yea i dont hink it should be overly complexed, just add some more depth. We need the stacks of Doom Back lol
 
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