civ4 needs ZoC

[jeremiahrounds]

Im really missing unit zone ZoC worse then in civ3 in civ4. It seems to scream zone of control with its simplified units and refinements.

For example. the 25% for defending across a river. Nice. However it misses something when you cant use a zone of control to block people from crossing. The enemy just plops over to the square next to you.

And now that units have no 3s. Zone of control emphasises a units mobility in a fun way. For example in that river example to movement speed 1 units with a long enough river and the attack unit could never get across the river without fighting against the 25% bonus. However if the attacking unit is speed 2 he can flank the defending unit to get across the river.

And why do they keep saying they want to get rid of stacks of doom without readding ZoC. One of the large contributing factors of stacks of doom is the fact that since you cant corral the enemy movement with ZoC there is less point to be spread out. Add ZoC back in and suddenly you want to send defenders along hills etc.

Anyway. I like the siege engine changes sort of civ1ish and some of the other ideas that seem civ1ish. However they lack something without civ1s ZoCs.

And also i never understood what the point was to no ZoC? Do people not like it? I found it to be interesting.

 

[MrCynical]

I never much liked the ZoC personally. It was sort of necessary in Civ 2 in peace time due to the lack of proper borders, but I don't see any need for it now. I never felt it made sense in war time. A unit's mobility is represented by it's movement, and it makes no sense to me that a couple of units can dictate how a huge stack moves.

Take your river example. A speed 1 unit shouldn't be able to stop a speed 2 crossing, for the simple reason that they can only move at half the speed. The fast unit simply gains ground as they move along the river until they're far enough ahead to cross safely before the slow unit catches up. This is basically how it works in game.

 

[Juhahu]

I never much liked the ZoC personally. It was sort of necessary in Civ 2 in peace time due to the lack of proper borders, but I don't see any need for it now. I never felt it made sense in war time. A unit's mobility is represented by it's movement, and it makes no sense to me that a couple of units can dictate how a huge stack moves.

Take your river example. A speed 1 unit shouldn't be able to stop a speed 2 crossing, for the simple reason that they can only move at half the speed. The fast unit simply gains ground as they move along the river until they're far enough ahead to cross safely before the slow unit catches up. This is basically how it works in game.

Even with ZOC that block movement, unit with 2 movement could get over the river. If there is N-S river and enemy just over the river in west, cavalry can move first S and then SW over the river.

I could live with similar ZOC that in civ3 too. If enemy passes through your ZOC, you get a free shot at it. Perhaps 2 first shots per enemy. If defender is archer, he will get 1+2 shots. Fortress and town would double amount of shots.

In current game fortress is completely useless. It has absolutely no use, which takes a lot off from strategic layer of game.

 

[JadeDragon87]

Yeah, I also miss ZoC.
People sometimes say that it is impossible that foot soldiers can defend such a great area. But if you hace in mind that the fortress send scouts to patrol the area and warns the fortress of enemy moves. It could explain why soldiers can slow down enemy movement.
In modern time it could be done by radar, satellites.

 

[jeremiahrounds]

ZoC is a metaphor used in wargames because real life isnt turned based.

Someone might say play ability is supreme however that was my case. I think civ4s simplified units would be more fun with ZoC.

 

[Gogf]

It would be nice to add back in the form of a promotion, perhaps one that archery and gunpowder units automatically get.

 

[gelbs]

The promotion idea is very good! Is this moddable?

 

[DementedAvenger]

If ZOC is added to Civ4, I'd much prefer the Civ3 style ZOC's. Units can move past your ZOC, but they take a small amount of damage doing so.

I think that having every unit with this ability would be unbalancing, so there are a couple of ways to implement this.

1: Only forts allow units to have a ZOC, and each unit gets one "free shot" per turn, which is about 20% damage.

2: Only fortified units with first strike have a ZOC, and when a unit passes by, your defending unit uses all its first strikes on it. Like defensive fortifications, the damage done could increase 20% (of base damage) every turn fortified, so that after 5 turns a unit does its full first strike damage on a passing enemy unit.

I like the 2nd option a little bit better, as I think the idea of a ZOC goes well with the idea of first strike. I would also like to see units passing by not take any damage if they have just as many first strikes as the fortified enemy.

 

[MrCynical]

Fortresses are one place I think a ZoC might work well, if only to make them some use again. At the moment they are only relevant on continents with a narrow bottleneck, and even then they aren't that much use. I think the Civ 3 approach of damaging passing units is probably better than blocking units completely, which never made a lot of sense. Only ranged type units (archers, longbowmen and I suppose just about all the gunpowder and later ones should have this). You can have promotions to increase the amount of damage done, and so on.

I still don't think it has a place for any unit in the field, but it would be a good way to make fortresses worth having.

 

[Frewfrux]

A simple way to make ZoC with fortifications work might be to have bomarding units (catapolts, cannon, artilary) automatically bombard enemy units in adjacent squares as if attacking them (ie. multiple units take a small amount of damage but without the bombarding unit actually attacking).

 

[sensoukami]

Some form of ZOC (some good ideas above) is, honestly, completely and utterly necessary. It's a strategy game for crying out loud! ZOC add to that element significantly. There is a reason the old "paper and cardboard unit" wargames had it, and it wasn't just for jollies.

Do the dev types read this stuff? Can we have a petition? It arguably the one missing piece that prevent this gaem from being a 10/10 (well..losing all culture when you conquer a city is pretty stupid actually, but its not as egregious a mistake as taking out zoc).

 

[DementedAvenger]

Losing all culture is necessary from a gameplay perspective, and at least makes sense in real life. It's not your culture you're taking over - you have to build that up yourself. If France were to conquer England, nobody would claim that Shakespeare was French.

 

[warpstorm]

Do the dev types read this stuff? Can we have a petition?

Yes and yes, but they aren't obligated to listen to it, especially since they don't like ZOCs.

 

[sensoukami]

especially since they don't like ZOCs.

They don't??? Gosh, someone point me to the link where they defend that point of view....

I realize that not everybody want to go to war all the time, but it is kind of an important part of the game to a lot of people. And it is a 'strategy' game, so why remove something that increaes the needs/rewards of strategy? It's a puzzle, it is.

 

[warpstorm]

[Soren_Johnson_Firaxis] mark: we felt that civ1/2-style ZOCs were not fun or intuitive. They were were wargamy, which is not what we were aiming for. Preventing units from moving is not a good thing, in general

From a 'poly chat.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I would strongly support a Civ2 or Civ3 ZoC system for units ONLY in forts, just because it then allows you to use forts to create 'chokepoints' around vital terrain. Other than that, though, I agree that they are very wargamey-much like suicide galleys .

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Brighteye]

A traditional (as opposed to Civ3) ZOC slows down movement, and on a Civ4 map really shuts down any sort of tactics. ZOC were used in games where units had MP of more than 1 or 2, because they were on a different scale. Russian Campaign uses ZOC, but units have movements between 3 and 8 or so. That's why there's no ZOC in Civ; the large hex-map would be represented on a few tiles. ZOC also work better on hexes, because you can only limit 3 out of 6 options. ZOC on square tiles allows you to limit 5 out of 8 movement options, which shuts down mobility even more.

Civ3 style ZOC should be implemented only for units with more than one movement, as it represents patrols harrassing enemy movement. Harrassing people when you're slower than they are is not an option. The guerilla and woodsman promotions could also enable ZOC when in the appropriate terrain.
Forts could then enable this sort of ZOC for slower, infantry units, allowing better defenders to have a ZOC. This wouldn't represent patrols harrassing the enemy, but careful sorties to disrupt supplies, weakening the unit.

 

[numa]

i didn't really see the need for Zones of Control, but the idea of putting it with fortresses is really good... i don't use fortresses at all in civ4... they just don't provide that much more to help you... ZoCs would change that... maybe if it was a promotion that you got after first strikes and maybe another promotion to negate it so that you could have units that specialize in staying in forts, on borders and such, as well units that specialize in taking fortresses...

sorry if i'm just retelling other ideas...

 

[Lordclane]

I disagree about forts-- they can make sense when you have few forces and there's a lot of enemy around, particularly when the fort can be build on a bottleneck of some sort.

 

[sensoukami]

Bottlenecks exist soooo rarely in most maps though. The forts just get bypassed...with an attack Zone of Control, they'd be more generically usefull.