Civilization VII Dev Diary #5: Combat

FXS_Sar

Firaxian
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Hey all! Yesterday's Modern Age stream was packed - lots of reveals, including a peak at Civ VII's combat. If you liked what you saw (or have more questions), we've got you covered. Our Senior Game Designer Brian Feldges has put together a brand new developer diary that breaks down how combat will look and feel in Civ VII.

Check it out here and let me know what you think!

PS: A huge thank you to everyone who tuned in yesterday, shared your thoughts, and sent in questions for the devs. If you missed the stream, no worries - you can catch the full video here.

This was our last stream of 2024, but don't worry - it's not our last stream for Civ VII. We've got more to share as we head toward February 11. From the whole dev team, thanks for sticking with us and being part of this journey to launch. 🧡

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The explanation of city sieges, combined with what was shown yesterday, is very helpful.
 
It's interesting that packed troops can attack in mop-up operations w/o unpacking.

The logical extension of that would actually be the return of Stacks of Doom, let one packed commander attack another packed commander.

Fish-slap is comical, but so, in its way, is continual stalemate-style fighting that doesn't produce any further results.
 
This means that you don't have to pick a direction before battle; engaging an enemy automatically locks the two units toward a front. And now that they have a front, you can attack from the sides and behind. Having continuous combat is a win/win for both the Unit team and for combat design in Civilization VII.

If I'm reading this correctly, now that there are flanking bonuses for attacking, you will want to plan if you have multiple units attacking as to which establishes the front and which are flanking.
 
Unfortunately, the few sentences on "Siege Warfare" don't actually address the Siege mechanic. Traditionally, it was possible to place a city "under siege" by having zone of control around the city center, which among other things prevented the city defenses from regaining health. With multiple fortified districts this is probably not the same (or may no longer exist at all), but this article doesn't address it.
 
It occurred to me that with city sprawl in the modern age, civ7 could have some grueling Stalingrad type urban warfare where you are fighting district by district.
Stalingrad might be the prototype, but if any modern city is defended at all, it becomes a grueling, firepower-intensive fight and eats up units even when they are winning. In WWII, Aachen and Berlin were both examples, even though the defenders on both occasions were enormously outmatched. Since then, fighting in Grozny, Beirut, Gaza, all the Ukrainian cities, have all shown that city fighting in a city composed of concrete and steel buildings is a Nightmare no matter how much force you bring to bear against it.

Not a pretty mechanic to experience, but a necessary part of depicting warfare in the Modern Age.
 
Thanks Sar!
I hope the whole team there gets to rest and have a wonderful holiday, take it easy until the next update! Thanks for the big surprise that was Civ VII, following all the updates this fall/winter has been such a joy. Excited to get my hands on the game.
 
I would like to know if a city can fight back against a siege without a garrison - is the city strike a thing of the past?
Secondly, what about the concept of "open cities", t.i. non-garrisoned cities that can escape plunder and destruction by being handed over without a fight (and later possibly regained)?
Thirdly, individual units can still fight other individual units, right? But without any battle experience gained.
Fourthly, what happens when a city is conquered, apart from being turned into a town? Is there civil unrest, guerillas, unhappiness?
What place does looting have in the game?
 
Stalingrad might be the prototype, but if any modern city is defended at all, it becomes a grueling, firepower-intensive fight and eats up units even when they are winning. In WWII, Aachen and Berlin were both examples, even though the defenders on both occasions were enormously outmatched. Since then, fighting in Grozny, Beirut, Gaza, all the Ukrainian cities, have all shown that city fighting in a city composed of concrete and steel buildings is a Nightmare no matter how much force you bring to bear against it.

Not a pretty mechanic to experience, but a necessary part of depicting warfare in the Modern Age.

Absolutely. Falujah in Iraq is another example. I only mentioned Stalingrad because it is so famous. The name itself has become synonymous with modern urban warfare.
 
I would like to know if a city can fight back against a siege without a garrison - is the city strike a thing of the past?

I could be wrong but it sounds like city strikes are gone. However, they mention you need siege units to take down walls. So it is possible that districts get a "melee" defense. So your units will get worned down trying to take districts even with no defenders. And if the districts have walls, they will get higher defense. So having siege units will be important to wear down the defenses of each walled district in order to capture the city with less casualties. Of course, putting a unit in a walled district will boost the defense. Personally, I think this would make sense that districts would get a defense rating, boosted by walls so that cities can defend themselves but not range attack anymore. The ranged attack was OP and did not really make sense to me.
 
I could be wrong but it sounds like city strikes are gone. However, they mention you need siege units to take down walls. So it is possible that districts get a "melee" defense. So your units will get worned down trying to take districts even with no defenders. And if the districts have walls, they will get higher defense. So having siege units will be important to wear down the defenses of each walled district in order to capture the city with less casualties. Of course, putting a unit in a walled district will boost the defense. Personally, I think this would make sense that districts would get a defense rating, boosted by walls so that cities can defend themselves but not range attack anymore. The ranged attack was OP and did not really make sense to me.
It is also possible that only walled districts get a defense, which would make more sense given that walls and their towers (and gate houses) all generally had some kind of garrison, which a defense factor would represent.

Regular units might be able to enter undefended/walled districts, but might also be prime targets for attack by the 'garrison' in adjacent walled districts and, possibly, prohibited from doing anything important while adjacent to a walled district without any siege capability to attack it or distract it from attacking them.

Just been reading some accounts of medieval siege warfare, and some remarkably small garrisons could defend good fortifications even before gunpowder. As an example, Dover, one of the largest fortifications in medieval British Isles, was defended against a besieging army complete with trebuchets by a garrison of less than 300 men. It would be very appropriate, then, to have 'built-in' garrisons for walls and other fortifications rather than having to assign a full unit to them.
 
I love it!!! Flanking is a great addition and overruns (presumably against civilian type units like caravans or prospectors) will be helpful.

The rest is stuff we knew. the stuff I’d love more detail on in warfare is:
* how will airdrops work from a mechanical perspective. Will we be able to drop artillery and anti tank guns?
* how do sieges work mechanically? Will there no longer be an explicit “under siege” state and instead we’re fighting to deny enemy reinforcements access to the walls? Or will there be a way to prevent units inside from regenerating?
 
Similarly, you can use a packed army to overrun weaker units, negating the need to deploy and fight separately.
I find that line intriguing. So far we've only seen commanders bringing troops to the front, unpack and then the troops fighting one at a time in classical Civ5+ style. If i read that correctly that would mean you can order units still packed with the commander to strike, thus bringing some sort of middle-ground between "stacks" and "carpets" of doom, something many players here have suggested in the past, limited stacks. I wonder how that would fit into a combat system mostly designed to have individual units. It could be very strong to the point you barely need to unpack ever, or very limited in scope to the point it's mostly useless but could it be balanced in a way that it still plays an important role without making individual combat obsolete?

Note that i wouldn't be mad if unit-to-unit combat becomes obsolete, as much as i disliked the staffs of doom, i think "limited stacks" would be a very good option to both streamline combat (which is something we need for long conflicts, i mostly play peaceful simply because of the tediousness of combat, and the tediousness of managing all the conquered cities) and to help the AI.
 
Good stuff, I'm excited about the changes to combat. Especially with regards to facing. Presumably you engage a unit, then bring another unit around the side to attack to get that flanking bonus.

And the commanders attacking while stacked. Most likely only useful against weak units like scouts, but still useful to reduce micro.
 
Do we know what this pistol-toting Exploration Era cavalry unit is?
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Pistol-equipped cuirassiers like that are typical European cavalry of the 17th century: the European post-knights became obsessed with using gunpowder instead of lances until the first third of the 18th century, when people who didn't slow down to shoot started running over them, like Swedes and Prussians. By the middle of the 18th centry pistols had largely been replaced by carbines, swords and lances as the primary mounted weapons.

Given the uniforms of the infantry around them, it looks like they are part of a middle eastern force, so that mid-18th century date could be extended to the end of the 18th century.

Given those dates, I suspect they are 1st Tier Modern units - after all, if Modern Age starts in 1750, that is around the last date they were used in European warfare, so they could be the Basic Cavalry that Exploration Knights/Cuirassiers upgrade to when changing Ages.

The Modern Age Tech Tree shown from the video yesterday doesn't show any horse cavalry units at all, so they might also be the only Modern Age cavalry unit except for Uniques (which I do not believe we have seen in the Modern Age yet).
 
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