Combat trailer analysis

[quintus5]

I re-watched the trailer and paused in every part showing gameplay and learned the following things

• Ships and bombarding units have a bombarding strength.
• Promotions, Civ4 style, are back. (At 1:30, A musketman unit gets promoted and when the cursor mouses over it text appears that says choose promotions for this unit.)
• Like in Civ4, a chances chart will appear before a battle, but will more clearly show combat modifiers.
• In the beginning, during diplomacy with Egypt, the player is trading five horses. It could be that he is trading enough horses for five units.
• At :41, a bonus is shown called the "Flanking bonus"
• Bombarding units like catapults can attack two hexes away.
• A class of "Specialist buildings" is shown at 1:35. No idea what this is.
• Golden ages are back (says at top of screen for most of video)
• The information about battles and events at the top of the screen is back, seen after battles.
• Great Generals are in

See if you can find any I missed.

 

[Schuesseled]

we knew al this and probably more, but dont feel bad you show spirit.

The specialist buildings allow you to assign your citizens to work in the buildings rather than the tiles outside your city, so a citizen working in the bank will give you maybe extra gold, rather than being jsut another farmer.
(we had specialists in civ4 by the way)

On the subject of the horse resource if it does indeed allow the rival civ to produce 5 horse units, it's a limited time deal only, if you notice for x turns.

(p.s. i like taht you can pay a lump sum of gold for a turnly deal, awesome.)

so waht will happen to eypgt's chariots once the horses are returned to the player, will they die?, have increased maintenance?, turn into warriors?, go inactive?, or simply not be able to be replaced if wiped out?

 

[quintus5]

so waht will happen to eypgt's chariots once the horses are returned to the player, will they die?, have increased maintenance?, turn into warriors?, go inactive?, or simply not be able to be replaced if wiped out?

\
Didn't the devs say that if your resource was lost the units would function until they died?

I knew that we knew most of this information, it was fun to get it anyway

 

[Mef]

[*]At :41, a bonus is shown called the "Flanking bonus"

That's a bonus for having a friendly unit on an adjacent tile.

 

[Deggial]

so waht will happen to eypgt's chariots once the horses are returned to the player, will they die?, have increased maintenance?, turn into warriors?, go inactive?, or simply not be able to be replaced if wiped out?

As "negative ressources" have been spotted, I strongly think, your last possibility will make most sence.

My guess: you can build new units, if there are "open" ressources left (by owned fields or by trade). If you lose them, you will not be able to build further units, until your existing ones die in combat. (The same concept in RTS: you need huts to upkeep your warriors. If the huts are destroyed, your "surplus" warriors don't die, but can not be replaced.)

edit: way too slow and - as I can read, an already known fact...

 

[Schuesseled]

assuming ths the case, what if they were injured but not dead, can they wait a few turns and magically replace thier lost numbers, or will they be prevented?

 

[migkillertwo]

That's a bonus for having a friendly unit on an adjacent tile.

That's "adjacent unit" bonus. The Flanking bonus is for having a unit in one or more of the enemy's "rear" hexes. This way, if a unit is surrounded, there is absolutely zero chance of winning.



Once again, I absolutely love that Firaxis implemented these bonuses. It will finally mean that numbers do not determine who wins a battle.

 

[Ahriman]

They said that if you have less resources than needed, you won't be able to build any more units that require that resource AND the ones you have will have significantly higher upkeep.

This is to try to discourage you from (for example) trading for horses, building a bunch of cavalry, and then ending the trade; this will hurt your economy because of the maintenance costs.

 

[burleigh]

In a direct assault, it is possible that the defender fires first & then any surviving attackers have a go at the defenders. That could be how the defending rifleman in the trailer survives two attacks from infantry (before finally persishing).

I'm not sure if this happens with ranged units- the attacked ship didn't seem to be able to fire at the attacking ships- either it was out of range or the game mechanic for ranged defence doesn't exist

Obviously this is conjecture, but part of the fun of the pre-release time is loads of guesses most of which will turn out to be wrong!

 

[12agnar0k]

Have most people watched the Game fooatage about 10 times like me constantly stopping and playing the bits where information lies to soak it all up mentally..... Or is it just me this obsessed , well and Quint too .

I too was pleased when I saw all the mechanics that improove positioning importance.
Flanking/Adjacent Friendlies Bonus/Near By General Bonus/Tile Bonus/Bonuses For Sieging Certain Tpyes Of Terrain/

All this maybe more I have forgotten to mention will make where you place your troops key, for example if you saw an approaching catapult with +50% against open area's (Accuracy) you best stay in hills or trees. If you see enemies advancing from a flank you best station units facing them otherwise they will tear through the back of your lines. This 1UpT is looking good.

The one thing I am not sure I like but will "get over" as soon as I am crushing Civ's under my heel and get used to the new mechanic, is the fact that ranged units don't retaliate when being attacked by other ranged units. This means whoever attacks first say in Naval Combat or Indeed in simply ranged vs ranged ground unit combat (we saw 2 destroyers and 1 battle ship from 1 Civ take out a Battleship from another Civ without any chance for retaliation) will probably win the fight, unless the person who wasn't first to strike simply has more troops to sacrafice, or perhaps is better position on defensive tiles which means more ranged attacks need to hit them before they fall.
Well I'm sure I will like the ranged combat more after using it a lot. Don't get me wrong I love the fact that ranged combat is in. Just not sure I love the idea of a pack of archers on the enemy team let you shoot 4 volleys of arrows at them without them even noticing. It would be like if when you send your melee troops in to attack another pack of melee troops the enemy doesnt even bother to hit you back when your stabbing them.

Anyway rant over... I'm sure I will like it eventually.

 

[Schuesseled]

In a direct assault, it is possible that the defender fires first & then any surviving attackers have a go at the defenders. That could be how the defending rifleman in the trailer survives two attacks from infantry (before finally persishing).

I'm not sure if this happens with ranged units- the attacked ship didn't seem to be able to fire at the attacking ships- either it was out of range or the game mechanic for ranged defence doesn't exist

Obviously this is conjecture, but part of the fun of the pre-release time is loads of guesses most of which will turn out to be wrong!

The defending riflemen was described by the demo presenter in the closed demo to have a good defensive position tahts why the ranged attack did less damage, and the close range troops and trouble taking it down. Positioning seems very important in Civ V which is very nice.

 

[King Jason]

Well I'm sure I will like the ranged combat more after using it a lot. Don't get me wrong I love the fact that ranged combat is in. Just not sure I love the idea of a pack of archers on the enemy team let you shoot 4 volleys of arrows at them without them even noticing. It would be like if when you send your melee troops in to attack another pack of melee troops the enemy doesnt even bother to hit you back when your stabbing them.

Except more often than not, excluding naval battles, with proper positioning, ranged units likely won't be attacking eachother all that much. Considering they're positioning would be in the back of your lines to prevent them from assault from more powerful units, many battlefields will look like this;

Archer - Melee ~vs~ Melee - Archer

Since archers can only shoot 2 hexes, often times battalions of archers won't be able to reach each other when positioned behind your lines. As ranged capabilities increase ranged units may begin to fire upon eachother more commonly, but even still you will always be able to position your ranged units in a way that they can fire upon enemy melee, but avoid enemy ranged.

 

[12agnar0k]

Yeah I get that Jason, the main implication is in naval combat, really, I mean the ship being fired upon won't retaliate, like a duck in a barrel waiting to die, doesn't seem all that realistic. Then again if they wanted Naval realism they would need to include flanking into Navy combat, i.e on a galleon with all its guns on the side if your galleon's side is facing another Galleons rear they are easy targets. Oh well, I guess one-sided ranged naval combat will have to do, probably simpler. I guess if you want to win Navy battles you will just have to go a bit nuts and build a ton of vessels, England Armada of Ships of the line coming up.

 

[Schuesseled]

You could build an army of just ranged troops, using could fire and move tactics you could keep up a constand bombard on melee troops (killing them) whilst your ranged units close to kill thiers too.

It's concievable, no idea if it would end in success.

 

[AriochIV]

The Great General is visible in the medieval section with fighting around Tours (lone horseman with red flag, star icon), and you can see in the combat odds preview that he adds +25% to nearby friendly units. At one point he is shown in the same hex with a Longswords unit, so it seems that he doesn't count as a Military unit and can stack with other units.

You could build an army of just ranged troops, using could fire and move tactics you could keep up a constand bombard on melee troops (killing them) whilst your ranged units close to kill thiers too.

It looks like most ranged units have a range of 2, and even basic infantry has a move of 2, so I think it's going to be hard to keep melee units off your ranged units unless you have your own melee units to exert a zone of influence on them.

Yeah I get that Jason, the main implication is in naval combat, really, I mean the ship being fired upon won't retaliate, like a duck in a barrel waiting to die, doesn't seem all that realistic.

It appears in the video that a ranged unit may retaliate if bombarded by another ranged unit.

 

[Schuesseled]

yes thats true ill post a screen shot of his unit summary display if you like.

Spoiler :

jsut so you can have more info.

--

By what you've stated, then you'll have only 1 turn in which to kill close units, which is enough time, unless they outnumber you. The real danger in that strategy is mounted units which can move into range, close and kill in thier one turn.

To which video are you reffering i've never seen ranged retaliation.

 

[AriochIV]

Hmmm... looks like the Great General has a "Build Action", too.

edit: Look how the plantation tile in the upper left (with the Archer unit on it) has a fancy manor house. Clever touch.

 

[Schuesseled]

Yes, I wonder what it does. Also you will notice that it has 2 promotions itself. (and seeing as its a non-comabt unit (assumably)) What do they do, I wonder.

 

[AriochIV]

The lightning bolt and shield appear to be combat promotions, as they are also seen on other combat units. Though he doesn't appear to have a combat strength, so it's not clear what they do. It doesn't look as if they are transferred to nearly units. Hm, and only a move of 2, despite appearing to be mounted.

It looks as though the Build Action icon is grayed out. Maybe it's something as simple as the ability to build a military academy in a city.

I also noticed some "troop transport" mode units in the corner:

On the left appears to be a mounted unit and a longswords unit aboard ship, and to the right the mounted unit remains but is damaged... it would seem that they have the ability to fight while in boats.

 

[Thyrwyn]

Perhaps the build icon is for a military academy ala Civ IV? Which would be grayed out since he is not in a city.