Delusions of a stacking mod

[AlpsStranger]

I am not trying to argue for or against unit stacking with this post(though I do favor 1upT.) I am merely trying to understand this idea that it'll be practical to simply "mod out" 1upT. I am not sure the people saying this are really thinking this through to the end.

1) Units will be balanced for 1upT. This is a non-trivial point. Every aspect of every unit will have to be rebalanced for any stacking mod.

2) Ranged combat will be based on 1upT. There probably won't even *be* a first-strike ability anymore due to the change in the system. All archery units will have to be heavily re-conceptualized to account for stacking. Everyone can understand why it will be problematic to have a stack of dozens of Civ5 Archers.

3) The graphics code may not be set up for stacking. In Civ4 the engine makes a basic assumption and has certain behaviors when units are stacked. There isn't necessarily a behavior for this in the Civ5 engine.

4) The entirety of the city defense concept in the game is based upon 1upT. You can't simply change the game to stacked units without radically rebalancing city defenses.

5) The streamlined fleet-transport system we've heard about is likely 1upT centric. This may be a very difficult change if the game isn't already designed to support ship units flagged as transports.

6) The AI will be based around 1upT. This is perhaps the most intractable problem for any "fix" mod.

I would argue that, more than likely, you aren't talking about a "mod" at all. You are talking about a total-conversion or perhaps a new game. Anyone inclined to "add stacking" to Civ5 might be just as well off adding hexes to Civ4! I'd recommend that anyone who just can't accept 1upT stick to Civ4 modding.

 

[kaltorak]

I love the idea. Stacks of doom were not funny. Having all your units in 1 city was not fun either.
Well, it was fun, but not as fun as having to distribute your units all over the place, covering chokepoints and gaining higher ground.

I like they changed it for civ5

 

[AlpsStranger]

I love the idea. Stacks of doom were not funny. Having all your units in 1 city was not fun either.
Well, it was fun, but not as fun as having to distribute your units all over the place, covering chokepoints and gaining higher ground.

I like they changed it for civ5

I appreciate the response, but this is not what this thread is about. I am speaking of the prospect of a mod. There are other places to discuss the issue itself.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I reckon once we get to play the games a fair few times through we might have a better idea how such a mod could work.

 

[AlpsStranger]

I reckon once we get to play the games a fair few times through we might have a better idea how such a mod could work.

I defer to your modding experience, and I love ACO, but I still do not think a "de-1upT" mod will occur for the reasons stated above. It still seems like it would either be a total conversion or utterly unbalance and debase the game.

 

[kaltorak]

Of course it would need rebalance. But that can be modded too

 

[PieceOfMind]

I defer to your modding experience, and I love ACO, but I still do not think a "de-1upT" mod will occur for the reasons stated above. It still seems like it would either be a total conversion or utterly unbalance and debase the game.

I appreciate there are many reasons it will be difficult. Honestly I think your reasons still are based on several assumptions that are only speculation at this point. Once we've played the game we'll have a better idea whether such a mod is even feasible, let alone desirable.

 

[Earthling]

6) The AI will be based around 1upT. This is perhaps the most intractable problem for any "fix" mod.

Out of everything you listed, this is the only realistic barrier. Everything else is just as easy to mod as things in previous civ games have been. Yes, units will be balanced for 1upt, but if you're making a mod changing unit stats is pretty low on the list of difficult things, and just about every major mod out there for previous versions again has done more.

Still, the AI probably won't be good anyway, so this could almost be a non-issue. Assuming they don't hard code really odd limitations, that would make modding some other things difficult in any case, the system should be pretty mod-able. And we will see mods, because tons of fantasy/sci-fi/whatever systems will probably want to bring back stacking anyway. Chances are that maybe nobody will make a mod that's "civ 5, but with stacking" because that probably would be pointless, but as soon as people introduce new technologies and mechanics or non real-historical settings then this could be modded in just as easily.

 

[Ahriman]

You are talking about a total-conversion or perhaps a new game.

Precisely.

At which point you have to ask... how much easier would it really be to completely rewrite the Civ5 combat system and units, compared to making some economy and graphical changes to Civ4?

honestly I think your reasons still are based on several assumptions that are only speculation at this point.

1upt AI being totally inadequate for running a game with stacks is hardly speculation.

 

[AlpsStranger]

Chances are that maybe nobody will make a mod that's "civ 5, but with stacking" because that probably would be pointless,

Then you agree with me, in so many words. I am not so much doubting that, with great effort, a "Fall From Heaven" type mod could be made with stacking. Civ5-with-stacking would not be Civ5 any more than Civ4-with-1upT would be Civ4. Radical changes would be required alongside merely "making it work."

 

[Mercade]

In addition to the points you mentioned AlpsStranger, not just the AI wouldn't know how to handle the stacks, also the game itself doesn't know how to handle the stacks in terms of e.g. combat. Now when the stack defends, it always puts up the best defense on the basis of the rock-paper-scissors mechanism. Your stack of cannons might be useless if they all try to pummel the same spearman who happens to be on top of the stack (up to 60% damage or whatever the limit is).

Given all these points, I don't think that trying to mod stacks into the game is not a viable path.

 

[grant2004]

I'm sure talk of a stacking mod will die down quickly once people get a look at the game. People always worry unnecissarily about gameplay changes. I expect that most of the people talking about modding away 1upt will decide that 1upt actually works with the other changes they've made to Civ.

 

[The_J]

Agree, agree.
I haven't seen any civ4 mod where all the lost civ3 features have been moded in (only smaller, single approaches which haven't spread very wide, like ZoCs in AND).
Stacking might, like already said, been done for a very specialized thing, but not for a civ5 expansion or a RevDCM equivalent.

 

[Sonereal]

I am not trying to argue for or against unit stacking with this post(though I do favor 1upT.) I am merely trying to understand this idea that it'll be practical to simply "mod out" 1upT. I am not sure the people saying this are really thinking this through to the end.

1) Units will be balanced for 1upT. This is a non-trivial point. Every aspect of every unit will have to be rebalanced for any stacking mod.

Every aspect of the AI's ability to wage war, and combat mechanics themselves need to be worked out.

2) Ranged combat will be based on 1upT. There probably won't even *be* a first-strike ability anymore due to the change in the system. All archery units will have to be heavily re-conceptualized to account for stacking. Everyone can understand why it will be problematic to have a stack of dozens of Civ5 Archers.

Or any other unit.

3) The graphics code may not be set up for stacking. In Civ4 the engine makes a basic assumption and has certain behaviors when units are stacked. There isn't necessarily a behavior for this in the Civ5 engine.

To be fair, I can't comment on this one.

4) The entirety of the city defense concept in the game is based upon 1upT. You can't simply change the game to stacked units without radically rebalancing city defenses.

True.

5) The streamlined fleet-transport system we've heard about is likely 1upT centric. This may be a very difficult change if the game isn't already designed to support ship units flagged as transports.

Actually, I don't think it would be that bad even without xUPT.

6) The AI will be based around 1upT. This is perhaps the most intractable problem for any "fix" mod.

Should be.

I would argue that, more than likely, you aren't talking about a "mod" at all. You are talking about a total-conversion or perhaps a new game. Anyone inclined to "add stacking" to Civ5 might be just as well off adding hexes to Civ4! I'd recommend that anyone who just can't accept 1upT stick to Civ4 modding.

Funnily enough, a mod added an optional tile limit and it turns out that unsurprisingly, no one can handle 1UPT simply because there's no unit swap and everything else. The AI handles numbers above 3UPT pretty well in Civ4 without even be taught.

Trying to mod back in stacking wouldn't be like just modding back ranged bombardment I think which is why its one of those ideas that seem pointless to discuss now or even a month after release. Either accept the new basic mechanic or spend hours upon hours not only bringing in stacking (which might be very easy to do) but everything else such as the AI handling the stacks and combat mechanics.

In the end, bringing back stacking could be near a level of total-conversion without any of the new gameplay.

 

[PieceOfMind]

1upt AI being totally inadequate for running a game with stacks is hardly speculation.

True. I should have been clearer by saying "many of your reasons". Perhaps the AI one should have been listed first rather than last.

To the OP, do remember that if civ5 is to have unprecedented modding capabilities, this sort of mod, even with the AI difficulties, is very possible. Look at the work on Better AI with civ4 if you want to see just how far people can modify the AI. That mod is no longer just a simple tweaking mod. There are not all that many aspects of the AI that have not been touched. And the guys building it are IMO more than capable of handling the technical problems that will come with AI in civ5. The more important question I guess is whether they'll have the time to do it, and whether they'll even move to civ5 from modding civ4. We don't really know yet how much freedom modders will have with the AI. If it's anything less than with civ4, the mod described in the OP I would agree would be a very unlikely thing to see.

 

[Ahriman]

Note that one of the things you'd have to add is a reworking of the combat system.

For example, in Civ5 there will be no code for determining which of several units in a tile defends when the tile is attacked, or what happens if it is defeated. All this stuff would have to be added. This is very core code, so this may be no simple undertaking.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Note that one of the things you'd have to add is a reworking of the combat system.

For example, in Civ5 there will be no code for determining which of several units in a tile defends when the tile is attacked, or what happens if it is defeated. All this stuff would have to be added. This is very core code, so this may be no simple undertaking.

You mean like the bestdefender code? At worst you could just imitate what civ4 did for picking the best defender. You could probably ask Dale about how moddable or not the civ4 combat system was.

 

[Ellestar]

"Bestdefender" code is not a problem at all, and conceptually it's very simple (compare attacking unit vs all defenders and pick the defender that is relatively strongest, a basic search for a maximum value + a comparision function).

The bigger problem will be a tactical level AI, for example. In Civ 5 it will operate with units and scattered group of units. I guess it's possible to hack it so it will think that a stack is just one unit, but AI will be comepletely useless after that. Sure, i guess AI will move a stack and maybe even attack the enemy, but it will be even more useless than Civ 4 combat AI. And it will not be a trivial problem to make a relatively effective AI. Sure, BetterAI mod was very good, but they improved the existing AI and fixed bugs AFAIK. It's hard, but it's even harder to make something that's not there at all. And an AI that can operate with stacks isn't there in Civ 5.

 

[Ahriman]

You mean like the bestdefender code?

Its not just the code to pick the defender. That's easy.

But a 1upt system may not even have the hooks you would need to define such a thing. A 1upt system will have no conception of "choose a unit in the tile to defend", because it has no idea that there ever could be more than one military unit in the tile.

Its impossible to know without seeing the code. It might not be that big a deal.

Agree completely that the main issue is tactical AI.

 

[Schuesseled]

I am not trying to argue for or against unit stacking with this post(though I do favor 1upT.) I am merely trying to understand this idea that it'll be practical to simply "mod out" 1upT. I am not sure the people saying this are really thinking this through to the end.

1) Units will be balanced for 1upT. This is a non-trivial point. Every aspect of every unit will have to be rebalanced for any stacking mod.

2) Ranged combat will be based on 1upT. There probably won't even *be* a first-strike ability anymore due to the change in the system. All archery units will have to be heavily re-conceptualized to account for stacking. Everyone can understand why it will be problematic to have a stack of dozens of Civ5 Archers.

3) The graphics code may not be set up for stacking. In Civ4 the engine makes a basic assumption and has certain behaviors when units are stacked. There isn't necessarily a behavior for this in the Civ5 engine.

4) The entirety of the city defense concept in the game is based upon 1upT. You can't simply change the game to stacked units without radically rebalancing city defenses.

5) The streamlined fleet-transport system we've heard about is likely 1upT centric. This may be a very difficult change if the game isn't already designed to support ship units flagged as transports.

6) The AI will be based around 1upT. This is perhaps the most intractable problem for any "fix" mod.

I would argue that, more than likely, you aren't talking about a "mod" at all. You are talking about a total-conversion or perhaps a new game. Anyone inclined to "add stacking" to Civ5 might be just as well off adding hexes to Civ4! I'd recommend that anyone who just can't accept 1upT stick to Civ4 modding.

you'd probably be better off just trying to mod in as much of civ 5 as you can into civ 4 . Call it civ4.5