Downside of 1upt

[__JR__]

I don't think limiting units via resources was done because there were too many units. I think it was implemented because using Civ 4 rules of unlimited units alongside 1 upt could likely create a situation where there was a unit on every single hex.

 

[hk2717]

Of course it does.
First, it is less manual work to move a "stack" of n (with n being a number somewhere <= 10) units and second, whoever once tried to move his army through mountainous regions in games like Panzer General knows, how much time this costs - not moving every single unit by itself, but to find the right sequence.
And the last point is, where I expect the AI to fail.

So let's assume that moving a stack needs same or similar amount of manual work as moving a unit in 1upt. If we have 20 stacks to move in limited stacking and 20 units in 1upt, will it be less manual work to move all the units in limited stacking? I was just saying that it isn't necessarily true that movement in a limited stacking system is less manual work. We need to consider other factors in the system, such as typical numbers of stacks/troops for an empire.

As for the AI issue, do you really want a stupid and boring system only in order to ensure that the AI could be good at it? I don't. Also, there has been tons of hex strategy games out there over the decades, why worry so much? It's rather possible that CiV's AI will be rather good, right?

Wrong again.
The fact that in Civ4 losing a fight means losing a unit is not due to stacks, it is due to design. The same design could be used for 1upt, too and vice versa.

I don't think we are talking about 1upt and stacking in general, but their implementations in Civ4 and Civ5, aren't we?

 

[brianshapiro]

That example doesnt sound like it is going to be happening in modern days. If you think that ancient battles were fought in stacks then i must say that IMO you are wrong again.

So once again, can you people please tell me and everyone else here in your own words what means combined arms? IMO it doesnt mean that helicopters, infantry, and artillery are all standing in the exact same place "supporting" each other.

So "units" are NOT bunched together in modern times and they were NOT bunched together in ancient times. Your vision of limited stacking brings my mind to some old western film where indians attacked some cowboys. Some of the indians were riding with horses, some of them were on foot, some had axes, some had rifles, some had bows etc etc.. To me that looks more like your vision of combined arms

I remember there were cases in which units were interspersed, though I can't remember any examples. However even if we're talking about unit formation, it isn't covered by the 1upt system in Civ5.

For instance, in the middle ages a unit of musketeers would be surrounded by pikemen in a square formation. In order to achieve the same thing in 1upt, you would need 1 musketeer unit and 4 pikemen units, which doesn't make sense to do. The point is just that the way the unit is formed, the musketeers are always guarded by pikemen, and that formation is never broken up.

Another example of combined armed formations is the Spanish tercio. Pikemen formed squares with sword-and-javelin men inside, and arquebusiers and field artillery assumed positions between the squares.

For the game, another example where this is important is stationing units in cities. With 1upt you can't have for instance, both archers and swordsmen in cities.. which isn't realistic either.

 

[__JR__]

Are people forgetting about ZOC ??

You don't need to have a unit totally surrounded by units to have it protected !! The opponent cannot simply waltz through ZOC to attack the ranged/siege units in back (if they're properly positioned of course).

That is perhaps one of the largest downsides to SOD warfare. Since there is no real reason to spread your troops out (since there's no ZOC), there was no reason to have your troops anywhere but the absolute best tiles (hills/forest tiles, across a river, or the most obvious choice, IN A CITY!!!).

 

[brianshapiro]

Are people forgetting about ZOC ??

You don't need to have a unit totally surrounded by units to have it protected !! The opponent cannot simply waltz through ZOC to attack the ranged/siege units in back (if they're properly positioned of course).

That is perhaps one of the largest downsides to SOD warfare. Since there is no real reason to spread your troops out (since there's no ZOC), there was no reason to have your troops anywhere but the absolute best tiles (hills/forest tiles, across a river, or the most obvious choice, IN A CITY!!!).

ZOC just slows units down to 1 hex per move in Civilization V. Combined formations just makes sense to me, which is all limited stacks would allow. Are you worried there'll be too much micromanagement?

It would be cool, even, if with limited stacks the game would automatically arrange the unit graphics in the right way so they mirror practical formations, like a group of pikemen and musketeers would have the pikemen on the outside.

 

[__JR__]

ZOC just slows units down to 1 hex per move in Civilization V. Combined formations just makes sense to me, which is all limited stacks would allow. Are you worried there'll be too much micromanagement?

It would be cool, even, if with limited stacks the game would automatically arrange the unit graphics in the right way so they mirror practical formations, like a group of pikemen and musketeers would have the pikemen on the outside.

Right, it slows units down. So just having ZOC isn't an impenetrable defense. But having units in position to take out opposition which has walked into the ZOC will play a role I believe.

No, I'm not worried about MM on the battlefield side. I believe the combat aspect will be more fun with a little more thought and creativity involved. IMHO its a very cool change.

 

[gillen]

It would be cool, even, if with limited stacks the game would automatically arrange the unit graphics in the right way so they mirror practical formations, like a group of pikemen and musketeers would have the pikemen on the outside.

This is what 1upt does. You put your pikemen in front of your musketeers. You don't need to make a square around your musketeers, you just make a line. With ZOC and proper positioning, the enemy cant get to your musketeers, eliminating the need for the stack in the first place.

 

[aziantuntija]

This is what 1upt does. You put your pikemen in front of your musketeers. You don't need to make a square around your musketeers, you just make a line. With ZOC and proper positioning, the enemy cant get to your musketeers, eliminating the need for the stack in the first place.

Well what do you say about that brianshapiro?

 

[aziantuntija]

For instance, in the middle ages a unit of musketeers would be surrounded by pikemen in a square formation. In order to achieve the same thing in 1upt, you would need 1 musketeer unit and 4 pikemen units, which doesn't make sense to do. The point is just that the way the unit is formed, the musketeers are always guarded by pikemen, and that formation is never broken up.

Another example of combined armed formations is the Spanish tercio. Pikemen formed squares with sword-and-javelin men inside, and arquebusiers and field artillery assumed positions between the squares.

To me those sounds like chess manouvers, not stacking. Btw, chess is 1upt


After you throw some catapults somewhere in the middle and maybe some cavalry to trample on toes of friendly foot soldiers in the same tight formation, maybe then i can say that: "OMG! They really used stacks back then!"


If you really want to use something that comes even close to those kinds of strategies in that detail, then in this case, 1upt is the best possible answer.


Btw, those examples are the reason why chess was teched to soldiers.

 

[tom2050]

This is what 1upt does. You put your pikemen in front of your musketeers. You don't need to make a square around your musketeers, you just make a line. With ZOC and proper positioning, the enemy cant get to your musketeers, eliminating the need for the stack in the first place.

Well what do you say about that brianshapiro?

I have a couple words

This is exactly what a trench warfare style game is; huge lines with another line of ranged units behind it. And it will go on for most of the game until you get 3 range bombard units and flank units.

Then it becomes calvary either trying to break through the line, or flank it's sides with big lines still there.

I think there won't be enough units in the game to make huge lines anyways, so that probably blows that idea out of the water.

Since it's likely you won't be able to have 20 units in some huge blob of a trench line... instead you'll have small little circles of maybe 4 or 5 units doing this to attack.

 

[Commander Bello]

I'd guess that if this whole 1 upt mechanic wasn't fun, or challenging, or fair they would have scrapped the idea after some testing. That's what I meant when I say I trust their track record of making good games.

As they did with the 'suicide siege weapons'?

When that concept was presented here in this very forum, it took people just a couple of hours to find out that the intended result, making SoDs useless, would be completely missed.
There were many heated debates about this topic, which almost always resulted in the final mantra: "I guess, if this wouldn't work, they would not have introduced it. I will trust the designers, they know what they're doing!"

So let's assume that moving a stack needs same or similar amount of manual work as moving a unit in 1upt. If we have 20 stacks to move in limited stacking and 20 units in 1upt, will it be less manual work to move all the units in limited stacking? I was just saying that it isn't necessarily true that movement in a limited stacking system is less manual work. We need to consider other factors in the system, such as typical numbers of stacks/troops for an empire.

Once again, you try to mix things and go away with it.
Yet, I won't let you go.

Even, if we would agree to your assumption that in a stacked system the number of stacks would equal the number of single units in a 1upt-system (for which there isn't any natural law), then still the stack system would give you some advantages, as the chance to redeploy your units, recombine them after the inital battles and even having some single units taken out of the stacks to pursuit wounded enemies.

As for the AI issue, do you really want a stupid and boring system only in order to ensure that the AI could be good at it? I don't. Also, there has been tons of hex strategy games out there over the decades, why worry so much? It's rather possible that CiV's AI will be rather good, right?

I think, here we may have touched the real issue.

You don't want the AI to be good, which is all fine.
For me as a single player it is important to have a system with which the AI can cope.

Any assumption about the quality of AI decisions we will have to leave for the future, as at the moment we don't know anything about it's strengths and weaknesses.
Therefore, debating it's strengths in Civ5 at the moment is completely moot.

That is perhaps one of the largest downsides to SOD warfare. Since there is no real reason to spread your troops out (since there's no ZOC), there was no reason to have your troops anywhere but the absolute best tiles (hills/forest tiles, across a river, or the most obvious choice, IN A CITY!!!).

First, a city was never the best place for defense.
By hidnig your troops inside city walls, you allowed the opponent to pillage your territory, at least to block you from access of the city's fat cross.

The best defense positions always were somewhere near the borders, behind a river, on top of a forested hill and so on. Not in a city.
There, the enemy was not able to make use of attack modifiers and trebuchets and swordsmen out of a sudden only were worth half.

But apart from that:
I perfectly know about frontlines and 1upt, since I am playing Panzer General since years.

And for Panzer General, the 1upt is fine. It is fun, too.
Nevertheless, a single turn easily takes 30 minutes and more, since you have to be very careful about in which sequence you're attacking, where to move which unit and so on.
And last, the scale of Panzer General maps is completely different from the scale of Civ5 maps.

In the current screenshots and movies we have seen cities as near to each other as just three, sometimes even only 2 hexes.
This will drastically reduce your "operational area".

And given the general assumption that having entrenched frontline units with long-range units hidden behind them will be the superior tactics, this will only lead to WW1 style of frozen trench warfare.

It is not the 1upt per se, it is 1upt at the scale of Civ, what does concern me.
Civ does not provide the right scale of maps for a tactical combat system like 1upt, where you have to "outmanouvre" your enemy.

 

[brianshapiro]

Well what do you say about that brianshapiro?

I say its not exactly true.

The enemy still can come from behind with a different unit, and like I mentioned, in Civ5, ZOC doesn't stop movement it only slows it down to one hex per turn. So it doesn't really replicate that kind of combat. You have no situation in which your musketmen are always protected by your pikemen.

And you still can't hole up more than one arm type in a city behind walls.

If you like 1upt, fine, but it still doesn't achieve realistic unit formation better than limited stacks.

 

[Ricci]

...
What is sorely lacking in Civilization 4 is the idea that terrain matters at all. Yes there are some conflicts that happen outside cities, but, by and large, combat in Civ 4 involves bringing a huge stack of units up to a city and attacking it. Forget forts, enemies walk right on by them. Forget the natural choke points that land can provide, infinite units on a single tile render that pointless.

Why? If I have 10 fortified units and it costs 20 units of a major attacking stack to gain control of my fort (even before they get next to my city). It is a strong point to have those 10 choking units.

The only way that you can ignore that 1upt is going to be a vast improvement is if you simply hate the idea of positioning your troops in a superior way, on superior terrain. The example I love to give is forts. Forts in civ4 are largely pointless.
...

Ok, I can see now what the problem is. You are putting all together 1UPT, ZoC and ranged attack. Three completely different concepts that happen to appear fresh in Civ V and weren't there in IV at all. So one player can ignore 1upt advantages and support either of the other two concepts, or both; which allow very much field troop deployment.

I don't know how game combat will turn out, it might be awesome or disastrous. The feature I sincerely have a problem with is range attack though. It was very poorly implemented in CIV III I remember. Nahh, surely this won't be the case now!

EDIT: Ohhhh, I notice you have been already obviously addressed Jojo, by Earthling!

 

[Schuesseled]

Stacks are broken, you can't have meaningfuldefensive position except for a one tile choke points and cities, so most of the combat in civ 4 was either seiging a city or being sieged, and nothing else.

 

[aziantuntija]

I say its not exactly true.

The enemy still can come from behind with a different unit, and like I mentioned, in Civ5, ZOC doesn't stop movement it only slows it down to one hex per turn. So it doesn't really replicate that kind of combat. You have no situation in which your musketmen are always protected by your pikemen.

And you still can't hole up more than one arm type in a city behind walls.

If you like 1upt, fine, but it still doesn't achieve realistic unit formation better than limited stacks.

Well now you said it yourself and it looks like you still didnt get it


Yes it is very true that the enemy might just come from behind your lines and this time it actually matters if they do just that. In fact if the enemy can do it then so can you. And that my little friend is a good thing


You want to see somekind of perfect shelter for your units (stacks) but in the real world there isnt one. Like this musketman/pikeman formation, it has its weak point like how are the musketman supposed to fire their guns if the musketmen are always surrounded by pikemen?

the musketeers are always guarded by pikemen, and that formation is never broken up.

If this is absolutely true what you are saying, then to me it looks like there is no point of keeping those musketman inside this pikemen ring because they just cant shoot trough those pikemen now cant they. Also what does the pikemen do? Just stand there or are they planning on engaging a battle? If so then wouldnt it be better for the musketmen to be someplace else than in the middle of the melee fight?


if i were to deside i would release both of them to let actually do something instead of just standing in there and looking important.


Btw, could you post some facts about this musketman/pikeman formation?

 

[k-a-bob]

Not that I'm taking sides, but I did find some info on "pike and shot" formations:

Pike and shot

In the sixteenth century, the Spanish sought to develop a balance between the close-combat power of the pike and the shooting power of the firearm. They developed the Tercio formation, in which arquebusier or musketeer formations (or even longbowmen, in an English variation) fought on the flanks of the pikemen, in formations sometimes resembling a checkerboard.

These formations, eventually referred to as "pike and shot", used a mixture of men, each with a different tactical role – the shooters dealt out casualties to the enemy, while the pikemen protected the shooters from enemy cavalry and fought if the Tercio closed in hand-to-hand combat. As a result, the tercio deployed smaller numbers of pikemen than the huge Swiss and Landsknecht columns.

The Tercio proved more flexible and eventually prevailed over the grand pike block, its mixed formation became the norm for European infantrymen, and the percentage of men who were armed with firearms in Tercio-like formations steadily increased as firearms advanced in technology. In the late sixteenth into the seventeenth century, smaller pike formations were used, invariably defending attached musketeers, often as a central block with two sub-units of shooters, called "sleeves of shot", on either side of the pikes.

During this period the pike was typically 4.5 to 5.5 metres (15 to 18 feet) in length.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pike_(weapon)

 

[brianshapiro]

Yes it is very true that the enemy might just come from behind your lines and this time it actually matters if they do just that. In fact if the enemy can do it then so can you. And that my little friend is a good thing

Except its inaccurate, because in reality you can flank your musketmen on all sides, and its been done in history. The British, Spanish, etc. apparently disagree with you.

 

[aziantuntija]

Good job k-a-bob, this looks like combined arms to me


Still it does not justify stacking for the sake of gameplay

Except its inaccurate, because in reality you can flank your musketmen on all sides, and its been done in history. The British, Spanish, etc. apparently disagree with you.

What? Is my english really this bad?! Or are you misunderstand something? What i understand is that you are saying almost the exact same thing that im saying and stating that im wrong?!

 

[EditorRex]

Someone responding recently on the old main thread said the following:

Stacks that fight out zoomed battles are what the Total War series is about (although the battles there are real-time). It results in playing hours just to (partly) complete a turn. While this is fun for militaristic games like Total War, is would overemphasize warfare in Civ - where it is one of many game mechanics.

Now 1UPT is a new way to approach this part. It is in no way more realistic, as many have pointed out. It, however, might be more fun - although no one can really tell as yet. I would suspect there will be some glitches in vanilla Civ5 warfare, just because the system is quite new to Civ and the hardcore players will find things in their long hour sessions that beta testers have missed.

I'm a big fan of the Total War games (haven't played Empire, but loved Medieval, Rome and Medieval II) and I disagree with the idea that zoomed battles would overemphasize warfare Civ. 2 reasons why I say not:
-- Zoomed battles in Total War are OPTIONAL. If you don't want to watch the battle with all of your intricately diverse troops and detailed terrain, then the AI will calculate the result. At least through Med2, I found that the AI did a lousy job in this calculation, similarly to the unintelligent tactics the AI employees anyway. Basically if you let the AI calculate the result, it's playing itself using stupid tactics. However, sometimes if there's a technique that you've haven't mastered (like wall-taking), this can be a good way to handle a battle. Anyway, there's no reason the AI tactical system couldn't be much more intelligent to offer a better challenge and a reasonable facsimile of a how a moderately skilled player might fare if you skip the battle round. By skipping battle rounds in Total War, you do force yourself to really focus on the Strategic, Economic and Diplomatic aspects of the game, which precisely the things that have always been stronger in Civ.
-- If we are comparing the idea of zoomed battles to the ideas of vast armies spread out over the map in a 1-unit-per-hex formation, then I would suggest that the latter scenario is the one that would overemphasize warfare in Civ, with armies and not harnessed terrain coming to dominate the map.

The thing is, Civ is not a Tactical game. It does have military strategy on a large scale but has never really gotten down to the most basic tactical level. Civ 5 sounds like it will change this balance, and some Civ players will love it, others won't. I think zoomed battles are probably not going to happen in Civ 5. My prediction is that Civ 5 will not see the success that Civs 1,2 and 4 saw, and will instead be a mediocre game like many of us feel Civ 3 was. (And I know some disagree with that statement.) If I'm right, maybe they'll remember this discussion and consider zoomed battles for Civ 6. Alternatively, they'll bring out Civ 5 "BTB" (Back to Basics) and introduce zoomed battles and/or stacks, as well as other items that Civ fans will be missing.

 

[tom2050]

It is Un-combined arms to be more precise. Civ 5 is a coordination game only, you must coordinate your units together better than the other guy.

The scale to use 1upt is way out of whack, of course everyone will say 'gameplay > realism' which becomes a cliched argument after a while.

Since Civ 5 has become pretty much a combat game it seems, might as well speculate on how to improve it.

My take of real combined arms is to let units work together that are in hexes that represent hundreds of square kilometres. Like said above, PG does not represent huge portions of the planet, not to mention the whole earth.

It is more realistic from gameplay and from realism aspect to allow combined arms in same tile of different unit types.

You can still let them do the Transformers thing and turn into boats ("Transform and Roll Out!"); but I don't see the disadvantages, because most of the time, you won't stack units just to stack them; because Civ 5 won't have massive amounts of units anyways; no change here.