Downside of 1upt

[aziantuntija]

Well in the end we can only say that for now the stacks are gone. Its better for gameplay and its more realistic than mongrel stacks with their "best defender always defends" problems.


If you dont like it dont buy it.

 

[Schuesseled]

you should play empires demo, like the ship combat in that, but personally i only liked shogan enough to play seriously.

 

[Schuesseled]

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.

1upt is far more realistic, the majority odf the time, soldiers were group by rank, archers all together there, swordsman all together there. You would occasionally get mixed unit formations or a rushed militia army, where they basically have any weapons they can find, but these could be represented in a 1upt system as well, imagine being able to build a half crossbowman half pikeman unit, with approx half the ranged attack of a usual crossbowman but with a respectable defence of a pikeman.

 

[Ricci]

...
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.

It is clearly evident by now for me that this new version will be overall worse than BTS, less enjoyable and certainly more shallow (less systems, many simplifications, etc). Nevertheless, it introduces many new and good tweaks the latter needed, together with some other interesting variations that might work just fine. I am positive that all this will make for a very upgradable game, and possibly it will come to par with BTS along a couple of expansions. Features that will stay put, be arranged, introduced from scratch or cut off are a matter of the future.

Oh, my free prediction: Hexes will be allowed two unit stacks.

 

[andrewlt]

I have played plenty of different types of turn-based games. SOD is the worst implementation of combat. Ever. There is nothing redeeming about it except that certain people hate any type of change.

 

[Akkon888]

1 upt = less units the AI must consider = stronger AI by default.

How much stronger, I don't know. But, I wouldn't be surprised if people struggled a bit against the AI in such a situation.

Remember that a designer of Civ5 said way back when that the AI was divided into 4 layers. It would have a local layer for determining local combat outcomes (like frontal attacks), a somewhat regional layer to assist with the needs of each city, then an "empire" layer to negotiate diplomatic situations, and then some master layer to figure out how to win the game.

IMO, this looks like a tougher AI than in the past.

 

[AriochIV]

Actually, I think 1upt will be much harder for the AI to handle, since it has to carefully position units, making use of terrain, and protect vulnerable ranged units, while trying to flank the enemy and get at his vulnerable units. Whereas in Stack of Doom combat, all the AI has to do is pile units together and head off for the enemy's city.

This is not an argument against 1upt, but it's certainly not easier for the AI.

 

[Commander Bello]

1 upt = less units the AI must consider = stronger AI by default.

Quite the opposite.

A single unit will be lost, whenever encountered by a group of different units.
Therefore, grouping still has to exist - yet not "vertically" (stacks: putting one unit on top of the other unit) but "horizontally" (in the adjacent hexes.
To find the right deployment, even worse, the right sequence of moving these units will very likely be too much for the AI.

How much stronger, I don't know. But, I wouldn't be surprised if people struggled a bit against the AI in such a situation.

On the contrary, I am pretty sure that the vast majority of players will just toast the AI (even odds assumed). Furthermore, to deal with this, I am pretty sure that we will see even more annoying AI bonuses in terms of production times, resource usage and so on, just to hide the AI's incapability to decide which unit belongs where and which unit has to move in which sequence.

Remember that a designer of Civ5 said way back when that the AI was divided into 4 layers. It would have a local layer for determining local combat outcomes (like frontal attacks), a somewhat regional layer to assist with the needs of each city, then an "empire" layer to negotiate diplomatic situations, and then some master layer to figure out how to win the game.

Which in the worst case might mean that only one quarter of computing power can be adressed to tactical combat - this would be another advantage for the human player.

IMO, this looks like a tougher AI than in the past.

Which, to be honest, doesn't mean anything as the Civ4 AI was dumb in an incredible way.

 

[andrewlt]

Actually, I think 1upt will be much harder for the AI to handle, since it has to carefully position units, making use of terrain, and protect vulnerable ranged units, while trying to flank the enemy and get at his vulnerable units. Whereas in Stack of Doom combat, all the AI has to do is pile units together and head off for the enemy's city.

This is not an argument against 1upt, but it's certainly not easier for the AI.

Don't worry, they'll just give the AI more obnoxious bonuses at higher difficulty levels.

I actually like Stardock's philosophy of not adding any features that they can't program a decent AI for. They said if they can't do that, feature is gone. Of course, in this case, I'd say it's worth it just to see SOD gameplay gone.

 

[__JR__]

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!"


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.

Well, I guess I wasn't here to read discussion on your first point. But certainly that was a measure to try to eliminate the SoD, right? Because the developers saw the SoD as a problem, or at the very least not the ideal solution for the combat model.

Or maybe I'm misunderstanding what you wrote.

My point was that regardless of where the best defensive positions were, you were almost always best served by simply placing your units in your own cities. Sure, you may try to protect certain squares from being pillaged, but that too was almost always best done by counterattacking out of your cities (i.e. not spending any time out in the open by attacking the same turn you move).

And this was an issue because if you had your own SoD out defending your territory, the other stack could almost always just ignore it and go straight to the city.

There was no imperative to attack or destroy that SoD, unless it was not on a good square/receiving no defensive bonus, or if it was in a city. How often could you get a SoD onto a good square where the enemy was forced to destroy it to move forward ?? Almost never !! Now at least you'll have to break through a line, or destroy a key defender outside of a city to move forward. Not just simply ignore the opposing force.

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.

This is a very good point.

 

[Ricci]

Well, I guess I wasn't here to read discussion on your first point. But certainly that was a measure to try to eliminate the SoD, right? Because the developers saw the SoD as a problem, or at the very least not the ideal solution for the combat model.
...

Nerfing catapults and siege in general, by taking away their 25% withdrawal chance, emphasized the use of bigger stacks. With the withdrawal chance siege was better, much higher survival chance thus reuse, and more dangerous for the stacked. It was just a nerf to siege units because they were actually very powerful indeed; remember the Hwacha which could tear down city defenses, kill the defenders with a +50% against melee & 25% withdrawal plus the collateral effect. It was ridiculous.

As a side note I always thought suicidal siege could be avoided and siege nerfed with less collateral strength or less units collateralized in one attack, etc.

...
How often could you get a SoD onto a good square where the enemy was forced to destroy it to move forward ?? Almost never !! Now at least you'll have to break through a line, or destroy a key defender outside of a city to move forward. Not just simply ignore the opposing force.

I will try the interrogative approach this time because just stating the fact has proven to be very ineffective.

Why do you think with the new combat system you won't be able to walk through and just simply ignore the opposing force??

Yes, you got it. It will be primarily due to ZoC in combination, to a lesser extent, with range firing!
1UPT plays a very important role in balancing/limiting these features (because the devs happen to have chosen 1UPT), but is by no means determinant to the issue.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

ZoC would be pretty useless if you can concentrate an ENTIRE ARMY into the space of a single hex-so 1upt actually does help-by forcing units to spread out, it means ZoC is going to come into effect more often, which also means that you'll be forced to take out opposing units more often rather than just sidestepping them with your entire army.

For the record, the siege weapon approach didn't KILL SoD's, but it made their use slightly less effective. Having learned from their mistakes, though, the Civ team have decided to eliminate the SoD problem altogether. What I don't get is this though-if you guys are all SO CERTAIN that you'll despise the game, and that it will be a complete commercial failure, then why do you even bother to hang out in this particular forum? Sorry, but that really doesn't make any sense to me!

Aussie.

 

[Commander Bello]

There was no imperative to attack or destroy that SoD, unless it was not on a good square/receiving no defensive bonus, or if it was in a city. How often could you get a SoD onto a good square where the enemy was forced to destroy it to move forward ?? Almost never !!

Sorry, if this sounds harsh, but I don't find better phrases.

You seem to have missed to really think about Civ4's combat system.

Your enemy approaches you with an attacking SoD (aSoD) of say 50 units. Some of them are things like trebs and city raider promoted units.
Now, if you can move a defensive SoD of your own (dSoD) into their way, these trebs and CR units are rendered at least much less useful.
And now imagine that you place your dSoD into a forest next to their way (alternatively, behind a river, on a hill, on a forested hill, on a forested hill behind a river). Since the forest gives you 50% defense bonus (not taking any units with Woodsman promotion into account!), your dSoD can be much smaller than the aSoD.

You may attack the aSoD with some good attacking units (based on territory) to inflict some attrition on the attacker and still chances are good that you may hold your position against a counter attack.
And even, if that counter attack would be successful, then you would still have bought time for your cities to produce new units and the aSoD would be much smaller and wounded afterwards, therefore imposing less threat to your cities.
Since your first dSoD could be smaller, you could generate 2 dSoDs, to block the enemy path of approach even better. So, if the aSoD would not care about dSoD#1, it's path could still be blocked by dSoD#2, allowing dSoD#1 to redeploy into a new battle position.

Just waiting for the enemy by putting both dSoDs into a city would be harmful, as the attacker then could:
a) pillage your territory,
b) would at least block you from accessing at least one field of the city's fat cross
c) make use of all city attack modifiers

So, defend your cities as far outside as ever possible. In the long run this will save you units and time to produce even more units.

 

[Commander Bello]

For the record, the siege weapon approach didn't KILL SoD's, but it made their use slightly less effective.

It not only didn't kill the SoD, it made it mandatory (which was obvious from the very first second, btw).
And it made it mandatory to have BIG SoD's. Size did matter in Civ4.

Against almost any unit there is the perfect counter unit, and since there are more defensive bonuses than attacking bonuses, except for pure grassland/plains environments, the defender always has better chances to survive.
This required to have stacks to attack a certain tile, since success on first attempt was not guaranteed. Up to this point, developers were thinking and introduced collateral damage.
Which - surprise, surprise - made you build even bigger stacks to have enough units to go on.

Coming back to Civ5.
After all what I've seen so far, ranged units are strong in ranged combat.
I don't know whether there will be "defensive fire" as in Panzer General, but if it will, then you may face quite some hard times if you're trying to attack (first, you have to approach the guarding frontline units, taking hits from defensive fire, then you have to finally kill the frontline units and then you still have to break through).

If there wouldn't be defensive fire, this would introduce just the same unlogic as before, where all other units are doing their laundry while the one defending units fights for death or live. Rinse and repeat.

 

[pi-r8]

I can't believe the game is being released in less than 2 months. Firaxis has released so little information that everyone is still forced to guess basic game mechanics from a few random screenshots? That's pathetic PR by Firaxis.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

It not only didn't kill the SoD, it made it mandatory (which was obvious from the very first second, btw).
And it made it mandatory to have BIG SoD's. Size did matter in Civ4.

Against almost any unit there is the perfect counter unit, and since there are more defensive bonuses than attacking bonuses, except for pure grassland/plains environments, the defender always has better chances to survive.
This required to have stacks to attack a certain tile, since success on first attempt was not guaranteed. Up to this point, developers were thinking and introduced collateral damage.
Which - surprise, surprise - made you build even bigger stacks to have enough units to go on.

Coming back to Civ5.
After all what I've seen so far, ranged units are strong in ranged combat.
I don't know whether there will be "defensive fire" as in Panzer General, but if it will, then you may face quite some hard times if you're trying to attack (first, you have to approach the guarding frontline units, taking hits from defensive fire, then you have to finally kill the frontline units and then you still have to break through).

If there wouldn't be defensive fire, this would introduce just the same unlogic as before, where all other units are doing their laundry while the one defending units fights for death or live. Rinse and repeat.

What you forget is that siege weapons in Civ4 delivered Collateral damage, which I found encouraged me to use *smaller* stacks-so as to prevent a single siege weapon attack weakening my entire attack force. Now it wasn't perfect, but it was in some respects a better approach than the ranged unit system in Civ3-at least in making stacks less effective, but without making siege units too overpowered. It unfortunately didn't eliminate SoD's, especially in cities-where turtling was an all too effective strategy. Indeed, in spite of a number of improvements to the combat system in Civ4 over Civ3 (promotions, Rock/Paper/Scissors & collateral damage), combat victory still too often came down to "who has the biggest stack"-& usually came out in favour of the defender more often than the attacker. At least 1upt seems to be evening things out a bit by removing some of the "attacker/defender" dichotomy.

Aussie.

 

[TM Moot]

Wow, thats quite an impressive debate on the merits of 1upt v SoD...

Personally, i'm quite looking forward to trying 1upt, i was a reluctant warmonger in Civ4, i always preferred the Civ2(3?) version where you lost ALL units on a tile if the strongest defender died. I could never see the problem with that, it didn't bar you from stacking, but it made it risky.

i think that 2 additonal factors will have an impact on the whole combat experience, one is the fact that resources are finite and the other is that iirc it is now no longer a fight to the death, ie. both attacker/defender can take damage

i'm hoping that there will be a lot more tactical thinking in CivV, rather then just pumping out axemen/maces/infantry etc..

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Here's the thing-I used to play a number of 1upt based Wargames throughout the 1990's (my favourite was People's General). My experience of the AI from those games was some of my most challenging games of all time-definitely more challenging than any combat I faced in Civ1 to Civ4. This is an even bigger deal when you consider the fact that the AI's in this game are at least 10 years old. Now I can't explain why the AI seemed to handle 1upt better than Stack Combat (you'd need to ask someone with expertise in AI programming) all I know is that it *did*.
The other thing is that I have seen significant improvements in both the combat engine & the AI in Civ since the days of Civ1. So it is my view that, if you take a system that the AI seems inherently better at comprehending, & combine it with a good underlying combat engine (diverse promotions, terrain & adjacent unit modifiers to combat, ZoC) & a far better AI (the AI in Civ5 is supposed to have different Layers, which should help how it conducts itself in combat), & I suspect that combat in Civ5 will be worlds better than anything we've seen in the Civ franchise to date. I certainly don't think it will make the game *worse*!!!

 

[Commander Bello]

Originally Posted by Commander Bello

Up to this point, developers were thinking and introduced collateral damage.
Which - surprise, surprise - made you build even bigger stacks to have enough units to go on.

What you forget is that siege weapons in Civ4 delivered Collateral damage, which I found encouraged me to use *smaller* stacks-so as to prevent a single siege weapon attack weakening my entire attack force.

First, I have to ask you to read more carefully.
Second, if collateral damage made you make use of smaller stacks, then I am sure you are part of the minority, since otherwise this seems to render the discussion quite obsolete.

Give siege weapons even more collateral damage and the problem of SoD's will be gone. Obviously, it did not.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

If collateral damage made you make use of smaller stacks, then I am sure you are part of the minority, since otherwise this seems to render the discussion quite obsolete.

Give siege weapons even more collateral damage and the problem of SoD's will be gone. Obviously, it did not.

The problem with that is that you risk making siege weapons *too* powerful (which was also part of the problem in Civ3). It's a difficult balancing act, but I'm hoping that a combination of 1upt & ranged combat is the balance we've been looking for.
Lastly, you claim to be *sure* that I was part of a minority. Well I certainly wasn't a minority in any of the MANY MP games I've played over the last 5 years. Methinks your surety is misplaced.