Farewell to unit spam

[Winston Hughes]

Hi Winston, long time no see

Aye. I've not been around the civ-related parts of the forum much lately, though you can always find me (and most of the old Divine Intervention crew) in the forum games area. You should come join us for a game of Night of the Werewolves sometime.

I agree with your point, but there is a diference between ICS and what you called Infinite unit spam

It was aelf who coined the term IUS, iirc.

And, yeah, it's a very different beast to ICS, not least because you actually have to be able to support the army in the first place, whereas an extra city in civ3 never cost more than the price of a settler.

However, one of my issues with civ4 is that, beyond a certain level of economic development, unit costs cease to be a significant concern, even with a truly monstrous army. Once that stage has been reached, the only reason not to spam troops is one of opportunity cost - you could be building something else instead. But with a military approach being usually the safest route to victory, setting half your cities to pour out troops tends to be the more reliable option.

Although I'd stop short of saying that there should be a hard limit on the number of military units a civ can build (beyond the restriction posed by 1 unit/tile), I really hope that there'll be some disadvantage to cramming a unit into every single space.

 

[Akkon888]

There will be a disadvantage when people cram units. They will not be able to move units in an out nearly as effectively.

But, there are far fewer units that in Civ4. I suspect that 80 Civ4 units would be able to represent 15 or so Civ5 units.

 

[mattigus]

Because otherwise the only thing heard from most of the masses is: 'We praise and worship Civ 5, , Civ 5 is perfect with no flaws, it's all done because it is better. Civ 5 even fills my gas tank when I run out"

This may be just my perception, but roughly 70 percent of all posts on this site have been people complaining about the changes. Remember the first post that talked about the first magazine article on Civ5? I think the thread was titled "I AM DISAPOINTED" or something like that.

Almost every game sequel is the exact copy of the previous one, like Gears of War 2 or Halo 3. Madden became a legend by doing this. It's sad to see a game company show some balls and make the tough decision to change everything, hopefully for the better, and see their hardcore fans jump down their throat and protest.

 

[Ahriman]

It's sad to see a game company show some balls and make the tough decision to change everything, hopefully for the better, and see their hardcore fans jump down their throat and protest.

A fair point. I'm glad they've released some of these major changes a long time beforehand. I was initially really skeptical (and I'm still worried a bit about choke-points and micromangement), but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and risk change to get something that is actually *different* to its predecessors.

But I think the issue is that CivFans love the game so much that we're more afraid of change than most.

 

[Grimlin]

Although I'd stop short of saying that there should be a hard limit on the number of military units a civ can build (beyond the restriction posed by 1 unit/tile), I really hope that there'll be some disadvantage to cramming a unit into every single space.

Strategic resources impose limits in CiV. According to the previews its only possible to build a specified amount of troops with 1 unit of the resource (i think an example was 5 swordsmen per iron). So if one wants to build more units its necessary to get more resources.
Its obvious the AI will be pretty reluctant to trading strategic resources since it reduces their own army.

 

[Winston Hughes]

Strategic resources impose limits in CiV. According to the previews its only possible to build a specified amount of troops with 1 unit of the resource (i think an example was 5 swordsmen per iron). So if one wants to build more units its necessary to get more resources.
Its obvious the AI will be pretty reluctant to trading strategic resources since it reduces their own army.

Ah, that's most interesting. Thanks for the info.

 

[Woodreaux]

This may be just my perception, but roughly 70 percent of all posts on this site have been people complaining about the changes. Remember the first post that talked about the first magazine article on Civ5? I think the thread was titled "I AM DISAPOINTED" or something like that.

Almost every game sequel is the exact copy of the previous one, like Gears of War 2 or Halo 3. Madden became a legend by doing this. It's sad to see a game company show some balls and make the tough decision to change everything, hopefully for the better, and see their hardcore fans jump down their throat and protest.

This is an excellent point. Usually when a company publishes a smashing success, they try to continue the success by reusing the proven formula. I content there is a reason for this, Blizzard decided to display some artistic courage when they made WarCraft III. They nerfed large armies by mining penalties and hard limits and shifted the focus from formations to the hero characters, effecting changing it from an RTS to an RPG w/entourage. The result was epic fail, this is not what WarCraft II & StarCraft players wanted. I hope Blizzard learned its lesson, we'll see with StarCraft II.

At the risk of coming across as conservative in my video gaming tastes, I say it is unwise for a game company to totally abandon the tools and techniques which make a franchise successful. Civ IV and BTS were bounds in evolution of the franchise, while the portents of Civ V appear questionable. I'm not going to say it will be a bad game, (judgement will be rendered when I play it), but it does not currently look as good as Civ IV or even Civ III.

 

[r_rolo1]

It was aelf who coined the term IUS, iirc.

And, yeah, it's a very different beast to ICS, not least because you actually have to be able to support the army in the first place, whereas an extra city in civ3 never cost more than the price of a settler.

However, one of my issues with civ4 is that, beyond a certain level of economic development, unit costs cease to be a significant concern, even with a truly monstrous army. Once that stage has been reached, the only reason not to spam troops is one of opportunity cost - you could be building something else instead. But with a military approach being usually the safest route to victory, setting half your cities to pour out troops tends to be the more reliable option.

Although I'd stop short of saying that there should be a hard limit on the number of military units a civ can build (beyond the restriction posed by 1 unit/tile), I really hope that there'll be some disadvantage to cramming a unit into every single space.

Oh, I remember that flamed discussion ... to be honest, I was more of the side of aelf than of the others in that one

I keep musing that a maintenance model for the military roughly similar to the city maintenance ( that is , a very steep increase in maintenance per city and then a small decrease to a faily expensive plateau ) could had stopped the extra large armies that civ IV has, or atleast make them so expensive that only the brave and the fool would try to make them.

Oh, and the poster that said that units will be limited by resources said a half-truth. What was stated was that units that need resources will be capped by the number of resources*X ( X is the number of units you can do for every resource )... not that there is a official comfirmation that resourceless units exist ( but they will probably be there, even to avoid that civs that start with early military can impunely march over the ones that don't... and also to protect from barbs in early stages of the game... Warriors, that are already confirmed, are a good candidate to be resourceless , IMHO )

 

[Ahriman]

I think there will probably be *plenty* of units which are resourceless. Archers, siege units, late game firearms units etc.

Which is a good thing; it helps make resource-requiring units (like knights, heavy infantry) more special. I really like the idea of having more accurate feudal armies of weaker foot troops with a handful of elites which are more expensive and have resource requirements. And then the 1 unit per tile means that the placement of your few elite troops has major implications. Do I place a bunch of knights on the flank, to try to turn your flank and roll up your army, or place them near the center for a frontal charge across open ground? Do I spread out my tanks throughout my army, or concentrate them in a focused armored spearhead?

 

[Etheric]

OT, but personally I loved warcraft III, but that is rather beside the point.

I guess noone here has actually played panzer general? Everything I have read so far reads a lot like panzer general, with the 1 unit per hex, archers and their upgrades taking the place of the artilary in the game. The units taking a few hits to kill and so on. I guess units won't survive more than 3-4 combats with similar oppostion without getting healed in some way. I guess we might see the "push back" mechanism too where you can as an attack caputure a hex, making the enemy move back. If there was nowhere for them to retreat too then they were eliminated instead.

I think this could add a huge amount of strategic depth to the game, whcih is badly missing in Civ 4. Right now it is pretty much who gets the first hit in with their SoD, with the artillary pieces being devestating, particularly out in the open.

Anyway we will see, I am quite looking forward to it.

To be honest I think it is looking like a nice change as the combat in civ4 is pretty much broken