Has 1UPT Completely Destroyed this Franchise?

[madm]

I don't mind too much about arguments like unrealistic, poorly implemented or even unbalanced. There's basically just one (personal) argument: is it FUN to play? I've played this game since civ 1 and I'm still playing civ 6 (although somewhat disappointed), but for me the overall fun in playing civ has decreased by the 1UPT mechanics for only two reasons:
1. The AI can't handle it properly. It's not fun to watch an AI randomly shuffling units around. Has been an issue since its introduction in Civ V.
2. Moving units is a hassle. Even moving a 10-unit army from the east to the west of your own empire is not fun. My infantry unit can't move over my own roads because there's a missionary in its way. Not fun. Thers's plenty examples like this.
For me, there would be an easy solution: allow multiple units per tile, but dramatically decrease (or even eliminate, see what works best) offense and defense power of a stacked unit, so stacked units can't be used in battles, but you can stack units for moving/transportation in safe areas.

 

[Ryika]

No you will never have to move 100 units in civ 6. You only need 10 units to take over the world with this incompetent AI.

Yep, so micromanagement isn't a problem after all.

I'm glad you're beginning to understand that 1upt is just superior.

 

[TehJumpingJawa]

Thankfully you shouldn't ever have to move 100 units at the same time.

100 units was an exaggeration to demonstrate the point.
Even 10 units is clunky as hell, and that's well within the unit counts of a normal civ 5/6 game

The micro involved in moving stacks is O(1); constant time.
Unstacked movement micro is O(n^2); quadratic time, it scales with both distance & unit count.

What we get is much smaller maps, and far fewer units, yet it still takes significantly more work to move your units.

Note, I'm not addressing the obvious AI issues caused by 1upt, nor the far reaching game balance issues precipitated by having lower unit counts.

Civ3/4 stacking had flaws, yes.
Civ5/6 though? It's indefensible. It breaks the UI, AI, and economic/war/difficulty balance of the entire game.
Arguably Civ1/2 had it best, balancing tactical positioning with strategic manageability; though clearly it created contrived situations with mass wipes possible.

There's a better way though; attrition.
Until Firaxis realise this, the civ franchise will be dead to me. (And hopefully many others)

 

[dagriggstar]

Can you explain this further? To me it seems completely backwards.

100 unit stack: click->drag->release; path finder will generate the optimum route, stack arrives in X turns. (the only exception being an interruption by hostile units)
Typically 5 seconds of work for the user, regardless of distance moved.

100 units no stacking: Oh God, please, NO!
Prepare yourself for >X turns of micro-managing the individual moves of 100 units.
Depending upon distance moved, that's anywhere up to 30 minutes of work for the user.

In terms of seriousness, the usability lost with 1upt is just as critical as (and intrinsically linked to) the AI's inability to handle it.

Hmmm I feel like I misphrased. Perhaps more "I have to produce 100 units oh god please no". I'm talking of my experiences in games, so the comparison would be more like say moving 10 units under 1UPT vs 100 units stacked. Including the attacking element (individually clicking all those attacks) and all those unit promotions.

I would say I prefer V combat system to say IV, but I do think stacking with obvious drawbacks (ie soft rules against it) would be the ideal

 

[Siptah]

Until Firaxis realise this, the civ franchise will be dead to me. (And hopefully many others)

While I respect the opinion of others, this is unacceptable.

 

[Dale]

Yep, so micromanagement isn't a problem after all.

I'm glad you're beginning to understand that 1upt is just superior.

You only need 10 units as the ai is completely incompetent. Not because it's superior.

 

[Ryika]

100 units was an exaggeration to demonstrate the point.
Even 10 units is clunky as hell, and that's well within the unit counts of a normal civ 5/6 game

Moving 10 units is just fine, unless you really don't like tactical combat. In which case, go play Civ 4.

The micro involved in moving stacks is O(1); constant time.
Unstacked movement micro is O(n^2); quadratic time, it scales with both distance & unit count.

Waaaait. Wait. Are you telling me that moving more units takes more time? Reaaally?

What we get is much smaller maps

That doesn't have anything to do with 1upt, if they wanted they could easily create a 1upt-system that plays on larger maps. The combat rules would need to be a lot different of course.

and far fewer units, yet it still takes significantly more work to move your units.

Yeah, because each unit actually matters. You're saying this as if "fewer units" were a bad thing, but really, mid- and endgame stacks are not much more than "1 unit". A complex one, but still.

Or to phrase it differently: Stack-gameplay may have more units, but they all combine to one "actor". 1upt has less units, but all of them are actors, and have their own position on the battlefield.

There's a better way, and until Firaxis realise this, the civ franchise will be dead to me.

And that's fine. Not every game is for everyone, and given that the game seems to have developed into a direction that you really dislike, I understand your frustration.
But still. The Franchise is doing well, 1upt has both, upsides and downsides that different people will evaluate differently. You obviously fall on the side of 100% disliking the system, most people do not.

(And hopefully many others)

Doesn't look like that's what's happening.

 

[Siptah]

You only need 10 units as the ai is completely incompetent. Not because it's superior.

you don't need much more than 10 active offensive units in multiplayer too. Just strike at the right place and be quick with your attack. The opponent might have his army far away and might not be able to come back in time. This is a good thing imho. Of course you need some defensive units, but you rarely move them around, no? And if you happen to meet a 10 unit army with your 10 unit army, this is where the fun starts (really!).

 

[Jonathan]

What we get is much smaller maps, and far fewer units, yet it still takes significantly more work to move your units.

...

Until Firaxis realise this, the civ franchise will be dead to me. (And hopefully many others)

I've played every version of Civ since version 1, and I've had a perpetual love/hate relationship with it, because it's never been the kind of game I really wanted, and yet it was addictive, and parts of it were fun. It's certainly not dead to me, and I'm fine with the current restrictions on stacking. Stacking is not a nice thing to do in general, because you can't look at the map and see at a glance what's in the stacks. You have to do an inspection action on each particular stack to find out what's in it.

You may not have noticed, but when starting a game you can specify the size of the map. If you want a big map, just ask for it.

I suppose moving swarms of units over the map doesn't bother me because I don't do it much. Near the beginning of the game there aren't many units (and they don't have to move very far), and later on I think the game is designed to discourage wars (though perhaps the discouragement isn't sufficiently effective). I never play into the later stages of the game anyway, because I find them tedious. I play on a Standard map with a default limit of 500 turns, but I specify in the advanced game setup that my games should stop at 220 turns, so I play only 44% of a full game, which is the part I happen to enjoy.

 

[Disgustipated]

Despite my hatred of 1upt when Civ5 came out I still think it can work. Will it ever be good? No. The biggest problem is the AI is not aggressive with their units. I'd rather see the AI just zerg rush the nearest city to their units rather than do nothing with their units but pillage. No way will Civ6 AI ever be able to organize their units effectively (melee up front/ranged-bombard in back), but they could pose a threat if they just throw every unit they got at your city. I would be happy to at least see that in this game. That's a minimum of what the AI should do.

Seriously this can't be hard to program. Just program the AI to attack anything in sight, and move towards the nearest city. The AI should also be programmed to build every unit (like air units) and use those units. If after 10 turns they haven't accomplished anything, then I can see going for peace. Civ5 AI did this, so I can't see why Civ6 AI can't do this.

Yes the human will always have the advantage with 1UPT, but with bonuses at higher levels this can be compensated for somewhat. The biggest problem is the AI not going all out in their wars. Only defensive countries like China/India should hold back with their units. Everyone else should zerg rush with everything they got.

 

[Gub]

100 units was an exaggeration to demonstrate the point.
Even 10 units is clunky as hell, and that's well within the unit counts of a normal civ 5/6 game

The micro involved in moving stacks is O(1); constant time.
Unstacked movement micro is O(n^2); quadratic time, it scales with both distance & unit count.

Judging the mechanics by number crunching a single aspect isn't a good way to go. 1UPT (and other mechanics, like the city garrisons) wasn't designed for civ4 but for Civ5-6 gameplay, as part of emphasis on mechanics that effect strategic and tactical decision making quality --a reversal to the civ4 stacks of doom and long standing city building dumping ground, among other things.

 

[blasto]

Actually I think 1UPT has nothing to do with the problem... its the change from squares to hex that is the issue.

 

[TruthfulCake]

It's statements like these that just boggle my mind. It's, in other words, saying: Yeah, I do recognize moving big armies around is tedious, but that's an intentional design choice to prevent players from ever building them!
This is "I don't even...." territory.
But ... wait, maybe you're on to something. Maybe you're right. So many things in Civ6 are so tedious because the designers would secretly rather have us become fed up with the game, turn off the computer and maybe do something more productive, like working, doing the laundry or assembling ballpens! Yeah, that's probably it!

The amount of strawman in this "rebuttal" is in the "I don't even..." territory. My point stands as it is: making troop movement too easy undermines strategic placement of cities. Between too easy and too tedious, I would choose the latter because on the aggressor's side, it provides challenge, and on the defender's side, it gives them a chance to do something creative. If you want to quote and reply, at least make sure your response has substance?

Preventing stacking, however, utterly de-emphasizes army size and industrial capacity. Whether your chokepoint city faces 5 units or 500 units, it matters little - you can hold them off indefinately. Even at thermopylae, they eventually had to yield. Sucked for the greek that the Civ6 ruleset wasn't in effect, else they would still be fighting over there today. With the same units, too, because nobody would have bothered to upgrade their units.

And yet this is not the case in the game. You cannot hold off an overwhelming number of troops indefinitely (unless the aggressor never does something aggressive like the AI, but that is not really the subject here). You can delay it, sure, and that is a good thing. But with the availability of ranged attacks and indirect fire, and mobile cavalry units which can move through those units and arrive at the chokepoint to take the city, etc...? If you have overwhelming numbers but not enough power to take the difficult city due to limited maneuverability, then you pillage and boycott any productivity of the city (trade routes, improvements, civilians), or you go attack their weaker cities with that number until they capitulate, or you wait until you have access to stronger artillery to wage war, etc. If you have a carpet of 10 units in the 1UPT system, you can be sure it is going to hinder the opponent even if you can't capture their city completely. And that is the opposite of "de-emphasizing" army size.

Take a close look at any Civ6 world map. Ready? Now count the tiles depicting a pass through the alps. You can do that on one hand - with fingers to spare. Now take a look at how many years one Civ turn in the time of Hannibal takes. Heh. Yeah, ok, let's be very generous and use 1 year/turn like in the modern age. Assemble Hannibals army - let's say 4 units of infantry, one unit of cav and one elephant. Put it into any kind of formation. Now move it through the pass and reassemble the formation on the other side of the alps. Count the turns. Now compare this with the time Hannibals campaign actually took. Consider where Hannibals battles were actually fought and that, yes, taking Civ's scale into consideration, his army was actually stacked on a single tile for the most part. Consider that the entirety of his campaign would fit into a single Civ turn. Start to see a pattern?

In the scale of a civilization games, such logistical issues are to be abstracted. Abstraction! Google it, it's a fascinating concept. You're playing the immortal leader of an entire civilization. That's already fairly abstract, if you ponder it for a second.
What makes you think this leader should have to make a call whether to move that archer or that swordsman first? For all his units in the world. Individually. Every. Single. Turn. ?

The fact that you bring up "abstraction" but at the same time use exact numbers and adjust it to Civ's scale is very disingenuous, isn't it? I am all for abstraction. That is why I don't believe it should take the same exact amount of turns and tiles in a Civ game to represent Hannibal's crossing. I believe that the difficulty of the march should be reproduced instead through abstraction. If you are going to argue how real world armies basically fit in one tile scaled down to Civ size, then you are in no position to condescendingly tell people to Google abstraction.

 

[Gub]

"Preventing stacking, however, utterly de-emphasizes army size and industrial capacity."

It prevents the snowball effect --when investing in industry makes you a Napoleon in late game-- and offer more gameplay options. You actually need to plan ahead where large engagements will take place, not just push push push with a critical mass that makes every other mechanic irrelevant.. It might force you to open new fronts, use naval invasions, invest in navy escorts etc..

FYI I am fan of big scenarios and often have had to struggle with micro-management hell (even in mods with automated functions) but IMHO reversal of the stacks of doom and city district's\wonders will remain core mechanics of the franchise and for a good reason.

 

[Sobornost]

1UPT always feels like it takes so long to do, the logistics of it wear the heck out of you. It's appropriate for a separate tactical map, for Panzer General-type scenarios, etc. Wars with stacks tend to be brisk and to the point. I think that fits Civ better.

I do appreciate every other innovation that has come out of Civ 5 and 6. Just not that one.

 

[steveg700]

useless/Dangerous inflammatory remarks without quantification, pointless point unanswerable

Victoria, the snideness of your response is pretty inflammatory in its own right. Saying that moving units is a pain is in fact a very pointed remark insomuch as the point is pretty self-contained: 1UPT makes moving units a pain, ergo the OP deems that to be a strike against it. It seems that there those who agree with him. You may disagree, as it's just a matter of opinion, but the burden of quantification you mention doesn't exist.

Yes, so? This is a game not reality.

Reductive statements do not gain strength through repetition. Rather, they come across as increasingly glib until they have the obtuse ring of "hear-no-evil".

Yes, there is a level of abstraction in video games that must be accepted. That doesn't provide a universal counter-card to play against any and all criticisms regarding elements that don't make thematic sense and disrupt immersion. For that matter, the OP's comments are generally supported by explaining the practical problems they create. The issue with embarked land units is a good example. The point you didn't wish to acknowledge is glaring. Allowing embarked land units to retain their full strength means that a spam of knights with no naval support can blockade ships and even aggressively immobilizes them. Unlike the sheer impracticality of having thousands of cities or districts spanning realistic sizes, this is a compromise of suspension of belief that exists simply to compromise for an AI that still can't figure out how to move in a fashion that distinguishes land from water.

If three months post-gold isn't sufficient time to stop biting one's tongue, just how long is a reasonable amount of time?

 

[Acken]

I'm tempted to say such a core change with an AI that cannot use it is a mistake.

 

[Alkaid]

1UPT vs Stack complaint threads should warrant a suspension or something at this point. Zero point but inviting repetitive arguing that never amounts to anything but beating dead horses at best.

Also, the AI in Civ 6 is leagues worse than Civ 5, and both use 1UPT. Of all the things to blame the state of Civ 6's AI on right now, picking 1UPT just sounds like trying to make it fit a narrative.

Again, please, we don't need these threads anymore.

 

[teks]

1UPT vs Stack complaint threads should warrant a suspension or something at this point. Zero point but inviting repetitive arguing that never amounts to anything but beating dead horses at best.

Also, the AI in Civ 6 is leagues worse than Civ 5, and both use 1UPT. Of all the things to blame the state of Civ 6's AI on right now, picking 1UPT just sounds like trying to make it fit a narrative.

Again, please, we don't need these threads anymore.

Civ 6 AI is worse then civ 5, but they are both really, really.....really really bad.
I'll blame civ 6's ai being worse on the new machanics.
I'll blame both of them being far worse then previous titles on 1upt.

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: Why does the subject of 1 upt bring out the worst in us? Please cease the comments concerning the posts of others as snide, nasty or trolling and make your points with civility. Please report the nasty stuff and allow staff to deal with it. Comments about others only begs reprisals that change the thread topic. If you cannot control yourselves, we'll start closing threads.
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