Has 1UPT Completely Destroyed this Franchise?

[historix69]

Stack of Death or Stack of Doom are also not realistic. You need some logistic and flanking mechanism which forces players to also place stacks on their flanks, creating front lines.

If you look at the following map (1941), each unit marked xxxx stands for an army with around 100.000 men ...

Spoiler :

 

[rschissler]

Stack of Death or Stack of Doom are also not realistic.

I'd give up a little realism for ease of movement and a more challenging AI.

 

[Kissamies]

maybe you should start by actually playing the game

In due time. It's not in the bargain bin with all possible DLC yet.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

Stack of Death or Stack of Doom are also not realistic. You need some logistic and flanking mechanism which forces players to also place stacks on their flanks, creating front lines.

If you look at the following map (1941), each unit marked xxxx stands for an army with around 100.000 men ...

Spoiler :

That's funny because I felt CIV's stacks in pitboss made for a good approximation of operations like Barbarossa and Bagration in pitboss games. Impressive warfare on massive fronts with defensive lines, key breaches, double envelopments, combined arms importance, engineering and logistics importance. I've set up turns where I've taken multiple cities, destroyed entire armies, enveloped enemy stacks into hopeless positions. And I've seen other high combat skill players like Munro do it too.

Compared to that, 1UPT feels like checkers to me, or, most charitably, early game CIV MP skirmishes.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

It's only a matter of what you're used to. I'd wager that if the franchise started out 1upt way back when and recently changed to stacks, many of the same people would hate stacks. People can cite evidence about which style is more realistic or whatever, but they're just justifying what they believed to be true all along. Both ways have shortcomings and the ones you choose to highlight is just personal preference. I for one am GLAD that the combat isn't more realistic and accurate--if you're looking for a game with that, you're playing the wrong series and always have been. That has notthing to do with 1UPT vs stacks.

 

[Left Foot]

The main issue with 1UPT right now for Civ, IMHO, isn't the concept of 1UPT itself, but how it's implemented. One can very much agree than 1 unit represents an entire army, representative of its age, that's cool, but taking that and applying tactical combat dynamics on a strategic map just breaks the world / empire building immersion.
I just can't suspend disbelief when an archer from 3000BC has longer range than a mechanized infantry. Sorry but Mechanized infantry doesn't fight hand to hand, or wheel to wheel, against other mechanized infantry or tanks. Or that an archer can shoot over a caravel, and hit a enemy unit on a different island two hexes away.
Or that my own units, in my own territory cannot enter a hex that I own because Spain happens to have a missionary there.
Sorry, but there are no real world equivalents or approximations of these scenarios, and that's immersion breaking, and that becomes game breaking for a game like Civ.

 

[rschissler]

The main issue with 1UPT right now for Civ, IMHO, isn't the concept of 1UPT itself, but how it's implemented. One can very much agree than 1 unit represents an entire army, representative of its age, that's cool, but taking that and applying tactical combat dynamics on a strategic map just breaks the world / empire building immersion.
I just can't suspend disbelief when an archer from 3000BC has longer range than a mechanized infantry. Sorry but Mechanized infantry doesn't fight hand to hand, or wheel to wheel, against other mechanized infantry or tanks. Or that an archer can shoot over a caravel, and hit a enemy unit on a different island two hexes away.
Or that my own units, in my own territory cannot enter a hex that I own because Spain happens to have a missionary there.
Sorry, but there are no real world equivalents or approximations of these scenarios, and that's immersion breaking, and that becomes game breaking for a game like Civ.

And how would you fix that? I mean really, we're talking about fixing the game, not starting from scratch.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I'd like them to move to a system os One Unit Type Per Tile, so you can stack a melee uinti and a ranged one together but not 2 melee - this would also solve the traffic james missionaries can set up!

 

[Siptah]

I'd like them to move to a system os One Unit Type Per Tile, so you can stack a melee uinti and a ranged one together but not 2 melee - this would also solve the traffic james missionaries can set up!

But with this change, I think siege units and ranged units should be almost always killed if attacked directly by a melee or cavalry unit.

 

[Left Foot]

And how would you fix that? I mean really, we're talking about fixing the game, not starting from scratch.

OK - my 2 cents:
using the same engine that Civ currently has:
- limited combination of troops (say 3-6 units), i.e. merging any combination of units into an army, and combat is by moving this corps or amy into another hex containing the opposing army. Combining units actually gives either attack or defense bonuses, depending on what is included in the army. Different combinations would give different bonuses. You have the possibility to remove a unit from an army, as needed, but the whole of the army suffers damages from combat.
- Your units are god in your territory and have absolute right of way. If I move my troops in a hex my territory and there is another civ's unit there, that unit either gets pushed aside to a neighboring hex or you have the option to expel it (and suffer a small diplo hit for example)

That solves (for me) the tactical combat on the strategic map issue, you don't have stacks of doom, and you don't suffer penalties while moving troops into your own territory.

 

[MrRadar]

But with this change, I think siege units and ranged units should be almost always killed if attacked directly by a melee or cavalry unit.

Captured, there should be a high chance to capture siege units. Just like in Civ III, fun times...

 

[Siptah]

Captured, there should be a high chance to capture siege units. Just like in Civ III, fun times...

I like this idea - for siege, not for archers ;-)
But I think it would result in many people not using siege that often, because you always need melee units to guard it and melee units can level as well. So if something like this happens, there has to be a buff to walls (or a nerf to melee attacking walls without battering rams) in order to keep siege units being used. I wonder why you cannot capture siege towers and battering rams anyway. I can capture settlers and force them to settle a city for me with my people and builder to work for me, but I can't capture a battering ram, because it gets destroyed by my troops somehow...

 

[Olleus]

I've said it before and I've said it again. Civ needs an extra layer between unit and map.

Cities build units. Units are not directly visible on map until combined into armies. The number of units per army (and the number of armies an empire can support) can be increased with tech/civics/governments/wonders/etc. Armies are limited to 1 per tile. A combat between two armies is resolved wholistically, that is, it behaves differently than pair of units from opposing armies fighting one at a time. This combat would be automated (no Total War style being directly involved in the tactical level). But it would probably be shown in a diagrammatic way on a popup screen (unless disabled of course). Think like what EU4 or CK2 has, except that it would take place in a single turn.

Elements that would come into this army vs army combat resolver could be: front line and support units in the same army complementing each other, relative composition of the two armies, size of the armies, terrain the battle takes place on (and possibly adjoining tiles to), tactic assigned by player to the army prior to battle (ie, charge the enemy, attempt flanking manoeuvre, etc).

The idea is that micromanagement and clutter are reduced, and the strategy and tactical layers are both explicitly present on different levels, but connected. An army with lots of cavalry might move faster and be stronger if it has lots of empty grassland tiles around where a battle happens (to represent flanking opportunity), but be weak against an army with lots of spearmen defending a hill. The player is involved in strategy by picking tech, which units to build armies out of and deciding between lots of small armies and a few big one. And is involved in tactic by positioning armies (there would be a handful per side per war) and assigning tactics to armies.

In other words, the simplicity and efficiency of multiple units per tile is kept (few stacks to move around), while the tactical elements and decision making of 1UPT is kept (but represented in a different way).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I for one love the 1UPT vs the stacks of death, it doesn't take any strategy to move the stack of 30 units around and stomp stuff

If you say this about civ 4 stack warfare, you don't know how to fight in civ 4 and would get absolutely destroyed by players who do unless you can manage era+ tech lead, all the time.

But winning with era+ tech lead doesn't take much strategy in civ 5 or 6 either.

 

[historix69]

I would try a system with stacks where combat efficiencies for 2 single armies fighting hex to hex are 100%. These 100% combat efficiency would be modified by +10% for every adjacent hex with own units and -15% for every adjacent hex with additional enemy units. This would force players to not put all units into a stack of doom (-75% when encircled = doomed) but instead try to cover flanks, encircle the enemy, ... Great Generals might modify these values.
Ranged combat should not be affected by these flanking modifiers, but ranged damage efficiency should increase when a hex is crowded, e.g. Ranged Damage Efficiency = 10% x number of units in target hex, capped at 150%, so a hex with 10 units would suffer 100% of the attacks damage (every grenade hits) while for a single unit in a hex 9 of 10 grenades would miss since it can spread out. (Damage would still be reduced by terrain and other cover modifiers like fortifications.)

The combat stack against stack with melee, cavalry, anti-cavalry, ranged units still would have to be resolved somehow ... I would not mind a system like Civ4 with "best defender" as long as ranged attacks are not automatically suicide attacks.
Combat is not a fair duel, it's defeating the other army without getting hit yourself if possible.

 

[Manifold]

I've said it before and I've said it again. Civ needs an extra layer between unit and map.

Cities build units. Units are not directly visible on map until combined into armies. The number of units per army (and the number of armies an empire can support) can be increased with tech/civics/governments/wonders/etc. Armies are limited to 1 per tile. A combat between two armies is resolved wholistically, that is, it behaves differently than pair of units from opposing armies fighting one at a time. This combat would be automated (no Total War style being directly involved in the tactical level). But it would probably be shown in a diagrammatic way on a popup screen (unless disabled of course). Think like what EU4 or CK2 has, except that it would take place in a single turn.

Elements that would come into this army vs army combat resolver could be: front line and support units in the same army complementing each other, relative composition of the two armies, size of the armies, terrain the battle takes place on (and possibly adjoining tiles to), tactic assigned by player to the army prior to battle (ie, charge the enemy, attempt flanking manoeuvre, etc).

The idea is that micromanagement and clutter are reduced, and the strategy and tactical layers are both explicitly present on different levels, but connected. An army with lots of cavalry might move faster and be stronger if it has lots of empty grassland tiles around where a battle happens (to represent flanking opportunity), but be weak against an army with lots of spearmen defending a hill. The player is involved in strategy by picking tech, which units to build armies out of and deciding between lots of small armies and a few big one. And is involved in tactic by positioning armies (there would be a handful per side per war) and assigning tactics to armies.

In other words, the simplicity and efficiency of multiple units per tile is kept (few stacks to move around), while the tactical elements and decision making of 1UPT is kept (but represented in a different way).

Some good ideas, but I want to keep the tactical control and I guess the benefit of a more complicate warfare is not great. IMO to bring the battle system from this old Panzer general game into the Civ game was brilliant.

The main thing is only that the AI had to learn to play chess. But after the last patch it is better now (except navy and air force).

More interaction with tactical effects between adjacent units, as you pointed out, would be cool.
What is when an adjacent units is killed. Will their wingman try to flee or will he fight twice as brave, because he knows he is the last defense? And did the winning unit want to break more through the enemy lines? But did the munition and support be enough?
Also unit combinations (like the Roman Legion or Napoleons divisions) should be more important.
Maybe units should get a attack and a defense value back. This would improve the tactical possibilities.

But I do not like too much units on the board. Civ should also be an economic simulation so the warfare can be symbolic. That is ok for me..

 

[Karmah]

They aren't many thing that would make me leave civ since I've been a fan since the first one, but going back to the totally obsolete pile of army moving around instead of the pretty nice 1UP + formations is one of the thing that could I think.
Now I could live with an extra layer if the balance is done REALLY well. But then I think it would requiere some kind of design where each unit types might be paired with another one exclusively. That may create an interresting metagame with incentives to build some otherwise discarded unit types (lik spearman currently)

 

[KingCheops]

As a Panzer General fan who spent far too much of his adolescence playing that and Civ I have to say I vastly prefer the 1UPT style. That being said Civ6 is hardly a 1UPT game like Civ5 was. You can have 1-3 units of the same type on a tile plus a support unit. This gives a lot of possible depth to the warfare game. However like many things in Civ6 the implementation is off. There are no policy cards to boost support unit production until you get to Communism and you don't get corps and army level units until very late. The fact that the AI is terrible doesn't help either because you very rarely need to use these features against them.

 

[Canadian Bluebeer]

I liked the 9 unit limit for CTP. There should be some stacking, but limited (pick a limit, we can quibble about that)

They kinda have that with ballons for arty, and at least the formations for escorting civlians/water tiles is in.

Although, I think that's what they were after with armies, except the hp doesn't go up.
With a stack, you may have some wounded units, or lose some, others are fine.
So you pull the wounded ones out, move in fresh and push on.

Plus, you can't tell just what is in a stack.
All infantry? tanks? Arty? hrmm.

Oh, yes the AI will make corps and army units. It won't USE them wisely, but it will at least make them.

 

[steveg700]

I think Civ should borrow from a classic board game called Titan. In that game, you run around a board recruiting monsters from various terrain into a big stack. When two players' stacks collide in a terrain space, there's a battle. You pull out a hex-map appropriate to the terrain and unpack the stacks onto opposite sides of the map. Endless Legend does something similar, but without zooming in. Moo2 and other space 4X games with turn-based combat do it as well.

Btw, I think the sensational titling of this thread doesn't do it any favors. If you're going to discuss whether or not 1UPT has damaged the franchise, then you're probably focusing on the game's quality or credibility with diehard fans, not its commercial success. The best move for the franchise financially might well to be a dumbed-down mobile app. Civ Rev was successful, but there's no shortage of people in this forum who will bash it on the grounds of its execution.