HOMM & Titan

[Howard Mahler]

As has been mentioned by myself and others, Heroes of Might & Magic and Titan each solve the strategic move versus tactical battle dichotomy in a similar manner.

Armies/stacks move on the strategic board. When they move into a space occupied by an enemy army/city/stack a battle ensues on a separate tactical map.
Each of these games has several different tactical maps based on terrain and whether a city is being attacked (HOMM).

In each game, this seems to satisfy the desire for tactical maneuvering in battle, while maintaining reasonable strategic movement.
(The early HOMM versions were among my favorite games.)

This would have been the type of change which would have had a lot of promise for a revised civilization game.
However, this type of design is clearly not what the designers of Civ V had in mind.
While it would have lots of promise, we can not hope for this type of change any time soon.

The problem some people have with Civ V is that it includes changes that we view as the opposite of improvements.
It is not that we would not have liked to see changes that we found to be improvements.

Visit all of the threads of suggested changes people wanted for Civ V.
Different people will enjoy different changes, but most people would have been happy with lots of changes.

We are not against changes, we are just not happy with certain changes.

 

[Lanstro]

A hybrid of civ and the Total War series (or even HoMM) would be pure awesome. I'd be all over it.

That said, each game would take at least 3-4 times longer to complete, will be very difficult and expensive to make well, and I'm not sure there'll be a viable market for it. So I can only live in faint hope.

 

[Silverwave]

I enjoyed VERY much HOMM series, especially the 3rd. It's one of the game I've played the most, right after Diablo 2 and, well, Civ IV .

But the thing I didn't like in HOMM is that if you ever loose a single battle with your main army, you're pretty much screwed. The way creatures spawn in your cities, don't ever expect rebuilding your former mega army. This one problem that CIV didn't had. You loose your major army? That sucks, but you'll be back!

But then, HOMM is a game about tactical fantasy battles. Civ is about creating an empire that stands the test of time. I'm not sure that making battles in CIV like in HOMM is the best idea.

EDIT : Ho, by the way, you do know they're making HOMM VI ? Well, they changed the name for... Might and Magic Heroes VI (...yeah... I too told myself : what's the point?)

 

[katipunero]

the problem with this suggestion is the possibility of focus firing the strongest units and then picking off the weaker ones afterwards. i've mastered this tactic to perfection in heroes of might and magic and i know quite well how that tactic is imbalanced and too OP. the AI is going to suffer a terrible hit too. The human player can simply bait the AI army with a weak stack of cheap units and once the attackers get in range, the human player focus fire the more expensive units and work downwards from there.

 

[tom2050]

Either 3upt, or combining units in some form is needed to help the game from becoming a cross-continental traffic jam with every hex having a unit in it.

 

[Thander]

It hasn't been done because it's just too ambitious. Total War series mastered battlefield tactics aspect, but the turn-based portion has always been weak compared to Civ series. Civ series has some of the best turn-based gameplay, but no real time battles. It takes too much time and resources to do both of them in one game.

 

[the streak]

That would be impossible to implement, considering how many eras Civilization spans. Total War games just cover one time period, which lets them put the polish on the tactical combat. How would you go about simulating a large battle of tanks versus swordsmen, for example?

 

[falconne]

It hasn't been done because it's just too ambitious. Total War series mastered battlefield tactics aspect, but the turn-based portion has always been weak compared to Civ series. Civ series has some of the best turn-based gameplay, but no real time battles. It takes too much time and resources to do both of them in one game.

That would be impossible to implement, considering how many eras Civilization spans. Total War games just cover one time period, which lets them put the polish on the tactical combat. How would you go about simulating a large battle of tanks versus swordsmen, for example?

Every time this topic comes up, people who've never played AoW, MoM or HoMM assume the topic is about adding TW style RTS combat, not knowing that there is a whole different technique for turn based tactical combat originating from the above games. Civ V tries to muddle turn based tactical combat on to the strategy screen and it ends up a logistical mess.

I created a thread about the possibility of using the info screens and 2D graphics to emulate isometric tactical combat MoM style on the FFH forum: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=388746 but I don't think anyone's interested. Most of the people who don't like the lack of tactical combat in Civ left the franchise ages ago, though the addition of tactical combat to the strategy layer have got some people wondering if there's a better way to do it.

 

[the streak]

Probably everyone posting here has at least played AoW MoM OR HoMM, since this is a fan forum for a TBS game. Those are fantasy games, and completely abandon realism when on the battle screen. With the Civ gameplay, it would be even more ridiculous, and Civ has always been (at least fairly) realistic.

 

[Junuxx]

While I loved HoMM3, I don't think that level of tactics belongs in Civ. It would take away from the grand scale, battles are too numerous, they would become an annoying distraction.

 

[falconne]

Probably everyone posting here has at least played AoW MoM OR HoMM, since this is a fan forum for a TBS game. Those are fantasy games, and completely abandon realism when on the battle screen. With the Civ gameplay, it would be even more ridiculous, and Civ has always been (at least fairly) realistic.

It would still be more realistic than what Civ 5 is doing, with units talking up space the size of cities and mountains... even with 100 men per unit that's silly, archers shooting for miles and it taking 100 years or more in the ancient era even to set up a skirmish.

While I loved HoMM3, I don't think that level of tactics belongs in Civ. It would take away from the grand scale, battles are too numerous, they would become an annoying distraction.

I think it would be more grand scale than what Civ 5 has now, because at least it would allow a decent number of units per side, instead of what we have now with about 5 units per side being an "epic" battle.

 

[Surgeon]

One thing. Even with 'stacked armies' the HOMM AI was terrible. HOMM3 knew how to limit the impact of a silly AI through excellent design (unfortunately the newer ones did not).

Total War. Again. AI in the latest offerings is OK or terrible depending on the situation. They should probably never have put in castle battles, the AI can't handle it. Then you bring in Empire:TW.... that AI was super bad which is wierd considering youd think it would be easier working at range.

AI seems to be the main gripe people have with Civ5. Unfortunately its just darn hard to do well no matter the base of the game. I have more faith that Civ5 can be fixed though as HOMM and TW series have showed an unfortunate consistency through releases.

 

[falconne]

As far as the AI goes, the AI doesn't get simpler by playing out tactical battles on the strategy map... in fact it's much harder. When two armies go at each other on a tactical layer, at least the AI only has to concentrate on managing one distinct army and watch one army of enemies, all in a constrained environment. On the strategy layer, the AI has no concept of "armies", so every unit acts as an individual. The current AI can't figure out what threats constitute different "armies" and it can't divide its own troops into appropriate "armies" to counter each threat. The strategy layer just has too much open endedness for the AI and it ends up sending troops in all different directions, on their own, in a trickle feed.