How quick after release will players be using the Builder Block Strategy

[KrikkitTwo]

I think if it's going to stay that way that Religious units should be able to kill Builders in combat. The current situation doesn't make sense. You can protect your religious units from religious combat with a stronger unit by using a Builder to block the path. IMO that should definitely nto be possible, especially if Religion is now it's own specific victory condition.

Well I think religious units can avoid closed borders, builders can't...
But this would be solved if they simply
1. Gave religious units their own "Layer" (like military units had their own layer)
2. let units on different layers be of different civs (so French Horseman on German missionary on American Builder...assuming none of them are at war)

 

[Magil]

If worse comes to worse its just 1 turn. I get that not having that improvement can be annoying but really how much will it affect your game?

"Just 1 turn" is very significant in many Civ situations. In this case, even a 1 turn delay made it a very likely possibility to lose his apostle to a barbarian horseman.

Civilization has always been a game in which a 1 turn difference can add up to a very significant advantage/disadvantage later on. This is referred to as "snowballing" and it's a rather common aspect of Civ gameplay. I'm rather surprised you would try to downplay this.

The situation in the livestream was absurd and hardly indicative common gameplay. On top of this Ed never went back to the Apostle the next turn. it highly likely the builder would have moved to last open tile, considering that City State had only 3 workable tiles.(LoL) It wouldnt be surprising if he could move the apostle next turn anyways and he lost...pretty much nothing.

You say this, but this was a common situation in V. And the movement rules are much rougher in IV, what with needing to pay the full move cost to enter rough terrain or cross rivers, even on your last move. It's going to happen, frequently, even considering the changes to builders.

 

[Ranbir]

Military units should be able to expel them.

 

[Teproc]

While that is theoretically possible, it was never a thing you did in CiV, or at least I didn't. Like in CiV, this will mostly be annoying when trying to convert city-states.

 

[BrokenBokken]

I haven't read the topic. I'm just replying to the OP

The answer to the title question is 'never.' At least not by a decent player. That would be such a waste of production, especially since each builder you build increases the cost of all future builders. Maybe the aztecs could do it if they kept their eagle warriors around forever, but putting that kind of focus on such a thing will most likely be detrimental over all.

 

[isau]

While that is theoretically possible, it was never a thing you did in CiV, or at least I didn't. Like in CiV, this will mostly be annoying when trying to convert city-states.

It wasn't a thing you would do in Civ V because religious units couldn't kill each other. Now they can and there is a lot more incentive to do this.

 

[Ebrim]

I haven't read the topic. I'm just replying to the OP

The answer to the title question is 'never.' At least not by a decent player. That would be such a waste of production, especially since each builder you build increases the cost of all future builders. Maybe the aztecs could do it if they kept their eagle warriors around forever, but putting that kind of focus on such a thing will most likely be detrimental over all.

I think this is right. The conditions under which this would be an effective strategy are so specialized that we may actually benefit from having it in. Generally speaking if you have civilian units solely for the purpose of "blocking" then you are either doing something very wrong or you have a very unique bit of geography where it would be silly not to block in some fashion. Generally speaking through having units just for blocking seems like it would be a pretty bad idea though. This is no longer a game of ageless workers.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

No on the tactic and meh on the foreign unit blocking.
Builders have much shorter lifespan than workers and Religious units you can just kill. The only civilian left is Great People(unless you keep all your military engineers just for roads(assuming they don't use charges to build roads). If worse comes to worse its just 1 turn. I get that not having that improvement can be annoying but really how much will it affect your game?

The situation in the livestream was absurd and hardly indicative common gameplay. On top of this Ed never went back to the Apostle the next turn. it highly likely the builder would have moved to last open tile, considering that City State had only 3 workable tiles.(LoL) It wouldnt be surprising if he could move the apostle next turn anyways and he lost...pretty much nothing.

Sure, it's a minor irritation, not a game-ruining flaw. It should still be fixed, though. Why not? What is the upside of not allowing civilian unit stacking?

 

[wayneb64]

I never allowed open borders to the AIs during Civ V because of the impact they had on my civilians. This REALLY should be fixed in Civ VI. Same for your civilians in foreign lands when you have open borders with them. No reason a civilian cannot occupy the same space as a military unit regardless of civ unless at war.

 

[dturtle1]

"Just 1 turn" is very significant in many Civ situations. In this case, even a 1 turn delay made it a very likely possibility to lose his apostle to a barbarian horseman.

He would have lost is apostle anyway because he was hard blocked by the actual city. It is a dead end....regardless of the builder.

The only issues i have ever had with bodyblocking is the occasional worker being kicked off his road. 1 turn(not even that really as it only blocks you on your last movement point) delay maybe a handful of times a game, most likely later in the game anyway does not snowball that much. I play on Epic as preference so no, i dont really care about the occasional 1 turns delay

You say this, but this was a common situation in V. And the movement rules are much rougher in IV, what with needing to pay the full move cost to enter rough terrain or cross rivers, even on your last move. It's going to happen, frequently, even considering the changes to builders.

Common as in every game or common as in every couple of turns because when i Play Civ5 i am rarely body-Blocked more than a handful of times a game.....in 500-750 turn game, hence i am not worried.

It is the occasional annoyance that in 99% of cases has no real effect on your game, imo. At least that is my experience from playing Civ5

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

I agree with the idea that body-blocking will not inherently be an effective strategy to stop Apostles, assuming someone is trying to carpet their territory with them.
However, I do see it as a symptom of the problems of civilian 1UPT.
I have long accepted military 1UPT, but civilian traffic jams and Trader nonsense really adds nothing to the game and solely detracts from it.
This is the type of micro that's tedious and unfun, compared to micro arising from sliders or specialist assignment, or choosing to work specific tiles.
The ugliness of all this really rears its head on Normal speed as well, which is the one every Civ game is ostensibly balanced for.

 

[dturtle1]

Sure, it's a minor irritation, not a game-ruining flaw. It should still be fixed, though. Why not? What is the upside of not allowing civilian unit stacking?

Cost VS Benefit mainly. Allowing Civilian stacking is probably wouldnt adversely make the game worse either and will remove these minor annoyances. However it may not be easy to fix, it seems peculiar that they allow travel through the tiles but not stacking. Maybe in order to fix this they would have rewrite or change the framework too much. Maybe there is a performance considerations to be had. My stance is technically IDC and that the livestream event that sparked this debate is just that a conversation spark. By some of the comments here you would think it is the sole reason why some people cant win on X difficulty

 

[CaiusDrewart]

Cost VS Benefit mainly. Allowing Civilian stacking is probably wouldnt adversely make the game worse either and will remove these minor annoyances. However it may not be easy to fix, it seems peculiar that they allow travel through the tiles but not stacking. Maybe in order to fix this they would have rewrite or change the framework too much. Maybe there is a performance considerations to be had. My stance is technically IDC and that the livestream event that sparked this debate is just that a conversation spark. By some of the comments here you would think it is the sole reason why some people cant win on X difficulty

Yeah, I really doubt any games have been won or lost on this issue. It's just a little thing that causes a minor annoyance a couple times per game. Although, with religious combat getting amped up in importance (even with its own victory condition!), civilian unit blocking will probably be more noticeable in Civ VI.

As to the difficulty of programming a fix, I can't say for sure. But they implemented stacking of one military and one civilian unit just fine, and I can't see why this would be that much harder.

 

[joncnunn]

Military units should be able to expel them.

While that is theoretically possible, it was never a thing you did in CiV, or at least I didn't. Like in CiV, this will mostly be annoying when trying to convert city-states.

In Civ II, other civs Diplomats & Spies could be expelled from your territory if at peace by moving a military unit onto it.

In any case, in Civ V AI religious units within your own territory were the most annoying because they blocked your own civilian unit movement (and unlike their military units they didn't respect closed boarders.)