How would you feel about a tactical battle map in civ6?

[SupremacyKing2]

I thought I would start this poll to see what others think about a tactical battle map in civ6. Basically the idea would be that when units fight, the game would give you the option to auto-resolve or to fight the battle out on a separate turn based tactical map. It could work for either 1upt or mupt. If civ6 uses 1upt, the game could automatically include adjacent units in the battle, and if mupt is used, the game would just include the units in the stack. There could also be a minimum limit of units before a tactical map becomes an option so that the player does not have to do a tactical battle every time just two units fight.

PROS:
- It could make battles more epic, especially if each unit on the tactical map were represented by a large group of soldiers. You could make it so that 1 unit on the strategic map is represented by 4 units on the tactical map, in order to make tactical battles bigger. Like in Total War, battles could look huge and give the sense of big battles.
- It would give the player more control over the outcome of battles. Instead of just relying on the roll of the die when two units fight, the player could employ actual tactics to win the battle.
- It could be a win-win compromise between the 1upt camp and the mupt camp. Tactical battles could allow mupt on the strategic map but allow 1upt on the tactical map. It would eliminate the AI issues with 1upt on the main map since you could move units as stacks. And it would move the tactics to a true tactical map that could be big enough to make 1upt tactics meaningful. This way, you are no longer trying to mix tactics on a strategic map.

CONS:
- It would still require a good tactical AI. Although, hopefully, having tactics on a tactical map, would make it easier to have a strong AI. This would be crucial because a bad tactical AI would render the whole tactical map feature utterly useless and would force players to always auto-resolve if they want a "fair" fight.
- The tactical battle map would have to be interesting and intense. It would be important that battles not be tedious. I am optimistic that with Firaxis' experience with XCOM that they could make tactical battles interesting.
- Tactical battles could be a distraction from the main map. I think Sid has warned many times against the idea of a mini-game that distracts from the main focus of the game. Firaxians have also talked about wanting civ to stay focused on the strategic map. So there is a high probability that Firaxis would not implement this idea.
- An argument could be made as well that civ is about being a strategic leader building a great empire. So the game should focus on grand empire-building, not playing general.

What say you? Vote in the poll whether you like or dislike the of a tactical battle map?

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I thought I would start this poll to see what others think about a tactical battle map in civ6. Basically the idea would be that when units fight, the game would give you the option to auto-resolve or to fight the battle out on a separate turn based tactical map. It could work for either 1upt or mupt. If civ6 uses 1upt, the game could automatically include adjacent units in the battle, and if mupt is used, the game would just include the units in the stack. There could also be a minimum limit of units before a tactical map becomes an option so that the player does not have to do a tactical battle every time just two units fight.

Base the per-tile stacking on the 'Strategic' map on the ability the Feed units in that terrain. Early on, probably no more than 1 - 3 units (plus 'civilians') could be fed/stacked in most tiles, but in Tundra, Snow, and possibly Jungle tiles that limit would be Lower. IF you can trace a Supply Line to a friendly city, you can Feed as many units as there are Population Points in the city - this is a abstraction, but makes it easy to keep track. At first, the only supply lines would be rivers or coastal tiles, because pack trains over land simply cannot carry enough - there's a reason Xerxes' Persian Army left Greece after his fleet was destroyed at Salamis - there was no 'tile' in Greece that could feed them all! Eventually, with roads, motorized vehicles,and especially railroads linking multiple cities into the 'supply region', almost any number of units could be 'massed' in one tile, but if the supply line gets cut, they would start to lose combat strength almost immediately - the recreation of the great ground campaigns of the last 200 years becomes possible, for the first time, in the game: what price playing Napoleon at Ulm-Augsburg, or recreating Stalingrad?

This also means that early in the game there will be very few 'tactical' battles, because except in battles taking place along a river (supply line) it is simply not possible to keep a big army together for long...

PROS:
- It could make battles more epic, especially if each unit on the tactical map were represented by a large group of soldiers. You could make it so that 1 unit on the strategic map is represented by 4 units on the tactical map, in order to make tactical battles bigger. Like in Total War, battles could look huge and give the sense of big battles.

This would also allow 'strategic' units to be split into different combat arms on the tactical map. Thus, units that combine 'ranged' and 'melee' factors strategically could show their real divisions tactically: the Tercio, with its mix of pikes and muskets (and swordsmen and crossbowman, depending on the time), the Panzer Division that combined tanks, motorized infantry, artillery, antitank guns, and combat engineers. It potentially allows for a much wider variety of 'strategic' units.

- It would give the player more control over the outcome of battles. Instead of just relying on the roll of the die when two units fight, the player could employ actual tactics to win the battle.

And allows for some 'standard' tactics by the AI opponent: the Zulu's 'encircling horns', the flintlock-armed line infantry's double line of infantry with cavalry on the wings - if done/programmed right, this alone could make the AI a better opponent on the tactical map!

- It could be a win-win compromise between the 1upt camp and the mupt camp. Tactical battles could allow mupt on the strategic map but allow 1upt on the tactical map. It would eliminate the AI issues with 1upt on the main map since you could move units as stacks. And it would move the tactics to a true tactical map that could be big enough to make 1upt tactics meaningful. This way, you are no longer trying to mix tactics on a strategic map.

And you are no longer mixing tactical ranges and periods of time on the strategic map. I don't know about you, but I'm really tired of my archer spending 100+ years in the Ancient or Classical Eras destroying one barbarian camp...

CONS:
- It would still require a good tactical AI. Although, hopefully, having tactics on a tactical map, would make it easier to have a strong AI. This would be crucial because a bad tactical AI would render the whole tactical map feature utterly useless and would force players to always auto-resolve if they want a "fair" fight.

See above comment. The tactical map is inherently less complex than acting on the strategic map: a tactical layout could be Front Line, Support Line, Reserves by Left Flank,Left Center, center, Right Center, Right Flank, for two sides making 30 or multiples of 30 tiles each. Strategic terrain types are Plains, Grassland, Forest, Jungle, Marsh, Desert, each could also have Hills, River/Oasis (therefore, streams and other water obstacles on the tactical map), or about 18 basic types of terrain which would give a programmable 'mix' of terrain on the tactical map. Certain advantages might allow you to 'pick' the terrain: a Great General, overall faster strategic movement, Special Advantages (you've hired a bunch of Barbarian Horse Archers as 'scouts'). Again, all of this is a lot easier to program than actions on a strategic map of 1000s of different tiles.

- The tactical battle map would have to be interesting and intense. It would be important that battles not be tedious. I am optimistic that with Firaxis' experience with XCOM that they could make tactical battles interesting.

Also, note that the terrain alone can be 'randomized' within the strategic types of terrain. You could even include 'battlefields' that are historical in the mix of options. A stylized Waterloo, Tannenburg, Mukden, Perrysville - there are enough possibilities to make it very difficult for a gamer to predict what he will be fighting over.

- Tactical battles could be a distraction from the main map. I think Sid has warned many times against the idea of a mini-game that distracts from the main focus of the game. Firaxians have also talked about wanting civ to stay focused on the strategic map. So there is a high probability that Firaxis would not implement this idea.

One man's Distraction is another's Added Depth.

- An argument could be made as well that civ is about being a strategic leader building a great empire. So the game should focus on grand empire-building, not playing general.

But 1upt already turns every 'Civ Strategic General' into a tactical leader of bowmen or spearmen in Every Battle. In every turn, I'm 'playing' everything from Lewis & Clark on a scout to a city governor to the Eternal God King of the Civilization. The game's focus is already scattered like buckshot in a hurricane. Separating the tactical battles, and providing an 'automated' alternative, allows greater focus for those that want it, either on the 'Grand Strategic' level of Civ-Building, or the tactical level of fighting the battles.

More choice is always good. - Boris' Law #5

 

[SupremacyKing2]

More choice is always good. - Boris' Law #5

Thanks for the detailed reply. Also, thank you for liking my idea of having a tactical battle map.

 

[meatpardle]

I don't like the idea.

One of the things I like about civ is how fluid battles could be, that playing them out live on a main strategic map means they can last many turns and you can move units in and out of the battle.

If you cut do a different battle screen how will the above be accommodated? Will you set your armies before the battle and it then plays out on a tactical screen in many moves but only taking one game turn (admittedly this would make timescales more realistic, so you aren't taking hundreds of years to take a city in the early game)? Or do you come out and then go into the tactical/battle screen every turn? If you aren't playing it out live on the main screen how do you introduce new units in to or move units out of the fray? The bit about only only going to a tactical screen some of the time sounds messy as well. If I'm going 1v1 against a barb then would that stay on the main screen, what would happen if a second barb unit came into the area? Or a second civ wandered over to help out? How would you define between say a skirmish that stays on the main screen and a battle that cuts to a tactical screen?

Along with your question about ditching hexes the way is part of the game's identity and dare I say charm. if you ditch fluid open battles for tactical screen battles and hexes for regions you might as well just go and play another game.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

One of the things I like about civ is how fluid battles could be, that playing them out live on a main strategic map means they can last many turns and you can move units in and out of the battle.

Battles would still be fluid just like before, just on a different map.

Will you set your armies before the battle and it then plays out on a tactical screen in many moves but only taking one game turn (admittedly this would make timescales more realistic, so you aren't taking hundreds of years to take a city in the early game)?

Yes, exactly. You play out the battle in several tactical turns. Units would move around, fight, retreat off the tactical map. Reinforcements could come onto the tactical map. Once the battle is resolved, you would go back to the strategic map and only 1 strategic turn would elapse. The purpose is exactly what you stated: to make timescales more realistic so that players could still fight interesting, fluid battles but in a more realistic time scale. This way, battles don't take up a big chunk of your number of turns. The player would get more turns to do interesting strategic stuff in between battles.

Right now, with how 1upt works in civ5, you basically have tactical battles superimposed on a strategic map. So there is a big mismatch of scales. I think that is a problem that should be addressed.

How would you define between say a skirmish that stays on the main screen and a battle that cuts to a tactical screen?

That is why I mentioned a limit on the number of units that would trigger the tactical battle map. I mentioned in my OP that if the game uses 1upt, that all units within certain space would be included in the tactical map. The tactical map would only come up if the number of units in that space were above a certain threshold. That way, if you just have a lone unit that attacks another lone unit, it would be resolved automatically. But if you have say 3 units next to each other and one of them attacks an enemy unit that also has some adjacent friends, then all the units would join the fight on the tactical map.

Along with your question about ditching hexes the way is part of the game's identity and dare I say charm. if you ditch fluid open battles for tactical screen battles and hexes for regions you might as well just go and play another game.

Oh I definitely see your point. I am not against hexes per se. I am just looking to find a way to fix the mismatch of tactical and strategic that currently exists in civ5. So I would be fine with hexes and limited stacks that attack together (that solves the mismatch). I would be fine with hexes and "strategic" units (where units would represent a combined arms army) since that would also fix the mismatch. In fact, that might be the most true to civ solution to the problem. Or, you could have regions instead of hexes and have turn based tactical maps with hexes with fluid battles on the tactical map (that would also solve the mismatch). That would of course be a more radical solution to the problem.

If civ6 gives us "strategic units" and more interesting combat rules, I'd be happy. In some ways, I think civ should stick to strategic level battles and not mess with tactical level battles. I just want the strategic battles to be more interesting and more realistic. When you think of the great battles in history, civ does a poor job of emulating them. I don't feel like I am fighting an epic battle when it is just one swordsman takes a swipe at a warrior here, an archer does some damage to a horseman there. I am intrigued by tactical battle maps because while they would break the mold of civ a bit, they would definitely give us epic battles.

 

[mzprox]

Tactics in civ is welcome, but this 1upt mess should go... on tight maps-which most of them are-it's very bad and cumbersome.
I think civ should try a customizable army system.
I don't think civ should have a "battle map", with so battles to fight it could become too tireing fast.

 

[Syailendra]

no, i don't like battle map, the reason 1upt 'bad' (although better than unlimited stack) is that you can hold an army 10 times bigger than yours, simply because you are human. Battle map are gonna make that worse.
My solution will be 1 upt/apt hybrid. It is 1 upt, but there will be a general unit that can create an army, number of units in the army depends on the generals level, and after some level up the general will get great general rank with some special skill attached. Harder diff level will make the ai to create army more often. Making war harder.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

no, i don't like battle map, the reason 1upt 'bad' (although better than unlimited stack) is that you can hold an army 10 times bigger than yours, simply because you are human. Battle map are gonna make that worse.

The main reason you can hold off an AI army 10x bigger than your army is because of cities getting a ranged attack and because of the very constricted terrain of the strategic map. This would not necessarily be the case on a tactical battle map. The terrain would be much more open and allow more freedom of movement. Plus, cities would not need to have a ranged attack. So, I doubt that things would be so advantageous to the human player. The tactical map would actually even the playing field and making things more equal between the human the AI in combat.

 

[Syailendra]

The main reason you can hold off an AI army 10x bigger than your army is because of cities getting a ranged attack and because of the very constricted terrain of the strategic map. This would not necessarily be the case on a tactical battle map. The terrain would be much more open and allow more freedom of movement. Plus, cities would not need to have a ranged attack. So, I doubt that things would be so advantageous to the human player. The tactical map would actually even the playing field and making things more equal between the human the AI in combat.

yes, i also don't like the attacking cities. A city should act as a defensive position, where you can put a single unit that will be boosted by the city defensive value. Still, if you already take out cities attack, why do you need a battle screen?
Also how will the terrain on battle map decided, should it be fix for a tile, or random? If it is random, it will remove the strategic value of a chokepoint, if it is fixed, it will be a burden to the game engine.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

yes, i also don't like the attacking cities. A city should act as a defensive position, where you can put a single unit that will be boosted by the city defensive value. Still, if you already take out cities attack, why do you need a battle screen?

The purpose of the separate battle map is to give the battle it's own dedicated space. The issue is that the main map is a strategic map, not a tactical map so it's scale does not fit with how 1upt works. Currently, the player does tactical maneuvers on a map representing hundreds of miles. The scale does not fit. So, with a tactical map, you can engage in proper tactical maneuvers without disrupting the strategic map. You can keep the strategic stuff on the strategic map and the tactical stuff on a tactical map.

Also how will the terrain on battle map decided, should it be fix for a tile, or random? If it is random, it will remove the strategic value of a chokepoint, if it is fixed, it will be a burden to the game engine.

No, it should not be random. I would suggest that the tactical map be constructed based on the adjacent tiles that your units on the strategic map were on when they started the battle. So, if your units cross a river to attack another unit, the battle map would feature a long river with tiles similar to the tiles on the main map. If your units were on lots of hills, the tactical map would feature lots of hills. The tactical map would essentially be a "zoomed in" version of the main map.

 

[Matthew.]

No. I'd prefer if war moved more focus towards a strategy level than tactical level.

 

[nimling]

You could make a tactical-level combat resolution, but the process should be automated - even if it means watching the AI make boneheaded decisions that destroy your army. Too much micromanagement slows down the game. In order to pull this off, the AI in charge would need a better understanding of tactics, at least in the local theater. The grand strategic and logistical end of the war would be in the player's hands, the minutiae of fighting would be delegated to the AI general.

Just so you know - there is no real argument, 1UPT has proven to be a dismal failure, and is in no way "tactical". Civ5 combat is tactically and strategically inferior to earlier entries in the series, largely due to illogical and overpowered ranged units being the obvious go-to.

I'd see tactical-level battles as the best outcome in an ideal world, but it would require a lot of development time for something that is mostly under-the-hood. Abstracting the results of a battle to a few key characteristics, like armor strength, the force of the weapons used, etc., would be a fine medium, rather than saying "this unit has x attack power and y% chance of breaking z defense". That would add additional levels of sophistication beyond the attack/defense values of the first 3 games, or the single strength value in 4/5, or the hodge-podge of bonuses for specific units/circumstances in later games, while not requiring too much thought on the player's part.

 

[epicivfreak]

No. I'd prefer if war moved more focus towards a strategy level than tactical level.

Ditto, and I'd just posted this in another thread here, about the same subject. I've snipped out the irrelevant bits:

As for how armies/units move, I've always hated the tedium of pushing a hundred units around the map every turn in Civ. It's one of those "fundamental" flaws in the design of the game that's been there since Civ 1, that I've been railing about on this site for years (thus my sig). Civ 5 has made this so much worse with 1UPT, because now the damn go-to function is pretty much useless, and I have no choice but to move units tile-by-excruciating-tile across the map to their destination to ensure they actually make it to the destination point, exactly the way I want them to. With that said, I also don't want to go back to the Stacks-of-Doom of previous incarnations of Civ - Civ 5 killed that, and it needs to stay dead. This is one area of Civ that needs some real innovation.

You have the code for the AI to play Greece all on it's own, so why, if I'm playing Greece, can't I simply direct that AI code to automate things I don't want to do? If the AI civs can fight wars and conquer cities - why don't I, as the player, have the ability to simply call up my MA, and issue it an order of Capture City X, or Pillage Civ Y, Blockade City Z, or any number of other objectives common to the game? I'd love to be able to offload that tedium onto my own personal MA AI. <snipped> there's absolutely no excuse for not including such a tool for players in future versions of Civ. I want to be able to fight a war with the click of a few buttons, not the incessant movement of hundreds of units and tedious turn-after-turn of attacking.

 

[jackboy900]

Yes, I feel that a tactical map is probably the only feature that would make me truly hyped about Civ VI. I feel that a total war style system would work well, limited armies capable of attacking on a strategic level (auto-resolve) with backup and location playing a factor but also allowing me to sometimes zoom in exponentially to the tactical map. In terms of fluidity ( love how units can be moved in and out mid-battle in Civ V) maybe having a ranged naval unit nearby would allow for bombardment, same with planes or bombers and if I fell I'm losing I can retreat and move in armies from other cities. Having archers fire on realistic scales, musketman have range (but low range) and truly be able to manipulate the speed and skill of horesmen would be brilliant. UU's and UA's could be more varied ( with more generic tactical bonuses for the main map) and most (if not all) camps of though would be satisfied.

 

[Kid R]

Well Civ has always been primarily an empire management game with a light battle system added on. Civ 5 tried to increase the focus on the battles. Who's to say they shouldn't double down on that for 6 and make it a tactical battle game with light empire management added on? I mean the theme of "Civilization" only really ties it to a sweeping narrative across all history, I don't think we should necessarily expect it to just be a rehash of itself with better graphics each time. Anyway I can't wait to see what they do

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Who's to say they shouldn't double down on that for 6 and make it a tactical battle game with light empire management added on?

Well, personally, I think having light empire management would be a mistake. On the contrary, Civ6 should have very deep empire management, more so than civ5. But I think you can have both, serious empire management and tactical combat. After all, we should remember that warfare has played a huge role in history. And if you go back to iron or bronze age, we know that some of the greatest empires in history were created as a result of great tactical battles, not empire management. For example, Alexander the Great built a great Greek empire by going out to battle and using great tactics to crush his enemies, battle by battle. So, empire management is hugely important but giving the game a solid tactical combat side as well that allows players to grow their empires by using better battle tactics than their opponents, would not be ahistorical.

 

[Kid R]

I guess that was partly my point. If the battle system was sufficiently deep and strategic then that would be enough depth and strategy for the whole game. Why does all the strategy necessarily need to reside in the empire management side?

But you're right it would be a mistake for the devs - sticking to a formula which sells is always the correct decision

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Civ 5 tried to increase the focus on the battles. Who's to say they shouldn't double down on that for 6 and make it a tactical battle game with light empire management added on?

Civ 5's 1upt added a tactical component to the Civilization series: the interaction between ranged and melee units, mounted versus pikes.spears and other foot, all far more 'in depth' and enjoyable than My Big Stack versus Your Big Stack, count up the numbers...

The problem is/was, they put that tactical system onto a Strategic Map and into a Strategic Time Frame. That resulted in the absurdities we have now, where an archer can shoot clear over a city of 500,000+ population and it takes 20 - 50 years to destroy a single unit in the Classic Era.

In addition to those major scale problems, they got the relationship between melee and ranged wrong and didn't program the melee units' response to being shot at correctly (at least, historically correctly) so that ranged units dominate the Civ 5 battlefields to an extent they never did in reality.

Putting the Tactical Battle onto a Tactical Map keeps the intriguing interaction among unit types in the game but removes the Major Absurdities: battles take place in a single turn/year, an ancient battlefield and army does not spread over 100s of square miles/tiles.

On that Tactical Map, you can also show a lot more variety in ranges than is now possible: from 4 ranges (0,1,2,3 tiles) you could have 9 - 10, so the differences between muskets, bows, machine-guns, slings, etc will come out - and stay in the tactical realm where they belong, not on the Strategic Map.

And after solving those major Time/Distance Scale problems, they can also (It Is Devoutly To Be Hoped) get the relationship between melee/ranged correct so that even the 'automatic' tactical battles have reasonable, at least semi-historically accurate results.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

The problem is/was, they put that tactical system onto a Strategic Map and into a Strategic Time Frame. That resulted in the absurdities we have now, where an archer can shoot clear over a city of 500,000+ population and it takes 20 - 50 years to destroy a single unit in the Classic Era.

In addition to those major scale problems, they got the relationship between melee and ranged wrong and didn't program the melee units' response to being shot at correctly (at least, historically correctly) so that ranged units dominate the Civ 5 battlefields to an extent they never did in reality.

Putting the Tactical Battle onto a Tactical Map keeps the intriguing interaction among unit types in the game but removes the Major Absurdities: battles take place in a single turn/year, an ancient battlefield and army does not spread over 100s of square miles/tiles.

You really explained perfectly the advantages of a tactical battle map and why it makes sense.

On that Tactical Map, you can also show a lot more variety in ranges than is now possible: from 4 ranges (0,1,2,3 tiles) you could have 9 - 10, so the differences between muskets, bows, machine-guns, slings, etc will come out - and stay in the tactical realm where they belong, not on the Strategic Map.

I like this a lot. It would make battles more interesting. It would also illustrate better how far they have developed. It would create a nice contrast for the player between their primitive units and their advanced units as they can see "my archer could only hit 2 tiles away but my modern infantry can easily shoot 9 tiles away".

 

[algeriangeneral]

And what if the tactical map is actually an RTS?
That would be more diverse