How would you improve combat in Civ7?

[aieeegrunt]

This is exactly why I’m not buyimg Civ7 until and unless it is easily modded, and mods exist for things like unit stacking.

 

[treadwin]

I think the game systems in CIV have got too abstract and away from reality. It has all been done with the best of intentions, but it makes the game less fun. Combat is one that has just got far too unrealistic. I think they have to strip it back and a lot will depend on how they build a holistic system for CIV7. I'm just going to list a few of the problems with CIV6's combat as I see it and not go too into depth on how to solve them. I don't think they are hard to solve in and of themselves, and the one I suggest is by no means the only way, but they do matter overall.

1. The biggest is that small unit "everyday" stuff, like fighting off barbarian raids, are treated the same, as raising an military force to go an conquer a neighbor. There has to be a way of raising a short term militia to go deal with a barbarian raid, as opposed to raising full-time professional armies, and the former need to reflect upon the civilian working population. The game designers also need to model slavery in the game. As politically incorrect as this is, civilizations including all of Africa used this as a basis of their civilization right up to the 19th Century. It is ultimately a less efficient, primitive, uncivilized system, so I really cant see why demonstrating that in a game will be offensive.

2. The idea that promotions are kept over centuries and you can only promote within a troop type is just too whacky to keep. The idea that one's historical military prowess is retained 500 years later is just silly. So is the idea that if I invested in spearmen in pre-history, I am locked into playing with AT rocket-launchers in the modern era. It makes no sense. I can see a small bonus for a military tradition, and maybe a larger bonus for an elite corps in the military, but the general premise is constricting, making the game less fun. Promotions need to be earned faster and lost over time.

3. Troops take far too long to build, maintaining them is far too inexpensive, and disbanding them is far too punishing. I would suggest that militaristic Civs like the Zulus, should be able to raise quality warriors faster and then have them melt back into the population to work the fields, in times of peace, much easier than a more peaceful civilization like the Chinese. The game has to model this and the fact that a Chinese peasant armed with a farm implement is going to be worse than a Impi warrior. I would suggest that each civ can have unique troop types representing their "militia" warrior, in each era, and raising this militia puts a tax on the city, making it less productive overall while the militia is formed. Obviously if your city has enough high food hexes, to maintain city size while the militia is raised, you can keep that militia in the field indefinitely. This will far better reflect the conquest migrations we see in history.

4. I think rather than stacks, units should have different sizes, but not a lot, 1-10 would be enough. The troop type would provide a multiplier to this. Larger cities can raise larger sized militia units. This would provide a solution to the crazy barbarian stuff in civ6, where a lone barbarian village can keep more troops in the field than a 10 population civilized city. Initially the size of an army would be limited to 2, but as technology improved allowed army sizes would grow.

5. Finally supply needs to be considered also. This idea that armies can spend years (decades) behind enemy lines is crazy. So is the idea that cities can continue to work tiles after an army has moved through it. So is the idea that troops can travel half way round the world to attack a country without regard to the logistics. I would suggest that armies have to build supply dumps within a certain distance of a city or another supply dump, that last a number of turns, and troops have to remain within distance of them to avoid suffering combat penalties.

6. The strategic resources for troop types needs to be better handled. Supply dumps should require strategic resources to build, and should have a limited duration. Raising militia should not normally require resources, but any regular troops should require it. You shouldn't need a strategic resource to maintain a troop type, but any sort of offence at any distance will be impossible without a steady supply. Right now, there are too many "Game over" situations due to a lack of oil or iron. This way trading for iron and oil will allow you to stockpile, rather than needing a constant supply, just to defend yourself.

I don't think that the military system is realistic enough to make the game gripping. the actual combat needs less work than the process of raising, supporting and promoting/upgrading the troops.

 

[9gkj548hkm20vk79dj689bnj4]

Here is how 3 UPT works for the amusingly sarcastically named “Stacks of Doom” mod for Civ5, and basically the same for the ARS mod for Civ6

Combat is you pick the attacking unit and either assault (melee) or bombard (ranged) it. Strongest unit is automatically selected to defend

That’s basically it. This does an excellent job of simulating hex combat at operational and above levels of scale, which is why just about all of the old consim games that didn’t use combat odds tables did it that way.

Simple, clean and effective

where are these mods at? I'd like to try this 3UPT idea.

 

[aieeegrunt]

where are these mods at? I'd like to try this 3UPT idea.

The one for Civ6 is called “ARS - Improved Movement v2.2”

You can find it on Steam and I believe also this site

The one for Civ5 is called “SOD this MOD Bringing back the Stacks Of Death”

 

[9gkj548hkm20vk79dj689bnj4]

Thank you.
I'd like to see how limited stacks work.

 

[Ezerin]

A lot of talk about how combat system doesn't represent reality, and most of it about how a retatively small numbers of military has to be spread along vast territories with 1upt system while completely forgetting or just slightly touching on what difficulties and inconveniences an offensive war has. Supply logistics, army morale, deseases, climate conditions, etc. I would like people to understand that wagging war is in anyway about micromanagement hell balance between offensive and defensive sides, whether it'll be managing 1upt or handling a complicated systems that maintain huge armies hundreds kilometers away from home within enemy territory. If you allow concentration of huge forces, while all inconvinient parts reduced to money and resources magically drawned by units from illusionary storehouses hundreds (if not thousands) kilometers away from them, you're only left with advantages that concentrated force provide you against more spreaded out forces of defender who still needs time to react. Do you really want your warrior to start losing health as soon as he leaves your borders if not escorted by civilian supply unit? Be carefull of your wishes and don't be selective on "reality" thing in games if you bring it as an argument.

Also i probably should mention that i don't think that 1upt in its current implementation is perfect, but at least it forces you consider twice whether war will be worth all the effort and headache you'll have to commit.

 

[newtociv6]

Also i probably should mention that i don't think that 1upt in its current implementation is perfect, but at least it forces you consider twice whether war will be worth all the effort and headache you'll have to commit.

the difficulties are not only about waging war, but also maintaining an effective military force that keeps the empire together.

Until nationalism, the army's main purpose is not to wage war, but to enforce rules. An ordinary, multi-ethnic empire have no loyal subjects aside from core area, and cannot survive without a very costly army and administration system. Most of most empires' finance was all about that, not science, food or cultural programs. It'd be nice if this can be represented in some way in civ.

 

[pineappledan]

A future civ game could fill the map with more more minor civ entities Early on and make conquering existing peoples, rather than settling, a larger part of how players expand. Then, the loyalty and vassalage systems would have to be beefed up, so conquering minor entities gave you the option of different levels of economic control and political influence over them (tributary, vassal, puppet state, annexation), and rebellion/secession became much more common. players would spend a lot more time maintaining loyalty, losing it, and then putting down rebellions/reconquering their own spheres of influence as a major part of the combat, in addition to trying to fight other major factions.

I don’t know if that would start to feel too much like a paradox game, where the map is already set at the start of the game. Maybe it wouldn’t be that fun to have to stitch your empire back together every so often. However, it would give that dynamic of trying to build and maintain a multi-ethnic, cosmopolitan empire for the early and mid game.

 

[historix69]

rebellion/secession became much more common. players would spend a lot more time maintaining loyalty, losing it, and then putting down rebellions/reconquering their own spheres of influence as a major part of the combat, in addition to trying to fight other major factions.

I remember such rebellions being a feature in Civ 3 which featured multi-ethnic and -cultural population in conquered cities ... depending on city size the player had to station many military units (stack) in a single city until after some 100 years the population maybe accepted the new rule.
In Civ 1 it was called Martial Law and allowed military units to supress 1-2 unhappy citizens per city, an early game happyness mechanic for autocratic rulers.

Technically you need unlimited stacks in cities to control cities of unlimited size.
In a 1upt system military units would probably need kind of (cumulative) zone of control in city area to prevent rebellions and uprising.

Edit :
AfaIr the rebellion mechanics in Civ 3 was inconsistent with other game rules (combat, production).
- A successfull rebellion removed the complete garrison stack from the game without combat.
- A new rebel army was magically placed in the city, consisting of newest military units based on current tech, eg expensive battle tanks the player would have spent several or dozens of turns to produce.
If there is a rebellion mechanic in Civ 7, the rebellion should be consistent with overall game mechanics, eg unhappy cities produce rebel troops like light infantry / guerilla every few turns near the city and if the player does not deal with them in time they may attack the garrison and maybe push them out of the city.
Rebellions in Civ 3 usually had less impact on the overall game progress because in Civ 3 the player and AI were settling/conquering hundreds of cities.

 

[pineappledan]

Technically you need unlimited stacks in cities to control cities of unlimited size.
In a 1upt system military units would probably need kind of (cumulative) zone of control in city area to prevent rebellions and uprising.

That’s not really the case anymore, with districts. So now limited stacks of units are in a game with limited stacks of cities.

 

[aieeegrunt]

the difficulties are not only about waging war, but also maintaining an effective military force that keeps the empire together.

Until nationalism, the army's main purpose is not to wage war, but to enforce rules. An ordinary, multi-ethnic empire have no loyal subjects aside from core area, and cannot survive without a very costly army and administration system. Most of most empires' finance was all about that, not science, food or cultural programs. It'd be nice if this can be represented in some way in civ.

We HAD all of that. CivV had the Annex/Puppet/Raze system, and CivIV had vassels

It worked really well and did a good job of modelling history, as well as acting as an effective anti-blob snowball mechanic

Instead now we have the useless and ahistorical Loyalty nonsense

 

[historix69]

We HAD all of that. CivV had the Annex/Puppet/Raze system, and CivIV had vassels

It worked really well and did a good job of modelling history, as well as acting as an effective anti-blob snowball mechanic

I disagree.

As far as I remember Civ 4 had the major flaw that adding more cities to your empire early by settling or conquest could explode the upkeep for all cities exponentially based simply on an abstract mathmatical formula so that the game became unplayable unless you followed a very narrow path of allowed number of cities and economic strength.
It is hard to believe that the government upkeep for all your cities (including buildings) suddenly is about doubled just because your troops conquered or settled an additional small city at the end of the world.

Civ 5 applied a global happiness restriction to expansion. Each city consumed several points of global happiness and population consumed additional points of local or global happiness. Conquered cities and population caused additional unhappiness (until a courthouse was established). Early happiness was limited by a start value (based on difficulty) and 4 happiness per improved/traded luxury ressource. Conquering one or more cities usually caused a massive hit in happiness which could not be compensated in early game. The global effect of unhappiness was paradox that an empire with happy population and with many cities could be pushed into global unhappiness by settling/conquering another (small) city. Conquering/aquiring a big city usually was a major disaster due to the massive unhappiness the victory caused for the victorious civ.
It is very hard to believe that happyness in one city can be turned to unhappiness by just adding a (small) city or even a population at the end of the world.
The only expansion strategy in Civ 5 was to expand slowly from one luxury to next luxury resource. Settling/conquering cities which did not provide a new luxury was a bad strategy, leading to empires with holes. AI settled their cities scattered over the whole map hunting for new luxuries.
(You could get unlimited happiness in Civ 5 but this required a specific set of social policies, a religion with specific beliefs/buildings, certain wonders like the Forbidden Palace and city size of 30 for many cities, so it was only available after reaching industrialization and choosing your ideology.)

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Reasonable limitations for (early) expansion could be higher upkeep costs for both units and buildings so that an empire cannot expand beyond its economic limits. If a new city requires a guard unit and that unit costs more than the new city provides as income, the empire has to pay for the guard, etc. If you don't guard the new city, it may be conquered by barbarians, etc.
Conquered enemy cities could require more units as garrison and so would comprehensibly cost more money than other cities ...

There could also be a bureaucracy system governing the cities in the empire, but bureaucracy costs for additional cities or outposts should be reasonable and not based on abstract mathmatical formulas increasing exponentially with number of cities. Major flaw of all systems to limit expansion is that players are forced to settle only a small number of cities and only in the best possible spots and leave holes inbetween. Russia's Siberia today would have totally different borders if only the territory around cities would be considered.

In the context of limitations it would be nice to have more options regarding own and conquered cities :
- Option to just plunder a conquered city and then release it.
- Option to release a conquered city (any time) which then returns to its former owner or maybe becomes neutral.
- Option to remove or release one of your own (settled) cities (any time) which then is removed or becomes neutral or forms a new faction.

 

[newtociv6]

I'd personally love to see something combining Humankind's approach with your AoW - style approach, where we send small stacks across the map in one click instead of a hell of taking 30 units across the entire world one after another, and then for something interesting happening in the form of a field battle, and it would solve sooo many problems of civ5-6, I just have no idea how to do that without falling into the pitfalls of super messy HK combat design, while still making it interesting.

I just played humankind and the design of army and unpacking is very limiting. Tiny map size aside (as compared to army size), the combat in civ gives a lot more freedom - to block and intercept reinforcements, to concentrate on key units and to deal with difficulties on march, because it plays a huge part in war. Actual set-pitch battles are uncommon and highly dependent on culture.

 

[newtociv6]

Reasonable limitations for (early) expansion could be higher upkeep costs for both units and buildings so that an empire cannot expand beyond its economic limits. If a new city requires a guard unit and that unit costs more than the new city provides as income, the empire has to pay for the guard, etc. If you don't guard the new city, it may be conquered by barbarians, etc.
Conquered enemy cities could require more units as garrison and so would comprehensibly cost more money than other cities ...

the examples from Roman empire and Alexander's successor kingdoms could be followed:

• Normally, soldiers may be recruited anywhere with colonies, fedual grants or military training grounds. But they are not "active" and can't be commanded. A formation of stacked units must require a commander attached in order to move or combat. Inactive units cost less upkeep, like half.
• Commanders cost most money, and more depending on units they lead. They can only be recruited from the capital, thus restricting response time the bigger the empire gets.
• Thus, outer cities require constant upkeep to maintain commanders and active soldiers to deal with the smallest emergencies. It doesn't matter whether professional or not, since in all cases a portion of income is lost to the ruler.
• Active soldiers have loyalty issues. The further away commanders and soldiers are from capital, the less loyal they become as time goes. Auto-rotation may be added to address the problem, cost money.
• The more battles a commander won, the less loyal they become. Detaching commander from a unit causes it to lose experiences and some promotions gained while under its command.
• Add militia that may be recruited in emergency. Militia infrastructure cost gold and outputs in ratios, and far less loyalty per turn

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

seperation of types of wars

two types:

major wars. you raise troops for these and march them to the enemy to beat them up.

minor wars. tribal skirmishes or city state feuds. because these would be happening in rural and illiterate civilizations, or between them, they won't be focused on by the player. they will be noted via tiles.


raising soldiers

you can raise an entire army, size dependent on technology, population, infrastructure, and cultural norms. if you are playing a feudal kingdom with a decentralized government, low population due to bad soil, and religious prohibitions against violence, expect to raise an army of hundreds to 3,000 at most at the cost of destroying your country if you lose because you put all of your knights and lords there and destroyed your economy just raising that aarmy. on the other hand, if you are playing a gigantic multicultural empire with vast riches, a massive GDP, a massive infrastructure, a population of 100 million, a religion that supports war, you can raise an army up to hundreds of thousands of soldiers in size. and then keep doing that.

movement speed

every army is extremely fast and takes up only one tile.

combat

whenever two or more armies fight, make aa minigame. the minigame will play like Fire Emblem mixed with Total War's morale mechanics. the battlefield will be a granulated simulation of the terrain the battle takes place in. the combat system should be stupidly in-depth.

aftermath of battle

you gain culture from every battle, won or lost, your population lowers (there should be really complicated and in depth population mechanics), and a suite of other effects.

 

[Evie]

Combat mini-games are just micro-management by another name, and it has all the problems thereof - it's not particularly interesting, it takes a lot of time, and you're forced to do it if you want to play optimally.

I've played enough of those games. Almost without fault, it ends with me using the (very) suboptimal auto-resolve option and playing crappily because going through the tactical battle takes far too much time for far too little benefit.

I'm not buying a civ that has combat micro-management. I'm here to build a civilization, not to fight tactical battles.

 

[aieeegrunt]

We need to address the elephant in the room of how broken ranged units are

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

We need to address the elephant in the room of how broken ranged units are

It's actually the elephant, camel, or horse in the room, all with archers perched on top . . .

The broken ranged units are because:
1. Ranged units were given a significant Melee Factor for their defense, when in fact most ranged units historically had no melee weapons or armor and so in game terms should be Road Bumps for any melee unit that contacts them.
2. Having separate (1UPT) units vastly exaggerates the range of the units. For most of human history muscle-powered ranged weapons had an effective range of about 40 - 150 meters and a man with a shield could run that distance in 5 - 30 seconds. The archer put 2 - 4 arrows into the shield and then either ran for his life or died. There is a reason neither the Greeks nor the Romans had much use for 'ranged' archers or crossbowmen except on walls and towers defending cities - in the open field they either had to be protected or they evaporated Unless they were perched on top of a mobile tower - like an elephant, camel or horse.

The answer is either in 1UPT reduce the range of the ranged units AND reduce their melee factor to below that of Scouts OR Get Rid Of 1UPT, put all combat into a single tile and make ranged factors more in balance with the rest of the units as part of an army rather than a tactical unit on a strategic map with its tactical factors enhanced to strategic level.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

I distinguish between ranged units and the bombard combat action. Bombarding is sort of overpowered, but possibly only because of the same qualities that create the traffic jams. We can model the units in the army being melee, ranged, or firearm-using, as tags which the combat algorithm takes into account for what will be , uniformly, "melee" engagements, in the sense of being one tile invading into, and fighting for control of, another.

Perhaps that leaves room for other kinds of 'engagements', for example, to order a [second kind of operation] which would mean, one tile attacking another but not moving into occupying it. A harassment, maybe you could call it. This leaves room maybe for ordering units around a city, explicitly, to besiege it, in the passive manner that I am given to understand truly defines siege: low-intensity engagements over a long period of time, while starving & isolating the defender.

The possibilities are limited only by the imagination.

 

[BuchiTaton]

I would like to replace both the stacks and carpets of doom with customizable armies compoused as "cards". Something like this:

* Each army occupies one tile, the army itself is composed by 1 to 6 units. This number allow to accommodate them in the 6 slices of the hexagonal tiles.​

* The 6 slices are specific positions, so there is a central frontal, right frontal, left flank, rearguard, etc. These positions have tactic values relevant to the calculation of the battle, plus they also allow to visually recognize the army's unit composition and positions.​

* A general can be asigned to each army, represented on map by a start and by an icon (maybe a portrait) in the army's info display.​

* Orden of actions can be assigned to each army, this consists in three moments: 1) Opening > 2) Confrontation > 3) Resolution. You can select one action for each moment for example "charge", "volley", "hold on", "chase", "fake withdrawal", etc.​

* Of course others army parameters like experience/promotions/training would be relevant also.​

* Unkeep, logistics, movement, stealth and moral would be affected also by your army composition. So for example some small armies of only 2 or 3 cavalry units would be usefull for patrolling and raiding.​

* Equipment (from techs) could also be included and shown in the army parameters info (spies and recon allows to see details of enemy armies).​

* The player could also build and save their own army composition templates, allowing for example to name them by their function like "siege army" (a lot of artillery) or "desert army" (with camel riders and light horsemen). This "quality of life" feature could be extended even to the training of the full army in one city.​

At the end each army have more personality, is more relevant and the processing of battles is less tedious (not more stacks or carpets of doom).

It's actually the elephant, camel, or horse in the room, all with archers perched on top . . .

The broken ranged units are because:
1. Ranged units were given a significant Melee Factor for their defense, when in fact most ranged units historically had no melee weapons or armor and so in game terms should be Road Bumps for any melee unit that contacts them.
2. Having separate (1UPT) units vastly exaggerates the range of the units. For most of human history muscle-powered ranged weapons had an effective range of about 40 - 150 meters and a man with a shield could run that distance in 5 - 30 seconds. The archer put 2 - 4 arrows into the shield and then either ran for his life or died. There is a reason neither the Greeks nor the Romans had much use for 'ranged' archers or crossbowmen except on walls and towers defending cities - in the open field they either had to be protected or they evaporated Unless they were perched on top of a mobile tower - like an elephant, camel or horse.

The answer is either in 1UPT reduce the range of the ranged units AND reduce their melee factor to below that of Scouts OR Get Rid Of 1UPT, put all combat into a single tile and make ranged factors more in balance with the rest of the units as part of an army rather than a tactical unit on a strategic map with its tactical factors enhanced to strategic level.

The situation of ranged units (at least pre-20th century) would be solved (in part at less) by this proposed system since their "ranged attack" is represented by their ability to attack from the back row (slices) of their tile. Of course the relation between the tile of the own army and the tile of the immediate enemy army, would be still relevant (like be in a fortified and/or high ground tile) to increase even more the range attack statistics. So let alone ranged unit as their own army would not be a good idea unless they have some extraordinary terrain advantege like be up over a cliff.