How would you improve combat in Civ7?

[Sostratus]

While I really liked the innovations humankind experimented with, I do think for the Civ series that 1UPT works pretty well.

The type of combat it engenders is popular with a lot of people, and it can be quite fun in and of itself (realism and grand strategy aside) and we have to keep that in mind. It’s also not really an issue early game when the armies are small, it’s later on.

One thing we can do is pull some levers to delay the onset of when “later on” happens. The other thing is try to alleviate the pain.

The first one is just adjusting map sizes and tweaking unit stats so that players aren’t fielding veritable carpets of doom until late game. (Since unit count is a function of economy, which is growing, this is probably tied to unit upkeep and the associated gold surpluses.)

For the second part, I think there are two systems already in civ6 that are very close to what we need: corps and support units.

I’ve written about support units before. I think they should be massively expanded and be the source of the “utility” of mid-late game units. If the core of an army is, say, infantry, we can allow players to give them machine guns, mortars, anti tank guns, AA guns, and more as support units. You can get pretty radical with this concept. It’s a great way to fit things like grenadiers or mantlets or marines or all manner of cool stuff that shows up in military history that may not make sense as a stand-alone combat unit. The idea is that they give an extra action or capability to whatever unit they are paired with. (As an easy example, AT guns giving the unit a large defensive modifier against armored units, or mortars providing an offensive ranged attack action.)

The corps system doesn’t quite work for resolving the stack issue in civ6 because you’re just making a single unit bigger. If we simplified the promotion concept down to something simple like “veterancy: +1 Str per level” instead of these trees that aren’t really experience based, we can augment the system with something that civ4 FFH had: you can form the stack of spearmen, but also split it up.

You could introduce techs in most eras that allow you to combine more like units (say, ultimately up to 5 or 6,) and have other modifiers for how effective they are bunched up to make this something really great for transport and movement but not a win condition in the classical. For example, combining 3 men at arms would give you a unit with 300HP, but in terms of dealing damage perhaps it’s much less than 3x. As long as leaving the formation is pretty easy, this solves a lot of issues. I can box up a whole group of tanks, then as needed drive them to the battlefield and unbox them once we get close in a seamless way. I don’t get a super chonk wallbreaker just for combining my units. (This is why I think corps and armies are OP.)

At least, that’s the direction I would move things in if I was a red hot 4X designer.

 

[aieeegrunt]

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.

Honestly roll the whole combat system to Civ3 and start over

Seperate attack and defense values, and most ranged units have an extremely low defense factor and a range of zero.

You only get ranged fire from “siege” units, which are slow and defenceless.

Range zero means they get a “free shot” at any unit attacking their stack

As an example, with values being
Attack/Defense/Range/move

Swordsmen, expensive, 3/2/none/1
Spearmen, cheap, 1/2//none/1
Archer, cheap, 2/1/0/1
Horseman, really expensive, 2/2/none/2

You can see how just with 4 units you have a level of sophistication and tactics you don’t get in Civ6 (or 5) where it boils down to “just enough melee/horse units to allow my archers to mass delete”

Archers are a good support/utility unit, but they have to be covered by other units, and they can’t simply delete enemy units with impunity.

 

[Evie]

That requires two separate stats and creates a problem when the archer can't attack without moving into the tile (so if they win the battle they move and you have to move your cover with them - they shouldn't need to do that). And create much too great overlap between archer and melee infantry since they now serve the same basic gameplay role just with slightly different stats.

Much easier in my opinion to keep the single stats, and make ranged units Ranged 1 (can attack a tile without moving into it and without taking damage unless the enemy counterattack, but can't attack multiple tiles away). Then have a limited stacking system to allow for limited escort.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

IF you want to keep any part of the current Civ VI system (which I don't, but I've already posted at length on that), then the answer is to make all Pre-Gunpowder Non-Mounted (infantry) ranged units (primarily slingers, archers and crossbowmen) Support units. They can 'stack' with a Melee/Anti-Cav unit (or a Mounted Melee unit, but less effectively since the movement factors are different - say hello to the Goths' and Lombards' basic tactical problem!) but if hit by an enemy unit while not stacked, they evaporate.

And everybody has Range = 0, including the first Gunpowder Units (matchlock musketmen) and the earliest muskets, slow-firing and without bayonets, are also Support units - stack 'em with pikemen to make Tercios, Squadrons or pike&shot Battalions or watch them disappear.
Once you get flintlock 'firelock' muskets with bayonets, then the gunpowder units still have Range = 0 BUT they also have a substantial melee factor: a combination of massed bayonet charges and short-range musket fire either on defense or before charging in.

Thus, automatically we get the basic problem with muscle-powered ranged unit, in that they cannot stop a charge by enemy infantry or cavalry without somebody to block for them, and also get the dramatic change in gunpowder units between the early, clumsy matchlock that also requires Somebody Else with a melee weapon and the flintlock with bayonet that combines fire and melee in one weapon, the 'classic' infantry weapon of the 18th century, the Great European Wars (7 Year's War, Wars of the Successions, the Napoleonic Wars).

 

[Evie]

Range 0 would effectively mean they are shorter ranged than infantry (who can, after all, attack the next tile over), and can only fire st an enemy attacking their tile. I know they're short-ranged, but they aren't outranged by spears (and we can generally assume that conflict at a tile means conflict near the border between the two tiles.

Range 1 - can attack adjacent tile seems more reasonable. The alternative is pointedly useless ranged unit except in a strictly defensive role.

 

[Naokaukodem]

IF you want to keep any part of the current Civ VI system (which I don't, but I've already posted at length on that), then the answer is to make all Pre-Gunpowder Non-Mounted (infantry) ranged units (primarily slingers, archers and crossbowmen) Support units. They can 'stack' with a Melee/Anti-Cav unit (or a Mounted Melee unit, but less effectively since the movement factors are different - say hello to the Goths' and Lombards' basic tactical problem!) but if hit by an enemy unit while not stacked, they evaporate.

And everybody has Range = 0, including the first Gunpowder Units (matchlock musketmen) and the earliest muskets, slow-firing and without bayonets, are also Support units - stack 'em with pikemen to make Tercios, Squadrons or pike&shot Battalions or watch them disappear.

Basically with 0 range and disappear when attacked the ranged units would be of no use if they are not escorted. That would oblige you to build melee if you want "ranged", or "ranged" if you have melee. If you ask me, for optimality and sake of less micromanagement, each melee should get a portion of range in them, and range alone, if not given a melee escort (so that melee/ranged should just be about a proportion of melee or range, as it is already the case at least for ranged) should be able to fire at at least 1 range for defense/strategical point defense.

 

[Naokaukodem]

The alternative is pointedly useless ranged unit except in a strictly defensive role.

Not to mention city defense units where ranged could do 0 damage in their turn...

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Sorry to all: what I meant was '1' range, as in one tile to the neighboring tile, as opposed to '0' which I took to mean 0 tiles between firing and target unit.
Frankly, I think almost all combat should be within a single tile, which no matter how you slice it represents at least several/hundreds of kilometers of territory, more than enough to hold most armies up until the Industrial Era, but that appears to be outside of the scope of this specific discussion.

Basically with 0 range and disappear when attacked the ranged units would be of no use if they are not escorted. That would oblige you to build melee if you want "ranged", or "ranged" if you have melee. If you ask me, for optimality and sake of less micromanagement, each melee should get a portion of range in them, and range alone, if not given a melee escort (so that melee/ranged should just be about a proportion of melee or range, as it is already the case at least for ranged) should be able to fire at at least 1 range for defense/strategical point defense.

Civ has never done 'combined' range/melee units much except as Uniques, like the Impis in Civ V or the Immortals in Civ VI.
Nor is that justifiable if they want to keep using 'historical' (or at least Flavorful) names for the units: the Hoplite never had a ranged capability, and the Roman Legionary's 'ranged' capability was about 20 paces - the distance he could throw a heavy iron pilum, a strictly pre-melee weapon. Likewise, the game has always taken 'Spearman' or 'Swordsman' to mean just and only that, even though a great many historical units of both included javelins as a pre-melee ranged weapon or lightly armed ranged troops to screen their advance.

City Defense, as in 'real' history, would be where the ranged units are most useful: safely situated atop walls and towers, it was primarily bows and crossbows that caused the severe casualties to troops attacking cities. Not to mention that even a poorly-armed and armored archer can whack somebody over trhe head with a rock if the target has both hands busy trying to climb a ladder.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Civ has never done 'combined' range/melee units much except as Uniques, like the Impis in Civ V or the Immortals in Civ VI.
Nor is that justifiable if they want to keep using 'historical' (or at least Flavorful) names for the units: the Hoplite never had a ranged capability, and the Roman Legionary's 'ranged' capability was about 20 paces - the distance he could throw a heavy iron pilum, a strictly pre-melee weapon. Likewise, the game has always taken 'Spearman' or 'Swordsman' to mean just and only that, even though a great many historical units of both included javelins as a pre-melee ranged weapon or lightly armed ranged troops to screen their advance.

At least for ranged, as what I said. As to melee, if both of them possess a slight portion of ranged, I guess it would change nothing, and be no different of what we are seeing now, except graphically.

City Defense, as in 'real' history, would be where the ranged units are most useful: safely situated atop walls and towers, it was primarily bows and crossbows that caused the severe casualties to troops attacking cities. Not to mention that even a poorly-armed and armored archer can whack somebody over trhe head with a rock if the target has both hands busy trying to climb a ladder.

City defense AND key points like castles, hills, etc. or even positions where the enemy army is occupied with your melee troops like field cannons during a fight, I have no clue how this can be done without our own troops being hitten but apparently Napoleon gave a very great importance to such artillery. (unless that by "artillery" he meant siege units)

 

[Evie]

I figured that was a likely misunderstanding, which is why I tried to be very specific about meanings of ranged 0, ranged 1, etc.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

At least for ranged, as what I said. As to melee, if both of them possess a slight portion of ranged, I guess it would change nothing, and be no different of what we are seeing now, except graphically.

City defense AND key points like castles, hills, etc. or even positions where the enemy army is occupied with your melee troops like field cannons during a fight, I have no clue how this can be done without our own troops being hitten but apparently Napoleon gave a very great importance to such artillery. (unless that by "artillery" he meant siege units)

One of the other Things That Have To Change is how the game handles Gunpowder - the "Revolution in Military Affairs" of the 16th - 17th centuries. From the very beginning you had Bombards and other large cannon that could fire 3 - 5 times farther than any muscle-powered ranged weapon ever had before, and do immense damage to anything they hit. And by the beginning of the 18th century, the individual with a flintlock musket and bayonet could perform all the duties that used to require several men with different weapons: he could provide devastating short-range firepower, he could defend against cavalry, he could charge in and break an enemy formation with fire and the bayonet. For the first time in history there was a nearly Universal Soldier, capable of doing All Things on the battlefield.

Frankly, the current Civ system of dividing Melee, Ranged, and Anti-Cav into separate categories and units does not model the gunpowder-armed troops well at all, and having Cannon, Crossbows and Archers with the same range and acting as if they were equivalents is simply ludicrous.

So, frankly, regardless of whether Civ VII uses 1UPT or Tactical Maps or Stacks of X Units each I hope they realize that most of the rules governing how units act and interact have to change dramatically from Pre to Post Gunpowder, and then in the Modern Era go through another dramatic change when most of the Stuff That Kills You moves off the battlefield as artillery, missiles, UAVs, air support, etc.

 

[Sostratus]

One of the reasons I would like to see promotions largely worked out of the game (in the way they’ve existed since civ4) is because it makes it very awkward to upgrade units between classes. I would much rather experience gains simply give a few levels of a stacking “veterancy: +1 strength” type modifier.

That way, all our footsoldiers could essentially be compressed into what has historically in civ been rifleman. (Or line infantry in 6.) The do it all melee unit. No need for this awkward “pikemen pick up bazookas” silliness. Then we can have other ways to get the utilities of eg ranged units after the “singularity.” (Like a Gatling gun support unit.)

 

[AffineConstant]

After thinking it through a while...

Really stack on the bonuses. No more "+2", have it be a straight up +50% for flanking, and let flanking stack up to twice (surrounded on 3 hexes with 1 hex in between each).

At the same make penalties really harsh. Attacking across a river halves effectiveness, unless there's a bridge in which case it's only -25%. Attacking a unit on a road should be a 25% bonus, similarly units should be able to "hide" in woods, like the old fortify power, lowering the range they can be seen by another tile. Trying to attack units in forest/jungle or hills should be even more effective as a deterrent to ranged, halving the damage.

I.E. make each unit, each action really matter. The game doesn't need stacking, the board game Go has 1 piece and few rules, you can learn the bare minimum in minutes. And yet is more computationally complex than any tactics you'd care to name, even the recent human beating AI was trounced again after humans found an exploit. The key to Go being complex and interesting is that every last piece, every last move matters a whole lot. In Civ it starts to feel like it doesn't matter, like you just flood half the map and things take forever, because cities take forever to take, and tactics do little versus just flooding everything. This needs to be flipped on its head.

 

[historix69]

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.

Just adding some more attributes to consider :
- the archers and slingers in most cases had only light equipment and light armor weighing only a few kg while the heavy infantry in full armor with shield, lance and sword may had to carry maybe 30-50 kg, so the archers and slingers easily could outrun the heavy infantry (but not the cavalry).
- for most of the history mounted archers like horse archers or chariot archers had a huge impact on battle if the terrain was appropriate and there was enough food for the horses. Mounted troops were faster, more agile, had a larger logistical range, could strike and retreat ... (see mongols)
- speed and agility of units usually has not much influence on combat values in Civ games. In real a fast ranged unit could always outrun a slower melee unit, but in turn based combat it has to be explicitely included into the rules, eg by calculating an evasion chance based on unit speed.
- armies often used natural and artifical obstacles like rivers, swamps, palisades, pointed sticks, (Great Walls) etc. to protect their light armored archers from enemy melee attacks. Even a thin formation of heavy infantry with heavy shields and pikes (shield wall) would do. (That's what we get with 1 melee + 1 ranged unit per tile.)

 

[Evie]

"Heavy infantry in full armor" was incredibly rare in the medieval era - anyone who had the wealth and the time to purchase andtrain with the equipment you describe would have the time to get a horse and train to fight on its back, too. This is knightly equipment you describe.

You might be thinking of early modern (17th century) swiss pike metal armor and similar, but that comes with standardized armories and only in the wealthiest swiss town, and even then it is far from a full suit of plate armor, so much less in weight.

(Or you're using the barbarically ludicrous weight measurements in DnD, which are utterly divorced from reality).

 

[historix69]

"Heavy infantry in full armor" was incredibly rare in the medieval era - anyone who had the wealth and the time to purchase andtrain with the equipment you describe would have the time to get a horse and train to fight on its back, too. This is knightly equipment you describe.

You might be thinking of early modern (17th century) swiss pike metal armor and similar, but that comes with standardized armories and only in the wealthiest swiss town, and even then it is far from a full suit of plate armor, so much less in weight.

(Or you're using the barbarically ludicrous weight measurements in DnD, which are utterly divorced from reality).

I was more refering to ancient greeks : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx

 

[Evie]

In which case 30-50 kg is an exaggerated figure.

The common (but questioned by modern scholar) figure in older books, often still cited, is 32kg, 70 pound, at the very low end of the 30-50 range you cited. That's for the full bronze armor version, which many hoplite did not wear. So the low end of your estimate - 30-50 - is actually the high end for hoplite equipment weight.

The 8-15 kg figure given on the Phalanx page for Hoplite shield (Aspis) is out to lunch, and even contradict...Wikipedia's own page on Aspis that put the weight around 7.3 kg. The Phalanx page cite no source, the Aspis one does. This figures is also more in line with the estimates given here, based on actual measurement of surviving museum pieces and reconstructions based on period pieces and known ancient technology : https://www.bookandsword.com/2019/06/15/the-myth-of-the-heavily-burdened-hoplite/

Which put the weight even below the 32kg estimate mentioned above.

 

[historix69]

For roman legion it is mentioned that the soldiers carried 25-30 kg on march including military equipment and some rations. So they would fight with less than that in battle.
The 50 kg is too high for infantry. I probably mixed it with medieval heavy cavalry.
For heavy cavalry like cataphracts I found 40 kg armor weight.
(Wonder how they managed river crossings and amphibious assaults with that weight? Maybe Civ should consider armor weight in general as combat attribute.)

My main point was that infantry with heavy armor won't be able to outrun light (or not) armored ranged units, so they would be at disadvantage and less a threat for archers and slingers, which is in contrast to turnbased combat in Civ where heavy infantry often can oneshot them.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Hoplite Armor as a topic needs lots of qualifications.
The original Hoplite 'muscle cuirass' of bronze was both heavy (15 kg or more) and not that effective. By the end of the Persian War and certainly during the Peloponnesian War it was being replaced by armor made of multiple layers of leather and/or canvas or no body armor at all (the Spartans were already famous for not wearing body armor, relying on long practice with their shield for their protection). Alexander's phalanx of pezhetairoi pikemen wore only canvas/leather armor until after he left India, when they started replacing it with metal. His Successors frequently had only the front rank of the phalanx in metal armor, the rest in canvas or no armor at all. The big Hoplite shield was always considered the primary protection, not body armor.

The Roman legion started with link mail armor copied from the Celts, then the iron/steel lamillar armor, then back to link mail, and at the end of the Empire the legionary was largely unarmored but (like the Spartans) carrying a big oval shield that covered most of his body.

During the Medieval Era link mail was only for the richest, Viking Jarls, Saxon Huscarles or Norman Knights. Later, articulated plate armor was fabulously expensive, but there were several kinds of 'lesser' armor of leather, quilted cloth, metal studs worn by Everybody Else - crossbowmen, infantry melee types, poor knights and other horsemen. They were pretty good protection against a sword cut, not so much against a thrust by heavy sword, spear, or pike.

And the relative mobility of armored versus unarmored infantry was as much due to formation as weight carried. 'Heavy' infantry referred more to troops in a dense, deep formation designed to crash through the opponent as any armor or heavy shields they were carrying. If they broke formation into smaller groups, depending on their training and conditioning they could run as fast as anybody - but not as far, which is where the weight began to tell. That was surprisingly less important on a battlefield, because one Universal Truth is that once troops - like ranged types harassing the heavy infantry - start running, it is very, very hard to get them to stop, even when no one is chasing them any more. And that doesn't change whether the chased troops are Greek psiloi, medieval peasents, or French Napoleonic light infantry. Then it is Discipline and Leadership that turns them around and makes them come back, not any equipment carried by them or their opponents.

So, the reason the Romans and Greeks both put no importance on ranged troops like archers in open field battle was that their Heavy Infantry could run off the ranged troops unless those were covered or protected by fortifications or their own Heavy Infantry (or cavalry). Even the heaviest plate-armored knight on foot could cover the distance an archer could shoot before the archer could put enough arrows into him to find a weak spot in the armor (note that the infamous English 'longbow victories' all had situations in which the heavy French troops could not close with the longbowmen - planted stake barriers, heavy mud in the fields, dismounted knights providing melee protection for the archers). Any time the ranged troops did not have their own melee weapons (like Roman Velites or Greek Peltast-types) or other protection, they got run off unless their opponents were idiots.

 

[dagriggstar]

Each tile on the map has a military "influence score" for every faction
This score is increased by having military units nearby. Different units have different "ranges" (Lighter units generally influence more tiles but less effectively).
You always know your own score, but your knowledge of other factions is based on espionage.
When war is declared, the aggressor will tell their commanders what tiles to try to take, what units to use to take them and where their supply line is.
The defender will tell their commanders what tiles to defend, what units to use and where their supply line is.
The war is "played out" by the computer. Tiles swap ownership depending on whose military controls where.
The war is over when both sides agree on their new borders.