Humble opinion about mod

GoreBush

Chieftain
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First i must say this mod is best Civilization-game i played. By far better than vanilla in every aspect, especially warfare-AI ( think it is mod top feature ), and even better than some nice mods for Civ IV.

But also i see two major flaws here preventing mod to be a best strategy game. It is not mod-specific flaws, but inherited from main game, however. But in mod, since we have now far better and competent battle AI, this flaws become very significant ( vanilla-AI so dumb that no any point to talk about balance and overall mechanic issues without fixing he first ).

First issue always starts to act since certain point of every party passed. Once civilization productive capabilities and number of units become so high so even surpass every-turn losses, all wars turn into pointless everlasting clogged queues of tens of units that cant reach a narrow ( or relatively narrow ) frontline. No any civilization can realize their military and productive potential in this circumstances. AI-players even processing science due to wars with formidable ( in paper ) foes, because they already always have all the units they can to have ( up to limits ). Things go better and we can see some advancing of stronger side if we have long enough and free from obstacles ( like mountains, lakes ) frontline that can absorb all units both sides have. Major cause of this situation i think is one-unit-per-tile system and lack of ability to stack units at least to some limits ( like a brigades consisting 3-4 regular units ). But I dont know is there instruments to make it or not. Moreover, it is not enough to just represent the stacking-ability and make all needed balance adjustments. Also need to teach AI to properly use this new ability - when to stack, when no stack.

Second issue bounded with unit tiers. We have so few tiers for entire civilization-history, that one-tier higher unit literally overwhelm his counterparts with no chances, regardless of strategy, tactics, economy. Yeah, most of my games i win against deity-AIs is because i catch some right technology-timing and beat knights by lancers, tercios by fusiliers etc. Not only because of strategy, tactics, right defence placements of cities. One alone It almost impossible due to point one when fighting similar-sized enemy.

This is my thoughts.
 
Both thoughts very valid. Wish i was more than a consumer of media and could offer suggestions for solutions. But alas I just graciously consume the efforts of the hard working devs.
 
But also i see two major flaws here preventing mod to be a best strategy game.
Just curious, which game do you think is the best strategy game? Modded or not.
First issue always starts to act since certain point of every party passed. Once civilization productive capabilities and number of units become so high so even surpass every-turn losses, all wars turn into pointless everlasting clogged queues of tens of units that cant reach a narrow ( or relatively narrow ) frontline. No any civilization can realize their military and productive potential in this circumstances. AI-players even processing science due to wars with formidable ( in paper ) foes, because they already always have all the units they can to have ( up to limits ). Things go better and we can see some advancing of stronger side if we have long enough and free from obstacles ( like mountains, lakes ) frontline that can absorb all units both sides have. Major cause of this situation i think is one-unit-per-tile system and lack of ability to stack units at least to some limits ( like a brigades consisting 3-4 regular units ). But I dont know is there instruments to make it or not. Moreover, it is not enough to just represent the stacking-ability and make all needed balance adjustments. Also need to teach AI to properly use this new ability - when to stack, when no stack.

Second issue bounded with unit tiers. We have so few tiers for entire civilization-history, that one-tier higher unit literally overwhelm his counterparts with no chances, regardless of strategy, tactics, economy. Yeah, most of my games i win against deity-AIs is because i catch some right technology-timing and beat knights by lancers, tercios by fusiliers etc. Not only because of strategy, tactics, right defence placements of cities. One alone It almost impossible due to point one when fighting similar-sized enemy.
What do you think about Civ6 corps and armies? It seems to tackle both of your points.
 
There is a reason few games are good at these things, a reasonably competent AI is so much more expensive than bells and whistles.
Add to that the bells and whistles sells and are easy to market.
 
Agree with your first issue. Warring is very boring currently as a result of 1upt combined with the ability to produce units faster than they can be killed. No surprise AI has difficulties capturing cities when there's a unit in every hex of the battlefield.

Someone suggested to give 3-tile range attack to all siege units. I wonder if this could help.
 
Just curious, which game do you think is the best strategy game? Modded or not.

Honestly, there is no that game novadays for me from those i played. There are some quite good games, but all of them have some problems related with poor AI or some core design lacks. EU4 is good, when you are small and with very interesting diplomatic sandbox, but start to be boring up to 1600, when you become supa-major world power rivaling another big powers who eat whole world. There is no place for diplomacy, cooperation with allies, tricks and treasons from this point. Economy and warfare model is quite simple and is not interesting in EU4. Galactic Civilization series is nor polished and with bad AI. Endless Legend and Endless Space 1/2 have a bad AI and core balance issues related with tendency to extreme snowballing for some players and many no-brain "choices". Stellaris may become good game with some game-balance adjustments and major, very major AI improvements. There are some very specific so-called hardcore games like Distant Worlds or Shadow Empire many peoples claimed like good games, but i have not so many time to try all of this, especially those so rich for different mechanics and study-demanded.

What do you think about Civ6 corps and armies? It seems to tackle both of your points.

It is exactly what i think about when speak about stacking. But Civ 6 generally worst civilization game for me, unfortunately ( and i played a lot all civ games since Civ3 ). AI, even dumber than vanilla one in Civ5, ridiculous +100% boosts to certain technologies and civics due to completion some specific conditions, mobile-game like graphics style. And i personally dislike overall idea of city-districts covering all the map.
 
Honestly, there is no that game novadays for me from those i played. There are some quite good games, but all of them have some problems related with poor AI or some core design lacks. EU4 is good, when you are small and with very interesting diplomatic sandbox, but start to be boring up to 1600, when you become supa-major world power rivaling another big powers who eat whole world. There is no place for diplomacy, cooperation with allies, tricks and treasons from this point. Economy and warfare model is quite simple and is not interesting in EU4. Galactic Civilization series is nor polished and with bad AI. Endless Legend and Endless Space 1/2 have a bad AI and core balance issues related with tendency to extreme snowballing for some players and many no-brain "choices". Stellaris may become good game with some game-balance adjustments and major, very major AI improvements. There are some very specific so-called hardcore games like Distant Worlds or Shadow Empire many peoples claimed like good games, but i have not so many time to try all of this, especially those so rich for different mechanics and study-demanded.
So maybe Civ5 + VP actually is the best strategy game, because there is no better strategy game ;) Is it the best possible that it could? For sure not, but it's still improving and hopefully it'll improving forever.
It is exactly what i think about when speak about stacking. But Civ 6 generally worst civilization game for me, unfortunately ( and i played a lot all civ games since Civ3 ). AI, even dumber than vanilla one in Civ5, ridiculous +100% boosts to certain technologies and civics due to completion some specific conditions, mobile-game like graphics style. And i personally dislike overall idea of city-districts covering all the map.
I like some aspects of Civ6 and it works good in multiplier, which is unfortunately not the case for VP.
 
Your first issue does not happen if I play on a Large map, and a Pangea instead of Continents. Both settings reduce the number of choke points, and the result is usually a wide front line where the number of units will matter much more.

Your second issue could maybe be helped with mod-mods such as Enlightenment Era, which increase the number of unit tiers. Not sure if that one is still compatible with the most recent version though.
 
Perhaps we should have unit supply scale with map size.
 
The first problem is a fundamental one....it is baked into the foundation of the game itself.

The game operates on the notion that with enough micro, units are immortal. My first spearman in the early game can (and mostly will) rise to become a full infantry in the late game, with lots of promotions. Therefore, a human with high competency in war is orders of magnitude stronger than an AI who is not. To provide proper challenge, the AI must be allowed to compensate with quantity, as it cannot provide quality.

That is Civ 5, you are not fixing it without a massive rethink of how the game operates, aka shake the game to its core. Here are some possible ways to go about it (all of which I think are bad ideas for the game).

  • Units cannot upgrade. If players are forced to rebuild their armies continuously, you remove the super promoted problem and you force a more attrition basis to war.
  • Greatly reduce defensive bonuses. If your not attacking, your dieing. This would involve nerfing citadels and forts, reducing fortified bonuses, weakening medic, etc etc.
  • Great reduce hitpoints, make it 50, where units are dieing much more readily than they do now. This ups the attrition, which challenges the human player much more.
  • Reduce AI units. Everyone goes up a difficulty level, and let deity players yawn as they win game after game after game.

etc. Now again, I think those ideas are terrible for this mod, because it is so anathema to the way Civ 5 plays, you would be making a different game. That style of attrition warfare game is wonderful, if you want that go play a game like Old World (which is a wonderful game with absolutely brutal and awesome war mechanics, it is my 2nd favorite game right now other than VP).

To reiterate, this is NOT a problem that can be solved without turning the game into something very different, its too core to the way the game operates. At the very least, any attempt to do so should be a modmod at best, as you would be seriously splitting the user base
 
I was also thinking about totally rebuilding units damage / health points to make fighting more "fun". Game is so cool but fightning could be much better
 
First i must say this mod is best Civilization-game i played. By far better than vanilla in every aspect, especially warfare-AI ( think it is mod top feature ), and even better than some nice mods for Civ IV.

But also i see two major flaws here preventing mod to be a best strategy game. It is not mod-specific flaws, but inherited from main game, however. But in mod, since we have now far better and competent battle AI, this flaws become very significant ( vanilla-AI so dumb that no any point to talk about balance and overall mechanic issues without fixing he first ).

First issue always starts to act since certain point of every party passed. Once civilization productive capabilities and number of units become so high so even surpass every-turn losses, all wars turn into pointless everlasting clogged queues of tens of units that cant reach a narrow ( or relatively narrow ) frontline. No any civilization can realize their military and productive potential in this circumstances. AI-players even processing science due to wars with formidable ( in paper ) foes, because they already always have all the units they can to have ( up to limits ). Things go better and we can see some advancing of stronger side if we have long enough and free from obstacles ( like mountains, lakes ) frontline that can absorb all units both sides have. Major cause of this situation i think is one-unit-per-tile system and lack of ability to stack units at least to some limits ( like a brigades consisting 3-4 regular units ). But I dont know is there instruments to make it or not. Moreover, it is not enough to just represent the stacking-ability and make all needed balance adjustments. Also need to teach AI to properly use this new ability - when to stack, when no stack.

Second issue bounded with unit tiers. We have so few tiers for entire civilization-history, that one-tier higher unit literally overwhelm his counterparts with no chances, regardless of strategy, tactics, economy. Yeah, most of my games i win against deity-AIs is because i catch some right technology-timing and beat knights by lancers, tercios by fusiliers etc. Not only because of strategy, tactics, right defence placements of cities. One alone It almost impossible due to point one when fighting similar-sized enemy.

This is my thoughts.
I see two "beginnings of solutions" to these very valid concerns :
- for unit production / number, the first step would be to limit the unit supply, increase the production and maintenance cost of all military units and make reworks around that main concept (something @gwennog had been working on this last year) => the AI nowadays is good enough to do well with fewer units, even though human players will always have an advantage on a purely micro level
- for the power gap between unit tiers, one idea I have is to divide the power of all units and cities by 2 => I'm not as knowledgeable as @Stalker0 on the matter of CS / damage evaluation, but dividing the CS between two tiers could help make the differences less drastic while also making a two tier gap significant enough to be rewarding
 
for the power gap between unit tiers
I've been wanting to set aside some time to go through all the units and try and work out something like an era-scaling component to CS, such that some amount (50%, 35%, number TBD) of a unit's base CS is determined by the current tech era of the player, not the unit itself. I think this could be done with a promotion that all units have, and maybe it would be a %scaler, again math TBD. But what this would allow is two-fold: you have units that can half-scale towards their eventual upgrade, making them relevant for longer and bridging especially long gaps between upgrades. I'm thinking horseman - knight (compared to chariot - skirmisher - heavy skirmisher) or naval units. Secondly, it lets players that go top techs still have some level of CS advancement for their troops, which puts less pressure on keeping up purely with military techs.

The goal would be that for any given unit, its peak power level remains unchanged, but for units that are near their next upgrade there would be a modest increase in power.
 
Maybe we can lower the CS bonuses when promoting units instead of 10/20/30 to make 5/10/15. This will lower the value of more experienced units compared to new recruits, they will be easier to destroy, people will often play them more aggressively and leave them in dangerous places. There should be a rotation of units with regular army renewal so that there are no infantrymen with 250+ experience points who started their way as warriors in 4000 BC. and who have so many promotions that they look like a Christmas tree hung with toys. If the army is regularly updated, then the promotion pool will be activated for each current enemy: rivers await us along the way - let's take this promotion. The amphibious infantrymen died, but they cleared the territory to the city - it's time to create several city assault squads.
 
I think the gaps between units are necessary to make researching a non-military tech have sufficient downside.
To reiterate, this is NOT a problem that can be solved without turning the game into something very different, its too core to the way the game operates.
Yea I came to peace with this. If you want a great military game, there are options that aren't civ 5. Civ 5 is a decent military game mixed with excellent 4X, and that's okay.
 
Yeah! Or we could also make promotions require more XP

If we increase the experience requirements to get promoted, then the recruits will become even weaker. Need to reduce CS bonuses.

+30% CS for a Tier III unit that also gets a +25% Fortification bonus, -Spearman-Pikeman have an additional +15% defense in open areas. Woodman has +10% in forests and hills. The hills and forests themselves +10%, +25%, +35%. Plus there will almost always be +15% Flanking Bonus if the enemy melee attacks against .units lined up. Plus Great General +10%, +20% (Autocracy) and more for some civilizations. Plus Forts-Citadels +50% +100%/.

An attacking recruit will have absolutely nothing to do against a defending Tier III infantryman/

This, it seems to me, is the main problem of the fact that the AI does nothing against the Citadels - one experienced unit is able to block an entire army.
 
@GoreBush Thank you for sharing your opinion about the mod! I also agree with both issues you mentioned. In order to limit the number of units, I would rather focus on rebalancing production cost and/or unit maintenance instead of supply cap. Supply cap is not the most interesting mechanic in my opinion as there are only few ways for the player to influence it. Gold and production are much more deeply rooted in the game, and there exist many possibilities to maximize them, so using them as limiting factors for unit numbers would be strategically more interesting. We have a thread in the forum discussing the problem of too high amounts of gold in the game where some ideas have already been collected (https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/gold-inflation.680257).

As to the problem of units not dying and getting upgraded throughout the whole game: What about adding a -10% combat strengh malus for a unit each time it is upgraded? This would make upgraded units with much xp less mighty and give a motivation to construct new units throughout the game.
 
I strongly disagree with these suggestions to make units expendable and restrain the ability to get highly promoted units from careful warfare play. The player already has incentives to build new units throughout the game, there is no need to nerf units trained in the beginning of the game with each era. It's not that easy to get the best promotions of the game such as Range and Logistics. If anything you need those promotions to increase your firepower so you can clear tiles and advance with your infantry, thus breaking the stalemate.
 
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