Immortal troops - the real problem with Civ 5

[Slowpoke]

Sounds like you'd like my "Remove healing" mod, made about a week ago Check mod components.

Edit: also, I planned at working on the "build reinforcements" alternative to healing, but I don't have the ability at the moment without the DLL. Might be possible with lua, but I got better things to do.

 

[fed1943]

Just my opinion from the games I played:

Combat, in itself, is better now, more interesting and deeper.
But sadly, deeper than the dev could write it well (call it AI if you want) so the deeper
combat I'm performing is de-valuated by the very weak opponent (SP of course).

But, as no one can fight with units that do not exist, even the warmonger has to give a look at the builder part of the game.
Poor it is.
Terrain, to the builder, not much significant, at least hard to find a tile as good as, or better, then the central one.
Building times very long, more if not units. But settlers can be cheap.

So, yes, is usually better to lose a city than an unit. Sometimes is even good to lose
a city as we all know.

Then, just one builder strategy is superior (ICS) and just one warmonger strategy
(go war the most you can). Just one option v. several possible mistakes means no choice.

Sure, I'm somewhat over-reacting, as I can ICS a little faster or slower, found my cities more or less agressively, and decide when to fight; and all these makes a difference.

Do I say the game is bad? No way. But it is a CIV game, right? And a CIV game must be excellent. If it is not (and right now it is not) we have the right to call it bad,
while it is not.

But I feel and hope this game can be still be good in the future.
Don't ask me how. I am a player, not a developer. (Anyway I would like to see the
instant heal to vanish...).

But if the game shall not be "fixed"...perhaps Civ VI not the same sucess than Civ V.

 

[alpaca]

Sounds like you'd like my "Remove healing" mod, made about a week ago Check mod components.

Edit: also, I planned at working on the "build reinforcements" alternative to healing, but I don't have the ability at the moment without the DLL. Might be possible with lua, but I got better things to do.

Yes, similar ideas were developed following our RB3 game. I think the best bet would be to add a "merge units" function that allowed you to join two units of the same type, adding their hitpoints and averaging their experience. It worked like this in the old Total War games and I liked it. It is micro-management heavy because you have to manage reinforcements, however. So the newer TW games have different mechanics, with NTW having healing similar to Civ - which is, in my opinion, a step in the wrong direction. Unfortunately there's no way to set unit hitpoints in Lua (or I haven't found it) so you'd have to use a promotion work-around I think

Unit upgrades are the other big point where I agree with the OP. Paeanblack, luddite and I had a discussion some time ago that resulted in me deciding to try giving units only one or at most two upgrades at some point. I haven't implemented it yet but in theory it would mean that you have to create new units rather than upgrade, would solve many of the issues with things like Musketmen being inherently crappy because nothing upgrades into them and would make combat more interesting because you don't have such elite troops. It might also add some decisions about using older veteran units or newer freshly trained ones.

 

[pickle]

I think that if the AI can get a bit better at preserving its units that will be a step in the right direction. they do manage some good strategic decisions, like attacking when i'm trekking through their territory and wiping my army out in one go. or attacking when i'm engaged on another front. but they need to know a bit more about when to cut their losses and defend. greece declared on me with an army at least double my size, probably a lot more than that seeing how long I spent slaughtering them. but once I got a good defensive position set up with 4 artillery with range and logistics promotions I wiped out their entire army only losing a couple of units when I had accidentally retreated a damaged unit to the wrong tile so I throw some cannon fodder in between and they kill that and my more promoted unit is ok.

another thing is that the AI does not concentrate fire on a single unit, say I have a couple of units near a city of theirs, the AI doesn't go all out to kill one, they spread the damage around to try to force you to withdraw the units which is what the AI does with a damaged unit but if they concentrate on one they could take it out completely.

it is annoying because I have seen a few times when the AI is defending and they can do a good job, they sit back and bombard whatever gets near then go after anything that is left in the open and it is effective, problem is that they only seem to do this very rarely and they can't switch between attacking and defending, if the tide of the war turns against them they invariably leave it too long before deciding to try and defend their position.

but overall i do like the new combat system, definately better than the SOD and hopefully in time they can make the ai that bit better that it will at least provide a decent challenge.

 

[Vulcans]

the difference here is that with careful planning you can avoid ALL losses.

in all the civ games the AI didnt deploy units well, they just sent a steady stream of 1-4 units at a time to be slaughtered.

the difference that in Civ4 there was a chance of losing a unit, even if you have 70% chance of winning a battle, you still have 30% chance of some casualty.

in civ 5, you can fight a battle, lose half your hit points, then send in a 2nd or 3rd unit to finish off the enemy. wait a cou0ple of turns(under protection of your cities bombard) and then send out your units when healed.

Thus the opsibility of stalemate battles means that there is ZERO chance of the classical "spearman beats tank" scenario, as this would at most cause a stalemate, in which the spearman would be overrun by the tanks in the following turn.

the reason they have implemented this is because the Devs have been listning to the people, after years of complaining about "spearman beats tank" they implemented this stalemate system to avoit it, only to find it easier to manipulate battles as pointed out by the OP.

one possibility to allow us to have some casualties (at the risk of spearman beats tank returning) would be to increase the battle randomness. you go into a battle where it says you should lose 4hp and do 6hp damage to the opponent, though there is still a very tiny chance that the numbers end out totally different than what was calculated, and your unit dies unexpectantly in the battle.

In the end, i also prefer the new combat system than the SOD. though agree the AI needs to be re-worked. especially in how it places achers, they should keep achers behind the swords ZOC and keep them safe from melee(which is normally instant death) and then focus fire on a target at a time to finish off units in one turn before letting them heal.

 

[Canpolat]

Hmm...actually your troops die. They lose men in battle. Thats what the Status Bar is for. It kind of represents the Strenght of a Battalion or Army. In nearly every battle you will lose men.

Dont forget the Units in Civ5 do not represent single men or tanks or ships. They are groups. When they lose men or material during a battle, they replace them.

I dont see why this is not realistic. Look how Ceasar fought his Gallic Wars. He didnt wasted 20 Legions and "build" new Legions along the way! It was always the same Legions but they managed to keep their losses a minimum through strategy and careful considerations.

The AI is plain and simple Dumb. Please dont base your opinion only on the AI. Civ5 has hands down the dumbest AI ever. I can hold against a AI with an Army 20 times larger than mine because it just sends its units against my strongest position and even after I have slaughtered 100 Billion of his forces he simply sends more and more and more!

Try playing against a good human opponent and see how "Immortal" your Units really are.

 

[DSChapin]

More or less fully agree with the OP. War needs to have some kind of cost attached - currently it really doesn't. And upgrading needs to be something you do rarely, rather than always - Civ 4 had a better balance there.

 

[ICanHasName?]

The problem is the AI. It just doesn't mass up formations of units, or focus fire with archers or make a real effort to kill injured units. We could set up a multiplayer battle with the people in this thread and even the best person here would loose some units and have unexpected things happen to them. The combat system isn't inherently screwed up or anything, its just difficult for the AI to use in a decent fashion.

 

[lschnarch]

Civ 5's combat system is sooooo much better than Civ 4's was.

Very strong argument. Would be even stronger if you could back it up somehow.

Back to the main topic.
Actually, I don't see the problem so much with the surviving of units, but with the fact that
a) units don't retreat in battle
b) conquering territory and holding it doesn't cost you anything in terms of units

a) units don't retreat in battle
If two units with full strenght fight against each other, and one unit (a) will lose 4 hitpoints and the other unit (b) will lose 7 hitpoints, unit (b) will still hold the position, imposing a zone of control, adding flanking bonus to other units, and simply blocking that hex.
This makes for quite some static warfare and can be exploited by the superior human player. Your defense positions literally cannot be crushed, given a halfway meaningful setup.
Since the human understands this intuitively, he is the one who can play around with this feature: the defending unit hasn't lost many hitpoints? Then leave it, where it is and defend even better due to promotions. The defending unit has lost a lot of hitpoint? Retreave it and heal it at no costs.

b) Conquering
When you conquer enemy territory, you don't need to drop units there to supress resistance, keep supply lines open and what not more.
This means, your army used to conquer city (a) some turns later can be used at full strength to conquer city (b). And so on.
The avalanche effect just never stops.
Furthermore, regardless of all promises made before release, it's just the city which counts.
Conquer a city and get all the terrain allocated to it. You don't have to care about territorial control, as this is granted with the city.
Attacking/defending a city almost never requirese more than 6 units. Thus, the bonuses of the AI almost don't mean anything.
So the AI has 20 units to attack you? Nevermind, they will patiently queue up, waiting to be defeated since they can't push you back (see (a))

In total, the whole concept of warfare has not been thought through. Some elements have been thrown into the concept, and nothing fits to the rest.

Honestly, I don't know what they have done during the two years of development. The game gives me the impression that they may have started thinking just during the last weeks, feverishly trying to finalize things, not having the time to correct anything.

 

[LordTC]

The real problem is that with the science slider gone you have all this extra gold sitting around, so what do you do with it?

A: Pay unit upkeeps.

So without the slider, having the level of units you need for war doesn't actually slow down your research the way it did in previous civ where if your peacetime army was 1/4 the size it was worth a few notches on the science slider.

The other stuff with the RPG units that never die is a little much too. In 1500 BC some warrior gets a promotion.. so the same guys in the unit in 1500 AD (3000 years old) are benefitting from that experience ;P

 

[Aldor]

b) Conquering
When you conquer enemy territory, you don't need to drop units there to supress resistance, keep supply lines open and what not more.
This means, your army used to conquer city (a) some turns later can be used at full strength to conquer city (b). And so on.

This is a good point. Civ4 required city garrisons, but in Civ5 they aren't neccessary. Perhaps it would be a good idea to make the resistance period of a conquered city longer (its only a few turns now), and require a unit to stay in the city (while its in resistance) to prevent it from flipping back to the old owner? This would probably slow offenses a bit and give the AIs time to regroup or build new defensive units..

 

[Öjevind Lång]

I'd go along with just about anything as long as the science slider does not return. Talk about an exploit! I have always disliked two things that have been around in Civ from the very beginning. I'm so glad they are finally gone. One was the silly slider, and the other was AI leaders clumping up and telling you: "Give me the secret of Pottery or I'll kill you". That's not how it works in real life, and it was terribly childish. Embarrassing, and also easy to exploit. I think the present system, with resarch agreements and the rest, is much superior, both in terms of reality feeling and in terms of gaming. Of course, it takes more thought and planning than the old system. That's what I like about it.

 

[lschnarch]

I'd go along with just about anything as long as the science slider does not return. Talk about an exploit! I have always disliked two things that have been around in Civ from the very beginning. I'm so glad they are finally gone. One was the silly slider, and the other was AI leaders clumping up and telling you: "Give me the secret of Pottery or I'll kill you". That's not how it works in real life, and it was terribly childish. Embarrassing, and also easy to exploit. I think the present system, with resarch agreements and the rest, is much superior, both in terms of reality feeling and in terms of gaming. Of course, it takes more thought and planning than the old system. That's what I like about it.

Sure.

Having income from trading posts to buy food from maritime city states to feed your scientists is much more difficult than deciding which amount of commerce to reserve for science and which to reserve for funding further actions.

Additionally, leaders complaining to you about having troops near their scouts is so much more meaningful than trying to press you to give technological secrets.

Really, to successfully compete against an AI which is unable to pick even the easiest victory condition (the "diplomatic" [aka: bribery] victory) requires many thoughts and careful thinking.

Thanks for your posting, as it made perfectly clear for which kind of audience Civ5 has been designed.
Moderator Action: Insults are not allowed in this forum. If you can't post in a civil way, then just don't post here.

 

[Wulf38]

I never liked the Civ4 model where any unit has a chance of completely dying in any battle even if it's much stronger. It turned all units into faceless cannon fodder and prevented the higher level promotions from being very useful. But the inevitability of losing units did force you to have a strong production base to replace lost units.

Unfortunately Civ5 went too far in the other direction and made losses too rare, which takes all the economics out of warfare. There's no such thing as a wartime economy, no ongoing hammer cost or war weariness. You just build your 4 units and send them off on a rampage while your home cities aren't involved. It creates a disconnect between the empire building game and the war game.

I don't miss Civ4's massive unit spam, but perhaps there's another way to force some economic input to war, like requiring you to build supplies in your cities to keep your units fighting effectively.

 

[trueblue]

im sorry, i never realised Civ5 was designed to be historically perfect, to every last detail.

 

[Eskel]

IMO solution is quite simple:
1. Healing should cost money/production
2. There should be less unit promotions, and they should be reset after unit upgrade, with possible loss in xp's

Some additional combat features could also help: defending unit retreat due to succesful attack, or attacking unit confusion after unsuccesful attack - with losing move possibility (thus being vulnerable to counterattack)

Unit upkeep is necessary, and idea with occupation that actually REQUIRES to keep units in conquered city, is great.

 

[Gangor]

How about a "replacements" pool which is depleated whenever a unit repairs itself. It can be replenished by building a special item in a city (like wealth at the moment), which uses food and production - essentially halting growth and production for that city. For a big war it may become neccisary to have several of your cities building this, making wars somewhat more of a trade off....

 

[P-Zombie]

How about a "replacements" pool which is depleated whenever a unit repairs itself. It can be replenished by building a special item in a city (like wealth at the moment), which uses food and production - essentially halting growth and production for that city. For a big war it may become neccisary to have several of your cities building this, making wars somewhat more of a trade off....

Interesting idea; the game mechanic you'd be applying fits the need while meshing well with Civ5's existing systems. You would need a cap though, a maximum amount you could store ahead of time (maybe based on population, perhaps determined/increased by the number of military buildings you've constructed).

You could also put unit upgrades into the system as an expenditure. If healing 1hp costs 1 'reserves' point, upgrading a unit might cost 5, or 10 (in addition to the current gold cost). This would create even more pressure on your empire's production to fuel the war machine, as you could end up choosing between healing and upgrading (or even retreating) if you aren't putting enough hammers into the fight.


Edit: Also! You could add in war weariness this way. Selecting "reinforcements" as your production for a city could also have an associated happiness penalty. For example, say the penalty is 2 unhappiness. You go to war and take a city, and healing up after uses up your pool. You switch a city over to reinforcements to replenish the pool, incurring a -2 unhappiness charge. The enemy civ hits you with a counter attack while you're healing up, exceeding current point production. So you switch two more cities over to compensate, pushing your war weariness penalty up to 6.

 

[Gangor]

Interesting idea; the game mechanic you'd be applying fits the need while meshing well with Civ5's existing systems. You would need a cap though, a maximum amount you could store ahead of time (maybe based on population, perhaps determined/increased by the number of military buildings you've constructed).

You could also put unit upgrades into the system as an expenditure. If healing 1hp costs 1 'reserves' point, upgrading a unit might cost 5, or 10 (in addition to the current gold cost). This would create even more pressure on your empire's production to fuel the war machine, as you could end up choosing between healing and upgrading (or even retreating) if you aren't putting enough hammers into the fight.

Set the maximum based on the number of pop points in your "free" (ie not occupied or puppeted) cities both because it's logical and because it encourages the player to "un-puppet" captured cities. Like the idea re upgrades, btw

 

[alpaca]

How about a "replacements" pool which is depleated whenever a unit repairs itself. It can be replenished by building a special item in a city (like wealth at the moment), which uses food and production - essentially halting growth and production for that city. For a big war it may become neccisary to have several of your cities building this, making wars somewhat more of a trade off....

This sounds like a pretty good idea and a sensible abstraction.