Improving 1UPT

[aluelkdf]

At the very least you should be allowed to stack non-military units inside a city to protect them from attack. There's really no reason why a city couldn't have 2 or 3 workers in it.

 

[whyidie]

How would a stack of workers be any more of an impediment than a single worker?

Stack enables me to store more workers for a sneak attack un-stack....I'm reaching here...

Seriously, isn't this a completely hypothetical case? Between the production you'd have to actually make a significant amount of workers, the upkeep you would have to pay to sustain them for a longer time, and the fact that units move several tiles so you'd have to make a barier several levels deep (if units were able to pass over each other as long as they are none-hostile), would this ever happen in reality?

It seems to me as a completely thought-up case with no actual relevance, and while you might on paper be able to use this strategy, wouldn't it play against you overall in terms of the amount of time, money and production you waste to pull it off? I don't really see this as something one would have to worry about to the extent that one should discard the idea of civilian stacking if there are no other arguments against it.

Guilty as charged. I don't really see a downside to allowing civilian units to stack.

 

[Gucumatz]

Guys guys... I fixed it.
I'm a pro freedom and flexibility guy so my solution is this: ALLOW stacking. Any stacking like in Civ 4! Now before you go on and flame me let me explain a little bit more. Allow stacking, but attach penalties to it. Here's what I have in mind:
1) When a stack is attacked by a ranged unit, all units in stack receive damage. Collateral.
2) Only 1 unit can attack from a stack!
3) Keep the existing bonuses of having your units spread out: Flanking bonus, discipline bonus.

Now what does this solve?
The No 1 most important underlying problem of Civ5: Moving units around.

How is this not Civ4?
Now it actually makes sense to keep your forces spread out, to avoid collateral, spread your risk, get those combat bonuses and actually allow more units to attack simultaneously. It isn't strictly enforced! It gives you options:
-Do I just want to move my units around? Stack them! (and avoid the pain of meaningless coordinating movements between them)
-Do I want to fight? Spread them out!
A stack isn't a stack-o-doom now and you get all that tactical gameplay of Civ5! Plus, it'll be much easier for the AI to handle. It's WIN-WIN.

Your thoughts.

No offense, but I hate it.

You could just heal up a unit on the stack and attack with one. Move in a fresh new unit into the stack and move injured ones out and never be forced to give up a tile. Its a terrible concept compared to 1UPT
=====

1UPT is here to stay and hopefully into Civ 6 as well

 

[Greizer85]

If combat units could stack, even just two of them, you'd simply stack a strong defender and a ranged unit every time, then attack with the ranged unit. Combat is the one area where 1upt must remain absolute imo. Still, for moving combat units around you could have stacks, but they should be UNABLE to attack and VERY vulnerable to enemy attacks. That way you'd only use them for 'deploying' your units, never for actual fighting. This would eliminate the tedium of moving 10 units from one front to another, or across the oceans, one by one. At least on the oceans there are no obstacles... But dear God if there are mountains, rivers and/or (foreign) civilians on the way! Even Russian traffic pales in comparison.

Edit: Program the AI to not use these 'convoys', as it would likely end up suiciding its units to human attacks. Bump up its bonuses a little bit if necessary, to make up for the new human advantage.

 

[JanghanHong]

My 5 Cents:

Divide units to Military, Religious, Civilian, Spaceship, and Naval class

no more than one from each class may stack.


So you can send a worker (civilian) under city-state military units to build roads.

And you can send missionaries through non-enemy military units to spread religion.

and you can park inquisitor forever in your city to protect it being converted to another religion.


I think the unlimited civilian stacking won't be very good.

 

[Luciela]

There are obvious issues with 1UPT; no one can seriously say its perfect. However, IMO, it's still far better than the alternative (unit stacking). The greatest flaw in 1UPT is unit mobility, which I'm sure we can all agree on since the solutions for improving 1UPT that everyone's suggesting revolves around, guess what? Mobility-based mechanics. From what some others have proposed, this seems to be a fairly good step in improving 1UPT:

1) Allow unlimited civilian stacking. there are two options with this:
a) Allow civilian units to pass through each other. They can only be hampered by military units.
b) Disallow civilian units to pass (default). You can "civilian bomb" other civilian units (stack civilians then separate them around a civilian unit) but I don't see the issue as people like me do this already without stacking.

2) Religious units may pass through all other units except other religious units. eliminates the ridiculous tediousness of moving religious units but allows players to still prevent religious spreading peacefully on the hex map.

3) More a tiny little complaint, do not stop Unit A from moving to a hex when Unit B steps on it, unless Unit A will be moving to that plot next turn. If Unit A runs into Unit C along the way to the plot, simply reroute Unit A to move around unit C. This should be an option in the menu however, and should still prompt the user for directions IMO if the rerouting takes more than double the turns it took to get to the plot originally.

4) Limited Era-based stacking isn't a bad idea at all (and has been proposed several times in the past), but needs to be executed properly with balanced rules. this could be things like limited ranged units per stack (1 ranged, 1 ranged 1 siege, etc.), no unit healing within a stack (march is disabled), logistics penalty for number of stacked units (decreased strength/ranged strength by 5/10% per unit, etc.), or other balance rules. I'm not suggesting the above; it's difficult to say what would and what wouldn't work without actually playing with a system like this.

5) Also the mobilization/demobilization idea sounds like it could work as well. Just throwing out ideas...

 

[Luciela]

So you can send a worker (civilian) under city-state military units to build roads.

I don't think allowing civilian units to pass through military units is a good idea, unless you are given rights/permission first. Something like: you can pass through AI military units when you have an embassy/open borders with them, and you can pass through CS military units when you are neutral (0/0) or greater. If you get permission first then I think it would be great, and would give more incentive for diplomacy.

 

[The QC]

If combat units could stack, even just two of them, you'd simply stack a strong defender and a ranged unit every time, then attack with the ranged unit. Combat is the one area where 1upt must remain absolute imo.

If they'd want to allow stacking, but make it so players don't use stacks during combat, I think the key would be to reverse the functionality of the Civ IV stacks: when a stack is attacked, it should not be the most appropriate unit that receives the attack, but rather the least appropriate unit. E.g. if you have an archer and a spearman stacked, when attacking with a horseman it would be archer that takes the hit.

A flanking bonus that rewards you for having units next to each other (or rewards having several units around an enemy, like the one we have now) would also help.

Even in this case, there would be some situations where you want to stack some troops, but I think it would work overall.

I don't really see a downside to allowing civilian units to stack.

There is a small downside for the developer, because they have to add some small things to the interface, but in terms of gameplay I agree there are no downsides and it would be a good improvement.

 

[Greizer85]

If they'd want to allow stacking, but make it so players don't use stacks during combat, I think the key would be to reverse the functionality of the Civ IV stacks: when a stack is attacked, it should not be the most appropriate unit that receives the attack, but rather the least appropriate unit. E.g. if you have an archer and a spearman stacked, when attacking with a horseman it would be archer that takes the hit.

A simple, novel, good idea (imo), but it has a significant downside: I can already see in my mind's eye the countless noob posts about 'OMG MY ARKKERR gots ATTACKOD wen it wus COVERED!!!111 WORLD HAS ENDED!!!'. Or the realism crowd who'd raise their unshaved, flabby heads in protest of the potentially immersion-breaking mechanic. It is intuitive, after all, that if your unit is covered by another unit, then it should be... err... covered by it, so to speak.

Other than these objections, there's the fact that if you could attack with all units in the stack, you could potentially stack 30 Artillerys and be unstoppable. Maybe make max stack size 2 or 3, to facilitate mobility but give limited ranged combat benefit.

A final, perhaps most significant objection is that it might be too much to teach the AI to use the new mechanic... The increased mobility might make up for any shortcomings though, as the AI could typically bring much more units to bear. Right now you fight with 5 units against ~7 most of the time (due to 1upt); with the new mechanic (say, stacks of 3), maybe 10 vs ~21. You can only wield so many units (limited productive/maintenance capabilities), while the AI will have max stacks at all times, meaning that the bigger the stack limit, the bigger the local disproportion of power in terms of player vs. AI.

Edit: Thought of another objection: you could build one strong unit and use Scouts or other weak, cheap units to absorb enemy attacks; when they get killed, simply move in new ones. I'm not sure how feasible this would be, but if the stacks were big enough, it could give significant advantage (the AI would have to wade through 10 Scouts to get to your promoted Infantry). The more I think of this, the more cans of worms pop open... Perhaps it's best if combat stays strictly 1upt.

 

[Babri]

There are other features in Civ V that are better than IV. In case you didn't notice, 1UPT is not the only 'new feature' in V

Well your post sounded more like an unnecessary rant, thats why I suggested you to go back to older civ games.

 

[whyidie]

. The more I think of this, the more cans of worms pop open... Perhaps it's best if combat stays strictly 1upt.

Thats where I was yesterday, but I got to say I am intrigued by "stack means you're not ready for combat" and comes with penalties.

Severe penalty for getting attacked while stacked. A stacked unit represents a military on the march, ripe for ambush.

Doesn't solve the "thats not intuitive!" cries from those who didn't read (I wouldn't, but neither would I be angry once I understood the mechanic) the advisor message on stacking, but I think you could get around this by making it terribly obvious that stacking = bad if you're about to get attacked.

Not being a military mind, does it pass the "realism" factor from a combat perspective ?

 

[Sonereal]

Nothing about the Civilization games pass the realism factor from the combat perspective. The game has been out for years and we have the combat AI we have after two more years of patching and development and now you people are arguing for the inclusion of even more complicated systems?

Bah.

 

[Greizer85]

Nothing about the Civilization games pass the realism factor from the combat perspective. The game has been out for years and we have the combat AI we have after two more years of patching and development and now you people are arguing for the inclusion of even more complicated systems?

Bah.

I did mention the potential AI issues. It would be best if the AI simply didn't use the new mechanic (meaning the 'convoy transfer' option - atm I'm against stacks when it comes to actual combat).

 

[whyidie]

Nothing about the Civilization games pass the realism factor from the combat perspective. The game has been out for years and we have the combat AI we have after two more years of patching and development and now you people are arguing for the inclusion of even more complicated systems?

Bah.

Yes, AI implementation is a big challenge.

I just want it to be easier to move large amounts of units. Waypoins, spawnpoints, give me something.

I'll even trade efficiency for ease of management. If I lose a couple of units or turns due to bad automated routines, it may be a gamble I'm willing to take if I'm on the warmonger path. If every unit/turn is critical, then I'd want to manage it myself.

 

[Sonereal]

The implementation of trade units is actually the reason I have problems with the trade system. I'd be fine with waypoints and spawnpoints because it would largely be players using that feature anyway. However, once you get into the ideas of limited stacking units and trade units, that is throwing more curveballs at an AI that, quite frankly, still isn't all there when it comes to war.

 

[ahawk]

The implementation of trade units is actually the reason I have problems with the trade system. I'd be fine with waypoints and spawnpoints because it would largely be players using that feature anyway. However, once you get into the ideas of limited stacking units and trade units, that is throwing more curveballs at an AI that, quite frankly, still isn't all there when it comes to war.

1UPT is unlikely to change much, at this point, I imagine. The biggest needed change we already got: we can now stack embarked land units with ships since G&K.

And this is why I agree with the quote. The AI already is prone to put a Great General in a spot where I can just walk over him without even having to attack any other units. That alone demonstrates that the AI is not too smart about guarding its non-combat units, hence, forcing even more non-combat units to be used by the AI is a less-than-ideal situation.

 

[phoinix]

No offense, but I hate it.

You could just heal up a unit on the stack and attack with one. Move in a fresh new unit into the stack and move injured ones out and never be forced to give up a tile. Its a terrible concept compared to 1UPT
=====

1UPT is here to stay and hopefully into Civ 6 as well

Ok then instead of just ranged units, everything that attacks the stack does collateral. The system I described is not written in stone (or code), changes can be made people Don't just write it off so easily.

You could never give a tile if you have a giant force to hold it indefinitely, true for both 1upt and my system. But on a battle between a spread out army and a stacked one, the spread out always would win. Why?
(1) Apart from the flanking bonuses, the spread out army gets to attack multiple times per turn vs the stacked that gets just 1.
(2) For each hit on a stacked army, ALL units receive damage, as if each unit was individually attacked. There's no select-the-best-defender logic going on.

So, if 1 spear is thrown against a stack of N archers/spearmen/etc etc, the poor spearman can do N TIMES his normal damage! Switching out units to heal and switching back in healed units is a) time inefficient and more units end up getting damaged b) always worse combat-wise than just spreading out your units.

What if there's just a one tile choke on the map that you need to hold no matter what. Lets examine what would happen in 1upt and my system.

1UPT
You put a strong defender, along with reinforcements behind him, ranged backing and maybe a fort. If you loose the unit you immediately counterattack with your reserves after the appropriate ranged barrage of course.

My system
If you put a stack on there it's exactly like having 1 unit there. Actually it's exactly like having the strongest unit of your stack there (same as 1 upt). If a determined enemy makes a push after ranged attack, apart from that strong defender, you'll also loose all your stack units. The equivalent of having lost that tile defender on 1upt has you loose a bunch of other units too here. You win absolutely nothing by putting all your units there, only extra risk.

The more I think about it the more sense it makes. It's a kinda simple idea but also a powerful one. You were saying?

 

[DemonMaster]

If you do it the civ 1 (or was it civ 2 or 3) way of letting the strongest unit defend a stack, the entire tactic side of 1upt is gone. Units don't die so easily in Civ 5 nowadays, it takes more than one attack to kill something and ooops, when my next attack comes, an other unit is defending the stack because that unit will be the strongest.

Also they will not do something drastic anyway because they won't re-program the AI and the AI is programmed to handle 1upt, not stacks, regardless of how you use the stack. They hopefully will finetune the 1upt AI so it works better, perhaps re-adjust some combat stats here and there and perhaps do something regarding stacking and civilians. Stacking of civilians is much easier to add since the AI doesn't have to be re-programmed to handle some new tactic situations, they just need to add a 'no no' for giving multiple work orders.

 

[Gucumatz]

Ok then instead of just ranged units, everything that attacks the stack does collateral. The system I described is not written in stone (or code), changes can be made people Don't just write it off so easily.

You could never give a tile if you have a giant force to hold it indefinitely, true for both 1upt and my system. But on a battle between a spread out army and a stacked one, the spread out always would win. Why?
(1) Apart from the flanking bonuses, the spread out army gets to attack multiple times per turn vs the stacked that gets just 1.
(2) For each hit on a stacked army, ALL units receive damage, as if each unit was individually attacked. There's no select-the-best-defender logic going on.

So, if 1 spear is thrown against a stack of N archers/spearmen/etc etc, the poor spearman can do N TIMES his normal damage! Switching out units to heal and switching back in healed units is a) time inefficient and more units end up getting damaged b) always worse combat-wise than just spreading out your units.

What if there's just a one tile choke on the map that you need to hold no matter what. Lets examine what would happen in 1upt and my system.

1UPT
You put a strong defender, along with reinforcements behind him, ranged backing and maybe a fort. If you loose the unit you immediately counterattack with your reserves after the appropriate ranged barrage of course.

My system
If you put a stack on there it's exactly like having 1 unit there. Actually it's exactly like having the strongest unit of your stack there (same as 1 upt). If a determined enemy makes a push after ranged attack, apart from that strong defender, you'll also loose all your stack units. The equivalent of having lost that tile defender on 1upt has you loose a bunch of other units too here. You win absolutely nothing by putting all your units there, only extra risk.

The more I think about it the more sense it makes. It's a kinda simple idea but also a powerful one. You were saying?

The more you suggest it the less sense it makes to me and the more silly it sounds compared to the current system invalidating territory, flanking tactics, false retreats, movement, partial retreats, stalls, etc. I'll agree to disagree, but I can honestly say I hope your system isn't ever considered, it would be 4 steps back and a fourth of a step forwards

 

[kaspergm]

One, for me, strong argument about the stacking-with-collateral-damage idea is the AI. Imagine how "fun" it will be when the AI marches in all its units and fails to understand that your city or bombers or whatever will eleminate them in one strike. *shutters* Not that the AI currently offers much of a tactical opposition, but this could potentially make it much worse.