Limiting Exploration

[Patine]

What reasons? I see only a single riposte to my reminiscing about the Civ5 feature

I had said also, when first addressing it, that it was not only ahistorical, but a, "cartoon," and a, "fanciful feature," of which were being discussed earlier, and not just a, "riposte to your post.". Also, though I didn't state this previously, the arbitrary nature of it, and the inability to meaningfully, "defy," or, "ignore," it's decisions, is obnoxious.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

ahistorical

Ahistorical as regards implementation, sure, nl but not the idea. I regard Civ's World Congress as the realisation of the Platonic Ideal of the real world's LoN or UN

cartoon

Meaningless

"fanciful feature

It's a game

 

[Patine]

Ahistorical as regards implementation, sure, nl but not the idea. I regard Civ's World Congress as the realisation of the Platonic Ideal of the real world's LoN or UN


Meaningless


It's a game

So, as I said, above, my opinions and views are being cavalierly disregarded and yours arrogantly portrayed as, "objectively correct." Thank-you for confirming my previously statement.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

I don't get you. I'm not saying my opinions are "objectively correct", all I'm doing is offering my perspective on Civ's World Congress, and explaining why I do not find your objections to be substantial

 

[Patine]

I don't get you. I'm not saying my opinions are "objectively correct", all I'm doing is offering my perspective on Civ's World Congress, and explaining why I do not find your objections to be substantial

This is a difference of opinion. My objections don't have to meet up to your threshold of being, "substantial," to be equally valid to yours. It's a matter of presentation.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

This is a difference of opinion. My objections don't have to meet up to your threshold of being, "substantial," to be equally valid to yours. It's a matter of presentation.

And when did I say they have to? I said "I think X is neat", you replied "X is NOT neat because Y and Z", and I said "Y and Z do not find substantial". It's a public forum for an exchange of ideas, I don't see why you're making such heavy weather over a difference of opinion

 

[Patine]

And when did I say they have to? I said "I think X is neat", you replied "X is NOT neat because Y and Z", and I said "Y and Z do not find substantial". It's a public forum for an exchange of ideas, I don't see why you're making such heavy weather over a difference of opinion

The tenor of your responses didn't sound so much in the spirit of open discussion. As I said, one has to watch for one's presentation and tone, as well. I have fallen afoul of that oversight many times, myself.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Just being curious, which games are you thinking about?

Mercifully, none that ever made it to market.

Back in the early 1970s, I lived in New York City for about 6 months and was a regular at Simulations Publications' (at the time, publishing Strategy & Tactics magazine with a cardboard and paper game in every issue) Friday night playtest sessions. In addition to testing proposed new games for the magazine or separate publication, sometimes we'd also test game mechanics that could potentially be used in numerous games. One of those was Attritional Movement, in which units with insufficient supply would have a chance of being damaged the further they moved out of supply.
The problem with this, magnified in a non-computer game, was that the gamer had to roll a die for every unit moving out of supply, cross-reference the distance moved and terrain type and unit type, and apply results. It slowed the gamer's turn down to a crawl, and was incredibly annoying since a single 6-sided die gave far too dramatic results for comfort.

Now, computers can reduce a lot of the time-consuming part, but simply not moving out of supply reduces the whole exercise to futility, and if the potential attrition is too great, no one will move out of supply (except, probably, the AI) while if the attrition is not bad enough, it becomes just an annoying mechanic with no real purpose except to aggravate the gamer.

Either way, it was a negative addition to any game, and as far as I know was never used.

 

[GeneralZift]

Mercifully, none that ever made it to market.

Back in the early 1970s, I lived in New York City for about 6 months and was a regular at Simulations Publications' (at the time, publishing Strategy & Tactics magazine with a cardboard and paper game in every issue) Friday night playtest sessions. In addition to testing proposed new games for the magazine or separate publication, sometimes we'd also test game mechanics that could potentially be used in numerous games. One of those was Attritional Movement, in which units with insufficient supply would have a chance of being damaged the further they moved out of supply.
The problem with this, magnified in a non-computer game, was that the gamer had to roll a die for every unit moving out of supply, cross-reference the distance moved and terrain type and unit type, and apply results. It slowed the gamer's turn down to a crawl, and was incredibly annoying since a single 6-sided die gave far too dramatic results for comfort.

Now, computers can reduce a lot of the time-consuming part, but simply not moving out of supply reduces the whole exercise to futility, and if the potential attrition is too great, no one will move out of supply (except, probably, the AI) while if the attrition is not bad enough, it becomes just an annoying mechanic with no real purpose except to aggravate the gamer.

Either way, it was a negative addition to any game, and as far as I know was never used.

Same reason why I dislike this type of attrition. Also cool backstory.

 

[Evie]

That's also been my experience with attrition mechanisms - it's either small enough that it's just an annoyance, in which case it has no meaningful game effect, or large enough that no sane player (so anyone except the AI) won't risk it, in which case you might as well make the terrain impassable and save your AI some pain.

Marla - I do like the idea that resource trades have to be on map with trade routes that need to be protected, although I don't think that can be effectively combined with the resource stockpile approach taken by Civ VI. That's something I've been tinkering with myself, and would vastly prefer to diplomatic stealth-trading.

But I don't think it would particularly impact exploration behaviors, beyond the trade units themselves "exploring". Which is right back to incidental exploration (discovering new lands not because you are deliberately investing into it, but because your units happen to see new lands while doing something else they would be doing anyway, like fighting a war or operating a trade route).

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

One issue with exploration in CIV is that the average map does a poor representation of the scale, distribution and effect of terrains in relation to real world's.
Most CIV maps are covered and controled by main powers earlier than real world, pretty much covering every biome with dense cities as if every place could be an Europe or China. Of course the tundra and some forest and part of deserts end a little less dense in game, but they are far from the huge clearly less densely populated areas and even big mostly unpopulated zones like the Sahara, Tibet or the Yukon.

Just look to your last played games, cities end being way more even distributed that real world ones. We can say "well in real world there are population even in the Sahara, Tibet and Yukon" of course and also these cities could be less developed but the density magnitude and development is far from provide something close to the real world uneven distribution of population and development.

What have these to do with exploration? Everything, exploration is also affected by the scale, distribution and terrain/biome limitations that settlement and effective control of the territory. There are reasons why classical Egypt knew more about Iberia and Bengal than about trans-Sahara Africa.

i think the game should take into account soil type and quality. it is massively important for the scandinavians and native australians that their soils are terrible for agriculture, forcing them to try other means. this would be accessible through a special mapmode that tells you all about the soil. this would encourage and limit exploration at the same time.

 

[Marla_Singer]

If I remember correctly, mountains were only made impassable with Civ4, and people were infuriated about it when it's been announced. Nowadays, I don't see many people considering it bad design, it's generally praised for the strategic value it brought.

To sum up what's been told, there are people recalling that exploration should be done quick at the beginning of the game so that people have all required information for their game, and they don't want to be limited in that. Yet others are bothered as harsh terrains aren't the natural strategic borders they should be. Basically, cities are spawned everywhere very early in the game so that the entire lands are pretty quickly filled up with cities, from the north pole to the most arid desert.

The thing is that if in exploring you end up on snow tiles that happens to be impassable. Then that stops you, but that also stops your opponents. Therefore you have the required information that this is a natural border, that attacks may not come from beyond. We can also consider that with a late tech (for instance combustion), those are made passable. Same thing for jungle, if jungle without rivers are made impassable, then that improves the strategic value of river tiles as they are then bottlenecks to be protected.

Now obviously, there's the big elephant in the room, not mentioned yet, which is 1UPT. 1UPT is a drastic movement restiction. It requires open terrains even to move 3 units, therefore, bottlenecks quickly become bottle corks and it doesn't work any longer. But hey, I never hide that 1UPT is to me the worst design ever implemented in Civilization, and the main reason why I don't play Civ5 and Civ6. So my solution is pretty easy, get rid of it.

 

[Patine]

If I remember correctly, mountains were only made impassable with Civ4, and people were infuriated about it when it's been announced. Nowadays, I don't see many people considering it bad design, it's generally praised for the strategic value it brought.

Indeed. They just had a high move cost in Civ1, 2, and 3, but also a high defense bonus..

 

[GeneralZift]

People will shout from the rooftops about 1UPT. So movement restrictions are "not bad" and people start talking about "let's make snow and desert and everything impassable" but as soon as you can't put 10 units on the same tile? Oh no... I cannot fathom...

 

[Marla_Singer]

People will shout from the rooftops about 1UPT. So movement restrictions are "not bad" and people start talking about "let's make snow and desert and everything impassable" but as soon as you can't put 10 units on the same tile? Oh no... I cannot fathom...

The most disturbing thing with 1UPT is how limited are the arguments of those supporting it. It's good because it is, and if you push them to give arguments that systematically ends up with "1UPT is good because stacks of doom are bad, discussion over". It's exactly like saying that in order to not eat excessively salted food, there was no other choice than to exclusively eat sugared food. We can't make the discussion move forward with such an attitude.

If you're deeply convinced that 1UPT is better design, take the time to ask yourself why you think so and try to convince us who are skeptical. Calling us heretics is both lazy and useless.

Now the next question is, why do you like mountains to be impassable?

 

[GeneralZift]

When I play Chess, I am not complaining about why the pieces cannot stack on top of each other. When I play Age of Empires, I don't expect all the Catapults to phase through each other (because well, they should stack)

1UPT gives the space meaning - it gives war a tactical feeling. If it wasn't there, then what's stopping a very good spot (imagine an important hill surrounded by rivers) from becoming totally overpowered, as I stack tons of units on it to hold the spot indefinitely from attackers?

Maybe only one single unit isn't the answer, maybe Ranged and Melee should stack, but other than that, I would not like to see Civ "move back" to how it was, if only for balance purposes.

It works perfectly well for early game war. But I understand if it creates gridlocks in late game war. That's why Civ6 army system exists.
This concept that 1UPT is totally unplayable or something is totally stupid. Civ5 and Civ6 are the most popular game in the series, and casuals (silent majority) don't complain, it's only the mega-veterans of Civ4 and before who are vocal about it.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

When I play Chess, I am not complaining about why the pieces cannot stack on top of each other. When I play Age of Empires, I don't expect all the Catapults to phase through each other (because well, they should stack)

1UPT gives the space meaning - it gives war a tactical feeling. If it wasn't there, then what's stopping a very good spot (imagine an important hill surrounded by rivers) from becoming totally overpowered, as I stack tons of units on it to hold the spot indefinitely from attackers?

Maybe only one single unit isn't the answer, maybe Ranged and Melee should stack, but other than that, I would not like to see Civ "move back" to how it was, if only for balance purposes.

It works perfectly well for early game war. But I understand if it creates gridlocks in late game war. That's why Civ6 army system exists.
This concept that 1UPT is totally unplayable or something is totally stupid. Civ5 and Civ6 are the most popular game in the series, and casuals (silent majority) don't complain, it's only the mega-veterans of Civ4 and before who are vocal about it.

And some of Us Mini-veterans folks who pay attention to ground and time scale in the game.

And, ironically, you are making the same mistake that @Marla_Singer called out:
"I would not like to see Civ "move back" to how it was . . ." - which appears to assume that the only alternative to 1UPT is to 'move back' to the hoary old SoD.

I'm sure there are some out there that advocate the SoD, but they've been pretty silent on these Forums, and my argument has always been that there has to be something better than the grossly out of scale 1UPT or simplistic and unrealistic Stack of Dum, especially when 1UPT has the additional massive drawback that the AI has no idea how to use it.

 

[Marla_Singer]

When I play Chess, I am not complaining about why the pieces cannot stack on top of each other. When I play Age of Empires, I don't expect all the Catapults to phase through each other (because well, they should stack)

1UPT gives the space meaning - it gives war a tactical feeling. If it wasn't there, then what's stopping a very good spot (imagine an important hill surrounded by rivers) from becoming totally overpowered, as I stack tons of units on it to hold the spot indefinitely from attackers?

Maybe only one single unit isn't the answer, maybe Ranged and Melee should stack, but other than that, I would not like to see Civ "move back" to how it was, if only for balance purposes.

It works perfectly well for early game war. But I understand if it creates gridlocks in late game war. That's why Civ6 army system exists.
This concept that 1UPT is totally unplayable or something is totally stupid. Civ5 and Civ6 are the most popular game in the series, and casuals (silent majority) don't complain, it's only the mega-veterans of Civ4 and before who are vocal about it.

Thanks, that's already more reasonable than what we're accustomed to hear, and as a matter of fact, I largely agree that where unit stacking is the most lacking is regarding melee. The whole problem of the 1UPT approach is that it makes size not matter, and it's clearly with melee that size matters the most. I remain convinced that there are many systems that would make excessive stacking a suboptimal approach, among others attrition and collateral damage feels particularly relevant, but that is getting off-topic so I will stop there.

To go back to the discussion, limiting exploration only makes sense if it serves a gameplay purpose. I agree that if it doesn't serve gameplay, then it could fastly turn frustrating. If there would be ways to make terrains more strategic using their features, that could lead to interesting results, that's all I say.

 

[BuchiTaton]

When I play Chess, I am not complaining about why the pieces cannot stack on top of each other. When I play Age of Empires, I don't expect all the Catapults to phase through each other (because well, they should stack)

Chess lack any clue of scale and AoE2 have units smaller than houses, meanwhile in CIV5 a bunch of Swordmen cover the same area that a whole city and in CIV6 the area of an Airfield.

1UPT gives the space meaning - it gives war a tactical feeling. If it wasn't there, then what's stopping a very good spot (imagine an important hill surrounded by rivers) from becoming totally overpowered, as I stack tons of units on it to hold the spot indefinitely from attackers?

Maybe only one single unit isn't the answer, maybe Ranged and Melee should stack, but other than that, I would not like to see Civ "move back" to how it was, if only for balance purposes.

There are others alternatives between both extremes. Have actual Armies formed by a limited number of units of different kinds to provide an combined set of stats could help a lot for scale, strategy and management.

It works perfectly well for early game war. But I understand if it creates gridlocks in late game war. That's why Civ6 army system exists.
This concept that 1UPT is totally unplayable or something is totally stupid. Civ5 and Civ6 are the most popular game in the series, and casuals (silent majority) don't complain, it's only the mega-veterans of Civ4 and before who are vocal about it.

The same could be said about people dont caring about CIV5 genius design for ideologies being replaced with CIV6 government system.

 

[Evie]

Please, Civ *4* had the genius design for politics