MoM-like tactical battles instead of 1UPT?

[Aoeu]

While the 1UPT concept sound cool and adds depth, it ultimately doesn't really work in the game, especially because the game becomes extremely tedious with a lot of units, and defending doesn't work as easily as it should (i.e. put a lot of defenders in the city).

How about using unlimited stacks but resolving battle on a tactical battle screen like Master of Magic does? (or perhaps in a less tile-based way like like Rome: Total War)

Obviously, there must be an "auto" button to automatically run the battle while you watch, as well as a "resolve" button to instantly run it automatically and just show you the result (but with the same tactical battle rules, unlike MoM).

IMHO, this would fix all the 1UPT issues while keeping the tactical depth.
Also, the AI is easier to write, since movement on the battlefield is totally separate from movement on the strategic map.

Also, things like city walls would make a real difference, and you could actually have realistic tactics like flanking with cavalry and ramming down the city walls with battering rams.

I guess there's no chance of this for Civ5, but perhaps it could go into Civ6 (assuming Firaxis actually cares about making the best possible game).

 

[AlpsStranger]

This might be kind of neat in an expansion. I wouldn't be entirely opposed to it but I feel that it might be one of the few things that would make the old diehards *more* angry than 1upT.

 

[Sonereal]

Don't expect to see something like this to at least CivVI though.

 

[Huck Finn]

Civ + Total War series would be awesome, but this is hardly a new idea.

The problem would be having all of that in one game. And by all that , I mean a strategic game as big and complex as Civ, while also having a real time combat simulator as good as the Total war series. That would be a very tall order, especially because the units change over time in Civ. Think of the total war series, they only attempt to cover ONE distinct era, medieval, napoleonic era, etc. Asking for a game that covers them all would be awesome, but technically very tough to do.

Also, once you reached the modern era, having set piece battles wouldn't make any sense, so it would hard to be able to depict modern combat.

Anyway, it could be done, but it would be a truly massive and monstrous game, and I don't see anything coming close to that being made for years.

It would be awesome tho, no doubt

 

[DaveGold]

Mini battles unfortunately fail in multiplayer as you can't have 5 players waiting about for 2 others to have a series of very interesting mini battles each turn.

Anyone who can remember the Titan board game, described by itself as a 'monster slugathon fantasy wargame', will know about the excellent mini battles. They were even one unit per hex with lots of tactics played out on little terrain maps. Unfortunately whenever 2 players had a battle the others could go get a cup of coffee for ten minutes while the battle was played out.

 

[Aoeu]

Mini battles unfortunately fail in multiplayer as you can't have 5 players waiting about for 2 others to have a series of very interesting mini battles each turn.

Isn't this also true for the current 1UPT battles? (haven't tried multiplayer)
In general, I fail to see how Civ multiplayer can work unless the players are also doing something else while they wait for each other.

At any rate, you could enforce automatic resolution of tactical battles in multiplayer.

 

[Jolly Rogerer]

Mini battles unfortunately fail in multiplayer as you can't have 5 players waiting about for 2 others to have a series of very interesting mini battles each turn.

Anyone who can remember the Titan board game, described by itself as a 'monster slugathon fantasy wargame', will know about the excellent mini battles. They were even one unit per hex with lots of tactics played out on little terrain maps. Unfortunately whenever 2 players had a battle the others could go get a cup of coffee for ten minutes while the battle was played out.

I loved that game . It was one of the simplest tactical minigames (Total War's real time system being the most complex and a really bad fit in my opinion), so at least the battles were quickly resolved. A good thing about computer play is that battles can be auto-resolved to speed play or for multiplayer. Also the limited scale of the battles would help to improve the AI, limiting to some small extent the massive advantage that humans get from tactical play.

The current system in Civ5 is never going to be anything but a big pain in the rump. The units are going to constantly be getting in each others way as they make their way around the strategic map on simple administrative moves, while tactical considerations are always going to include a lot of unnecessary terrain (and civilian and neutral units) which dilutes the cycles that could be better spent making battles at least minimally competitive. What this means is that the game is always going to run slowly and be incapable of providing a challenge to the player in terms of tactical combat.