Movement cost is already annoying

[Louis XXIV]

Hooray for mounted units again!

Yeah, that's my thought. This change will be a huge shock because I haven't been used to this since SMAC, but it'll help mounted units.

 

[Matthew.]

since it has the ability to always make optimal moves.

Wow, I wish I had your version of Civ that was far from my experience.

 

[Big J Money]

You must misunderstand me. I don't mean optimal in terms of tactics or strategy; I mean optimal in terms of accounting for all variables and picking the shortest route from A to B. Making that decision harder for humans won't make it any harder for the AI.

 

[Acken]

yeah but that is not the issue. AI problem don't occur with 1 unit. They occur when it has to move 16 from A to B.

 

[Kozmos]

No, it won't be harder, it will just be easier to exploit because AI is bad at context. Kind of like in CIV 5 turn speeds slow down to crawl because the AI had to move every unit every turn and they would consistently make the same dumb choices, over and over again. 1UPT was a really dumb design decision and they haven't given the AI tools to deal with it. Now they are introducing more nuanced layers it will be more crap at. I will be amazed if the AI is about as engaging as a 13 year old COD player.

 

[Cronos]

It will at least stop the AI embarking units next to defences So its a welcome feature.

Further there may be severe penalties for ranged units firing into forrests or hills, so it's too early to comment on the relative power of ranged/melee/cavalry, but I am cautiously optimistic that this movement penalty into rugged terrain is a subtle effort to provide some differentiation for unit classes.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I'm at work and can't watch the videos at this time. Have we seen any indication of whether or not we can group units to move together (i.e. select several units and then move them all with one click)? This was hinted at in early discussion about merging units to form corps and army, but afaik never confirmed or denied.

It was confirmed before what civilian units could be attached to military one. Also we've seen support unit (Spearman with Ram) and it moves with the military unit and attacks together.

Oh look, another mechanic with which to cheese the AI.

I have a feeling it will be easier for AI to handle. The trick of ending your turn on least passable terrain from Civ5 was a thing to be learned by AI, Civ6 system is more plain.

Moving large forces could be an issue for both AI and human players, but we don't know yet the typical size of the army and how land will typically look by mid-game in terms of roads build and forests chopped.

 

[Atlas627]

I have a feeling it will be easier for AI to handle. The trick of ending your turn on least passable terrain from Civ5 was a thing to be learned by AI, Civ6 system is more plain.

THIS

People think the new system is the complicated and nuanced system, but its actually the more straightforward. A tile costs a certain number of movement points, and if you want to get to a location it doesn't matter which path you take to get there, since it costs the full movement every way. That makes it very easy for the AI to calculate how to move the most tiles each turn.

This is opposed to the Civ5 system, which involved taking advantage of the relative adjacencies to get more movement points than you actually had. That requires a *lot* of context, which is what the AI can't be bothered to figure out.

 

[Ikael]

Small change, massive implications. Chokepoints become more vital (good), mounted units became more useful (really good!), with flat VS rough terrain being a more decisive factor.

However, exploration got severely delayed, melee units got heavily nerfed (bad), army logistics / movement became more tedious (bad as well), and ranged units became even more overpowered (really, really bad).

I am conflicted on this :S

 

[stealth_nsk]

Small change, massive implications. Chokepoints become more vital (good), mounted units became more useful (really good!), with flat VS rough terrain being a more decisive factor.

However, exploration got severely delayed, melee units got heavily nerfed (bad), army logistics / movement became more tedious (bad as well), and ranged units became even more overpowered (really, really bad).

I am conflicted on this :S

The power of ranged units depends on other parts of the balance. I didn't see them as overpowered in the videos.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I like this change in the same way I like the change from squre to hexes. I don't like how you could get free movements if you moved in a certain way, if it cost two movements to enter you should need two movements to enter the tile. Naturally you should always be able to move one tile no matter what so you should be able to enter a 3 move tile with only two movements but that will naturally be the only move you make that turn.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I like this change in the same way I like the change from squre to hexes. I don't like how you could get free movements if you moved in a certain way, if it cost two movements to enter you should need two movements to enter the tile. Naturally you should always be able to move one tile no matter what so you should be able to enter a 3 move tile with only two movements but that will naturally be the only move you make that turn.

It looks like they've made it even easier. I don't think we saw a terrain with movement cost of 3, 2 is the maximum. This way the rule has no exceptions and it's even easier for AI to calculate.

We know Hills and Forests have movement cost of 2, does anyone checked Marshes and Rainforests?

 

[Valmighty]

But logically, if everything is calculated by tile movement cost, melee unit that attack a single cost tile should be able to move after attacking.

Previously, you use that last move point to do whatever final task, like going to hill or attack. But now, since we can't attack the hill with one move point, logically we should be able to move after attacking a single cost tile. Because that what counts, right?

 

[Acken]

THIS

People think the new system is the complicated and nuanced system, but its actually the more straightforward. A tile costs a certain number of movement points, and if you want to get to a location it doesn't matter which path you take to get there, since it costs the full movement every way. That makes it very easy for the AI to calculate how to move the most tiles each turn.

This is opposed to the Civ5 system, which involved taking advantage of the relative adjacencies to get more movement points than you actually had. That requires a *lot* of context, which is what the AI can't be bothered to figure out.

But you are missing the point. The problem is not that the AI doesnt understand where it can go. This is handled by the pathfinder and is as you said easy or even easier with the current system.

However it creates constraint on movement and this is where its complicated. Constraint on movement make army movement a lot harder with 1upt. This is the same issue as trying to pass theough a choke point or hard terrain in civ5 but with even more constraint.
This is what the AI worry is. Army movements and setup. Not the pathfinder for a single unit. While army movement is a combination of pathfinding results it is far from guaranteed the AI will move its army efficiently in civ6.

 

[Magil]

But you are missing the point. The problem is not that the AI doesnt understand where it can go. This is handled by the pathfinder and is as you said easy or even easier with the current system.

However it creates constraint on movement and this is where its complicated. Constraint on movement make army movement a lot harder with 1upt. This is the same issue as trying to pass theough a choke point or hard terrain in civ5 but with even more constraint.
This is what the AI worry is. Army movements and setup. Not the pathfinder for a single unit. While army movement is a combination of pathfinding results it is far from guaranteed the AI will move its army efficiently in civ6.

I must admit it was amusing in the (BAGaming, I think?) video to watch Victoria move all her warrior units in a single-file line along the road between their cities prior to the war declaration. I mean, it sorta makes sense... but it's very funny to see. At least it shows the AI can prioritize which units to move first so other unit movements remain economic.

 

[bcaiko]

Is this true of both forest/jungles and hills? Will a until with 2 movement not be allowed to move onto a forested hill (which costs 3 movement)?

And the fact that it makes melee units less powerful is also good because it makes things more balanced between melee and cavalry units.

The big issue is that it increases the power of ranged units (which were op in civV)

SupremacyKing2, that's a false equivalency and KrikkitTwo is right. The comparison isn't between Melee units and Mounted units. It's between RANGED UNITS and EVERYTHING ELSE. In Civ5, Ranged was the undisputed king of military combat. The balance triangle between Melee-Ranged-Mounted was almost completely out of whack.

Reducing the viability of Melee (the weakest of the 3 ancient unit types) in this way may indeed make Mounted units more valuable - but not nearly as much as it's going to add to the domination of Ranged units yet again. Whereas a Melee unit won't be able to attack that Scout on a hill, a Ranged unit's going to have no problems AND won't take damage from the attack.

Ranged units better get some massive penalty to attacking into rough terrain for this, but I've seen no evidence of that in the lets plays I've seen.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

SupremacyKing2, that's a false equivalency and KrikkitTwo is right. The comparison isn't between Melee units and Mounted units. It's between RANGED UNITS and EVERYTHING ELSE. In Civ5, Ranged was the undisputed king of military combat. The balance triangle between Melee-Ranged-Mounted was almost completely out of whack.

I am well aware that ranged units were OP in civ5 but fixing ranged units is easy (just tone down their ranged attack strength) so I am less concerned about that. My main concern is buffing cavalry units because they were underpowered in civ5, after the expansions came out. Building melee and ranged was good enough. So I am glad that the player will have a real need for building mounted units now.

EDIT: and let me just add that the new movement cost system should allow mounted units to strike first at ranged units. So that alone should help make ranged units less OP.

 

[Acken]

Ranged superiority was an easy balance change... that was never adressed then.

 

[AriochIV]

I like the change. It's frustrating to watch in the gameplay videos because the players aren't used to it (in the same way the barbarians are frustrating only because they are used to ignoring them).

 

[whyidie]

Hooray for mounted units again!

Would be nice to have them useful for something other than scouting/city capture.

Um, I'm now quite worried for AI combat... if a unit can't cross a river easily (i.e. with half of its movement points instead of all of them), then mass range behind a river will be basically impenetrable. I don't necessarily mind the headache of being "stuck" with a unit and unable to move as quickly as I'd like, but boy, if they don't alter combat movement rules, I see it as being the ultimate human advantage of mass range and death traps... i.e., BNW meat grinder again, possibly even more.

I'm worried, Firaxis. Hope you prove me wrong.

I didn't like the changes either, but the river scenario you described is...pretty awesome. In early eras terrain should play a large role.

However, exploration got severely delayed....

Scouts become more prominent. I wasn't a fan of all the movement restrictions in CiV, made exploration too much of a chore after hundreds of hours of play. Giving scouts three MP is a nice tradeoff, do we know if they have an upgrade path ?

Ranged units better get some massive penalty to attacking into rough terrain for this, but I've seen no evidence of that in the lets plays I've seen.

Thats where I'm at. I'm finally at peace with the concept. Extra MP for scouts helps. I like that mounted units have more prominence. I'm ready to cope with the restrictions when moving large early game armies. Now it all hinges on how they deal with ranged units.