New Combat System?

[MethanalCHO]

I heard that CiV is going to be having a new combat system. Is it okay if someone tell me about how it works? All I know is that it's similar to Panzer General, but I never heard of that game before it was mentioned here.

Also, please don't give any speculation/rumors. I just want the facts.

 

[The_J]

So you can't see from the news, what differences there'll be compared to Civ4 o_O?

Short summary, of what we know about Civ5 combat:

• 1 unit type per tile
• 3 unit types: Military, civil and air units
• Adjanced units can change the positions
• Ranged bombardment for some units like archers and catapults
• Cities will also have ranged bombardment, and it can be increased by technology and buildings like walls
• Terrain will give a bonus in combat
• Land units will transform into weak ships when moving on water
• Diffent values for attacking and defending for a unit
• Only limited troops per strategic resource
• Losing a strategic resource will lead to higher maintanence cost for these units
• Conquering a city will affect the happiness in your empire
• The happiness will also affect the unit cost
• Old troops will automatically be upgraded when a new technology is researched

 

[Lillefix]

I thought I'd read almost every preview, but some of this is news to me

• Land units will transform into weak ships when moving on water

How? Why? What?

• Old troops will automatically be upgraded when a new technology is researched

Completely new to me.

 

[Hypernova]

Diffent values for attacking and defending for a unit

Where's the source for this? It's just I've read exactly the opposite, that they had retained the Civ IV system of one strength value, now I'm not sure

 

[Hypernova]

Land units will transform into weak ships when moving on water

This one I definitely think is just rumour, I actually saw someone speculating this might be the case a while back. I guess this is just an example of how quickly speculation can turn into known fact.

Anyway, here's a youtube video of Panzer General, might give you some idea.

 

[Ahriman]

Agreed. The three quotes above I have not seen confirmed anywhere....

 

[KrikkitTwo]

[*] Land units will transform into weak ships when moving on water

This is my speculation, not a fact.

[*] Diffent values for attacking and defending for a unit

Some sources say the exact opposite (1 Strength value)

[*] The happiness will also affect the unit cost
[*] Old troops will automatically be upgraded when a new technology is researched

saw absolutely no information on any of these
(did see info that they CAN be upgraded, and that Units affect Happiness)



You missed an important thing
Units don't (necessarily) die when they lose combat

 

[cf_nz]

[*] Land units will transform into weak ships when moving on water

This is my speculation, not a fact.

There's a recent Australian magazine article that confirms your speculation (http://www.weplayciv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2830).

- Troop transports are gone! "But what about troop transports? They're being done away with. Instead, units instantly transform into makeshift floating transports, in a similar way to Empire Earth. While crossing any body of water, a sizeable army is going to take up a lot of tiles, and be extremely vulnerable. Any serious seaborne invasion will involve careful planning and tight coordination of the navy and air force, which gels with history".

 

[tom2050]

Problem is: Panzer General had alot of units in the game... Civ 5 will not; although it's not known yet; 30 units seems to be a high number even for late game from estimations of the forum boards; which would give maybe 5 units for the whole first era.

So the whole 1 unit per tile doesn't even make sense... If you have 5 units for 1/4th of the game, it doesn't really matter if you can stack them or not at that point.

No Navy?!? (guess they said screw it, since they couldn't figure out how to make Carriers become more valuable than Battleships; this has to be the most pathetic thing I've heard so far... LAME! No Navy!)...
Very few roads.. 1 city defender... archers can shoot to across oceans if you are landlocked with only 4 tiles available and surrounded by a massive powerful civ, your unit limit is 5 (4 hexes and your city). Of course, you'll be lucky if you have 5 units for a majority of the game.

Not sure what happened with the whole thing; Civ obviously can't be PG, and I think they figured that out too late, and now they are stuck with it (or we are stuck with it if we buy it).

 

[Lillefix]

According to cf_nz quote, they haven't said there is no navy. Just no transports.

 

[Drago Askani]

actually lets take it as step further, they have confirmed a navy since they are discussing Battleships having a ranged bombardment. Also the transport thing makes sense. Seeing as you can't have more then 1 unit per hex I was wondering how they would address this in Transports. This will make having a navy of some kind all the more important so that you can hit these weak transports as they and their escort (assuming your opponents/ai is smart enough to send escorts) and destroy them. This has a 2 fold effect of making navies even more important for some offensive actions and more important for defensive actions as well. Lets face it in Civ 4 strong navies are RARELY a necessity.

 

[cf_nz]

No Navy?!? (guess they said screw it, since they couldn't figure out how to make Carriers become more valuable than Battleships; this has to be the most pathetic thing I've heard so far... LAME! No Navy!)...

That has to be some of the worst 'conclusion jumping' I've read. I would consider 'navies' to practically be a certainty (a recent screenshot showed what looks to be a galley), all that seems to be going is the ability to load units into sea-going vessels (it won't be necessary). Which makes complete sense to me as, one unit per tile pretty much means one unit per transport, and I think the logistics of that would have been silly.

 

[r_rolo1]

But then ... what determines the str of those boat-units while in sea? Assigning them a uniform value through history would make ther either ( or both ) too strong or too weak in some point of the game and making their str dependent of their str in land is ... stupid, to not use a stronger word ( my warrior-boat is weaker than your dismounted artilery-boat because.... ). And... unless they made the transport transform cost something, this will not break completely the diference between land and sea in military terms, besides the fact you can't make cities and forts on the sea?

 

[cf_nz]

I'd expect that the 'boat-units' would not be able to attack while at sea and would have little or no defensive ability. Protect them or lose them. How did it work in Panzer General, it may well work the same?

 

[Padje Dog]

Problem is: Panzer General had alot of units in the game... Civ 5 will not; although it's not known yet; 30 units seems to be a high number even for late game from estimations of the forum boards; which would give maybe 5 units for the whole first era.

So the whole 1 unit per tile doesn't even make sense... If you have 5 units for 1/4th of the game, it doesn't really matter if you can stack them or not at that point.

No Navy?!? (guess they said screw it, since they couldn't figure out how to make Carriers become more valuable than Battleships; this has to be the most pathetic thing I've heard so far... LAME! No Navy!)...
Very few roads.. 1 city defender... archers can shoot to across oceans if you are landlocked with only 4 tiles available and surrounded by a massive powerful civ, your unit limit is 5 (4 hexes and your city). Of course, you'll be lucky if you have 5 units for a majority of the game.

Not sure what happened with the whole thing; Civ obviously can't be PG, and I think they figured that out too late, and now they are stuck with it (or we are stuck with it if we buy it).

One thing I have hoped for was a way to upgrade units equipment over time. It would require the research of "side" technology and/or production of era-specific barrack upgrades (think RTS like Starcraft). There can be a weapon tree for developments, thus going straight to plate armor is not an option.

So your initial spearman is poorly armored and armed, which is reflected in his stats. Then you build a tannery add-on and the spearmans stats get better because he gets leather armor. The visuals change to reflect that the spearman no longer has a bare chest but leather armor.

Once gunpowder units appear a basic musketman appears and he is on par with current pre-powder units because the technology is low. Build new barrack upgrades to represent better muskets and drill training and quickly musketmen come to dominate the battlefield. Then vehicles appear and it all begins again.

This to me would be more fun and really make the guns vs butter (or warmonger vs builder) resource limitation question more strategic and clearly have more weight.

 

[r_rolo1]

I'd expect that the 'boat-units' would not be able to attack while at sea and would have little or no defensive ability. Protect them or lose them. How did it work in Panzer General, it may well work the same?

I would expect the same, but without certains....


But even then, with no attacking ability ( hard to agree with that one, atleast in ancient days ) and little defensive value , those unit boats will still be able to be used to clog military acess via sea . To be honest, I can even see possible scenarios where putting your land army in the sea being a better military idea than waiting in the shore...

 

[The_J]

Old troops will automatically be upgraded when a new technology is researched

Completely new to me.

I see, it was not mentioned somewhere here, but the german Computer Bild Spiele says:

Ebenfalls neu: Veraltete Truppen sollen sich auf den aktuellen technologischen Entwicklungsstand bringen lassen. So wird eta ein Krieger automatisch zum Schützen.

which translates to:

Additionally new: Obsolete troops can be upgraded to the current technological level. So the warrior automatically becomes a rifleman.

Upgrading itself is not new, so the automatism must be the new thing.

Diffent values for attacking and defending for a unit

Where's the source for this? It's just I've read exactly the opposite, that they had retained the Civ IV system of one strength value, now I'm not sure

This was mentioned in this article, but we don't have an english translation, only a german translation.

This here:

Bij vorige Civilization-games was het zo dat de defensieve en offensieve waarde van een eenheid één en dezelfde waren. Verloor een eenheid bij een aanval wat kracht, dan was hij defensief ook zwakker. Dat is nu verleden tijd, de defensieve waarde van eenheden in Civ V blijft altijd gelijk, waardoor zelfs een zwaarbeschadigde tank niet vernietigd kan worden door een paar botte speren.

translates in german to

In vorigen Civilization Spielen war es so dass die defensiven und offensiven Werte einer Einheit ein und dasselbe waren. Verlor eine Einheit bei einem Angriff an Stärke, so war sie auch defensiv schwächer. Das ist nun Vergangenheit, der Defensivwert einer Einheit in Civ V bleibt stets gleich, wodurch selbst ein schwer beschädigter Panzer nicht durch ein paar plumpe Speerkämpfer vernichtet werden kann.

translates in english to

In previous civilization games it was the case, that the attack and defense value of a unit was one and the same. When a unit lost a battle, it was also weaker in defense. This is now gone, the defensive value of a unit in Civ V stays now constant, so that even a heavily damaged tank can't be defeated by some spearmen.

I hope a native netherlandish speaker can confirm this.

 

[Drago Askani]

That would almost make me think that the Attack power stays static. No matter how wounded the unit it. Hmm It might only apply to defense but that sounds like a silly way of implementing it. I am now convinced that a 28str tank for instance is always 28str no matter how damaged it is. hmmm.

 

[the343danny]

So the if no transport thing is really true (we never know), how are other ships going to protect its transports?

I doubt we will have enough ships to create a defensive parameter around the transports, so how do we guard against naval units that have high move speed that can just bypass our navy to destroy transports? Will there be a zone of control system, where navies engage when they get close enough, and if that zone was 1 tile, it would half the ships needed to guard the transports.

Or, I have a feeling that due to units taking a while to build, instead of sending transports along with your navy, we are going to have to destroy their navy, then let the transports come while the coast is clear.

 

[Drago Askani]

Or, I have a feeling that due to units taking a while to build, instead of sending transports along with your navy, we are going to have to destroy their navy, then let the transports come while the coast is clear.

hmm that would be a strategic option yes. You could also send in some ships up ahead of the transports and their escorts as scouts/first responders. It would increase the tactical aspect on the seas. My concern will be in the more modern era when Subs can swoop in past defenders and take out the transports.