On why civ5's combat system is nothing more than a good idea...

[polypheus]

Like probably already mentioned, a battle being decisive has nothing to do with a number of units. The battle between 500 units SoD and 300 units SoD my be just as decisive than the 1UPT battle between the armies of 5 and 3 units. Since this premise "fewer units, more decisive battles" simply isn't true, you can't make any conclusions from it.

What you would be saying would be true ONLY if the entire SoD fought the other SoD in one giant one-on-one battle. But that's not how it worked. You still had to slog through it unit by unit. It took TIME. And during that time you are suffering from war weariness and other detriments. It wore you down over time. And even when AIs had offensive SoD, it also had mini-stacks in its cities garrisoning them.

In Civ5, that just doesn't happen. With few unitss and 1UPT, battles are won and lost quickly and "decisively". And since cities can't be garrisoned, you win the battle, the entire Civ is yours for the taking.

 

[JudgeDeath]

What you would be saying would be true ONLY if the entire SoD fought the other SoD in one giant one-on-one battle. But that's not how it worked. You still had to slog through it unit by unit. It took TIME. And during that time you are suffering from war weariness and other detriments. It wore you down over time. And even when AIs had offensive SoD, it also had mini-stacks in its cities garrisoning them.

In Civ5, that just doesn't happen. With few unitss and 1UPT, battles are won and lost quickly and "decisively". And since cities can't be garrisoned, you win the battle, the entire Civ is yours for the taking.

Quoi? Civ IV battles took a long time. That makes them better? Really?

 

[MkLh]

What you would be saying would be true ONLY if the entire SoD fought the other SoD in one giant one-on-one battle. But that's not how it worked. You still had to slog through it unit by unit. It took TIME. And during that time you are suffering from war weariness and other detriments. It wore you down over time. And even when AIs had offensive SoD, it also had mini-stacks in its cities garrisoning them.

In Civ5, that just doesn't happen. With few unitss and 1UPT, battles are won and lost quickly and "decisively". And since cities can't be garrisoned, you win the battle, the entire Civ is yours for the taking.

With a SoD, killing a single unit or an inferior SoD doesn't take any more time than just moving a stack to an empty square would take. Also capturing a city won't take more than one turn if your stack is strong enough, while with 1UPT it may take longer, since you can no longer attack a city with unlimited number of units in one turn.

 

[r_rolo1]

With a SoD, killing a single unit or an inferior SoD doesn't take any more time than just moving a stack to an empty square would take. Also capturing a city won't take more than one turn if your stack is strong enough, while with 1UPT it may take longer, since you can no longer attack a city with unlimited number of units in one turn.

You can't also garrison unlimited units in a city as well ...

In fact if you go that way, civ V provides for more unbalanced ratios of attackers/defenders than civ IV in average. You can only garrison one unit in a city , but you can be attacked from atleast 2 rings around it ( not putting units with higher move count on the equation ) ... if the cities couldn't defend themselfes it would be simply impossible to defend a city due to this

 

[Jediron]

Yes, it is much better when it takes TIME. Rome wasn't build in one day, you know!

CIV 5 is for the lazy, impatient, non creative childhood. Quick, dirty and easy. That's how they like it, i suppose.
It's the outcome that matters, right ?

Well, not for me. Now it feels more like a busy chatbox, where spammers constantly knock on your door (city-states), most of the time with useless requests (just one example)

 

[Aristos]

polypheus:

You don't need that many forces to win

and THERE lies your apparent contradiction and one of my main points.

 

[R3dKnight]

I find Civ V approach to combat is much better than the previous one. I had to use the terrain for defense, no longer I can just plop a city across a river, atop a hill and drop a stack of longbowmen, 2 siege engines for defense. There are actual battle lines drawn, and melee units had more to do than attack another square. Especially with flanking and horsemen increased movement points.

I'm having a blast at Deity level now defending two fronts while utilizing rivers and terrains. I admit the AI is lacking, but the sheer numerical advantage they had makes me think harder before engaging, unlike in King's difficulty, where their attack lacked momentum. They come in waves now, and not all can be killed outright.

It's a crutch, but until the AI is improved, only deity production bonus can make the military AI challenge warmongering players.

 

[Aristos]

Someone mentioned Europa Universalis style treaty system as a fix and perhaps that might be the way to go.

Right now once you lose the decisive battle, all your cities are lost and gone. But in EU-style, your province (equivalent to Civ cities) is not actually lost. It is just in a temporary occupied state and you still have some control of it. You only lose it permanently when you agree to a final peace treaty that cedes it permanently.

If Civ5 had this system, then 1UPT with fewer units won't be too bad at all. A Civ would not lose EVERYTHING due to the loss of one decisive battle.

Exactly. The transposition to this in civ terms, may be a system that gives "control over territory by occupation". I am still convinced that CtP2's system is the REAL practical solution to the SoD's, but given hexes and 1upt, a system of "control by occupation" may have been the solution. What I mean is what you have in the masterpiece Operational Art of War, where the presence of units change the ownership of the hex. In civ terms, this would be a temporary ownership (compared to the original) that would be negotiated in the peace treaty.

That system may have worked, but it means a LOT of real work in coding the AI and Diplomacy, and that does not seem to have been in the plans for this iteration (the "streamlining" argument).

 

[polypheus]

I find Civ V approach to combat is much better than the previous one. I had to use the terrain for defense, no longer I can just plop a city across a river, atop a hill and drop a stack of longbowmen, 2 siege engines for defense. There are actual battle lines drawn, and melee units had more to do than attack another square. Especially with flanking and horsemen increased movement points.

I'm having a blast at Deity level now defending two fronts while utilizing rivers and terrains. I admit the AI is lacking, but the sheer numerical advantage they had makes me think harder before engaging, unlike in King's difficulty, where their attack lacked momentum. They come in waves now, and not all can be killed outright.

It's a crutch, but until the AI is improved, only deity production bonus can make the military AI challenge warmongering players.

There are no battle lines. There are every tile has a unit, Waves of Doom (WoD) combat.

WoD is worse than SoD.

 

[mrt144]

JLoZeppeli:

Question:

If you have 1000 units in your Civ and put it all in your SoD, what percentage of your Civ's force do you lose when you lose that SoD?

If you have 10 units in your army and you put it all in one battle and lose them all, what percentage of your forces do you lose?

I like how you think every unit in your civ is in the SoD.

 

[Jediron]

I find Civ V approach to combat is much better than the previous one. I had to use the terrain for defense, no longer I can just plop a city across a river, atop a hill and drop a stack of longbowmen, 2 siege engines for defense.

In Civ 4 and 3 you should also use terrain for defence, atleast; if you are smart. No building killing arty, for one thing. Seldom i builded the city on a hill or so, because those were most of time "non optimal places" to build your city.
So, while it could be usefull at start or at vulnerable places; you defenitly have more choices.

About SOD; afcource, units were split up in multiple "sod"s. One big advantage of more units and more fights, you have more time calling the offensive OFF, when things go wrong. With less units, harm is sooner done and before you now it; there's nothing left to defend. That's not the case with SOD, you have plenty of oppurtunity, to call of the attack, regroup, rethink and rebuild your Army to fight another day.

Those were tactics, you learned the hard way. Don't try at ANY cost to conquer that city, brake off while you can still save alot of your troops instead of leaving them standing there, crippled, ready to be finished off.

 

[Frozen In Ice]

Personally, the combat is already much better than in any of the preivous civ games. Once the AI gets improved and a few tweaks are made here and there, it will be miles ahead of previous civ games.

 

[Roxlimn]

I wonder if you are making a effort to not understand me. You don't have all the information of the game and you are not the only thinking actor on it. Given this it is perfectly feasible that you are caught in a situation where you have to rush to defend a spot you were not thinking on defending at that moment ,especially if the oponents are as cunning as you ... you just have to think in a situation like being dowed by some oportunistic shill that would not war you by his own devices , forcing you to do forced marches from one side of your land to the other.

In other words, what you are saying is fine and dandy where you are facing someone you can predict with ease in a 1:1 enviroment. Too bad that civ games are only like that in very narrow circumstances.

In such a circumstance, where you are attacked on two fronts, it's easier to lose quickly in a Civ IV game. As I said, it is possible to attack the AI and take all his cities in one go. It also possible to do this against a player. In fact, it's probably easier to do it against a player because he won't have the AI advantages to stock his cities up with multiple garrisons. He either has a small SoD, or you can take his cities quickly.

Yup, another thing i could say about civ IV ( oh ,wait , I already said it ... ). The diference is that civ IV defense relied not in sticking your guys in one place and wait while the artilery dudes barrage, but on waiting until them were in a good spot for the kill and act accordingly. This works far better in IV than in V and , added to the admitedly inferior static bonuses of civ IV, it still makes defense stronger in IV than V. That was my position and you haven't said anything yet that contradicts it.

Oh, and for the record, you can face enormous armies with little army as well in civ IV. People win OCC AW in civ IV in all levels and it does not get more uneven than that

P.S Try to not call the other players adepts of cheesiness while in a civilized discusssion. I surely didn't called you that ( i only said that you never had to rely in a defensive strat against a equally cunning foe in civ IV, that means only that ( it might even be seen as a compliment )... I haven't called you quechua rusher, havent I ? ) so please keep things civil.

Don't see anything wrong with quechua rushing. It's in the game, it's perfectly valid.

OCC AW in Civ IV isn't the most uneven balance. 6 units against Blankets of Doom - surely that is more uneven!

I don't see waiting until the enemy SoD is in a bad spot to be superior defense. Your units in V could be in other places, too, and they can fall back in consecutive positions, each time adding City Defenses. If the Cities are packed well, they even reinforce each other.

Even provided that SoD vs Army is equivalent in defense, which I don't grant, just having cities defend themselves and be tough adds to the defensive powers in Civ V.

Yup, and where exactly is the fundamental diference between civ IV and V in this regard ? Note that you said it was impossible to steamroll like in civ IV, but nothing in your argument is even close of suporting your assumption. it is also hard to maintain attack coesion in civ IV and you can also regroup in civ IV ( probably faster than in civ V even ). The best attack in civ IV is also in the just enough area ( otherwise you lost precious time getting the extra power / you could be using that extra power elsewhere ) and obviously the best attack is the one made in the right time as well ...

So my friend, where is the fundamental diference ? I don't see it, so could you be kind enough to point it ?

We've already discussed it, and you already noted it. Cities have inherent defenses in Civ V, and have very tough HP. Tougher when garrisoned. That is a significant and fundamental difference.


Jediron:

I don't like, 1 UPT, Barbs, game balance, Policie sling shots, poor AI, carpet of dooms, overpowered City-states. Why are they there in the first place, though you, as a player, where gonna rewrite history. Oh well, buggers.

We are talking about 1UPT here. So far the best reason you've put forth is that the graphics didn't appeal to you.

That said, game balance is reliant on AI, and poor AI has already been mentioned as really not being that much worse than in other Civs. Really, it's not.

I love CIV 5 so much, that's why i am sitting here, arguing with you. Because CIV 5 is , is...sadly boring.

You love it so much, because it's boring? You either don't like it, in which case you should really play what you prefer, or you like it and you're doing a poor job of showing it.

 

[drachasor]

This thread isn't really worth the effort, imho. The proponents of the OP's point of view regularly ignore arguments that counter their assumptions (such their use of a bifurcation fallacy regarding either having a handful of units or "waves of doom" with no middle ground possible).

 

[r_rolo1]

In such a circumstance, where you are attacked on two fronts, it's easier to lose quickly in a Civ IV game. As I said, it is possible to attack the AI and take all his cities in one go. It also possible to do this against a player. In fact, it's probably easier to do it against a player because he won't have the AI advantages to stock his cities up with multiple garrisons. He either has a small SoD, or you can take his cities quickly.

No , it is not easy to do against a human, simply because a human ( atleast a decent human ) will not wait for you to position your units perfectly for the 1 turn mega strike in civ IV ... in the same way any competent civ V player will not let the enemy to position his units near his border ( c'mon even the AI complains )

Anyway you are running away of the question. If you need to move your army fast from one side of your land to another, a SoD will always be faster if the terrain is not simply flat out everywhere ,and as you still have to deploy the units in formation. 1 upt will never beat a SoD in this regard and this only gets worse as more constricted the terrain gets or when roads/railroads are added.

Don't see anything wrong with quechua rushing. It's in the game, it's perfectly valid.

OCC AW in Civ IV isn't the most uneven balance. 6 units against Blankets of Doom - surely that is more uneven!

I don't see waiting until the enemy SoD is in a bad spot to be superior defense. Your units in V could be in other places, too, and they can fall back in consecutive positions, each time adding City Defenses. If the Cities are packed well, they even reinforce each other.

Even provided that SoD vs Army is equivalent in defense, which I don't grant, just having cities defend themselves and be tough adds to the defensive powers in Civ V.

Ok, let's divide this:

First, you insinuated that i didn't knew much of civ V combat system and hinted that it was because i was playing with horseman. That is as perfectly valid as the civ IV quechua rush, so either you were trying to insinuate something and got back as soon as you got cornered or you are self contradicting in trying to point that as anything minimally relevant. Neither is good for civilized debate and if I were someone less controlled this would probably gone to flame territory. So, please, try to restrict yourself of making comments of that type if you don't want to back them out...

Back to business, I think OCC AW in civ V will be actually easier than in civ IV, just because 1 upt restricts heavily the number of units that can atack you heavily in most situations. This until artilery ,since those have quite a range , being easier to concentrate heavy fire in one place.

Waiting for the enemy SoD to be in a weak place is a better strategy simply because there are far more weak places than good defensive ones and , if you have bigger movement inside your land ( you have in both games , even because your enemy can't use your roads ) you can block their advance through safer terrain. Thus it is far more flexible and safe than simply waiting in a strong defensive position ... even if because there is no position that can't be flanked or avoided.

And like I said before, I agree that a city in civ V can be a tougher nut to crack than a lightly defended civ IV city . Not so sure of the math if you consider decently garrisoned civ IV cities ...

We've already discussed it, and you already noted it. Cities have inherent defenses in Civ V, and have very tough HP. Tougher when garrisoned. That is a significant and fundamental difference.

No, my friend, I noticed a diference in degree. It is harder, but it is not a fundamentally diferent issue ( like if you had to attack a city with a certain unit for two turns in a row to capture it ). You said that civ IV and V were completely diferent in this ... I'm just asking proof of that. So far the best you could point is that it was harder to take one civ out in 1 turn in V than in IV ( harly surprising in a comparison between a game where every unit can retreat limping from other when death is normally the final result of a fight ), but nothing remotely close of stating a reason for the imposibility of that happening in V

 

[r_rolo1]

This thread isn't really worth the effort, imho. The proponents of the OP's point of view regularly ignore arguments that counter their assumptions (such their use of a bifurcation fallacy regarding either having a handful of units or "waves of doom" with no middle ground possible).

Please , there are people here trying to have a decent conversation. Just because some people in both sides can't spout decent arguments, don't judge everyone by the lowest denominator ... even if that would make people that don't agree with the OP ( like you seem to do ) nothing more that fanboys ( because there were some clear fanboy posts somewhere buried in the last pages ) and the defenders of the OP fanboys as well, but of other games ( yup, that happened too )

In resume , please be civil and enjoy the debate of those that are debating. Ignore the others.

 

[Roxlimn]

No , it is not easy to do against a human, simply because a human (at least a decent human ) will not wait for you to position your units perfectly for the 1 turn mega strike in civ IV ... in the same way any competent civ V player will not let the enemy to position his units near his border ( c'mon even the AI complains )

Anyway you are running away of the question. If you need to move your army fast from one side of your land to another, a SoD will always be faster if the terrain is not simply flat out everywhere ,and as you still have to deploy the units in formation. 1 upt will never beat a SoD in this regard and this only gets worse as more constricted the terrain gets or when roads/railroads are added.

That does not compute. We have already posited a situation in both games where your army was out of position. That is the assumed situation. My units are already in position for the 1 turn strike. Your army is not in position to defend. It is now my turn.

I will demolish your Civ, or at least do such devastating damage that it will be impossible to recover. If nothing else, I can raze everything to the ground.

This is not running away from anything. It's a direct answer to the situation you were prescribing. Having units concentrated in one or several SoDs is both good and bad. Good because you can move them quickly, bad because when you're out of position, Civ IV combat dictates that you lose fast.

First, you insinuated that i didn't knew much of civ V combat system and hinted that it was because i was playing with horseman. That is as perfectly valid as the civ IV quechua rush, so either you were trying to insinuate something and got back as soon as you got cornered or you are self contradicting in trying to point that as anything minimally relevant. Neither is good for civilized debate and if I were someone less controlled this would probably gone to flame territory. So, please, try to restrict yourself of making comments of that type if you don't want to back them out...

Let's not insinuate. I'll flat out tell you that just because you (or anyone else) can win at Deity doesn't mean that you know enough about the combat system to judge it well.

You were saying that if you are caught out of position, that you can then not defend well. That is not true. You can always fall back to secondary positions, particularly in cases where your empire is so large that you can't get to good positions within one turn.

This is so self-evident that my immediate impression was that you didn't play Civ V combat enough to know.

And like I said before, I agree that a city in civ V can be a tougher nut to crack than a lightly defended civ IV city . Not so sure of the math if you consider decently garrisoned civ IV cities ...

Depends on what you mean by "decently garrisoned." From eyeballing, I'd say a Civ IV city would need three well promoted CG defenders just to be as tough as a Civ V city natively is. Across an empire, that's a substantial amount of units - easily enough to make another SoD.

Because of the mechanics of combat, I'd say that you're broadly better off bunching all those forces (not the same unit types, natch) into another SoD rather than leaving three garrisoned to a city.

Another way to consider this is to think of Civ V as giving you three bonus virtual units always garrisoned inside cities. Since attackers can't pull theirs off their cities either, the field armies are comparable, but defense is still more buff all around.

No, my friend, I noticed a diference in degree. It is harder, but it is not a fundamentally diferent issue ( like if you had to attack a city with a certain unit for two turns in a row to capture it ). You said that civ IV and V were completely diferent in this ... I'm just asking proof of that. So far the best you could point is that it was harder to take one civ out in 1 turn in V than in IV ( harly surprising in a comparison between a game where every unit can retreat limping from other when death is normally the final result of a fight ), but nothing remotely close of stating a reason for the imposibility of that happening in V

If every mechanical difference ends up merely a difference in degree, then there can be no fundamental differences, even if we were actually using a card game to determine combat in Civ V!

Aside from cities being tougher to crack, 1UPT means that there is a limit to the amount of firepower you can actually bring to bear on any city, depending on era. Artillery is a major changer because it gives you another row of units to attack, but if your army sizes are comparable and he has Artillery as well, the mechanics of moving to position Artillery and counter-shelling makes combat a real slog. Defensive Artillery in good positions can be hellish to unseat.

These are fundamental changes to gameplay that makes rolling through Civs quickly harder in Civ V. I didn't say it was impossible. I used that word to describe breaking a 1 tile strong point. Now that can be impossible to break, assuming your armies are equal. Having to pass through one tile means that you have no sight, your position is off, and he can shell everything coming in. Very hard to pass that.

 

[boredatwork]

So, from this point of view, it is a Loose-Loose situation. The truth is, hexes and 1UPT work only for wargames.

Sorry but I see no "truth".

That they badly botched the implementation of 1UPT in Civ5 is not evidence that the concept is incompatible with empire building games as a whole.

The problems with Civ5 are:

- they tried to implement 1UPT - a system that inherently needs ALOT of tiles to make it work - at the same time as they tried to make the game SMALLER with fewer cities and slower cultural border growth.

This leads to many units crammed into a small front where the disadvantages of 1UPT - ie the traffic jamming are magnified and the AI is less able to cope.

20 units advancing on a 10 hex front is alot different gameplay wise than those same 20 units advancing on a 40 hex front.

Also fewer cities and the lack of any other mechanic to take territory means once you take one city you might as well take them all because there are so few.

- the mechanics to control army size and replacement production were badly thought out leading to the "single battle decides all" scenario you were talking about. That could just as easily happen with stacks as it could 1UPT if you don't put thought into how easy it should be to replace an army.

- the poorly thought out IGO UGO turn structure where defensive units don't support each other and the attacker can insta heal himself on the same turn as he attack mean once someone starts winning they stay winning.

- the fragility of cities meaning you cannot leave them under siege for any length of time automatically forces you to adopt an upfront defense.



Hexes on the other hand are a largely cosmetic change. Civ4 would not have been appreciably different had you had SODs running around on hexes instead of squares. Movement would have been slightly more realistic, and it would have been 25% easier to establish a blocking position - otherwise for all intents and purposes they are the same.

In summary, I honestly don't feel much hope that this can be fixed. Fixing it, from this point of view, would mean almost to remake it. And that does not seem to be a possibility... for the next 5 years, that is, and only if our beloved franchise survives this storm.

Have a peaceful Thanksgiving my friends!

While I agree with you that fixing the current system is a major task, probably beyond Firaxis, I disagree that, with better vision, design, and testing, 1UPT and Civ couldn't have been a perfect match.


Happy Thanksgiving!

 

[polypheus]

While I agree with you that fixing the current system is a major task, probably beyond Firaxis, I disagree that, with better vision, design, and testing, 1UPT and Civ couldn't have been a perfect match.

You have very well pointed out how 1UPT is incompatible with current Civ5 but could have been compatible with a better designed Civ5. But one of the biggest issues which you yourself point out is scale. It needs a lot more tiles for 1UPT to work.

I suppose a solution could have been to make Civ5 maps a lot bigger. But that is simply impractical. Maps would have to be WAY bigger than presently.

So other than making the map impractically big, there is no way to make 1UPT work, at least none I can possibly think of.

 

[MkLh]

You can't also garrison unlimited units in a city as well ...

If we assume the attacker has superior force, it doesn't matter. He can kill whatever is garrisoned in the city and take it in one turn.

In fact if you go that way, civ V provides for more unbalanced ratios of attackers/defenders than civ IV in average. You can only garrison one unit in a city , but you can be attacked from atleast 2 rings around it ( not putting units with higher move count on the equation ) ... if the cities couldn't defend themselfes it would be simply impossible to defend a city due to this

In theory, yes. In practice, you must also take into account how long it takes to put those troops in attacking positions. With a SoD you can just travel next city via the shortest route, and the SoD can consist of fast moving units also. Destroying a weaker enemy is faster with SoD than it is with 1UPT.