"One unit per one tile" strategy thoughts

[Takhisis]

Instead of making you have your population level limit your troop amounts, which would eventually end up in huge snowballing, why not make every troop recruited cause a loss in population like in RFRE? if the unit goes on duty then you have to support it. You'll reach a point of balance somewhere, unless you've got full coffers and can support your troops while sustaining monetary losses.

 

[Krill]

Instead of making you have your population level limit your troop amounts, which would eventually end up in huge snowballing, why not make every troop recruited cause a loss in population like in RFRE? if the unit goes on duty then you have to support it. You'll reach a point of balance somewhere, unless you've got full coffers and can support your troops while sustaining monetary losses.

Because then those players that have a high food capital have yet another advantage over those with the plains cow capitals, and you can't even choke effectively.

 

[axi]

With regards to cities and sieges, perhaps the 1UPT rule will enhance the use of fortifications on tiles adjacent to city centres. Assuming that several units could actually exist in a city without being deployed for battle in a given turn, city defense could be as such:
- Deploy defensive units in fortifications surrounding the city plus a ranged unit in the city centre.
Next turn, rotate worn down units with fresh ones.
- Do sorties with mobile offensive units (assuming they have the capability to move 1 hex out, attack once, retreat 2 hexes in, like horsemen can in roaded flat terrain).
- If a fortification or the city centre falls, it can be retaken by the remaining forces next turn.

The extent of usage of such measures depends on the defense bonus of forts vs city centres, the rumored implementation of fortified units doing ranged attacks (ala RTS games?) and also a new perhaps concept, of fortification systems (interconnection of fortified tiles for added defense bonus, reduced defense for newly captured segments, reduced defense for attacks from within).

Interconnected fortifications could be graphically depicted as such and be dependent of city improvements (walls, castle), technologies and even wonders (great wall).

 

[da_Vinci]

I am probably out to lunch here but...

One "Unit" in a tile could be made up of many "Regiments" or "Brigades" (or whatever you want to call them, here I will call them Regiments)

For example: Lets say I have a "Unit" of Warriors consisting of 5 "Regiments." On the map you see 5 guys. You come in with another "Unit" of Warriors consisting of 10 "Regiments." Well, that gives you a 2 to 1 numbers advantage - you have more Warriors on the field of battle in your Warrior Unit. Maybe my Warriors are experienced Veterans of battle though? Who knows.

Unless there is another source of information that I haven't seen the only thing it looks like is that you can't mix the *type* of unit.

So your cities then produce "Regiments" which you combine to increase your unit size?

This is all wild conjecture. Looking forward to being proven wrong.

Maybe not so wild after all ... CivRev allows you to combine three units of the same type into an "army", which fights at triple strength (separate attack and defense strengths resurfaced there too). Still, your warrior army with attack 3x1 can't kill a lone archer (defense 2) fortified and veteran (for multipiers on the defense). So unit assembly, different attack and defense strenghts, and ways to operationalize ranged attack generate a lot of combat mechanics options.

Regarding ranged units firing over hexes ... you have to understand that Civ V appears to be trying to have strategy and tactics on a single map, rather than the two maps of game like the Total War series. So what a hex means in strategy is not what it means in combat, in some sense.

If we don't think a ranged attack over a hex makes sense, then one could implement a combat approach where a ranged unit can initiate a ranged attack, against any unit of its chosing, with no risk of losses, inflicting only its ranged damage (it would also have a melee attack factor), before any melee combat ensues. Offensive ranged units go first (or alternate?), then defensive, then melee begins. Or perhaps unit with longest range gets first shot? Lots of details ... how complex to we want this to be?

dV

 

[Takhisis]

<Wishful thinking> Would it be too much to make those units fight in turn-based individual battles?

 

[da_Vinci]

<Wishful thinking> Would it be too much to make those units fight in turn-based individual battles?

Isn't that what we have now? Individual combat turns inside each battle, within a strategic turn?

dV

 

[Takhisis]

No. I meant something like, uhm, an X-COM battlescape, but with an obvious proliferation of melee attacks. And don't say 'with better graphics' because I probably won't accept vanilla graphics and will go for custmised ones.

 

[Earthling]

The SOD problem was never anything to do with number of units per tile. What was lacking was effective collateral/siege/general group attacking(cIV did mostly fail at this), area denial, and of course silly economics that made getting too many units possible.

Example, showing that cIV with SODs and all can still be perfectly workable - the FFH mod. Where there is nothing that stops unlimited units per tile, but there are checks that mean one doesn't have the "unfun" parts of SODs.

I'm still against one unit per tile.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

No problems here. I absolutely LOATHE the idea of managing stacks with dozens of units.

 

[Takhisis]

I agree with virtually all of your poast, Earthling.
Sieges, missile weapons, magic, traps, andother such tactical lacks developed into an even bigger fail at combat than , SOD = win. However, over at the civ3 forum we've found that there's a very easy way to counter an SOD, that requires artillery with ranged bombardment, which is not included in cIV. It'd appear that Firaxis 'hid' some features to make it to some deadline, and they're being found out, such as Teleport, Charm and Blitz.

 

[r_rolo1]

No problems here. I absolutely LOATHE the idea of managing stacks with dozens of units.

But one unit per tile does not mean lesser units ... it only means less units per tile You might be only trading managing stacks with dozens of units by managing lines with dozens of units ( Don't they say in the official site that battles will span by wide ranges of of the map? You can't do that with little units ).

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Eh, still easier to manage than a stack of units so large I can't see other ones in the description.

 

[r_rolo1]

Not sure of that ... atleast you can move a stack with one click easily. Lines are far more complicated than that, and i would not be surprised to be forced to move every unit individually even if there is a automation feature for that ( a thing that I doubt off ) for a minimum of efficiency in keeping a good formation every time. Not mentioning that you most likely will not be able to glance all the line units atributes so easily as that...

 

[Takhisis]

A much easier way to prevent SODs is to merely make units require extensive supoort and supply, plus taking as many inhabitants as the amount of troops each division contains. Similar to TW games.

 

[morss_4]

The SOD problem was never anything to do with number of units per tile. What was lacking was effective collateral/siege/general group attacking(cIV did mostly fail at this), area denial, and of course silly economics that made getting too many units possible.

Example, showing that cIV with SODs and all can still be perfectly workable - the FFH mod. Where there is nothing that stops unlimited units per tile, but there are checks that mean one doesn't have the "unfun" parts of SODs.

I'm still against one unit per tile.

This is sort of where I am. Civ IV's system was really bad. Civ V's will be better I think. That said, while the Panzer General style system is an improvement, it wasn't really what I wanted. I more wanted to accept the SOD and actually make it work, by implementing a reasonable army system. I think a system like EU3 for example would work well in Civ. My concern is that the PG style system will be too tactical, and draw too much attention away from the economic and social aspects of Civ.

Civ covers 6000 years, coming up with a system that works over that entire range is a problem. An army system makes sense up until about 1900, but after that you have fronts. Civ V's system makes sense for the last 100 years or so, but doesn't make sense for the first 5900. There is no perfect solution, unless you fundamentally change combat mechanics in the 20th century.

 

[Takhisis]

How 'bout having each tile have a 'space' stat, and each unit taking some of that 'space'. If you make 20th century units take up enough space to force them to spread... It'd also remove the problem of having a defensive stack on an isthmus, placing catapults behind a screen of limitless stacked infantry.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

This is sort of where I am. Civ IV's system was really bad. Civ V's will be better I think. That said, while the Panzer General style system is an improvement, it wasn't really what I wanted. I more wanted to accept the SOD and actually make it work, by implementing a reasonable army system. I think a system like EU3 for example would work well in Civ. My concern is that the PG style system will be too tactical, and draw too much attention away from the economic and social aspects of Civ.

Civ covers 6000 years, coming up with a system that works over that entire range is a problem. An army system makes sense up until about 1900, but after that you have fronts. Civ V's system makes sense for the last 100 years or so, but doesn't make sense for the first 5900. There is no perfect solution, unless you fundamentally change combat mechanics in the 20th century.

I think the constant building of new military units is a bore. I'd much prefer a game with smaller armies.

 

[axi]

I propose distinguishing units in transit from deployed (defending or marching) units. The former could gain a movement bonus and the ability to stack with other units, in exchange for not being able to participate in combat while still taking collateral damage if their tile is under attack and even more damage if their tile is undefended by a deployed unit. A movement cost for deploying a unit on a tile instead of having it in transit has to be factored in.

This will mean that stacks will look like the ones in civ2, except the defender will not be the strongest available but the one chosen by the player and also, if the defender has it's hp reduced, it won't be replaced by the next strongest unit in the stack for the next attack; two very crucial differences IMO. Of course, if the defender is wiped out or forced to retreat, the transit units will be as well as dead (assuming there are enough attackers to finish the job).

 

[Howard Mahler]

I am not sure there will be one unit per tile or some other limit.
Nor do we quite know how it will be implemented.

It sounds to me like a bad and unnecessary change.

If you want fewer units in the game on average, then just make them more expensive to build and/or more expensive to maintain.

In fact, you could have a slider at custom game setup where the player could choose to have units cost more or less than average (compared to what they would otherwise cost each country).

If it aint broke don't fix it.

P.S. I have previously suggested a slider for custom games to allow the player to choose to have technologies cost more or less than average (compared to what they would otherwise cost each country).

 

[Danielos]

What about naval and air units? A city must at least be able to have one land unit, one naval unit and one air unit, right? Otherwise it will get quite silly...