"One unit per one tile" strategy thoughts

[r_rolo1]

I'm porting Civ IV tile size as stated in the demographics for the 100 x 100 km. I even said in the big post I made that I would withdrawn that statement if the map size was big enough to allow realistical tactical combinations in early ages . So we are agreed in this , I guess ...

The SoD aproach would had been good for the classical ages in Civ IV if they had made some kind of soft cap on SoD sizes and/or if they had not capped the units damaged by collateral damage. Not doing one of those ( or maybe both ) they simply allowed a monster to grow And the SoD is completely unsuited for any war after the napoleonic ages

 

[MosheLevi]

One unit per time doesn’t make sense for Civ 5.

How is the game going to handle 200 units (late game) when the player’s territory is less than 200 tiles? and the player has no mutual territory access with the other players?

 

[kiwitt]

I am considering the "one unit per tile" in the context of "Division, Corps, Army", i.e. progressively stronger units, with increasing hit points accordingly.

 

[Shurdus]

It would not be so bad if in the late game you can maybe have 30 units softcapped. It would really make you think harder what to do with your army and would put more focus on getting allies. I disliked about civ that you could conquer the world for real since it makes very little sense that you could produce an army large enough to march all overthe workd destroying everything in your wake.

The late game would have to be altered so you do not have 100+ units any more in order for the one unit per tile system to work. It would make the entire game a whole lot more interesting and different. in the end I think warfare is the most tedious thing in Civ so I would applaud any change that would make warring like in Civ IV harder.

 

[AlpsStranger]

I am not aware of a scale being already announced. Is that information available in an article?

I would agree that it would require much larger maps with hexes representing much smaller areas each... but again, I think they will come up with something reasonable... and I am sure it will be better than the SoD we currently have.

See, I don't agree with this line of thinking at all. I really wish Firaxis would refrain from having an "official" scale. Asking what a hex/tile represents in Civ is a lot like asking how many cavalrymen a "knight" in chess represents. I view it as a sort of softly correlated symbol. You are miming a war with said symbols, and they broadly represent the nations involved in the war.

Civilization does not have a "sense of scale" even if the developers sometimes try to prevent fans afflicted with Asperger's syndrome from having a stroke trying to figure it out.

How many tanks can fit on the head of a pin?

 

[Seventh Child]

One unit per time doesn’t make sense for Civ 5.

How is the game going to handle 200 units (late game) when the player’s territory is less than 200 tiles? and the player has no mutual territory access with the other players?

I can see it working easily, it requires changing the way combat is fought entirely. Don't think "Civ IV Rules" with "Civ V One Unit Per Tile"

I haven't seen anything that really seems to definitively indicate one unit per tile will be the case, but I think it would really make the game interesting. Two armies trying to push and flank each other, with less micromanagement and more tactics appeals to me a great deal more than a constant barrage of Axes being pumped out from various cities. Or pressing enter and then going to cook dinner whilst I wait for Tokugawa to move his massive stack onto my mainland.

The idea of developing "fronts" or lines of war is also something I embrace.

Reinforcing armies and trying to get a numerical advantage should still be a factor, but handled more elegantly than massive stacks of doom and trying to rally hundreds of Axemen spread across your civilization. It gets very repetitive.

 

[Frank327]

It would really help if the battles weren't limited to the unit that's attacking and the unit that's defending, but also have the two hexagons bordering both units to be involved, or maybe even all six hexagons around the defender. That way, big armies would be able to take down small armies in open spaces, but a well trained unit at a mountain pass would be able to hold back a big army for a long time.

Also, merging several equal units into stronger units would help keep the board clean.

I think that with one unit per tile, battles will be more about breaching a defensive line than the current stack vs. stack fights. It could definately work, but if there's still a rock/paper/scissors approach to fighting that would definately hurt the combat, and I just hope the maps won't get all cluttered with units.

 

[r_rolo1]

I haven't seen anything that really seems to definitively indicate one unit per tile will be the case(...)

twice translated qoute so keep that in mind

"one of the first changes we made was to remove the possability to 'stack' units. Now that you can only place one Military unit at each tile, there would be created large fronts between the players that battle each other"

This will do?

 

[Lord Tirian]

I like the idea - it always annoyed me that in Civ, the best strategy was having more units than anybody else. I could see how non-stackable units are essentially "unit deflation", meaning each unit is a lot more important than now (because now, seriously, units are a bit throwaway, you don't get very attached to them... and even the smallest stack you'll send out will usually consist of half a dozen units). I just see it as pre-packaged SoD!

Furthermore, if individual units become a lot more important than before (so an unit in CivV has the value of a SoD now), it means promotions and keeping units alive might become a lot more important.

And seeing ranged warfare, it may even mean that not every fight is to the death, but that attrition and manoeuvring become more important. I mean promotions were drawing inspiration from RPGs already, perhaps they extended on that to make individual armies (i.e. units) more important and long-lived as well.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Arakhor]

Civilization does not have a "sense of scale" even if the developers sometimes try to prevent fans afflicted with Asperger's syndrome from having a stroke trying to figure it out.

Neurotypical people get bees in their bonnets over the silliest things too, you know.

 

[Seventh Child]

This will do?

Well it does say it is twice translated, but yeah that will do. I'll assume it's right and that one unit per tile is in game.

Can't wait to see how it is handled in the game.

 

[Matt0088]

What was the scale of PG? If Civ5 is taking from PG, then would it be really smart to export a feature of a great combat system from a regional scale to one that involves entire planets, where such a 1 per tile feature might not be as applicable? Although having "fronts" of units would be nice to have in later stages of the game instead of giant stacks, since when did history have fonts in classic times? I'm not liking it.

 

[AlpsStranger]

What was the scale of PG? If Civ5 is taking from PG, then would it be really smart to export a feature of a great combat system from a regional scale to one that involves entire planets, where such a 1 per tile feature might not be as applicable? Although having "fronts" of units would be nice to have in later stages of the game instead of giant stacks, since when did history have fonts in classic times? I'm not liking it.

You are thinking in terms of "is it realistic." The developers aren't. I don't want them to, either. I prefer gameplay flow, balance, and strategic depth.

I honestly can't figure out why realism mongers don't just give up on Civilization. It is clearly targeted at a more abstract audience, and always has been. Probably always will be. *Every* civilization is almost painfully abstract, and if you can't tell it is because you are fooling yourself.

This great civilization/total war/simcity hybrid monster you guys want may come out someday, but it won't be part of this franchise. It will also be a terrible game, even if it is a good simulator.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I still fervently despise the whole unit limit. Bot a unit per tile limit and a unit per empire limit.
It is neither realistic nor does it seem fun at all.

What will we do when we don't have any more buildings to build?
What will we do when our experienced units are outdated but we don't have the money to update them?

We will sit in the corner and cry. Thats what.


CIV is supposed to be a loose history simulator. The micromanagement is supposed to be linked to your improvements and your cities.
As for units, they are supposed to be stacks you send out to beat up other stacks.

That is how it works in CIV4 and that is how it is perfect.
Changing it is both evil and cruel.

 

[Matt0088]

You are thinking in terms of "is it realistic." The developers aren't. I don't want them to, either. I prefer gameplay flow, balance, and strategic depth.

I honestly can't figure out why realism mongers don't just give up on Civilization. It is clearly targeted at a more abstract audience, and always has been. Probably always will be. *Every* civilization is almost painfully abstract, and if you can't tell it is because you are fooling yourself.

This great civilization/total war/simcity hybrid monster you guys want may come out someday, but it won't be part of this franchise. It will also be a terrible game, even if it is a good simulator.

Then why make any pretenses to realism? Tech tree? Nah, we want our bombers and nukes now! Want your land units to fly across water? Sure, why not? We're not realism mongers, so who cares? Social Policies/Civics? Let's make everyone be magically happy forever!

I prefer using history and realism as a guide, not throwing it to the wayside for a game play solution when several others that have both can be used, and have been discussed(Caps for one)! Besides, one of the many mods is bound to fiddle with something we have an issue to will come out.

 

[AlpsStranger]

Then why make any pretenses to realism? Tech tree? Nah, we want our bombers and nukes now! Want your land units to fly across water? Sure, why not? We're not realism mongers, so who cares? Social Policies/Civics? Let's make everyone be magically happy forever!

I prefer using history and realism as a guide, not throwing it to the wayside for a game play solution when several others that have both can be used, and have been discussed(Caps for one)! Besides, one of the many mods is bound to fiddle with something we have an issue to will come out.

False dichotomy. The reason why we obey the very *basic* rules of reality is purely for fun. The things you described would not be as fun as having a rough correlation with reality. You're forcing me to either say *all* realism has to go, or that realism must be the primary concern. Neither is true, and neither is the driving force behind Civilization. The surest path for Civilization remains the highly symbolic, highly fuzzy, yet oddly compelling style they have used thus far.

Simply put, a Swordsman flying across the water is a poor symbol. Everyone being magically happy forever is poor game design. Allowing them to have their bombers and nukes now defeats the entire purpose of playing. There are good, solid gameplay reasons not to do the things you just mentioned.

I won't pretend to be something I am not. I am a shameless advocate of gameplayism.

EDIT: I don't mean to be overly hostile towards you. I merely love having this argument

 

[God-Emperor]

I still fervently despise the whole unit limit. Bot a unit per tile limit and a unit per empire limit.
It is neither realistic nor does it seem fun at all.

What will we do when we don't have any more buildings to build?
What will we do when our experienced units are outdated but we don't have the money to update them?

We will sit in the corner and cry. Thats what.


CIV is supposed to be a loose history simulator. The micromanagement is supposed to be linked to your improvements and your cities.
As for units, they are supposed to be stacks you send out to beat up other stacks.

That is how it works in CIV4 and that is how it is perfect.
Changing it is both evil and cruel.

I think you have it exactly backwards.

The completely unlimited building of Civ 4 is moronic. Once 100% of your population is military, you clearly can't build more military units. But the real limit is much lower - somebody has to feed them and produce their equipment. Then somebody has to feed and equip the people feeding an equipping the military. I would suggest that limiting the total number of military units you can have at any one time to be perhaps equal to the sum of the size values of all your cities +1, or something like that, would be better. You have 3 cities of sized 8, 5, and 2? You get to have up to 8+5+2+1= 16 military units. In the very early game this usually won't make much difference. As you move forward it would gradually become a real limit. This would make those happy resources really valuable - increasing the potential population of all cities by 1 represents a large potential increase in your military size.

If you have a finite supply of horses, and you do, then you should not be able to produce an unlimited number of mounted units. I would hope that a single tile allows more than 1 horse unit. Perhaps not initially, but some tech (sometime after the "enable horse pasture" tech, Animal Husbandry in Civ 4) could increase the number of resources provided by the tile. Or perhaps they could work synergystically - if you have just a horse pasture you get 1 horse resource, but if you also have a grain type resource it provides 2 if you allocate that resource to that purpose. Or both in conjunction - have a horse pasture, a grain resource allocated to increase horse production, and the latter tech then the one horse pasture provides 3 horse resources. Or perhaps more. Starting at 2 might be better.

If you have nothing to build in your cities, then build research or money. Or start a war so when your units die you can build replacements.

If your units need upgrading and you have no money, then produce more money by adjusting the sliders or building money. (Well, duh! It's like that in Civ 4 already.)

Units are not "supposed" to be disposable. That they are in Civ 4 is just how it turned out. There is no point in keeping it that way. Getting your people killed off should be a bad thing. "You 47 units go over there and take that city", you command. "The last group of 53 units you sent all died, so I don't think so. You are relieved of command." Say your generals. End of game. You lost due to incompetence. That would be far more realistic - bad leaders got deposed all the time in history, especially by an abused military.

I would hope that the 1 military unit per tile is 1 fully active unit per tile, otherwise placing units at strategic locations is greatly impaired since they would block your own units from moving through and you'd have to move the defender out of the way (loosing any fortification bonus, if they still exist) to let the others through. Perhaps something along the lines of 1 unit can be fortified and 1 unit not, and perhaps the unfortified unit that is just passing through does not even receive any defensive bonuses at all even if in a fort on a wooded hill (or whatever) plus give both units some significant overcrowded penalty, allowing the 2nd unit to pass through. But while this would be nice, and somewhat realistic, it is not necessary.

 

[Matt0088]

False dichotomy. The reason why we obey the very *basic* rules of reality is purely for fun. The things you described would not be as fun as having a rough correlation with reality. You're forcing me to either say *all* realism has to go, or that realism must be the primary concern. Neither is true, and neither is the driving force behind Civilization. The surest path for Civilization remains the highly symbolic, highly fuzzy, yet oddly compelling style they have used thus far.

Simply put, a Swordsman flying across the water is a poor symbol. Everyone being magically happy forever is poor game design. Allowing them to have their bombers and nukes now defeats the entire purpose of playing. There are good, solid gameplay reasons not to do the things you just mentioned.

I won't pretend to be something I am not. I am a shameless advocate of gameplayism.

EDIT: I don't mean to be overly hostile towards you. I merely love having this argument

Same here. And really, this boils down to individual opinion, I like some moderate realism with my gameplay, and I'd rather have some low cap on units per tile, perferably based on something logistics related, then 1 unit per tile or SoDs. I'll just go get the first mod with multiple military units per tile if the title of this thread turns out to be true as it seems.

 

[AlpsStranger]

Same here. And really, this boils down to individual opinion, I like some moderate realism with my gameplay, and I'd rather have some low cap on units per tile, perferably based on something logistics related, then 1 unit per tile or SoDs. I'll just go get the first mod with multiple military units per tile if the title of this thread turns out to be true as it seems.

That's fine, we can agree to disagree. I've gotten a little jumpy because I have grown accustomed to ardent realism advocates viewing my kind as some kind of disease. We're a plague of rats set to destroy all that is holy in gaming and all that

 

[l3illyl3ob]

I'm looking forward to this change. Not because it's more realistic (It isn't really any more or less realistic than before), but because of the new strategic gameplay it promises to bring to the table. Wars will be substantially more tactical now than they were before. It's not just giant stacks besieging city after city, but large battles happening outside the city that decide the outcome of the war. This is an exciting change for me, because combat always felt very much like the biggest weakpoint of the civ series. And this approach, combined with the hexes, has me thrilled, and I'm glad they were so bold about it.

Imagine the awkward silence at the office when the designer who thought this up decided to say that they should remove the ability to have multiple units in the same tile. It's not every day you get a game company willing to completely redesign a major feature that's been in every single one of their main series' games.