"One unit per one tile" strategy thoughts

[KrikkitTwo]

Fortunately, your conversion of military strength from discrete units into continuous Dollops of Strength isn't going to happen.

We're going to have a discrete Swordsman unit, not 173 Strength worth of swordsman on this tile and 212 Strength worth of Horsemen on that tile.

So the point is moot.

Why is that preferable to

a group of 27 swordsmen all of varying Strengths
v.
a group of 23 horsemen all of varying Strengths

In mine they Stay discrete. (for the purposes of army management)

You have 1 Swordsman Army... Strength 173 (in this tile... you have a neighboring Archer Army in another tile and a seperate Swordman army in another tile)

The enemy has 3 Horsemen armies (each in a different tile with different strengths)

If there is combat, Both sides Will lose Strength. Reinforcement becomes more important, and you can continuously wear down a unit.

Also the fact that they are NOT discrete for Production purposes is a Significant advantage... A city raises a military force in one turn and will raise a bigger military force the longer it continues to build, and it never has to deal with overflow in those circumstances.

3 riflemen might be identical to 6 musketmen, the only difference being that the former had a lower cost per strength point. But once you've built them, they're identical.

Which is just an all round Bad Idea because it minimizes the importances of technological improvements, which are core to any Civ game's military system, and it makes units into bland dollops of strength points.

NO there would be multiple differences

say comparing: Rifleman army Base Str=300 Musket Army Base Str=300.. possible differences.

Rifleman Army Range=2, Musket Army Range=1 (this would be Big in terms of tech cutoffs)

Rifleman Army is 200 Strength when bombarding, Musket Army is only 100 Strength (it can only bombard over Rivers anyways)

Rifleman Army v. Mounted units is Str 360 (because it gets a bonus)

Rifleman Army takes an additional 20% penalty if Flanked (highly structured army)

Rifleman Army move=3, Musket Army move=2 (probably not for this comparison but other units would have that ie Horsemen v. Swordsmen)

Musket Army strength is 330 in a city, hills or forest (close fighting)

If the Riflemen Army is Attacked by a Grenadier Army, that Grenadier Army is 50% stronger

Rifleman Army vision=2, Musket Army Vision=1 (again not likely in This case, but for other cases of units)

Musket Army causes additional unhappiness when stationed in an unfriendly city (inexact weapon leads to easy accidents).

Musket Army costs more gold/food to maintain.

Rifleman Army requires a Barracks to build.

And of course that Musket army cost more to build. (so it will cost more to recover from a combat that killed 1/2 the forces)



And how does that compare To saying
I have a group of 5 Rifleman... You have a group of 10 Muskets... who will win in a head to head fight on bare ground.

In my system there is a fairly simple answer (300 v. 300.. one side randomly gets the bonus, each side has a 50% chance of winning but losing say 1/2 their strength... depending on what the random bonus is)

The only other Civ in which that answer has been remotely apparent to the player is Civ 1.

A player should have an idea of basically how strong his force is, not just the strength of individual units.

In Either case, additional factors come into play (terrain, positioning, range, other units present, etc.)

 

[Ahriman]

Why is that preferable to

a group of 27 swordsmen all of varying Strengths
v.
a group of 23 horsemen all of varying Strengths

Uhh... what? I thought we were moving to a 1 unit per tile system.
And I think I'm pretty on the record for acknowledging that we have to move away from Stacks of Doom.

So I would much prefer 3 tiles with 1 swordsman each (all the same strength) and 3 tiles with 1 horseman each (all the same strength) to swordsmen tiles being of radically different strengths depending on how many "strength points" had been merged into them.

I would much rather look at 1 stack and see its a riflemen and another and see its a musketman, and know that the former is better than the latter.
In your system this is not possible, because the type of unit is relatively unimportant, because you can merge them together as much as you like.

Your system violates the basic design principle of What You See is What You Get, which they've emphasized as one of the cores of Civ5.

What you propose is much more like the continuous strength variables of the Paradox games; Europa Universalis or Hearts of Iron. Those are fine games, but I definitely do not want to see Civ going that way. The variation between unit types is severely muted, technological progress is very difficult to observe and it all becomes a matter of how big is my lump of army strength.

Your method basically destroys the principle of having *units*, and moves just to a system of armies.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Uhh... what? I thought we were moving to a 1 unit per tile system.
And I think I'm pretty on the record for acknowledging that we have to move away from Stacks of Doom.

So I would much prefer 3 tiles with 1 swordsman each (all the same strength) and 3 tiles with 1 horseman each (all the same strength) to swordsmen tiles being of radically different strengths depending on how many "strength points" had been merged into them.

I would much rather look at 1 stack and see its a riflemen and another and see its a musketman, and know that the former is better than the latter.
In your system this is not possible, because the type of unit is relatively unimportant, because you can merge them together as much as you like.

Your system violates the basic design principle of What You See is What You Get, which they've emphasized as one of the cores of Civ5.

What you propose is much more like the continuous strength variables of the Paradox games; Europa Universalis or Hearts of Iron. Those are fine games, but I definitely do not want to see Civ going that way. The variation between unit types is severely muted, technological progress is very difficult to observe and it all becomes a matter of how big is my lump of army strength.

Your method basically destroys the principle of having *units*, and moves just to a system of armies.

The problem is that "units" is not a good idea.

It either excessively limits the scope (like the 1UPT will do... in another thread it seems they are drastically limiting unit numbers)
OR
It becomes MM hell
OR
It requires the units to be compounded (Stacks of Death) essentially making them not units

Also, those games would reasonably have very muted technological differences because they have a very limited technological time scale.
And by making the big differences between units their Abilities rather than their total Strength.



Now you could have a system that was very Like Mine in some senses (although I think it would be worse. but you might like it)
Since they said units that exceed their Resource supply cost extra maintenance, you could also do that with healing units.

So
Normal unit= 1 maintanance units of cost
Healing unit = 10x maintenance units of cost

If units heal relatively fast, then by putting a unit on "Heal" you are essentially "buying back" its health.

And "healing" a unit Won't just be a tactical decision.(can I find somewhere safe for them to sit/do I need them at the front even in the damaged state)
It would also include the "do I have the resources to heal this unit".

If units out on the front healed slower (like in Civ IV) then it would also be more Expensive to heal them (you are paying the same cost to heal them but they are not healing as much damage)

Keep the basic combat mechanic though
(Healthy unit of Str 5 attacks Healthy unit of Str 10= dead unit of str 5, 50% health unit of Str 10)


The only thing I would want in that case is a wider range of units in a given tech level. Having a Cheap unit that I can rapidly build if my cities are poorly developed is important.

Either that or the ability to more easily rush units.
Even then you still need the ability to have cheap units for the empire that is small (just has low production)
And some Really expensive units for the empire that is Large

Basically I should have ~3-5 fold difference in strength of the unit I can build at a single Tech level... ie a str 2 scout and a str 8 "Warrior Army" (that is actually 4x a strong should be available together)..
I'm pretty sure they would actually do this, given what they did in Civ Rev with making Armies.


This way
1. An Empire with Larger/Smaller production can accurately reflect that even with the unit limits
2. The damage a Weak unit does to a Strong unit is still significant to the strategic situation
3. The units are still distinguishable, and will still spend much of their time at a distinguishable strength (you Might put of healing because you are in the battlefield... but if you are in the Battlefield it will be much more important)
4. The units will be important... but their 'hitpoints'/health will also be important. So important that you will pay to repair them (this also enables an Xperience/promotion system similar to Civ IV)

 

[Ahriman]

The problem is that "units" is not a good idea.

It either excessively limits the scope (like the 1UPT will do... in another thread it seems they are drastically limiting unit numbers)

How does a game where you have 20 military unts on 20 tiles differ in scope from your version, where you might have 20 armies on 20 separate tiles?

Also, those games would reasonably have very muted technological differences because they have a very limited technological time scale

Europa Universalis runs roughly 1400-1800.

Basically I should have ~3-5 fold difference in strength of the unit I can build at a single Tech level

Why?
A major part of the purpose of a 1Upt system is to prevent a large empire from steam-rolling a smaller one (or a city-state).
Your system destroys that, because it lets the large empire have much bigger concentrations of force in any given tile, and so it can just roll over the weaker units that a smaller empire can produce.

But fundamentally; civ uses units of fixed strengths, not armies. I don't see them changing that.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

How does a game where you have 20 military unts on 20 tiles differ in scope from your version, where you might have 20 armies on 20 separate tiles?

There is variety in the scope

20 armies on 20 separate tiles can be 20 Large armies or 20 small armies
In both cases similar tactics can be used.

20 small v. another 20 small works similar to 20 large v. another 20 large

This allows Quantity to have a Quality that is all its own...
Rather than having 2 swordsmen be infinitely better than 1 because 2 can actually block enemy units from getting to the Archers.

Instead I can Always have 2 Swordsmen Armies, the Question is are they two Large swordsmen armies or two Small ones.

It allows early warfare when your total imperial production is ~20 hammers per turn... just as well as when your total imperial production is 20,000 hammers per turn.

(although later game you have different Types of units so the setup would change but not because of More units, but because of different Types of units.)

also in my model I could have the same force just as 3-5 armies on 3-5 tiles

Europa Universalis runs roughly 1400-1800.

and civ runs 15 Times longer (6000 years not 400)

Why?
A major part of the purpose of a 1Upt system is to prevent a large empire from steam-rolling a smaller one (or a city-state).

Eliminating/charging for unit Healing would do that So much better.

And what's the difference between steam rolling over one turn with a stack of units and steam rolling over multiple turns with waves of units?

The Blobs of Attrition still more strongly favor the large empire.

The only way to stop steam rolling is to have defenders advantages (culture limiting movement+healing in civ 4 would be an advantage, but the SoD tended to neutralize that)

Your system destroys that, because it lets the large empire have much bigger concentrations of force in any given tile, and so it can just roll over the weaker units that a smaller empire can produce.

1UPT doesn't help the small city state at all it just makes it a war of attrition..
big Empire loses 6 units killing 1 of the small empires one's... If it has 6 times the production it will still win.

Instead of each side losing 1 unit and 6 units why not 10 units and 60 units?

But fundamentally; civ uses units of fixed strengths, not armies. I don't see them changing that.

I don't think they will change that, but I Really think they should.

At the Very Least they should
1. Simplify the combat model.... a unit of strength 5 should, on Average, reduce to 50% the health unit of Strength 10 (and the Random factor should be Very simple). This is absolutely required for "what you see is what you get"

2. Make unit healing/repairing Very costly (ie Healing a unit from 1% to 100% should be almost as expensive as building a new one.. probably more so if the unit is in the field)

This keeps the focus on the strategy rather than the tactics.

 

[cardgame]

Let's reiterate: SOD = Take their nation with very minimal casualties

1UPT = Actual war instead of bus rides from city to city, as someone else artfully put it earlier.

At the Very Least they should
1. Simplify the combat model.... a unit of strength 5 should, on Average, reduce to 50% the health unit of Strength 10 (and the Random factor should be Very simple). This is absolutely required for "what you see is what you get"

worst idea I have heard ever

An attrition strategy like this...

 

[tom2050]

Let's reiterate: SOD = Take their nation with very minimal casualties

Agreed

1UPT = Actual war instead of bus rides from city to city, as someone else artfully put it earlier.

This is an attrition strategy, since you cannot have combined arms in a single tile actually working together.

It would be better if they allowed 1 unit of each different type to stay in a tile together. Defender + Attacker + Ranged/Artillery, etc. That would make sense. If you don't have the other types, then you are at a disadvantage.

Plus it would fix the Ancient Barbarian Archer with short bow shoots to other landmasses nonsense.

Tom

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Let me ask a few Questions
1. When a unit wins a battle should it be damaged?

2. If it is damaged, should the degree of damage be related to the relative strengths of the units?

3. Should the player have some !%@# clue what the combat simulator is doing or not?

If you answered yes to all 3, then the way to achieve that is

Unit Str 5 (all bonuses taken into account) [unit base Strength is 2 but its on a hill now...+200%, -50% because the opponent has a bonus against this unit type)
v.
Unit Str 10 (all bonuses taken into account)

ends up with
Unit at Str 10 (but 50% hp so really Str 5 until it heals)

as the 'average' result


If you want positioning to be important make "being on hill" increase Str by +500% not just +50%

Not even talking about Range

Let's reiterate: SOD = Take their nation with very minimal casualties

1UPT = Actual war instead of bus rides from city to city, as someone else artfully put it earlier.



worst idea I have heard ever

An attrition strategy like this...

Wait a minute..
Battle with minimal casualties=bad
Attrition=bad

make up your mind.

if you are concerned about the lack of strategy....that is only if there is nothing you can do to 'change the odds' or alter the rate of attrition.
Assuming you can use Varied tactics to minimize the damage you take in combats that you win. (flanking, positioning, bombardment, selecting targets) Then the question is
1. see above

 

[cardgame]

Warriors do minimum of 2 str damage to anything?

OK, time for an OCC, I'll just spam warriors from the very beginning & win

This 1-for-1 attrition strategy you speak of is like playing Risk without dice rolls. Boring as hell.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Warriors do minimum of 2 str damage to anything?

OK, time for an OCC, I'll just spam warriors from the very beginning & win

Yeah, Try that against my 24 Strength Archer (3 base *2 fortified *2 in city(archer bonus) *2 basic city defenses)

Or my Str 3 archer on the hill that can shoot at you before you do any damage at all.

or my 4000 Str Tank

If a Warrior is listed as 2 Str against everything, then it Should do 2 Str 'damage' to everything that it enters combat with.

(it is only Str 1.33 v. Axes and Maces though)
(If the Warrior is fortified it is actually at more than 2 Str)
etc.

Having a Tank at Str 28 and a Warrior at Str 2 implies the Tank will ~50/50 die in a combat with 14 Warriors.

In reality the Tank would probably have a 50/50 chance of dying against say 2000 warriors (neglecting Range/positioning/Terrain)... so The Str values should reflect that.
Warrior Base=2
Tank Base=4000
(of course an Infantry should probably be 1500.. a Knight might be ~250, etc.)


Other Factors (including a random one) ADJUST the strength of units from their base Str (did you ever look at the combat display for Civ IV)... a longbow is not "Str 6" in all combats it has a Base of 6 that is then modified by the terrain, enemy unit (does the enemy have cover), etc.

I'm saying you have
Base Str * Terrain/Enemy unit/other * Random (one side 50/50 gets a *2 bonus)
for the unit-unit match up

all but the last term would be displayed when looking at a potential combat situation.

But this way the player has some Clue what might come out of a combat, and a good idea exactly how much it will help to attack from the hill.

They Know what 20 str v. 10 str means.
(Do you know how long it took people to work that out for Civ IV before... you needed graphs and statistical models)

civ 1 was the last one that was simple (10 Str v. 20 meant a 1/3 chance the 20 would lose and a 2/3 chance the 10 would lose... that's the model if you don't want Attrition)


if "What you see is what you get" then that is very close to the way civ v would be doing combat.
(Neglecting ranged bombardment which is another factor.)

 

[Ahriman]

Having a Tank at Str 28 and a Warrior at Str 2 implies the Tank will ~50/50 die in a combat with 14 Warriors.

If this is how you think the Civ4 combat engine works, no wonder you want such a weird idea....

Let me give you an example: a strength 6 unit will end up beating a strength 5 unit about 73% of the time, not 6/11 of the time.
A strength 7 unit will beat a strength 5 unit is ~88%.

Go test it with some combat odds in-game if you don't believe me.

Combat is much more complicated than comparing simple strength odds. A strength 28 tank will win much more than 50% of the time against 14 strength 2 warriors.

The full probability is too hard to calculate, but as an inkling, a strength 14 unit will beat 7 strength 2 units 97.4% of the time.

See: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/combat_explained.php
And: http://c4combat.narod.ru/c4c.htm

This is why I think unit merging is such a terrible idea; the difference between a high strength unit and a low strength unit is *huge*.

 

[Yakk]

With unit merging, there should be a concept of "full strength".

Ie, a full strength infantry unit is "enough to fill a hex".

When you build units, you'd build full strength military units. When the get into fights, they lose strength. Some of that strength lost is just "wounds", and can be recovered by resting. Other parts are deaths, and can only be recharged via reinforcement (ie, merging another unit with this one).

The fact that you cannot make a 500% swordsman reflects the logistics problem, the sword-reach problem, the foraging problem and the linear power growth problem of ancient era units.

By infantry, your logistics is superior, power grows quadratically to much higher degrees, and the tools are stronger. So you get a much "larger" single unit that is also individually better equipped. (it also costs more to build, because it is much larger)

 

[Ahriman]

With unit merging, there should be a concept of "full strength".

Ie, a full strength infantry unit is "enough to fill a hex".

In this case, you don't really have unit *merging* of the kind I object to so strongly; all you have done is removed unit healing and replaced it with reinforcement cost.

But I still don't think this will work very well; you keep ending up with remainders of units. Suppose I have a "full strength" swordsmen who is strength 6. He gets injured down to strength 4.5. I bring up another strength 6 swordsman to reinforce him... so what happens? Either the reinforcing unit disappears, or it gets left with a remainder.

I think we're still going to have Units that Heal. The only major outstanding issue (to me) is whether each combat between two units still results in one unit being destroyed completely or not. I can see a case either way.

 

[chongli]

It would be better if they allowed 1 unit of each different type to stay in a tile together. Defender + Attacker + Ranged/Artillery, etc. That would make sense. If you don't have the other types, then you are at a disadvantage.

No, it would be worse. The entire point of Rock/Paper/Scissors is that you cannot choose all three.

One-unit-per-tile will allow the proper use of combined arms. You must position your infantry to prevent the enemy from reaching your archers and you can use your cavalry to flank their archers if you find an opening.

 

[Earthling]

1. When a unit wins a battle should it be damaged?

2. If it is damaged, should the degree of damage be related to the relative strengths of the units?

3. Should the player have some clue what the combat simulator is doing or not?

Sure; these criteria are all already in civ IV by the way.

How about we keep things much closer to civ IV's combat system, fix things in descending order from major to minor issues...AI stupidity, siege and collateral, increase overall maintenance on armies, upgrades/tech eras, and auxiliary systems like navies and airplanes...and call it a day.

Oh wait because then it somehow wouldn't work or be simple and playable enough ...ideas like those out here would simply collapse into horrible gameplay and I'm worried the actual game will have something similarly ridiculous, or be a cute little game where every empire is like 2 cities with 5-6 units each, yay civilization!

 

[Ellestar]

Keep the basic combat mechanic though
(Healthy unit of Str 5 attacks Healthy unit of Str 10= dead unit of str 5, 50% health unit of Str 10)
***
A major part of the purpose of a 1Upt system is to prevent a large empire from steam-rolling a smaller one (or a city-state)
>>Eliminating/charging for unit Healing would do that So much better.

Err WHAT? I mean, really...
If you charge for unit Healing, large empire can heal several times more than a small so it becomes a battle of production and so a large empire always wins automatically without any effort. How the hell in your imagination it is so much better to prevent a large empire from steam-rolling a smaller one???
Please, my brains hurt from statements like that.

They Know what 20 str v. 10 str means.
(Do you know how long it took people to work that out for Civ IV before... you needed graphs and statistical models)

I written a first non-official combat calculator for Civ 4 (in-game one was bugged). Besides, mine calculated chances vs. several units of the same str in a row (say, archer vs 2 or 3 warriors). No, there were no graphs or statistical models. Just a basic probability theory.

civ 1 was the last one that was simple (10 Str v. 20 meant a 1/3 chance the 20 would lose and a 2/3 chance the 10 would lose... that's the model if you don't want Attrition)

Try wargames, they have a good combat models. Fantasy Wars is one of the recent ones, and it has a pretty graphics too.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

If this is how you think the Civ4 combat engine works, no wonder you want such a weird idea....

Let me give you an example: a strength 6 unit will end up beating a strength 5 unit about 73% of the time, not 6/11 of the time.
A strength 7 unit will beat a strength 5 unit is ~88%.

I know that is how the combat actually works
That is the problem.
It is a COUNTERINTUITIVE, COMPLICATED, and HIDDEN... ie it is a REALLY BAD IDEA to design the system that way.

Imagine you have never played any War game before

You see a Strength 5 unit (under current circumstances)
You have a Strength 6 unit. (under current circumstances)

What do you think will happen?

I can tell you a few 'thinks' that would be Sensible (ie make sense to the average person)

1. The Strength 6 wins and that is it... it is stronger so it wins

2. The Strength 6 has slightly greater chance of winning than the Strength 5... since one has to win it should have a 6/11 chance of winning (this is how Civ 1 did it)

3. The Strength 6 wins, but only has 1 Strength left.


All of those make sense...

73% chance?!?!?!??

Is... 5 and 6 -> 73%...self explanatory?

Do the 5 and 6 accurately represent the strength of those Troops?

NO, that 5 and that 6 are "window Dressing" they Disguise the actual combat mechanics

The fact is the Strength 5 unit should actually be closer to Str 125 and the Str 6 to Str 216

Those would be slightly more accurate Strengths for those units.

That is what I am asking for, that the "Strength" actually tell you how strong the unit is.

That has never happened since Civ 1.. since then , Attack+Defense (or Strength) values are only losely connected with how good the unit is at attacking, defending or at winning in combats.

The full probability is too hard to calculate,.

That is the problem...

Whatever civ does with Stacks or Single units per tile or healing or whatever, the Results of a combat should be an EASY calculation from the Strengths.
(Strengths should have modifiers based on Terrain, etc.... but the calculation of those modifiers should also be simple)

This is why I think unit merging is such a terrible idea; the difference between a high strength unit and a low strength unit is *huge*.

They Shouldn't be

2 Strength 7 units should be as good as 1 Strength 14 unit (neglecting healing in between te fact that 1 only takes one tile the others can take 2 etc.

Otherwise Strength 7 and Strength 14 don't mean what they say they mean

Sure; these criteria are all already in civ IV by the way.

No Civ IV fails miserably on count 3 (the player has some @#$%^^% clue how to figure out how combat actually works.)
You needed a combat calculator, so I couldn't just look and say..
Longbow Str 6,
Archer Str 3...
Therefore the Longbow is 2X as good as the Archer if none of the bonuses are factored in.

or
Archer Str 3 +50% in city
So 2 Archers in the city are as good as 3 outside.

The player Should be able to think that way but every civ since Civ 1 made the combat Calculation complicated without necessarily adding depth to combat

Err WHAT? I mean, really...
If you charge for unit Healing, large empire can heal several times more than a small so it becomes a battle of production and so a large empire always wins automatically without any effort. How the hell in your imagination it is so much better to prevent a large empire from steam-rolling a smaller one???
Please, my brains hurt from statements like that.

Because, right now the Large Empire Assembles its large Collection of units (on one or multiple tiles)and unless the Small Empire can kill the all the units one at a time, they can't really kill it at all. (because the units can move into a defensive position and heal).

The fact is the Small Empire won't Need to be healing too many units, they will be Losing units, because the enemy will attack 1 Small Empire unit with Several units, killing it in one turn. The Small empires counter attacks will be met the same way.

Also the small empire won't have too many units, period (and their units won't take as much damage per individual combat because they have defensive bonuses)

The large empire has more units so they will need to heal more of them.(especially because they can't get new units onto the field as easily.)

If Healing is Almost as expensive as rebuilding, then even a "victory" costs the enemy something.

The only way a small (equal tech) empire can really not get steam rolled is by having combat bonuses in its own terrain.

That allows it to actually win. (as opposed to just delaying the inevitable.)

Try wargames, they have a good combat models. Fantasy Wars is one of the recent ones, and it has a pretty graphics too.

Exactly what I don't want in Civ...
I'm assuming that by "good combat model" you mean that there is a vast collection of numbers each with their own way of interacting with a complex realistic formula to produce a end result.

No, Combat in Civ should be SIMPLE
You have Terrain effects as + or -% to Strength
You have unit v. unit abilities that are the Same
Possibly position effects... that also are + or - to Strength

Once you take all those modifiers to Strength, then the result of the combat should be straight forward..
'pretty graphics' and non obvious combat mechanics are great if you want to see a movie.

non-obvious/overcomplex combat mechanics are nice if you want to play a spreadsheet game as well (where you calculate how much the recent attack has altered the armor sloping on each facing of your tank)

I'd prefer to play a game where Strength 10 actually meant Strength 10... not 2 times as good as Strength 8 and 10 times as good as strength 5.

(Even if it was logarithmic that would be somewhat reasonable... the chance of the weaker one winning is decreased by 2 every level
10 v 10.. 50% win
9 v 10 25% win
8 v 10 12.5% win
7 v 10 6.25% win
6 v 10 3.125% win)

still a million times simpler than the Civ 4 combat model

 

[Ellestar]

Presumably 1 unit per tile means 1 unit on a transport too.

So on a small island, yes, its hard to attack except amphibiously, but its also hard to *defend*, you only have 1-2 units. So to defend your islands effectively, you will end up needing a navy.

Transports may work like in Battle Isle - you can transport several units in a transport, but units can't attack at the turn they unload. So, even if units are transported as several units in one hex, they can't fight before they "unpack" to one unit per hex.
However, in Civ V it will be better if first unit will be allowed to attack from transport so to be able to land on small islands.

And it was mentioned in IGN interview that England AI will focus on naval power by default, for example. So, a navy should be really important if it can be a focus for an entire AI nation.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Transports may work like in Battle Isle - you can transport several units in a transport, but units can't attack at the turn they unload. So, even if units are transported as several units in one hex, they can't fight before they "unpack" to one unit per hex.
However, in Civ V it will be better if first unit will be allowed to attack from transport so to be able to land on small islands.

And it was mentioned in IGN interview that England AI will focus on naval power by default, for example. So, a navy should be really important if it can be a focus for an entire AI nation.

That's assuming there Are transports.

a better position might be to have Abstracted Transports
ie "Ground " units can move from a City with a 'Harbor' onto the Water (ie they Become a Transport that will carry them)

It alters their stats of course (based on Transport tech), but that way you just move it as a group with various "Real" ships to defend them.

 

[Ellestar]

I know that is how the combat actually works
That is the problem.
It is a COUNTERINTUITIVE, COMPLICATED, and HIDDEN... ie it is a REALLY BAD IDEA to design the system that way.

Imagine you have never played any War game before

You see a Strength 5 unit (under current circumstances)
You have a Strength 6 unit. (under current circumstances)

What do you think will happen?

I can tell you a few 'thinks' that would be Sensible (ie make sense to the average person)

1. The Strength 6 wins and that is it... it is stronger so it wins

2. The Strength 6 has slightly greater chance of winning than the Strength 5... since one has to win it should have a 6/11 chance of winning (this is how Civ 1 did it)

3. The Strength 6 wins, but only has 1 Strength left.

Average person will think:
4. The Strength 6 is stronger than Strength 5 so a Strength 6 is better period.
Hardcore person will read civilopedia, Civ 4 combat mechanics is explained there.
Average person will not think about 6/11 or something complicated like that, what is it for?

So, there is no problem with game mechanics and we don't need to dumb mechanics down. The problem is in you - you want to know more about combat mechanics but you don't want to do your research.

Because, right now the Large Empire Assembles its large Collection of units (on one or multiple tiles)and unless the Small Empire can kill the all the units one at a time, they can't really kill it at all. (because the units can move into a defensive position and heal).

The fact is the Small Empire won't Need to be healing too many units, they will be Losing units, because the enemy will attack 1 Small Empire unit with Several units, killing it in one turn. The Small empires counter attacks will be met the same way.

Also the small empire won't have too many units, period (and their units won't take as much damage per individual combat because they have defensive bonuses)

The large empire has more units so they will need to heal more of them.(especially because they can't get new units onto the field as easily.)

If Healing is Almost as expensive as rebuilding, then even a "victory" costs the enemy something.

The only way a small (equal tech) empire can really not get steam rolled is by having combat bonuses in its own terrain.

That allows it to actually win. (as opposed to just delaying the inevitable.)

Nah, there is no way to win with all things equal but a number of units. However, as long as a smaller empire has some home advantage (like a good terrain) and it can replace losses (free healing + maybe some small replacement of permanent losses with production), it cand hold it's own indefinitely, or at least until external help will come.
Bigger empire can replace permanent losses easier with it's better production base so a pure attrition war is always to a bigger empire's advantage.

Exactly what I don't want in Civ...
I'm assuming that by "good combat model" you mean that there is a vast collection of numbers each with their own way of interacting with a complex realistic formula to produce a end result.

Basic rules are simple. It's not that simple to calculate exact results, of course.

No, Combat in Civ should be SIMPLE
You have Terrain effects as + or -% to Strength
You have unit v. unit abilities that are the Same
Possibly position effects... that also are + or - to Strength

Once you take all those modifiers to Strength, then the result of the combat should be straight forward..

I don't think combat should be simple. So?
Also, while results of combat may be straight forward, a bigger picture isn't straight forward anway so you have a moot point. So what if you completely dumbed down combat and units have only a strength value? If you want to know the exact details, you should calculate if you can spare all that production you'll waste attacking enemy unit. What if he's on the hill? Do your spoils of war compensate for your combat losses? There is no way to have an easy answer to these questions (in general).