"One unit per one tile" strategy thoughts

[Jabba]

I'm not defending the OP, just critiquing the idea that the new system is somehow worse or less realistic than the old system.

Then you're not arguing against me. I never said it was - at least not here.

I got involved in this thread when people started using the Siege of Troy from Homer (or was it the film "Troy"?) as a justification for changes to the combat system.

I do have some concerns about the new combat system, but encouraging more fighting outside cities isn't one of them. Just as long as it doesn't go too far and remove the game's "siege mentality" entirely.

 

[frekk]

like if those issues would not be covered during history by relief armies in most of the ocasions and not by the troops actually trying to defend the city ... )

I don't know about "relief armies". In the real world, all the units in the city and in the surrounding environs would be under the same army group, not a separate one. A few units might be transferred from other fronts in extremis once the battle was underway, but fthe initial units assigned to that army group would be present for defensive operations long before the enemy ever reached the outskirts of the city, and the garrison would be only a small fraction of the army group as a whole. The divisions themselves would be discrete, but this isn't different than what's going on in the game; the units, too, are discrete.

Jabba's got a historically valid point about the exact nature of the role cities played, but it's not a defense of the current system (civ4) of modelling warfare, which is what's really relevant.

 

[r_rolo1]

Jabba, Civ IV already made the best choice to deal with a enemy not to wait near the walls, but to fight outside of it due to the way that was easy to make cities death pits ( if you bomb the city defenses and use CR troops, cities are actually a negative defense ground in Civ IV ) and if you see Civ IV MP, you will not see sieges to cities besides some odd exception. The issue was that in SP the AI was both too dumb to make anything else besides heavy static defense ( a thing that forced humans to focus on their cities, because otherwise would not be able to take their troops out ) and too dumb to manouver in a way that could outmanouver the human to a field battle, because they simply choose a target and plot the shortest path there (and because the AI will predictably move against the cities, better wait for it there, no? ). As in SP there are always atleast as much AI players as humans, their rigid focus in the cities forces the human to also focus in the cities ( besides catching a AI army in the way if possible ). That means that , atleast in Civ IV, the "siege mentality " did not arose from the rule system, but from the less than perfect military planning of the AI and their morbid fixation in cities in military terms.

My point is that it was not needed a hard cap in the city garrisons to bring the fight to the field, because the fight between competent players in civ IV already happens outside cities and has no such draconian rule. The only thing needed was a competent AI

 

[r_rolo1]

@ frekk

That is true in our age ,but before telegraphy ( say, until Napoleon ) things were a little bit diferent...

 

[Jabba]

Hmm ... what is the real differnce between attack and defense, other than intent (gain ground vs. hold ground) ... once the two forces meet, is there really much difference in the combat?

Other than that defender gets to shoot at attacker while attacker advances, and the defender can be dug in (which is already covered in terrain, fortifications, and ranged combat) does it matter much whether the horse are charging a phalanx of pikes, or if the phalanx of pikes is marching into the horse (ignoring flanking issues, which seem similar in both cases)?

The difference between attack and defence is fundamental, and not just about terrain and fortification. It is also about mobility and formation.

Pikemen did not really charge cavalry and would have been foolish if they had. The key to defending against cavalry was to maintain a tight formation. This is very difficult to do when you are moving and impossible to do if you are charging.

So to "attack" cavalry the pikemen would have had to march very, very slowly. But the cavalry could simply trot out of the way.

So what would the pikemen have achieved? Not only would they have tired themselves out, mucked up their formation and abandoned the most defensible terrain. They would also have disrupted the entire defensive line, making the whole army vulnerable.

If you think about the dynamics of the thing, the idea of infantry attacking cavalry simply isn't serious.

 

[frekk]

Some posters here seem to either have a fairly reductive idea of what taking a city is

I'd like to point out here that a reductionist view is the only sort of view that can be translated into game mechanics. In the game, we can only represent the interactions between discrete elements; it's not really possible to create fully holistic mechanics.

 

[frekk]

The difference between attack and defence is fundamental, and not just about terrain and fortification. It is also about mobility and formation.

Pikemen did not really charge cavalry and would have been foolish if they had. The key to defending against cavalry was to maintain a tight formation. This is very difficult to do when you are moving and impossible to do if you are charging.

So to "attack" cavalry the pikemen would have had to march very, very slowly. But the cavalry could simply trot out of the way.

So what would the pikemen have achieved? Not only would they have tired themselves out, mucked up their formation and abandoned the most defensible terrain. They would also have disrupted the entire defensive line, making the whole army vulnerable.

If you think about the dynamics of the thing, the idea of infantry attacking cavalry simply isn't serious.

That's tactical defense, though, which is at too small a scale to be represented in the game. At the strategic level, infantry certainly were assigned to offensive operations against areas controlled by cavalry forces.

It's worth noting here that forces involved in a strategic offensive can (and often do) play the role of defender at the tactical level.

 

[r_rolo1]

Jabba pretty much made a nice point . A poster made a example of city storming without siege and another poster said it was not a city battle because there was no siege pro formae , then I point some examples of sieges with the armies holed inside the cities and a poster says that was not a battle because there was no storming of the city and fight inside... if you sum those two , the only possible conclusion is the one I made in the post you are selectively quoting. or their definition of city battle requires a very ritualized, structurated and absolute necessary as whole pro formae ( that I can actually acept, because atleast i would know in what I disagree with them ) or they don't have one definition worthy of that name ( and there i can't agree or disagree of them ) ... I haven't called anyone view reductionist if you notice well.

 

[Ahriman]

If you think about the dynamics of the thing, the idea of infantry attacking cavalry simply isn't serious.

Gameplay >>> realism.

If pikes only purpose is to defend against cavalry, that is a near useless purpose in a 1 unit per tile system, because cavalry will never choose to attack that tile.

Jabba pretty much made a nice point . A poster made a example of city storming without siege

You're like 3 pages out of date. I conceded to Jabba that my sweeping statement was too broad, and he agreed with my lesser claim that large armies were much less likely to fight each other in cities than in open fields, particularly in modern times, and that retreating to a city was normally the last resort of the heavily outnumbered.

 

[r_rolo1]

Actually , I'm one page late, two at most And to be honest, you were not the only one making similar remarks in this thread, before and after that ...

 

[Jabba]

That's tactical defense, though, which is at too small a scale to be represented in the game. At the strategic level, infantry certainly were assigned to offensive operations against areas controlled by cavalry forces.

Please do read the OP each time. He very clearly refers to armies making contact in tactical situations.

At the end of the day infantry cannot inflict casualties on cavalry unless the cavalry decides to engage the infantry tactically. It doesn't matter what scale you are talking about.

In the event that a large infantry force attempted to occupy an area controlled by a weaker cavalry force, the cavalry would not hurl itself futilely against the infantry's pikes and take heavy losses. They would simply retreat.

 

[Jabba]

If pikes only purpose is to defend against cavalry, that is a near useless purpose in a 1 unit per tile system, because cavalry will never choose to attack that tile.

The obvious solution is to make pikemen good defenders against other infantry as well as cavalry. Nothing wrong with that either in terms of gameplay or realism.

 

[Ahriman]

Please do read the OP each time. He very clearly refers to armies making contact in tactical situations.

I talked about pikemen units attacking/moving into tiles with cavalry units. Whether that is strategic or tactical depends on your interpretation of Civ's scale. For any scale before Civ5, that is still strategic. May be more tactical in civ5.

The obvious solution is to make pikemen good defenders against other infantry as well as cavalry. Nothing wrong with that either in terms of gameplay or realism.

Really? Pikes weren't particularly effective vs infantry in post-Macedonian warfare. Too slow, too inflexible, too immobile. The Phalanx went out of style a long time ago. Weren't bit in Medieval periods except for some militias, and even then it was mostly as cavalry defense.
Exception for a few elites (Landsknechts and swiss), but not common.
Pikes big comeback was Renaissance, where it was mostly used to hold off cavalry while gunpowder guys fired. And gradually as guns improved, the ratio of pikes:guns fell steadily until pikes were abandoned entirely.

Besides, for gameplay purposes, we need an anti-cavalry unit, so that players still have to be careful about placing their cavalry. If nothing is good at attacking knights, then knights aren't as strategic to use.

I hope we see Swiss pikemen as a UU buildable if you're on good terms with a Zurich city state.

 

[frekk]

In the event that a large infantry force attempted to occupy an area controlled by a weaker cavalry force, the cavalry would not hurl itself futilely against the infantry's pikes and take heavy losses. They would simply retreat.

If the pikemen are advancing on your encampment, what will you do? Abandon your supply train?

 

[Tlalynet]

Pikes where never abandon, they just became one with the gun, bayonet anyone? When we're talking melle weapons any kind of polearm is pretty darned awesome, Pike\Lance\Halberd dominates swords\maces and especially axes. The drawbacks of the pike is that its heavy so you need to be stronger to be good with it and it takes more material and time to manufacture well.

Don't take a sword to a spearfight. The swordsman needs a pretty massive skill advantage to overcome the distance, even a shield is not going to solve the problem if the spearman has a sidearm or its a heavy halberd.

Their weakness in games is just for gameplays sake.

 

[frekk]

Don't take a sword to a spearfight.

I wouldn't say that at all. Swords were often employed as the perfect counter to spears. The Spanish used to have some very good sword-and-buckler troops, specifically for the purpose of cutting swaths through pike formations. They are shock troops - they take some casualties closing, but once they do close and get in amongst the ranks, they can decimate pikemen. It's for this reason that most pike-armed forces, both in the ancient and early modern era, were forced to carry some sort of sidearm.

Same with axes. The initial appearance of the socketed axe (long before swords were developed) in ancient Mesopotamia caused a revolution in warfare, which had previously been dominated by the spear.

 

[Tlalynet]

I know a short sword and buckler can be effective against spears, but I the few cases I know where that has been employed doesn't constitute often to me, and the kind of sword troops that can deal with spears are not the kind that hold up against anything else (armor is too light for heavy armored infantry or cavalry and no effective archer defense) They're more of a counter-unit, the spear is the mainline common weapon of choice.

Even in that case it is a difficult fight for the swordsmen if the pikemen have a short sword sidearm and are ready to drop their weapon and switch as soon as they kill their first swordsman. Counter perhaps, but perfect counter is a bit of a stretch. But if the pikes have no sidearm then yeah, I know a light shield be a serious problem, I admited that in my last post.

 

[Ahriman]

Pikes where never abandon, they just became one with the gun, bayonet anyone?

There is a huge difference between a pike and a bayonet. Pikes are very long, used en-masse. Bayonets are much shorter, and aren't used in formation at all.

When we're talking melle weapons any kind of polearm is pretty darned awesome

A pike is a terrible weapon for a 1v1 fight. You get one chance to try to skewer your opponent, then they're past the point and inside your guard and you have to drop the pike or die.
The effectiveness of the pike is almost entirely from use in mass presentation in formation, where trying to dodge one pike will get you skewered on the next one.

But it takes a lot of good training to be able to get a formation to use pikes effectively against infantry. Not a lot of pikemen had that. And they're shockingly vulnerable to being flanked or to any missile weapons.

[Also, I would make a distinction between pikes and short pole-arms like halberds and the like. A pike isn't just any spear-like implement]

And again, the gameplay issue (without a unit that can threaten cavalry, you don't have to be careful about your placement of them) stands unchallenged.

 

[Culture Bomb]

As I've said before, I haven't read every post in the 24 pages of this thread, but I've skimmed through them and got a general idea of the kind of things people are saying.

Most of the focus seems to be on the tactical side of things, ie how you will attack an enemy city, move your units to face the enemy, which units will be good against which other units, etc.

But what about the strategic aspect, eg how you will design your army for attack or defence, which units will you build in which cities, the limited availability of resources, and the tech path you will take to get the units.

Obviously a lot of this can't be answered until we know more about the game, but there are a few things we can speculate about (even if we end up being wrong.) For example;

Military cities: in Civ IV, it is common strategy to have one (or more) military cities that build barracks, military national wonders, hammer multipliers, and then do little other than pump out troops. Will this still be a valid strategy in Civ V? What will your military cities do when you reach the limit of the number of troops you can support? (either through limited resources, limited space due to 1upt, or excessive upkeep costs)

Early Rushes: We know that a city can only be defended by one unit. Will this make the early rush even more powerful, especially if fast units can bypass any defenders that have to leave the city? Or will the fact that cities have hit points mean that an early rush is doomed to failure because it would take too long to capture the city?

Cultural Borders: If you conquer a city that is inside enemy cultural borders (or on the coast of an enemy landmass), , and then make peace, leaving that city surrounded by enemy culture, or have a city that is coming under severe cultural pressure, how will you defend it? If you don't have open borders with them you won't be able to put units around the city, so will it even be worth trying to defend these cities?

 

[Ahriman]

I think it is too difficult to speculate on these points without any meaningful data to go on.

The discussion has focused on tactical aspects because we have played other 1upt games and we can see how the system might change.

The issues you raise, though interesting, depend too much on particular parameter values/mechanics that we don't observe.

The first will depend massively on the general economy, and how much unit production and maintenance costs are relative to economy size.

The second will depend massively on how strong city defenses are.

The third will depend massively on how the culture system works; we don't even know for sure yet whether culture is still attached to cities or not or whether it has shifted entirely to an empire-wide counter.