One Unit per Tile Debate

[Howitzer]

By realistic I ment on tactical approach obviously not on distance..nothing is realistic on any civ game in terms of distance, otherwise territories like the British island or the Balkan peninsula would not be unsetllable with just 5-6 or 3 cities respectably..Either way I do agree that 1UPT has to have exceptions to be playable. But tacticaly speaking, it's on the right track. It just kills mass unit movement imho, and civilian unit movement without good excuse... I would expect the devs to allow unit movement to be even is stacking and civilian units in stacks and only when fighting 1upt..i no this wont be easy to apply for sure, but hey I'm not getting paid enough to give them the sollution

 

[Nick Carpathia]

That's actually a very good analysis, and kudos to him for looking at it from a pretty objective standpoint. It's definitely promising for At the Gates that he sees both the benefits and the flaws of the design of Civ5. There isn't a single major issue I have with Civ5 that isn't addressed there, including the two major ones of the tactical instead of strategic focus (which includes 1 UPT), and the "insurmountable wall to be frustrated by" of the expansion penalties. So, I do plan to check out At the Gates when it becomes available, since it sounds like it really will be a new game.



Huh. It kind of makes you wonder what the future holds for third-party fansites. I had noticed that Civ4 and Civ5 are neck-and-neck in terms of traffic at CFC in the past year or so, but it sounds like a Civ5 exodus to Steam may be more responsible for that than I'd realized.

The most interesting thing is that Trip's post was more or less a response to Sullla's article that criticised his game. Trip mostly agreed with all of Sullla's criticisms, so it basically annoys the hell out of me when people dismiss Sullla's article out-of-hand. I think the fundamental flaw was that Civ5 was far too married to some of their design elements, especially some of the changes that were enormous changes from the previous Civ series. Like global happiness or city states, or even the strict 1upt system.

Trip and Sullla actually have a long history on these very CFC boards, back in the Civ3 days. Sullla went and was one of the lead testers of Civ4, while Trip went and designed Civ5.

 

[Gucumatz]

I don't play as much civ as I used to, but when I do its nearly always multiplayer. I used to play frequently in NQ here on Civ 5 and in multi in Civ 4. 1 UPT is incredibly fun for strategic thought and combat, personally loved it. I have always hated the end game and I feel in multiplayer this is exacerbated, when an intelligent player can travel over distances/terrain rendering 1UPT useless with incredible range paratroopers, missiles, etc.

It gets to the point where in NQ I ask to vote ahead of time against the use of stuff like X-Coms and nukes to keep strategic thought in the game. Not that Civ 4 was better of course, Civ 5 is the best in the series when it comes to combat ideas - but like anything, it could be better. Recently I have been thinking that the more modern the time grows, that armies should stack up and be harder to kill than they are - ensuring that despite stronger units/range, that terrain still acts as a vital factor in more modern eras.

Civ 4 combat was always overly simplistic and AI terrible. Not that Civ 5 AI of course is better. But when playing vs. humans, you saw the massive limitations that Civ 4 had. Civ 5 was a game meant to be played player vs. player - not AI vs human

 

[beetle]

The most interesting thing is that Trip's post was more or less a response to Sullla's article that criticised his game. Trip mostly agreed with all of Sullla's criticisms, so it basically annoys the hell out of me when people dismiss Sullla's article out-of-hand.

Maybe I am too critical, but I found Trip’s post to be blatantly self-serving. I don’t feel like he took any responsibility for the problems, nor does he address how he thinks they can be fixed. Maybe he does not want to give away trade secrets or something, but it did not give me much confidence about BatG being much better.

 

[Robbedem]

While I certainly don't like the Stack of Doom from Civ 4, I don't think one unit per tile is the best answer. I would have prefered as many units per tile as you want, but all units get damaged in an attack. (making it a very bad idea to put all your units on one tile )
For example:
stack of 3: pikeman + musketman + crossbowman on a plain tile get attacked by a knight.
result: best unit defends (which will in this case be the pikeman) => pikeman receives 25 damage => all units on that tile receive 25 damage. The pikeman sort of protected the crossbowman and musketman from more damage.

In case of attacking/defending cities, the city will most likely act like the strongest 'unit'.
This would solve the problem of SoD's and still allow big fights between armies.

I really do like the idea that units don't have to completely die in a fight like they do in Civ 4.

 

[Atreju]

By realistic I ment on tactical approach obviously not on distance..nothing is realistic on any civ game in terms of distance, otherwise territories like the British island or the Balkan peninsula would not be unsetllable with just 5-6 or 3 cities respectably..Either way I do agree that 1UPT has to have exceptions to be playable. But tacticaly speaking, it's on the right track. It just kills mass unit movement imho, and civilian unit movement without good excuse... I would expect the devs to allow unit movement to be even is stacking and civilian units in stacks and only when fighting 1upt..i no this wont be easy to apply for sure, but hey I'm not getting paid enough to give them the sollution

That the territories of the British island or the Balkan peninsula are not realistic is only because of the edited maps where you have seen that.It's no argument for civ games being not realistic in terms of distance.The tactics in civ IV are realistic as well, if not , even more realistic than the ones in civ V even if you want to forget that a battlefield in civ V has a circle of plots with a radius of 2 or 3 tiles instead only 1 tile that is being attacked.

 

[Atreju]

In civ I and II stacks were destroyed if it gets attacked and the best defender of the stack loses(exception in cities and forts).To reintroduce that would maybe fit as well but the units have fought until one of the units was dead while in civ V both can survive a battle.

 

[Modus Pwnens]

Civ II/SMAC rules for stacking would solve the "Stack of DOOM" problem, allow congestion-free movement out of battle, and still make spreading out to 1upt tactically relevant.

Of course the Civ II stacking rules need to be adjusted for units not fighting to the death in a single battle anymore, but there are several ways this could be done with increasing penalty to the stack.

0. Units in the stack fight battles individually, best defender each time, with no penalties if a defender is destroyed. The Civ IV system we hate that spawned the SOD.

1. Strongest defender fights each time, and if it dies, the whole stack is destroyed. Stacks are pretty strong, since a full-health unit would almost never die in a single battle, so to destroy a stack would need to fight each unit in the stack multiple times.

2. Strongest defender fights each time, and all units in the stack take a certain amount of collateral damage. Basically all units have the effect of the "Collateral damage" promotions in Civ IV when attacking a stack. This simulates the SMAC system.

3. Strongest defender fights each time, and all units in the stack take the same damage it takes in the battle. This is pretty strongly discouraging stacked combat, since it reduces the entire stack of N units to the defensive strength of the single best defender. I feel this best captures the feel of Civ II stack combat.

Using this {3} system, units could stack up when moving in peacetime and not have the traffic jams of 1UPT, but since there is a simple and intuitive combat penalty (lets stay away from arbitrary percentages of collateral damage or percent strength reductions), players have the incentive to spread out units for battle.

I feel this captures the tactical feel of marching in column for movement, but forming line for battle. This is also not a hard problem for the AI to solve. Also, stacking units in cities and forts negated the penalties, which would make cities easier to defend without bumping up the city strength so drastically as in CiV.

Another issue that popped up in Civ IV is how the player could outmaneuver the AI and take a SOD deep into enemy territory and strike at their capital. We also can learn much from the venerable Civ II in this case as well:

Civ II ZOC rules enabled a realistic border defense, and a very strong chokepoint defense. A unit could not move from one tile adjacent to an enemy unit to another adjacent tile.

 

[Babri]

1UPT makes it tedious to move armies over large distances but otherwise it is a much better system for tactical combat than SoDs.

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[Atreju]

Civ II ZOC rules enabled a realistic border defense, and a very strong chokepoint defense. A unit could not move from one tile adjacent to an enemy unit to another adjacent tile.

But for planned attacks with bigger stacks to go behind lines you just take a diplomat/spy/fighter/bomber that ignore that rule and afterwards move your stack.

 

[Atreju]

1UPT makes it tedious to move armies over large distances but otherwise it is a much better system for tactical combat than SoDs.

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Actually the problem is that if you for example order a unit to move to plot x and the unit needs 8turns to get there.In 2 two turns the same units asks you for orders again only because ATM plot x is already full.Instead of going infront of plot x and then asking for new orders.That's a big problem and I always don't remember where wich unit had to go...
Also in multiplayer every unit that was ordered to go somewhere always makes it's moves AFTER you pressed end turn.In every other civ game they move BEFORE end turn is available what is better because then you still have time to correct moves while in civ V you cannot correct moves and units that you really needed to walk somewhere just didn't walk.

 

[Modus Pwnens]

But for planned attacks with bigger stacks to go behind lines you just take a diplomat/spy/fighter/bomber that ignore that rule and afterwards move your stack.

That's if you exploit the mechanics, which is rendered moot by the modern Civ 'mission' design for air units. There are no agents or planes on the map. Also the newer rules of ignoring road/rail movement bonuses in enemy territory would help.

I'm not saying use all the old rules, but that some mechanics (ZoC, damaging all units in stack) are good for solving the issues at hand. Using the enemy's rail system to instantly move across his empire taking multiple cities a turn was silly.

Still, had the designers of Civ II wanted to fix the loophole in ZoC, they could have fixed it with a couple of if statements to allow for ignoring ZoC only for moving military units into a tile occupied by a friendly military ground unit.

 

[Nick Carpathia]

Maybe I am too critical, but I found Trip’s post to be blatantly self-serving. I don’t feel like he took any responsibility for the problems, nor does he address how he thinks they can be fixed. Maybe he does not want to give away trade secrets or something, but it did not give me much confidence about BatG being much better.

He goes into alot of detail on how he intends to change from Civ5 to older 4X design. And he can't take too much responsibility, he was trying to convince people to kickstart him money .

I haven't sent him anything (I got burnt the first time), but I'm still keeping an eye out.

 

[Mustakrakish]

I really want to find out who here like the one unit per turn over the stacking mechanic. I'm asking in the Civ V forum because the people in Civ V are going to less biased than the Civ IV since most 1upt hate is here. I personally think the 1upt is the best thing since sliced bread. It just lets you have an enormous army span over a huge area. They also redid the fighting and resource mechanic amazingly. That's just my opinion though. Please place your own opinions. Thank you and vote safely

"I'm asking in the Civ IV forum because the people in Civ IV are going to less biased than the Civ V since most stacking hate is here."

 

[Kid R]

The OP seems to see this in black and white, but I would have voted "something in between" if the option had been on the poll.

Anyway I'd like to start a push to change the terminology here. "Stacking" is too divisive - I think we should refer to it as "tile sharing"

 

[beetle]

He goes into alot of detail on how he intends to change from Civ5 to older 4X design.

I probably should re-read the article, but I don’t much detail at all, and going back to older design is obviously not innovative. I like that the designers try new things, I just wish they play tested more.

And he can't take too much responsibility, he was trying to convince people to kickstart him money.

Fair point, but he could have written about how they will avoid similar mistakes, or how he was against it, or what he learned and would do differently. I am even okay with new and different oversight. I did not give him money, mostly since he just seems to be in denial regarding his own culpability.

 

[blackchimes]

I would replace One Unit Per Tile with One Army Per Tile. Which is kind of like limited stacking with a cherry on top.

Army would have 3 slots you can put units into. Strength of the army and any special abilities it gets depend on the units.

For example, putting a ranged unit into the Army gives it the First Strike ability - when you attack, the ranged unit in your Army gets an extra attack before the Army combat roll. Similarly when you are attacked, the ranged unit in your army gets a free attack before the Army combat roll.
Putting Spearmen, etc. in the Army gives your Army a bonus vs. mounted.
Mounted units in your Army ignore First Strike and Army composed entirely of mounted units moves faster(normally the speed of the Army is the speed of its slowest unit).

Other than the special abilities, Armies work just like units - their strength is a sum of strengths of the units in the Army, and they take damage as a whole(all units in the Army get damaged).

 

[Noble Zarkon]

going back to older design is obviously not innovative.

Maybe not but given the long history of Civ and how many problems had been solved by the time of Civ IV throwing out that collective wisdom and knowledge was crazy. By all means try new innovative things but do so with knowledge of how you got here! There are many innovative things going on in the world of medicine but no one thinks "Let's try leeches, that's a really great idea"!!

 

[beetle]

Maybe not but given the long history of Civ and how many problems had been solved by the time of Civ IV throwing out that collective wisdom and knowledge was crazy.

I think you mean V (not IV) there, but I would guess that Faraxis feels pressure to demonstrate significant upgrades with each iteration. What piece of collective wisdom do you think they have disregarded? My chief complaint is that they have, for the third time now, (1) released a product with insufficient play testing, and (2) there are still features from SMAC/X that we have not seen in III/IV/V. The breaks from tradition from III to IV to V have all been good innovations IMHO.

By all means try new innovative things but do so with knowledge of how you got here! There are many innovative things going on in the world of medicine but no one thinks "Let's try leeches, that's a really great idea"!!

Your analogy fails on a couple levels, not the least of which is that leeches were state of the art at one point. Your argument can understood as you saying that you think the world medicine should not have abandon leeches!

 

[CaterpillarKing]

"I'm asking in the Civ IV forum because the people in Civ IV are going to less biased than the Civ V since most stacking hate is here."

Well if I asked in either forum there would be obvious bias, but I figured there would be less bias here since the thing a lot of people hate about Civ V is the stacking.

Also, I'm not asking how to change it, just which one is best to you, or least worst.


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