Opinions about the new movement system

[nzcamel]

Ach, I do not agree that the new system leads to more thoughtful play. Like diplomacy, there's very little return on investment in VI in trying to get around the map, so I just stop trying.

Endless Legend (a game I bring up a lot but actually find boring overall), makes movement fun and complex even though it "gives you a ton of it." You can choose to split fast units out of armies for a few extra moves any given turn, but instantly are at a higher risk of losing high value units. that's thoughtful and doesn't require limiting your footprint on the map of the game that presumably you care about what is happening most places in.

I dunno if bringing up a game you find boring to contrast with a game I find very fun and interesting is a smart comparison to make

And there's no increase in realism from V here.

Why is a wooded hill harder to climb for non-mounted, most relevantly scouts? Have you ever climbed an unforested hill? There's nothing to hold onto. Previous successful trails are hidden. So on some grades, bald hill is harder. Trees are the ladders of hills.

If you have a whole Division of an army with everything that entails (lots of supply wagons etc) moving up a hill through woods they will be slowed down more than if there was no woods. These units do not often represent a few people or even a hundred (scouts aside). They represent thousands to tens of thousands of people.

Why is wooden hill harder to pass for non-mounted than flat woods? It's very easy to get blocked and turned around in any woods. But a big ol hill provides a guide system. Unless we're comparing to really really level, clean woods, which should be just as passable as flat land.

Maybe mounted do need to lose more points heading into woods and rainforest as it can be argued they don't make it through the heavy stuff any faster. Clean woods mostly weren't much of a thing till the modern era.

Why is it so easy for non-mounted to zip through a desert? Have you ever walked through a desert? Constantly it's rocks and cactus patches blocking your way and making you lost. Not to mention what are you even drinking hello it's a desert you died.

"Not to mention what are you even drinking hello it's a desert you died." Lmao, that is good
So penalise another movement point for passing through deserts. Sounds good to me

Why are you going to bed rather than crossing the river. Either cross and go to bed late or wake early and cross. People can cross rivers at night.

These are big rivers rather than tributaries. It should take you all turn to cross without a bridge.

And why are you sitting at the base of the hill with movement left. To make me think? I'd rather not. I'd rather you just started going up the hill. You are my movey around guy if you won't move than you aren't doing your job in the game, so you either you or the game wasn't designed right.

As others have pointed out - no less real than why you could move up a hill and not then back down the other side in V!

An iteration of the VI system that I would find passable (still not truly interesting or realistic, but not too punishing either) is letting units at 1mp end turn on high cost tiles and starting the next turn with -1 mp.

I like it the way it is...but that could be a good compromise. Better than going back to V's take on it imho lol

 

[SaMatra]

I'm okay with new system and like movement requirement to move over hills and rivers but religious units blocking you are annoying as hell, I always declare war if somebody litters my land with them, especially on Deity where AI deploys 20-30 apostles at once and they flood your entire land. I think that your units should have priority on your land so you can move away other civilization units (be it open borders or religious units passing by). Yes, it opens window to possible movement exploits like moving your friend's unit by moving them away during your turn and such but honestly I think its small price for solving much bigger issue.

 

[Rakshasa72]

I was pretty ambivalent about the new system. I wanted to keep an open mind but, now I feel it's pretty clunky and breaks down the game flow. It makes regular melee units almost useless and, range units even more OP then they already are.

 

[GhostSalsa]

These are big rivers rather than tributaries. It should take you all turn to cross without a bridge.



As others have pointed out - no less real than why you could move up a hill and not then back down the other side in V!

No, they are an abstraction of "wet." Some rivers might be hard to cross some might be easy. And droughts happen! And they happen to motivate wars. So there's a dirty old stream for my invisible supply trains. And floods happen! And then getting invisible supply trains two tiles along a flood plain would, by definition, not even work. And so on with the other things. Having been puzzled how to get around on "flat land" on many walks in my life, I argue that if 1 mp represents "averaged out flat land" then nothing else averaged out should be more than 2 mp until you bring horses in the equation.

As for the hill, well, "where" on the hill are you when you occupy that tile. Just the top? The Unit is a cloud of possibility. During an attack The Unit is presumably somewhere on the facing side of the hill. Otherwise who cares. Also, having almost died running or carrying dogs down hills a few times, I can personally vouch that the trip to the bottom can not always be rushed.

 

[GhostSalsa]

Ah oh and one more note on the "realism" tangent, I'm unhappy with the promotion logic for scouts. Why wouldn't they learn how to get through woods and hill faster while they are, you know, constantly going through woods and hills? My scout is climbing hill after hill after hill but not learning anything from it? Then he gets shot by an arrow and earns a promo?? I don't mind other promos from tribes and such I suppose.

 

[nzcamel]

No, they are an abstraction of "wet." Some rivers might be hard to cross some might be easy.

The easy rivers to cross aren't shown on the map; just as many smaller things aren't.
Think of rivers effect on the map (especially in VI) as being influenced by the Frey (Game of Thrones) effect

And droughts happen! And they happen to motivate wars. So there's a dirty old stream for my invisible supply trains. And floods happen! And then getting invisible supply trains two tiles along a flood plain would, by definition, not even work. And so on with the other things. Having been puzzled how to get around on "flat land" on many walks in my life, I argue that if 1 mp represents "averaged out flat land" then nothing else averaged out should be more than 2 mp until you bring horses in the equation.

This is a 4X strategy game, not a simulator. The best way I think that floods and droughts could be reflected in any game this broad, is as IV did with the random events (turnable off naturally for those who don't like them).
Regardless, the movement scale in VI is more realistic than V.

As for the hill, well, "where" on the hill are you when you occupy that tile. Just the top? The Unit is a cloud of possibility. During an attack The Unit is presumably somewhere on the facing side of the hill. Otherwise who cares. Also, having almost died running or carrying dogs down hills a few times, I can personally vouch that the trip to the bottom can not always be rushed.

Once again - strategy game. Not a tactical game (though yes 1UPT does flatter to deceive). If you want a game that deals more in your exact positioning on the hill, then there are plenty of them out there.

Ah oh and one more note on the "realism" tangent, I'm unhappy with the promotion logic for scouts. Why wouldn't they learn how to get through woods and hill faster while they are, you know, constantly going through woods and hills? My scout is climbing hill after hill after hill but not learning anything from it? Then he gets shot by an arrow and earns a promo?? I don't mind other promos from tribes and such I suppose.

Maybe that will be a future addition a bit like eurekas and inspirations coming directly from engaging in an activity. Makes sense.

 

[oedali]

I am OK with the new movement system. In fact I like it more than Civ 5. Especially because as your empire expands, in theory it should become harder to defend because you cannot just connect your cities with a bunch of roads and expect your units to zap around super fast if your border city gets attacked. I like slow movement.

IMO there are far bigger issues that need to be urgently dealth with, such as the brain-dead AI.

 

[GhostSalsa]

This is a 4X strategy game, not a simulator.

Oof, I suppose I should have just let you yourself answer your prior post then:

If you have a whole Division of an army with everything that entails (lots of supply wagons etc) moving up a hill through woods they will beslowed down more than if there was no woods.These units do not often represent a few peopleor even a hundred (scouts aside). They represent thousands to tens of thousands of people.

I brought the realism issue up in the thread. You replied accepting the premise of considering the movement in terms of realism. Then one reply later asked me not to think about it so hard?

Here again is my stance: there is no realism in abstracting the "slowness" of rough tiles and rivers that withstands ignoring the ignoring the slowness of flat tiles. If we justify 3mp tiles with real life, then bald hills should also be 3mp, then flat land should be 2mp, etc. Again, I brought realism in to head off the debate moving there eventually anyway. 3mp tiles for melee is nonsense to me.

Not crossing a river to end a turn with 1mp is nonsense to me. Consider what is being abstracted when a melee unit attacks an enemy across river. The unit is spending some time ("all day" in VI logic) fording the river, then running into some position of the next tile to meat the enemy, then banging about with their sticks for presumably a few hours, then retreating back to the edge of the tile, then fording the river again to reach their original position on the other tile, all in the same turn. Now imagine that if every river is the Mississippi as you suggest we accept…

invisible wagon trains etc cannot be used to defend VI slowness, nor any movement system. They are not realistic. That's what I advocate for: Not accepting melee units wasting movement points as necessitated by realism.

For gameplay everyone seems to be in their preferred camp already anyway. 1 camp is those who like the slowness, the other is those who hate the slowness, and those who are slapping their head that VI added another reason why melee are always a worse investment than ranged. Seems to me the ppl who like going slow could just volunteer to play the game at one tile per turn but whatever…

 

[GIO888]

I agree it was aggravating at first, but like the cartoon graphics I'm surprised how quickly I've got used to it, make allowances for it. its actually quite fun chasing barb scouts all over - maybe I'm in a minority!

Still reckon battleships look like T-Rex heads tho'!

 

[CoolLizy]

I cannot stand the new movement system, personally. It's simply another hassle for no real meaningful benefit. It's also more busywork on the part of the player. Instead of moving a unit then selecting the next, I must now move the unit, and then I have to press the spacebar to tell the unit to wait because they still have movement points left, before I can go on to the next movement. It seems like such a little thing, but it throws the pace of the game off so much. Especially because you don't always have to press the spacebar. Sometimes you can spend all your movement points. Sometimes you can't. And sometimes you miss it and the unit comes back up in the rotation because they have movement points they can't even use but you didn't realize it and didn't tell them to wait. So you've added another meaningless random task just to get your tiny people from point A to point B.

Getting a mass of troops from one part of the map to another was by far the worst and most mind-numbingly boring part of Civilization V. For Civilization VI, they turned it up to eleven and now moving my troops around isn't just a chore, it's homework.

 

[manu-fan]

The thing I like about the new movement system is you can use it to your advantage. Say your unit is next to a hill, and is attacked by another melee unit. All you have to do is move on to the hill, and the other unit can't attack (presuming they were one unit away from the hill). So, although the movement system is a pain sometimes, I just try to use it to my advantage as much as possible.

 

[Acken]

I dont like it. Made already sluggish movements even more of a chore.

 

[heinous_hat]

I really like the new movement rules... in theory. They make movement points more of a scarce commodity, increase the utility of cavalry and recon, and make tactical considerations such as withdrawal and river/hill/forest defense more interesting. In this regard, I think the rules are well intended and well crafted.

But it's a pointless effort if the game fails to present challenging scenarios where you can actually have fun with the new rules. The design, even more so than the previous game, requires competent AI combat operation.

In it's current state, I can see where some folks are irritated by what is effectively a big speed hump. I recommend binding both next action and skip turn to mouse buttons. Along with disabling unit cycling, that keeps things flowing nicely.

 

[kaspergm]

I think the movement rules are mostly ok, but I do agree that you should be able to attack a unit sitting on a hill if you have 1 movement point left, even if you can't actually move onto the hill. Or attack it for reduced damage. But the fact that you can never catch barbarian scouts is really silly.

Also, road need to get much better. As in MUCH better.

 

[MyOtherName]

I cannot stand the new movement system, personally.

Your description makes it sounds like you hate the UI more than you hate the new movement system.

 

[CoolLizy]

Your description makes it sounds like you hate the UI more than you hate the new movement system.

I do not care for the user interface, but improving the interface will not solve my problems with the movement system. You're always going to have leftover movement points for one reason or another, so you're always going to have to communicate to the game that "no, I'm done with this unit for the turn, even though they can still move and even though they're not yet where I want them". It's not a problem you're really going to solve without requiring extra mouse clicks or key presses on the part of the player.

 

[isau]

I wrote a mod (Rocketboots) that just adds +1 Movement to every unit. After playing with it like that, I think the movement system is fine.

Biggest problem with Vanilla is units have so few moves to begin with that rounding down often results in being able to move just one tile. This basically makes forest/jungle tiles road blocks for most units whether the forest/jungle has hills or not. However, when the base moves every unit has is 3 instead of 2, suddenly it matters. You can climb a hill without forest for 2 moves with 1 left, or pass through forest for 2 moves with 1 left, or spend all 3 to climb a forested hill. I really think it's how the core game should work. It makes a huge difference in the gameplay.

The other problem with rounding down in Vanilla is that with most units having just 2 moves to start out, you tend to lose about 50% of moves. But when the base is 3, you tend to lose only about 33%. Actually less than that, because with base 3, you often can often find an extra tile to move into. I can't play the game with the original rules anymore, drives me too crazy. But Rocketboosted it feels "right."

 

[heinous_hat]

I do not care for the user interface, but improving the interface will not solve my problems with the movement system. You're always going to have leftover movement points for one reason or another, so you're always going to have to communicate to the game that "no, I'm done with this unit for the turn, even though they can still move and even though they're not yet where I want them". It's not a problem you're really going to solve without requiring extra mouse clicks or key presses on the part of the player.

This feels like a bug to me, or perhaps simply the UI logic not covering some cases. Normally, if you issue next action after you've spent partial movement points, the focus will cycle to the next unit, or end the turn if there are no more units with full mp. They are effectively in skip turn status, unless you manually select them again and issue a move order.

It definitely fouls up with some frequency, where you have to manually select skip turn. But it is not the norm ,in my experience.

 

[Magil]

I dont like it. Made already sluggish movements even more of a chore.

Simple, and says all that really needs to be said. Couldn't agree more.

 

[RealAntithesis]

I also vote for reverting the movement system back to earlier Civs. The main issue with the new Civ6 method is the common situation of leftover movement points, requiring an explicit action from the player to skip that unit's turn. It's annoying. And doesn't provide much more strategic depth compared to the annoyance of having it in the game. It's often the case that the leftover movement point can be used to travel into a tile (grassland for example) but not the forest or hill the unit was aiming for - so really, the player will not want to move any further and needs to issue the skip turn command. Under the old system, all movement points would have been expended moving towards the forest or hill regardless of whether it was able to make it there or not (and with no further action required by the player).

Civ6 has unfortunately added a lot of new things which overall just add to the micromanagement and busyness of each turn, without much thought going into streamlining the user experience and making it 'fun'.