Opinions on 1upt

[Terxpahseyton]

1 UPT is not realistic and neither is giving bows range but rifles not. I am very curious as to what the reaction will be when someone's gunpowder unit is taken down at range by a ranged unit(s) that is not gunpowder based without it being able to answer. But clearly many people either don't care about that yet or are willing to hold their nose and give the half-baked chicken a try.

During the Napoleonic Age gunpowder based infantry did shoot 20-40 meter in range (don't know how far was actually possible, but much farther than that was very noneffective for sure).
Archers went at lot further.
Archers owning gunpowder based units without them even firing a shot is very realistic. / Archers having ranged attack but not Gunpowder units makes perfect sense.

Not saying that this makes the warfare in Civ5 realistic overall, but that you picked a bad example for illustration.

That said, 1upt is - clearly - vastly superior to SoD. At least if you believe ridiculously dumbed-down strategy to be inferior to fairly complex strategy in the context of warfare.
I would have preferred limited stacks though. Not because of a specific evaluation, just seems nicer, more familiar. But I gladly let Firaxis teach me the merits of no stacks at all.

 

[IdleEnergy]

The problem that I have with that is the realism is removed when cosidering the terrain. The army is utilizing all of the terrain between Rome and Venice. That is a great distance for the spread. That begins to pull me out of the believability of the world and the game.

I gave up on reality after my 400 year siege of Athens in Civ4.

But on a more serious note: the fact that armies fight once every 50 years doesn't really bother me. I assume that there are fights going on, skirmishes, periods of inactivity and I'm only in control of the major offensives.

By the same token, armies taking up more space than they actually would doesn't bother me. I assume that each unit isn't literally JUST that unit. Swordsmen may have some archers, archers may have small units of screening infantry. I'm just controlling the strategic aspect of the major offensives. Since each turn may represent months, years or decades, my generals may be fighting battles all the way from Rome and Venice between my strategic interjections.

 

[Cristoval]

I like 1UPT maybe 2UPT might have been better but any of those are much better than the SoD. Now the game will be more interesting in terms of the new tactics and the game will look better with all the units spread out across the battlefield.

 

[t0mme]

Where's the "1UPT is good for gameplay, realism be damned!" option?

Amen. I demand that option in the poll.

 

[Risen]

The people who do not care for gameplay get no respect.

 

[Jonkenden]

It will take away from the realism aspect and further remove me when I see an entire army covering the entire country of France (probably more due to map size). I would much have prefered limited stacks or a seperate battle or tactical map with 1UPT. Of course, the latter would be quite difficult to implement in a game with the scope of CIV.

Yes this sounds more like an issue with map size versus unit size, or maybe plainly the hexagons are too large along with the units. But I know I can see past that and suspend my beliefs enough to enjoy it, and I'm guessing you can and will too or not bother getting the game.

The one MAJOR gameplay problem with 1 upt is the potential for masive micromanagement hell.

The potential for "micromanagement hell" are pretty slim unless your limit for micromanagment is rather low. They combined the higher costs and the limited resources to limit this, plus in the end it's turn based gameplay.

Taking your time to do it pulls down alot on that kind of stress, multiplayer is another thing OFC. Don't know how that works there, I usually play hotseat and it's no issue with other civ games.

This is absolutely true. And it's unavoidable. It's impossible for someone to correctly argue that 1upt is going to have less micromanagement in large games than the civ4 system did - if they do so, they are just completely wrong.

Furthermore, everything that I've ever seen posted here as a claimed "benefit" of 1upt is not actually a benefit of 1upt, but a positive change elsewhere in the game.

Changing the economic system so that units are more expensive and long-lasting is entirely separate from requiring limits on the number of units in a tile. Introducing ranged bombardment or zones of control - not a benefit of 1upt, and 1upt could actually lead to problems with ranged warfare in the end.

1upt is going to lead to things like massive defensive stalemates, AI incompetence, and annoying pathing situations (I suspect a lot of people simply have no memory or experience of how annoying it was to have unit "blockades" in civIII or other games, and it's going to be worse in civ5 as your own units get in each other's way too)

Less or more micromanagement is hard to tell before we all get to play ourselves, but unless you put your units in larger stacks it quickly becomes alot of things to do. Howewer being turn based again draws that issue down, micromanagement in civ games are more about making decisions with careful thought than it's about stressful world changing decisions made in split seconds.

And you claim OUPT is going to cause massive defensive stalemates, this is no different from stacking system. If not even worse there, where you have almost all the benefits when defending. The only benefit to attacking is when you have siege weapons and want to use them or destroy them using cavalry.

AI incompetence is present whetever it's OUPT or SOD so that isn't likely to change, AI always been covered by it's unfair advantages given to be a challenge.
I doubt we will have many issues with unit movement from our own units, it's been stated when a unit moves that if it moves into a friendly unit they will trade places (Presumed to move aside if it's a cavalry moving into infantry)

The blocking that will still occur is a tactical side effect, as in reality you won't always have the space to move all your warriors to engage. This will make chokepoints and mountain paths much more useful and will improve gameplay and add tactical layers.
Compared to SOD where it didn't matter if that space was just one square, you could still move your entire army there.

 

[Thorburne]

I gave up on reality after my 400 year siege of Athens in Civ4.

But on a more serious note: the fact that armies fight once every 50 years doesn't really bother me. I assume that there are fights going on, skirmishes, periods of inactivity and I'm only in control of the major offensives.

By the same token, armies taking up more space than they actually would doesn't bother me. I assume that each unit isn't literally JUST that unit. Swordsmen may have some archers, archers may have small units of screening infantry. I'm just controlling the strategic aspect of the major offensives. Since each turn may represent months, years or decades, my generals may be fighting battles all the way from Rome and Venice between my strategic interjections.

My point is that the more we have to give up and assume, pretend and such, the less "into the game" I feel. Yes, each unit isn't just one unit, but a number of units. The thing is, they would have to be sizable to fill in the space. And to all just be one unit type? I can leave things to my imagination like time and such... but that is stretching it a bit far.

Yes this sounds more like an issue with map size versus unit size, or maybe plainly the hexagons are too large along with the units. But I know I can see past that and suspend my beliefs enough to enjoy it, and I'm guessing you can and will too or not bother getting the game.

Well, in order for the map 1UPT to work in a more reasonable level, the map would have to be so huge that even the most top-of-the-line computer 5 years from now wouldn't be able to run it. And as I have said, I am already suspending so much belief to enjoy CIV. The more you stack on to that, the less enjoyable it is. There is a limit!

The potential for "micromanagement hell" are pretty slim unless your limit for micromanagment is rather low. They combined the higher costs and the limited resources to limit this, plus in the end it's turn based gameplay.

Taking your time to do it pulls down alot on that kind of stress, multiplayer is another thing OFC. Don't know how that works there, I usually play hotseat and it's no issue with other civ games.

Less or more micromanagement is hard to tell before we all get to play ourselves, but unless you put your units in larger stacks it quickly becomes alot of things to do. Howewer being turn based again draws that issue down, micromanagement in civ games are more about making decisions with careful thought than it's about stressful world changing decisions made in split seconds.

And you claim OUPT is going to cause massive defensive stalemates, this is no different from stacking system. If not even worse there, where you have almost all the benefits when defending. The only benefit to attacking is when you have siege weapons and want to use them or destroy them using cavalry.

AI incompetence is present whetever it's OUPT or SOD so that isn't likely to change, AI always been covered by it's unfair advantages given to be a challenge.
I doubt we will have many issues with unit movement from our own units, it's been stated when a unit moves that if it moves into a friendly unit they will trade places (Presumed to move aside if it's a cavalry moving into infantry)

The blocking that will still occur is a tactical side effect, as in reality you won't always have the space to move all your warriors to engage. This will make chokepoints and mountain paths much more useful and will improve gameplay and add tactical layers.
Compared to SOD where it didn't matter if that space was just one square, you could still move your entire army there.

Unit Micromanagement is not referring to the standard micromanagement that comes with strategy games, but with the fact that you have to move each and every unit one-by-one. As far as I know, there is no function that would allow you to select a group of units, then select a point on the map and they all maticulously march to that spot and form up around it. If there was, I am certain it would have been mentioned and discussed to death.

That said, just wait until the first time when you move your army of, say, 6 or 7 units toward an unprotected enemy city and have to take several turns manipulating them through a checkpoint allowing the enemy to pull units from the other side of their empire and form them up to defend. It WILL happen and people WILL get frustrated... even the 1UPT apologists!

 

[Szpilman]

People tend to get frustrated and call everyone a cheater when they lose, that won't change.

And just as well people are gonna be extremely proud when they cut off an enemy invasion due to strategic placement of defenses.

 

[parabellum9x19]

The people who do not care for gameplay get no respect.

yr kidding right? its a GAME! argh.

 

[Monadenia]

That said, just wait until the first time when you move your army of, say, 6 or 7 units toward an unprotected enemy city and have to take several turns manipulating them through a checkpoint allowing the enemy to pull units from the other side of their empire and form them up to defend. It WILL happen and people WILL get frustrated... even the 1UPT apologists!

Imagine the first time you utilize a chokepoint to help defend a corner of your empire until the rest of your units get there to help defend. Seems like a good reward of tactics to me.

Imagine the second time you rely on a chokepoint to defend a corner of your empire with a limited military presence -- and then your opponent embarks his units along the water and rolls up onto your undefended shores. Seems like a good rewards of tactics to me.

 

[Earthling]

AI incompetence is present whetever it's OUPT or SOD so that isn't likely to change, AI always been covered by it's unfair advantages given to be a challenge.

No, see, this doesn't answer that question at all - it's not really a fair statement. There's a lot of reason to say that 1upt is going to specifically make AI play worse than it would otherwise. It's like that in most other games that have ever had such systems and is a limitation of AI, such as understanding pathing or "kiting," overextending lines, optimal formations and many other things already discussed around here. People with lots of experience as game programmers have stated so, people with lots of experience just playing games often have seen it, and I too would agree unless someone has strong evidence otherwise for civ5. So by going with the 1upt system - again, regardless of things they've implemented that are NOT directly part of 1upt, like making units more expensive or new promotions or whatever, they have introduced mechanics the AI is going to flounder with. The burden of proof to show otherwise is still out there for anyone.

When we consider some specific examples of what we want combat to do, I haven't seen any cases where 1upt is that great - please do share if you think otherwise though. In previous civ games, for instance, it's always been said that naval combat is kind of weak and boring. With 1upt the AI is going to be even worse off in actual combat/bombardment, that's almost certain, and managing naval formations could get quite annoying for the player as well. So far the answer on carriers, submarines, etc... doesn't sound like they are going to be any more clearcut or useful than in the past - one plane/carrier for instance is probably going to be silly. So there's no reason to suspect things actually got better with the new combat system. Again, it's great if they actually put more variety of units in the game with different roles and so on - but the tile-based part of that where you have to move all your ships to individual tiles, wouldn't seem to add to the game.

What I suspect is the game has been made much more defensive and static on the whole in combat, and the AI will be marginally all right at just sitting in fortified positions. But this is a consequence of 1upt - an increased focus on tactical situations is going to hurt the AI, which in turn could have annoying effects on the rest of the gameplay. I'd rather not have another game where the AI gets massive bonuses elsewhere to make up for major human advantages in warfare (so that you basically HAVE to engage in warfare all the time to balance things out, or play cakewalk difficulty levels)

 

[Me,myself,and,I]

Play commander Europe at war the hard AI is perfectly competent at 1UPT. I can't say the same for the easy AI, the fact that the French didn't fall back while my Panzers hit Paris, still bothers me.

 

[Earthling]

I admit I am not familiar with the game, but that does not sound like a really effective anecdotal argument at all. Also, a question - is the AI in that game specifically designed to use different strategies at different difficulties, so not understanding how to retreat is explicitly expected on easy or something? Otherwise, it sounds like we're just looking at AI as in a lot of games that will give the AI large bonuses in numbers, strength or experience of troops, or whatever at a higher difficulty- this could provide a challenge to the player, but does not mean the AI is competent, and it's the type of thing that I think almost everyone would agree we're looking to avoid in civ5

And that's still not much of a start towards convincing evidence that the AI in civ5 will be up to handling everything - in particular moving units effective at the scale of the game and dealing with things like changing composition and stats of units as the game goes on, for instance.

 

[PawelS]

Also, a question - is the AI in that game specifically designed to use different strategies at different difficulties, so not understanding how to retreat is explicitly expected on easy or something? Otherwise, it sounds like we're just looking at AI as in a lot of games that will give the AI large bonuses in numbers, strength or experience of troops, or whatever at a higher difficulty- this could provide a challenge to the player, but does not mean the AI is competent, and it's the type of thing that I think almost everyone would agree we're looking to avoid in civ5

I don't care if the AI is smarter or gets bonuses, as long as it's challenging.

 

[revengeofmakno]

Archers owning gunpowder based units without them even firing a shot is very realistic. / Archers having ranged attack but not Gunpowder units makes perfect sense.

Thanks for the laugh! If that was the case, archery would not have given way to gunpowder as an infantry weapon starting in the 1400s. I suggest you do some serious research on the subject of what actually happened on the battlefield (not some romanticized ideas). For example, the Janissaries who had started out as top notch archers adopted firearms as early as the mid 1400s (as did the very effective Hungarian Black Army). Gee, I wonder why they did that?? Those troops owned their archery armed opponents and were feared by them and set the example for what was to come.

Gunpowder took over from archery as an infantry weapon for very good reasons. If it hadn't been substantially more effective, the problems such as slow rate of fire, and the complex industrial and resource extraction support needed for gunpowder would have seen it on the sidelines until after rifling. It wasn't easy to adopt infantry firearms and it cost a fortune but people did it knowing it would give them an edge.

But beyond all that, this system has archers outranging rifled weapons. Give me a break!

 

[Earthling]

I don't care if the AI is smarter or gets bonuses, as long as it's challenging.

Well, I think a lot of other people do care, and I don't think that's the majority sentiment on this thread or anywhere. I am pretty confident that a large number of players would hate it to no end if the AI got too many bonuses, especially in warfare. If the AI doesn't have warfare bonuses but has massive economic bonuses to keep up in numbers or whatever, then we've got another problem as already mentioned. There are already enough complaints in civ4, where the AI doesn't really cheat at all in, say, combat odds, and if it actually did cheesed-off players would be much worse. If the answer is to give the AI cheats on experience or combat odds (though, from what we know, it looks like it goes the other way and combat odds have been obscured and made silly on the human side), or fog of war or whatever, then there's an indication that there is already a problem with the system.

So to back up and look at the overall picture - with 1upt I would still contend they have made a system that is going to be specifically harder for the AI to be "smart" at. If this ends up causing problems in just enjoying gameplay, or leads to other really annoying ideas that attempt to "balance" it it's a failing of the 1upt system.

 

[PawelS]

I agree that the AI shouldn't get bonuses on combat odds, it would look strange when two identical units face one another and have much different chances to win.

But bonuses to AI production, research, gold, population growth etc. are acceptable for me.

 

[Me,myself,and,I]

The AI does get smarter on higher difficulties ie the French actually retreat. To be honest I have yet to beat hard as the axis.

 

[SalmonSoil]

I am so tired of explaining this.
Your 1upt battles represent a zoomed-in image of the battlefield, perhaps the most important battle of that part of the war. The are consumed by the battle is the area consumed by the war. Also now there is no ridiculous defender advantage and we can actually use tactics, both big boons to realism.
Now, as you progress through the ages the same amount of tiles represent larger battlefields, the assumption being that
A: Archers will rarely battle Rifleman, and Rifleman will rarely battle Rocket Artillery so such ranged unit discrepencies will not be noticed.
B: The first gunpowder weapons have much smaller range than crossbows /longbows, so having no range on them is reasonable.
C: Archers are weak enough that their ranged advantage over rifleman is useless, especially seeing as you could and should be using cannons.
D: Guns do not fire over things like arrows do, you cannot fire your guns from behind your own pikemen.

 

[Thorburne]

I am so tired of explaining this.
Your 1upt battles represent a zoomed-in image of the battlefield, perhaps the most important battle of that part of the war. The are consumed by the battle is the area consumed by the war. Also now there is no ridiculous defender advantage and we can actually use tactics, both big boons to realism.
Now, as you progress through the ages the same amount of tiles represent larger battlefields, the assumption being that
A: Archers will rarely battle Rifleman, and Rifleman will rarely battle Rocket Artillery so such ranged unit discrepencies will not be noticed.
B: The first gunpowder weapons have much smaller range than crossbows /longbows, so having no range on them is reasonable.
C: Archers are weak enough that their ranged advantage over rifleman is useless, especially seeing as you could and should be using cannons.
D: Guns do not fire over things like arrows do, you cannot fire your guns from behind your own pikemen.

Wow! That is really a far-fetched way of rationalizing 1UPT. The thing is, it is not "zoomed-in". Unlike other things where I can view them as representations, 1UPT stretches the limits of believability like a rubber band to the point of snapping. If you are taking Paris, the opponent has his units in the area surrounding Paris which would stretch from the English Channel to the French Alps (only a handfull of units, mind you). The opponent is coming in from Germany with an equal amount of units again stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Alps. This is totally rediculous! There is nothing "Zoomed-in" about it! If you want to Zoom-in, a Battle Map would be the way to go.