Opinions on 1upt

[krunsh]

Good for gameplay, bad for realism... And I'm very happy with it.

With the scale of the map, it does not make any sense that an army would be seperated in such a way, that archer would fire over a whole city, ect. In fact, everything is wrong about war in Civ 5.

But it look like a lot of fun and it's realy just a representation of the whole thing, otherwise it would have to load a different screen on a smaller scale to fight like total war does and that would not be fun.

So yeah, not realistic. But one of the best thing that happened in Civ (as far as I can tell before trying it myself.).

 

[chris1317]

you can carry 3 Atomic Bombs, 3 Bombers, 3 Fighters / Jet Fighters or any mix thereof on a carrier. i think you can stack air units over land / sea.....possibly up to 3 air units over 1 land/sea. either way, people are flying off the handle with incomplete information and making stupid assumptions.

Thanks for letting me know. I didnt realise that was possible. Allthough it does bring in to question the 1UPT thing. How come we can have 3 units on a boat but we cant on a large piece of land. Doesnt make much sense to me.

I guess we wont know how it really works until the game is out, for the time being all we can do is make assumptions. Not long to go now.

 

[revengeofmakno]

@Sill

You are so far into your illusions that you seem to be incapable of producing a honest argument.

On one hand, you quote maximum physical ranges (but not effective battlefield range) of archery and then you juxtapose that against the preferred and most effective firing range of musketry (not its physical maximum). That is dishonest. You then go on to make some other sweeping generalizations that are likewise misleading. If that is your approach there is no point in discussing anything with you.

You want to attribute archery's decline solely to training time despite it's theoretical advantages (which you exaggerate while not mentioning gunpowder's important battlefield advantages) but the historical record does not indicate that such theoretical advantages translated into more effective battlefield performance, quite the opposite in fact.

The overwhelming fact which you are avoiding is that when firearms faced competent archers in the 1400s, the firearms were winning the battles and people had no choice but to learn from that and embark on the very expensive and complicated process of transforming how they trained and equipped their armies. That transformation which also had a profound and disrupting effect on how governments themselves were organized and financed was not the "cheap bug" you want to reduce it to.

Your statement that archery is somehow more expensive based on one variable, i.e. time required for end-user training is extremely weak. People who had existing armies of good archers and a tradition and a society geared to training them were not going to make that transition if they were winning their battles against firearms with it. But they did so as much as they could (not everyone had the means) and that speaks volumes over any theoretical argument we choose to have.

Finally, while we can argue forever as long as we want, it still doesn't change the fact that this game system has archers (and catapults) outranging even rifled infantry weapons and firing at ranges which amount to many kilometres which is obviously absurd.

 

[PawelS]

Thanks for letting me know. I didnt realise that was possible. Allthough it does bring in to question the 1UPT thing. How come we can have 3 units on a boat but we cant on a large piece of land. Doesnt make much sense to me.

I guess we wont know how it really works until the game is out, for the time being all we can do is make assumptions. Not long to go now.

Air units (including missiles) are a different kind of units, so more than one can be stored on one hex (not only on boats, but in cities too, I suppose). Land & naval military units are always limited to one per hex (except temporarily in a city*).

*"A city may have both a unit garrisoned and another unit occupying the city tile (if, for example a new unit was produced by the city), though the additional unit must vacate the city by the end of the turn." - a quote from the Civ5 Analyst site

 

[Lyoncet]

OK, let's lay this out again. In terms of Civ gameplay:

Ranged units = overhead bombardment.

Muskets/Rifles ≠ overhead bombardment.

It's as simple as that. They could have introduced an ability for gunpowder that worked like "can fire at a range but only if there's nobody in your way," but that would be confusing and pointless.

Good for gameplay. Good for realism outside very particular scenarios. I fail to see the problem.

 

[parabellum9x19]

in addition, in real life, many indirect-fire assets can be used in a direct fire role and vise-versa. look at WWI with 1000 meter rifle volleys fired by a company-sized element (or larger). look at the German 88mm, in WWII, which was used in both direct and indirect fire missions. yes, arrows can be direct fire...they can also be used en-masse, fired at high angles to achieve indirect fire. i fail to see a significant issue.

 

[Jonkenden]

Well, if you don't care at all about reality, then maybe CIV isn't for you. After all, there are plenty of other games out there that don't have any basis in reality at all. By your arguement, CIV would be better if they just stripped every aspect of reality away and made it so that the game consisted of nothing but fairies, and instead of waging war, you wage big parties and the A-Bomb sprouts not a mushroom cloud, but a giant mushroom that everybody dances around.

Suspension of beleif has it LIMITS!

way to overreact and missunderstand my arguments and intentions, but doesn't seem we are really understanding eachother at all.

You obviously didn't understand what I was saying... I did not say to bring the whole army to an attack. I was giving a rough estimate of how many total one could potentially have in a game. I stated that a standard attack force would likely be about 6 - 7 (give or take). I said nothing about taking the whole army to attack a single city.

If you are putting your entire force into a military engagement, then that indicates a point of desperation... unless you are one of those who completely disbands your entire army during times of peace. If that is the case, do you ever win?

Yet it seemed like you where arguing this as part of the game being microintensive, so if you aren't even using the rest of the units why even bring them up in the discussion. They would just be sitting around in sleep or sentry mode and not even demand attention.

Anyways I'm not interested in flame wars and snides so i'm going to say thanks for some interesting debating, sorry if I came off as mean or if I somehow insulted you without knowing. Truly not my intention.

 

[Thorburne]

Yet it seemed like you where arguing this as part of the game being microintensive, so if you aren't even using the rest of the units why even bring them up in the discussion. They would just be sitting around in sleep or sentry mode and not even demand attention.

Anyways I'm not interested in flame wars and snides so i'm going to say thanks for some interesting debating, sorry if I came off as mean or if I somehow insulted you without knowing. Truly not my intention.

So, the rest of your units are going to be standing idly by while you wage war on a front? Your not going to be doing anything else while you wage war on another... no exploring, defending, etc? What about multi-front wars? That is the point I am trying to get across... there will be an abundant number of units, each of which you will have to commit actions to individually. Sure, some may be garrisoned, some may be fortified, some may be marching a great distance, but not all. And depending on the situation, I am sure that you will find plenty of times when you are managing a good majority of your force at a single time.

 

[Darth Caesar]

It's mostly good for gameplay but it is the other extreme when it come to realism.

 

[revengeofmakno]

If firearms "owned" archers, then why were both longbows and crossbows used as late as start of the 16th century? It wasn't because firearms were more expensive since the loading mechanisms for crossbows were more expensive than handcannons. However both firearms and crossbows were also used by armies who had longbowmen. One of either firearms, longbows or crossbows is most likely a little more effective than the others (though it's highly controversial which one is better),
but none of them "owned" the others. Assault rifles own swords and breechloaders own handcannons, but it's highly unlikely for weapons completely "own" another weapon from the same time.

The lingering of archery despite its being outclassed by firearms as a battlefield weapon is explained by a number of factors, (and actually, archery was around in many places well after the start of the 16th century).

1) Although firearms became the preferred weapon, many societies did not have the means to adopt them on anything like a wide basis. It was a long process to get the money, infrastructure and specialists to produce or acquire them in numbers and then also get a consistent supply of powder and shot. Even the Ottomans who had lots of resources could only consistently equip the Janissaries with them for a long time. But note how the incredibly effective and feared the Janissaries were!

2) Traditions. People were used to archery. The knowledge of archery was everywhere, there was a huge inventory of archery weapons around, and there were established systems, even whole societies such as those employing horse archery, Tartars, Mongols, etc. build around it. That just can't change fast. Furthermore, communication and education were not as developed or as widespread as now. Change took time, especially then (even when there was a big motivation for it) and no one was just going to throw away an inventory of weapons. But clearly those in a position to adopt firearms did so as quickly as they were able to.

2a) The implications of gunpowder were felt not only on the battlefield. Adopting gunpowder meant that certain industries, professions and social classes were expanded and increased in importance. More money had to be raised and in different ways, etc. There was resistance to those changes from those who would not benefit or would lose importance. It was a doomed resistance but it was there.

3) There were circumstances in which using firearms was problematic. For example, using match-locks on horseback. Firearms were not used widely and effectively from horseback until the development of the wheel-lock in the early 1500s. The wheel-lock quickly became a very high demand item but it was complex and costly to produce, certainly more difficult to produce than a crossbow.
Match-locks also had problems in the rain or other damp conditions such as at sea. Those could not be heavily reduced until the flintlock came around.

 

[Sinapus]

I chose limited units per turn because I believe they're going a bit too far in the opposite direction to get rid of the dreaded Stacks'O'Doom. I put in an idea some time ago suggesting things like techs, wonders, some buildings, etc. giving a civ the ability to put more than one combat unit per tile so maybe you get 2 at one point, 3 later, and a bit higher as you go. Maybe a "National Training Center" national wonder or similar?

It might prevent things like replicating the Normandy invasion, where England was pretty much covered with British, Canadian, American, and other allied military units in the buildup before the ships sailed across the Channel. Though to be "realistic" there might need to be a "storage" mode or something that lets you pack more units in on a tile at the cost of being less combat effective.

Hopefully the modders can get something like that working. Depends on how the base game actually handles combat with multiple units per tile.

 

[remconius]

My concern in this 1upt area is how it will be if one nation is a lot stronger.

For example, In civ 4 your stack would be 20 units against an enemy of 10 units, meaning you are taking advantage of your production power and produced more than the enemy.

If this was the case in civ5, but the terrain would only house 10 units, it would 10 against 10... You would only have benefits from replacing units. It does become a bit more like chess, which is good in strategic terms.

 

[SalmonSoil]

Well, if you don't care at all about reality, then maybe CIV isn't for you. After all, there are plenty of other games out there that don't have any basis in reality at all. By your arguement, CIV would be better if they just stripped every aspect of reality away and made it so that the game consisted of nothing but fairies, and instead of waging war, you wage big parties and the A-Bomb sprouts not a mushroom cloud, but a giant mushroom that everybody dances around.

Suspension of beleif has it LIMITS!

The problem is this is more than just sacrificing realism for gameplay, this is swapping different kinds of realism. Take the examples the guys said before, with cavalry always targetting pikes in SOD, and archers shooting over lakes. I have found a way to rationalise the 'flaws' in 1upt, I have not found a way to rationalise the 'flaws' in SoD.

 

[Hawkwood]

The lingering of archery despite its being outclassed by firearms as a battlefield weapon is explained by a number of factors, (and actually, archery was around in many places well after the start of the 16th century).
1) Although firearms became the preferred weapon, many societies did not have the means to adopt them on anything like a wide basis. It was a long process to get the money, infrastructure and specialists to produce or acquire them in numbers and then also get a consistent supply of powder and shot. Even the Ottomans who had lots of resources could only consistently equip the Janissaries with them for a long time. But note how the incredibly effective and feared the Janissaries were!

The how come the Hussites could? Peasant rebels with minor noble leadership could attain rare and uncommon weapons in greater numbers than empires?

2) Traditions. People were used to archery. The knowledge of archery was everywhere, there was a huge inventory of archery weapons around, and there were established systems, even whole societies such as those employing horse archery, Tartars, Mongols, etc. build around it. That just can't change fast. Furthermore, communication and education were not as developed or as widespread as now. Change took time, especially then (even when there was a big motivation for it) and no one was just going to throw away an inventory of weapons. But clearly those in a position to adopt firearms did so as quickly as they were able to.

Remember, the late middle ages was a time were the very nature of warfare and how raise armies were undergoing significant reforms, how come something even more ingrained in society than weapons could be changed, while weapons could not? Not to mention the fact that the arabs didn't have any problems going from an army with composite bows as the main ranged weapon, to one where the later european crossbows where more important.

Also, how can an inferior weapon be more effective? Early handguns were less powerful than strong crossbows, less accurate than both crossbows and longbows and took as long to reload as crossbows, with longbows being much faster. According to what we know of medieval handguns, they were less effective. In fact some has speculated that contrary to what we know, they weren't much worse than crossbows and longbows, since experienced veterans chose to carry them into battle.

My concern in this 1upt area is how it will be if one nation is a lot stronger.

For example, In civ 4 your stack would be 20 units against an enemy of 10 units, meaning you are taking advantage of your production power and produced more than the enemy.

If this was the case in civ5, but the terrain would only house 10 units, it would 10 against 10... You would only have benefits from replacing units. It does become a bit more like chess, which is good in strategic terms.

Isn't exactly what happened at Thermopylae?

 

[remconius]

Cool that Thermopylae, so realism is increased

And I think your larger number of backups should help to win in the end.

I think warfaring will really be more like a chess game. Even sending units around to attack from the side or rear can be a really powerful tactic. It's like a real battlefield

 

[Me,myself,and,I]

I think in the ancient era it should be based on how many people you can feed off that tile, basically within the radius of your cites you can stack a number of troops based on the food the city(es) that the unit is in the radius of, outside of that you're limited by the terrain.

In the classical era it should be the same, except, that an empire's cites can feed the troops from a distance, to a small degree, and only out to a certain distance (lengthened by roads and sea routes.

In the mediaeval era it should be the same as the classical.

In the renaissance there should be a greater ability to project over seas.

In the industrial era though, things change, logistics change, now your empire is capable of projecting enough food to feed it's troops anywhere in the world, but now there is an enforced staking limit of only a few units per tile, and by the WWII area it becomes 1upt.

This represents the increased operational area of combat units throughout history, and the logistical problems problem faced in different eras.

I probably articulated my idea horribly, I'm not good at this yet.

 

[Thorburne]

The problem is this is more than just sacrificing realism for gameplay, this is swapping different kinds of realism. Take the examples the guys said before, with cavalry always targetting pikes in SOD, and archers shooting over lakes. I have found a way to rationalise the 'flaws' in 1upt, I have not found a way to rationalise the 'flaws' in SoD.

So, you can rationalize that archers can shoot their arrows for miles and miles, but you can't see that a Stack represents an army of units? I guess if that gets you through the night...

I think warfaring will really be more like a chess game. Even sending units around to attack from the side or rear can be a really powerful tactic. It's like a real battlefield

Sure, if the battlefield was the entire country of France... or the eastern seaboard of the USA...

 

[PawelS]

So, you can rationalize that archers can shoot their arrows for miles and miles, but you can't see that a Stack represents an army of units? I guess if that gets you through the night...

Sure, if the battlefield was the entire country of France... or the eastern seaboard of the USA...

The only abstraction is the scale. One unit represents a part of an army that would fit on one hex, but of course the hex is much too big to represent a realistic size of battle. Everything else is pretty realistic - the battle looks much like a real battle, of course with the exception of scale.

With stacking the unrealistic element is that the passage size doesn't matter - you can move any amount of units even through a very narrow passage.

 

[mjs0]

Actually, for me, the most unrealistic thing about SoDs was the best defender mechanic.
No matter what unit you attacked with somehow the absolute best defender for facing that attacker was magically positioned to face the attack. Even if, once the stack was heavily damaged it was a catapult that had the strongest defense then that catapult leapt to the front and defended in front of all the damaged melee units.
This crazy constant rearranging of the order of battle was extremely unrealistic and totally broke any sense of immersion I could build up.

 

[SalmonSoil]

So, you can rationalize that archers can shoot their arrows for miles and miles, but you can't see that a Stack represents an army of units? I guess if that gets you through the night...

The realism flaws with SoD arn't to do with scale, they're to do with the best defender mechanic, suicide catapults and the fact that every single battle takes place in cities. Also, the single biggest flaw being that tactics arn't represented at all.