Opinions on 1upt

Opinion on 1upt?

  • 1upt is good for gameplay, good for realism.

    Votes: 196 66.2%
  • 1upt is good for gameplay, bad for realism.

    Votes: 45 15.2%
  • 1upt is bad for gameplay, good for realism.

    Votes: 4 1.4%
  • 1upt is bad for gameplay, bad for realism.

    Votes: 9 3.0%
  • Limited stacking would be better for gameplay and realism.

    Votes: 36 12.2%
  • Limited staking would be worse for gameplay but better for realism.

    Votes: 6 2.0%

  • Total voters
    296
Yes there will be some things that the AI won't be programmed to handle, but the same thing happened in CIV 4. I recall there being an issue mentioned where the AI would basically self destruct when it couldn't reach the player during it's "war setting" stages.

Where are thoose people you mention anyway? where are thoose statements?

Yes, AI make mistakes in every game, but that doesn't mean civ5 isn't still going to be worse. You haven't provided any real arguments, yes, everyone knows AI always have various mistakes in different games. But I've yet to see anyone give a good reason to expect the AI to outperform anything else we see in the gaming industry - and specifically of course, to outperform civ4 as things stands with a more abstract system and several patches and expansions where they fixed up the AI. civ5 is going to have poor AI at the start and if it gets better, it will take a long time

Wesnoth developers for one, which is specifically a 1upt game, and most other 1upt games have similar discussions on AI shortcomings. I've seen such statements from several prominent civ modders in civ3/civ4 on developing AI in various mods, and then there's generally recognized computer science or things true across all games, there's very little reason to suspect civ5 AI will be able to seriously compete with human players on a tactical level.

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.

A lot of people argue otherwise though, and you never see somebody telling them they are wrong if they also support 1upt.

Anyway, everything listed here is, again, NOT a flaw in having multiple units per tile or in stacking. Complaints about SoD are vague and inaccurrate because there's so many unrelated things people lump together in that definition. But suicide siege units, mechanics promoting city warfare, or best defenders are not inherent to a system of stacking units. Likewise, switching to 1upt didn't make any one of these problems in gameplay or realism any better. Actually improving unit stats or mechanics and so on works, I agree some of these things were annoying, but they have almost nothing to do with one-unit per tile versus multiple-units per tile.

Also, tactics "not being represented" (I would say that they are, abstractly through unit types, promotions etc... and that's at the level it needed to be) is probably one of the single best things for overall gameplay. Warfare should not be dominated by tactics in civ, because it is not a wargame. Strategy, preparation and the other aspects of managing your civ should contribute significantly, if not in the majority, to what ultimately decides the outcome of the war. Otherwise, you end up ignoring other parts of the game and spending very large amounts of time just on tactical warfare.

oh yeah, also could quote this again, thanks for posting it in the first place, answered some of these folks questions before they asked them:
Having to move each unit individually rather than in stacked groups makes moving a large force around pretty tedious. A bigger problem is the AI, which can't grasp the subtleties; it has a bad habit of wheeling its long range artillery directly up to my melee units.
 
... and specifically of course, to outperform civ4 as things stands with a more abstract system and several patches and expansions where they fixed up the AI. civ5 is going to have poor AI at the start and if it gets better, it will take a long time
The very fact that the Civ V AI is tiered and capable of long range planning makes it better than the Civ IV AI.

The Civ V Tactical AI can be no worse than the Civ IV AI, since the Civ IV AI couldn't function within a combat model in which the only tactical decision consisted of which unit do I attack with next. Strategically, it couldn't handle the simple task of stack composition (see offensive stacks consisting only of mounted and siege units).
 
Yes, AI make mistakes in every game, but that doesn't mean civ5 isn't still going to be worse. You haven't provided any real arguments, yes, everyone knows AI always have various mistakes in different games. But I've yet to see anyone give a good reason to expect the AI to outperform anything else we see in the gaming industry - and specifically of course, to outperform civ4 as things stands with a more abstract system and several patches and expansions where they fixed up the AI. civ5 is going to have poor AI at the start and if it gets better, it will take a long time

No it doesn't mean it's not going to be worse, doesn't mean it's not going to be better either. I can't really provide great arguments since I haven't played the game yet, and I doubt you have either.

It's likely the AI will mess up yes, we will have to deal with it and hope it gets fixed or find humans to play with. I think the point of the thread was opinions on OUPT, and mine still is that it will improve combat and be more enjoyable than previous installments of CIV

The reasons I believe this is because of OUPT providing benefits to good placement of units, it rewards good thinking and careful planning. SOD rewarded large numbers of units moving in large groups, even in real history the tactics used are usually a deciding factor in war. Sure numbers count, but even small numbers can manage to defeat a larger force with the right tactics and circumstances.


Wesnoth developers for one, which is specifically a 1upt game, and most other 1upt games have similar discussions on AI shortcomings. I've seen such statements from several prominent civ modders in civ3/civ4 on developing AI in various mods, and then there's generally recognized computer science or things true across all games, there's very little reason to suspect civ5 AI will be able to seriously compete with human players on a tactical level.

I checked Wesnoth, their site, reviews. None mention AI issues, they maybe mentioned it in some interview or similar saying they had a hard time with it. But it appears thoose that tried it or are playing it are not noticing any issues with the AI. So if theese people got it right why can't CiV devs?

I don't think anyone is thinking the CIV AI will be able to compete with humans on 1 to 1, but that's where they unfair advantages of AI comes in to make it more challenging. Usually things like less mantienance costs for the AI or faster build speeds or similar stuff, thats how it's usually done.

It's not going to become a cakewalk suddenly because it's OUPT now and the AI can't handle formations, it will do some silly stuff like place artillery up front and other stupid things. But in the end the unfair advantages should even it out, making it that the AI maybe has an extra artillery or two more than a player could have.

Anyway, everything listed here is, again, NOT a flaw in having multiple units per tile or in stacking. Complaints about SoD are vague and inaccurrate because there's so many unrelated things people lump together in that definition. But suicide siege units, mechanics promoting city warfare, or best defenders are not inherent to a system of stacking units. Likewise, switching to 1upt didn't make any one of these problems in gameplay or realism any better. Actually improving unit stats or mechanics and so on works, I agree some of these things were annoying, but they have almost nothing to do with one-unit per tile versus multiple-units per tile.

I disagree, in a SOD system you will have a large group of forces fighting against another large group of force. You argue that "best defence" mechanic aren't part of SOD system, it is in CIV 4 and it's a way to solve who is being targeted in a stack. Look at it like this, if we had stacks still in Civ 5 how would they determine what unit your unit attacks?

How would you solve this without a best defence mechanic?

OUPT makes it obivous what unit your attacking, that solves several issues that a stack based warfare had. Both from a programming point and from players point.

Also, tactics "not being represented" (I would say that they are, abstractly through unit types, promotions etc... and that's at the level it needed to be) is probably one of the single best things for overall gameplay. Warfare should not be dominated by tactics in civ, because it is not a wargame. Strategy, preparation and the other aspects of managing your civ should contribute significantly, if not in the majority, to what ultimately decides the outcome of the war. Otherwise, you end up ignoring other parts of the game and spending very large amounts of time just on tactical warfare.

Just because it's not a direct wargame doesn't mean it shouldn't have a well done war system in place, because War like it or not has been a big part of human history that made big changes to civilizations.

Putting in this tactical warfare won't detract from other parts of the game, assuming the Devs made sure that you can still win by other means. And as far as I heard you can still win by other means, howewer they do need a peaceful way to expand as an option.

Still I think reserving final judgement for when you can play the game is best, I might feel entierely different about this system once I gotten experience from this game. As might anyone else.
 
I'm among the few who find the 1UPT and 0UPT too unrealistic to suspend disbelief over. However, while the Civ V system has it's faults (an army that would realistically fit into a large park will now stretch across most of England and the logistical nightmare this will cause trying to get your troops across the map in formation) at least it adds a semblance of tactics and a little more reality to battles.

I would have much preferred a limited stack system and battles fought out on a different tactical screen (turn based tactical). If only Total War had a better AI on the strategy map, I'd play that much more than Civ.

I know most folks on this forum are against that level of detail in Civ. But I still hope it will be an option in a future version. I've lurked here a while and most of the entrenched folk here say they object to anything that is against the "spirit" of Civ. But in reality, it seems they are against any large gameplay changes and prefer additions to the existing models.

But Firaxis have the good sense to realise that to keep the franchise interesting to everyone and to bring in new customers, they can't just cater to the diehard fans who want more of the same. If they did, we'd still be playing Civ 2 with better graphics. If you look at some older combat related threads here from the Civ 4 days, you'll notice many threads that bring up the possibility of tactical combat; they are immediately shot down by regulars, saying tactical combat has no place in Civ and the combat model is fine as it is. Yet Firaxis has ignored all that and added a semblance of tactics to the new version and presumably plan to expand on it later.

I wouldn't worry too much about the poll results. The majority of the people who are active here enough to read and vote are longterm fans who are happy with the way things are, not a representation of the potential market. If you go to other strategy game forums, you'll meet plenty of ex-Civ players who say they gave up because the series isn't adding enough for them. If you ask them what they wish was changed, chances are they will say it's the inane combat system. Firaxis are on the ball enough to know what goes on outside this forum so I'm confident future versions will add more in depth and realistic combat models.
 
I think the 1upt combat system is very good (as proven in many existing games, like the Panzer General series, Battle of Wesnoth, and Fantasy Wars/Elven Legacy). The new thing is mixing this combat style with city/civilization development elements, which, as far as I know, never happened in any game before. There is no need to introduce tactical battles, I think it's better without them, because it makes terrain matter - during wars it's important what types of terrain there are where the war takes place, and how you deploy your units on it.
 
I like the change myself. Definitely added interesting tactics to combat and makes units and unit placement important ala Panzer General or even something like Strategic Command.

As far as limits about suspension of disbelief it blows my mind that someone would focus on this and not leaders living forever which is a million times more insane. "I have my limits"....but a single guy living forever and never getting older doesn't bother you...aye yi yi.
 
Terrain would still matter in a tactical battle fought on another screen, that terrain would be generated based on the terrain of the hex you fight on. Just like in Total War. If a hex can hold a city, it must have a considerable amount of varied terrain on it.
 
As far as limits about suspension of disbelief it blows my mind that someone would focus on this and not leaders living forever which is a million times more insane. "I have my limits"....but a single guy living forever and never getting older doesn't bother you...aye yi yi.

That's because a leader living forever has little effect on gameplay. And you can't exactly add a dynasty when 1 turn can take 100 years.

We're talking about fundamental battle mechanics that differentiate entire genres of games.
 
Terrain would still matter in a tactical battle fought on another screen, that terrain would be generated based on the terrain of the hex you fight on. Just like in Total War. If a hex can hold a city, it must have a considerable amount of varied terrain on it.

Yes, but only the terrain on the hex where the "big battle" takes place would matter, with 1upt a much wider area is utilized during a war.
 
That's because a leader living forever has little effect on gameplay. And you can't exactly add a dynasty when 1 turn can take 100 years.

We're talking about fundamental battle mechanics that differentiate entire genres of games.



I thought the main complaint here was that it "looked" like an army spanned a whole country. That a big stack "looked" like a battle was localized.
 
Yes, but only the terrain on the hex where the "big battle" takes place would matter, with 1upt a much wider area is utilized during a war.

Well I'm talking about rendering a battlemap to the level of detail in Total War, where you've actually got a contour map and forests, buildings, farms, etc based off the main tile. So you won't need to abstract the "hills defence" or "forest defence" bonuses because this map would have contoured terrain and units can be literally uphill of others, or hide in forests, or hide behind buildings.

But of course, this would make a Civ game take far too long. However, you can have a smaller scale battlemap which still contains varied terrain (just because you're on a "grassland" hex doesn't mean you can't have some hills and trees - if a hex is big enough for a city surely it's not all flat grassland).

You can make army setup a lot more important, especially on a hex map, by requiring action points to "rotate" (so facing direction is important) as well as move or attack. That makes formations and tactics like flanking a lot more important. A unit that's attacked head on has full defence and responds with full counter attack, but if you hit it on the frontal sides the defence and counter attack go down. And if you hit it from the back, it's even lower. That will force the defender to use a good selection of combined arms to create a strong formation, with protection for the flanks, while the attacker tries to engage the enemy line head on while sending its cavalry to out flank and attack from behind, where the defence is weaker.

Not only will the battle be more realistic, you'd have interesting variations with different troop types. A phalanx would be very strong head on but very weak on the flanks and rear, while swordsmen are a little more balanced. Or a Tiger Tank that has good all round defence being a great flank protector, protecting a line of Panzers that aren't so strong on the sides or flank.
 
I understand that there can be varied terrain on a battle map, my point was that it's the real terrain in your territory that should matter, not some randomly generated battle map.

Generally the idea of tactical battles is not bad (and it's used is some games, especially fantasy themed), but I don't think it's a good idea to implement it in Civ. War is not a dominant element of the game, there are also things like city development, social policies, workers, diplomacy etc., so jumping into a tactical battle would be too "distracting". Somehow I like it more when the actual terrain on the map serves as the arena of the "tactical battle" (even if the scale is unrealistic).
 
I don't think anyone is thinking the CIV AI will be able to compete with humans on 1 to 1, but that's where they unfair advantages of AI comes in to make it more challenging. Usually things like less mantienance costs for the AI or faster build speeds or similar stuff, thats how it's usually done.

It's not going to become a cakewalk suddenly because it's OUPT now and the AI can't handle formations, it will do some silly stuff like place artillery up front and other stupid things. But in the end the unfair advantages should even it out, making it that the AI maybe has an extra artillery or two more than a player could have.

This exactly defeats your own argument. If you agree the AI will do worse at combat but they'll make up for it with other bonuses, then you're already agreeing, y'know, that the AI will do worse at combat in the new system. I also agree it's going to be the case, but that proves my point already.

You argue that "best defence" mechanic aren't part of SOD system, it is in CIV 4 and it's a way to solve who is being targeted in a stack. Look at it like this, if we had stacks still in Civ 5 how would they determine what unit your unit attacks?

How would you solve this without a best defence mechanic?

It's perfectly possible (and people HAVE ALREADY DONE IT) to mod civ IV gameplay to include the following:
-ranged attacks
-zone of control
-best defenders do NOT necessarily defend
-siege units do not suicide

and so on. Not a single one of these things being changed required one-unit-per-tile.

I checked Wesnoth, their site, reviews. None mention AI issues, they maybe mentioned it in some interview or similar saying they had a hard time with it. But it appears thoose that tried it or are playing it are not noticing any issues with the AI. So if theese people got it right why can't CiV devs?

You haven't looked enough probably, there are plenty of complaints and discussion, and recently they went through a project to improve the AI showing how much the original did poorly, but more specifically - people who coded Wesnoth have posted here, on CFC, explaining their experiences and troubles with the AI.
 
As a warmonger - I'm really looking forward to 1upt!

Hopefully this will make wars feel more realistic and need more strategic thought!
 
It's perfectly possible (and people HAVE ALREADY DONE IT) to mod civ IV gameplay to include the following:
-ranged attacks
-zone of control
-best defenders do NOT necessarily defend
-siege units do not suicide

I have finally come to accept that SoD and 1upt are both just as realitic as each other, I have explained why a million times in this thread so do not reply to this with a post about how arhcers shooting over 1000s of miles is unrealistic.
So now it's just a matter of personal choice to me, and I pick 1upt (will have to wait to try it out first.).
 
This exactly defeats your own argument. If you agree the AI will do worse at combat but they'll make up for it with other bonuses, then you're already agreeing, y'know, that the AI will do worse at combat in the new system. I also agree it's going to be the case, but that proves my point already.

No I didn't say it would make the AI handle combat worse than before, I said it will handle it badly like always.

It's perfectly possible (and people HAVE ALREADY DONE IT) to mod civ IV gameplay to include the following:
-ranged attacks
-zone of control
-best defenders do NOT necessarily defend
-siege units do not suicide

and so on. Not a single one of these things being changed required one-unit-per-tile.

So how did they solve the "who attacks who" in the stack vs stack war?

And I never said ranged attacks, zone of control or siege unit suicide has anything to do with stacks or 1UPT. So I don't see why you want to pull that up.

My general issue with SOD in Civ 4 is that they almost only reward large numbers and most of the time only give benefits to thoose defending.

Would it be allright with SOD in Civ 5 if they had made it so there is a limit to how many can be stacked? sure it could work for me if they added all the new systems that go with what's in civ 5. Because It promotes using a smaller amount of units effectively, each unit will be more valuable to you.

A large force will be hindered by the fact that you only have space for one unit per tile, you gotta pay attention to who goes where during battles. It gives a player that has a better battle strategy the upperhand against someone who just mindlessly tosses military at the opponent. That's how it should be in my opinion.

If I have a well placed unit on a choke point I shouldn't lose that unit in a single turn because the opponent somehow could fit his entire army in a single tile. Choke points lose all value without this.

You haven't looked enough probably, there are plenty of complaints and discussion, and recently they went through a project to improve the AI showing how much the original did poorly, but more specifically - people who coded Wesnoth have posted here, on CFC, explaining their experiences and troubles with the AI.

It's possible I missed it, I will takes your word for it then.
 
I think 1UPT is good for gameplay.

Realism? Sort of doesn't make sense as the scale of tiles is not defined and the scale of time just weirds it all too. Imagine a(n early) unit taking years to cross from just outside a city in one direction to just outside a city in another. I can't.
 
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