Possible Issue with 1 unit per tile - allies getting in your way.

Col Kurtz

Warlord
Joined
Mar 4, 2008
Messages
102
I just realized that with the switch to 1upt, we may have an old problem rear it's head once again. In previous Civs (2, 3?) I believe, you couldn't share a tile with another civ's unit, even if you were at peace. This could occasionally be really annoying if an AI got in your way. With the new 1upt, I'm really curious if you will still be able to share tiles with civs you are at peace with or allied with. With armies more spread out this time around, it seems like you'd have to be able to share tiles with non-enemies or things would get messy. On the other hand, fighting 2v1 would then give the allies a huge bonus, since they could concentrate their combined forces 2 to 1 against the enemy at the front.

Is there any evidence suggesting it will be done one way or the other?

Thoughts? Did I miss a discussion of this already?
 
The lowest movement rate in the game is 2, & units can pass *through* squares occupied by their allies. So the chances of *actually* getting blocked by your allies is quite small.

Aussie.
 
I can see the ally occupying a key hex with a weak unit that prevents you from putting a stronger unit there.
 
Small price to pay, and, if you've read any history, you'll note that a very similar issue is a common problem of coalition armies.

I'm sure it'll rear its head in game after game, what with all the city state's that'll be hanging from your imperial teat. Hopefully there will be a GTFO mechanic for the units of subservient powers.
 
The lowest movement rate in the game is 2, & units can pass *through* squares occupied by their allies. So the chances of *actually* getting blocked by your allies is quite small.

Aussie.

Well, couldn't that be solved by putting 2 units in that mountain pass???
 
From what I understand units will take longer to create and possibly smaller armies as well. So that should cut down on a ally blocking your key location. But he's right this happens in the real world.
 
Not gonna be as big of a problem as civ 2 and 3, units are less expendable to be wasted in a blocking attempt, plus choke points are likely to be more than just a single tile wide.

Plus for accidental, i'm in your ways, you can bunny hop over them.
 
Since there will be ranged units, I guess most battlefronts will consist of a line of mele and a line of rangers behind. So even moving 2 tiles you can't cross your allies battlelines. Looks real, but could really be annoying too
 
Also if you get annoyed just declare war on your ally and crush them under the heel of your mighty empire!!!!
 
This problem could be helped with a better way of controlling and guiding your ally. In Civ4 you could tell them to attack a city. In Civ 5 I would like to see this expanded, with options like Defend this city, Concentrate your forces here, Defend this pass, etc.
 
So, if you can move through a unit as part of your movement points allocation, could you push a unit through your (or your allies) front lines to attack the enemy? If so, where does that unit end up afterwards if it doesn't defeat the enemy utterly?

Also, can you do a "swap position" move with an allies troops?
 
Some "concentrate forces here" or "avoid putting units here" commands for your ally would be nice indeed.
A possible problem is that you could abuse your ally as meat shield to easily if he always does what you say. You could spam orders and make him leave his own cities undefended.
If an algorhythm is programmed to make your ally disobey sometimes, it could lead to odd AI behaviour. So it's no trivial task to implement IMO.
 
Valid point, but why not turn it into an advantage?

A mechanism which would give diplomatic penalties with your allies if they suffered a disproportionate number losses, and perhaps made a disproportionate number of kills, would be great. It could work the other way too. If your heroic soldiers sacrificed themselves in order to protect an ally, you would gain a diplomatic bonus.

This would solve the problem with phony wars, and add another layer of depth to the game.

I realise it might be tricky to implement, but I think it is worth it.
 
I just realized that with the switch to 1upt, we may have an old problem rear it's head once again. In previous Civs (2, 3?) I believe, you couldn't share a tile with another civ's unit, even if you were at peace. This could occasionally be really annoying if an AI got in your way. With the new 1upt, I'm really curious if you will still be able to share tiles with civs you are at peace with or allied with. With armies more spread out this time around, it seems like you'd have to be able to share tiles with non-enemies or things would get messy. On the other hand, fighting 2v1 would then give the allies a huge bonus, since they could concentrate their combined forces 2 to 1 against the enemy at the front.

Is there any evidence suggesting it will be done one way or the other?

Thoughts? Did I miss a discussion of this already?

I think (hope) that units will take longer to build and will be more expensive to mantain, so that as a result we will have way less units on the field, comparing to Civ4.

There is really no need for an army of 40-50 units, especially with 1upt.
 
Firaxis games seems to have taken a step backwards on this one. The problem of not being able to get your units where you want or need them in time was a definite problem in Civ II which I was glad to se fixed in Civ III & IV. With the limited number of troops you will be able to have in V it will become even more annoying and very eerily a serious problem rather than an annoying one.
 
Firaxis games seems to have taken a step backwards on this one. The problem of not being able to get your units where you want or need them in time was a definite problem in Civ II which I was glad to se fixed in Civ III & IV. With the limited number of troops you will be able to have in V it will become even more annoying and very eerily a serious problem rather than an annoying one.

That is a very grim outlook on things. If this is to be a serious problem, I'd hope they'd discover it in beta testing fairly quickly. if it happens so rarely that they don't encounter it, it probably won't be a major problem (and would simulate the odd time this happened in history).
 
Firaxis games seems to have taken a step backwards on this one.

Yes, they are trying to make a simpler, newby-friendly game in their minds regarding combat mechanics, but it might not actually succeed at that if the AI still isn't up to snuff or easily abused by the player.
 
Yes, they are trying to make a simpler, newby-friendly game in their minds regarding combat mechanics, but it might not actually succeed at that if the AI still isn't up to snuff or easily abused by the player.

Sarcasm? I can't tell... the combat system is definitely not simpler although other areas may be.
 
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