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

[King Jason]

Yes, they are trying to make a simpler, newby-friendly game in their minds regarding combat mechanics

I don't see how it gets any simpler than having every unit you've built in a single stack and then moving it across an opponents empire city by city until it's destroyed.

Having difficulty winning? Build more units and increase the size of your stack.

Arguably, there was not combat aspect of to civ in the pass, as military might was 90% dependent on your productive capabilities. Can you produce more than your opponent? is your army larger than your opponent? can you recoup w/e losses faster than your opponent? then the technological aspect, where does your military tech stand vs your opponent?

The tactical question was such a vastly minor aspect of the game because if all of the above questions were even remotely in your favor, you couldn't lose because you'd always have the option of throwing more units at the problem.

 

[Schuesseled]

combat seems to have been anti-streamlined, compared to the rest of the game.

 

[Col Kurtz]

Well, Greg's gameplay video confirms it. Neutral units will block movement. In his game, the city state's units (when the city state was still neutral) blocked France's units from getting to his, Greg even said so. Two bad things about this.

1) Occasionally, the AI will get in your way somewhere, such as on a land bridge. There will be no way to make them move. Even though the AI won't do it intentionally, it's bound to happen given 1upt. Armies will be more spread out, and, for example if you are allied in war with an AI, your forces will likely get in each others way a lot.

2) This is very exploitable by the human. As long as a pass is only a few tiles wide, it will be fairly easy for human players to block it, unfairly restricting the AI (blocking settlers, etc).

Overall, I expect this to make for some unfun moments in Civ 5.

 

[ClasuSiosa]

And some fun moments in multiplayer!

 

[cccv]

Well, Greg's gameplay video confirms it. Neutral units will block movement. In his game, the city state's units (when the city state was still neutral) blocked France's units from getting to his, Greg even said so. Two bad things about this.

1) Occasionally, the AI will get in your way somewhere, such as on a land bridge. There will be no way to make them move. Even though the AI won't do it intentionally, it's bound to happen given 1upt. Armies will be more spread out, and, for example if you are allied in war with an AI, your forces will likely get in each others way a lot.

2) This is very exploitable by the human. As long as a pass is only a few tiles wide, it will be fairly easy for human players to block it, unfairly restricting the AI (blocking settlers, etc).

Overall, I expect this to make for some unfun moments in Civ 5.

Yeah, maybe. Unit embarkment will really help with the land bridge issue, though, even though it will waste a little more time. But when you're in the middle of a continent and trying to get someplace specific that could be extremely frustrating. I'm pretty sure once or twice I actually declared war on people I had good relationships with in Civ II just kill a unit and get them the **** out of my way. Not as part of a sound strategy, but just out of rage.

 

[Bad Brett]

Yeah, maybe. Unit embarkment will really help with the land bridge issue, though, even though it will waste a little more time.

That makes things even less fun. Player 1 blocks player 2's settler. The settler builds a boat to sail around it. It seems really stupid.

Though I like the 1upt, there is one simple way to fix this: Let units from different civs share a tile during peace.

 

[Col Kurtz]

That makes things even less fun. Player 1 blocks player 2's settler. The settler builds a boat to sail around it. It seems really stupid.

Though I like the 1upt, there is one simple way to fix this: Let units from different civs share a tile during peace.

There is one side affect to that though, and I don't know whether it's good or bad. If you can share a tile with your ally, then that makes having an ally in war way more powerful than ever before. It would allow you to have double the force at the front line. With stacks, that never mattered.

Maybe neutral/ally civs could share tiles in neutral territory. But if they are in a civ's borders, then it's strictly 1upt. Or alternatively, only strictly 1upt when in a third party's borders. I know that's making rules complicate, but it's a difficult problem to solve.

 

[Jmyrm]

2) This is very exploitable by the human. As long as a pass is only a few tiles wide, it will be fairly easy for human players to block it, unfairly restricting the AI (blocking settlers, etc).

I don't follow you, that doesn't sound like an exploit at all - that sounds exactly like what the whole 1 UPT was designed for. Block a pass and restrict AI movement. Settlers are civilian units and should not be impacted by military forces blocking a tile - unless of course those military forces are hostile.

Jmyrm

 

[jagdtigerciv]

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.

I for one am in favour of a GTFO mechanic. (I also lol'd)

 

[Silverwave]

It actually came to me that with 1 upt... where the heck do I put my bombers? I mean, they'll still need to land somewhere and have a certain range. This also means you can't back up your bombers with interception aircrafts and that you can't have a defendind unit in your city if you have an airplane in it. That seems wierd!

(this isn't trolling, I actually think this 1 upt is a great idea and that it will make combat very more interesting!)

 

[WNxPowder]

what about Forts?

 

[Polobo]

what about Love?

 

[faizan]

what about Love?

hmm..love...if a unit blocks your way, MAKE LOVE TO IT! excellent idea

Issue resolved!

 

[Helmling]

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.

Genius.

 

[adrianj]

It actually came to me that with 1 upt... where the heck do I put my bombers? I mean, they'll still need to land somewhere and have a certain range. This also means you can't back up your bombers with interception aircrafts and that you can't have a defendind unit in your city if you have an airplane in it. That seems wierd!

I think it is mentioned somewhere* that certain units, eg, air combat units CAN be stacked.

* I found this on Arioch's Civ V Analyst website, presumably he has some proper reference for it

Air units are an exception to the one unit per hex rule. Aircraft and missiles can stack in a city (limit unknown) or on a Carrier (up to 3). Missiles can also stack on a Missile Cruiser (up to 3) or on a Nuclear Submarine (up to 2).

 

[Zhahz]

I don't really see a problem, since I haven't played yet and seeing one particular occurance of one particular thing in one particular gameplay example from a complex game where things rarely play out exactly the same twice, is not something to get excited about.

In greg's game, the monaco troops were both in they way at times and useful at times as blockers - pikemen that would've got mowed down by gun toting frenchmen were accidentally walling off greg's injured units so he could heal. Not a bad thing.

Really have to play to to know. Really have to play to know how often such a tight choke point will exist and be a factor. In some cases, via exploration, you'll know where a serious choke point will be. React and plan accordingly. Control it rather than being controlled. Make the decision.

 

[Cilpot]

Actually, one of my gripes with IV was that friendly units could pass right through my units. I liked being able to block foreign settlers from going through my land to settle still unoccupied sweet spots.

 

[Disgustipated]

settlers are civilian units, so you can't use military units to block them, you'd have to use a worker presumably.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

I see some possible fixes to this being easily done in the XML. I also see an error in logic.

As the poster above me mentioned... you cannot use military units to block civilian units. You can use civilian units, but it would seem excessive to waste a settler or worker to slow down (not even stop due to the "embark" function) another players settlers at a natural choke point.

As for a fix for the problem, you COULD mod it (I imagine) to allow YOUR unit to convert into a civilian unit when you enter an ally's tile by manipulating and copying the code from sea travel. This would allow for fewer problems in terms of manuverability in a war where you have multiple allies. The problem for that strategically would be that if he is attacked and falls, then both units would be lost (since your perhaps superior unit would still be a civilian).

 

[Bad Brett]

There is one side affect to that though, and I don't know whether it's good or bad. If you can share a tile with your ally, then that makes having an ally in war way more powerful than ever before. It would allow you to have double the force at the front line. With stacks, that never mattered.

Maybe neutral/ally civs could share tiles in neutral territory. But if they are in a civ's borders, then it's strictly 1upt. Or alternatively, only strictly 1upt when in a third party's borders. I know that's making rules complicate, but it's a difficult problem to solve.

Though it may seem stupid to some, the best solution here would be to bring back the old system: Both units get killed. Of course, you could still hide your wounded units, but that would actually add some strategy to the game and make alliances more useful.