problem with 1 upt

[deanej]

It would be tedious if combat was more like civ4, where combat was handled in ways that were mostly symbolic, meaningless and not fun at all. In a system where positioning is of vital importance and you are challenged to think about each and every move I can see moving the units around as a lot of fun.

I have to disagree, but I have no interest in war games, unlike it seems the majority of people here.

 

[Tomice]

Well, there are also a lot of things where you save time and effort:

Troop transport ships gone
City defenders gone
Stack compilation gone (it was quite the effort to have the right unit mix in them)
Separating merged stacks gone

Also, you don't need to manually move tile per tile, in peacetime, you'll just click 20 tiles away and not care what formation they have inbetween. Maybe there will also be a "march in formation" button, where some AI controls the individual moves (the AI enemies have to know how to do this, anyway).

I guess somewhere above 30-50 units it might still be tiresome, but will we have this number?

 

[CHEESE!]

My point being that sometimes a little tedium is worth the effort. Neatly hole punchering your classnotes and slipping them into an arch file, is tedious but the end result of neatly organised notes is better than having them scattered over your bedroom floor, no?

I looked at this for ages before realizing you did not say 'classmates'.

 

[cicero spqr]

well, city defenders aren't actually gone. you just attach a unit to the city, and it gives extra hitpoints. i agree, however, that we need a march in formation button. otherwise, 1upt will be a pain.

 

[AfterShafter]

But less units from one unit per tile doesn't mean anything from a unit management perspective. I never manage my units in civ4 individually, only at the stack level, unless the game is making really bad decisions about who will attack.

Well, truth be told, it does make pretty meh decisions on an individual level. The decisions are utterly perfect based on a raw odds perspective, but... It doesn't plan beyond "what has the highest odds right now." Units you want to protect don't get protected, units that are expendable are often not the first to attack, etc etc. If you're letting the game make decisions on who from a stack attacks, you're usually not obtaining optimal results on an offensive. Not to say the game should be all about obtaining optimal results, but if you're taxing yourself by playing difficulty levels that are *really* hard for you, sometimes you need to.

I'm not sold on 1 unit per tile, but I also see a lot of very positive potential there. I'm quite curious to see how it plays out.

 

[Schuesseled]

I looked at this for ages before realizing you did not say 'classmates'.

lol, that made me chuckle. hole punchering classmates! classic.

 

[AriochIV]

The new combat system is what appeals most to me, as well.

If you're the sort that didn't like combat in the previous games, I doubt there is much in the way of a new combat system that will please you. Though it does seem that having fewer units, ranged units, and no Stacks of Doom, might favor the defender who wants to "turtle" and go about his peaceful business. The new system may allow a relatively small number of well-placed, fortified units to slow or stop an enemy invasion that would previously have required significant stacks of your own to deal with.

 

[migkillertwo]

If you're the sort that didn't like combat in the previous games, I doubt there is much in the way of a new combat system that will please you.

Well I'd have to disagree. I didn't particularly like CivIV's combat because, to me, it didn't reward flanking enough (well, it didn't reward flanking one bit. You could have a whole 'nother stack behind the enemy stack and it wouldn't make a hill of beans a difference. Now flanking will be much more useful.

 

[aMoralAtheist]

certainly no more tedious than scrolling through a stack of 50+ units to find the right one with which to attack. . .

Ummm if you ctrl+ click on unit stack it selects all of that type, or if you alt+click it selects all , in iether cas eit attack swith best odds. I know on some ocassions you wont the .1 or 5 percent attacker to weaken and let your vets live. But by mid-late game wars you have enough unranked low units it works for the most part.

 

[Thyrwyn]

...and sometimes you make choices based on current xp vs potential xp gain. And if the defender has multiple unit types, you need to make the appropriate decision for each attacking unit type: "should I attack with my best/worst maceman vs his crossbowmen; my best/worst knight vs his pikeman; . . .

 

[timtofly]

Those of you who play civ rev, or who have a DS, there is a turn based game with 1UPT called Age Of Empires, if you want to "practice" your "moves".

 

[CHEESE!]

Is AoE turn-based? Does it have any real connection with AoM (which is realtime) then?

 

[12agnar0k]

@MattyR what makes you think you will be able to "group and move" units, as they will not be in the same tile it makes little sense to move anything all at the same time like you would move in a RTS for example which doesnt have tiles so units can move all together even though spaced out on the battlefied all together with a click, I just dont see them adding a drag and select feature to select and move more than 1 unit from more than 1 grid to more than 1 grid all together at the same time. It is much more likely that we will need to move each one seperatly.

I like your sig by the way, very true.
Nice quote to use , expecially on Creationists.

@Schuesseled.
My point however was that be it 3 or 10 horses per Horse resource, unit production will still be limited and we won't be having 100 unit armies like could be built in cIV.... well not unless you have a massive and wealthy empire, at which point, you've nearly won so only a little more agony to come

@Cheese
I was once punctured by a compass by an evil little classmate. Does that count. Atleast I think it was me being punctured and not doing the puncturing... It was some time ago, hmmm.... 18 years or so. Bit Vauge.
Going a bit off topic here ....

@TimToFly
AOE is not a turn based or tile/hex based game, so I dont see what your comment has to do with anything or if its even true. Or is the DS version completely different from normal AoE. Either case, I'm sure there are other options to testing a hex/turn based game that doesn't entile buying a new gadget or buying anything.

http://www.wesnoth.org/

This is a free 1UpT hex/turn based game, I didnt really like it though, only played it for 5 minutes, got bored and quit lol. It will give you a little idea of how hex games work, but no more than simply playing a game of Civ and pretending your using hexs and 1UpT.

 

[Shiggs713]

The only 'thinking' involved in Civ 4 warfare is really economic: All that really matters is what/how many units you build. Once your army is ready its almost entirely "Throw units at enemy, repeat, win/lose, repeat).

Not completely, certainly not if your playing on emperor or higher. Just finished my first complete game on immortal difficulty/epic speed. Trust me if I was just throwing units away the whole game I would have lost by 0 AD. There can be solid tactics used in civ4, just because the AI doesn't, doesn't mean you can't. I even finished the game (a Space Race Victory btw, 25k+ normalized score) 3rd in power, with no hopes of ever catching 1st place, but I won several wars when the AI's "power" was double or better of mine, using good tactics and just overall good strategy. Not being too hasty with my attacks, forcing them to attack across rivers or fortified hills, not doing them the same favors, sending in the fighters, kill all their fighters, then send in the bombers, that sort of thing. If I was wasting units would have never happened. I once even had a redcoat kill 2 macemen, 2 xbows, and a praetorian all in one turn, defensively, cause the AI was stupid enough to attack across a river to my redcoat on a hill/forest. In its defense, it really wanted to kill me, and it was its only path to get to me

 

[timtofly]

Age of Empires: Age Of Kings was redesigned for the DS, and it is turn based. I am not here to advertise the game, and I said if you played Civ Rev or had a DS System, then it might be worth looking into. It may be hard to find new, but you should be able to find a used one. While it is not hex based, you can only move in four directions, so it is a little more challenging than be able to move in eight. It allows for different movement points on terrain from road to mountains and certain units cannot move over a mountain. You cannot cross a river unless there is a bridge. Like I said, some people may enjoy the practice while waiting for V to arrive.

 

[Zhahz]

Hopefully there will be reasonable limits on the size of your army such that units have more purpose and value, and moving units should be more strategic/tactical such that you move them with more purpose.

We already know that strategic resources have a lot more impact on what you can build.

So rather than spewing out 50 warriors and throwing them all over the map (or stacking them) along with piles of other units, you might be limited to 20 total units and you need to balance defenders vs attackers vs ranged support vs naval and you wanna guard this much territory and invade this place and suddenly every unit is important and having organized and well positioned troops is critical.

This is kind of how it works in Wesnoth (mentioned on these forums a few times in regards to hex-based) and I'd imagine it's how it worked in panzer general (one of Shafer's favorite games). Limits on total army size, variety in unit purpose, positioning is critical for both offense and defense, etc. Every unit has value and losing any unit sucks unless it's part of your plan for ultimate success.

I don't feel this is the case in civ 1-4 because you and the AIs can just spam gargantual armies of drones.

As long as the combat and strategic elements are interesting and engaging, managing/moving your armies shouldn't be tedious.

As a side note, I seriously doubt there will be any way of grouping and moving units together.

There can be solid tactics used in civ4

I suppose but IMO a lot of what is considered tactis in civ4 is taking advantage of AI flaws and game flaws, something I feel has plagued civ thru all versions. I am really hoping civ5 takes combat to another level and that the AI is killer at release, not something that needs 2 expansions and player made patches to be decent.

 

[andrewlt]

Higher difficulties in civ are always about taking advantage of AI flaws. Some players don't want to admit it but the higher difficulties are all about constant war and tech brokering, because that's where the AI flaws shine the most.

This feature is one of the things I'm looking forward the most in Civ5. I hate the stack of doom battles in previous civ games.

 

[Myth5]

I think the concept is welcome and refreshing compared to the massive stacks of games gone by

However, I am most interested in finding out how many units per resource you are allotted (are non-resource units unlimited? Are there such units anymore?). I think high unit restrictions based on resources would make it hard to beat another civ into the dust, but not much of a unit restriction would make moving all those units strategically the kind of chore that nobody's going to want to do.

 

[Skwink]

Age of Empires: Age Of Kings was redesigned for the DS, and it is turn based. I am not here to advertise the game, and I said if you played Civ Rev or had a DS System, then it might be worth looking into. It may be hard to find new, but you should be able to find a used one. While it is not hex based, you can only move in four directions, so it is a little more challenging than be able to move in eight. It allows for different movement points on terrain from road to mountains and certain units cannot move over a mountain. You cannot cross a river unless there is a bridge. Like I said, some people may enjoy the practice while waiting for V to arrive.

I haven't played that for quiet a while! Combat is quiet like Civ 5 combat. archers can fire from distance, and 1UPT.

 

[Kranden]

As a warmonger I support more strategy in my military decisions. Even on higher difficulty levels the AI is too easy to trick into moving his SOD into my well fortified killzone. The only real threat right now is an early rush or if I am not strong enough by late game and the rest of the civs team up to take me out. Stacking should definitely go away, right now numbers mean more than good strategy and its just an economic decision of how big should your army be not a tactical one.