Reasoning behind divide among civ players

[strijder20]

I once played a mod (cannot remember which) and it had a reverse promotion "overcrowding" or something where units were degraded when SoD was too big.

That's Realism Invictus - an amazing mod (which sadly crashes on my pc ) which also gives promotions to units in a stack when there are, for example, archery units in the stack. Those imply the 'support' of the other non-attacking units.

 

[damerell]

As for SoD v 1UPT, yes the SoD is kinda ridiculous and unrealistic.

Leaving aside the desirability of "realism" as a goal, is it? I can think of a word for a stack of doom. It's "army".

 

[AFS]

My only problem with Civ 5 is how slow it plays. That's it.

I'm not talking about waiting between turns (I bet Civ 4 took some time as well back in the day, with older hardware), but about how fast you can give orders. In Civ 4, using the Ctrl, Shift and Alt key can speed up lots of things, and you can play your turn in a couple of seconds. In Civ 5, just adding something to the city queue is a pain, and dont't get me started with moving an army across the ocean.

A game on Civ 4, normal speed, usually takes me around 3 hours. A game of Civ 5, more than 8.

Considering that I am in college and my time is limited, I prefer a good game of Civ 4 than just fighting against the interface on Civ 5.

Yep, that's my only problem with it.

 

[gps]

7) City states. Awful mechanic. Feeding magic resources into gameplay from specially privileged mini-Civs is just wrong to my mind. But maybe that one is just me.

No, not alone here. Despite all it's shortcomings and weaknesses - I think city states is actually the thing I hate most in V. It's just ridiculous and immersion breaking to have two different sets of state like entities that have different game rules applied and behave totally differently. If states stay small it should be because they have bad strategies or bad land and ressources or because someone else is bigger and better, not because they have some artificial city state rules to follow preventing growth and expansion for no logical reason at all. My fist victory in V was a cheap and cheesy let's but all the city states diplomatic victory - and it felt sooooo pointless.

As for SoD v 1UPT, yes the SoD is kinda ridiculous and unrealistic.

This is what I constantly hear: SoD is so unrealistic. But if we have a look at history of warfare, it's been SoD for most part of human history. Alexanders Persia / India campain for example is 100% SoD. Same with Spanish conquest of the Aztecs or Napoleons march to Moskow. The first time we ever saw fixed fronts dividing continents comparable to what V does with 1UPT was in the 20th century...

 

[Doctor Phibes]

No, not alone here. Despite all it's shortcomings and weaknesses - I think city states is actually the thing I hate most in V. It's just ridiculous and immersion breaking to have two different sets of state like entities that have different game rules applied and behave totally differently. If states stay small it should be because they have bad strategies or bad land and ressources or because someone else is bigger and better, not because they have some artificial city state rules to follow preventing growth and expansion for no logical reason at all. My fist victory in V was a cheap and cheesy let's but all the city states diplomatic victory - and it felt sooooo pointless.

Yes. I've just been re-reading various critiques of Civ5 - Sulla's, of course, being the most devastating, I hadn't read his last one where he abandons the game completely - and city states get a lot of stick, it's just that the best and most righteous wrath is reserved for 1upt. Just the stupid diplo victory alone (should be called 'bribery victory') is enough for me to hate them.

But much as you say, there's something fundamentally wrong about the idea which irritates me. I always thought that a basic aspect of 4X game design was that the overall game economy should be self-contained as much as possible. Sure you can have one-off random events, goodie huts etc, but mostly the game should be out-front and clear about where the various inputs of gold, hammers, food are coming from. That, in turn, empowers the player to understand and intervene in the game economy. In Civ4 even the barbs obey economic rules, even if they do spawn magically when you're not looking.

But CSs might as well be space aliens with little encampments where they teleport in goodies for the local tribesmen - cargo cult stuff. (Perhaps they're just conducting a fiendish experiment.)

The same magical philosophy informs the ghastly 'natural' wonders too. Not a bad idea in themselves, SMACX used unique natural features quite well, but in Civ5 often hugely OP, even gamebreaking. And when it comes to cheesy fantasy elements like the Fountain of Youth - well that's just out of context for a baseline Civ game. (I've nothing against seeing such a thing in a fantasy game context, but in that case the overall game design would, I hope, reflect its fantasy premises.)

This is what I constantly hear: SoD is so unrealistic. But if we have a look at history of warfare, it's been SoD for most part of human history. Alexanders Persia / India campain for example is 100% SoD. Same with Spanish conquest of the Aztecs or Napoleons march to Moskow. The first time we ever saw fixed fronts dividing continents comparable to what V does with 1UPT was in the 20th century...

And they didn't hold.

I know I'm just repeating what many others have said, but what we're seeing in Civ5 is a complete failure by the designers to distinguish between tactics, strategy, grand strategy and logistics. (Or even to acknowledge the last one.) The result is nothing more than a broken tactical game, and one that just can't be fixed because the computational issues that traffic management alone poses are going to be beyond the resources of any games house on the planet.

(I agree that SoD is indeed more realistic, but not in its implementation. More logistics would help - what about supply trains just as one example? Keeping a big army in the field does cost in Civ4. But in RL, even if you could afford such an army, there was a limit to your campaigning in that, as animal-drawn supply trains go beyond a certain length, they consume all of the very resources they are meant to be carrying. Yes, you can live off the land, but only till you've stripped it bare. The same applies to armoured warfare, except there it's POL rather than hay.

Anyway, the point is that the challenge should have been to reform the SoD system but without making the game turgid. Which is a challenge. Abolishing it completely was not the answer.)

 

[AdamCrock]

(I agree that SoD is indeed more realistic, but not in its implementation. More logistics would help - what about supply trains just as one example? Keeping a big army in the field does cost in Civ4. But in RL, even if you could afford such an army, there was a limit to your campaigning in that, as animal-drawn supply trains go beyond a certain length, they consume all of the very resources they are meant to be carrying. Yes, you can live off the land, but only till you've stripped it bare. The same applies to armoured warfare, except there it's POL rather than hay.

Anyway, the point is that the challenge should have been to reform the SoD system but without making the game turgid. Which is a challenge. Abolishing it completely was not the answer.)

I do most heartedly agree ! Civ 4 is entirely missing out supply lines. It's how Russia survived each and every one western campaing against her. (Napoleon, Hitler, etc.) They call it "burned land" or "bare land" tactics when Russian Tsars (communists later) burned out the entire infrastructure in their western border regions than withdraw their forces to core cities like St.Petersburg and Moscow and simply they have waited for the winter. (Which in Russia is very cold and simply devastating). When the snow melted They would retaliate with full force and completely and uterly destroy exhaousted and hungry invaders. In Civ 4 there is no representation of such tactics but in Civ 4 we can fix that with mods, in Civ 5 .... well let's just say... "steam" or "DLC's" (nuff said... )

 

[Doctor Phibes]

I do most heartedly agree ! Civ 4 is entirely missing out supply lines. It's how Russia survived each and every one western campaing against her. (Napoleon, Hitler, etc.) They call it "burned land" or "bare land" tactics when Russian Tsars (communists later) burned out the entire infrastructure in their western border regions than withdraw their forces to core cities like St.Petersburg and Moscow and simply they have waited for the winter. (Which in Russia is very cold and simply devastating). When the snow melted They would retaliate with full force and completely and uterly destroy exhaousted and hungry invaders. In Civ 4 there is no representation of such tactics but in Civ 4 we can fix that with mods, in Civ 5 .... well let's just say... "steam" or "DLC's" (nuff said... )

Gosh, seasonal variations would be great - but unless it's SuperMarathon speed, I guess there's not enough granularity on the timescale.

 

[AdamCrock]

Gosh, seasonal variations would be great - but unless it's SuperMarathon speed, I guess there's not enough granularity on the timescale.

There are also historical or alternative history mods to civ 4 (like WWII mods for example) when 1 turn is scaled like a month or a season for example, but there's none I've encountered of which would include the supply lines and logistic problems like ("Your armoured vehicles have run out of gas and are unable to move" -EDIT: Which was Erwin Rommel bane in North Africa campaing - or "You're infantry has ran out of ammunition and will surrender to the enemy (like worker)" for example.)

That would be great to add to the realism

 

[6K Man]

There are also historical or alternative history mods to civ 4 (like WWII mods for example) when 1 turn is scaled like a month or a season for example, but there's none I've encountered of which would include the supply lines and logistic problems like ("Your armoured vehicles have run out of gas and are unable to move" -EDIT: Which was Erwin Rommel bane in North Africa campaing - or "You're infantry has ran out of ammunition and will surrender to the enemy (like worker)" for example.)

That would be great to add to the realism

Never played CiV, but at the risk of going offtopic, here's my take on logistics. Obviously it could do with some tweaks:


Following the discovery of any of Military Tradition, Rifling, or Combustion: Where ground and naval units are outside of a region (city/fort/territory) that is <50% of their nation's culture for more than 3 turns, each unit will lose 10 hit points in each subsequent turn, to a maximum of 50 hp lost. If the lost hit points would take the unit below 1 hp, the hp loss will stop at 1.

After 5 turns, each unit&#8217;s movement will be halved (to a minimum of 1 tile/turn). For land units, after 10 turns, movement will be nil and the unit can only defend. For naval units, after 10 turns, the unit will sink. We will refer to the lost h.p. and movement here as &#8220;Logistical damage&#8221;

Logistical damage (hp and movement loss) can be restored by moving the unit to a friendly city/fort (again, >50% owning civ&#8217;s culture) and resting for 1 full turn. Lost h.p. and movement cannot be restored by medic units.

In the alternative, a stack of units outside a city can be accompanied by the Supply Train unit (available at any of Military Tradition, Rifling, or Combustion).

STR 0, Mv 1, costs 50 . Each Supply Train will absorb the 10 hp/turn loss per turn for up to 5 units on the same tile, instead suffering 2 lost hp/turn/unit, itself. When it reaches 0 hp, it will disappear (being entirely &#8216;depleted&#8217. It will negate the lost movement for the same 5 units until it disappears.

Supply Trains can regain lost h.p., but they do it slowly: They must rest in a city/fort for 1 turn per 10 h.p. lost.

Where there is less than one Supply Train for every 5 other units in a stack, the Logistical damage will be absorbed for the most damaged units, first.

Where there is more than one Supply Train for every 5 other units in a stack, the least-depleted Supply Train will absorb Logistical damage first.

Supply Train units do not themselves suffer Logistical damage.

Supply Train units can be captured the way Workers and Settlers are, but once captured, their h.p. are halved (meaning that they&#8217;ll only prevent Logistical damage for half as long).

Supply Train units don&#8217;t count under unit maintenance, unit support, war weariness if lost/destroyed, or GG points.

For naval stacks, Supply Train units can be carried in Galleons/Transports.

 

[Doctor Phibes]

[...]

For naval units, after 10 turns, the unit will sink.

[...]

That's a bit harsh on naval units, especially during the age of sail (which is most of the Civ timeframe). Sure, you need to resupply, but most things can be picked up en route, even new timbers, the exception being manufactured goods - you've going to need powder and shot for a start (once gunpowder is invented, of course) and of course rum (why is it gone?). Sailing ships were quite self-sufficient little worlds in many respects.

Basically, Magellan could not have circumnavigated the world on this model. More understandable once steam comes in, hence the Royal Navy's global network of coalling stations. But since ironclads (what a useless unit) are just coastal vessels, coal isn't much of an issue. Oil, I suppose, could fit the bill.

Anyway, sorry to be negative. I like your ideas in general, as long as they would make the game fun and not too cumbersome.

My own thoughts on logistics are about making it more transparent. That's to say that the game engine should be able to trace a clear route back from a unit to a supply centre, be it a city or something else. This is the same sort of coding that traces connections between cities and trade routes. Only difference is that it should be more subject to interdiction by hostiles. To do this, you need to re-emphasise the old Zone of Control idea. So any of the eight squares surrounding a hostile unit will block supply. With this model, battles of encirclement become possible.

I'd stress that such ideas are not new and have been successfully implemented from a long time back. I believe that Chris Crawford's landmark Eastern Front achieved this on the Atari in the 1980s. So long ago, I can barely remember though...

 

[6K Man]

That's a bit harsh on naval units, especially during the age of sail (which is most of the Civ timeframe).

The system doesn't kick in until Rifling, Combustion, or Military Tradition. That allows a decent window for circumnavigation, I think.

 

[Doctor Phibes]

The system doesn't kick in until Rifling, Combustion, or Military Tradition. That allows a decent window for circumnavigation, I think.

Ah. Sorry, I failed to see that somehow. Still think it a little harsh tho. Maybe the unit could just be nerfed some until it puts into a proper dock, rather than sinking.

WRT supply trains, I'm sure that I've played a civ-type game that used these as an actual unit, just like your mechanism. Not CtP (that had supply units, but you used them to gather resources that were out of your territory, like the crawlers in SMACX. Not a bad idea, but not the same thing). Maybe it'll come to me.

 

[gja102]

My own thoughts on logistics are about making it more transparent. That's to say that the game engine should be able to trace a clear route back from a unit to a supply centre, be it a city or something else. This is the same sort of coding that traces connections between cities and trade routes. Only difference is that it should be more subject to interdiction by hostiles. To do this, you need to re-emphasise the old Zone of Control idea. So any of the eight squares surrounding a hostile unit will block supply. With this model, battles of encirclement become possible.

I agree that supply lines would be good if done automatically like trade, to reduce micromanagement. Or you could just represent encirclement by giving an attack bonus to any unit attacking an 'encircled' enemy (this would also help make sieges a bit more realistic - if you cut off the garrison it won't be able to hold out for ever).

Any good rules, though, will still need the AI to understand them properly - that's key (otherwise they would fail as badly as 1UPT).

 

[Doctor Phibes]

Any good rules, though, will still need the AI to understand them properly - that's key (otherwise they would fail as badly as 1UPT).

Yeah, I know. It's kind of a downer when you think of groovy stuff to mod in (not that I have any finished mods, I've just played around) - then you realise you'd just be creating yet another fancy stick for the human player to beat the AIs with.