Should attack AND defense ratio's be used in Civ5?
- Thread starter Gamemaster77
- Start date
I voted the same way. People, I think, imagine Civ4 combat as two huge forces closing within a mile of each other, and then standing by while individual companies of 100 men walk up and slug it out.
That tile where combat is occurring is much, much larger if you scale it to Earth, something like 200 sq. mi. or more when I compared a huge map to Earth. It represents even more space on "smaller" maps (less resolution).
When a Civ battle occurs, try imagining two forces campaigning over the course of a month, maneuvering through the wilderness, skirmishers scouting and ambushing foragers, until the two main forces contact each other and fight. When you have a stack of ten units against an enemy force of five units, barring any introduction of stack combat mechanics, just imagine the final battle result as the "net" result after your entire force engages their entire force. So if I have 7 units left, I think "okay, I lost 30% of my forces while obliterating the entire enemy force". I don't think "3 of my units suicided on their strong ones and then I mopped up the rest with my backup".
When viewed through this lens, individual attack and defense values do not make much sense. Both forces are actively involved in attacking and defending in this miniature campaign that you don't see. The overall strength of a unit should reflect the equipment, organization, and numbers of the unit. The promotions should reflect the training and experience (whether generally experienced veterans or trained to fight a particular type of enemy or fight in a particular terrain). Young players tend to fight with smaller numbers of troops and see the battle results as way too skewed one way or another (especially if they lose a fight they were supposed to "win"). Older players, or ones more accustomed to statistics, look at the big picture and see that your choice in unit production has a giant overreaching effect on the outcome of a war, even if a few skirmishes seem "unfair" because you had to sacrifice a unit to soften up the stack. And when it comes right down to it, Civilization is about the big picture, not the miniature tactics.
There was an argument posted earlier that this mechanic favors the defender. In fact, I would argue that it favors the attacker. Although the best defender in Civ terms "steps forth to fight off your attack", the attacker has the advantage of picking the best odds of success (in a hypothetical stack of my mace and knight against your crossbow and pike, my mace might have a higher chance of success so I pick him first to fight), representing initiative on the battlefield. Additionally, the attackers can cause collateral damage and utilize flanking, which I think is a seriously underrated promotion tree.
Well, there already are. But if you mean a further diversification of units to be selected from, then that could be a way of improving the system, so long as it wasn't taken to a ridiculous degree whereby by there were 20 or 30 units for each era.
Pikkis
Prince
I think adding a few more units to each era sounds like a good idea, but like you said the adding must be done carefully, because too many is too many. In the best scenario it would enhance unit diversity nicely as well as notably widen the possible strategies, but that may be too wishful thinking.
Also, I think that Antilogic's post had excellent points that many players don't think at all.
The thing is, viewing it through this lens is exactly the kind of scale of thinking I value not having to do. It's the tactical/"realism" argument from a different angle.
Gamemaster77
PC > Mac
Also units mabye could be upgraded 2 or 3 times before the next complety upradable unit comes. Do I make sense?
Well, I don't get what you're suggesting fwiw; could you explain that again ?
Hail
Satan's minion
no
what way of improving the system?
how can one axis system project onto itself a weak, but hard-hitting unit type?
differentiate between a howitzer and a heavy cannon(artillery)?
Civman33
Gunship Pilot
No, because I don't want to lose a modern armor tank to a simple warrior. So no.
Gamemaster77
PC > Mac
Hail
Satan's minion
i would not classify that as an upgrade
It's the "game mechanics are different from real life no matter what" argument, actually.
You don't have to imagine anything if you don't want to. But I'm saying that the scale of the game should be considered in unit design.
Gamemaster77
PC > Mac
There really is not much scale in Civ. If we were to put scale to the game then the whole game would be messed up because they are so different. Sometimes you just have to leave it at what makes for better game play.
GhostWriter16
Deity
Well, now there's no more stacks thank goodness.
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