Sullla's Ideas for a New Civ

[Truthy]

Based on his proposals, I feel that the game would become terribly focused on moving thousands of units around. By merging dozens of spearmen, tactical combat would be removed from the game. The focus of strategy would revolve around creating super units. Ultimately, the outcome of any war would be determined by who has the biggest of these super units. A 300 spearmen spearman would beat one of 298.

 

[Camikaze]

Yeah, you're right. It's as if you'd ditch stackable units or make the map a hex-grid, right?
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rezaf

It's not really the same thing. TBS (both parts of that; the TB and the S) are the core parts of the game. All features are built around that base, and the base is what defines the game. Large changes in features can make the game unidentifiable as Civ, but if you alter the base, you are certain to do just that.

 

[SpearMan153]

civ4.moo - no thanks

 

[duckstab]

Based on his proposals, I feel that the game would become terribly focused on moving thousands of units around. By merging dozens of spearmen, tactical combat would be removed from the game. The focus of strategy would revolve around creating super units. Ultimately, the outcome of any war would be determined by who has the biggest of these super units. A 300 spearmen spearman would beat one of 298.

I don't get the same sense at all - maneuver on a tactical map would play a significant role, and there'd still be a random element to combat resolution.

 

[masonryan]

I still like his ideas better than anything civ 5 failed to implament.

 

[ohioastronomy]

Based on his proposals, I feel that the game would become terribly focused on moving thousands of units around. By merging dozens of spearmen, tactical combat would be removed from the game. The focus of strategy would revolve around creating super units. Ultimately, the outcome of any war would be determined by who has the biggest of these super units. A 300 spearmen spearman would beat one of 298.

His system sounds closer to EU3 in spirit. e.g. you have thousands of spearmen, but that differs mainly in having cities put out units every turn rather than one "spearman" unit every 10 turns.

There are many, many ways of fixing the unlimited Civ 4 armies - with real maintenance. or limits on how many troops can be raised from a city based on how big it is. or so on. So biggest doesn't always win, but it does win more often than not, quality being equal.

 

[rezaf]

It's not really the same thing. TBS (both parts of that; the TB and the S) are the core parts of the game. All features are built around that base, and the base is what defines the game. Large changes in features can make the game unidentifiable as Civ, but if you alter the base, you are certain to do just that.

@everyone that opposed a RT model, haven't you guys played, like the EU series of games or something? A StarCraft'ish realtime would no longer be civ, agreed, but an implementation similar to the way it works in Europa Universalis could be pulled off.
But, like I wrote, it's not that I'd consider ditching TB to be essential or anything, hell no, I was just trying to find a means to address several problems that have bothered me, personally, in the Civ series.

One of these issues I have is the flow of time. Unless you play one of the artificially longer modes, there's usually techs that "fly by", i.e. you never build even one of the units the tech unlocks. I feel in Civ5, it's even worse, because everything generally takes much longer to build.
Also, wars, and the time it takes units to travel places - it all feel's "off" to me in the earlier parts of the game. Having everything on a realtime mode would solve all that.
And when implemented cleverly, I don't see it destroying Civ any more than some of the features Civ5 brought to the table "destroyed" Civ -and they actually did, since I pretty much dislike Civ5 as it is now. Well, maybe I should say I'm indifferent to it - I bear no hard feelings on it, but I also feel no desire whatsoever to play it again.

Please note that, while I have played and enjoyed a multitude of RTS games, I'm also a big fan of TBS, and I loved games like the Civ series, MoM, MoO 1+2, Colonization etc. I just feel there's room for experimentation.

MoO2 (I pretend 3 never happened) came out 15 years ago, and in my eyes, there never was a game to dethrone it, but recently, there was a game called "Distant Worlds" which takes the TBS model to a RTS system, with many underlying systems that would be impossible or at least hard to pull off in a TBS game, and it works brilliantly. It's still not pushing the exact same buttons MoO2 is pushing, so to speak, but it takes the "4X in Space" genre into an interesting direction I COULD see the Civ series going as well.

That said (or written), I'd also be happy with a TB Civ6, as long as it contained other interesting changes implemented better than in Civ5, or - alternatively - moved back into the direction of Civ4 and the earlier games a bit like what Sulla outlined.
_____
rezaf

 

[wolfigor]

I glanced at Sulla's article (haven't actually read it yet), but one thing that stood out to me is that he says he'd like Mines to upgrade over time like Cottages did in Civ IV. I don't really like this idea. From a realism standpoint, if anything, I would think that mines and Quarries should DECREASE in value over time, since you are actually EXTRACTING the valuable ore as you mine. The longer you mine, the more ore is extracted, the harder and more inefficient it becomes to extract more ore out of the same mine, hence: abandoned mines. The same could be said for lumber mills. And maybe even for farms. Maybe your farms should decrease in food output until "Crop Rotation" is researched.

For sure it may add some realism, but also adds quite a lot of micro-management.
You suggest that the player has to stop using a resource to have it replenished... in practice this means the player has to periodically check the output of every single improvement and change population allocation for each tile.
I see as extremely tedious MM.

If your idea would be implemented it needs a simpler management.
A simpler solution is that improvements deteriorate over time and disappear after a number of turns.
At that point you need to rebuild them (new techs will increase the number of turns of duration for improvements).
Simpler for the user to "monitor" but still extremely tedious.

At the same time, this idea also reduce the value of protecting your territory from invasion.

The value of Sulla's idea for gameplay is that working plots is a huge investment that can be lost if the enemy will pillage your territory.
The player will have to fight in the open to protect the long-term investment in the territory, and will not be economically viable to just defend the town at the expense of the territory (as it happens in CivIV and even more in ciV)

 

[Solo4114]

Based on his proposals, I feel that the game would become terribly focused on moving thousands of units around. By merging dozens of spearmen, tactical combat would be removed from the game. The focus of strategy would revolve around creating super units. Ultimately, the outcome of any war would be determined by who has the biggest of these super units. A 300 spearmen spearman would beat one of 298.

Historically speaking, the bigger army usually DID win. There are occasions where it didn't, of course, but for the most part, an army of 15,000 spearmen, archers, and swordsmen would be defeated by an army of 30,000 spearmen, archers, and swordsmen.

You need a significant technology differential or some other indicator of higher quality troops to have smaller armies win, and even then, they might only be smaller by, say, a quarter or a third.


That's not to say that the smaller army couldn't put up a fight and bloody the larger army's nose, or make it really costly for them to take this or that bit of territory, but most of the time, if you have a bigger army, you're gonna win.



To the extent that you can introduce more options to allow for better trained units, that might help make up a difference, though. So, maybe you could opt for longer build times in order to produce a better trained soldier, or engage in training exercises for them that would require them to spend time where they're unavailable. Or gradually upgrade them a la MOO2 or SMAC using incremental improvements so that a spearman wouldn't just be a generic spearman -- he'd be a spearman with heavy iron armor or a spearman with a lighter-weight wooden shaft on his spear which allows him to move farther in a single turn or whatever.


But honestly, I don't get people's opposition to the whole "Big armies win" thing. Is it that the AI gets too many advantages in being able to build big armies? That strikes me more as a balance problem in how the AI is handled than anything else.

 

[rezaf]

Bleh, just look at games that actually tried this idea of armies for the downsides.

The most I can see working in that ballpark would be an "army builder", kinda similar to how MoO's shipbuilding works.
Instead of hulls, you start with tiny armies that can only take a single "component", for example a scouting squad. Then you get small armies, that can have, say two frontline units and one support unit. Until the end you get like five or six army sizes that usually WILL beat smaller units, but when same-size armies meet, composition plays a big role, and the player only "designs" armies like he designed ship blueprints in MoO, so he makes a design and puts three Longswordmen, a Pikemen, a Macemen, a unit of Longbowmen and some Cavalry in and calls it a "Medieval Army".
You'd never move individual units around - at best a "Tiny army" consisting of a single unit of Riflemen. And the player would not have to deal with the hassle of managing hundreds of indivitual army components - you should be able to tell at first glance: this is a large army, that one is huge, these three are medium and so on.
Managing armies like in Heroes of Might and Magic would be a nightmare, in my book.
_____
rezaf

 

[HorribleHarald]

There is so many things badly implemented in Civ5 that these ideas sounds good for a change. Better is to be tactical minimap than one huge tactical battlemap like in 5. You can then switch off it and use autoresolver if you don't like to fight manually battles.

 

[civfan99]

I dont like the state civ 5 is in but im also not crazy about this guy taking over either some of his ideas seem like a "bit to much" to add into the game I dont want the game changed into something that does not resemble civ I would of been happy with civ 4.5 instead of civ casual that we got.

 

[Rocknocker]

Sulla, thank you for starting this discussion with your article!

My thoughts on the combat system: I think the combat system - tactical map or not - would profit a lot from larger maps (and indeed that was mentioned before several times).

Bigger maps could influence game play very much and bring totally new options. Cities could really grow. Not only their "size number", but also the fields they use. For example, after a city has grown to size 3 it could expand to another field. This would also increase the fields which can be used by the population. Therefore, we could restrict the workable fields to a 1-field-ring (which was to small for Sulla's taste) in the beginning. But later, after the city has expanded, it would normally have the necessar fields to support the whole population of the city.

The map would probably look much more interesting. It would also lead to further interesting developments and questions:

1) How should cities be defended? (With towers? At least it would be much easier with many armies as Sulla suggested)

2) In which direction would the city grow? (Maybe similar to culture)

3) What happens if the enemy has captured a part of a city?

and so on and so on...

I hope you also like the idea!

 

[MkLh]

Sulla, thank you for starting this discussion with your article!

My thoughts on the combat system: I think the combat system - tactical map or not - would profit a lot from larger maps (and indeed that was mentioned before several times).

It cuts both ways. Smaller maps create some annoying jamming and chokepoints that can be virtually impossible for an invader to pass (especially for the AI) which can be seen negative. On the other hand, in smaller maps terrain matters more making things more tactical/strategical. In bigger maps, things are also slower and moving troops can be tedious. So I'm not buying the view that bigger maps are solely better for combat.

 

[lschnarch]

It cuts both ways. Smaller maps create some annoying jamming and chokepoints that can be virtually impossible for an invader to pass (especially for the AI) which can be seen negative. On the other hand, in smaller maps terrain matters more making things more tactical/strategical. In bigger maps, things are also slower and moving troops can be tedious. So I'm not buying the view that bigger maps are solely better for combat.

I agree with you that bigger maps wouldn't be an overall improvement.

The point is still the wrong scale. And this cannot be solved by just having bigger maps.
First, the map generator will still cover the whole area with hills and bushes (forests), second the cities will still be closely put and third, moving from left to right would takes ages.
You just can't have both in one: a halfways plausible world map and a halfways plausibel tactical map.

 

[Rocknocker]

Making the map larger would entail other changes, of course.

1) The movement points would probably have to be increased

2) mountains, cities, lakes and such might not only be one hex big, but maybe 7 or so.

But I have to admit that domination victory could become very annoying if it meant that you have to win half of the world.

But I always liked the idea to have much more countries (I know, I know, computers would probably have difficulties - but graphics could be adjusted...) without reducing the seize of the players nation. Thus it would become annoying to have a war at the other end of the world. But war with neighbouring nations, which are much more common, would be similar.

 

[RFHolloway]

Stacks - yes
Stacks fighting one unit at a time - No (biggest weakness with Civ 4)
Separate tactical map - probably not
which leaves...
step 1 - Select units to commit to attack (from one hex or perhaps multiple hexes)
step 2 - Auto resolve/simulate with an animation to provide details of what is going well or badly (reminds me of Moo) - if the AI is poor then blame the commanders.
step 3 - Units that have not already attacked can persue the weakened force by attacking again (if they have sufficient moves etc) break through and attack past them etc.
step 4 (on the interturn) - Hostile units fortified next to each other (therefore haven't attacked) take potshots/conduct raids and both sides suffer some attritional losses. (Rise and fall of the Third riech had a similar feel - major offensive or attritional combat)

That may start to have the right strategic feel (providing the simulation is done well) - key decisions are around what forces to commit and in what proportion.

 

[Windsor]

+ Scale matches Civ games
+ Realistic. No suicide siege and no archers shooting ridiculous lengths.
+ AI-friendly. Easier path-finding and allows for rules the AI can understand
+ Lots of interesting strategic decisions.
+ Combat animations can be a lot more dynamic and look much better since it involves more than two units at a time.

 

[sketch162000]

Historically speaking, the bigger army usually DID win. There are occasions where it didn't, of course, but for the most part, an army of 15,000 spearmen, archers, and swordsmen would be defeated by an army of 30,000 spearmen, archers, and swordsmen.

You need a significant technology differential or some other indicator of higher quality troops to have smaller armies win, and even then, they might only be smaller by, say, a quarter or a third.


That's not to say that the smaller army couldn't put up a fight and bloody the larger army's nose, or make it really costly for them to take this or that bit of territory, but most of the time, if you have a bigger army, you're gonna win.

And this is why stacking makes perfect sense.

As a side note, one thing I've noticed reading this thread is that a lot of people are complaining about Sulla's ideas because they add micromanagement. But then 1upt added a lot of micromanagement, itself. It's kind of hard to figure out what people really want here.

 

[Me,myself,and,I]

Camikaze. I would suggest you play the original Master of Orion to see the combat system fully used. It really doesn't detract from strategy. If your fleets are outmatched technologically then a stand up fight is suicide even with brilliant tactical maneuvering. If an enemy of equal tech outnumbers you a hundred to one then it is difficult (to put it mildly) to win even with the greatest maneuvers. Additionally battles are short, real short.

I have two main issues with Sullla's ideas.
1: Missing techs is not a good idea IMHO, though possibly slight variations in the arrangement of ones tech tree would work.
2: XP should be in in some form, more like the system of Total war then Civ4 however.