The Big Issue With The Civilization Series

[Horem]

Ooooo Rant Fail!

 

[drachasor]

I understand where the OP is coming from, but really the "solution" would be something more like building armies as a single unit of mixed arms. Kind of like how Call To Power did it (but it would be best to avoid making one unit at a time and then having to combine 9 together). The sacrifice of this added realism would be more complex unit actions, I think. Artillery in an army might be charged with one task, infantry another, and so forth during the same round.

 

[ElephantRider]

Scale. So that's what it's all about huh. If you scaled this game to what this game is, it would take a lifetime to play. If you turned it into RTS for battles, every battle would be as long as a Total War game. You would never get anything accomplished. You would forget what you were doing big picture by the time the battle was over.

Some games focus on a certain era. This game focuses on about 6000 years of civilization. There's a big difference with what you can do in a game that focuses on one era as opposed to a game that focuses on 6 millennia.

 

[kuukkeli]

to me, it is even easier than that. There was a game, called Call to Power, which in the end was a big failure for lack of support and unfinished release. Nevertheless, it had a bunch of very good, poorly implemented ideas. One of them was that units could stack to a maximum of 12 (simulating an army), you could choose the stacking, but combat was simulated as a stack-against-stack issue, with bonuses for combined arms like archers or artillery firing from a second line, while infantry units fought one-to-one, and cavalry units could attack the line units while fighting, thus simulating flanking. Heck, you could even retreat your army from the battle (simulated inside a little window) if things were going the wrong way...).

That sounds about perfect. Very close to what I've been hoping without even knowing it has been done before.

Besides, the rtt part could be made optional.

Or "optional" like I've been told it's in TW series. You can let the computer to simulate the battle but it often screws everything (kills your generals, etc.) so in practice you're forced to play every battle. That's not a game mechanic that works as an optional element because not using it would most certainly leave you at disadvantage.

 

[Asterix Rage]

to me, it is even easier than that. There was a game, called Call to Power, which in the end was a big failure for lack of support and unfinished release. Nevertheless, it had a bunch of very good, poorly implemented ideas. One of them was that units could stack to a maximum of 12 (simulating an army), you could choose the stacking, but combat was simulated as a stack-against-stack issue, with bonuses for combined arms like archers or artillery firing from a second line, while infantry units fought one-to-one, and cavalry units could attack the line units while fighting, thus simulating flanking. Heck, you could even retreat your army from the battle (simulated inside a little window) if things were going the wrong way...).

It was a good model for a game THAT IS NOT A WARGAME, something that our friend Shafer forgot. This is not Panzer General, and never will be. Anyways, I still do not understand why they never even considered adopting such a model even if that game (CtP) is some 10 years old already...

I do agree. CTP had the best combat mechanism ever, as me. Fair, balanced, realisitic and clever. Actually it's one of my "dream" about a future civ release.

 

[Kid R]

I understand where the OP is coming from, but really the "solution" would be something more like building armies as a single unit of mixed arms.

Even if you couldn't do it directly on the build queue it would be quite cool to merge 2 (or more) units in Civ 5. So you'd get a single unit with the best attributes of both, all deployable on a single tile. It would be a relatively expensive but tactically very powerful unit, and would to a certain extent get back the feel of a stack/army of combined divisions.

(As if the combat isn't hard enough for the AI already )

 

[quartal]

In my first huge/marathon game (the only one) I didn't have much of a problem with any of the OP:s things.

Firstly the unit strengths are upgraded pretty logically. The first melee kind of units are pretty close to themselves and there is a steep rise in strength for rifleman.

I've hardly lost any rifleman to a lower tier unit. I can only remember one occation of losing a rifleman against some pikeman when the rifleman had like a millimeter of health and only a single unit left.

There is no way a tank squad is going to lose to a pikeman if the tank squad is not reduced to a single tank that's held together with a jesus tape.

Think of it.. if there's a single tank on a field that's held together by glue and it's assaulted by .. say 20 guys? I'd think the tank doesn't have lot's of chances.

 

[Mark Havel]

Criticizing is all well and good, but unfortunately, I don't much proposition from the OP on how to enhance this perceived flaw of the combat system. As it has been said, if you want more realistic tactical and strategic battles, Total War is the way to go.
There could be some kind of tactical view specific to the fight which would still be turn based, but I think warfare is not the primary emphasis of Civilization. It's a part of the game, sure, but I don't like that much to rampage the other empires and invade them.
I tend to prefer the other parts such as empire building, economy building and all the stuff which allows to me reach victory.

So far, I'm satisfied with the fighting mechanisms in Civ V. These games were never about absolute realism nor credibility, I always see them as a kind of computerised board-game without all the elements that make a board-game boring and keeping the fun parts. There are some reality based elements, but the single fact that your Civ leader is immortal destroys any kind of credible realism this series could hope to have. So yes, 1000-year wars and archers sending arrows across mountains are fine for me .

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Why not implement HOMM battle style?

I am one with you on that.

 

[MaXimillionZero]

X as a game concept is outdated

No, it isn't. A game concept cannot somehow become obsolete, it may only vary in popularity over time.

 

[superdudeman]

Moderator Action: *snip*
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[falconne]

They should have just gone AoW/HOMM style, with limited stacking on the strategy map and a separate screen that magnifies the tile for proper stack vs stack TBS tactical combat. The scale issue would be solved, combat would be much more fun and we won't have the insane logistical nightmare of 1UPT on a strategy map. There's a reason it's called the "strategy" layer; it's not a "strategy+tactical mash up layer".

Seriously... this problem was solved 15 years ago.

 

[superdudeman]

I've hardly lost any rifleman to a lower tier unit. I can only remember one occation of losing a rifleman against some pikeman when the rifleman had like a millimeter of health and only a single unit left.

Well that is just completely unrealistic and totally unacceptable. This is 2010. I except my modern games to be able to calculate that modern riflemen can NEVER EVER lose against a lesser unit under any circumstances. Unless the lesser unit is on my team of course, in which case it would be stupid if I didn't stand a chance against the AI. That would be unreasonable.

 

[quartal]

Well that is just completely unrealistic and totally unacceptable. This is 2010. I except my modern games to be able to calculate that modern riflemen can NEVER EVER lose against a lesser unit under any circumstances. Unless the lesser unit is on my team of course, in which case it would be stupid if I didn't stand a chance against the AI. That would be unreasonable.

Even modern riflemen run out of ammo against overwhelming odds.

 

[falconne]

Well that is just completely unrealistic and totally unacceptable. This is 2010. I except my modern games to be able to calculate that modern riflemen can NEVER EVER lose against a lesser unit under any circumstances.

Rifleman unit with one man left, using a mid 19th century Spencer Repeating Rifle: 7 bullets.

Full strength Pike unit: 10 guys with pikes.

You do the math.

If you want to talk real Spearman vs Tank problems, how about my crossbowmen sinking a Trireme?

 

[Strategy Master]

They should have just gone AoW/HOMM style, with limited stacking on the strategy map and a separate screen that magnifies the tile for proper stack vs stack TBS tactical combat. The scale issue would be solved, combat would be much more fun and we won't have the insane logistical nightmare of 1UPT on a strategy map. There's a reason it's called the "strategy" layer; it's not a "strategy+tactical mash up layer".

Seriously... this problem was solved 15 years ago.

Agreed. A seperate battle screen when battling with multiple units would solve alot of the scaling issues, and provide the potential for a more advanced tactical combat system.