This is not strategy game

[Kimurae]

Personally, I think we have too many units. One aspect (one of the few aspects) of Beyond Earth I liked was that you had very few units, but techs, and other things powered those units up.

I'd rather see units represent professional armies, they should cost population. A single Roman legion should be enough to sack Carthage.

 

[kornelm1978]

This but don't let the Civ4 zealots hear your blasphemy.




You do realize there is whole sub-genre of strategy games that is traditional wargames that have been around since the 1960?? This is the model that abstracts real-life, not some unrealistic fantasy that were stacks of dooms. Trying to coordinate the movements of companies/regiments/brigades/etc. over a varied terrain (with its movement rules) plus considering zone-of-control, leadership influence and return fire from enemies (cities/units/etc.) is the MOST strategic element ever introduced into the Civ series.

I did not realize. But what you described is tactics. With accorrdance to wikipedia: Military tactics answer the questions of how best to deploy and employ forces on a small scale.[2] Some practices have not changed since the dawn of warfare: assault, ambushes, skirmishing, turning flanks, reconnaissance, creating and using obstacles and defences, etc. Using ground to best advantage has not changed much either. Heights, rivers, swamps, passes, choke points, and natural cover, can all be used in multiple ways. Before the nineteenth century, many military tactics were confined to battlefield concerns: how to maneuver units during combat in open terrain. Nowadays, specialized tactics exist for many situations, for example for securing a room in a building.

 

[kornelm1978]

Personally, I think we have too many units. One aspect (one of the few aspects) of Beyond Earth I liked was that you had very few units, but techs, and other things powered those units up.

I'd rather see units represent professional armies, they should cost population. A single Roman legion should be enough to sack Carthage.

That's what I'd love.

 

[kornelm1978]

And if you really love tactical game, there is a way to implement it. Armies move on strategic map, battles are on tactical. Look at Endless Legend, Total War, Heroes of Might and Magic, and many others. And many of them even does not allow any interaction during tactical game: EU IV, Stellaris, Galactic Civilizations. It could be nice solution as well. But having tactical battles on strategic maps is really not good idea IMO. I do not really know any other popular game doing so, obviously apart from other masterpiece of firaxis - Beyond Eearth. There is s many years past civ 5, and nobody else caught that "great" idea.

 

[Roald Amundsen]

Please tell me how deathstack spam promoted strategy in any way. 1upt is one of their best improvements ever

You don't understand. It's not only the player that has stacks but the AI as well. ANY turn in civ4 a huge stack could drop on your shore making your game hell. This can never happen in 5 or 6. Oh and by the way: this scenario i just mentioned, you loose that game cause you had all your trooos sonewhere else in one Big stack. Me? I was playing strategicly, carefully balancing units and unit conposition between my northern and eastern army, being careful to have some reserve troops in between in case of surprise invasion by a comptent AI. Get it?

 

[kornelm1978]

You don't understand. It's not only the player that has stacks but the AI as well. ANY turn in civ4 a huge stack could drop on your shore making your game hell. This can never happen in 5 or 6. Oh and by the way: this scenario i just mentioned, you loose that game cause you had all your trooos sonewhere else in one Big stack. Me? I was playing strategicly, carefully balancing units and unit conposition between my northern and eastern army, being careful to have some reserve troops in between in case of surprise invasion by a comptent AI. Get it?

This is what evangelist of 1upt do not consider. There was much more thinking in warefare in IV. And with collateral damage, even huge stacks were were weekend. The one per tile unit does not simulate war at all. You all know how difficult is to loose units in 5 or 6. If you lost some, the game is over. That should not be ow the war should look like. You should loose units the opponent as well, the one who looses more, looses. That's why I am saying again and again, this is puzzle which does not simulate war even in very siplified way. The war is not war, it's a tactical battle (overexageration) which takes 50 years in modern era and 1000 in ancient. I understand that games must simplify things, especially those which are spread over thousands of years, but it goes to far. And simplifications are nice when they add gameply, not limit it.

 

[ThunderLizard2]

Please tell me how deathstack spam promoted strategy in any way. 1upt is one of their best improvements ever

What? Haven't you read all the dozens of threads describing why 1 UPT is a disaster? I guess it's a best improvement if you want to play against a braindead AI that shuffles units around and spend your time moving units instead of playing strategically.

 

[Biz_]

what some people might not realize is that a lot of what works well in this style of strategy game is usually learned (or at least inspired) from other computer games

when you're dealing with stacks, you can lift ideas from other 4X games or even RTS games (RTS engines generally use 1UPT, but the collision of large armies more closely resembles stacks than civ5/civ6-style 1UPT)

the types of games that devs can look at for ideas/inspiration related to 1UPT are generally tactics-focused wargames or board games which have less overall similarities

civilization is a complex balance of combat and production and technology and more. when civ5 was trying to model combat similar to tactical wargames, it didn't really have a good template to follow for the rest of the economy/strategy part

pacing becomes a problem because 1UPT doesn't really handle the diversity of army sizes that stacks can.
map size became a problem because you end up with these randomly generated chokepoints when 1UPT is rarely used outside of hand-crafted scenarios that are repeatedly tested for playability.
balance becomes a problem because you're using a system usually designed for 1 specific conflict and trying to apply it to 6000 years of human history

there are hundreds of empire-building computer games (not necessarily good ones) which demonstrate how economy and combat and balance and pacing and map sizes fit together for stack-based or blob-based combat
you can't learn as many lessons about 1UPT because there aren't a lot of civilization-style games that use it

for example, the people who made early civ/colonization/smac games went on to make a few excellent RTS games with big huge games and ensemble studios.
civ could be improved by learning what works or doesn't work in those games, but moving away from stacks handicapped its ability to do things like that

 

[Cristoval]

People who revert to mentioning the SoD don't really remember how civ4 played.
SoD = Stack of Doom
def: A stack that is unbeatable. A stack that can go around and conquer everything unchallenged.

To build such a stack would require a large tech, production, economic lead to support the amount of units and new ones to reinforce it. If a civ is this far a head then they deserve to rampage over civs that have effectively lost the game anyway. But how many times does such a stack get built that lives up to the SoD name? Rarely does this happen. The way people mention SoD is as if any stack with 10+ units in it is a SoD which is not true. Most large stacks can be beaten, but you won't be able to take zero losses like you have in civ5/6.

I'm of the opinion that civ does not need hard unit stack restrictions. You should be able to stack how many units you can produce, but there should be consequences for doing so. In civ4 the consequence was that collateral damage can severely destroy the stack but is sometimes not enough. Another good way to discourage such large stacks(30+ units) would be to impose an attrition modifier like in EU4. This way you still have the choice of how you want to manage your army.

If civ continued with stacking, the UI and unit management could have been improved and just made it easier to control large amounts of units. Right now EU4 and similar paradox titles make it easy to move your large armies. The way it is now moving your armies in civ5/6 is tedious, and the map sizes and AI don't really support it.

 

[kornelm1978]

And one more thing for those whos praise 1upt, where is the reality of the batlles where modern infantry and tank have lowe range than archer (argument probably repeted 2000 times, sorry but maybe it needs to repeted again),. I understand simplifications, but they must follow i believe two rules: its simplified, but you can imagine the reason of simplification for the flavour and it improves gameplay. I can not really imagine in my mind the archers shooting further than modern infantry. Mutiple units per tile fullfils both requirements: better for gameplay in general, better for AI and really i can imgine one army os several units on one tile.

 

[kornelm1978]

Guys, there is a lot of us not liking the 1upt. And realistically we can be sure that it will not be changed significantly to multiple units per tile, nobody will admit mistake in firaxis. But there is a mechanic implemented in CIV with corpses. That would not be disaster for devs from political point of view to say that, they have found good feature which needs developing. If that's wisely exploited it can significantnly improve gameplay. Let's say 5 units insted of 3, earlier availability, more power, maybe even mixed corpses. That is possbile. Make fuss about it, discuss that, demand!!! They are probably thinking what to change with next patches or DLC!!! The time is now!!!

And if wisely changed, I am sure that it will satisfy most of 1upt lovers, they just dont know that.

 

[rastak]

It isn't ever going back to 3 & 4. At least I hope not.

Maybe I could accept going back to 1 & 2 where if lost a battle you lost your whole stack so you'd have to be stupid to run around with stacks unless you REALLY felt safe.

 

[Ogaw]

I think you are exaggerating. This is the first release of the game. They haven't had any chance to patch minor issues yet.

Things will get better, and I believe the vanilla game itself is already very good.

 

[grandad1982]

And if you really love tactical game, there is a way to implement it. Armies move on strategic map, battles are on tactical. Look at Endless Legend, Total War, Heroes of Might and Magic, and many others. And many of them even does not allow any interaction during tactical game: EU IV, Stellaris, Galactic Civilizations. It could be nice solution as well. But having tactical battles on strategic maps is really not good idea IMO. I do not really know any other popular game doing so, obviously apart from other masterpiece of firaxis - Beyond Eearth. There is s many years past civ 5, and nobody else caught that "great" idea.

And there you have it. Representing tactical battles and movement on a strategic scales map just doesn't work that well. Totally agree.

In the early game its not so bad but by the mid/late game when army sizes are getting pretty large it really falls down. Navigating you carpet of doom and watching the AI fail to use theres properly is not so fun. The corps and armies in 6 might prove to be a good avenue of development to mitigate the late game issues whilst keeping the early game fun of having a few units to play with.

 

[Dun Malg]

And there you have it. Representing tactical battles and movement on a strategic scales map just doesn't work that well. Totally agree.

Yep, just as detailed by Sulla in his critique. Even Jon Shafer, the designer whose idea it was to implement 1UPT in an attempt to emulate the tactical combat model of Panzer General, admits it was a bad decision. He details this and concedes other errors, both resulting from trying to balance 1UPT and just bad decision making, all on the Kickstarter he's running for a new 4X game... his new game that supports unlimited stacking and doesn't have archers who can shoot over impassable mountain ranges.

But I guess it doesn't matter, because people seem to like 1UPT, and the games sell well. I think the problem is that most people don't like strategy games, but a lot of them have found via Civ V that they like turn-based tactical games, even if they're presented on a grossly out of scale strategic map. I think a big part of that is that tactical games are simply more accessible and have less of a learning curve. I guess that's fine. Firaxis is doubtless looking for ways to broaden their customer base, and simplifying their games seems to be their main approach. Sid Meier's Starships is emblematic of this. A five year old could master the game. The vast majority of people don't have the time to devote to working out the subtle interactions of a complex strategy game, and it's really hard to make people feel rewarded for playing if your game takes 100 hours of dedicated playing to get to the point where you might not lose. That was the appeal of Civ V. At easier levels, you invest in a little light decision making, click NEXT TURN a lot, and eventually win the game. It's a valid thing to like, and it's a valid thing to sell.... it's just not a strategy game like Civ IV was. I wish there was some way to bridge the gap, to present a game that is simple and rewarding on easier difficulty, and which scales up in complexity the higher level you play at. We're just not the market anymore. We Civ IV nuts are few, and the big market that likes the easier game is huge.

 

[grandad1982]

Yep, just as detailed by Sulla in his critique. Even Jon Shafer, the designer whose idea it was to implement 1UPT in an attempt to emulate the tactical combat model of Panzer General, admits it was a bad decision. He details this and concedes other errors, both resulting from trying to balance 1UPT and just bad decision making, all on the Kickstarter he's running for a new 4X game... his new game that supports unlimited stacking and doesn't have archers who can shoot over impassable mountain ranges.

But I guess it doesn't matter, because people seem to like 1UPT, and the games sell well. I think the problem is that most people don't like strategy games, but a lot of them have found via Civ V that they like turn-based tactical games, even if they're presented on a grossly out of scale strategic map. I think a big part of that is that tactical games are simply more accessible and have less of a learning curve. I guess that's fine. Firaxis is doubtless looking for ways to broaden their customer base, and simplifying their games seems to be their main approach. Sid Meier's Starships is emblematic of this. A five year old could master the game. The vast majority of people don't have the time to devote to working out the subtle interactions of a complex strategy game, and it's really hard to make people feel rewarded for playing if your game takes 100 hours of dedicated playing to get to the point where you might not lose. That was the appeal of Civ V. At easier levels, you invest in a little light decision making, click NEXT TURN a lot, and eventually win the game. It's a valid thing to like, and it's a valid thing to sell.... it's just not a strategy game like Civ IV was. I wish there was some way to bridge the gap, to present a game that is simple and rewarding on easier difficulty, and which scales up in complexity the higher level you play at. We're just not the market anymore. We Civ IV nuts are few, and the big market that likes the easier game is huge.

I remember reading sulla's article sometime ago but didn't know that shafer had come out and trashed his own idea.

 

[Dun Malg]

I remember reading sulla's article sometime ago but didn't know that shafer had come out and trashed his own idea.

Yeah, it's kind of funny. Sulla has a review of Brave New World, and he quotes and links to Shafer's Kickstarter at one point midway through, noting that all the stuff Shafer admits to is pretty much word-for-word exactly what he had outlined in his critique.

Also Sulla has a couple pieces up on Civ VI, both a pre-release impressions one and a "one week in" review. Worth a read.

 

[kornelm1978]

Yep, just as detailed by Sulla in his critique. Even Jon Shafer, the designer whose idea it was to implement 1UPT in an attempt to emulate the tactical combat model of Panzer General, admits it was a bad decision. He details this and concedes other errors, both resulting from trying to balance 1UPT and just bad decision making, all on the Kickstarter he's running for a new 4X game... his new game that supports unlimited stacking and doesn't have archers who can shoot over impassable mountain ranges.

But I guess it doesn't matter, because people seem to like 1UPT, and the games sell well. I think the problem is that most people don't like strategy games, but a lot of them have found via Civ V that they like turn-based tactical games, even if they're presented on a grossly out of scale strategic map. I think a big part of that is that tactical games are simply more accessible and have less of a learning curve. I guess that's fine. Firaxis is doubtless looking for ways to broaden their customer base, and simplifying their games seems to be their main approach. Sid Meier's Starships is emblematic of this. A five year old could master the game. The vast majority of people don't have the time to devote to working out the subtle interactions of a complex strategy game, and it's really hard to make people feel rewarded for playing if your game takes 100 hours of dedicated playing to get to the point where you might not lose. That was the appeal of Civ V. At easier levels, you invest in a little light decision making, click NEXT TURN a lot, and eventually win the game. It's a valid thing to like, and it's a valid thing to sell.... it's just not a strategy game like Civ IV was. I wish there was some way to bridge the gap, to present a game that is simple and rewarding on easier difficulty, and which scales up in complexity the higher level you play at. We're just not the market anymore. We Civ IV nuts are few, and the big market that likes the easier game is huge.

Sad to read that, but at least I am not alone in my opinions. I didn't follow the comunity much before, I just played modded civ 5, 4, 3 and 2. But after playing one day (!!!) civ 6 I really got angry and I set up an acount here. I got angry that the game not only needs tweaks need, but as lacks potential without huge redisign. I didn't like really the ideas some of 5 ideas but I really belived promises of devs that this game will have depth. I didnt like the 1upt, but I really believed that the AI is better. Really guys, it's the same game from war perspective and AI is not even copied (not saying it is better). But with one thing I can not agree, that you can't satisfy casual players and hardcore ones at the same time. The rules can be simple and the game still may be demanding. Easy to learn, easy to beat on low levels, but demanding on higher difficulties...

But maybe we are so small group that caring about us is not worhty any hour of work... When I look at the reviews and the hype in here I can not realy believe. The game seems to be perfect.This will be the strategy game of the year.

 

[MyOtherName]

Yes, but not in way presented in the game. Imagine you are the ruler of the empire and your biggest decisions are: 1. built two archers to have boost on something, 2. place a religious district between three mountains, 3 place the archer on the hill. Although i like it, those decisions should not be most important for the game and they are.

You invested in a district rather than military or expansion? And decided to build the one for faith/religion rather than science (or military/culture if you built elsewhere)? And you went on to research machinery rather than the middle (or top) paths of the tech tree?

Those sound like the sorts of decisions that are typical of a civ game....

 

[dexters]

Yeah, it's kind of funny. Sulla has a review of Brave New World, and he quotes and links to Shafer's Kickstarter at one point midway through, noting that all the stuff Shafer admits to is pretty much word-for-word exactly what he had outlined in his critique.

Also Sulla has a couple pieces up on Civ VI, both a pre-release impressions one and a "one week in" review. Worth a read.

I've seen Sulla's stuff, he's opinion exactly (he is quoting someone else but is saying it reflects his views closely) is where most of us are. Good start and a better start than civ5. Some bad stuff that he can't figure out how it got missed in testing. Frustrating UI. Confident it will get better.