I'm working from the following premises:
If you disagree with any of that, it's cool, and feel free to voice it, but it's my hope that I can sort of constrain what discussion there might be under this post to improve the 1UPT dynamic present in Civ V by those points. I'm already messing with some of the thoughts included below in my mod, and I was thinking it might be useful to others if I packaged these changes off to be used separately from the larger mod in progress (that I just haven't had time to work on as of late) so they could actually be used. I wanted some feedback to see if there were some other ideas that could be usefully incorporated.
So, here's my thoughts so far, problems first:
Some definate ups that 1UPT brings to the table:
And, my proposed changes, in general:
What it would achieve, I think:
Your thoughts are appreciated. If you have no interest in any of this, that's ok, please don't flame and just walk away from the thread. I'm prepared for the though that not everyone will be set on fire by this proposed modification...thanks.
- - massive unlimited stacks have their own inherent gameplay problems. These were not really solved over multiple iterations of the game, and while they make sense in a larger context of a strictly strategic nation building game, it essentially reduces the military game to Alpha City with X power attacks Beta City with Y power. I don't wish to return there.
- - strict 1UPT works better to a degree by forcing players to explode what would be a conventional stack of doom into larger formations; but it introduces its own set of inherent problems, and its implemention in Civ V, when considered with other corresponding gameplay rules, is half baked at best.
- - A move towards xUPT, where x is some number, would devolve into a discussion over what arbitrary number is better, and so it's pretty useless to go there.
- - The AI kinda sucks militarily and there's nothing to be done about it at this point. I'm approaching this mechanic from the standpoint that the AI should understand its proper use, as I'm assuming the proper mod tools will be released...eventually, or will be fixed via patch. Whether that actually happens or not, I'm not concerned with.
If you disagree with any of that, it's cool, and feel free to voice it, but it's my hope that I can sort of constrain what discussion there might be under this post to improve the 1UPT dynamic present in Civ V by those points. I'm already messing with some of the thoughts included below in my mod, and I was thinking it might be useful to others if I packaged these changes off to be used separately from the larger mod in progress (that I just haven't had time to work on as of late) so they could actually be used. I wanted some feedback to see if there were some other ideas that could be usefully incorporated.
So, here's my thoughts so far, problems first:
- - There's a lot of mental hangups that the game encourages simply by how units are referenced and their range abilites (or lack thereof). It's difficult to maintain the two disparate notions of distance that the game creates between the strategic layout of cities, resources, improvements, continents, etc. and the tactical interactions between military units. Specifically, how archers can apparently fire off volleys that reach several miles, but modern tanks don't cover the same range. There seems to have been an overarching thought towards having different classes of units with different battlefield roles and positions in formations - recon, front line, ranged, siege, and fast moving - that definately showed promise, but wasn't followed through on completely. This thought either needs to be scrapped and return to a rock-paper-scissors system of power modifiers (problematic with the removal of separate attack/defense powers), or it needs to be refined and expanded so that it's consistently present across the entire length of a game, not just the early game (more realistic).
- - Base movement of 2 basically nullifies any tactical interest that might have been created with 1UPT. I understand that it was an expedient change to make in order to try and alleviate some of the propensity for traffic jams that the AI tends to have, but I think there's better ways of trying to fix it that don't make the 'disparate distance' problem mentioned above even worse. Warriors moved one tile per turn for over a decade...why did it make sense to change that? Deficient AI doesn't validate it If the game's landscape becomes too choked with units each claiming whole tiles for themselves, the proper tweak would be in making it more difficult to produce units, not allowing all of them to move around faster so that they can play leapfrog all game. These decisions cheapened the feel of the military game quite a bit.
- - Workers simply get in the way; particularly foreign workers of nations that you've entered into open borders with. I've yet to figure out a way to mod in the ability for two units of different types (civilian/military) and of different nations to be able to occupy the same tile; there's likely some checksum that we don't have exposure to yet that will need to be modified for that. But in the meantime, this is still a problem that creates traffic jams. I think that rethinking the way Workers are built and operate could have some beneficial effects on gameplay. (Who the hell enjoys managing workers anyway?)
Some definate ups that 1UPT brings to the table:
- - Combined with the ability to buy tiles, forts actually become useful to build! Fighting defensive battles, in which you fortify a defensive line with the intent of actually making your stand there, is no longer a fool's errand, which I find particularly interesting.
- - Larger armies must fan out into proper formations. Armies take up space; this is absolutely appropriate.
- - It creates the potential for interesting symbiotic placement relationships between units of different classes, such as front-line w/ ranged, or ranged w/ recon.
And, my proposed changes, in general:
- - Scale back the base movement of all units by one, keeping it elevated for those that make sense. Human units with feet on the ground should be one tile per turn. Mounted units and possibly recon should be 2. The most primitive ships should start at 2. And so on... Couple it with a reduction in visibility to a base of 1 tile as well, leaving the larger sight range to recon units. This would return a sense of a massive world that you're exploring and traversing, instead of some toy construct of a planet, and creates relationships between ranged units and front line units, where they rely on each other for sight lines and protection, respectively.
- - Modify the worker mechanic so that (1) they don't cause traffic jams by just sitting around idle and (2) city-states can't be subject to stolen worker abuse quite so easily in the early game. The change goes something like this:
- -- Workers should cost a fraction of default production (so by 50 turns into the game, you should be able to crank them out in one turn from a mid-sized city, or a pretty nominal gold fee.
- -- All production times for improvements stay the same
- -- On completion of an improvement, the worker is destroyed, the effect being that the worker is now 'working' the improved tile. (Note for self: Mission.EntityEventType is null for the 'build improvement' mission, possibly change this to 'ENTITY_EVENT_DIE' to achieve this?)
- Thus, each worker should be looked at as a single improvement that hasn't been built yet, instead of a permanent construction crew. This will essentially turn the world map into more of a military domain, instead of a funky shared civilian/military hybrid, that's made all the more funkier with 1UPT and one-nation-per-tile.
- - Reduce the combat power of recon units to 0. This makes the game engine treat them as civilian units (triangular unit icon instead of circular), allowing them to traverse freely through tiles that have combat units occupying them, but also makes them defenseless (which, in a way, makes sense). I have not tested yet how the engine reacts to a unit that has no base combat value but does have a ranged attack; if such units are also treated as civilian, that means that units such as archers, for instance, could be modified so that they could occupy the same tile as a warrior, but would not require lifting the 1UPT rule, and would still only allow one archer in that tile.
What it would achieve, I think:
- - Richer tactical battles, and more defensible borders.
- - Traffic jam alleviation
- - 0 need for worker automation
- - More potential for interesting relationships between units, particularly in the later game, where each class has particular strengths that fill in the gaps for others (recon->sightlines, archers->range, siege->extreme range, infantry->real estate control, etc..), allowing a more carefully constructed diverse force do better against a one-trick-army.
- - A step towards bringing back the 'epic' feel that previous titles achieved.
Your thoughts are appreciated. If you have no interest in any of this, that's ok, please don't flame and just walk away from the thread. I'm prepared for the though that not everyone will be set on fire by this proposed modification...thanks.