Thoughts on in-battle unit micro with commanders?

Bactrian

Chieftain
Joined
Apr 18, 2014
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I've been watching PotatoMcWhiskey's preview of the game, and I must say that I really dislike the kind of unit micro that the commanders allow. You can see it in the fight starting around the 34:00min mark (where he says "use your commander like a ferry around the battlefield") and again at the 38:00min mark.

Is this working as intended? If not, I think the easiest way to change would be to simply not allow commanders to "load" units when an enemy is within some X number of tiles. Thoughts?
 
In general commanders should be able to load units if enemies are near. Retreat should be an option.

As for this particular clever tactic to gain extra movement to your units... I don't know, maybe it's fine. Seems somewhat thematic even. Though, maybe this kind of move should be restricted under some perk in commander promotion tree.
 
I'd say it's fine. It's probably beyond what the AI is capable of doing, and in that sense, exploitative. If you feel that it is unfair, you're not obliged to do it. But I think other players should be allowed to, if they want.

In multiplayer, most people will probably use their commanders this way, so there will be parity.
 
Units should use ALL movement to pack or unpack unless they have the promotion to move after specifically unpacking. Imo you SHOULD be able to cycle units in and out of combat but not on the same turn, or use the commander as a movement cheat.
 
I'm hoping you can use the reinforce with a commander based at home and take wounded units off the map to warp home, and then cycle a new/ healed one back to the front with the front line comanders.
 
Units should use ALL movement to pack or unpack unless they have the promotion to move after specifically unpacking. Imo you SHOULD be able to cycle units in and out of combat but not on the same turn, or use the commander as a movement cheat.
That is a level 1 promotion though. So, it‘s relatively easy to have this on most commanders.

I really liked Marbozir‘s video on commanders. It shows very effectively how nuts they are and why +8 combat strength for deity units can be overcome.
 
This doesn't read as negative micromanagement to me, just a level of skill expression. My biggest problem with builder charge optimization in VI was all the busywork around it, having to shuffle through build queues and wait for certain techs to tell the builder to wake up and chop, and maybe you're doing that for a bunch of builders at once. Dancing units around a Commander, meanwhile, is relevant in the terms of a battle, risk-reward gameplay with immediate consequences contained within a few tiles over a few turns. It won't be hanging over my head every time I pull up a City or have me spamming the skip button because I don't want to miss the optimal turn to hit the button. A little bit extra in a situation like this sounds exciting, not boring.
 
Dancing units around a Commander, meanwhile, is relevant in the terms of a battle, risk-reward gameplay with immediate consequences contained within a few tiles over a few turns.
I see your more general point about it being relatively closely contained, but I think the ability of human players to do this kind of dance substantially reduced the risks of engaging in war. And while obviously I don't have to engage with this, I also find it awful on an almost aesthetic level. It's very, very gamey.
 
it's funny, when watching the live streams I for some reason had been under the impression that the commander could only use the suck and deploy abilities en masse, not individually.
 
I see your more general point about it being relatively closely contained, but I think the ability of human players to do this kind of dance substantially reduced the risks of engaging in war. And while obviously I don't have to engage with this, I also find it awful on an almost aesthetic level. It's very, very gamey.
Eh historically battles are very complex with units being pulled off the front lines and replaced simultaneously or say quickly swapping your cavalry to the other wing of the battle. Not something that could be portrayed quite properly with the older unit movement system.
 
The fact that units can gain extra movement points by loading/unloading with commanders feels cheesy and opens the door for exploitive min/maxing strategies which I dislike. I think best solution would be to have loading/unloading take the same movement cost as moving into/out of the tile would normally cost, and limit commanders movement to that of lowest movement unit.
 
Commanders shouldn't be able to load units while in enemy zone of control. I don't think this behavior is intended, and it results in a lot of fiddly micromanagement that a) kind of defeats the micromanagement-reduction purpose of the Commander, and b) gives the player a huge advantage over the AI that we don't need.
 
Commanders shouldn't be able to load units while in enemy zone of control. I don't think this behavior is intended, and it results in a lot of fiddly micromanagement that a) kind of defeats the micromanagement-reduction purpose of the Commander, and b) gives the player a huge advantage over the AI that we don't need.
It will be interesting to see which mechanics they choose to patch (or not) as the game rolls on.
 
The most basic change in tactical combat (that is, On the Battlefield) since pre-history has been the inccrease in Span of Control. That is, in Antiquity the commander of the group coud influence directly only those people within the sound of his own voice.

Later, he got subordinates that he could tell what he wanted down and (hopefully) they would take a bunch of people and do it. But still, in most armies in most cultures for most of history the Army Commander, either the monarch or his direct representative, could only directly influence a very small percentage of the troops on the battlefield.

In some cultures and military systems, in fact, he didn't even try. The Greek Hoplite array made no real use of commanders: the strategos simply fought in the ranks with perhaps a fancier plume on his helmet, if that. It was only when 'professionalism' began to creep into the ranks after the Peloponnesian War that we start reading about Army Commanders in Greece actually having some effect on what happened. Alexander at Gaugamela, in his climactic battle against the Persian Empire, commanded the Hetairoi, or Companion Cavalry - 2000 men out of a force of nearly 40,000. He had told everybody what he wanted them to do, as any commander could before the battle, But during the battle, he simply timed the charge of his Strike Force, the heavy lance-armed cavalry, and otherwise hoped that at least the majority of other people performed as desired.

All of which means that an in-game Army Commander should be severely limited in what he can do for most of the game.

This, in fact, would be another place to slide in some real differences among the Ages:

Antiquity: The Army Commander can 'give Command' or move One Unit only while in enemy ZOC. And he picks that unit when the battle starts, and can only change if the unit is destroyed. And if it isn't in the game already, being with a unit that gets destroyed should produce a substantial risk that the Army Commander goes down with the unit.

Exploration Age. The Army Commander starts with the Antiquity limitations, but some Promotions in the Leadership line allow him to Command more than one unit or provide bonuses to either one unit, or several units, or the entire Army.

Modern Age. The Army Commander can dance about the battlefield as you like: with wire and especially radio communications and powered transportation his reach stretches to all parts of the battlefield - until, of course, he talks too long on the radio and gets targeted by enemy artillery, missiles, UAVs, special forces et al.
 
The most basic change in tactical combat (that is, On the Battlefield) since pre-history has been the inccrease in Span of Control. That is, in Antiquity the commander of the group coud influence directly only those people within the sound of his own voice.

Later, he got subordinates that he could tell what he wanted down and (hopefully) they would take a bunch of people and do it. But still, in most armies in most cultures for most of history the Army Commander, either the monarch or his direct representative, could only directly influence a very small percentage of the troops on the battlefield.

In some cultures and military systems, in fact, he didn't even try. The Greek Hoplite array made no real use of commanders: the strategos simply fought in the ranks with perhaps a fancier plume on his helmet, if that. It was only when 'professionalism' began to creep into the ranks after the Peloponnesian War that we start reading about Army Commanders in Greece actually having some effect on what happened. Alexander at Gaugamela, in his climactic battle against the Persian Empire, commanded the Hetairoi, or Companion Cavalry - 2000 men out of a force of nearly 40,000. He had told everybody what he wanted them to do, as any commander could before the battle, But during the battle, he simply timed the charge of his Strike Force, the heavy lance-armed cavalry, and otherwise hoped that at least the majority of other people performed as desired.

All of which means that an in-game Army Commander should be severely limited in what he can do for most of the game.

This, in fact, would be another place to slide in some real differences among the Ages:

Antiquity: The Army Commander can 'give Command' or move One Unit only while in enemy ZOC. And he picks that unit when the battle starts, and can only change if the unit is destroyed. And if it isn't in the game already, being with a unit that gets destroyed should produce a substantial risk that the Army Commander goes down with the unit.

Exploration Age. The Army Commander starts with the Antiquity limitations, but some Promotions in the Leadership line allow him to Command more than one unit or provide bonuses to either one unit, or several units, or the entire Army.

Modern Age. The Army Commander can dance about the battlefield as you like: with wire and especially radio communications and powered transportation his reach stretches to all parts of the battlefield - until, of course, he talks too long on the radio and gets targeted by enemy artillery, missiles, UAVs, special forces et al.

This reminds me only one: More accuracy not means more fun.
 
This reminds me only one: More accuracy not means more fun.
But the system revealed so far looks like it encourages micromanagement of units and a built-in massive Human Player advantage.

Two things that people did not like about previous Civs.

Just pointing out that there are ways to make the system both a more accurate portrayal of the battles and more fun - and probably faster to get through the battles for those that get tired of the battle animations - which will be all of us after a few thousand or hundred hours' play.
 
I see a lot of new interesting systems in C7 that still need time and feedback to iron out kinks, eliminate holes and reach their full potential; the commanders are part of that. This time next year it will be a very different game.
 
But the system revealed so far looks like it encourages micromanagement of units and a built-in massive Human Player advantage.

Two things that people did not like about previous Civs.

Just pointing out that there are ways to make the system both a more accurate portrayal of the battles and more fun - and probably faster to get through the battles for those that get tired of the battle animations - which will be all of us after a few thousand or hundred hours' play.

No, I'll rather play commander-less Civ 5&6 than yours. 1-unit commander? Who the hell like that?
 
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