Tom Chick's take on Civ 6

[Nefelia]

The problem with Civ VI 1UPT is that it can be terrible with the really bad AI Civ VI currently has.

The problem with Stacks of Doom is that it is terrible regardless of the state of the AI.

Fortunately, a proper compromise can be achieved by using the tools currently in the game:
- place religious units on a completely seperate layer, and give military units the ability to kill religious units the same way they currently plunder trade routes (act of war if done on religious units of a friendly/neutral civ).
- allow military units to travel together in stacks of three or four, with each unit getting a -10 combat modifier for each unit in the Travel Stack: this would allow for better logistics but would make this incredibly risky in the front lines. Units can not attack from a tile that contains other military units (or attacks with the -10 combat modifier for each other military unit on the tile.
- allow civilian units (Settlers, Builders) to stack together regardless of which civ owns them.

 

[Roxlimn]

Military units can already kill religious units. Each time you kill one in war, it's -125 Religious Pressure for 10 tiles around. That's already in the game, Chick just didn't bother to check.

Reducing the role of logistics in war doesn't seem like it should be an aim of a strategy game. A single road leading through a jungle should allow you to attack a Civ on the other side easier, but if you're relying on that one road, it should still be suicide to declare war and then come out a few units at a time on the other side. Granted, the AI doesn't understand logistics like that right now, but players do, and they do it to each other all the time in MP. And you can do it to the AI, too. Heck you could shoot yourself in the foot and render most of your force worthless just because you didn't think things through enough, and that can give the AI enough to get an edge.

Most players would get irritated at that and say the system is broken and should be changed. Should it, really? You don't do your logistics right, you're going to get screwed. Sounds like it's working fine.

 

[kornelm1978]

Military units can already kill religious units. Each time you kill one in war, it's -125 Religious Pressure for 10 tiles around. That's already in the game, Chick just didn't bother to check.

Reducing the role of logistics in war doesn't seem like it should be an aim of a strategy game. A single road leading through a jungle should allow you to attack a Civ on the other side easier, but if you're relying on that one road, it should still be suicide to declare war and then come out a few units at a time on the other side. Granted, the AI doesn't understand logistics like that right now, but players do, and they do it to each other all the time in MP. And you can do it to the AI, too. Heck you could shoot yourself in the foot and render most of your force worthless just because you didn't think things through enough, and that can give the AI enough to get an edge.

Most players would get irritated at that and say the system is broken and should be changed. Should it, really? You don't do your logistics right, you're going to get screwed. Sounds like it's working fine.

You are not right because of 2 reasons:

1. This should be strategy game. You are the leader of Empire. Instead of moving single units through whole map, I'd prefer to take strategic decisions. And really, believe me, Alexander the Great biggest achievement or problem was not to move effectivelly each single unit through the map. He moved armies.
2. You say: "You don't do your logistics right, you're going to get screwed". Maybe then we should add another boring and time consuming logisitic feature. Let's say you need to click, that each unit gets food every turn. And it must be clicked manually. What a new layer of logistic, you don't do that - you get screwed.

 

[Roxlimn]

Supply is something a lot of people have suggested be in Civ titles. It'd be interesting for sure, but it might be a tad complex because it's also supposed to be welcoming to new players? The current logistics of moving isn't all that complicated? I mean, you're moving something like 10 units or so only, and if you managed them right it shouldn't be all that bothersome. You just have to think of it some. When all your ducks are in a row, you CAN just automove them.

 

[kornelm1978]

Supply is something a lot of people have suggested be in Civ titles. It'd be interesting for sure, but it might be a tad complex because it's also supposed to be welcoming to new players? The current logistics of moving isn't all that complicated? I mean, you're moving something like 10 units or so only, and if you managed them right it shouldn't be all that bothersome. You just have to think of it some. When all your ducks are in a row, you CAN just automove them.

Are those the same people suggested that they do not care about AI?

 

[Roxlimn]

I think they're not thinking about even. Many of the suggestions create even more complex scenarios and gameplay and I don't know that the AI, for instance, can defend its supply chains as well as a human can exploit it. That's one of the problems with these many suggestions - they're interesting for humans to play and create, but not very easy to code algorithms for. I expect the Firaxis team is the same way, so I don't doubt that there were a lot more complex suggestions for the combat layer that just got left on the cutting room floor.

 

[Stilgar08]

You are not right because of 2 reasons:

1. This should be strategy game. You are the leader of Empire. Instead of moving single units through whole map, I'd prefer to take strategic decisions. And really, believe me, Alexander the Great biggest achievement or problem was not to move effectivelly each single unit through the map. He moved armies.
2. You say: "You don't do your logistics right, you're going to get screwed". Maybe then we should add another boring and time consuming logisitic feature. Let's say you need to click, that each unit gets food every turn. And it must be clicked manually. What a new layer of logistic, you don't do that - you get screwed.

Did it ever occur to you that single units just resemble armies? I mean could be, uh?
Generally speaking this discussion as a whole (not only you, kornhelm...) seems to underestimate the degree of abstraction needed for a game like civ to work. Let me guess: One archeological museum is ONE archeological museum, right? One horseman is ONE horseman! Seriously, C'Mon!

Your 2nd point is just silly and lacks argument - it's just a try to discredit what Roxlimm meant - (and you know he didn't mean what you made of it). Personally I'm against supply chains or anything in that regard - maybe just because I cannot see any advantage except making the game even harder for the AI to understand. So maybe I'm wrong here...

And we know you don't rate CiVI as a strategy game for whatever reason (don't start this discussion again, please). I disagree wholeheartedly!

 

[Roxlimn]

The weird thing is, that stack combat is REALLY simple, and it more or less abstracts most things about combat to the point where combat is hardly even worth mentioning. For a very long time, combat in Civ IV was just pack the one super unit that will dominate everything and then pack a few counter-counter units to make it invincible. That was about it.

Many players make this mistake that Civ V's combat borrowed from Panzer General is meant to make the layer more tactical. It does, kind of, but what it really does is add a lot more logistics. Pathing units through a jungle? Well, that's going to be a problem. You gotta think about how to solve that. Got to go through some hills? Mountains blocking your attack tiles? All logistical or strategic problems, not tactical ones. When your units are logjamming through your own territory, you're failing so hard at the logistics of the game that it's hard to express how bad that is. And yes, you can still win against the AI because it's tactically bad.

And that's really where the Military Engineers come in. They're not to forge long lonely roads to distant Civilizations. Trader units do that. Each trader represents significant trade activity, and the civilian activity abstracted is what makes the roads. Military Engineers are for state-sponsored military activities that say (we're going to make THIS road for strategic reasons). If you really think about that, there aren't a whole lot of purely military endeavors that managed to create a road from Beijing to London. Military Engineers are for linking your roads together when it's inconvenient to spend a Trader for a few tiles within your Empire, or to prepare some breathing room on the other side for staging purposes.

That long lonely road through the Jungle? It's much more manageable with 4 parallel tiles of road at the end of it. That way, you can functionally spread out in a defensible position without getting slaughtered wholesale. That's a strategic decision, and it works. Spend two Military Engis on it. Totally worth it. If you can swing a third, you can even make two Forts.

 

[Ricci]

The AI is always going to suck at war, and stacking units is not going to help with that, since Civ 4 AI is STILL bad at war, and equally bad. If we want for that to be a challenge,
...

I take you haven´t tried Better AI or K-MOD even once (specially K-MOD for the tactical aspect). Never human like, mind you. Still. Even unmodded BTS makes Civ VI -together with Shafer´s- look like bumper cars with no drivers behind the wheels.

 

[Ricci]

Umm, actually you do, all the time. Not too cold, not too hot, just right. As the fairytale put it.

Its the nature of problems on a continuum, which units per tile on a single strategy map in fact is.

Only way around that is getting rid of the everything on one map brainbug. Which, in fact, might be the ancient Civ 1 idea which needs to go away.

Mmnmnmn, the wheel, 'everything on one map', the latin alphabet, ancient doings. As current.
Detaching combat from the rest of the game severely amputates MP. In fact, every non elegant aspect of the game does.

 

[Ricci]

Chick´s review is sound. May be not too thorough into Civ VI, as it permeates many criticisms from Shafer´s game, righteously I believe. The fact that 1UPT can make up for an exeptional and incredible game is irrelevant in the sight of a review made for Civ VI today. All the schism about the potential within this game against being fundamentally flawed, modestly confirms it is not sufficiently good in it´s current state.

 

[Roxlimn]

I take you haven´t tried Better AI or K-MOD even once (specially K-MOD for the tactical aspect). Never human like, mind you. Still. Even unmodded BTS makes Civ VI -together with Shafer´s- look like bumper cars with no drivers behind the wheels.

Not really. They're both about the same. I guess Civ 4 AI looks different if you can't manipulate the AI stack behavior in any way. Or maybe haven't tried? It's fairly predictable.

Basically, they've both extremely stupid and to about the same degree. I can't figure out where people are seeing this Civ 4 AI combat brilliance. It's dumb as a rock and always has been, even with the best mods.

 

[HF22]

Not really. They're both about the same. I guess Civ 4 AI looks different if you can't manipulate the AI stack behavior in any way. Or maybe haven't tried? It's fairly predictable.

Basically, they've both extremely stupid and to about the same degree. I can't figure out where people are seeing this Civ 4 AI combat brilliance. It's dumb as a rock and always has been, even with the best mods.

Because you are ignoring the facts. For example the Civ VI AI is so bad, even higher strength buffs won't help, because it can't actually manage to attack player units or cities. At the moment the deity AI can get +4 for difficulty, +4 for government & say +5 for a UU or UA, for a +14 bonus (an era & a half! advantage). And even outnumbered an average player is fine, & will hardly lose a unit.

In Civ IV, the AI was no smarter per se, sure. But it was clearly more effective. Both for difficulty & even immersion. Because it could actually attack things & win.

 

[Roxlimn]

So all the players here and elsewhere losing their cities and games, those didn't happen? Alright.

 

[HF22]

So all the players here and elsewhere losing their cities and games, those didn't happen? Alright.

You mean the ones where players left early cities entirely undefended, with their closest units turns away, because the Civ 5 AI taught them to expect the AI to be passive as well as hopeless?

Look, the early barbs & aggression is great. Really good design. Doesn't fix the limitations of the combat AI however.

 

[Roxlimn]

Nope. Not those ones. The ones where people got double DOW'd and then lost the game. Which apparently doesn't happen. Kay. Phantom games with phantom players. I guess I'm a phantom as well. I'm not real. Apparently.

Here. Your point is that the AI is incapable of taking undefended cities in the later stages of the game. Prove it.

Once all the AI are past Classical, disband all your units. Declare war on them all. Then win with Space.

 

[ThERat]

I have ever lost a few units due to city and encampment bombardments etc. Hardly worth the mention. I have however, lost entire games in civ3/4 due to overwhelming opposition.

I think one big issue is the harsh penalties for attacking and losing units (in terms of war weariness). The AI gets so timid, it doesn't do a thing. If AIs would behave like barbarians, then it would be an entirely different experience. I think war weariness needs a big modification.

 

[Nathiri]

Honestly, I dont understand why people say stacks are easy to produce and whoever has the biggest stack wins. Stacks are not easy to produce, at least at efficient means. You need your cities to have high production and many cities to produce high quantities, which takes time and speed and right decisions. Someone could sit with 1 city and produce a stack after half the game is gone, but by that time, someone could have already built multiple stacks of that same size and what use is that stack for? By the time you would be ready, you could of died a long time ago. As far as whoever has the biggest stack wins, if anyone has played civ3 mp, you can easily defend against stacks with only half the size of the large attacking stack.

"Stacks of Doom" as they are called, provide way more strategy than 1UPT. It requires fast building of cities, fast building up of cities, and prioritization of production so you can build a stack at a good speed. In terms of combat on cities, so you have less units walking around, not that much different from stacks of doom, just less units. I dont see how it is anymore tactical. What stacks of doom do have is prioritization of units on certain tiles. Do you want 4 units to protect this roaded tile and only 2 on that roaded tile?

To me 1UPT eliminates more strategy than it creates and this is bad, because of what it eliminates.

 

[HF22]

Nope. Not those ones. The ones where people got double DOW'd and then lost the game. Which apparently doesn't happen. Kay. Phantom games with phantom players. I guess I'm a phantom as well. I'm not real. Apparently.

Yeah, I am calling phantom on that. The AI joint wars generally result in no invasion & them peacing out in 10 turns (due to game theory! per the AI designer). If they don't declare war on each other because of the warmonger penalties the bugged joint war mechanic gives against joint war allies.

Single wars early at least usually come with an actual attack. Even if they just run as soon as they get hit by an archer or two.

Which I will concede shows 1upt combat AI does not need to suck as much as it does now in Civ 6. But it does suck at the moment, and the inability to fix it across the whole run of Civ 5 suggests it might not be able to be fixed given the extent constraints.

 

[Roxlimn]

Well, then there's your challenge right there. Disband all your units once all the AI are past Classical. Win with Space. That'll prove your assertion that the AI cannot take cities.