Units not dying - Jumping the gun

[Schuesseled]

"Civ V's new switch move order to have the two units swap positions"

speaking of the one warrior and one spearman swapping positions, therefore its almost entirely certain they were talking about an single spearman unit. Although i will concede a smidgen of doubt upon the matter, but only a smidgen.

 

[kurtkage]

You're reading too much into it. They gave a plain-speech description of something that happened. In no way can you conclude that one bombard and a single spearman attacking killed a full-health enemy spearman. Its possible, but we can't conclude it.

I was trying to just taking the words at face value, I can see your point that maybe they left out something in the description, but it is pretty detailed of what they did and you would think they would mention the part about attacking with the spear, then a warrior, then surrounding so it couldn't escape etc..

Imagine 6 of my warriors vs 4 barbarians. My 6 kill 2 barbs, losing 1/3 health each. End turn. Their remaining 2 barbs kill one of my injured guys. My turn. I attack to finish off their wounded barbs, but get unlucky, and lose a second warrior.

Is this not again just like cIV? You attack and weaken your units from fighting they then die because of being weaker.

 

[helpless_writer]

From what it sounds like battles are mixed between stacked units in cIV and civIII. Each unit is stacked only with its own type (warrior, spearmen, archers etc) and when they go into battle they fight and lose HP.

Now based off what everyone is saying, I'm assuming the game is going to give (or is making the combat system give) you an option of retreating. So instead of having huge stacks you just trade one stack for another while the other one either heals or perhaps stays to finish you off and get back to the front lines.

 

[Rusty Edge]

Is this not again just like cIV? You attack and weaken your units from fighting they then die because of being weaker.

Similar. You can weaken a unit without dying to do it. Maybe if you imagined your mellee units were Numidian cavalry with flanking II promotion - more movement, less chance of dying, but it applies to defending, too, in PG.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

The way I see it is this-in Civ4 you had 2 possibilities-either you won the battle (in which case your unit survived, though maybe in a weakened state) or you lost the battle (in which case your unit *died*-unless it had a withdraw chance). In Civ5 it sounds like there are now 3 possibilities-lose & die, lose but survive or win. Nothing more complex than that. Maybe its as simple as extending the withdrawal chance from Civ4 to *all* units (remember that units in the game have a base movement of 2).

Aussie.

 

[Tantor]

If CiV resembles Panzergeneral it may include a new feature like suppression. In PG suppression didn`t cost you any hitpoints, but if suppression equals your hitpoints, the unit withdraws. If you don`t have a possibility to witdraw your unit is destroyed. This applies to both attacking and defending units.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The way I see it is this-in Civ4 you had 2 possibilities-either you won the battle (in which case your unit survived, though maybe in a weakened state) or you lost the battle (in which case your unit *died*-unless it had a withdraw chance). In Civ5 it sounds like there are now 3 possibilities-lose & die, lose but survive or win. Nothing more complex than that. Maybe its as simple as extending the withdrawal chance from Civ4 to *all* units (remember that units in the game have a base movement of 2).

Aussie.

Well I'd restate it as
3 possibilities

Unit 1 survives + Unit 2 dies
Unit 2 survives + Unit 1 dies
Unit 1 survives + Unit 2 survives

in some civs you have had cases of the third option (Withdrawl, Air units, Artillery)

However, that was only for specific units... it appears Civ 5 will extend the third option to all combats.

What we don't know is how often it occurs



As for 6 warriors being "a lot of units".... those are warriors and for a civ that was rushing military. Would you say 6 tanks was "a lot of units"? It could be 6 tanks will be just as significant a force for an industrial age civ as 6 warriors is for an early civ (requiring your entire empire to concentrate on building and supporting them)

Personally I think a "6 unit army" is just a little small, the game should probably aim for around 10-15 unit armies... much more would be bad.

 

[RockingKraut]

Would a good simile be that CiV's combat will be like Advanced Wars?

 

[CyberChrist]

The way I see it is this-in Civ4 you had 2 possibilities-either you won the battle (in which case your unit survived, though maybe in a weakened state) or you lost the battle (in which case your unit *died*-unless it had a withdraw chance). In Civ5 it sounds like there are now 3 possibilities-lose & die, lose but survive or win. Nothing more complex than that. Maybe its as simple as extending the withdrawal chance from Civ4 to *all* units (remember that units in the game have a base movement of 2).

Aussie.

Nothing new if that is the way it is going to work in ciV.
You have the exact same options in cIV - units can be set to have a chance to retreat/withdraw instead of dying if loosing a battle when attacking/defending.

However, if each unit had a maximum amount of damage that it could cause on each attack(actual amount depending on several factors) then it would be a new way. As it would mean that some battles between certain units(at full health) would be guaranteed to never result in either side dying after just one skirmish, but at best/worst would result in attacker and defender alike taking up to the maximum amount of damage that the opponent unit was able to deliver.

 

[Provost Martin]

Combat in the previous games in the series was too definite. You usually had two stacks churning it out until one of them got completely obliterated. I dig this change combined with the OUPS.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

What I said was that *most* units (those without a withdrawal chance) automatically died if they lost the battle. *YES* you could mod in a withdrawal chance for *all* units in Civ4-but at the very least it sounds like the ability to survive a battle in this way-in Civ5-will apply to *all* units as standard.

Aussie.

 

[CyberChrist]

Well, since I only ever played cIV in any unmodded form a very few times (the same goes for Civ3 as well for that matter), then simply making better use of existing functions isn't much if a selling point to me - as I have this particular functionality in place for all units when playing cIV already.

However, should it actually work like I described in my previous post then that would certainly be interesting.

 

[Schuesseled]

im inclined to agree cyberchrist

 

[timtofly]

What Chalks and Ahriman describe are the way things seemed to work the couple of times that I played Panzer General, the game the lead designer often cites when talking about combat in Civ V.

@ OP Have you watched any of the interviews?

 

[Mercade]

"Civ V's new switch move order to have the two units swap positions"

Ah, thanks for bringing up that quote. I was wondering about the way to handle a wounded unit at the front in relation to the one-unit-per-hex rule. Without a switch move you wouldn't be able to recycle a wounded unit in a front that has fresh support units waiting in second line.