Units per hex

[Tholish]

Did I vote for "2 units of any kind" yet?

 

[lietkynes]

Could be a great idea, if developed properly.

 

[Rexflex]

I will be happy with one unit per tile, but in addition to that I would have preferred to see a form army building, e.g that you could combine knights and longbow into a single unit with traits belonging to both individual units - more powerful than the separate traits of each, but still a single unit in terms of combat. In this the combined abilities would only be able to be done once, e.g. only one knight unit and only one longbow unit.

 

[azzaman333]

Re-read the 4th post in this very thread.

That's not conclusive proof.

 

[Hypernova]

This is for Firaxis this way they can know how we feel about the hex rule so they can decide wether to implement it or not.

Personally I don't think a strict 1-unit-per-hex limit will survive the first round of Beta Testing.

I wouldn't mind if it was a toggle feature

People still don't understand the scale of this, they still seem to be simply superimposing the one-unit-per-tile rule onto their ordinary understanding of Civ combat. Whether or not it will happen and whether or not it is a good thing are both irrelevant - the difference between stacks and no stacks is the difference between too entirely different combat systems. It certainly couldn't be something struck down at beta testing, or a toggle, because this will be a fundamental rule that all warfare in the game revolves around. And scrapping it now would likely mean redesigning most of the game. Much opposition to the one unit per tile rule seems to be based around the belief that it is simply a drastic way to get rid of SoDs.

 

[Nitram15]

I think there will be 6-7 units per hex

 

[Ahriman]

One unit per tile sounds like micromanagement hell.

Imagine taking civ4 and making it so you couldn't select multiple units at the same time, and had to move every single unit individually.
Imagine making it so that every unit that won a combat was immediately eliminated on the next turn, because it was weak, and you couldn't have another unit shield it.
Imagine making it so that if you wanted to move a particular unit to the front, you had to carefully micromanage a clear pathway of units out of the way.

Think of the classic puzzles, like the tower of Babylon, and how many moves it can take in order to free up the space to move an object from A to B. You have to move the one currently in B to C, but to make space for that C has to go to D, and to make space for *that* D has to go to E.
etc.

We definitely have to get away from the Stack of Doom mentality, but a strict 1 unit per tile limit will be hell unless the number of tiles is truly vast. Which doesn't sound like much fun either, especially with units that have 1 tile movement rates.

 

[Drago Askani]

You seem to forget they are also implementing resources not being unlimited. So if you only have 1 source of horses, then you are only gonna be able to field 1 Calvary unit. (Assuming the translation of the interview is correct of course.)

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Here's the thing, though. If you combine resource limitations on unit production with a system of ranged combat & collateral damage, then the need for strict limits on units-per-hex becomes almost redundant. So, for example, if you can only *ever* build 3 cavalry from a single horse resource, then you're never going to see stacks of doom containing 20+ cavalry units in it-especially if a bunch of cannons can all but wipe them out-from a safe distance-before they ever take part in combat. That's not to suggest that a soft cap on units isn't still a good idea, I just think 1-per-hex is a bit extreme.
Also, my previous comment is actually based on my brief stint as a beta-tester. I saw a lot of features implemented in the first round which were radically altered-or dropped altogether-before the final version of the game was released!

Aussie.

 

[Simo]

I've seen the translation in multiple places from multiple sources. A Danish fellow on the Paradox forum who had the magazine translated the article separately and posted the same thing.

Further the quote is corroborated by the Civ V website which claims as a new feature "armies spreading out across the landscape" or something to that effect.

Finally we know from screenshots that long range bombardment is in, and given the experience of Civ 3 it seems logical that something has to change to balance that and a 1 unit per tile limit seems reasonable.

You can believe whatever you want, but to most of us that is fairly conclusive.

Im not disputing any sources, I know only what ive read here, im more interested in how you move large amounts of units if you can only have 1 per tile. That made the game easier (group moving), dont know how it will work in the movement regards, im sure they have thought of it though......hopefully!

 

[NA00]

I am willing to try one unit per tile. I do not know how combat will function in the game yet to have anything against it in particular.

IF movement of armies, etc... functions as it did in CivII, moving one one unit at a time, with only one nationallity being able to occupy a tile at a time (because of the one unit per tile rule), with the added bonus of one unit per tile...just imagine what the log-jams in places like Europe will look like! . I am sure they have thought a way around this - hopefully.

 

[Hypernova]

Imagine taking civ4 and making it so you couldn't select multiple units at the same time, and had to move every single unit individually.

This is an extremely unfair way to judge one-tile-per-unit.

 

[azzaman333]

This is an extremely unfair way to judge one-tile-per-unit.

It's as valid as any other way to judge it until we have the game and know exactly how it works.

 

[Ahriman]

This is an extremely unfair way to judge one-tile-per-unit.

Either we're only going to get a handful of units at a time, in which case the game will be pretty boring, or we'll get lots of units, in which case the micromanagement will be a PITA.

 

[Hypernova]

It's as valid as any other way to judge it until we have the game and know exactly how it works.

Civ IV is a game designed for stacks, if you simply place one-unit-per-tile into it and judge the result (such as playing Civ IV while keeping each military unit to its own tile) then you massively bias the results against one-unit-per-tile. This goes back to my previous point about one-unit-per-tile and stacks not just being one detail out of many, but two entirely different combat systems. Yes, we are speculating and don't know much yet, but it is fairer speculation if we also speculate on how the combat system may change to accommodate one-unit-per-tile.

 

[Ahriman]

but it is fairer speculation if we also speculate on how the combat system may change to accommodate one-unit-per-tile.

Ok. Unless maps are huge, it will have to mean that you can build radically fewer units available at your disposal.

Either this will mean:
a) Units take longer to build
b) Fewer turns per game.
c) You are forced to spend most of your time is spent building structures/wonders, not units.

These don't really sound like fun.

 

[Yakk]

As I've written before, I'd rather go for soft penalties to discourage stacking rather than absolute limits. Could even be pretty harsh, like penalties to attack and defense and collateral damage, no matter what kind of unit is attacking. My main objection to the 1 unit per tile rule is that it'll create annoying traffic jams especially if the units still have only 1 or 2 moves.

Civ1 style: when a unit is defeated, all units in the tile are destroyed.

Mixing with Civ3+, we have "whenever a unit is damaged, all other units in the same tile take the same percentage of damage".

This means that you can overlap units as high as you want -- you can even do things like guard knights with crossbowmen (to prevent pikemen from defeating the knights) -- but doing so for more than that narrow reason is going to be disastrous.

Ok. Unless maps are huge, it will have to mean that you can build radically fewer units available at your disposal.

Either this will mean:
a) Units take longer to build
b) Fewer turns per game.
c) You are forced to spend most of your time is spent building structures/wonders, not units.

These don't really sound like fun.

Or, my personal hope:
1> You need resources for units.
2> You need infrastructure (built in cities) to get resources
3> Building a unit is fast, if you have the resources to support it.

So you will have a mining city. It builds a basic mine which produces 1 unit.

It then starts working on improving the mine. Meanwhile, your high-population city with a barracks trains the unit the resources supply, and you get a swordsman.

That swordsman goes out and dies in war.

You replace the swordsman with another fast-built unit. This continues a few times.

50 turns later, the mining city has upgraded the mine. It now produces 2 iron, and you can support 2 swordsmen with it.

You'll note that you are spending lots of building time building structures/wonders, and not units -- but some of those structures are used to increase the number of units you have in the field.

 

[arstal]

I'm betting if resources limit types of units, population will limit units- period.

We won't have SoD's because there won't be enough units to have them.

Also betting logistics techs get put into the same in some form to enhance the size of units.

AC2-type customization of units perhaps?

 

[mattigus]

I think we should create another poll, between who thinks there is a hard limit of 1 unit per hex, and who don't believe it. Chances are we'll find out in the next two weeks. Whoever guesses wrong has to get pantsed by the winners.

Who's in?

 

[Hypernova]

Good idea, that would be an interesting poll. It's hard to know how many people actually believe it will be one-unit-per-hex.