Warfare is tedious with 1UPT and it's making the entire game less fun

[Bactrian]

First, I know I'm in the minority about this. Most people seem to like 1UPT and that's why it's stuck around through three iterations. But I don't and it's not just for the usual reasons that people give (mostly that the AI doesn't do it very well).

Simply, I find moving all the individual units around the map to be frustratingly slow, repetitive, and boring. I've found myself actively avoiding going to war in Civ 7 (and 5 & 6) because of how tedious it is to actually play one out. Commanders were supposed to help, and they do make it a bit easier to get units long distances across the map, but I dislike the kind of micro their use encourages during the war. In my opinion, Civ is most interesting on the strategic layer and not the tactical. 1UPT drags me down into the slow minutia of the tactical when I would rather concentrate on much more interesting strategic choices (where to build, what to build, what policies support my goals, etc.).

I won't go into detail about why I think stacks are superior (they reward strategic decision making rather than tactical control) but will simply say that I think the Civ series is being hobbled by its current commitment to 1UPT. It's a poor fit for a game ostensibly focused on the longue durée and the passage of time. It makes me a bit sad when I think about the amount of dev time that goes into making 1UPT work rather than making even more interesting and rewarding systems that work at a bigger scale. In the name of streamlining Firaxis has already dropped what I considered to be fun parts of the strategic game: road building and infrastructure improvement (i.e. workers). I liked building roads manually. It made me think about how to best connect my empire together. If the problem was people spamming roads everywhere then my preferred solution would have been to make roads harder to build and maintain but all the more powerful for that.

I'm at old hat at Civ, having been playing since the original. I'm not generally resistant to change. I like the new era system and switching civs is fun and cool in my opinion. But in terms of the actual minute-to-minute gameplay, the bottom line is I think Civ is trending toward becoming a mediocre war game instead of a fun empire builder.

 

[Leucarum]

Another old hat here. I personally find combat in Civ7 the most interesting it has been in the franchise. But rather than 1UPT or commanders I'd put the reason as the era system. Keeping all empires on roughly similar bounds in terms of technology really rewards the player for using their units well. I find myself using a combined arms approach most of the time, especially after the antiquity age, and that's awesome from a tactical gameplay perspective.

I also really rate war support and resources as ways to boost your forces diplomatically and economically as well!

There are definitely pain points. Cavalry are a bit out of whack balance-wise. Sometimes combat strength stacking can be a bit much, and the AI strength buff on deity makes combat there into a real drag.

But overall, I love combat in the new system, genuinely think it's the best Civ has seen.

 

[firadin]

Generally agreed. People say they like the tactical combat of 1UPT civ games and I'm always a bit confused. I don't find it particularly tactically interesting, I'm still usually just moving a carpet of doom instead of a stack of doom and defeating enemies by sheer strength of production. It *has* made defending much easier because the AI is god awful at managing units, but that makes me feel worse not better. Fundamentally, if I wanted to play a tactics game, I would play XCOM or FFT or any of the dozen other tactics games. When I'm playing Civ I'm looking for a strategy game and playing a sliding puzzle to move my units to the enemy doesn't really fit that goal.

The end result is that I rarely play domination games, almost always opting for zero-war science/culture victories. Sometimes if an enemy declares war with too many units I'll just quit, because even if I can win, it's too much of a slog.

 

[Bactrian]

But overall, I love combat in the new system, genuinely think it's the best Civ has seen.

I do fully agree that combat in Civ 7 is very much improved over 5 and 6. I'm happy for that but it's also made it clear that my issue is with 1UPT itself in Civ, not whether its implementation is good or bad.

 

[seasnake]

I enjoyed 1UPT as it was done in the old Age of Wonders games. You have stacks of armies that move on the main map, then go into a tactical map when another army enters their sphere of control. You then play out the battle. I have long wondered why this hasn't been tried in a civ game. It allows for ranged units, cavalry units, frontline infantry to all have their place, and bonuses like digging trenches, stakes in the ground, terrain movement could all be worked in. Aircraft would be like in real life, with airstrikes capable of attacking areas of the map and anit-aircraft increasing the likelihood those strikes misfire (maybe hurting your own units) or are shot down altogether.

 

[Marla_Singer]

My impression is that unstacking units and unpacking cities without expanding the world map leads to everything ending up cramped and cluttered. I haven't played the game so I could be wrong, but on videos it looks very confusing to me.

 

[Leucarum]

I do fully agree that combat in Civ 7 is very much improved over 5 and 6. I'm happy for that but it's also made it clear that my issue is with 1UPT itself in Civ, not whether its implementation is good or bad.

I'm pretty agnostic to 1UPT or stacks. There are ways to balance stacks without it getting out of hand. But I also enjoy 1UPT. Neither is a dealbreaker for me. I'm glad you at least prefer 7's combat to 5 or 6. Firaxis did try to thread the needle betwern 1UPT and stacks with commanders...

I enjoyed 1UPT as it was done in the old Age of Wonders games. You have stacks of armies that move on the main map, then go into a tactical map when another army enters their sphere of control. You then play out the battle. I have long wondered why this hasn't been tried in a civ game. It allows for ranged units, cavalry units, frontline infantry to all have their place, and bonuses like digging trenches, stakes in the ground, terrain movement could all be worked in. Aircraft would be like in real life, with airstrikes capable of attacking areas of the map and anit-aircraft increasing the likelihood those strikes misfire (maybe hurting your own units) or are shot down altogether.

This is the one thing I have yet to enjoy in 4X combat. In any games where you switch from one map onto another from combat I find I just get snapped out of the game loop as soon as combat starts. If games like that don't have an autoresolve feature I won't play them. For some reason it breaks my immersion more than Lovelace leading the ancient Mayans.

 

[Bactrian]

My impression is that unstacking units and unpacking cities without expanding the world map leads to everything ending up cramped and cluttered. I haven't played the game so I could be wrong, but on videos it looks very confusing to me.

I do think it takes more effort to parse the map, but in general I like how unpacking cities has changed the game.

 

[Marla_Singer]

I enjoyed 1UPT as it was done in the old Age of Wonders games. You have stacks of armies that move on the main map, then go into a tactical map when another army enters their sphere of control. You then play out the battle. I have long wondered why this hasn't been tried in a civ game. It allows for ranged units, cavalry units, frontline infantry to all have their place, and bonuses like digging trenches, stakes in the ground, terrain movement could all be worked in. Aircraft would be like in real life, with airstrikes capable of attacking areas of the map and anit-aircraft increasing the likelihood those strikes misfire (maybe hurting your own units) or are shot down altogether.

This was actually done in Call To Power about 25 years ago. Back then it was pretty rudimentary (a window opening up showing the fight going on) and some didn't like it because it was disrupting the flaw of the game. Yet with modern game engines such as Unity, you could now smoothly zoom within a tile to play tactically at a lower scale without disrupting anything.

 

[Siptah]

I enjoyed 1UPT as it was done in the old Age of Wonders games. You have stacks of armies that move on the main map, then go into a tactical map when another army enters their sphere of control. You then play out the battle. I have long wondered why this hasn't been tried in a civ game. It allows for ranged units, cavalry units, frontline infantry to all have their place, and bonuses like digging trenches, stakes in the ground, terrain movement could all be worked in. Aircraft would be like in real life, with airstrikes capable of attacking areas of the map and anit-aircraft increasing the likelihood those strikes misfire (maybe hurting your own units) or are shot down altogether.

Humankind did this rather nicely. The battlefield is still on the normal map, but a part of it turns into the battle zone. This way to handle it comes with its own problems, but generally, the fights are fun and the AI is rather capable with the tactics. Many units have special abilities, and terrain is important. Sieges are quite a task at times with this system. So the fights gain a lot of depth (but less than in Humankind's predecessor Endless Legend with its customizable and asymmetric units). However, it makes game much, much longer (as it is in AoW as well), and I've often heard complaints that late game battles in Humankind take ages and drain the fun. Yet, I always found it one of Humankind's big advantages over civ.

 

[Gedemon]

Yep, civ7 is still not the civ game that will change my mind on 1UPT, the commanders help (a lot) when moving from one front to another, but once you unstack it's back to micro-managing moves on a cramped map, and the AI is still very bad at it (maybe even worse as the humans know how to use the commanders efficiently)

 

[Uberfrog]

Humankind did this rather nicely. The battlefield is still on the normal map, but a part of it turns into the battle zone. This way to handle it comes with its own problems, but generally, the fights are fun and the AI is rather capable with the tactics. Many units have special abilities, and terrain is important. Sieges are quite a task at times with this system. So the fights gain a lot of depth (but less than in Humankind's predecessor Endless Legend with its customizable and asymmetric units). However, it makes game much, much longer (as it is in AoW as well), and I've often heard complaints that late game battles in Humankind take ages and drain the fun. Yet, I always found it one of Humankind's big advantages over civ.

I feel the opposite! Humankind’s battles felt altogether too separate from the rest of the game world and I felt the system was needlessly longwinded.

Civ 7 strikes a decent balance for me. It retains much of Civ 6 style combat but the commander abilities and unit packing make it feel a bit faster paced. I also love the unit art and animations, and I like how each era has a three-unit progression. The AI is more competitive than in Civ 6 too. It still has a way to go, but certainly feels less of a walkover as it keeps pace with unit numbers and technology,

 

[Gorbles]

I also really rate war support and resources as ways to boost your forces diplomatically and economically as well!

War support is surprisingly strong! Echoing this one.

I feel like modifiers are often more important than we're used to (possibly due to yield funsies).

 

[Leucarum]

Humankind did this rather nicely. The battlefield is still on the normal map, but a part of it turns into the battle zone. This way to handle it comes with its own problems, but generally, the fights are fun and the AI is rather capable with the tactics. Many units have special abilities, and terrain is important. Sieges are quite a task at times with this system. So the fights gain a lot of depth (but less than in Humankind's predecessor Endless Legend with its customizable and asymmetric units). However, it makes game much, much longer (as it is in AoW as well), and I've often heard complaints that late game battles in Humankind take ages and drain the fun. Yet, I always found it one of Humankind's big advantages over civ.

Aha! Something we disagree on! I was so glad Humankind had an instant resolve button.

 

[Yzman]

Generally agreed. People say they like the tactical combat of 1UPT civ games and I'm always a bit confused. I don't find it particularly tactically interesting, I'm still usually just moving a carpet of doom instead of a stack of doom and defeating enemies by sheer strength of production. It *has* made defending much easier because the AI is god awful at managing units, but that makes me feel worse not better. Fundamentally, if I wanted to play a tactics game, I would play XCOM or FFT or any of the dozen other tactics games. When I'm playing Civ I'm looking for a strategy game and playing a sliding puzzle to move my units to the enemy doesn't really fit that goal.

The end result is that I rarely play domination games, almost always opting for zero-war science/culture victories. Sometimes if an enemy declares war with too many units I'll just quit, because even if I can win, it's too much of a slog.

Why are you moving a carpet of doom? Sounds like you aren't using commanders correctly...

 

[Leucarum]

War support is surprisingly strong! Echoing this one.

I feel like modifiers are often more important than we're used to (possibly due to yield funsies).

I very much underestimated it. Once it clicked for me Tubman instantly became one of my top 5 leaders. Definitely my favourite for deity games!

 

[Taefin]

Love this conversation!!

Humankind I found super fun for about 100 hours, and the combat felt so promising, especially as it captured the transition to gunpowder. The 4-tile movement also made for some great dynamics and gave the AI a bit of an edge. But then I found that the battle mini games allowed me to kill every last enemy unit once the battle turned, with no option to retreat, and so wars didn’t really culminate in epic sieges as often as I’d like.

I think commanders in 7 ease life a little differently than I imagined. Certainly for 4+ turn movements, not in battle, packing commanders resolved so much of the needing to constantly reissue commands. For shorter movements it’s not really more or less easy, probably a little more tedious, but you get an extra tile or two of movement, so good for speed. But where they really take away the sliding puzzle effect for me is cycling units at the front. Although I am often stretched thin enough that I keep all units unpacked and close to the action or healing nearby, the commanders take away the need to have a shallow enough line that front line units can move to an empty tile.

If FXS could reduce the mouse movement needed to work with commanders (are there keyboard shortcuts?), this would all feel much less painless.

All said, I don’t think the base-game AI/difficulty really creates the need for tactical gameplay, and the AI is so abusable that winning wars and capturing entire empires is really just about spending the turns to do so, that I maybe could see a case for stacks (not that FXS would/should do this). But some games where I have played around with giant AI armies, the tactical gameplay has felt as good as Old World at its best. Still very (very, very) tedious, which is where Old World and its orders shines. I don’t play anything more tactical than this, admittedly, but I think the modded version of 7 I stumbled into beats the tactics of FFT or Triangle Strategy in terms of needing to secure territory against an AI onslaught, rather than just baiting and killing enough to win the war before even going on the offensive. Not that this is the best way to play, but I am so glad this latent ability exists in the AI code in a way that 6 and Old World lacked.

 

[fantsu]

1upt is just bad, but Firaxis understood that and made commanders to makr it less obvious. Its almost like going back, I'll give them that.
Hopefully next game forgets this" checkers deep" nonsense and goes back to wargame like depth Sid visioned.

 

[Tanel]

In my opinion it's the best warfare has been in a Civ game.

 

[stealth_nsk]

1upt is just bad, but Firaxis understood that and made commanders to makr it less obvious. Its almost like going back, I'll give them that.
Hopefully next game forgets this" checkers deep" nonsense and goes back to wargame like depth Sid visioned.

I like this commentary, because Sid specifically wanted Civilization to be as far from wargames as possible. He even used squire tiles to distance from wargames of that era, which used hexes. It was Civ5 which bring wargame into Civilization and 1UpT combat was specifically inspired by games like Panzer General.