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

[Marla_Singer]

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.

I don’t see the question as whether Civilization should be a war game, but rather how convenient the war aspect of the game should be. From what I understand, some players in 1UPT Civ games tend to avoid war, perhaps because it feels too tedious. Generally speaking, the square + stack system made moving units less restrictive, allowing players to focus more on other (maybe more interesting?) mechanics of the game without entirely avoiding the war part.

As a side note, I noticed in my professional experience that many people think they "don't like" doing something without necessarily identifying that is because they consider it tedious. Typically we had a website with a heavy database that had huge performance issues, people's feedback was that they "didn't like it", but the whole problem was that navigating in it was so slow that it was cumbersome. Once the website was made much faster they totally changed their mind.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I don’t see the question as whether Civilization should be a war game, but rather how convenient the war aspect of the game should be. From what I understand, some players in 1UPT Civ games tend to avoid war, perhaps because it feels too tedious. Generally speaking, the square + stack system made moving units less restrictive, allowing players to focus more on other (maybe more interesting?) mechanics of the game without entirely avoiding the war part.

My reply was to specific post. I totally agree with your points.

 

[Lebo44]

Recently, I came across this quote from the creator of the legendary mod Rhye's and Fall, with which I agree 100%:

When I bought Civ6 I made up my mind that it wasn't going to happen, because of Civ6 districts, which make a game more as a sort of "Age of Empires", in the sense that you have a few bases (cities) for which you construct buildings and fight against other players bases.

Unpacked cities combined with unpacked armies changed the scope and character of the Civ series. Instead of a grand-scale strategy game, Civ became more of a tactical game in terms of base development and combat, which is even more pronounced due to the poor AI that cannot handle basic mechanics and small maps. I watched Sid Meier's video where he talked about the early development of Civ 1—initially, it was supposed to be a real-time strategy game. But it didn’t work well on a large scale for him, and only after switching to a turn-based system did it click. He even brought up Age of Empires as an example, where real-time works well (due to the smaller scale of the world).

Of course, for many (or maybe even the majority of civ fans) the change was for the better. Just a matter of taste. But I believe this new tactical approach to the game would fit Killers/Achievers type of gamers more than f.e. Explorers.

 

[fantsu]

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.

Well all the wargames I've played since 70s had their own TOE-system building your own units. Mixing infantry, mechanized units, AA-points, logistics, HQ and so on, using organizational charts, just like real life.
I know some games have 1upt, but usually those are tactical games, not strategy.
I guess it depends from everyones own mileage and era of the games.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Well all the wargames I've played since 70s had their own TOE-system building your own units. Mixing infantry, mechanized units, AA-points, logistics, HQ and so on, using organizational charts, just like real life.
I know some games have 1upt, but usually those are tactical games, not strategy.
I guess it depends from everyones own mileage and era of the games.

For the most of their lifetime wargames were board games, not computer ones and they are still played that way. Board games naturally have 1UpT, because you can't physically stack unlimited miniatures, so computer adaptations of those games have 1UpT as well. The most selling board wargame in history is Gettysburg and it sets up the core mechanics of hexagon tiles and 1UpT and it inspired a lot of computer games.

The distinction between tactical and strategic ones is separate classification, we're talking about wargames specifically.

 

[fantsu]

For the most of their lifetime wargames were board games, not computer ones and they are still played that way. Board games naturally have 1UpT, because you can't physically stack unlimited miniatures, so computer adaptations of those games have 1UpT as well. The most selling board wargame in history is Gettysburg and it sets up the core mechanics of hexagon tiles and 1UpT and it inspired a lot of computer games.

The distinction between tactical and strategic ones is separate classification, we're talking about wargames specifically.

Never played miniature games, those were usually for younger players. Literally all my wargames have used cardboard counters as chits that you stack on top of each other. Many have their own sheet also for counting inventory inside the TOE, like fuel, water, rations, mail, morale or even POWs assigned.
Civilization has always been more simple and easy single player (solitaire) experience for me and I think that is what Sid wanted too. Wargame for everyone.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Never played miniature games, those were usually for younger players. Literally all my wargames have used cardboard counters as chits that you stack on top of each other. Many have their own sheet also for counting inventory inside the TOE, like fuel, water, rations, mail, morale or even POWs assigned.
Civilization has always been more simple and easy single player (solitaire) experience for me and I think that is what Sid wanted too. Wargame for everyone.

I'm not familiar with the games you're mentioning, but since Sid himself said that he wanted to go further from wargames and that's why he didn't use hexes, I'm pretty sure he used the term in the same way I do (and Wikipedia does).

 

[fantsu]

I'm not familiar with the games you're mentioning, but since Sid himself said that he wanted to go further from wargames and that's why he didn't use hexes, I'm pretty sure he used the term in the same way I do (and Wikipedia does).

I know the idea was to have fun instead of just time consuming hobby.
But its easy to see how Civ takes its innovation from wargames.
I still see that 1upt is more akin to maybe some of those miniature board games like Hero Quest and other Milton Bradley products of 80s and early 90s than the ones Sid got his original idea from.
I just see 1upt more tactical than grand strategy. Counting movement points and using cover from enemy fire etc: rather than commanding armies to cut trade routes and sieging cities.
I hope stacks back in, just an personal wish.
It just suits Civ-series better.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I know the idea was to have fun instead of just time consuming hobby.
But its easy to see how Civ takes its innovation from wargames.
I still see that 1upt is more akin to maybe some of those miniature board games like Hero Quest and other Milton Bradley products of 80s and early 90s than the ones Sid got his original idea from.
I just see 1upt more tactical than grand strategy. Counting movement points and using cover from enemy fire etc: rather than commanding armies to cut trade routes and sieging cities.
I hope stacks back in, just an personal wish.
It just suits Civ-series better.

The question which is better for civ is surely interesting. Yes, Civ1-4 is very different from Civ5-7 branch and I really like how Civ7 evolved 1UpT into its peak power with commanders, expendable units and district-by-district city conquest.

So, I understand people who like Civ1-4 branch and want its continuation, but lack of spiritual successors of this branch (from other developers) makes me think this audience is not that big. Or at least it's not that big from game publishers' point of view. Even Soren Johnson, who is praised by many as old Civilization spirit, ended up with 1UpT in his Old World.

 

[Lebo44]

I think the best compromise would be a custom option to disable unpacking armies and auto-resolve battles. Some AI modders already pointed out that AI correctly builds armies but has hard time with managing them after unpacking. So I guess in theory it could work in the current system. And it could make AI more challenging at war.

 

[ThichN]

Grand strategy vs tactical are fairly arbitrary distinctions in ever-evolving game styles. Civ7 imho does combat masterfully. Stacks are possible with commanders, and tactics are possible with 1upt movements after deploying armies/navies. Don't much care for the zoom-in micro battles as in Humankind as it creates a mini-game flow interruption.

 

[Marla_Singer]

I still see that 1upt is more akin to maybe some of those miniature board games like Hero Quest and other Milton Bradley products of 80s and early 90s than the ones Sid got his original idea from.

Sid Meier's main inspiration was the "Empire" video game created in 1977 which was turn-based on a squared tiles map with cities producing land and sea military units that were fighting one another to conquer other cities. It all came from a discussion in which Sid Meier asked Bruce Shelley what he would do to expand that game.

Interestingly enough, "Empire" was 1UPT, but that was probably a technical restriction at the time (the game was very rudimentary in its initial version). Sid Meier allowed stacks in Civ1 but discouraged to use them in fight as killing the strongest defender of the stack was destroying the whole stack. It's only in Civ3 and Civ4 that stacks were encouraged in combat.

The question which is better for civ is surely interesting. Yes, Civ1-4 is very different from Civ5-7 branch and I really like how Civ7 evolved 1UpT into its peak power with commanders, expendable units and district-by-district city conquest.

So, I understand people who like Civ1-4 branch and want its continuation, but lack of spiritual successors of this branch (from other developers) makes me think this audience is not that big. Or at least it's not that big from game publishers' point of view. Even Soren Johnson, who is praised by many as old Civilization spirit, ended up with 1UpT in his Old World.

From what I recall, 1UPT wasn't Soren Johnson's first intention, it's his staff who liked it better that way. But then, most of 1UPT issues are solved in Old World because there's a lot more tiles separating cities making movement easier, and also the number of orders being limited you don't have to move dozens of them at each turn. I'm not sure I would like that mechanic in Civilization though.

I think the main problem about stacks as in Civ3 and Civ4 comes from the fact it makes combat very abstract. Tactical elements are actually taken into account with bonus for certain units fighting other units (typically pikeman defending better against mounted units), but those were just stats that you needed to learn. 1UPT makes combat more visual, therefore what you do is more intuitive and makes better sense. Yet stacks combat could also be made more visual if, in zooming within the tile, you would see it deployed and you would play each unit from that point of view. It could work exactly as a Civ4 stack, only displayed more visually.

 

[seasnake]

I was a big fan of Total War and Civ IV at the same time, and the idea of a campaign map and a battle map just makes the most sense. Have an autoresolve feature as well that just calculates the raw probabilities based on army composition, bonuses, etc. Also, have attrition affect both armies at the beginning of each turn, but have it effect the invaders more (barring supply lines/leader bonuses like Napoleon) so that battle can't go on forever.

 

[Bactrian]

I think the best compromise would be a custom option to disable unpacking armies and auto-resolve battles. Some AI modders already pointed out that AI correctly builds armies but has hard time with managing them after unpacking. So I guess in theory it could work in the current system. And it could make AI more challenging at war.

This is how I played Humankind, and I liked it much more that way (but largely bounced off for other reasons).

I think one of the mistakes of those who oppose stacks is to assume that it means giving attack orders to each unit individually. Afterall, that's how Civ 1-4 worked. It doesn't need to work that way, however, and I would love a system where you build army stacks and then the game autoresolves combat between them. That allows for considered choices about army composition, army size, etc. while also keeping the actual moving of units to a snappy minimum. Millennia does this and I think the game, as rough as its presentation can sometimes be, has a lot of really good ideas.

Also, as much as I ended up not liking Humankind, I did like Endless Space's combat system. While it wasn't by any means perfect, that game's use of autoresolved combat phases with stance cards was an interesting idea. Definitely needs refinement though.

 

[Siptah]

There's also stacks as in Imperator: Rome in which battles are auto-resolved when two enemy armies meet, but army composition, tactics, and assigned generals all have their influences in how it plays out (and of course, because it is in real-time, you can reinforce). It's a good system that would also work with civ 7-like Commanders instead of generals and in a turn based system, in which you set a tactic for the stack before you attack.

 

[Bactrian]

Unpacked cities combined with unpacked armies changed the scope and character of the Civ series. Instead of a grand-scale strategy game, Civ became more of a tactical game in terms of base development and combat, which is even more pronounced due to the poor AI that cannot handle basic mechanics and small maps.

I like the idea of unpacked cities and only wish that city building was more influenced by the terrain. With its more uniform yields Civ 7 is a step away from that in comparison to 6, and I think that's a mistake too. It's tough to put into words what I envision, but I would love for a port city to feel and function more like a port city in comparison to one that's inland and built around agriculture. Civ 7 has an opportunity for this with the navigable rivers and the Treasure Fleet mechanic, but so far Firaxis hasn't opted to take it.

In general, I wish managing an empire in Civ was more reactive to the world (i.e. the map) and the opportunities it presents and those it forecloses. These are the kind of strategic topics I want to be thinking about.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

3.5.

That's the number of Years Ago I proposed a Combat System for Civ VII. It's still at

Thread 'Combat System for Civ VII'

Oct 10, 2021

- Or a really different system for Civ VI, but we all know no one is going to bother working on that, don't we?

Some basic premises:

1. This discussion will not include individual Unit Types. You want to go into that, I already started a Thread at Unit Ideas for Civ VII with my thoughts.

2. The basis for what follows is the dis-satisfaction with both Civ VI's 1UPT and Humankind's detailed Battle Management. The first expands each battle and battlefield in time and space until they are ridiculous in any strategic 4X context, the second expands the game in time and...

• Boris Gudenuf
• Replies: 41
• Forum: Civ - Ideas & Suggestions

• 

So I won't bother repeating it.

BUT I would point out that Civ VII as produced makes such a system even easier to introduce: All Armies now are part of a Commander stack, and the Commanders include things like Coordinated Attacks and Unit Flanking maneuvers, so have already started to include the Postures I postulated in the original set of posts referenced above

Bottom Line: now that we are not even playing historicalish Leaders of Civs, but personification of the Civ by some Pop Culture manifestation, there is even less reason for the Personification (you, me) to be giving orders to every Archer, Arquebusier and Antitank gunner on the map. Tell the Army Commander what you want done: Defend, Deliberate (Coordinated?) Attack, Mobile Attack (Unit Flanking?), etc, and he goes about it: a battlefield display opens up to show you what's happening - or not, if you've watched those displays for 666 times already - and you get a display of results: casualties suffered and inflicted, terrain seized/held, maybe a Battlefield Report from your Army Commander:

"We are retreating triumphantly before a demoralized enemy who is advancing in utter confusion"

And it all takes place in a single Turn on a single Tile of the Grand Strategy Game Map. Period.

If you want to fight tactical battles, there are lots of miniature, board, computer games out there that are designed for just that. Trying to play the events of a single day in a game that is also trying to play 6000 years of semi-historical events is simply demented, something I've said for many years and won't stop saying now.

 

[AriochIV]

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's not so much that 1UPT is so tactically interesting, but rather that doom stacks are so tactically uninteresting. While micromanagement-heavy combat is not for everyone, 1UPT in general and Commanders specifically offer plenty of opportunities to keep your units alive while enemy units are being destroyed. If you're still winning 1UPT battles by attrition, it's because you don't care, not because the system doesn't allow for outplay.

Unfortunately for those that dislike 1UPT, Civ7 mostly makes it worse for them. Commanders ease long distance movement, but in battles they add even more micromanagement, and the increase in the number of units together with the added movement restrictions and more constricted terrain make for even larger unit logjams.

 

[civlateintothenights]

Stacks of doom were incredibly strategic - much more so than the checkers of 1UPT. Here's a 21 page guide to building efficient stacks for different situations from Civ IV. In my opinion, the main reason why people hated stacks was because the AI was actually decent at building and using them. Getting crushed by the AI can bruise the ego - ergo, stacks = bad.

Limited stacks could easily help solve the woeful unit AI in Civ VII. Just allow for limited stacks of 2/4/6/etc - with varied compositions of units. Don't introduce larger limited stacks until later in the game - start the game with 1UPT, then a Civic or Commander upgrade that allows 2, then 3, and so on and so forth - cap the stack at a reasonable number. Make the composition of the stack matter.

 

[Bactrian]

Stacks of doom were incredibly strategic - much more so than the checkers of 1UPT. Here's a 21 page guide to building efficient stacks for different situations from Civ IV. In my opinion, the main reason why people hated stacks was because the AI was actually decent at building and using them. Getting crushed by the AI can bruise the ego - ergo, stacks = bad.

Limited stacks could easily help solve the woeful unit AI in Civ VII. Just allow for limited stacks of 2/4/6/etc - with varied compositions of units. Don't introduce larger limited stacks until later in the game - start the game with 1UPT, then a Civic or Commander upgrade that allows 2, then 3, and so on and so forth - cap the stack at a reasonable number. Make the composition of the stack matter.

Wow, I had no idea people had gone into this kind of depth on stacks in Civ 4. If I had known I might have been able to actually level up from Emperor/Immortal and win sometimes on Deity.