Warring is often boring and awfully tiresome

[azum4roll]

I usually start having a tech/promotion lead by modern, so any war is basically me oneshotting field guns/gatling guns with infantry and tanks while they flee for their lives. Amphibious landing can still be challenging though. You never know how many field guns they can pull through their railroad network.

 

[usadefcon1]

I usually start having a tech/promotion lead by modern, so any war is basically me oneshotting field guns/gatling guns with infantry and tanks while they flee for their lives. Amphibious landing can still be challenging though. You never know how many field guns they can pull through their railroad network.

I was thinking about trying a game where siege units could be protected like embarked ships are now, and allowing embarked ships to stack.

This would make cities more vulnerable so I would increase city ranged damage to even it out.

 

[wabab]

Recently played through a game of Civ 6 since I wanted to check out the changes (I haven't played it in ages), and oh boy did it make me appreciate VP a *lot* more.

That said, the corps and army systems really make a huge difference in warring. Far less units on the map, all of them more easily manageable, it was a massive QoL improvement. I have no idea if this system could be implemented into Civ 5 (maybe as a special type of promotion or something?), but if it can, it should. Combined with a lower supply cap, it would definitely reduce warring tedium—and improve performance! The addition of corps/armies was one of the few things Civ 6 improved on, in addition to districts (or the idea of "city specialization").

 

[Bryan317]

I can only speak from this particular playthrough but a few things I've noticed is the strength and size of the opposing army is sometimes not accurately portrayed. Throughout most of this game I've gone against an opponent that has been double if not triple the size of my army. But by properly securing chokeholds and using Citidels I have successfully held them back and strategically chipped away at their army and eventually taken cities. Yes, some of this is skill as over the years I've become one with the game lol I essentially make it a point to never lose a unit. Reloading if necessary to make the proper move/strategy. But even with my so-called skills, I don't feel the massive size of their army is being reflected.

My next point is WITH this superior army, the AI is sometimes overly cautious. Now don't get me wrong... I appreciate what VP has done here and made the AI less suicidal. But sometimes if they just went for the kill it really would have hurt me bad. I noticed many times they have a strategy of softening up all the surrounding units instead of going for the kill which, against a human player, would be devastating.

 

[Fluffball]

Recently played through a game of Civ 6 since I wanted to check out the changes (I haven't played it in ages), and oh boy did it make me appreciate VP a *lot* more.

That said, the corps and army systems really make a huge difference in warring. Far less units on the map, all of them more easily manageable, it was a massive QoL improvement. I have no idea if this system could be implemented into Civ 5 (maybe as a special type of promotion or something?), but if it can, it should. Combined with a lower supply cap, it would definitely reduce warring tedium—and improve performance! The addition of corps/armies was one of the few things Civ 6 improved on, in addition to districts (or the idea of "city specialization").

TD:LR version
Please don't gut this great game based on poorly implemented ideas from possibly the worst game in the civ series It took decades for them to get away from the SoD and actually make combat interesting in civ and now it has creeped back into civ 6 which is one of the main reasons it is so boring to play.

Long version
I also recently dabbled in civ 6 again and came running straight back to VP although one of the big factors for me not liking civ 6 was the souless and oddly micromanagy corp/army system. The way you upgraded to corp/armies meant you had to micro it to gain maximum benefit and then because you could essentially conquer the world with 5 units combat became souless and uninteresting. It wouldn't have been so bad it you could just pay gold to upgrade the unit directly rather than having to build fresh untrained units and take them to the experienced units to make it most effective.

This is probably clouded by the fact the AI is rubbish in civ 6 and often wouldn't build/rebuild military units so you could conquer the world with 5 units and i feel the corps/army system combined with the huge scarcity of late game strategic resources was really just a workaround to hide the poor combat AI and revert back to SoD in all but name.

The beauty of VP combat is, like @Bryan317 partly mentioned, you can actually use and often need to use thought and strategy to succeed and while not perfect the AI does a pretty good job at combat.
War is also very varied and engaging where in almost every game of VP i end up in at least one epic battle which can happen over a small choke point, a huge front, be extremely fluid in open terrain, a long hard slog in heavy terrain, could involve two (or more) huge navies battling it out at sea, a massive invasion fleet battling coastal defenses, a city barely holding out under heavy siege, a city trading hands multiple times, multiple stalemates over multiple wars, breakthroughs with retreats back to the next defesive point or eventually a complete victory.
Depending on the war you need very different army compositions and promotions. For open terrain i will focus more on mounted units and getting the range promotion on ranged units. For heavy terrain i will focus more on front line melee troops and indirect fire.
For defense i will focus more on ranged units and skirmishers and picking medic promotions, for attack i will focus more on front line melee and cavalry type units that can occupy territoy and take punishment but be cycled out to heal up.
Civ 5 and VP in particular really made this system shine in civ although it was nothing new really with it being suggested forever with examples like panzer general being the obvious reference point.

In civ 6 my city state allies would be enough to wipe out any military the AI civs had and were usually more effective and agressive than the actual AI civs and then i would just roll in my two melee and three siege to one shot every city in my path in a yawn fest. Only pausing occasionaly to allow war weariness to deminish for a few turns due to no actual combat taking place before carrying on the steam roll.
In one game i conquered every capital on a huge map in around 50 turns with two bombers (all i could support with my strategic resources) which i often didn't use as they needed constant rebasing to stay in range, two tank and three rocket artillery armies.
I did have a navy but only found one enemy ship so never used it and i stopped at one point as i was able to build GDR's and i had to stop to allow the GDR's to get to the front so i could play with them and let them take the last capital just to see what they did.
The only strategy i employed was trying to take cities in blocks of 4 so that they would pressure each other and prevent captured cities from reverting due to loyalty.

Stragely the only combat i found remotely engaging was the religious combat as it was varied due to the different units and promotions available, strategies that could be employed to convert 'friendly' cities without actively converting them and annoying your friend and it involved more than 5 units. But it was heavily let down by mostly a micro management mess due to the fact you couldn't rename units to see what promotions they had, you had to go back to one of your cities holy sites to heal up and the most basic function of no alert/wake when enemy religious unit was near function as it was 'combat' so you had to post guards and cycle through them every turn to simply guard your borders even if playig religious defense.

If i was to change anything to make warring less tedious it would be to allow units to 'stack' to move so you only really need to micro the front line but when 'stacked' i would make them in effect a civilian unit with no defense so we don't inadvertantly create a SoD scenario. If the AI could handle this would be the main issue and one of the great things about VP is it always seems that nothing is implemented unless the AI understands it. The last thing we want is a whole AI army taken out 'in transport'.

Having said that though i tend to find most of the issues around moving units/too many units in wars are more to do with bringing too many units than are needed for the situation so you have lots of units milling around behind the lines causing congestion.


The district system i found, like pretty much all of civ 6, an interesting idea poorly implemented. In general i found i just built the same districts in every city for most of the game. Holy site for spamming great people if nothing else (especially as religion was a micro management mess), campus because science is progress, commercial hub/harbour because gold is god and an entertainment district/water park as i had worked out you could guarantee 10 happiness in every city which was 4 districts. I would build a military district in 1 city to get the military engineers if i hadn't been warring (Ironically as the AI doesn't build military units they seem to build a military district and have a military engineer stationed in every city) and then for the very late game i would spam whichever remaining districts were most geared toward my chosen victory type although in the mid to late game most of my cities would just end up on projects generally spamming gold.

I find myself specilising cities much more in VP that i did in civ 6 apart from tradition games where the capital is just so powerful that it tends to be the main focus of everything.
It can be a bit less obvious in VP to specialise cities especially as many of the national wonders buff more than one yield but i find that interesting as you then get to make choices and while in the late game you probably will end up building most buildings in most cities, in the early-mid game i tend to prioritise certain types of buildings in certain cities to reinforce their inherant strengths from their location. City specilisation is more based around city location and terrain around them and boosting those natural bonuses which seems more natural rather artificially creating a speciallist city.

 

[Bryan317]

TD:LR version
Please don't gut this great game based on poorly implemented ideas from possibly the worst game in the civ series It took decades for them to get away from the SoD and actually make combat interesting in civ and now it has creeped back into civ 6 which is one of the main reasons it is so boring to play.

Long version
I also recently dabbled in civ 6 again and came running straight back to VP although one of the big factors for me not liking civ 6 was the souless and oddly micromanagy corp/army system. The way you upgraded to corp/armies meant you had to micro it to gain maximum benefit and then because you could essentially conquer the world with 5 units combat became souless and uninteresting. It wouldn't have been so bad it you could just pay gold to upgrade the unit directly rather than having to build fresh untrained units and take them to the experienced units to make it most effective.

This is probably clouded by the fact the AI is rubbish in civ 6 and often wouldn't build/rebuild military units so you could conquer the world with 5 units and i feel the corps/army system combined with the huge scarcity of late game strategic resources was really just a workaround to hide the poor combat AI and revert back to SoD in all but name.

The beauty of VP combat is, like @Bryan317 partly mentioned, you can actually use and often need to use thought and strategy to succeed and while not perfect the AI does a pretty good job at combat.
War is also very varied and engaging where in almost every game of VP i end up in at least one epic battle which can happen over a small choke point, a huge front, be extremely fluid in open terrain, a long hard slog in heavy terrain, could involve two (or more) huge navies battling it out at sea, a massive invasion fleet battling coastal defenses, a city barely holding out under heavy siege, a city trading hands multiple times, multiple stalemates over multiple wars, breakthroughs with retreats back to the next defesive point or eventually a complete victory.
Depending on the war you need very different army compositions and promotions. For open terrain i will focus more on mounted units and getting the range promotion on ranged units. For heavy terrain i will focus more on front line melee troops and indirect fire.
For defense i will focus more on ranged units and skirmishers and picking medic promotions, for attack i will focus more on front line melee and cavalry type units that can occupy territoy and take punishment but be cycled out to heal up.
Civ 5 and VP in particular really made this system shine in civ although it was nothing new really with it being suggested forever with examples like panzer general being the obious reference point.

In civ 6 my city state allies would be enough to wipe out any military the AI civs had and were usually more effective and agressive than the actual AI civs and then i would just roll in my two melee and three siege to one shot every city in my path in a yawn fest. Only pausing occasionaly to allow war weariness to deminish for a few turns due to no actual combat taking place before carrying on the steam roll.
In one game i conquered every capital on a huge map in around 50 turns with two bombers (all i could support with my strategic resources) which i often didn't use as they needed constant rebasing to stay in range, two tank and three rocket artillery armies.
I did have a navy but only found one enemy ship so never used it and i stopped at one point as i was able to build GDR's and i had to stop to allow the GDR's to get to the front so i could play with them and let them take the last capital just to see what they did.
The only strategy i employed was trying to take cities in blocks of 4 so that they would pressure each other and prevent captured cities from reverting due to loyalty.

Stragely the only combat i found remotely engaging was the religious combat as it was aried dues to the different units and promotions available, strategies that could be employed to convert 'friendly' cities without actively converting them and annoying your friend and it involved more than 5 units. But it was heavily let down by mostly a micro management mess due to the fact you couldn't rename units to see what promotions they had, you had to go back to one of your cities holy sites to heal up and the most basic function of no alert/wake when enemy religious unit was near function as it was 'combat' so you had to post guards and cycle through them every turn to simply guard your borders even if playig religious defense.

If i was to change anything to make warring less tedious it would be to allow units to 'stack' to move so you only really need to micro the front line but when 'stacked' i would make them in effect a civilian unit with no defence so we don't inadvertantly create a SoD scenario. If the AI could handle this would be the main issue and one of the great things about VP is it always seems that nothing is implemented unless the AI understands it. The last thing we want is a whole AI army taken out 'in transport'.

Having said that though i tend to find most of the issues around moving units/too many units in wars are more to do with bringing too many unts than are needed for the situation so you have lots of units milling around behind the lines causing congestion.


The district system i found, like pretty much all of civ 6, an interesting idea poorly implemented. In general i found i just built the same districts in every city for most of the game. Holy site for spamming great people if nothing else (especially as religion was a micro management mess), campus because science is progress, commercial hub/harbour because gold is god and an entertainment district/water park as i had worked out you could guarantee 10 happiness in every city which was 4 districts. I would build a military district in 1 city to get the military engineers if i hadn't been warring (Ironically as the AI doesn't build military units they seem to build a military district and have a military engineer stationed in every city) and then for the very late game i would spam whichever remaining districts were most geared toward my chosen victory type although in the mid to late game most of my cities would just end up on projects generally spamming gold.

I find myself specilising cities much more in VP that i did in civ 6 apart from tradition games where the capital is just so powerful that it tends to be the main focus of everything.
It can be a bit less obvious in VP to specialise cities especially as many of the national wonders buff more than one yield but i find that interesting as you then get to make choices and while in the late game you probably will end up building most buildings in most cities, in the early-mid game i tend to prioritise certain types of buildings in certain cities to reinforce their inherant strengths from their location. City specilisation is more based around city location and terrain around them and boosting those natural bonuses which seems more natural rather artificially creating a speciallist city.

Nice post. I agree that the "tedious" nature of warfare in civ 5 is what makes it unique. And moving units during wartime is like planning a giant game of chess. I enjoy it. I'll say it... If you're finding it boring you probably need a break haha. Because yes any game can get tiresome, but after I give civ 5 VP a break I always come back. The only thing I like to contemplate is if it were possible to enable some strategy of stacking units. Like certain policies or army size thresholds would unlock this ability. But the more I think about it the more I realize I should just go play civ 4

 

[Stalker0]

Nice post. I agree that the "tedious" nature of warfare in civ 5 is what makes it unique. And moving units during wartime is like planning a giant game of chess. I enjoy it.

So I think the "issue" is that on higher difficulties a lot of the warfare revolves around the "kill box" phase.

War often goes through three "phases"

1) The chess board: This is setting up your lines, deciding what units to put where, get your mobile hospitals in the right places, building your roads, forts, and citadels....and figuring out how to move forces when the war firsts start. This is the engaging part of the war.

2) The great test. When the war first starts, your plans are tested. Did you actually position things correctly, do you have enough troops to cycle your front line, did you forget an important area that the AI will then exploit? The first several rounds are a fun "will it hold" kind of puzzle.

3) The kill box. The AI crashes against your line, you attack with all of your ranged units (click click click), you engage with your skirmishers (click click click), and you swap your front line troops in an out. The line has been tested, and its impervious. You can cycle troops and heal them infinitely. Now you simply wait for the AI to bash its head against your line long enough to exhaust its nigh inexhaustible mass of troops. Then you click siege attacks on the city until it is dead.


That last part is where the tedium really kicks in, and the higher level you play on, the larger the percentage of your war is dedicated to Phase 3.

 

[Bryan317]

I'm finding all horse units lacking lately. In all honesty, I've officially phased them out of my strategy next run. Kinghts are too fragile and the skirmishers (all of them) are not great at all. They are also fragile with the added annoyance of leveling up super slow. I built a few this game but it was purely for flavor. My strategy is to basically sell them as soon as I acquire them. I won't be needing them and the gold can be quite substantial if you sell them all. Next run I would sell them continuously until I get to Fertilizer. I will say that Lancers are pretty decent.

 

[Gazebo]

So I think the "issue" is that on higher difficulties a lot of the warfare revolves around the "kill box" phase.

War often goes through three "phases"

1) The chess board: This is setting up your lines, deciding what units to put where, get your mobile hospitals in the right places, building your roads, forts, and citadels....and figuring out how to move forces when the war firsts start. This is the engaging part of the war.

2) The great test. When the war first starts, your plans are tested. Did you actually position things correctly, do you have enough troops to cycle your front line, did you forget an important area that the AI will then exploit? The first several rounds are a fun "will it hold" kind of puzzle.

3) The kill box. The AI crashes against your line, you attack with all of your ranged units (click click click), you engage with your skirmishers (click click click), and you swap your front line troops in an out. The line has been tested, and its impervious. You can cycle troops and heal them infinitely. Now you simply wait for the AI to bash its head against your line long enough to exhaust its nigh inexhaustible mass of troops. Then you click siege attacks on the city until it is dead.


That last part is where the tedium really kicks in, and the higher level you play on, the larger the percentage of your war is dedicated to Phase 3.

sounds like real war?

 

[Bryan317]

sounds like real war?

Indeed. Well done.

I do now realize how he has better explained what I was saying that the ”kill box" is the grind people find boring. click, click, click, cycle, cycle, cycle. Well I suppose in some cases you could also break in the kill box, forcing peace. I keep coming back to the ONLY solution is unit stacking. Not less units. Then the true power of the superior force is shown as it comes at you. The wars will be decided much sooner. But unit stacking will break the balancing in a whole new set of ways.

 

[glider1]

sounds like real war?

Yes war is a huge burden on resources but in the game the immense commitment to wage war is simulated by the tedium of unit path breaks, moving units one at a time, few automations and long term RSI on the players arms.

One war a game with this atrocious 1UPT user interface is a good way to go, but then why does domination VC even exist? There is a reason why most people play peacefully and math the game. Because any grand strategy involving world war is utter drudgery.

 

[Stalker0]

Yes war is a huge burden on resources

Actually isn't the opposite.....war isn't that great a burden on resources. Once you have a standing army, and you know how to keep them alive indefinitely, warring is actually extremely cheap in comparison to what it can give you. All it costs you is the annoyance of clicking....which is a "free" resource as far as the game is concerned...and periodically gold to keep your forces up to date.

This is part of the reason that high level AIs have soooo many units....in order to actually counter a human that can "war for practically free" through superior tactics, the AI has to beat you through attrition. The reason deity has armies 5 times larger than what a human can field (in terms of both base supply and ability to instant buy + reinforce) is that deity level players can kill armies 5 times larger that what they have.

This is simply the nature of how the game is designed at the moment. To change that would require some very significant changes that might make the game much less fun for people.

 

[stii]

I do wonder what deity would be like if the AI only had 2x the army but a million upgrades. Might just fall into being impossible to hold sometimes then is the issue. Early on when they have a pretty big advantage over a human making their army even stronger is an issue.

 

[Stalker0]

I do wonder what deity would be like if the AI only had 2x the army but a million upgrades. Might just fall into being impossible to hold sometimes then is the issue. Early on when they have a pretty big advantage over a human making their army even stronger is an issue.

Honestly I think you would make things twice as easy as they are now. The trick is most upgrades aren't direct boosters, they offer flexibility but not raw power all at the same time. Especially early on, the human is most vulnerable at this stage because they don't yet have the fortifications AND they don't have the hammers to field a full army yet. So at this point, those hordes of AI units really do matter. I would much rather face two "super c bows" than 6 regular cbows.

Now sure, 1 unit might take 2 extra hits to take out, but that means I am killing like 2-3 "old unit equivalents" with just 2 extra attacks. In the long run I am killing units faster than I do now.

So that's my prediction....though if someone wants to modmod it, it could be a fun thing to try

 

[Grassland Farm]

So I think the "issue" is that on higher difficulties a lot of the warfare revolves around the "kill box" phase.

War often goes through three "phases"

1) The chess board: This is setting up your lines, deciding what units to put where, get your mobile hospitals in the right places, building your roads, forts, and citadels....and figuring out how to move forces when the war firsts start. This is the engaging part of the war.

2) The great test. When the war first starts, your plans are tested. Did you actually position things correctly, do you have enough troops to cycle your front line, did you forget an important area that the AI will then exploit? The first several rounds are a fun "will it hold" kind of puzzle.

3) The kill box. The AI crashes against your line, you attack with all of your ranged units (click click click), you engage with your skirmishers (click click click), and you swap your front line troops in an out. The line has been tested, and its impervious. You can cycle troops and heal them infinitely. Now you simply wait for the AI to bash its head against your line long enough to exhaust its nigh inexhaustible mass of troops. Then you click siege attacks on the city until it is dead.


That last part is where the tedium really kicks in, and the higher level you play on, the larger the percentage of your war is dedicated to Phase 3.

While I agree not all of these three parts are equally fun, I'd say the real bummer is when the war ends. Move your troops back home... then what? Across all the continent for your next neighbour? Send them all to be embarked to prepare to move across the sea? That's a LOT of clicks and less engaging than the kill box.

 

[stii]

Honestly I think you would make things twice as easy as they are now. The trick is most upgrades aren't direct boosters, they offer flexibility but not raw power all at the same time. Especially early on, the human is most vulnerable at this stage because they don't yet have the fortifications AND they don't have the hammers to field a full army yet. So at this point, those hordes of AI units really do matter. I would much rather face two "super c bows" than 6 regular cbows.

Now sure, 1 unit might take 2 extra hits to take out, but that means I am killing like 2-3 "old unit equivalents" with just 2 extra attacks. In the long run I am killing units faster than I do now.

So that's my prediction....though if someone wants to modmod it, it could be a fun thing to try

I think it depends how far you push super units. Like if you literally gave them +100% CS extra how hard would it be to hold?

 

[Kim Dong Un]

sounds like real war?

And this is why The Glorious ne reigns Supreme: he needs but a single 'click'...

 

[Gazebo]

Actually isn't the opposite.....war isn't that great a burden on resources. Once you have a standing army, and you know how to keep them alive indefinitely, warring is actually extremely cheap in comparison to what it can give you. All it costs you is the annoyance of clicking....which is a "free" resource as far as the game is concerned...and periodically gold to keep your forces up to date.

This is part of the reason that high level AIs have soooo many units....in order to actually counter a human that can "war for practically free" through superior tactics, the AI has to beat you through attrition. The reason deity has armies 5 times larger than what a human can field (in terms of both base supply and ability to instant buy + reinforce) is that deity level players can kill armies 5 times larger that what they have.

This is simply the nature of how the game is designed at the moment. To change that would require some very significant changes that might make the game much less fun for people.

That makes it sound like it's a spontaneous thing, but really, that's how the 4x genre has evolved for the past few decades...

 

[Stalker0]

That makes it sound like it's a spontaneous thing, but really, that's how the 4x genre has evolved for the past few decades...

Oh not spontaneous at all, it was a core design element that went into Civ 5. But I wouldn't agree that the 4x genre has evolved this way in all cases. There are games like Stellaris for example where you will often lose troops in a battle, and part of your battle logistics is the constant building and updating of troops. Gal Civ 3 is similar, you are constantly building and losing troops in that game. Endless Legends went with a more Civ 5 ish tactical combat where units could surive with smart play. Endless Space 1 and 2 has a more attrition based fleet combat model, where ship deaths and rebuilds are expected.

Some people will argue its the 1 UPT, but its really not. Its actually down to 2 primary factors:

• The general damage of troops
• The defense multiplier of citadels and forts.

The first means that most ranged fire is going to do between 20-30 ish damage per shot, so about 4 shots to kill a unit. If the standard damage was lets say 35-45, than that's 3 shots to a kill....and the number of troops that could survive a given scenario would decrease.

Citadels and Forts are bedrocks of the human player, allowing a single unit to survive many times its weight in fire. If citadels were say 50% instead of 100%, and forts 25% instead of 50%....again less troops would survive a given circumstance.

But of course that leads to lots of other problems, that's not a superior model necessarily...just a different one. That model has its own problems, the current model's issue is "requires extremely large armies to challenge high level players".

I would be curious what deity players think of "AI armies are cut in half...but you cannot build citadels." I personally feel citadels are a key component of the durability of the front line....without them warfare would be very very different.

 

[stii]

Meh I don't really use citadels on defence. It would be a huge hit because with lebensraum they erase the 75% warmonger penalty though. I very rarely build forts either.

I find if you just shuffle back damaged units you are fine holding off quite a lot of AI units.