What changes should be made to combat?

[SupremacyKing2]

The impression I get is that most players are generally happy with civ7 combat. Commanders seem to be a great addition. They reduce micro of moving units around. They also give good bonuses to nearby units. They seem to offer the best of both worlds. We still have 1upt combat that I think most people like because it offers interesting tactical choices where terrain matters. But we also get limited stacks to make moving units around the map easier. And the reinforcement mechanic allows the player to send units to the front lines without the micro of manually moving units across the map.

So what changes would players still like to see? Are there things the game could do to make combat better?

One small issue I still have is that sometimes packing and unpacking can be a nuisance. There can be instances where you don't want to unpack every unit. So you still have to click on individual units to deploy them. Also, when there are too many units near the commander, you get a bit of a carpet of doom effect where you can't move units. So you have to do the slide game of packing units into the commander to make room on the map, slide units around and then unpack units again.

I think more could be done with the commander's special buttons like "focus fire" and "overrun". I find that I don't use them a lot. I think "overrun" is only really used when a stack is faced with a single unit. That does not happen a lot. Also, I think there could be more options like "outflank" "cavalry charge", "ranged fire" etc. It could offer a sort of "stack combat" without the issues of stacks of doom. Two stacks could damage each other without unpacking. Players could still use these options to damage another stack when they don't want or need to unpack the units. This could reduce some of the micro with packing and unpacking units. But I think there should be a cost like splash damage to all units in the stack. So players could make that judgment call: do I attack as a stack and risk more damage or unpack and fight 1upt to reduce splash damage but add more micro?

Another suggestion that I might have is add more variety of units. I think civ7 did tend to oversimply military units.

Thoughts?

Thanks!

 

[stealth_nsk]

Globally, I think Civ8 killer feature could be map scale. Something like 2X on each dimension, settlement radius and minimal distance between settlements to be 5 tiles and other things adjusted, like unit speed. That way the map would have enough space to maneuver units and much tactical combat (together with decreased visual clutter on the map).

Without this, I believe packing and unpacking game is nearly the best we could get to fight too small space of the map. Yes, this generally kills the mobility advantage of cavalry when units have to stay close to commanders. But, on the other hand, on Civ7 map there isn't much space for maneuvers anyway.

 

[Krikkit1]

One thing that is sort of combat is to have the costs (both production and maintenance) of units massively increase. throughout the Modern age in particular. (this would also help unclutter the map)

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Globally, I think Civ8 killer feature could be map scale. Something like 2X on each dimension, settlement radius and minimal distance between settlements to be 5 tiles and other things adjusted, like unit speed. That way the map would have enough space to maneuver units and much tactical combat (together with decreased visual clutter on the map).

I don't know if maps need to be scaled 2x. I find the huge maps to be generally big enough for combat. The reason I don't like them is because there is too much space between settlements and borders don't connect so your civ feels like distance city-states rather than an empire. Personally, I play on standard map sizes and it sort of works as a happy middle ground. I might make standard maps 20% bigger. A small upscale of maps could work. If the game did your idea of 5 tiles min between settlements and we also reduce city sprawl by limiting quarters to 2 tiles from the city center, this would give more empty space between settlements, making the map easier to read and also allowing for more tactical maneuvers.

The other solution would be to limit the number of max units on the map in order to allow for more space to maneuver. You could make each unit more expensive but also stronger. You could also allow for units to merge into "combined arms" units, similar to the armies and corps in civ6 but with different unit types. So an archer, a swordsman and a catapult merge into a single "army" unit that fights as one super unit. This would allow for less units on the map.

The biggest issue with increasing map sizes is compute. civ7 is CPU intensive. If you make the maps too big, once they get filled up with settements, units, etc... the game may bog down in the late game unless you have a high-end machine.

Without this, I believe packing and unpacking game is nearly the best we could get to fight too small space of the map. Yes, this generally kills the mobility advantage of cavalry when units have to stay close to commanders. But, on the other hand, on Civ7 map there isn't much space for maneuvers anyway.

Yeah, if the game is going to keep everything on the main map and still want to do 1upt, then packing and unpacking is really the only solution.

Not to beat a dead horse but I still think that stacked combat probably fits better with the strategic scale of civilization. IMO, the issue with civ4 combat was never stacked combat itself but the lack of limits on the number of units. The lack of an effective unit cap ruined stacked combat imo. With effective unit caps that limit the size of stacks, interesting stack combat mechanics and terrain playing a bigger role, I believe stacked combat could be made to work and be fun.

The other alternative is to have a separate tactical map for combat. This would allow the main strategic map to remain the same size and have units move as stacks on the main map. But then do 1upt on a big enough tactical map for battles for maneuvers. And the game could offer an auto-resolve option for players who don't want to micro a tactical battle.

I think the main reason the devs have rejected this idea is because they believe the entire game should always stay on the main map. I think it was one of Sid's rules not to take the player off the main map into separate "mini games". Frankly, I am not sure if that rule is entirely justified. Other games do this and it works. Xcom2 takes the player off the strategic map into a completely separate tactical combat map and it works great. So I think it can be done. You could make the case that staying on the main strategic map fits better with the empire-building concept of civilization. But ultimately, it boils down to making the game fun. If you make both the strategic map and the tactical map parts fun, then it could work. If you make the separate tactical combat maps not fun, then it will ruin the game.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Commanders are great but I still think they haven't landed on the right balance between stacks of doom and carpets of doom. I'm playing a constant war game as Mongolia and it takes forever to complete a game because of all the unit shuffling. I don't know what the answer is really, beyond some way of limiting the number of units you can support. Perhaps the maintenance cost needs to be dramatically increased?

 

[stealth_nsk]

I don't know if maps need to be scaled 2x. I find the huge maps to be generally big enough for combat.

The main problem is that combat usually happens between 2 settlements and it's more dependent on how tightly the land is settled than on actual map size. So, the main idea is to have bigger space between settlements and larger maps are just to have the same number of settlements with that option.

The reason I don't like them is because there is too much space between settlements and borders don't connect so your civ feels like distance city-states rather than an empire.

Of course, if settlement radius increase to 5 tiles, things like border growth speed should be adjusted as well. So, this shouldn't be an issue.

 

[Takfloyd]

Combat in Civ VII generally feels good. Commanders are a great addition. There are a few major, glaring issues though:

• Cavalry units are just better than infantry units. They need drawbacks, such as not being able to use fortifications or defensive bonuses.
• Districts don't remove underlying terrain effects for combat purposes, making city attacks a readability nightmare where you have to tooltip every tile to check if it's "vegetated" despite looking like city streets visually. If you aren't extremely careful, it's very easy to lose all your movement on a wrong move(even worse if it's a commander), or being unable to fire over a tile with ranged attacks because there's an invisible forest in the way.
• The AI still sucks at war, and it has gotten even worse because they don't use commanders properly. A skilled human player will exploit loading and unloading units into commanders to get all their units attacking every turn, even across navigable rivers and other obstacles. Meanwhile the AI moves all its units simultaneously, leading to only a couple of attacks and mostly just shuffling units around aimlessly. The tactical advantage over the AI has never been bigger.
• Fleet commanders and specifically their +1 range ability are broken in the Exploration Age. If a player gets the upper hand at sea, it is possible to completely shut another player out of the game because there is no land-based counterplay - no way to match the opponent's range or defend against their ships as they bombard and pillage everything. Something like the Coastal Battery unique improvement from Modern Age is needed to give players with weaker navies a way to defend themselves.

 

[Berrern]

Some good discussion and ideas presented already, I definitely support the increase of unit cost and/or maintenance cost!

I love combat in Civ 7, but it could definitely use some improvements. My personal wishlist:

• Teach the AI to use Commanders properly. Imagine seeing an enemy Commander packed with Magarrus, unloading one, taking a shot, loading it back in - 4 (or 6) times over!
  That reminds me of Civ 3 when out of the blue an enemy would declare war and within 1 turn they'd unload 2 packed Transports, resulting in 12 units on your coastline, ravaging your empire.
  Combat is too easy once you get the hang of Commanders, simply because the AI has no clue how to utilise them. The only thing they seem to know how to use is the reinforce mechanism.
  
  
• Stop the AI from sending Settlers to the frontlines. Initially I thought this was a bug, that the AI was thinking a Settler is a Commander, but over a year later it's still happening with alarming frequency.
  
  
• Give us back the old-school Pikemen, who gets a 50% defensive bonus against Cavalry! Or any other mechanic that gives certain Infantry units a chance against Cavalry.

 

[Disgustipated]

Something needs to be one with the scale. Not necessarily associated with combat, but somewhat related. Someone mentioned city radius of 5 tiles which could help. I don't think it's something civ 7 can do, since I'm sure that's hard coded into the game. It's crazy that even by late antiquity much of the world is urbanized. When even today, most land area of the world is still rural. I almost feel like settlements should go back to being one tile, but when you zoom in it goes to another layer so you can see your districts and buildings.

As for combat, obviously we can't return to stacks of doom. But we could have a 4 unit army. We already have the framework for that with commanders. Instead of unpacking they attack as one. Again, not something Civ 7 can do, but perhaps for future games. I liked armies in Civ 3, I admit I don't remember much about them other than the AI wasn't great at using them. One of these days I'll have to try to play that game again.

I don't necessarily want to see units get more expensive. They are pretty pricey in the modern age as it is. It's expensive to upgrade to tier 3 units in modern. Civ 6 was the game with expensive units, not a big deal since you could conquer the world with like 10 units LOL. I loved civ 6, but everything was so expensive and slow to build in that game. But perhaps a unit limit similar to a city limit that you can go over, but with some heftier penalties. And I hate to say it, sorry tall players, but it should be based on your civ's population, but even there it should have a cap otherwise conquering will just enable you to have an army that no one else can match. Perhaps conquered settlements shouldn't even be factored into this calculation until at least the next age.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Aside from some very good suggestions already made, and aside from a complete revamp of the combat system which I would love but haven't a hope of seeing, here's my suggestion to counter the late-game Carpets of Units and potentially some other problems as well:

Operational Units.

Right now, the game consists of Tactical combat units (slingers, swordsmen, spearmen, etc) and Operational Commanders/leaders. Strategic and Grand Strategy both are in the gamer's hands

The problem with that very simple set of distinctions is that the size of both tactical units and armies changed dramatically during the time period represented by the game. As a quick example, the largest units known from Antiquity were the Roman Legion of up to 5000 men and the Persian corps of Immortals of 10,000 - of which there is no evidence at all that the entire 10,000 were ever deployed at the same time in the same battle. The largest 'regular' unit in Exploration might be the decimal Ordo or Tuman of 10,000 horsemen in Turkic or Mongolian forces. In early Modern Age, Napoleon regularly commanded 30,000 to 150,000 men in his armies, his largest permanent unit was a division of about 8 - 10,000 infantry. In WWII, the average such division had grown to 10,000 - 18,000 men and included artillery, antitank, combat engineers and mechanized units.

None of those changes are really addressed in the game. The Civ VII 'army' under a single commander is 4 units from 4000 BCE to 1970 CE, but it represents anywhere from 5000 to 200,000 men AND takes up exactly the same amount of terrain. To put that in perspective, the Dupuy studies found that an army of 100,000 men took up, on average, the following space on the ground:
Antiquity/pre-gunpowder - 1 square kilometer
Napoleonic Wars - 20.12 square kilometers
World War One - 247.5 square kilometers
World War Two - 3100 square kilometers

In other words, from Antiquity to Modern Ages in game terms, the same 'army' should expand by over 3000% in the space it takes up. I don't think there's any way to make a playable game with that kind of expansion (at least on any computer any of us could afford) BUT the expansion of armies in size and space should be addressed somehow.

So, let's take a system from Civ VI, the Corps and Armies in that game, and twist them into shape for Civ VII - and we can use the Ages to help define the new Intermediate/Operational Units.

In Antiquity, nothing changes. For everybody's information, even the famous Roman Legion was not actually a battlefield unit, it was an administrative one, while battlefield maneuvers were carried out by numbers of cohorts or maniples (units of 200 - 500 men) under various tribunes and other officials. Alexander the Great's very professional army still had no permanent unit larger than a taxeis of 1600 - 2000 pikemen or a cavalry unit of 500 - 1000 men total, and the 500 - 1000 man unit seems to have been fairly standard among his Persian opponents.

So, for that period, your 'army' remains 4 units, each representing up to 5000 men. Larger 'armies', like, say, the Persian Force at Gaugamela, would be represented by several Leaders (historically, in that battle, Bessus, Mazeus and Darius, with almost no coordination among them, perfectly represented by any AI-controlled force in the game now!) and their 'armies'.

In Exploration, you can combine 2 units of the same type and Tier into a single operational unit - call them Battles or Banners or Ordo or make up a different title for each Civ if you like, but they represent the masses of archers (English) or pikemen (Swiss, Scots, Flemish) or Knights (French, German, Austrian) or horse archers (Mongolian, Ottoman) that had exceptional effect against an enemy. So, for instance, such a Formation might have an automatic +5 CF plus, as examples, the following Special Effects:
Pikemen - additional +5 CF against any Mounted unit. Massed pikes were, simply, Death To Horsemen
Mounted - if they win a combat they initiated with an advance to contact (charge) by destroying the enemy unit they attacked, they can advance into the vacated tile and attack another enemy unit.

Note: The 'army' still consists of up to 4 units in the same amount of space, but can concentrate more Combat Power in that space. The Dupuy research team did not find any great increase in the area taken up by an army between Antiquity and Medieval eras.

In Modern Age, you can concentrate up to 3 units into a single Operational Unit - call it a Brigade, Division, or Corps, because by definition, in modern armies since the Napoleonic Wars the difference between a regiment and a larger brigade has been the distinction between tactical and operational level - here we can combine Historical Accuracy with Game Utility for once.
I suggest that these would normally be all the same type and Tier of units, OR we can explicitly model Combined Arms at the Operational/Tactical level for once in the game.
Example:
Operational Units get +10 CF compared to the individual component units BUT if composed of all the same type of unit making a melee attack against an opposing Ranged Unit or against an opposing Operational Unit that includes both Infantry and Mounted or Ranged units they suffer double casualties.
OR you can 'unpack' such an Operational Unit all into the same tile for an attack. They still attack as individual tactical units, but if one of the infantry or mounted units in the stack destroys the enemy in the target tile all the units in the stack that have not attacked yet can advance into that tile and can attack again. Theoretically, that's three attacks out of the same tile against up to 3 different tiles occupied by enemy units. Call it Blitzkrieg or Deep Battle if you like.

Point being, if desired your single Leader in Modern Age can control up to 12 tactical units while moving them in combat as 4 to 12 as desired.

Obvious Modern Age Examples of Unique Operational Combined Arms Units:

Imperial French Corps d'Armee: 2 infantry, 1 ranged unit, if stacked both infantry units can attack separately with a ranged preliminary attack against the target, if attacking as a single unit the total has a preliminary ranged attack from the Ranged Unit and then a +10 CF melee attack from the infantry units.

Prussian Panzer Division: 1 Tank, 1 Infantry, 1 Ranged unit as a single Operational Unit. If attacking as a single unit has preliminary Ranged Attack then a single attack by the other two units with +15 CF and inflicts double casualties and if the opposing unit is destroyed the entire operational unit can advance into the vacated tile and do it all again. Definitely call this Blitzkrieg.

Point is, by adding the Operational stacks or Units we can extend the span of control of the (Army) Leaders from Age to Age, reduce the overall Carpeting of the battlefield in Modern and, to a lesser extent, Exploration Age, and introduce another element of Tactical/Operational planning and combat to the game.

And as a final note, which may be of absolutely no importance to anyone but myself, the Operational Units could be Named so that we can have in our games some of the most famous military units of history:
The White Company (Exploration Age mercenary unit)
Any Panzer Division
The Irish Brigade (in several armies, including the French and American)
The Iron Division (even more armies, including the French, German, American and Soviet)

 

[Taefin]

The simplest improvement I can think of would be to add Hotkeys to unload selected (or first ) unit in commander and to load units.

I would avoid any kind of stack-based attacking. I stopped playing Millenia a few games earlier than I’d have liked because I learned that every game redounded to the AI losing the ability to form useful armies.

I suspect it’s beyond infeasible to teach Civ AI how to use commanders. However I think commanders currently are very good at creating a fun asymmetric balance between human and AI, with commander functionality and bonuses overcoming AI bonuses. Scaling AI bonuses with age works almost perfectly for my enjoyment of this.

I would probably prefer the game more if loading a unit into a commander consumed its movement. Then the Assault upgrade could be used at the beginning of battle and to cycle new units in, but couldn’t be used to extend the range of attacking units or let them ignore terrain. I enjoy doing both of these things, but I suspect the AI would need less help without the player having these tools.

I very much want age transitions to halve your number of each unit type. This would model commanders’ historical abilities to manage larger armies as technology advanced (each in game unit would represent a larger number of humans), it would help keep the maps less crowded, and it would maintain the importance of unit production throughout the game and reduce the gimicky incentive to produce a bunch of cheap units at the end of antiquity. Presently there is little reason to produce units once your army is built in antiquity.

The focus fire abilities are weird. They were billed as a way to reduce micromanagement, yet they are very situational. They cannot be used against district defense which is when you’d most benefit from the click-saving potential (and the +2 CS). The promotion that boosts them is very rare for me to obtain, but creates awkward conditions to use it and a lot of guesswork as to how many units to save for an attack, as it ends my commanders turn. They are still glitchy and at least with ships still seem to let you make melee attacks you shouldn’t be able to. Sometimes they cause a range unit to move and consume movement. Perhaps they should simply be removed from the game or limited to a ranged attack with no +2 CS, and not consume a commanders movement, just as a click saving mechanism (without hotkeys initiaiting range attacks is 3 clicks each and requires clicking the unit window in the middle).

For spacing, fractal continents may be a little too feature-rich for the game as is. Reducing the number of units would hit the sweet spot though, as I like the map density and behavior of choke points in antiquity. I wouldn’t mind if warehouses were taken off the map and the city center lost its building spot. It’d be annoying for claiming resources in towns but could reduce urban sprawl a little.

Edit: almost forgot, I’d like some version of Hideyoshis’s applied across the board, perhaps a 1.5x attacker advantage added to melee attacks. This way, melee attacks would be advantageous at higher difficulties and light naval could shine.

 

[Leucarum]

I think the biggest thing making combat unfun is at the macro level - on higher difficulties AI unit production buffs make lots of wars an absolute grind by mid-age. The tedium of AI unit spam is what makes me prefer regroup and use custom difficulties. I guess there's a balance between fun and challenging, but at the moment I'm not sure they're hitting either and are stuck at tedious instead

 

[UWHabs]

The simplest improvement I can think of would be to add Hotkeys to unload selected (or first ) unit in commander and to load units.

I would avoid any kind of stack-based attacking. I stopped playing Millenia a few games earlier than I’d have liked because I learned that every game redounded to the AI losing the ability to form useful armies.

I suspect it’s beyond infeasible to teach Civ AI how to use commanders. However I think commanders currently are very good at creating a fun asymmetric balance between human and AI, with commander functionality and bonuses overcoming AI bonuses. Scaling AI bonuses with age works almost perfectly for my enjoyment of this.

I would probably prefer the game more if loading a unit into a commander consumed its movement. Then the Assault upgrade could be used at the beginning of battle and to cycle new units in, but couldn’t be used to extend the range of attacking units or let them ignore terrain. I enjoy doing both of these things, but I suspect the AI would need less help without the player having these tools.

I very much want age transitions to halve your number of each unit type. This would model commanders’ historical abilities to manage larger armies as technology advanced (each in game unit would represent a larger number of humans), it would help keep the maps less crowded, and it would maintain the importance of unit production throughout the game and reduce the gimicky incentive to produce a bunch of cheap units at the end of antiquity. Presently there is little reason to produce units once your army is built in antiquity.

The focus fire abilities are weird. They were billed as a way to reduce micromanagement, yet they are very situational. They cannot be used against district defense which is when you’d most benefit from the click-saving potential (and the +2 CS). The promotion that boosts them is very rare for me to obtain, but creates awkward conditions to use it and a lot of guesswork as to how many units to save for an attack, as it ends my commanders turn. They are still glitchy and at least with ships still seem to let you make melee attacks you shouldn’t be able to. Sometimes they cause a range unit to move and consume movement. Perhaps they should simply be removed from the game or limited to a ranged attack with no +2 CS, and not consume a commanders movement, just as a click saving mechanism (without hotkeys initiaiting range attacks is 3 clicks each and requires clicking the unit window in the middle).

For spacing, fractal continents may be a little too feature-rich for the game as is. Reducing the number of units would hit the sweet spot though, as I like the map density and behavior of choke points in antiquity. I wouldn’t mind if warehouses were taken off the map and the city center lost its building spot. It’d be annoying for claiming resources in towns but could reduce urban sprawl a little.

Edit: almost forgot, I’d like some version of Hideyoshis’s applied across the board, perhaps a 1.5x attacker advantage added to melee attacks. This way, melee attacks would be advantageous at higher difficulties and light naval could shine.

The AI still sometimes feeds too many of the same units, and doesn't protect their units. Feels too often like they just build a bunch of heavy cavalry, which sure can be a pain, but often just get blocked by terrain too often. And it doesn't help when they're all trapped behind the lines being bombarded by me.

IMO, I think assault just needs to be the default ability of commanders. I don't know if that would help the AI more, but maybe. If you combine that with your suggestion where loading into the commander is basically the end of a unit's turn, that might help balance things a little more.

And then yeah, the focus fire is just a pain because it uses up all the moves from a commander and the units. So it doesn't work if you have units with multiple attacks per turn, or if they can move after combat. And it only works if your commander isn't moving anymore. Maybe by extension, you should still be able to load or unload in a commander with no moves? There's still a limit of what you could do since they can't move, but at least I can slightly reposition my troops.

Overall, I think combat is still in decent shape. A few micromanagement pieces could help. And obviously some AI improvements wouldn't hurt.

 

[gbw]

I agree with nearly every other suggestion, combat overall is in a pretty good spot and I'd rather they focus resources on other issues. BUT, if I had to pick what's problematic, I'll echo a lot of the same thoughts:

• The AI doesn't know how to use the Commander (Army or Fleet), so they push out carpets of doom that appear to just flat attack
• In general, the naval combat is both OP and under utilized. Especially early in exploration, the ability of naval units to 2-3 shot a city down from full health seems a bit unbalanced
• @Leucarum nailed it here, war on Deity mid-late age is a GRIND. This may be fun to some and I don't want to diminish their experience, but the carpets of doom mixed with AI's tendencies to build massive amounts of walls, mixed with the ability for the AI to churn out 1 unit per city per turn makes to tedious to run through a campaign This is really rough if you've got 3-4 cities bunched up where they are essentially sending multiple units per turn that appear to materialize out of nowhere to the battlefront
• I know most people don't play Modern, but the whole Aerodrome / Squadron Commander needs to be simplified as well. Even once you get a hang of the mechanic, it's still somewhat confusing and unintuitive
• A niche use case, but when you use a Commander to order an attack, you sometimes get random units (especially cavalry) that you just don't even think about being in range decide to make a wild dash around terrain to the opponent. This is user error of course, but perhaps they need to highlight which units are going to engage in the battle. When you've got a lot, you can often lose track of who has movement points left and who doesn't
• Increase bonuses for unit interactions (e.g. pikemen versus calvary)
• I personally do not think ZOC applied to scouts make sense, they are scouts. They should be able to retreat backward if they have movement points left, this is particularly annoying in Antiquity with hostile IPs.

 

[MutilationWave]

Oh man I would love a bunch more hotkeys.

I enjoy focus fire and use it all the time. Yes it should be able to target walls. You've just go to have the units that you don't want focus firing perform their moves, attacks, and pillaging before you use it. A highlighting system as someone mentioned would be nice to see which units will be involved, and it should never cause a unit to move.

(without hotkeys initiaiting range attacks is 3 clicks each and requires clicking the unit window in the middle).

This confused me. Do you not select the unit then right click to attack making it two clicks, or just have the unit autoselected and right click to attack, making it one click?

 

[kotpeter]

So, let's take a system from Civ VI, the Corps and Armies in that game, and twist them into shape for Civ VII - and we can use the Ages to help define the new Intermediate/Operational Units.

I agree with the general idea, but I would sprinkle some adjustments on top:

- Instead of 1/2/3 units in a "stack", I'd go with 2/3/4 for land and naval units. Each unit after the 1st would add +5 combat strength. Furthermore, I'd buff combat strength of more advanced units to make them 10 cs stronger than the previous tier. And last but not least, I would only let civilizations stack units; IPs and city-states wouldn't be able to do that.

I believe that these changes would bring the following benefits (some overlap with what you mentioned):
- Surprise wars would become more dangerous, requiring more units to defend and more map awareness in general;
- Tech advantage would become more important, letting people do timing pushes with greater effect, akin to previous Civ titles;
- Unit maintenance would grow, requiring better economy to maintain large army;
- Defending vs independent powers would become easier.

However, these changes need to go hand in hand with the Domination victory rework. As it stands, capturing small villages across the world wins you the game. This should not be the case.

 

[Taefin]

Oh man I would love a bunch more hotkeys.

I enjoy focus fire and use it all the time. Yes it should be able to target walls. You've just go to have the units that you don't want focus firing perform their moves, attacks, and pillaging before you use it. A highlighting system as someone mentioned would be nice to see which units will be involved, and it should never cause a unit to move.

This confused me. Do you not select the unit then right click to attack making it two clicks, or just have the unit autoselected and right click to attack, making it one click?

Oh, does that always work? I thought had a unit move when I didn’t want them to once and then used 3 clicks for a while. Now I use the R hotkey.

 

[MutilationWave]

Oh, does that always work? I thought had a unit move when I didn’t want them to once and then used 3 clicks for a while. Now I use the R hotkey.

Works for me but you need to point at the hex you want to attack rather than the unit. Takes some getting used to.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Aside from some very good suggestions already made, and aside from a complete revamp of the combat system which I would love but haven't a hope of seeing, here's my suggestion to counter the late-game Carpets of Units and potentially some other problems as well:

Operational Units.

Right now, the game consists of Tactical combat units (slingers, swordsmen, spearmen, etc) and Operational Commanders/leaders. Strategic and Grand Strategy both are in the gamer's hands

The problem with that very simple set of distinctions is that the size of both tactical units and armies changed dramatically during the time period represented by the game. As a quick example, the largest units known from Antiquity were the Roman Legion of up to 5000 men and the Persian corps of Immortals of 10,000 - of which there is no evidence at all that the entire 10,000 were ever deployed at the same time in the same battle. The largest 'regular' unit in Exploration might be the decimal Ordo or Tuman of 10,000 horsemen in Turkic or Mongolian forces. In early Modern Age, Napoleon regularly commanded 30,000 to 150,000 men in his armies, his largest permanent unit was a division of about 8 - 10,000 infantry. In WWII, the average such division had grown to 10,000 - 18,000 men and included artillery, antitank, combat engineers and mechanized units.

None of those changes are really addressed in the game. The Civ VII 'army' under a single commander is 4 units from 4000 BCE to 1970 CE, but it represents anywhere from 5000 to 200,000 men AND takes up exactly the same amount of terrain. To put that in perspective, the Dupuy studies found that an army of 100,000 men took up, on average, the following space on the ground:
Antiquity/pre-gunpowder - 1 square kilometer
Napoleonic Wars - 20.12 square kilometers
World War One - 247.5 square kilometers
World War Two - 3100 square kilometers

In other words, from Antiquity to Modern Ages in game terms, the same 'army' should expand by over 3000% in the space it takes up. I don't think there's any way to make a playable game with that kind of expansion (at least on any computer any of us could afford) BUT the expansion of armies in size and space should be addressed somehow.

So, let's take a system from Civ VI, the Corps and Armies in that game, and twist them into shape for Civ VII - and we can use the Ages to help define the new Intermediate/Operational Units.

In Antiquity, nothing changes. For everybody's information, even the famous Roman Legion was not actually a battlefield unit, it was an administrative one, while battlefield maneuvers were carried out by numbers of cohorts or maniples (units of 200 - 500 men) under various tribunes and other officials. Alexander the Great's very professional army still had no permanent unit larger than a taxeis of 1600 - 2000 pikemen or a cavalry unit of 500 - 1000 men total, and the 500 - 1000 man unit seems to have been fairly standard among his Persian opponents.

So, for that period, your 'army' remains 4 units, each representing up to 5000 men. Larger 'armies', like, say, the Persian Force at Gaugamela, would be represented by several Leaders (historically, in that battle, Bessus, Mazeus and Darius, with almost no coordination among them, perfectly represented by any AI-controlled force in the game now!) and their 'armies'.

In Exploration, you can combine 2 units of the same type and Tier into a single operational unit - call them Battles or Banners or Ordo or make up a different title for each Civ if you like, but they represent the masses of archers (English) or pikemen (Swiss, Scots, Flemish) or Knights (French, German, Austrian) or horse archers (Mongolian, Ottoman) that had exceptional effect against an enemy. So, for instance, such a Formation might have an automatic +5 CF plus, as examples, the following Special Effects:
Pikemen - additional +5 CF against any Mounted unit. Massed pikes were, simply, Death To Horsemen
Mounted - if they win a combat they initiated with an advance to contact (charge) by destroying the enemy unit they attacked, they can advance into the vacated tile and attack another enemy unit.

Note: The 'army' still consists of up to 4 units in the same amount of space, but can concentrate more Combat Power in that space. The Dupuy research team did not find any great increase in the area taken up by an army between Antiquity and Medieval eras.

In Modern Age, you can concentrate up to 3 units into a single Operational Unit - call it a Brigade, Division, or Corps, because by definition, in modern armies since the Napoleonic Wars the difference between a regiment and a larger brigade has been the distinction between tactical and operational level - here we can combine Historical Accuracy with Game Utility for once.
I suggest that these would normally be all the same type and Tier of units, OR we can explicitly model Combined Arms at the Operational/Tactical level for once in the game.
Example:
Operational Units get +10 CF compared to the individual component units BUT if composed of all the same type of unit making a melee attack against an opposing Ranged Unit or against an opposing Operational Unit that includes both Infantry and Mounted or Ranged units they suffer double casualties.
OR you can 'unpack' such an Operational Unit all into the same tile for an attack. They still attack as individual tactical units, but if one of the infantry or mounted units in the stack destroys the enemy in the target tile all the units in the stack that have not attacked yet can advance into that tile and can attack again. Theoretically, that's three attacks out of the same tile against up to 3 different tiles occupied by enemy units. Call it Blitzkrieg or Deep Battle if you like.

Point being, if desired your single Leader in Modern Age can control up to 12 tactical units while moving them in combat as 4 to 12 as desired.

Obvious Modern Age Examples of Unique Operational Combined Arms Units:

Imperial French Corps d'Armee: 2 infantry, 1 ranged unit, if stacked both infantry units can attack separately with a ranged preliminary attack against the target, if attacking as a single unit the total has a preliminary ranged attack from the Ranged Unit and then a +10 CF melee attack from the infantry units.

Prussian Panzer Division: 1 Tank, 1 Infantry, 1 Ranged unit as a single Operational Unit. If attacking as a single unit has preliminary Ranged Attack then a single attack by the other two units with +15 CF and inflicts double casualties and if the opposing unit is destroyed the entire operational unit can advance into the vacated tile and do it all again. Definitely call this Blitzkrieg.

Point is, by adding the Operational stacks or Units we can extend the span of control of the (Army) Leaders from Age to Age, reduce the overall Carpeting of the battlefield in Modern and, to a lesser extent, Exploration Age, and introduce another element of Tactical/Operational planning and combat to the game.

And as a final note, which may be of absolutely no importance to anyone but myself, the Operational Units could be Named so that we can have in our games some of the most famous military units of history:
The White Company (Exploration Age mercenary unit)
Any Panzer Division
The Irish Brigade (in several armies, including the French and American)
The Iron Division (even more armies, including the French, German, American and Soviet)

Thanks for writing such a long and thoughtful post. I really like your ideas a lot. I do think that something like this is almost mandatory for civ because the game covers thousands of years of history.

I am actually a bit surprised that civ7 did not keep the army/corps mechanic from civ6. It was a good feature in civ6 and would make total sense in civ7. And it would help reduce the carpet of doom in the late game.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Thanks for writing such a long and thoughtful post. I really like your ideas a lot. I do think that something like this is almost mandatory for civ because the game covers thousands of years of history.

I am actually a bit surprised that civ7 did not keep the army/corps mechanic from civ6. It was a good feature in civ6 and would make total sense in civ7. And it would help reduce the carpet of doom in the late game.

Having both armies and commanders would be quite cognitive load, they look like similar concepts. Also, Civ7 is designed to have age resets to cover unit number scaling.