I agree with this. Combat in Civ V does, at times, feel like more of a chore than it should be for a grand scale strategy game.
What video games have you been playing V: the return of the subtitle
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I agree with this. Combat in Civ V does, at times, feel like more of a chore than it should be for a grand scale strategy game.
That's for world maps. How big is Zombie Island supposed to be?
With variable unit limits you could have, for example, chokepoints. Mountain passes, bridges, fords, etc. that can't be defended with stacks. Build a tower and allow for extra units to pass.
It's been coded for Transport Tycoon since a couple decades ago, it's not as if it's a revolutionary concept.
When the game came out I complained about why they hadn't made it a 2-level game like the Total War ones, with mini-maps for individual battles so you could have tactics.
Lohrenswald
世界的 bottom ranked physicist
this is true
I always assumed a 1:1 ratio for units in that mod. One unit represents one individual. And I agree one unit per hex/tile wouldn't make sense in that context. However, I feel it is a little unfair to expect developers to design a game around what modders might try to do with it. I mean, who honestly thought someone would have tried to make something like Escape From Zombie Island before it was actually made? Amazing as it is, it is something that is so far removed from what Civilization is that something like that was completely unexpected and hasn't really been seen again in any Civilization game.
trader/warrior
Deity
Civ should take a page out of HoI's book, stacking penalties based on terrain, infrastructure, supplies etc., frontage values for different types of units in combat and reserves when attacking a tile.
OK, maybe not, but something sorta kinda like that at least.
OK, maybe not, but something sorta kinda like that at least.
Why do you encoruage such preposterous statements, Lohren-chan?Why would the game's developers simply hard-code things into the game so that modders can't do it? Civ III forced people to be more resourceful because Firaxis actually hard-coded a lot of things out that had been allowed in Civ II. Some of them were restored when people cracked open the editor. Others weren't.
No argument here. Some of the things hard-coded into Civ III were pretty frustrating.
jackelgull
An aberration of nature
Would it help if I said those who play Civ 1-3 are dinosaurs while those who Civ5 do so because they fail at Civ4?
Just kidding. I do like Civ5, but taken as a whole (which includes mods), it isn't as good as Civ4. I mean, Rise of Mankind: A New Dawn alone is a high hurdle to beat.
Hear, hear!
Chukchi Husky
Lone Wolf
I fail at Civilization 4.
I started playing Civilization 5 again. About a week ago I went into a museum and saw the exhibit they had on Assyria, which included some stone reliefs from Nimrud. It made me want to play Civilization again.
I started playing Civilization 5 again. About a week ago I went into a museum and saw the exhibit they had on Assyria, which included some stone reliefs from Nimrud. It made me want to play Civilization again.
Snerk
Smeghead
Well, got my hands on GTA V for a second play-through. And this time in glorious 1080p with remastered graphics. Oh Rockstar Games how I love you. Anybody played MP in this game, is it awesome? Never gave it a real go first time around.
Someone has just posted screenshots of the Stellaris custom empire screen over at the Paradox forums. There's a lot of species, it seems.
trader/warrior
Deity
If you have 40 minutes, Stellaris game director Henrik Fåhreus did a really nice demonstration for PCgamer of the early game as well as some other features using observer mode, definitely increased my excitement.
Link to video.
Link to video.
Ajidica
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I'll probably give Stellaris a pass. I'm not a huge fan of Paradox -their game mechanics often feel too unwieldy, overdesigned, and interact poorly with other mechanics. (I've been spoiled by the simplicity of Civ4 or Sword of the Stars.) Plus I have GalCiv3 for my grand strategy needs.Stellaris is Paradox's foray into grand strategy games IN SPACE, whereas Tyranny is the latest Paradox/Obsidian collaboration and was announced this week. Both have pages on Steam.
As far as Tyranny, I'll probably pick it up, provided Obsidian doesn't make all of the NPC party members squishy wangsty emos.
gay_Aleks
from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
On the 1upt vs. Stacks Of Doom.
5upt is the best compromise, I'd say.
5upt is the best compromise, I'd say.
Manfred Belheim
Moaner Lisa
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If you go online with an actual bunch of actual friends and maybe even restrict the server to them, it can be. If you just go on on your own to play with other randoms, it's pretty awful. It basically consists of other people constantly trying to kill you for no real reason with massively overpowered weapons that you have no chance of getting your hands on when you're a new, low-level character, whilst calling you a "
" over the headset. And that's when they're not using hacks to just screw you around in stupid ways you can't do anything about. I tried it for a few days and the just gave up on it, no fun at all for me.The sad thing is that all the best character customisations and buyable property are exclusively for online characters. You don't get to do much of that with the main game characters at all.
EgonSpengler
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I've long had an underdeveloped idea in my head about combining types of soldiers into strategic or operational-level units.
For instance, at the battle of Kadesh in 1274 BC, the Egyptian chariots carried an archer while the Hittite chariots carried a swordsman. This choice wasn't arbitrary or easy, but required planning, training, and engineering. The Egyptian chariots used a hinged hitch and placed the wheel axle at the back of the chariot, which together provided a more stable platform but reduced the weight the chariot could carry. The Hittite chariots put the axle in the middle, under the feet of the men, which meant they could carry more weight but were a rougher ride.
We can imagine Egyptian chariot drivers training to give their archer a good shot, perhaps by driving perpendicular to the enemy, like a sailing ship trying to get a broadside. Hittite chariot drivers probably plowed straight into the enemy like a tank, getting close so their swordsman could reach or even jump out and attack on foot.
Operationally, Rameses organized his 2,000 chariots into 4 divisions named for Egyptian gods and led by Egyptian princes (he also had some infantry, possibly non-Egyptian mercenaries, but the charioteers were the glory-boys). Muwatalli, otoh, had a mishmash army of allies from all over the Middle East; Aleppo is the only one I can ever remember besides Kadesh, where the battle took place, because Aleppo is still in the news today and may be the oldest continuously-occupied city in the world. Anyway, I theorize that Pharoah's army was probably better organized and disciplined, and possibly more loyal, while the Hittite army was more of a coalition. Not to say it was ad hoc, although it may have been that, too.
So anyway, your "5UPT" idea isn't a bad one. The number of different types of soldiers and weapons that can be combined into a useful operational or strategic force could be a function of the empire's technology, logistics, training, discipline, loyalty, and so on. A simple army might be capable of having just 1UPT, while a well-oiled machine of precision, discipline, planning and timing such as the Kaiser's army of 1914 might be able to have 5 or 6 UPT.
Like I said, it's an underdeveloped idea.
But there's always another way
Nope.
Va-ria-ble! Va-ria-ble!
Omega124
Challenging Fate
Just yesterday I started to pick up and play a Japanese NES classic that was just recently ported to the west: Mysterious Castle Murasame.
The best way I can describe this game is that it's a combat oriented legend of Zelda (I'm not even kidding when I'm comparing this to Zelda. They were released around the same time to promote the Famicom Disk System and reused a lot of the same sound effects. They were definitely meant to be sister games). It plays very similarly to especially the first NES game, but instead of one huge overworld, you have more linear paths you have to navigate; the real exploring is finding the hidden items on the path towards the castle/boss which makes your constant fighting easier. You find upgrades to both yourself, your kunais (basicilly this games equilivent to the bow, but with a twist that I'll explain below) and ninjitsu tricks.
As the game is focused on you mowing down waves of increasingly tougher enemies rather than full exploration, Takamaru (this game's Link, who is an apprentice samurai) has a lot more options available to him thank Link does. His katana has much wider range than Link's sword, and is a one hit kill to most enemies. The katana can also deflect shurikens if in range of the Karana. However, he will only swing the katana if he would, in fact hit an enemy or shuriken. Otherwise, he will instead throw a kunai, which allows him to dispatch foes at range. The common ninja which serve as cannon fodder will also die in one hit, but more specialised fighters will require multiple kunai, and will often block them with their own weapons, meaning the katana tends to be more efficient vs them. However, going for the katana kill puts you at greater risk to be hit (but also nets you more points as well!)
The b button is instead used for ninjitsu tricks, which you can carry one at a time. You start with the invisibility scroll, which temporarily makes you immune to all forms of damage. You get three uses before its all gone. There's also the Lightning trick, which kills all enemies on the scree at once. Again, you get three uses of it.
Since you're really only using one button for attacking, combat is very fluid and intuitive. It feels really tight, and easily beats comparable top down action games in that department. You really get into the rhythm of dueling with the non mook enemies; my favorite is guys with the katanas. They will hold their swords vertically and you can not hurt them with either katana or kunai. You have to fake them into lowering their swords (thus signifying they are about to attack), and then swipe them with your katana while their guard is down. Since the katana dudes will only move up and down to match Takamaru's y position, and will never move on their own, you can approach them at your leisure, but they will easily kill you if you don't give them the respect they deserve in dueling.
However, there is one thing to note about this game: this game is hard. Like this game will screw you over backwards with all the special enemies and shurikens covering the map. In many ways, this game could actually be described as 8 bit dark souls, because the difficulty reminds me of that game in many aspects. You will die, and die a lot.
Aosame Fields isn't too hard, and even the castle section isn't too bad, but the first boss is just brutal. I'd say he's even harder than the second boss, who is comparing let a pushover. See, you can only reflect shurikens; other projectiles can't be reflected. Not only that, but your kunai lose against priority for other projectile types. The first boss attacks by constantly launching bursts of four bombs at you, which are pinpoint accurate if you don't move. The bombs will destroy your kunai and continue moving forward, and it's just really impossible to get any hits against the boss what so ever. You either need to abuse the invincibility mechanics or get super lucky to beat this guy.
Akasame, the second level, is when things get brutal. There's suicide bomber ninjas that explode on touch or death, including when you swipe at them with your katana. The blast radius is large, and you will take damage if you hit them with your katana (you also can only be hit three times before dying). There will also be mine fields laid about, and also the bomber ninjas can lay more as they walk around. All the bombs on the screen will explode if one of the suicide bomber ninjas die, so you do have to kill them to advance to the castle, which, again, can be brutal.
The castle portion also introduces guys with naginatas, or Japanese polearms. These guys will walk around, unlike the katana guys, and swing their naginatas wildly. They out range you, and they can't be damaged with kunais while swinging (unless upgraded). If you don't have upgraded kunais, they can be a chore to deal with. If they do hit you, at least, its easy to swipe them with your katana on the invincibility frames, and that still is a one hit kill.
There's also the tengus and hannyas, which are oni that you encounter and can be a bother (especially the latter, as they often ambush you with numbers in multiple directions, making them extremely difficult to deal with)
Finally, the soundtrack is pretty amazing, especially for 1986. I especially love the field section music, which honestly sounds like a shamisen (or as close as they could given the technology at the time). Really sets the mood for the game, which takes place in Edo era Japan.
Link to video.
That being said, if you like an unconventional yet fun action game, and you don't mind a challenge and a game that's only partially translated to English (Nintendo didn't even bother translating the main menu, in stead just opting to tell you what each button does in he manual. Thankfully I'm taking Japanese in college and kind of knew what I was doing), this game is super fun and only 5 bucks on the 3ds Eshop. Seriously, go try it; it's rare for a buried Japanese gem like this finally see its way to the west.
The best way I can describe this game is that it's a combat oriented legend of Zelda (I'm not even kidding when I'm comparing this to Zelda. They were released around the same time to promote the Famicom Disk System and reused a lot of the same sound effects. They were definitely meant to be sister games). It plays very similarly to especially the first NES game, but instead of one huge overworld, you have more linear paths you have to navigate; the real exploring is finding the hidden items on the path towards the castle/boss which makes your constant fighting easier. You find upgrades to both yourself, your kunais (basicilly this games equilivent to the bow, but with a twist that I'll explain below) and ninjitsu tricks.
As the game is focused on you mowing down waves of increasingly tougher enemies rather than full exploration, Takamaru (this game's Link, who is an apprentice samurai) has a lot more options available to him thank Link does. His katana has much wider range than Link's sword, and is a one hit kill to most enemies. The katana can also deflect shurikens if in range of the Karana. However, he will only swing the katana if he would, in fact hit an enemy or shuriken. Otherwise, he will instead throw a kunai, which allows him to dispatch foes at range. The common ninja which serve as cannon fodder will also die in one hit, but more specialised fighters will require multiple kunai, and will often block them with their own weapons, meaning the katana tends to be more efficient vs them. However, going for the katana kill puts you at greater risk to be hit (but also nets you more points as well!)
The b button is instead used for ninjitsu tricks, which you can carry one at a time. You start with the invisibility scroll, which temporarily makes you immune to all forms of damage. You get three uses before its all gone. There's also the Lightning trick, which kills all enemies on the scree at once. Again, you get three uses of it.
Since you're really only using one button for attacking, combat is very fluid and intuitive. It feels really tight, and easily beats comparable top down action games in that department. You really get into the rhythm of dueling with the non mook enemies; my favorite is guys with the katanas. They will hold their swords vertically and you can not hurt them with either katana or kunai. You have to fake them into lowering their swords (thus signifying they are about to attack), and then swipe them with your katana while their guard is down. Since the katana dudes will only move up and down to match Takamaru's y position, and will never move on their own, you can approach them at your leisure, but they will easily kill you if you don't give them the respect they deserve in dueling.
However, there is one thing to note about this game: this game is hard. Like this game will screw you over backwards with all the special enemies and shurikens covering the map. In many ways, this game could actually be described as 8 bit dark souls, because the difficulty reminds me of that game in many aspects. You will die, and die a lot.
Aosame Fields isn't too hard, and even the castle section isn't too bad, but the first boss is just brutal. I'd say he's even harder than the second boss, who is comparing let a pushover. See, you can only reflect shurikens; other projectiles can't be reflected. Not only that, but your kunai lose against priority for other projectile types. The first boss attacks by constantly launching bursts of four bombs at you, which are pinpoint accurate if you don't move. The bombs will destroy your kunai and continue moving forward, and it's just really impossible to get any hits against the boss what so ever. You either need to abuse the invincibility mechanics or get super lucky to beat this guy.
Akasame, the second level, is when things get brutal. There's suicide bomber ninjas that explode on touch or death, including when you swipe at them with your katana. The blast radius is large, and you will take damage if you hit them with your katana (you also can only be hit three times before dying). There will also be mine fields laid about, and also the bomber ninjas can lay more as they walk around. All the bombs on the screen will explode if one of the suicide bomber ninjas die, so you do have to kill them to advance to the castle, which, again, can be brutal.
The castle portion also introduces guys with naginatas, or Japanese polearms. These guys will walk around, unlike the katana guys, and swing their naginatas wildly. They out range you, and they can't be damaged with kunais while swinging (unless upgraded). If you don't have upgraded kunais, they can be a chore to deal with. If they do hit you, at least, its easy to swipe them with your katana on the invincibility frames, and that still is a one hit kill.
There's also the tengus and hannyas, which are oni that you encounter and can be a bother (especially the latter, as they often ambush you with numbers in multiple directions, making them extremely difficult to deal with)
Finally, the soundtrack is pretty amazing, especially for 1986. I especially love the field section music, which honestly sounds like a shamisen (or as close as they could given the technology at the time). Really sets the mood for the game, which takes place in Edo era Japan.
Link to video.
That being said, if you like an unconventional yet fun action game, and you don't mind a challenge and a game that's only partially translated to English (Nintendo didn't even bother translating the main menu, in stead just opting to tell you what each button does in he manual. Thankfully I'm taking Japanese in college and kind of knew what I was doing), this game is super fun and only 5 bucks on the 3ds Eshop. Seriously, go try it; it's rare for a buried Japanese gem like this finally see its way to the west.
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