Where Civ6 warfare needs to go from here: terrain.

[Xen]

If this is an old suggestion then hats off to all the people who thought of it first!

I think the current system of cav/anti cav/anti-anti cav ("melee") with ranged standing off in a corner isn't very fun- and in fact confusing with its labels, and annoying in terms of bonuses applied.

I think the nature of civ battles should be switched to terrain bonues. Spear and pike should RULE flat terrain, and be devastated in broken terrain like forests or hills (and thank the Gods that movement into mountains is totally prohibited! ) ranged- or better termed skirmishers- should be able to harass from a distance, but in fact have a bigger versatility from being the go-tos for handling broken terrain, and get torn apart in open terrain.

Swordsmen meanwhile are the jack of all trades getting neither big penalties or bonuses to any terrain without upgrades.

the cavalry sphere takes on a similar dimension between heavy and light, with the caveat that if caught by the spears they are decimated. (the price for speed)

giving bonuses and maluses based on this yo unique units would also help carve out a bunch of interesting and unique UUs swordsmen who can double duty as a version of spears or skirmishers or vice versa, cavalry who actually stand a chance against spears in certain terrains, etc. Or just making units who fully rule their element in their time.

I think this would make warfare more interesting and tactical, make army composition more realistic encouraging mixed army tactics (and having armies based on guys holding spears/ other pointy stick type things- the historical norm over most of pre gun powder history- more common)

 

[Bigv32]

Terrain already provides the tactical decisions you want. It is the movement costs and time that make those decisions matter.

What you are proposing is another level of rock-paper-scissors on top of the one that already exists (rock-paper-scissors-spock anyone?). The AI is bad enough as is.

The logic behind it does not make sense. Spear and Pikes rule what ever terrain they are on when fighting horses. Any military man would probably agree that in all but edge cases, they would rather have the hill with the forest than flat land.

In short, terrain offers the same level of choice you are after because it affects how fast all units move.

Now we could possibly have a discussion about spearmen exerting a zone of control on flat land vs. hill but that would be hard until the game is patched.

 

[Xen]

Terrain already provides the tactical decisions you want. It is the movement costs and time that make those decisions matter.

Only in the realm of movement, not in the form of actual battle.

What you are proposing is another level of rock-paper-scissors on top of the one that already exists (rock-paper-scissors-spock anyone?). The AI is bad enough as is.

As made plain elsewhere, the game is too complex for the AI to ever be particularly good without exceptionally powerful computers.

The logic behind it does not make sense. Spear and Pikes rule what ever terrain they are on when fighting horses. Any military man would probably agree that in all but edge cases, they would rather have the hill with the forest than flat land.

In short, terrain offers the same level of choice you are after because it affects how fast all units move.

This is the real crux of the argument- spears shouldn't be a niche unit against horses, it should be the primary for of soldier for everyone except the classical Romans (and perhaps the medieval/renaissance Japanese) are using. And within that context Spear lines work in open unbroken terrain- the LAST place you want it is in forests, and even hills are very iffy unless you have a flexible formation.

Having all of the games defensive strategy amount to "hide in woods on a hill for any unit" is terrible. The system could have so much more nuance than that with different units really being able to rule different types of terrain in direct combat.

Which

Now we could possibly have a discussion about spearmen exerting a zone of control on flat land vs. hill but that would be hard until the game is patched.

I dont have a current opinion on this as I think one way or the other the combat system in civ6 will evolve into something different, and would wait until then to consider such things.

 

[Trebjonn]

The changes they need to have is that static melee units(Warrior, Swordsman and Spearmen) makes it so that you cant retreat more than one tile when you have gotten into their zone of control(this means directly backwards too).

Cavalry(jousters) should do more damage the more tiles they move before attacking, but less than "Static melee units"(Warrior, Swordsman and Spearmen) when you attack from 1 tile away.

Ranged stays the way it is.

 

[Victoria]

The real issue here is horses before stirrups were invented. They were crap, you could ride a horse and shoot from the horse (if you lived on the horse) but their use in combat beyond the shock value of a highly trained unit like Alexander had was... and of course the blind tank cataphracts that freaked out so easily and understandably so.

Horses were not OP for a long time but if my little slinger walks out of town and find a horse unit, its dead.

Saying that slingers were crap also and archers were better but not so much as shown in Civ. But Archers are the only way to survive with these horse varieties being too powerful.

Spears, you really think spears were good historically? They were a cheap weapon and Pikes were fantastic to the front with wonderful pike vs pike battles hit in the flank and they were lost.

So knights with Stirrups were OP?... nope, taken out may times in many ways by the clever.

The real differences in battle were generals, morale, flanking and luck with specialist troops being an exception.

If troops of an age has less combat value difference so it became more of a grind with a general and a flanking giving the best bonuses it would be more realistic to me. Specialist units with better power but still suffering from flanking would also make sense as the romans did not always win, especially when outflanked.

Then again the battle of Tigranocerta showed just how awesome a good roman general and outflanking could be, regardless of what actual numbers were employed.