Where is the real Civ Game?

[series0]

Hello fanatics. I have been a civ addict since it first came out. I think mr Meir owes me a job.

Anyway,

I am curious about why, after so many iterations of Civ we still have such a staggeringly horrible game. I admit openly that its fun and I still play it but it's just terrible. I mean it. It's fundamentally horrible on almost every measurable continuum. It's so very tragically sad that this is one of the best strategy games out there when it is so poorly designed and implemented.

I am not going to get super detailed here but,

1) I want to spend 1000s of turns in each era and slow the game timeframe of tech down tremendously so that each time period I can feel its real strategy and such. The tech advances alarmingly fast even on marathon. And NO I do not think I am asking for a fundamentally different game.

2) If the time in years is as it is, the production should reflect that. I like the building things but defocus that as the onerous task it is. Literally building things should be a multi-threaded thing. Each city could work on many things at once (and should). You shouldn't even be able to work on only 1 thing. Most building and units should be a 2-10 turn affair not ever much longer unless they are like 10-20 turn wonders. De-inflate the nonsense. I love that building a temple takes a thousand years plus. Its just ridiculous and no amount of sophistry and rationalization fixes that silliness.

3) The game is resource starved and that is STUPID. Add in fluctuation of gain to make it realistic and make yields MUCH more powerful. Add in spoilage. Make thing about how much (like they were in most cases) not choking nothingness that can never arrive at a goal. Really, it makes me wonder about the psychology of the designers. Basic units in 1 turn at tech level. Automated city-sized based garrison defense, Not some weird city ranged cannon thing. Generate appropriately sized armies of units, not 5 but 35. Make it tactical and strategic.

4) Resources and nat wonders and such should be discovered, not obvious. They should be cultivatable as in movable from area to area, not fixed. They should have geo limits in terms of this allowance. And discovery can keep happening in the same area over time even for old resources. Some discoveries of pools should run out. This is not beyond the scope of a cool startegy and tactics game as focused on resources as civ is.

5) Units should not really have much RANGE from their cities at most points in history. If they are 'out there' they should have a risk factor for disassociation. Bring back the bribe unit thing. Do not make it diplomat based.

6) Ditch the tried unhappiness dynamic. Not entirely but make it makes sense. WHY are the people unahappy and have the empire address that. No luxury? Too much militarism? The religion tenets are counter to the actions? MAKE SENSE damnit. Arbitrary size and expansion limits are BORING and STUPID. At some level I want an expansionist war game I can sink my teeth into set against the backdrop of civiliation advancement. Put the very real range and resources limits on the thing instead of arbitrary no new city founding and such.

7) Remove barbarians. EVERything is the same. Just another culture starting a city over here. Not named. Not known. Random characteristics that must be discovered by interaction (duh). And all of them try to grow and hem you in. Make it real. Make us feel how it was. Let me choose a color I want to represent each new civ I meet. Hang their flags in my hall of conquest when I overwhelm and defeat their people. Track their remaining population within mine and give them rebellious status in some cases if that makes sense.

8) DIfficulty. Really? You guys have zero, repeat zero understanding of difficulty. Zero. Difficulty is NOT cheating. Difficulty is making the AI smarter. Ask any chess player (a real game). What you can't code it? I disagree. You can do better. DO it. Stop cheating. Stop giving a random enemy nation a tech every time I research one. Stop loading 1 enemy nation. It should be just them vs me, strat v strat and varying, yes varying levels of AI smartness that even maybe fluctuate over time. How immensely stupid is it to have a player pull off a tactically brilliant maneuver only to see an enemy pike heal 50% of its damage in a cheat difficulty pump each turn? That is not a wargame. That is a hair shirt. Stop it. Just STOP IT.

I could go on and on.

 

[Biz_]

my favorite part was when you called chess a real game after listing 50 different ways to make civ less abstract

 

[series0]

I didnt say I ONLY made perfect sense.

 

[Browd]

Moderator Action: Moved to Ideas & Suggestions.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

Dis Gon B Gudd.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I am curious about why, after so many iterations of Civ we still have such a staggeringly horrible game. I admit openly that its fun and I still play it but it's just terrible. I mean it. It's fundamentally horrible on almost every measurable continuum. It's so very tragically sad that this is one of the best strategy games out there when it is so poorly designed and implemented.

Quite simply, because it is Fun to Play and most of the players have nothing better to measure it against.

1) I want to spend 1000s of turns in each era and slow the game timeframe of tech down tremendously so that each time period I can feel its real strategy and such. The tech advances alarmingly fast even on marathon. And NO I do not think I am asking for a fundamentally different game.

2) If the time in years is as it is, the production should reflect that. I like the building things but defocus that as the onerous task it is. Literally building things should be a multi-threaded thing. Each city could work on many things at once (and should). You shouldn't even be able to work on only 1 thing. Most building and units should be a 2-10 turn affair not ever much longer unless they are like 10-20 turn wonders. De-inflate the nonsense. I love that building a temple takes a thousand years plus. Its just ridiculous and no amount of sophistry and rationalization fixes that silliness.[/QUOTE

Both of these points touch on the same problem: the game is a compromise between a Grand Strategy - Political - Economic game and a Tactical Battle game, and no compromise between such fundamentally different games is going to avoid Screamingly Bad situations. In these specific cases, the problem is compromising between Time Scales: the game tries to simulate 6000 years + of history at the same time allowing you to fight tactical battles which (mostly) were over historically in 1 - 3 days. So, we get situations in which destroying a single unit in Classical times takes 20 - 100 years, building a Granary in ancient times takes centuries, and by the time you sail a fleet to the next continent over all the ships in it are obsolete!

3) The game is resource starved and that is STUPID. Add in fluctuation of gain to make it realistic and make yields MUCH more powerful. Add in spoilage. Make thing about how much (like they were in most cases) not choking nothingness that can never arrive at a goal. Really, it makes me wonder about the psychology of the designers. Basic units in 1 turn at tech level. Automated city-sized based garrison defense, Not some weird city ranged cannon thing. Generate appropriately sized armies of units, not 5 but 35. Make it tactical and strategic.

Civ V 'dumbed down' city defense by making the inherent city defense 'way too powerful. When a medium-sized city Without A Garrison is the strongest unit in your army there is something wrong with the basic combat factors in the game.
On your other point here, the game needs to bring back stacking, simply because the current iupt model is grossly out of scale in time and space for a game like Civ. Archers that can shoot from one side of a 1,000,000+ pop city to the other? Riflemen whose weapons have a range of 3 feet? Battles that take centuries to fight? None of this is acceptable, except when you don't realize how bad it is and the designers have completely lost track of the focus of the game.

4) Resources and nat wonders and such should be discovered, not obvious. They should be cultivatable as in movable from area to area, not fixed. They should have geo limits in terms of this allowance. And discovery can keep happening in the same area over time even for old resources. Some discoveries of pools should run out. This is not beyond the scope of a cool startegy and tactics game as focused on resources as civ is.

Resources should not all appear magically at the same time: scouts, units, invisible civilians, should all be discovering them throughout the game. Resources should Deplete, so you should always be looking for new sources - and there should be alternatives, manufactured or natural for Every Resource In The Game so the game doesn't degenerate into a Race for Resources only. Some resources should be Renewable: I can raise horses, cattle, sheep, plant Sugar, Cotton, Bananas, etc. in Any tile that has the right terrain/climate conditions when I have the right technology (Plant Genetics, Selective Breeding, etc). Resources, like so much else in the game, should be Dynamic, not the Static thing they are now.

5) Units should not really have much RANGE from their cities at most points in history. If they are 'out there' they should have a risk factor for disassociation. Bring back the bribe unit thing. Do not make it diplomat based.

Bribery, Schmibery, introduce Supply Lines for stacks. That allows your individual unit scout or raider to go almost anywhere, but Armies need serious preparation before they can march clear across the map. This simultaneously limits the infamous Stack Of Doom: if your supply line is inadequate, or gets cut, the Stack becomes the Shriveled Pile of Goo as starvation inflicts damage to the units in the stack. Some terrain limits stacking automatically: Tundra, Snow, Jungles, Deserts were all, historically, Bad Places to move through in large groups, even in modern times (look at the logistical requirements for units fighting in the jungles of New Guinea in WWII, or the campaigns in the Western Desert in the same conflict).

6) Ditch the tried unhappiness dynamic. Not entirely but make it makes sense. WHY are the people unahappy and have the empire address that. No luxury? Too much militarism? The religion tenets are counter to the actions? MAKE SENSE damnit. Arbitrary size and expansion limits are BORING and STUPID. At some level I want an expansionist war game I can sink my teeth into set against the backdrop of civiliation advancement. Put the very real range and resources limits on the thing instead of arbitrary no new city founding and such.

Have the 'Attitude' of your population make sense and have some relationship to what you are doing or failing to do. People don't get upset or unhappy because a war is being fought, they get upset when a war is being fought Badly - lose units, lose cities, lose battles - that, historically, makes for unhappiness. Lack of Luxuries by itself doesn't make people Unhappy. Not meeting the peoples' Expectations makes them murderously unhappy, and those Expectations change dramatically throughout history. Expansion does not have to be limited artificially, it can be limited by introducing into the game the historical limitations on expansion: inability to communicate with, govern, or extract resources from far-flung cities and colonies, the limitations on governments resulting from lack of appropriate Technology or Policy. All of this is flexible: ancient Persia and Medieval Mongolia both had versions of the Pony Express and Royal Roads to keep communication flowing throughout large empires, and I put it to you that the Chinese Confusian Academies and Civil Service exams providing a uniform bureaucracy did the same thing for China, the Roman Road network had the same cohesive influence on the Roman Empire. It was not impossible to have an expansionist state even in ancient times, but it took work, and until technology advanced enough (telephone, radio, railroad, aircraft, powered ships - all the transportation and communication technologies of the Industrial and Modern Eras) local revolts were the norm, not the exception.

7) Remove barbarians. EVERything is the same. Just another culture starting a city over here. Not named. Not known. Random characteristics that must be discovered by interaction (duh). And all of them try to grow and hem you in. Make it real. Make us feel how it was. Let me choose a color I want to represent each new civ I meet. Hang their flags in my hall of conquest when I overwhelm and defeat their people. Track their remaining population within mine and give them rebellious status in some cases if that makes sense.

I agree. Remove Barbarians. Also remove 'Goodie Huts'. Replace them both with Camps or Settlements of Non-Civ Tribes. Name them. Differentiate them - some in the plains will be riding horses and building chariots as soon or sooner than the Civilizations will, others in rough terrain will form very fast-moving light infantry that are better than their 'civilized' counterparts. When you contact a Camp, there are three possible outcomes:
1. They are hostile - current 'Barbarian' reaction. BUT if you are nice to them, they may change their minds later.
2. They are Friendly - they may trade with you (another source for resources), gift you with something (current Goodie Hut model), hire their young men (units) to you, or even offer to Join Your Civilization. - that last will take some work on your part to accomplish.
3. Meh. They haven't made up their minds about you. Bribe them, be nice to them, help them out when someone nasty comes calling, they may change their minds.

8) DIfficulty. Really? You guys have zero, repeat zero understanding of difficulty. Zero. Difficulty is NOT cheating. Difficulty is making the AI smarter. Ask any chess player (a real game). What you can't code it? I disagree. You can do better. DO it. Stop cheating. Stop giving a random enemy nation a tech every time I research one. Stop loading 1 enemy nation. It should be just them vs me, strat v strat and varying, yes varying levels of AI smartness that even maybe fluctuate over time. How immensely stupid is it to have a player pull off a tactically brilliant maneuver only to see an enemy pike heal 50% of its damage in a cheat difficulty pump each turn? That is not a wargame. That is a hair shirt. Stop it. Just STOP IT.

If they can code a decent chess opponent on a damned mobile phone app, then they can code a half-decent opponent in Civ on a PC. Tactical competence, coherent (at least) strategy, consistency until they change rulers - all of that is not too much to ask, but seems to be beyond the programmers. One gets the impression that all the effort was wasted on the eye-candy leader screens and the AI was thrown together at the last minute.

I could go on and on.

We both could, and it seems we have...

 

[series0]

Yeah Boris, I see there are like minded gamers out there. Good to know. Sometimes I wonder at Sid and company. There seems to be a choke happy throttling of literally everything as a modus. Less cities, less units, less less less. Life and a fun game are NOT ABOUT LESS.

The diplomacy dynamic is so limited and ridiculous i just ignore the other nations when they speak unless it is actually to offer a fair deal. I find it humorous in the extreme that the only ones that seem to trade fairly are the warlike crazy people like Attila. The rest are complete nutbags.

I also just LOVE (not) the way at Immoral level (not a typo) the second you research a tech that will get you a wonder the game just auto gives that wonder to another civ. It's just in the code.

It beggars the mind that no one has bothered (it would be so easy) to make a better game yet. Seems like the strategy game genre just died.

Anyway, at least 1 other person out there ...

 

[LordBalkoth]

Are either of you actually interested in having some of your comments refuted or are you simply here to rant, regardless of whether you're mistaken about at least a few things?

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Refute away...

 

[LordBalkoth]

All right, let's start with some basic things.

If they can code a decent chess opponent on a damned mobile phone app, then they can code a half-decent opponent in Civ on a PC. Tactical competence, coherent (at least) strategy, consistency until they change rulers - all of that is not too much to ask, but seems to be beyond the programmers. One gets the impression that all the effort was wasted on the eye-candy leader screens and the AI was thrown together at the last minute.

For reference, I'm a computer scientist who's done work with AI, both in and out of games. It's not my job or area of expertise, but I'm familiar with some of the issues within it.

Chess AI is child's play compared to Civ V AI. Chess involves an 8x8 grid and has pieces with very precise and limited moves. Civ V is considerably larger than an 8x8 grid and the terrain changes not only game to game, but even within different sections of the same game. If Civ V battles were on a chessboard with Infantry/Cavalry starting in front and Artillery/Planes/etc in back then the AI would be massively easier to make competent.

Nor does chess have to worry about things like defensive chokepoints/fortifications, mountain passes, line of sight (from hills/forests/jungle), partial damage (in chess you either take an enemy piece or you don't), rivers/ocean affecting movement/combat, or a myriad of other problems.

Even think about something "simple" like "the SAM unit shoots down the Bomber attacking the Infantry." Nothing like that happens in chess -- the closest is "en passant" but you can't do something like "If the queen attempts to move diagonally across the board to capture my rook I'll have my bishop take her halfway across."

Chess only has to deal with one move at a time which is another major advantage (and allows it to "look ahead" more, if you're familiar with the idea). This isn't even getting into the fact that Chess has decades of AI work to draw upon while Civ V is basically having to do it from scratch with a more complex game with a larger playing field and far more variety.

In short, writing a reasonably competent AI for chess isn't so bad. Writing a reasonably competent AI for Civ V is an insane nightmare. It's basically this:



Now, that's not to try to wholly excuse the Civ V AI. It has a lot of basic problems that could be significantly improved with simple fixes (things like empty Carrier fleets and never using Fighters to intercept, for example).

But even then it wouldn't be the tactical virtuoso you're hoping for, simply improved. Even in wildly popular games like Starcraft 2 the AI is no match for a good player and there's achievements for doing stuff like going 1v4 against the hardest (and cheating) AI difficulty. Or look at "old school" games like Heroes of Might and Magic III if you'd like and you'll see the same thing -- the AI has to cheat on harder difficulties to pose a challenge, even with a simpler turn based game like that.

by the time you sail a fleet to the next continent over all the ships in it are obsolete!

Unless you're playing on Quick speed (and probably not even then), I don't see how this is actually the case. You can literally win a Domination victory on Deity that begins the conquest when you unlock Frigates and is finished with those same Frigates (on Standard speed).

Archers that can shoot from one side of a 1,000,000+ pop city to the other? Riflemen whose weapons have a range of 3 feet?

What you have here is a transition in the approach to warfare. The distance of warfare greatly increases between the Renaissance and Industrial Eras as actual melee units become obsolete. There's an awkward spot where Gatling Guns have a shorter range than Archers but it stops being awkward once you have all Industrial units and beyond. Why aren't you complaining that stones/arrows from a City's attack has 2 range and missiles from a City's attack also has 2 range? If they didn't alter the scale in that regard we'd have stuff like Artillery with 9 range and planes with 20+ range (as in Great War Bombers/Triplanes).

I also just LOVE (not) the way at Immoral level (not a typo) the second you research a tech that will get you a wonder the game just auto gives that wonder to another civ. It's just in the code.

No, it's not. It's literally not in the code. If another Civ gets a wonder it's because they have the tech themselves and either hard-built it or used a Great Engineer on it. I have plenty of games on Deity where I literally get every single wonder from the Modern Era and beyond (except for Ideology specific wonders).

I'm sorry, but you're just flat out 100% wrong on this.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

All right, let's start with some basic things.

For reference, I'm a computer scientist who's done work with AI, both in and out of games. It's not my job or area of expertise, but I'm familiar with some of the issues within it.

Chess AI is child's play compared to Civ V AI. Chess involves an 8x8 grid and has pieces with very precise and limited moves. Civ V is considerably larger than an 8x8 grid and the terrain changes not only game to game, but even within different sections of the same game. If Civ V battles were on a chessboard with Infantry/Cavalry starting in front and Artillery/Planes/etc in back then the AI would be massively easier to make competent.

Nor does chess have to worry about things like defensive chokepoints/fortifications, mountain passes, line of sight (from hills/forests/jungle), partial damage (in chess you either take an enemy piece or you don't), rivers/ocean affecting movement/combat, or a myriad of other problems.

Even think about something "simple" like "the SAM unit shoots down the Bomber attacking the Infantry." Nothing like that happens in chess -- the closest is "en passant" but you can't do something like "If the queen attempts to move diagonally across the board to capture my rook I'll have my bishop take her halfway across."

Chess only has to deal with one move at a time which is another major advantage (and allows it to "look ahead" more, if you're familiar with the idea). This isn't even getting into the fact that Chess has decades of AI work to draw upon while Civ V is basically having to do it from scratch with a more complex game with a larger playing field and far more variety.

In short, writing a reasonably competent AI for chess isn't so bad. Writing a reasonably competent AI for Civ V is an insane nightmare.

Now, that's not to try to wholly excuse the Civ V AI. It has a lot of basic problems that could be significantly improved with simple fixes (things like empty Carrier fleets and never using Fighters to intercept, for example).

But even then it wouldn't be the tactical virtuoso you're hoping for, simply improved. Even in wildly popular games like Starcraft 2 the AI is no match for a good player and there's achievements for doing stuff like going 1v4 against the hardest (and cheating) AI difficulty. Or look at "old school" games like Heroes of Might and Magic III if you'd like and you'll see the same thing -- the AI has to cheat on harder difficulties to pose a challenge, even with a simpler turn based game like that.

For reference, I'm a published military historian that last studied a computer language when the subject was COBOL - which, I suppose, is now Computer Ancient History. I bow to your far greater expertise on this. Would, however, it be an impossibility to code an AI that does things that are not completely suicidal?

If you are Carthage, don't stop a unit on a Mountain.
Do Not Attack a city with just one unit.
Do not stop movement inside a City State border, ruining relations (temporarily) with that City State

I have noted (without, admittedly, being able to tell if this is Accident or Code) that enemy Civ and Barbarian units will apparently try to get Flanking Bonuses, so some simple tactics are possible. If all we can hope for is little more, that would still be better than what we've got.

Unless you're playing on Quick speed (and probably not even then), I don't see how this is actually the case. You can literally win a Domination victory on Deity that begins the conquest when you unlock Frigates and is finished with those same Frigates (on Standard speed).

Playing normal speed, but admittedly on a large or huge map, by the time I get to the far side of a Pangea continent, or half-way across the map to a second continent with a Trireme, I regularly run into Galleasses before I start back, unless I start very, very early in the game.

What you have here is a transition in the approach to warfare. The distance of warfare greatly increases between the Renaissance and Industrial Eras as actual melee units become obsolete. There's an awkward spot where Gatling Guns have a shorter range than Archers but it stops being awkward once you have all Industrial units and beyond. Why aren't you complaining that stones/arrows from a City's attack has 2 range and missiles from a City's attack also has 2 range? If they didn't alter the scale in that regard we'd have stuff like Artillery with 9 range and planes with 20+ range (as in Great War Bombers/Triplanes).

No, what you have here is an attempt to impose Tactical Ranges and combat onto a Strategic Scale game. The difference in 'tactical' ranges throughout history is, in fact, much greater than you indicate: between a simple bow (100 meters plus or minus) and a World War Two divisional artillery piece (10,000 meters, average 'effective' range) would be, in the game, ranges of 2 to 200 tiles. Even discounting the 20th century+ indirect fire artillery, 'battlefield' weapons like tripod-mounted machine-guns, tank cannon, 80 - 120mm mortars, have ranges of 1000 to 6000 meters, while small arms ranges have changed from smooth bore musket = 100 - 150 meters to smokeless powder rifle at 300 - 800 meters.

What I would prefer is that ALL combat takes place within the tile. Within the tile (which, in the game, is a strategic area), all ranges short of the multi-kilometer artillery and Surface to Surface rocket could be represented, in all their variety. Also, if the combat 'battlefield' in the tile is representational, as in a grid layout of Front Line, Support, Reserve versus Right Flank, Left Flank, Center, you might actually be able to program an AI to show some tactical sense - at least as much as a dull chess or checker player?

As for the City 'ranges', that is, for me, part of a different problem, in that Civ V grossly over-estimates the inherent strength of an ancient/classical/medieval city: unwalled and without a garrison, they fell like dominoes. Until the invention of catapults and the addition of towers capable of holding same, they also had no more 'range' or effect than a bowman. The game also garbles the potential city defenses, in that it makes the castle - which was used to protect/control the countryside, not an in-city building - a 'fortification improvement' while ignoring the Italian Trace fortifications (also called 'Vauban' forts or Bastioned Traces) of the 16th - 18th centuries and the 'detached forts' of the 19th century.

If you like, we can start a separate discussion of how much and how badly the Civ games and Civ V in particular have mis-applied, mis-represented, or ignored military historical developments, but I might not get anything else done for weeks...

 

[LordBalkoth]

If you are Carthage, don't stop a unit on a Mountain.

That's doable, though in some cases you might actually WANT to (moving an invasion force across a mountain range rather than going around). Could play it safe and have it never bother with mountains, though, yes.

Do Not Attack a city with just one unit.

That's trickier. For example, what if they have a Bomber stack and then "attack" with one Infantry unit who has Cover? Your city gets taken to 1 HP and the Infantry easily captures it (while surviving the city attack itself). How do you determine whether those Bombers are part of that attack? How do you determine what sort of force you do need to commit?

I'm not saying it's impossible, but this is not nearly as simple for an AI as it is for a human. Stuff we consider trivial to do can be nigh impossible for an AI to understand (recognizing a bird in a photo like that comic says, as an example).

Do not stop movement inside a City State border, ruining relations (temporarily) with that City State

Well, Greece can ignore that penalty -- do we add in code specific to Greece to avoid it? What if the Civ has no interest in maintaining relations with the CS and it helps save time when attacking a foe or moving to settle a city or whatever?

Playing normal speed, but admittedly on a large or huge map, by the time I get to the far side of a Pangea continent, or half-way across the map to a second continent with a Trireme, I regularly run into Galleasses before I start back, unless I start very, very early in the game.

And? Triemes are early game exploration units -- this kind of feels like complaining that Archers and Warriors obsolete fairly early too. But Galleasses can be used (though are kind of sub-par)...Frigates can sweep the entire map in their era...Battleships can sweep the entire map in their era...Missile Cruisers can sweep the entire map in their era.

What I would prefer is that ALL combat takes place within the tile. Within the tile (which, in the game, is a strategic area), all ranges short of the multi-kilometer artillery and Surface to Surface rocket could be represented, in all their variety. Also, if the combat 'battlefield' in the tile is representational, as in a grid layout of Front Line, Support, Reserve versus Right Flank, Left Flank, Center, you might actually be able to program an AI to show some tactical sense - at least as much as a dull chess or checker player?

Have you ever played Heroes of Might and Magic 3 or Lords of Magic? If so, is that kind of what you mean?

Here's a question: what happens if you have Rocket Artillery and Archers on the same map? Does that mean you need the battlefield to be at least 100 tiles wide to illustrate the difference?

As for the City 'ranges', that is, for me, part of a different problem, in that Civ V grossly over-estimates the inherent strength of an ancient/classical/medieval city: unwalled and without a garrison, they fell like dominoes.

I think the point is that even a few hundred guys with swords can't easily take over a city with thousands of people in a life or death struggle. You'd have everything from retired soldiers fighting with any implements they could to mobs of people trying to simply overrun/pin down the enemy so their swords could be stolen to whatever.

If you like, we can start a separate discussion of how much and how badly the Civ games and Civ V in particular have mis-applied, mis-represented, or ignored military historical developments, but I might not get anything else done for weeks...

Oh, I know Civ is hardly perfect (as in nowhere close to perfect)...but it's ultimately an abstraction and sacrifices have to be made. For me, I can get on board with the idea of transitioning from Spearmen leading the charge with Archers volleying behind them to Riflemen at the main battle line with Artillery support behind them. Sure, the Riflemen may be fighting at a greater distance than the Archers were firing in older days, but the Artillery is further away too and continuously trying to increase the scale to be more accurate doesn't seem to add much.

 

[DM4444]

That's doable, though in some cases you might actually WANT to (moving an invasion force across a mountain range rather than going around). Could play it safe and have it never bother with mountains, though, yes.



That's trickier. For example, what if they have a Bomber stack and then "attack" with one Infantry unit who has Cover? Your city gets taken to 1 HP and the Infantry easily captures it (while surviving the city attack itself). How do you determine whether those Bombers are part of that attack? How do you determine what sort of force you do need to commit?

I'm not saying it's impossible, but this is not nearly as simple for an AI as it is for a human. Stuff we consider trivial to do can be nigh impossible for an AI to understand (recognizing a bird in a photo like that comic says, as an example).



Well, Greece can ignore that penalty -- do we add in code specific to Greece to avoid it? What if the Civ has no interest in maintaining relations with the CS and it helps save time when attacking a foe or moving to settle a city or whatever?



And? Triemes are early game exploration units -- this kind of feels like complaining that Archers and Warriors obsolete fairly early too. But Galleasses can be used (though are kind of sub-par)...Frigates can sweep the entire map in their era...Battleships can sweep the entire map in their era...Missile Cruisers can sweep the entire map in their era.



Have you ever played Heroes of Might and Magic 3 or Lords of Magic? If so, is that kind of what you mean?

Here's a question: what happens if you have Rocket Artillery and Archers on the same map? Does that mean you need the battlefield to be at least 100 tiles wide to illustrate the difference?



I think the point is that even a few hundred guys with swords can't easily take over a city with thousands of people in a life or death struggle. You'd have everything from retired soldiers fighting with any implements they could to mobs of people trying to simply overrun/pin down the enemy so their swords could be stolen to whatever.



Oh, I know Civ is hardly perfect (as in nowhere close to perfect)...but it's ultimately an abstraction and sacrifices have to be made. For me, I can get on board with the idea of transitioning from Spearmen leading the charge with Archers volleying behind them to Riflemen at the main battle line with Artillery support behind them. Sure, the Riflemen may be fighting at a greater distance than the Archers were firing in older days, but the Artillery is further away too and continuously trying to increase the scale to be more accurate doesn't seem to add much.

I don't wanna interrupt your flow too much here, but i'de like to add,

this is a game, and i am happy to conscientiously sacrifice historical accuracy for fun.

For me, the definition of improvements is in changes that balance an increase in fun, with an increase of depth (whether its historical, philosophical, economic, political, strategic, etc).

In that way, streamlining and synthesis is ideal,

and on that point, I sympathize with Lord Balkoth's sentiment here, in that,

Less rules, not more, is usually better.

Sub rules for code.

If you are Carthage, don't stop a unit on a Mountain.
Do Not Attack a city with just one unit.
Do not stop movement inside a City State border, ruining relations (temporarily) with that City State

Regarding AI:

I'm no coder. I also differ to Lord Balkoth's expertise/experience.

But generally speaking, this sounds reasonable to me.

I have no working concept of what the coding looks like here, never mind coding principals, but i'de imagine there's some sort of prioritizing of objectives? Some sort of risk reward analysis going on in the AI?

Can't the AI prioritize the preservation of units above all else?

Except for the exceptional and rare opportunities to acquire new land/cities?

Can't the AI calculate all possible damage scenarios (ranged bombers and otherwise) that can be done to a city and strategize accordingly?

If they calculate viable methods to overtake a city, they can then temporally subvert the 'preservation of units' imperative.


Civilizations that have unique characteristics (like climbing mountains) would then be altered/augmented with the appropriate (time consuming, i imagine) code on a case by case basis.

Just thought experimenting here.

 

[DM4444]

City Defense:; A somewhat side note:


It seems to me that by changing a cities defense to range 1 in early game until an appropriate technology at an appropriate era determines it otherwise would be a simple way to sort out a lot of the city related op problems.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

That's doable, though in some cases you might actually WANT to (moving an invasion force across a mountain range rather than going around). Could play it safe and have it never bother with mountains, though, yes.

That's trickier. For example, what if they have a Bomber stack and then "attack" with one Infantry unit who has Cover? Your city gets taken to 1 HP and the Infantry easily captures it (while surviving the city attack itself). How do you determine whether those Bombers are part of that attack? How do you determine what sort of force you do need to commit?

I'm not saying it's impossible, but this is not nearly as simple for an AI as it is for a human. Stuff we consider trivial to do can be nigh impossible for an AI to understand (recognizing a bird in a photo like that comic says, as an example).

BUT the bird is not precisely defined mathematically: the characteristics of every tile and unit in the game have to be. Every attack, being a mathematical process, has a probability of success in the game. Therefore, always attack with All/Some ranged units first, then attack with 'melee' units If Hit Points equals 0,1,2, etc. Mountain tiles, to Carthaginian units, require 1 MP each, therefore the 'desire' to move through mountains can be programmed - it provides a faster route than, for instance, Hills, Forests, Jungles, etc.

Of course none of it is simple - it's not simple for humans either, it's just that our processes are the product of calculations that are largely invisible to us and done on a 'wetware' computer far more powerful than the hardware in front of me now. But it can be done on that hardware better than it has been done so far, and would, I firmly believe, be a much better use of programming time than coming up with another animated Head of State...

Well, Greece can ignore that penalty -- do we add in code specific to Greece to avoid it? What if the Civ has no interest in maintaining relations with the CS and it helps save time when attacking a foe or moving to settle a city or whatever?

The game already has code specific to numerous UUs,UAs and UBs, why not? The Civ's 'interest' an be expressed as a set of decisions: If X, then Y, if Z then A, to result in a 'weighted decision' - move through the City State IF it is X+ tiles from your nearest border so its negative relations will be back to 0 before it matters - since, as with units and movement, all the City State relations and actions can be expressed mathematically, some kind of decision tree can be developed for AI actions in relation to them.

Have you ever played Heroes of Might and Magic 3 or Lords of Magic? If so, is that kind of what you mean?

Here's a question: what happens if you have Rocket Artillery and Archers on the same map? Does that mean you need the battlefield to be at least 100 tiles wide to illustrate the difference?

I have not played any of the games you mention, but from other people's descriptions (some in these forums!) they appear to be leaning in the direction I'd like to see Civ go: the old Test of Time Civ off-shoot had a 'tactical screen', but it was simply a visual representation with no input on tactics, and even at the time I thought they missed the boat in not doing more with it.

Within a Single Tile Combat System each unit would still have a 'range factor', which would not have to be exact, but representational. So, for instance, Hand to Hand would = 0, thrown grenades, javelins or spears = 1, Simple Bows or smoothbore muskets = 2, etc. Anything over 10 could shoot from another adjacent tile: modern artillery, rockets or ground-to-ground missiles, battleship main guns, etc. Trying to engage a unit with, say, Black Powder Rifles (Range about 5) with Simple Bows (Range = 1) and your chance of success would be minimal. Try it with simple bows against modern (smokeless powder) rifles (Range 7) would be suicidal.

You are right in that all combat in any game is a compromise and, basically, representational. I once met a fellow who had taken part in a research attempt (for the US military) to code and precisely represent in a computer 'simulation' everything taking place in a small-arms firefight between two squads (10 men each). The result was millions of lines of code to indicate what was happening among 20 elements covering a time span of just 3 minutes. Playability requires abstraction.

I think the point is that even a few hundred guys with swords can't easily take over a city with thousands of people in a life or death struggle. You'd have everything from retired soldiers fighting with any implements they could to mobs of people trying to simply overrun/pin down the enemy so their swords could be stolen to whatever.

If that was their point, they missed. What we have now is a system where an average ancient city (which means, 2 - 10,000 people) without walls or any specific garrison, cannot be taken by several units of spearmen or swordsmen. A system where it requires an army including missile troops and 1 - 2 melee units to take almost ANY city, even if the city is sited on flat terrain in the open and without walls or garrison. AND any damage the city takes, as long as it does not fall, the city repairs automatically in a few turns without losing any population or production capability. Basically, the city keeps right on building the pyramids while they are beating off swordsmen with pots and pans. Sorry, my 'Suspension of Belief' doesn't extend that far. As a minimum, drop the integral city defense and Hit Points by about 1/3 and increase the bonus from Walls by about 50%, and penalize city production while it is being attacked or is repairing damage and we'd be at least closer to the Ball Park, both historically and in playability.

Oh, I know Civ is hardly perfect (as in nowhere close to perfect)...but it's ultimately an abstraction and sacrifices have to be made. For me, I can get on board with the idea of transitioning from Spearmen leading the charge with Archers volleying behind them to Riflemen at the main battle line with Artillery support behind them. Sure, the Riflemen may be fighting at a greater distance than the Archers were firing in older days, but the Artillery is further away too and continuously trying to increase the scale to be more accurate doesn't seem to add much.

Thoroughly agree, but Civ gets the historical relationships dead wrong in too many cases, and it would be a better game if they got them right. Just for a few examples:

The proper response to archers shooting at you is not to 'hunker down' and try to repair the damage, it is to charge the archers and massacre any of the silly buggers who don't run away. And yes, this could allow archers to 'goad' somebody into charging - like, historically, at Agincourt...

Knights came Before the pikemen of the late Middle Ages/Renaissance: pikemen were a response to Knights, not the other way around. From the same era, 'longswords' date back to the Hallstatt culture at the beginning of the Iron Age in Europe, not the High Middle Ages - the non-pike foot of that period were men wearing some kind of steel/leather armor carrying bills, halbards, swords, maces, and other weapons designed to pry heavy-armored infantry or horsemen out of their armor or beat them to death inside it.

Between the relatively simple matchlock musket represented by the 'Musketman' and the black-powder 'rifleman', between about 1700 and 1840 CE, the primary infantryman throughout Europe was the 'fusilier' or infantry carrying a smoothbore flintlock with an effective bayonet fitted. This combined a four-fold increase in firepower over the previous muskets with effective anti-cavalry formations and weapons, all in one type of infantry. Civ has never represented this.

The black powder breech-loading rifle is invented slightly after (1829 - Dreyse needle gun) the steam railroad (1825 - Stockton-Darlington line opens). The railroad, as much as anything, defines the opening of the Industrial Age AND the ability to supply and move mass armies. It does not come after the start of the 'Modern Era' as it does in Civ V's Tech Tree.

The 'Great War Infantry' is actually infantry carrying a magazine-fed smokeless powder bolt-action rifle. That weapon was introduced to European armies starting in the 1880s, or about 30 years before the 'Great War' At the same time, (1882 patent) Hiram Maxim invented the recoil-operated machine-gun. These two are simultaneous developments, both well before the 'Great War'.

By 1935 'infantry' included, at the battalion level at least (which is well below the Civ scale by this time in the game) the machine-gun as well as light and medium mortars, and when the 'rocket launcher' or, in US terminology, the 'bazooka' is introduced, it is ALWAYS added to infantry units, not a separate unit or weapon.

The results of all this and more 'Boners' in Civ (Zulu thrusting spear was the answer to throwing spears, not in addition to them, while the Roman legion from approx. 250 BCE to 200 CE threw javelins or Pilum before charging, but can't in the game, etc., etc.) skew the development of both military and infrastructure and, strictly in my opinion, makes for a much less interesting, less enjoyable game.

But then, I define myself as a military historian and mistakes in the depiction of military history really, really, really bug me. I suspect an Architectural Historian would be equally bemused at 'Skyscrapers' being a development of the 'Order' (read: Communist) Ideology...

 

[Rusty Edge]

Well, you guys have convinced/reminded me that if there are to be ranged units, ( other than missiles and aircraft) there needs to be a battlefield map.

 

[Gorbles]

The Civilization series has never worked like the game the OP has described as their ideal in the OP itself.

Therefore, I'm not sure what the point of this thread is. It sounds like other games are what you're looking for.

 

[nimling]

Civilization V has a lot of leaks in the AI that have been fixed (somewhat) by modders. It is hurt more by being a fundamentally flawed game - 1UPT takes away a lot from the game, strategically and tactically.

I don't particularly like the direction Civ has been going since 3, though the new games did introduce some interesting subsystems like Great People and the diversification of improvements/economy. If those could be meshed into a game that was as well thought-out as Civ2 it would be great.
The AI in 4 and onwards is way too passive and manipulable, even with aggressive AI settings. Where is the AI that declares war at the drop of a hat? Sadly Civ4 and Civ5 combat both brought loopholes that the human can exploit too easily. In Civ4, the AI could theoretically learn to play a better way, though the mechanics and power of stack-killers makes that problematic.

I agree that happiness luxuries are pretty dumb, and that there are better ways to model unrest and inefficiency than anything seen in the series thus far.

Ranged combat, with few exceptions, is just a bad idea. Civ1/2's handling of air units might have been annoying, but I much prefer being able to move fighters on the map. Ranged archery units are just absurd, especially as they are implemented in Civ5.

 

[dunkleosteus]

I feel like Civ is engineered towards the late game, and I've always found this disappointing. I don't think the late game has to be inevitable every time you play, I think it should be the result of a stalemate, where no one was able to achieve a victory before this. Perhaps different victory conditions become feasible at different eras, for example a diplomatic victory isn't possible before the united nations, but a domination victory is (think of Rome) however there just isn't the time to march across the globe. Rome's legions are powerful but barely last long enough for a few consecutive sieges. As soon as longswordsman come out, you have to run all your legions home and upgrade them before you get wiped. Even the longswordsman are quickly obsoleted by musketman.

I think it's a fault of the game design that just because technological advancement was slow in the past, these time periods are rushed through. The last 500 years are way overrepresented in the tech tree compared to the preceding 5500 (this isn't a problem, techs certainly were slow, but that doesn't mean the game needs to be passed over. Spearman were a core of most armies for thousands of years, yet they're probably obsolete after the first hour or so of the game.)

The early game should be about expansion and conquest, gaining new territory and cities. This should slow down until Astronomy when a renewed wave of settlement is fueled by access to new lands. This should slow too and then the game should flesh out.

Ie Ancient Era (build up capital, settle first cities) -> Classical Era (expand empire, settle more cities, claim land) -> Medieval era (focus on growth and taller cities) -> renaissance (expand once more, improve tech/culture) -> industrial era (production,production,production) -> modern era (tech,tech,tech) -> stuff

 

[cammcken]

No, what you have here is an attempt to impose Tactical Ranges and combat onto a Strategic Scale game. The difference in 'tactical' ranges throughout history is, in fact, much greater than you indicate: between a simple bow (100 meters plus or minus) and a World War Two divisional artillery piece (10,000 meters, average 'effective' range) would be, in the game, ranges of 2 to 200 tiles. Even discounting the 20th century+ indirect fire artillery, 'battlefield' weapons like tripod-mounted machine-guns, tank cannon, 80 - 120mm mortars, have ranges of 1000 to 6000 meters, while small arms ranges have changed from smooth bore musket = 100 - 150 meters to smokeless powder rifle at 300 - 800 meters.

What I would prefer is that ALL combat takes place within the tile. Within the tile (which, in the game, is a strategic area), all ranges short of the multi-kilometer artillery and Surface to Surface rocket could be represented, in all their variety. Also, if the combat 'battlefield' in the tile is representational, as in a grid layout of Front Line, Support, Reserve versus Right Flank, Left Flank, Center, you might actually be able to program an AI to show some tactical sense - at least as much as a dull chess or checker player?

As for the City 'ranges', that is, for me, part of a different problem, in that Civ V grossly over-estimates the inherent strength of an ancient/classical/medieval city: unwalled and without a garrison, they fell like dominoes. Until the invention of catapults and the addition of towers capable of holding same, they also had no more 'range' or effect than a bowman. The game also garbles the potential city defenses, in that it makes the castle - which was used to protect/control the countryside, not an in-city building - a 'fortification improvement' while ignoring the Italian Trace fortifications (also called 'Vauban' forts or Bastioned Traces) of the 16th - 18th centuries and the 'detached forts' of the 19th century.

After a brief explanation I'm going to bring myself to say what I feel is the elephant in the room here.

The Civ series has always been a top-down game. Meaning, we look at the large picture (technological growth, empire growth) , and try to make smaller pieces (cities, units) that would sum up to simulate what happens on the large scale. This has never changed. Any game that deals with 6000+ years of history must be a top-down game. A bottom-up game would look at the capabilities of individual pieces (a 10-man squad of WWII infantry, for example), and try to put them in a slightly larger situation to test those capabilities.


The trouble with Civ 5 is that it tries to impose two scales onto one map. First, the scale of the bottom-up, exploration-settlement/imperial conquest game. Second, the scale of tactical combat, which is totally different than the scale of the empire.

If you did the simple math for a standard map, [distance around equator] divided by [width in tiles], each tile represents about 1200 miles. However, as Boris points out, the range of an archer barrage puts each tile at about 100 meters. Using his statistics, even an artillery units treats the map as 1 tile = 5000 meters. I'm not saying we should actually adhere to 1 tile=1200 miles; however, I am saying that, if we're going to have 1 tile per city, that we should assume each tile is at least large enough to actually contain a city.

The elephant in the room: Only Civ5 tries to balance these two layers. Ok, Civ2 had some funny stuff going on (I can only assume "zones of control" tried to represents where you couldn't extend your supply lines. Honestly, I don't know), but Civ4 acknowledged that a tile is physically large enough to contain even the largest of armies. (If a tile can contain a city, it can contain an army.) When Boris says all combat takes place in the tile, this is what I think he means: Like Civ4 did it. All of the positioning, the lines of sight, the high ground, the flanking; all of that has plenty of space to occur within one tile. Let it all happen invisibly.

I don't mind ranged assaults, but it shouldn't be more than 1-tile range (with exceptions for aircraft, guided missiles, and possibly modern artillery, of course). We can assume, in this instance, that the unit is entering the tile they are attacking, and then backing out again; essentially, that the "combat" occurs at the edge of the tile.

Civ4 doesn't have an adequate combined-arms bonus. It tries to compensate that with the Stacks of Doom and unit abilities, which is... meh.

I agree with the supply lines idea. THAT is a real strategic problem, very relevant to the scale and scope of the map. (Napoleon, after all...). Stop an invincible army by going around it, cutting it off from its friendly borders...

I don't know about inherent city defense. I agree the range should be taken out of it. I also think it's a little overpowered. A true blitzkrieg couldn't happen in Civ5, in similar situation as it happened in real life. The game balances this by making unit production costs rather long, so that the "blitz" is all the time you get to attack the city while your opponent is trying to build new units. Although, it shouldn't require a siege engine, a support infantry and two assault infantry to take an ungarrisoned city. The reality is, surrender occurs. Most of the population won't fight for the lives to "steal the swords" of their attacker. A police force is not the same as a military force.

As for technological development, Civ4 was not perfect, but I think they did a fine job of matching technology with border growth. Ancient age is about reaping the care necessities for your starting cities; Classical age is about expansion, managing it, and fighting barbarians; by the Medieval age, very little free land is left, but your neighbors have some good land, and you just got this fine new military tech... You can try to make your developed cities as best as they can be (Hereditary rule happiness), or you can leverage that unspent production into more weapons; the Reinassance age is about improving developped cities; the Industrial might break you free of those endless wars with promise of new weapons, but if they get the tech too... A battle between infantry, cavalry, and artillery is going to be a very even and very bloody war; with aircraft, this stalemate changes, and warfare is more mobile once again.

I agree "barbarians" and minor civilizations should be regarded on the same level, with no difference in rules between them. The +10% could be compensated simply by your having a general or barracks. Look at the Caveman2Comos mode project. I think they did a good job with this, giving untouched barbarian cities an opportunity to become new civs, giving a "minor civ" status to all civs who don't have writing yet, etc. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=288570

In my opinion, the only real advance Civ5 made was the addition of hexes. Much of everything else was just a reworking of older ideas. The bad components were the ones needed to balance and make sense of these two layers. The empire benefit of culture is nice, but awkwardly implemented in the static policies which, as someone else has said before me, is like a second tech tree, and doesn't account for social change. I hope Civ6 will rework all of the parts Civ5 is juggling into a finished piece; like Civ3 cautiously advanced form Civ2, but then Civ4 made the true leap into something new. Civ5's leap was a trip. Let's see the franchise get back up for the next one.