Why was 1UPT necessary?

[bryanw1995]

It turns a game about civilizations into a glorified board of chess. It eliminates the importance of army composition. The hex tiles are too large (in other words, the world is too small) for the system to be successful. Overall, I find the system of combat more frustrating than satisfying.

when presented with many different alternatives in a recent poll, ~ 50% of forum members have chosen 1upt in spite of all the civ5 hate that has gone on around here. I'm not saying that makes it ideal, but clearly it is relatively popular.

I agree that more hexes would greatly alleviate the issue, the main problem with that right now is that larger maps are death to most systems. I remember that playing larger maps when cIV came out was also a major chore, but with newer computers/better programming within a few years the largest maps were easily played. Once we get that with ciV I think that the "more hexes" issue will be addressed by the simple expedient of larger maps being playable for the majority of users. In fact, sandy bridge will be out next month, I suspect that a lot of people with athlon II's and e6600's will be upgrading to better systems and get to enjoy the larger maps.

 

[Mythicos]

About Unit overlod of the map:

Practical solutions to unit overload could be two-fold:

1) In the same way that a City can support only so many people (ie. its population rate), you could put a limit on how many units a given city could support. I'd make this a hard-cap (as opposed to a soft-cap that only penalizes you for excess units) because:
- Sometimes penalties, whatever their nature, is not enough of a deterrent;
- A hard-cap is easier for the AI to deal with.

2) Most of the time, one has a flood of units because he keeps outdated units from bygone eras. The AI is especially guilty of this. A solution would be to auto-promote units to the current equivalent. I'd make this available not immediately upon discovering the new tech, but maybe after a certain number of turns has passed, or some other trigger; thus allowing the strategic decision of paying to get the upgrade faster.

I think if your archers turned into crossbowmen after, say 15 turns (just an example) of getting Machinery, the urge you'd feel about building units ad infinitum would be lessened.

About 1UPT:

In an ideal world, a middle-ground between 1UPT and SOD would be programmed into the game. But, as was written before, the upkeep-per-tile idea is more complicated than some may think.

It IS complicated for human players, because you'd have to carefully check at the end of each movement if the tile is able to sustain your unit; that's more micro-management, and not of the good kind.

It would be NIGHTMARISHLY complex for the AI. You think the AI has difficulties dealing with water-tiles? Believe me, you ain't seen nothing yet. An upkeep would literally paralyze the AI. I'm willing to bet that it would start loosing (or completely crippling) units, in turn urging the AI to build more units to compensate for the loss in military might. The AI, who already builds way more units than needed if used properly, would now build nothing else, making it impossible for it to win in any other way than with a military victory (and we already know what the odds of that are, right?)

All of this to say that I'm on the side of the extremists and believe the only practical options, from a game design perspective as well as gameplay, is to go with one or the other - 1UPT or SOD. Personnally, I think 1UPT is more interesting (even with all of its faults), but that's just my opinion.

A word finally about those that argue that 1 unit occupying the same space as a city: it's not. The city is not only the single tile where it was founded, it's all the tiles around it where people of that city are working to produce food, etc.
Furthermore, when I read some comments, I am under the impression that those people think that a unit represents a single person. It's not. It is as many of that particular unit type as are necessary to have an impact on the battlefield while having a manageable number of people. That number fluctuates depending on the particular type of unit. An archer unit might be 100 archers, while a Tank unit might represent 10 tanks (the numbers are just used to illustrate my point, please don't argue the numbers themselves). So is 100 archers in a tile realist? Not completely (the game is an abstraction, after all), but it is not that far of a stretch.

 

[NBAfan]

I think one of the biggest problems with 1UPT is that the map is way to small. Just look at map of England in Panzer Genaral for example. It has to be over 50 hexes at least, but in that kind of area in Civ5 is only 4 hexes!

 

[Eskel]

Personally, I think that 1UPT is bad design for strategic-scale game.
Why? Because it generates a number of logical inconsistencies and contradictions,
with archers shooting over lakes, at range of modern artillery units and that you cannot use combined arms in fact being most important.

To work quite well, 1UPT require more units of each type, more move points and space to maneouvre. All this works against strategic and building game type. Of course we can try to fix things and make bigger maps, increase distatant between cities and so on, but building part of game simply becomes unmanageable then.
For example, bigger distances between cities make terrain improvements indistingishable due to scale. Human mind has its restrictions, e.g. it is very hard for majority of population to remember single number longer than 7-9 digits.
Thats why I cannot imagine that anyone will remember what improvements city works if there were more tiles in city radius than in current design. Even now when we compare previous civ versions to civ 5, terrain WAS important earlier because number of tiles per city (21) allowed human to see and understand differences, while 37 tiles in Civ5 is IMO way too much.
Moreover, it will become a real pain to issue orders to workers. Of course, we can automate then, but - why leave them in game at all and pretend it is strategic game???

If somebody likes tactical wargames - why just don't go playing Panzer General or something, but leave strategic games intact? Is it possible that Sulla was right - devs didnt understand what type of game they are working on?

However, Civ 5 is made as it is, so let's talk about solutions instead.

For 1UPT, I would make units maintenance that high, it would be simply impossible to create "Carpet of Doom". Second solution (in fact very similar) is making units cost population in production and food in maintenance.
This could also open few interesting possibilities, like "global food supply", which IMO makes more sense than global hapiness, particularily with the way maritime CS work.
Maybe each city which has granary should contribute to common pool, that is divided between all cities? Maybe there should be possible food trading between player and AI? Maybe friendly maritime CS should give a certain set amount of food (e.g. 10-20 per turn)?

For MUPT - to prevent stacking, I would employ collaterate damage in all attacks against stacks, and maybe penalty if number units per tiles exceeds specified amount, e.g. 3, 5 or 7. This number could vary depending on terrain (city, wood, mountain, open) and improvements as well (fort, wall, barracks etc.) and maybe even combat action - defending should be easier than attacking.
Of course, ZOCs, and flanking bonuses from allied units in nearby tiles, should be left intact as they add complexity and flavour to strategic movement.

Sorry for wall of text.

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

Where exactly was this brilliant AI that supposedly inhabited the beloved Civ4?

Don't get me wrong, I loved Civ4, but I have to laugh at all the knocking of the Civ5 AI. It's predecessor was no better, and the games were only harder at higher level because the AI received higher bonuses than even Civ5.

 

[Doctor Phibes]

Where exactly was this brilliant AI that supposedly inhabited the beloved Civ4?

Don't get me wrong, I loved Civ4, but I have to laugh at all the knocking of the Civ5 AI. It's predecessor was no better, and the games were only harder at higher level because the AI received higher bonuses than even Civ5.

I don't think that anyone maintains that Civ4 combat AI was brilliant. Simply that:

1) Dumb AI can't cope with 1upt (at least on the traditional Civ map scale) as easily as stacks. Largely that's due to routing and traffic control issues that don't exist with stacks.

2) The nerfing of building strategies in Civ5 means that it's now closer to being a pure wargame than any previous Civ. So there is now, rightly, a pitiless spotlight being shone on the combat AI, whereas it wasn't the be-all and end-all of Civ4.

2) Most of the time, one has a flood of units because he keeps outdated units from bygone eras. The AI is especially guilty of this. A solution would be to auto-promote units to the current equivalent. I'd make this available not immediately upon discovering the new tech, but maybe after a certain number of turns has passed, or some other trigger; thus allowing the strategic decision of paying to get the upgrade faster.

I think if your archers turned into crossbowmen after, say 15 turns (just an example) of getting Machinery, the urge you'd feel about building units ad infinitum would be lessened.

I think that's actually a promising idea. And you do realise you've just proposed a solution to the spearman vs tank problem? In this situation they'd never meet.

 

[LAnkou]

I like the idea of a cap on number of units but:

If the goal is to limit the number of units, then you need to think about what define your limit:
-the cap should evolve with map size (less units on duel map that on huge maps): remember we are talking about traffic management for lower map and you need bigger number on the bigger maps
-using Number of cities and/or population would favor ICS too much
-using technology or land based items (like ressources) would favor snowballing empires

There are others inherent flaws to unit-cap:
-the cap needs to be significantly high to let players fight several wars at the same time on differents part of the world (some to advance and conquer, some others just to hold ground), but if all the units are used for only one war =>traffic problem
-If a civ has capped its units, and decide to not wage war, then the civ will only have to build city buildings=>you're limiting the choice...
-Reinforcement management will be a mess: you will have to wait losing unit to build new ones...
-If you get a tech with a totally new type of unit (gunpowder), you will have to destroy units to build a new one...

As someone said, the problem comes from traffic jam and bad AI.

If there was more mobility, AI would do a better job at managing units then, fight would be more deadly (I remember that CivIV was a slaughter fest), and there would be fewer complaints about it...
You could even lower the production cost of most things in the game/raise the production yield...
Mobility can come with only one decision: stop the road maintenance...
On the other hand, i would keep the railroad maintenance, because invading is already such a problem for the AI, it would become a nightmare for it with all tiles railroads....

or you can make a decent combat AI, combat would be more deadly too...

 

[lankypeter]

I don't really understand why a unit limit is such a big deal, but base the limit on resources available instead of a hex trait. Civ already has the requirement for a civ to have access to a particular resource and technology prior to building that unit. Why not just extend that requirement so that once 1 instance of that resource is discovered it can support X number of units that require said resource. If the civ wants more units that require that resource the civ must find more of that resource or trade for it. For example, a spearman requires wood (i.e., forest chopping), a swordsman iron, etc. And different units could draw on the same resource, say horse archers and knights, so between those two unit types, one horse resource could only support X (ten for example) total horse related units.

That would best simulate real life and it would provide a legitimate cap for military units. And it would also, potentially, increase the diplomacy and trade involvement within the game, something that a lot of players on these boards say they ignore or underutilize.

 

[Celevin]

I don't think that anyone maintains that Civ4 combat AI was brilliant. Simply that:

1) Dumb AI can't cope with 1upt (at least on the traditional Civ map scale) as easily as stacks. Largely that's due to routing and traffic control issues that don't exist with stacks.

Phibes is on the money with this.

I don't think it's a wrong change, I just think it's an ambitious change (and looking back on it, overly ambitious). Going to 1upt will be a great benefit for the Civ franchise once they implement it well. This means the following need to be looked at:
- AI being able to think at the tactical scale
- Dealing with micromanagement in peace time
- Build times

I think the last point needs to be examined the most, even more than the tactical AI. It's a simpler fix. When the world's not crowded at all at 1500 BC, why am I spending 20 turns making a warrior? Meanwhile the map can be nearly full late game. Honestly I'm not concerned that much with flooding the world with too many units. Maintenance will still keep armies small, so why not let us actually produce units at a decent rate? Early game lately I'm finding myself depending on 500 gold for a quick walls buy to protect me, because I'm *not* taking 2 techs of build time away from building crucial infrastructure in order to build a single unit. Slow build times are my #1 reason for quitting a game well before it's finished.

 

[Oerdin]

The reality is 1UPT wasn't necissary and it was just something the development team came up with because they wanted to make Civ 5 different from other editions of civ. Personally, I think it was a horrible decision because even if they sort out the garbage MP set up (which won't happen) you'll still be left with a click fest trying to individually move dozens of units before the other guy moves his.

 

[Celevin]

The reality is 1UPT wasn't necissary and it was just something the development team came up with because they wanted to make Civ 5 different from other editions of civ. Personally, I think it was a horrible decision because even if they sort out the garbage MP set up (which won't happen) you'll still be left with a click fest trying to individually move dozens of units before the other guy moves his.

The Civ4 system did not work well and needed to be changed. Maybe 1upt wasn't necessary, but it was a good idea in order to fix Civ4's broken system. It's one of the coolest things they could have implemented, it just also happens to be one of the hardest.

You should take off simultaneous turns. They weren't good in Civ4 multiplayer when facing a human opponent either. I've had stalemated games on simultaneous turns where one side would have clearly been the victor otherwise.

 

[duddyz_dad]

Games need immersion. Otherwise we wouldn't have units called "Warrior", "Swordsman" and so on, but "Unit Type 1", "Unit Type 2" and etc.

Entire cities being in a tile but two units not being able to share it is demonstrative that the scale of Civilization simply doesn't lend itself to 1UPT. Like was said previously, limited stack seems like the way forwards.

I've suggested in prior posts that you could set up both an SoD and 1UPT by rescaling the battlescenes from the city scale. At the city scale, you could have two stacks about to engage each other in combat. When combat begins, the scale changes to a hex-based battle scene where the units are spread out based on unit type (i.e. swordsmen in the front, archers and siege behind, horsement to the side). By having a separate battlescene scale, you can also do more with the surrounding terrain. Could this be done in an expansion? Finally, conducting battles at a smaller scale would make more sense from a timeline perspective. Why wait 20 years in the Ancient Age for the warriors to counterattack the archers that fired on them first?

I don't see how it would fundamentally alter the game to suggest it's not feasible.

 

[aatami]

One option would be to allow small stacking, and depend the stacking on unit type.
As in, for example you could fit 3 of the same unit type on one tile, or 2 of a different type, and war machines could not be stacked with anything. Bad idea?

 

[JohnnyW]

I think the last point needs to be examined the most, even more than the tactical AI. It's a simpler fix. When the world's not crowded at all at 1500 BC, why am I spending 20 turns making a warrior? Meanwhile the map can be nearly full late game. Honestly I'm not concerned that much with flooding the world with too many units. Maintenance will still keep armies small, so why not let us actually produce units at a decent rate? Early game lately I'm finding myself depending on 500 gold for a quick walls buy to protect me, because I'm *not* taking 2 techs of build time away from building crucial infrastructure in order to build a single unit. Slow build times are my #1 reason for quitting a game well before it's finished.

This. I usually only build enough units to fight a defensive war and just land grab. This works up to level 7. Deity is still hard for me, but nowhere close to fun.

 

[Buccaneer]

Because hex-based 1upt has been around in gaming since the 1960s?

 

[Androrc the Orc]

I've suggested in prior posts that you could set up both an SoD and 1UPT by rescaling the battlescenes from the city scale. At the city scale, you could have two stacks about to engage each other in combat. When combat begins, the scale changes to a hex-based battle scene where the units are spread out based on unit type (i.e. swordsmen in the front, archers and siege behind, horsement to the side). By having a separate battlescene scale, you can also do more with the surrounding terrain. Could this be done in an expansion? Finally, conducting battles at a smaller scale would make more sense from a timeline perspective. Why wait 20 years in the Ancient Age for the warriors to counterattack the archers that fired on them first?

I don't see how it would fundamentally alter the game to suggest it's not feasible.

I think it would be a great idea.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

The Civ4 system did not work well and needed to be changed. Maybe 1upt wasn't necessary, but it was a good idea in order to fix Civ4's broken system. It's one of the coolest things they could have implemented, it just also happens to be one of the hardest.

You should take off simultaneous turns. They weren't good in Civ4 multiplayer when facing a human opponent either. I've had stalemated games on simultaneous turns where one side would have clearly been the victor otherwise.

If Civ had always been 1UPT and they for some reason changed it to stacks for this release, people would be wondering why they made THAT change. In this specific case, I honestly think the only reason it's attracting any attention at all is because it's new and different.

 

[KHSOLO]

I love 1UPT, the stacks of doom where a total abomination for combat play imo

Im currently playing a game against 10 AI in a Huge map and been having a blast, i really love it

If you dont like it there are mods to remove it

Cheers

 

[tylor]

What is bad with SoDs? HoMM brags with it's SoD. Just make SoD in Civ as easy to manage as in HoMM. OR make upkeep for them too high AND teach AI not to train too much units. I think only simple heuristics required.

 

[JollyRoger]

I think you all will appreciate 1UPT more when the expansion comes out that turns combat into a first person shooter.