Which Civilization is the least dumbed-down?

[Inconceivable]

Meanwhile in CivIII and IV, you can literally stack 200 units together. The only reason not to stack too much is nukes, that's it.

Well, there's also the COLLATERAL DAMAGE that very much exists in Civ IV, indeedilydoo.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

hell no, because siege units are unfil for that role, they're severely underpowered, you need to sacrifice tens so that their spread damage could affect enough units in the stack. basically you need a hugely bigger stack yourself, but at that point 1) you wouldn't had been attacked in the first place 2) with such a stack you would had been razing cities already

 

[BING XI LAO]

hell no, because siege units are unfil for that role, they're severely underpowered, you need to sacrifice tens so that their spread damage could affect enough units in the stack. basically you need a hugely bigger stack yourself, but at that point 1) you wouldn't had been attacked in the first place 2) with such a stack you would had been razing cities already

I'm seeing catapults getting used pretty heavily even into mediaeval era on the Realmsbeyond forum's game reporting threads. Sure losing tens of catapults would hurt, but you'd be doing that to set up an even greater number of favourable battles, which absolutely is something that happens and can be worth it.

 

[Malakal]

hell no, because siege units are unfil for that role, they're severely underpowered, you need to sacrifice tens so that their spread damage could affect enough units in the stack. basically you need a hugely bigger stack yourself, but at that point 1) you wouldn't had been attacked in the first place 2) with such a stack you would had been razing cities already

Well OBVIOUSLY you would need a big army to beat a big army, its not Civ5 or 6 where three units of archers can eat a carpet of doom (munch on a carpet of doom?).

I myself think that the 'armies' mechanic in CtP would be best for future civs but I absolutely do not see a reason for all this autism, Civ is a strategy game not a tactical game, numbers win wars, production wins wars, technology wins wars not some brilliant maneuvering that should not even be noticeable on time scale the game operates at.

Finally if one turn represents, dunno, 10 years how many units should be able to cross a tile? ONE?

 

[spectre]

Finally if one turn represents, dunno, 10 years how many units should be able to cross a tile? ONE?

Yeah, in Civ games, the sense of scale has always been all over the place. How much is a turn (and as you say, why does it take 10 years to cross that river), how many men is there in a unit, how much is 1 population.
I think it's forgivable, but only if the big picture still kinda fits to what you would expect to reasonably happen.
Now, since we were discussing doomstacks in particular, I think they are one of the things that break this big picture, because how does one reationalize one tile holding an infinite number of units? Sure, if the same tile can have a city
which holds millions worth of population, that's kind of a non-issue. But this still leads to the sense of scale being all fucked up.
In contrast, 1UPT brakes it in a totally different ways, for example when the devs fuck up the missile ranges and you now have archers firing over hills and forests.

Civ is a strategy game not a tactical game, numbers win wars, production wins wars, technology wins wars not some brilliant maneuvering that should not even be noticeable on time scale the game operates at.

I disagree with this. Just google something like the great battles of the punic wars, and you'll find that brilliant meneuvering, overcoming a superior force, etc. is always being noticed, revered and romanticized in military history,
I get it that you're mostly referring to the scale (which, as I said previously is notoriously screwed in civ), but it's still not fair to just dismiss this facet as unworthy of being implemented, or even to abstract it as something like - well, our general had four stars, theirs had one, so this is how we won that battle.

On a fundamental level, strategy games are historical fantasy, stroking the ego, a play pretend that I could be as good as Napoleon or Julius Cesar if I had the chance.
So, if you strip this sense of romanticism from combat and reduce one's leadership to setting up production to churn out bigger numbers, something important is lost and the game no longer works.
It's a bit weird with 4X games, because often you want it both ways, at one time this spreadsheet type of gameplay is considered ideal, as some believe it to be more grounded in reality,
but the player also needs to feel they had a part in success or failure, otherwise the game is just soulless crunching of numbers.
I think what we might have here is a veiled Civ vs. Paradox argument. Which is better depends which type of an autist you are, perhaps. Or what kind of map painting do you feel like doing today.

 

[Malakal]

As loved as great leaders are by history in many cases one does wonder whether they mattered all that much in the end.

Hannibal? Sure, he was a great general but he lost his war and his country. Carthage at the start of the Second Punic War had less population that Rome could field as troops. He did great considering the situation but please imagine if that was a game and you kept losing battles at 99%...

Alexander inherited a great organized army that was already preparing to invade Persia, half of it literally already was in Asia Minor. If Phillip didn't get assassinated or anyone else inherited the kingdom it would have done great too, in all likelihood. Great organized, reformed army (quality troops) + good tactics and equipment (tech) = victory.

Caesar was playing easy mode Roman legions vs barbarians, at that time any Roman general did more or less very well.Rome definitely had better troops and tech.

You can list many such examples. A militarized society that values leadership will generate good leaders, its not really a great person its the fruit of your strategy.

 

[passerby]

I disagree with this. Just google something like the great battles of the punic wars, and you'll find that brilliant meneuvering, overcoming a superior force, etc. is always being noticed, revered and romanticized in military history.

This shit is abstracted in the game of Civ scale by unit experience bonus and random chance element.

The only way to make it not retarded is a separate battle minigame, but if you make the minigame fast and simplistic, it'll be so repetitive that autoresolve will be preferable, if you make it detailed it'll slow the game too much.

Go play Total War instead of trying to ruin strategy games.

 

[Johannes]

I never really understood the complaint abt civ doomstacks. Ideal play still features a good amount of maneuvering around, just sticking all in one tile and facerolling the enemy one city at a time sounds p. noobish to me. Works vs bad enough opposition, but for peak performance you still want to separate units from the stack for various purposes - to scout, to destroy enemy improvements or to defend your own, split a big army to take on several cities at the time, send guys to block enemy reinforcements, secure the path for your reinforcements ... Haven't played a civ game in a long time so its not that fresh on my mind, but I never used just a simple "stack go brrrr" approach to the logistics. When there's multiple cities and points around them to attack and defend, there will inevitably a good amount of room for maneuvering.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

The doomstacks in 4 were annoying in that the vulnerable units were all protected by the perfect defender for each attack. I recall dealing with city defender doomstacks via siege weapons/bombers.

It definitely gave the defender too much advantage. Always defending with the best counter was too strong. That, in my opinion, was the entire problem with doomstacks. If a defender were chosen at random, or if there were some way for the attacker's speed to come into effect (My cavalry are faster than your spearmen and archers. How do your spearmen always end up between my cavalry and your archers?). If the faster unit chose the engagement conditions, that would open up some strategic options. Doomstacks would still exist but they wouldn't lead to the same dominance of defenders.

1UPT was a logical enough attempt at a fix, but, who cares about the strategic and tactical options it leads to if the AI can't competently use it? Plus 1UPT makes a lot of the scale issues more obvious.

I never played Civ5. Civ 6 has 1UPT and the AI sucks with it. The religion stuff is stupid. I like the idea of cities being more specialized with districts.

Civ4 was a more solid 4x and it was more fun to conquer the world than in Civ6.

All my commentary is based on playing against the computer, because jesus H christ who has time to wait for humans to take their turns?

 

[spectre]

As loved as great leaders are by history in many cases one does wonder whether they mattered all that much in the end.
[...]
You can list many such examples. A militarized society that values leadership will generate good leaders, its not really a great person its the fruit of your strategy.

I suppose it is a matter whether you believe Napoleonic Wars would have happened anyway, only under a different name.
Civ in its essence is about this one guy who had a vision and it changed fucking everything. Charlemagne, Bolesław Chrobry, Gustavus Adolphus, etc., etc.,
(not the third-rate nobodies they keep pushing out in recent iterations of civ).
It's about stepping in the shoes of this "father of the nation" figure, even if such a notion is romanticized to some degree, and as divorced from realism the civ convention ultimately is.

I don't know how much the big figures from history really mattered. I'm merely a student (or perhaps better, a consumer of history), not a scholar.
It's a trend to take a revisionist approach and say, well, this Alexander bloke wasn't really THAT Great, but that's not what I'm looking for when I pick up a strategy game.

 

[Johannes]

The doomstacks in 4 were annoying in that the vulnerable units were all protected by the perfect defender for each attack. I recall dealing with city defender doomstacks via siege weapons/bombers.

It definitely gave the defender too much advantage. Always defending with the best counter was too strong. That, in my opinion, was the entire problem with doomstacks. If a defender were chosen at random, or if there were some way for the attacker's speed to come into effect (My cavalry are faster than your spearmen and archers. How do your spearmen always end up between my cavalry and your archers?). If the faster unit chose the engagement conditions, that would open up some strategic options. Doomstacks would still exist but they wouldn't lead to the same dominance of defenders.

1UPT was a logical enough attempt at a fix, but, who cares about the strategic and tactical options it leads to if the AI can't competently use it? Plus 1UPT makes a lot of the scale issues more obvious.

I never played Civ5. Civ 6 has 1UPT and the AI sucks with it. The religion stuff is stupid. I like the idea of cities being more specialized with districts.

Civ4 was a more solid 4x and it was more fun to conquer the world than in Civ6.

All my commentary is based on playing against the computer, because jesus H christ who has time to wait for humans to take their turns?

Defenders being strong suits Civ p. well, otherwise conquest is too easy. When you've got a siege or other standoff where neither army can make progress (or doesnt want to risk it), but still can maneuver around or wait for reinforcements, that's what gives the strategy map depth.

The spearmen dont always end up between the cavalry and archers, only when in the same square...

 

[Malakal]

I'd like to point out that being holed up in your cities is a sure way to lose. Good players will pillage you to death and you will be wayyy behind. Of course AI is worse in this regard but as a player you can pillage the AI. Its not always necessary to take cities.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

I'd like to point out that being holed up in your cities is a sure way to lose. Good players will pillage you to death and you will be wayyy behind. Of course AI is worse in this regard but as a player you can pillage the AI. Its not always necessary to take cities.

Winning was never a problem, and player vs player is irrelevant to 99% of the people who play the civ games.

It's not hard to not attack that stack of archers with 1 spearman on a hill. It's not hard to park my stack of archers with 1 spearman on a hill and watch the AI suicide into them either. But it would be deeper strategically, in my opinion, if there were more counterplay available.

My point was that the spearman on the tile with the archers shouldn't be able to defend them from all angles from all attackers. Faster units getting to choose the terms of engagement would make sense from a thematic and realism standpoint (Cavalry harrasment of massed archers was a legitimate tactic).

I don't think firaxis is going to come up with a decent AI that can work with 1UPT. I'll never want to play civilization with other humans, I'm not that patient, and people aren't that reliable. So I hope the next civ goes back to stacks, but with some changes from the civ4 implementation. I don't think I'll get a decent ai without stacks...

I dunno, maybe just allowing ranged units to attack like they do in civ6, but with stacking like in civ4 would be good enough.

 

[Johannes]

While I think doom stacks are kind of goofy, I have never considered them a gameplay problem. There are usually tools to deal with them such as bombardment in Civ4.

However, for LARPing purposes it is kind of silly to have a big old map to maneuver in, but have so many units concentrated in a few tiles when it is time to fight wars.

What is goofy about big armies moving as a single army?

You could add some sort of supply system or whatever to limit the concentration, but definitely that's something that can just as well be abstracted away.

I'd like to point out that being holed up in your cities is a sure way to lose. Good players will pillage you to death and you will be wayyy behind. Of course AI is worse in this regard but as a player you can pillage the AI. Its not always necessary to take cities.

Winning was never a problem, and player vs player is irrelevant to 99% of the people who play the civ games.

It's not hard to not attack that stack of archers with 1 spearman on a hill. It's not hard to park my stack of archers with 1 spearman on a hill and watch the AI suicide into them either. But it would be deeper strategically, in my opinion, if there were more counterplay available.

My point was that the spearman on the tile with the archers shouldn't be able to defend them from all angles from all attackers. Faster units getting to choose the terms of engagement would make sense from a thematic and realism standpoint (Cavalry harrasment of massed archers was a legitimate tactic).

I don't think firaxis is going to come up with a decent AI that can work with 1UPT. I'll never want to play civilization with other humans, I'm not that patient, and people aren't that reliable. So I hope the next civ goes back to stacks, but with some changes from the civ4 implementation. I don't think I'll get a decent ai without stacks...

I dunno, maybe just allowing ranged units to attack like they do in civ6, but with stacking like in civ4 would be good enough.

The AI knows how to pillage, even if it doesn't always do a great job at it. And winning can be hard for almost anyone if you pick high enough difficulty, IIRC I couldn't beat the highest 2 levels of AI in Civ4 without savescumming, even though I'm sure there's someone out there who can.


And complaints about how this or that historical tactic doesn't work, is p. tunnelvisioned... You can't catch all the nuance of warfare, especially in a system that's meant to simulate wars from all eras in the same system. Realism counterarguments can just as well be made against your complaints - if there's an army stationed on a hill, you're quite unlikely to just waltz around the spearmen who try to protect the archers, beat the archers, and run away. In a bigger battle, possibly, but the game already has that. As your cavalry, or whatever unit, wears the spearmen down, they become poorer defenders and make way for you to attack the archers even if the spearmen unit isnt totally defeated yet. And cavalry do have the ability to withdraw when damaged, at least in some Civs.

Caesar was playing easy mode Roman legions vs barbarians, at that time any Roman general did more or less very well.Rome definitely had better troops and tech.

That's what Crassus thought too.

 

[spectre]

And complaints about how this or that historical tactic doesn't work, is p. tunnelvisioned... You can't catch all the nuance of warfare, especially in a system that's meant to simulate wars from all eras in the same system.

Since I believe I was the one who brought this up, my complaint was specifically about encouraging something that's completely out of touch with reality - the catapult/cannon suicide tactic.

I played my share of Civ4 so I know this tactic, used it and understand its place within the system. My point being, if you need to include bullshit countermechanics to common situations, perhaps it reveals a fundamental flaw in the underlying system.

 

[Johannes]

Yeah, the artillery in the style of SMAC / Civ3 / whatever else, where you dont suicide just bombard from the neighbor square, is better.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

I'm just saying a solution that also happens to fit real world expectations is nice, obviously there has to be a lot of abstraction.

In real life, flanks are a thing, and historically cavalry have been utilized successfully to harass them. But that was just a random idea to solve a perceived problem with doomstacks. In my view, the biggest problem with doomstacks is they allow vulnerable units to be completely protected.

I have no problem with doomstacks in cities, it makes sense that a walled, fortified position would be able to dictate the terms of engagement, and you can pillage the improvements around the city to try to lure out the defenders.

But, if a group of say, 20 cannons and 4 spearmen are besieging my city(Or whatever that era's good defender unit is), it makes less sense that a group of units coming from the other side still have to get through those spearmen.

 

[Malakal]

Yeah, the artillery in the style of SMAC / Civ3 / whatever else, where you dont suicide just bombard from the neighbor square, is better.

I always thought that this idea was ridiculous, what with bombarding units from hundreds of kilometres away but then they made archers do it in 5 and 6 so whatever.

I must point out that artillery does not 'suicide' in any way. Its how the combat works in Civ4, units fight and the losing unit dies, it works the same for all units just artillery gets collateral damage (makes sense, you would want archers to do collateral damage? swordsmen?) and a bombardment action against cities (not forts tho, obvious omission). A highly promoted artillery unit actually can win plenty of combats since anti artillery STR promotions are rare and usually not worth taking and artillery itself has decent STR. Plus artillery units can take great city attack promotions and three of those are 100% STR against cities.

 

[Inconceivable]

Yeah, the artillery in the style of SMAC / Civ3 / whatever else, where you dont suicide just bombard from the neighbor square, is better.

I always thought that this idea was ridiculous, what with bombarding units from hundreds of kilometres away but then they made archers do it in 5 and 6 so whatever.

I must point out that artillery does not 'suicide' in any way. Its how the combat works in Civ4, units fight and the losing unit dies, it works the same for all units just artillery gets collateral damage (makes sense, you would want archers to do collateral damage? swordsmen?) and a bombardment action against cities (not forts tho, obvious omission). A highly promoted artillery unit actually can win plenty of combats since anti artillery STR promotions are rare and usually not worth taking and artillery itself has decent STR. Plus artillery units can take great city attack promotions and three of those are 100% STR against cities.

I can appreciate the new "Civilization General" combat mechanics of Civ 5/6. I think it does make battles more interesting, even though it does get pretty crowded. Moving an army sometimes feels like herding a fat cow the size of a small continent through enemy territory.
But yeah, the first time I visualized those archers shooting at targets 100 to 200 km away, depending in the scale you want to apply, I LoLed. Even modern artillery doesn't nearly have that sort of reach.

 

[Johannes]

Yeah, the artillery in the style of SMAC / Civ3 / whatever else, where you dont suicide just bombard from the neighbor square, is better.

I always thought that this idea was ridiculous, what with bombarding units from hundreds of kilometres away but then they made archers do it in 5 and 6 so whatever.

I must point out that artillery does not 'suicide' in any way. Its how the combat works in Civ4, units fight and the losing unit dies, it works the same for all units just artillery gets collateral damage (makes sense, you would want archers to do collateral damage? swordsmen?) and a bombardment action against cities (not forts tho, obvious omission). A highly promoted artillery unit actually can win plenty of combats since anti artillery STR promotions are rare and usually not worth taking and artillery itself has decent STR. Plus artillery units can take great city attack promotions and three of those are 100% STR against cities.

Either style can be rationalized, if armies are on adjacent squares they can be said to be on adjacent hills waiting for a big battle if you want. Even if the squares are much larger than just those hills. When the battle can last for many turns, it's a silly assumption that the attacks to another square are hit-n-run attacks by the lone unit from the army base camp into the camp of the other army. The flow of attacks between the units on both sides just represents the ebb and flow of a battle, even if it last multiple turns and therefore only makes sense in an abstracted timeline. But the artillery as an attacker that can die, its reasonable too, when an army attacks another it's fair that the attacking artillery can take casualties just as well as anything.

All units in SMAC do collateral damage, that works as well. Just depends what you think will make for the best gameplay.

 

[spectre]

But the artillery as an attacker that can die, its reasonable too, when an army attacks another it's fair that the attacking artillery can take casualties just as well as anything.

Just call it an approximation of spent munitions if you must, but putting it with the same sentence as "reasonable" is just.... bruh.

Its how the combat works in Civ4, units fight and the losing unit dies, it works the same for all units just artillery gets collateral damage.

Until you recall that bombers can bombard a tile just fine, collateral damage and all, without the need to commit as an attacker. The obvious solution to fix all this fuckery is right there in the system, yet for some reason it only comes to play in the endgame.

I wonder what's the justification, if any. Was it too hard to balance? I thought it was a fair deal - bombardment is powerful, but no combat exp for you this way. Or was it too much work to make it work with the AI?

 

[Raghar]

You talk about Stealth bombers. Normal bombers could be intercepted.

 

[Johannes]

But the artillery as an attacker that can die, its reasonable too, when an army attacks another it's fair that the attacking artillery can take casualties just as well as anything.

Just call it an approximation of spent munitions if you must, but putting it with the same sentence as "reasonable" is just.... bruh.

Nothing crazy about some artillery getting destroyed in a battle, even of the winning side.

 

[Malakal]

You talk about Stealth bombers. Normal bombers could be intercepted.

Stealth bombers can be intercepted too.

Also bombers bomb from afar while artillery has to be engaged in combat to do real damage, well within one tile range of a game such as this.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

But the artillery as an attacker that can die, its reasonable too, when an army attacks another it's fair that the attacking artillery can take casualties just as well as anything.

Just call it an approximation of spent munitions if you must, but putting it with the same sentence as "reasonable" is just.... bruh.

Nothing crazy about some artillery getting destroyed in a battle, even of the winning side.

Yeah, everyone knows you can only destroy artillery while it's shelling you... Of course 1 spearman can protect 1000 archers from an army on horseback coming from all sides.

See the problem? The artillery is well protected while not attacking, and vulnerable when attacking. That's totally backward. An army using its artillery to shell you doesn't make them more vulnerable.

It's fine, it's a gameplay mechanic for balance. But it's nonsense.