Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Civilization V Multiplayer Concepts: City Defense and the Choke

Collapse
X
Collapse
  •  

  • Civilization V Multiplayer Concepts: City Defense and the Choke

    With Civilization V only roughly two weeks away it's time to think about the new features and how they may affect Multiplayer. Robert Plomp already has started a discussion about how one unit per tile will affect MP. I'll try to take a look at a new feature of Civ V that has the potential to change Multiplayer at least in the early stages of the game radically: The new defense abilities of cities. As the game isn't out yet some of this is based on assumptions and speculations, but I'll revisit this topic once we have a little more experience with the live game.



    In Civ V the cities are a lot different to the cities in Civ IV. The cities in Civ IV were the apple of your empire's eye - they needed constant attention and sufficient defense garrisons as they could fall easily to an opponent's attack. If a unit - in ancient era games most notably those pesky starting warriors - moved up to your ungarrisoned city this threatened the loss of the city, if not the elimination of the game if it was your starting and only city. A lot of players have been eliminated from games due to the so-called warrior kills.

    Civ V will change this dramatically. Cities no longer need garrisons (and they can only be defended by 1 unit because of the one unit per tile restriction), so consequently the developers granted them the ability to defend themselves. This alone will result in a lot less of those stupid kills by single units we experienced in Civ IV MP - a good change in my opinion because it was so annoying if you told a player to get defense or to not hit with his last unit and of course he did and died. The devs not only granted the city an inherent defense value, but cities now too can act like ranged units - they can bombard enemy units. Again this will help to minimize those early kills as the approaching units will lose health points and therefore not be able to break the city defense.

    While not having early kills is good, the new feature also brings a strategic shift with it. The stratagem that is changed is: Choking. With that term a situation is described where a player cannot move around units - most notably his workers and settlers - in his land freely because they would be threatened by enemy units. A choke simply prevents the player from improving his resources and land and therefore pushes him back compared to the rest of the player. In teamer games a hard choke can be equal to a kill. Playing under a choke was the toughest situation to be in, especially against strong players. Luckily there were some strategies that showed how to play under a choke and evtually get rid of it - jobe has already posted a nice compilation of them.

    Because a correctly played choke could be almost equal to a kill it is not surprising that choking also is a strategy one can gear his play towards. In high-level MP there were two games: The staging-room game and the Civ game. The staging-room game revolved around choosing a strategy and picking the leaders which would fit into that strategy. For a choking strategy you want unique units which help you in that case: Mali with its pimped-up Skirmishers, the Natives with their Dog Soldier, The Aztecs and the woodland-powered Jaguars, the Babylonians with their Bowmen or the Incans with their Aggressive Quechuas, to name the most prominent choices. A game could be lost in the staging-room just by picking the wrong Civs - if the two teams were equal in skill.

    Choking and its possibilities added a lot to the strategic depth of high-level Multiplayer because you had to have a plan - either playing the strategy correctly or finding means playing against it. With Civilization V the days of choking will presumably be gone - if you want to choke, your unit will be an easy target for the city's ranged ability and the mop up from another unit. Trying to choke equals to gifting your opponent experience points for his units. We yet have to see how choking may work in a teamer game where it may be possible to go for just one player with 4 or 5 units at a time - mounted units spring to mind for this as the defender will have not enough units for using the zone of control feature (this feature forces units to use up all movement points regardless of how many they have left if the enter a tile next to an enemy unit), and so the advance to the city may be faster and actually a threat. But even then I think this will no longer be choking as we were used to it in Civ IV - simply because either you lose your units or you kill the city.

    One principle of the anti-choke will still hold though - identify your key strategic tiles (see the article about defending in Civ IV MP for that) and get rid of your forests as soon as possible. As units will suffer from a -15% strength penalty on flat ground your cities will become untouchable by choke attempts.

    My opinion - without having seen or played the game yet - is that choking is dead. I guess we will have fun picking off those units that are bold enough to try!

    Attached Files

    • Indiansmoke
      #1
      Indiansmoke commented
      Editing a comment
      City will bombard enemy units ( I assume 1 unit at a time) but that will not stop them from capturing workers or pillaging (I asssume). So you still cannot ignore early military, but it will be far easier to defend.

      But the most major change is the lack of slavery....which means you cannot rely on last minute slaves to save you and that you will have to plan ahead...

    • Aro
      #2
      Aro commented
      Editing a comment
      Hum... No slavery? Interesting...
    Posting comments is disabled.

Article Tags

Collapse

Latest Articles

Collapse

  • Civ V, Multiplayer - the future
    by ·Imhotep·


    Now Civ V is out for roughly 5 months and a lot of people have stated their opinion about the game. Some have expressed that they are content with the game, and that they have a lot of fun with it. Others - and seemingly the majority of players - have stated that the game is a failure in most aspects, and that they have put it aside after a few months or weeks even. I'm not going to give judgement on who is right on this matter, I'll just describe my own view on the game in general and most of all in regards to an aspect I have deeply loved with Civ IV - the Multiplayer side of the game.

    ...
    February 6, 2011, 07:40
  • Civ5 Patch update 3/Dec/10
    by Jaybe
    Following several weeks of a lack of patch-related news, Firaxis' community managers have informed us of additional changes to the game. Click read more to see details. ...
    December 3, 2010, 17:43
  • News about the upcoming Civ5 patch!
    by Robert

    Greg "2K" Laabs has posted a new list of changes for the upcoming patch on the Official 2k Forums. This patch will focus on AI and Diplomacy. "First up is news about what the primary direction of the next patch is going to be: AI and Diplomacy. This is not to say that these will be the only parts of the game under the microscope, but it will be the focus. We're constantly looking at feedback on all parts of the game though, so keep your reports and feedback coming!" Greg posted. There's no ETA of the patch yet.

    Click Read More for the entire list of updates.

    ...
    November 11, 2010, 11:23
  • Free DLC for D2D customers scheduled for December 2010
    by Snakpakk

    Snakpakk, Community Manager of Direct2Drive, posted in our forums in response to his questions about the 'free DLC' for D2D customers:

    "Here is the deal on the Civ 5 DLC:
    The Mongols Civilization and Scenario Pack- is a free gift from 2K for all the Civ fans out there. Due out October 25
    The Babylonian Civ pak- gives none Deluxe version owners the ability to play as Babylonians (deluxe owners already have this) Due October 25th for $4.95

    If you pre-ordered from D2D then your free DLC is due out in December. Sadly I don't have details on that yet but keep a eye on D2D's main page for the announcement. Hope this helps clear the air.

    -Walter
    D2D Community Manager"
    Good news for everyone who bought civ5 through Direct2Drive! And the speculation about the December DLC release

    ...
    October 19, 2010, 18:02
  • Genghis Khan released as FREE DLC on October 25th!
    by Robert

    The first DLC for Civilization V will arrive on October 25th and distributed through Steam! A free new civilization and leader, Genghis Kahn of the Mongols, will be released together with a Scenario Pack for free! As a gift in answer to the "Civ Fanatics" who are "very well organized". Perhaps in response to the many troubles people had with Civ5 so far. That gift is highly appreciated!

    According to a screenshot on joystick.com the Mongols ability is: "Mongol Terror", which means: "Combat strength +30% when fighting City-State units or attacking a City-State itself. All mounted units receive +1 movement points"
    The Mongols have two unique units; the well known Keshik and the Khan.

    ...
    October 18, 2010, 15:32
  • Civilization V vs Civilization IV v Civilization III - A brief set of thoughts
    by Skybird

    Having played Civilization I, II, III, and IV constantly since they were first released, and through the various incarnations of Warlords, Beyond the Sword etc., but having never played Civilization Revolution, I was looking forward with a great deal of anticipation to the release of Civilization V. I cannot remember the last time a PC release found me waiting in the damp chill of autumn air outside my local game store before opening, but Civilization V managed it. I know I could have bought it on Steam, but old habits... Having played the new version for the past few days, I would make the following observations:

    ...
    October 16, 2010, 17:33
Working...
X