civ V Warfare

[Robert Plomp]

There are talkings about civ5 having a complete new warfire system.
First there's the so-called 1-unit-per-tile system and of course the ranged combat system where siege weapons, and according to the screenshots perhaps also archery like units, can hit units further away.

The screenshots also give the idea that armies may perhaps contain 1 unit per tile, but armies may grow. Anybody get an idea of mixed army-units, from the screenshots? Perhaps armies can grow and consist of different unit types. What does that all mean for warfire?

The entire hex system obviously also changes all strategies.

[Jaybe]

Has anyone (other than ignorant 'previewers') STATED it's 1-unit-per-hex? The released screenshots may have been just for illustrative purposes, or only displaying one of many units. If there ARE multiple units per hex, I'm confident they will integrate the unit figures proportionally before release. I AM puzzled why they show 12 (16 men for spears), not 10 figures per unit however.

I would like to see a european Tercio (square of pikes with wings of matchlock firearms), and other mixed/integrated units.

If ranged units can hit at 2-hex range, then adjacent enemies must be for melee or assault. What happens when you've got rifles and machine guns -- still 2-hex range (COULD work quite well)? Ranged units must not have 2-hex range with intervening hill/forest/city hex. My main concern is for when a ranged (but not siege) unit gets 2 hexes from an artillery unit. I really want to see meaningful counter-battery fire!

Are 18-19th century cannon going to be able to fire over the heads of friendly troops or are they going to have to be on hills to do that? Will we see them firing their flat trajectories through unoccupied tiles?

I don't see how hexes 'obviously' change basic strategy. The only 'square' games I've played are Tactics II and civ, all others I've played (from 1964) have been hexes. For the AI to prefer fighting outside their own cities would be great, but city siege and battle should not be excluded (e.g., battle of Stalingrad).

OMG it's going to be good to have 'hex' back in the vernacular again. I left board war games 2-3 grapping DECADES ago!

[vulture]

If there ARE multiple units per hex, I'm confident they will integrate the unit figures proportionally before release. I AM puzzled why they show 12 (16 men for spears), not 10 figures per unit however.

Two of the screenshots appear to show 'before' and 'after' shots of combat. The before shot features 2x 16 man spear units. The after one features a 16 man and a 5 man spear unit. Warriors (presumably) are seen in 12, 8, 6 and 5 man masses. Archers are all 12 men. It would be no great surprise to anyone over the age of 18 months that you lose men as you take damage

I'd guess there aren't 10 men because 10 only breaks down in to 2x5, while 12 allows you some variation in formation (2x6 or 3x4 for lines / blocks) for a bit of visual variety.

As for why spearmen get 16 men, I have no idea. Maybe all the spear units just happen to have been reinforced for some reason. Maybe it is simply that your basic mob of spears just has more men in it than your basic mob of warriors, or archer line, and so has more health. Complete speculation at this point.

BTW not all previews are uninformed. Quite a lot are basically co-written by the previewer and the game developers, and reflect pretty much exactly what the developers chose to reveal.

[gribbler]

I'm excited by the hex tiles because I would love to see civ have front lines in modern warfare. The stacks in civ4 seem more fitting for earlier periods. I never really liked WWI or WWII scenarios in civ4 because civ4 doesn't really have front lines. When units can move six rather than eight directions blocking movement is viable.

Of course a hard limit on how many units can occupy a tile has many side effects, many of which I like. There is more potential for WWI-esque gridlock. I feel this will make navies more important because when you can't make progress on land opening a new front by amphibious invasion is much more alluring. In civ4 amphibious landings are either necessary or a waste of time, never one of several compelling alternative strategies for winning a war.

Of course limits on stacking also put more emphasis on quality over quantity. If this could be combined with reducing the correlation between size and technological progress the small civs could hold out better and the game would not be a forgone conclusion as soon as someone gets really big.

However instead of a hard limit on how many troops can be in a tile I would prefer penalties for having too many in a tile. Not like in civ4, where stacking presents the risk of collateral damage. Instead I would like attrition, where if you are one unit over the limit all units receive -10% health a turn, and if you're two units over all units suffer -20% health a turn, and so on. This of course could be countered by healing bonuses, so medic units would allow more stacking. You could decide if extra force is worth the penalty. This would also allow your units to pass your own units, avoiding a potential annoyance that would come with a one unit per tile rule.

Cities, in addition to having defensive bonuses, could be able to support additional units. Fortresses could be like cities in this respect but not as powerful. So Stalingrad-like situations could still arise.

I like the idea of mixed units. When units stack they should combine their properties instead of fighting separately, one at a time. Unit on unit combat never seems balanced. The defender always gets to pick the best member of the stack, giving them a big advantage, so in civ4 they have collateral damage. But that just shifts the advantage to the attacker. Civ4 warfare really didn't seem to have much strategy... build some of everything, plus a bunch of collateral damage units. Diversify into medic units, city raider units, etc. if you felt like putting in extra effort. Better than civ3 spam-cavalry-and-win and much better than civ2 howitzers but I feel it still gets stale easily.

[axi]

The meaning of terrain saturation is different in different ages. In ancient warfare, the limit was on the terrain needed by, say 1000 men, to sustain them and their animals during war season. Fielding a huge army for a battle taking a couple of days wasn't a problem, sustaining it until such battle took place was. The Europa Universalis system of attrition is excellent in this matter. In modern warfare, saturation comes from transport network inefficiencies (von Schlieffen had actually calculated the number of troops per km of front that could fit into the existing road and rail networks in order to sustain an advance at a certain pace into enemy territory) or most importantly from the need for dispersion cover against enemy bombardment. How effective the Panzer General style will be in civ5 will depend on the scale of the grid and the number of units that populate the field.

What about naval warfare? Would this extend to ramships/catapult ships, carriers/destroyers e.t.c? Interesting stuff, naval battles will look more like battleship (the game).

Special tools will have to be made for motion in formation (f.e. all selected units 1 hex north) in order to reduce the tedium of not having stacks.

[gribbler]

The meaning of terrain saturation is different in different ages. In ancient warfare, the limit was on the terrain needed by, say 1000 men, to sustain them and their animals during war season. Fielding a huge army for a battle taking a couple of days wasn't a problem, sustaining it until such battle took place was. The Europa Universalis system of attrition is excellent in this matter. In modern warfare, saturation comes from transport network inefficiencies (von Schlieffen had actually calculated the number of troops per km of front that could fit into the existing road and rail networks in order to sustain an advance at a certain pace into enemy territory) or most importantly from the need for dispersion cover against enemy bombardment. How effective the Panzer General style will be in civ5 will depend on the scale of the grid and the number of units that populate the field.

The presence of roads and railroads in the hex and neighboring hexes could increase supply limit. And if artillery bombard a stack it could harm multiple units, somewhat like civ4.

[Kuciwalker]

There are talkings about civ5 having a complete new warfire system.
First there's the so-called 1-unit-per-tile system and of course the ranged combat system where siege weapons, and according to the screenshots perhaps also archery like units, can hit units further away.

The screenshots also give the idea that armies may perhaps contain 1 unit per tile, but armies may grow. Anybody get an idea of mixed army-units, from the screenshots? Perhaps armies can grow and consist of different unit types. What does that all mean for warfire?

The entire hex system obviously also changes all strategies.

I don't believe the 1-unit-per-tile claims. There's no evidence.

[vulture]

I don't believe the 1-unit-per-tile claims. There's no evidence.

No evidence, except for an interview with lead designer Jon Schaffer in the Danish magazine that got the exclusive reveal.


(See http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=354156)

Got interested in the magazine and decided to skip down to the local gas station to buy the magazine to get a bit better grasp of whats up and down, and its based on an interview they have done with Jon Shafer.

1. from the pictures it appears that Elizabeth, Stalin and Napoleon all got a new update (hence in the game) ... and the other pictures suggest Japan, Rome and India, though much less specificly

2. the allready (im)famous "one-per-tile" is only one military unit, civil units aren't a part of it

3. Ranged Weapons (archers, seige, gunpowder) all get something remotely similar to the bombardment ... and appearently cities and forts act as an (not futher explained) immobile bombardment unit

4. The Computer is going to be smart enough to whine at you (or at least telling you that it's noticed it) if you're building cities up front, or if you're stacking military forces next door ... and are appearently also able to do longterm planing faking an friendship with you ( ... sounds a bit like how Galactic Civilization works)

5. You're able to enter joint venture research with the AI, throwing some of your cash into the pool, but if one of the actors in this 2man pool declares war or in an other way makes a forceful halt on the argeement the money is lost

6. The AI no longer cheats with Fog of War in terms of moving

7. the game is going to be based more on "controled randomity" from the AI's (what the heck lies in that i'm sligtly more uncertain of)

8. Religion is killed as a game mechanic on the alter of improved Diplomacy

9 Resouces is going to be limited though the exact details is explained a bit unforfilling (my bet is that its an unsastisfying translation from english to danish)

10. Major Vassels is as far as i understand killed ... Minor nations/city states (AI's playing OOC it appears) is the new black, with bonuses for being friendly towards them which gives certain bonuses

11. Civics (Social Policies) is going to be some kind of Civictree

12. roughly same number wonders, roughly same techtree and Great people

13. Leaders get certain bonuses (1 leader may have 2 UU and a UB, while another have 1 UB and a unique trait

14. With the game comes a new tool to mod and scenariobuild with

[OzzyKP]

Thanks for the update. Very, very interesting stuff.

[Donegeal]

14. With the game comes a new tool to mod and scenariobuild with

I hope this is ala Civ II... or something similar. I loved the modability of Civ 4, but was a little taxing if you didn't code much (or at all).

[OzzyKP]

Yea, agreed.

[Kuciwalker]

No evidence, except for an interview with lead designer Jon Schaffer in the Danish magazine that got the exclusive reveal.

Ah, missed that, thanks. I only saw the cliffnotes version on eurogamer.

[Hauldren Collider]

If you can only have one unit per tile the value of a single unit is going to have to be greater. I like the idea of limiting the number of units per tile. That makes it possible to have more interesting formations than "glue all of your mans together and chuck them at the bad guys". What I'm wondering is if there will be a unit limit for cities. I'd like to have a place to put my surplus units so I think what ought to happen is you can only select a few to actually participate in battles. Not sure what should happen if the city was conquered with your off-duty armies still in it, though.

[gribbler]

If you can only have one unit per tile the value of a single unit is going to have to be greater. I like the idea of limiting the number of units per tile. That makes it possible to have more interesting formations than "glue all of your mans together and chuck them at the bad guys". What I'm wondering is if there will be a unit limit for cities. I'd like to have a place to put my surplus units so I think what ought to happen is you can only select a few to actually participate in battles. Not sure what should happen if the city was conquered with your off-duty armies still in it, though.

I suppose the off-duty soldiers would surrender and you would lose the units.

What I'm wondering is how many units a city should be able to store. Maybe it could depend on the size of the city? The larger a city is, the more resources the citizens can bring into the city. Or maybe there could be no hard limit on how many units can be placed in a city and units could simply add to a city's demand for food. If the granary runs out and citizens are starving, units could begin starving as well.

[LDiCesare]

14. With the game comes a new tool to mod and scenariobuild with

I hope this is ala Civ II... or something similar. I loved the modability of Civ 4, but was a little taxing if you didn't code much (or at all).

I certainly hope something more like civ4 than civ2. I mean, a better world editor would be fine, and a tool to change values rater than editing xml files can help for simple mod changes, but xml files are ok and python or similar scripting is a must now. You just can't do half as interesting stuff if you don't have access to a programming language (think mods like Fall from Heaven, or map scripts)

[Powerslave]

I think one unit per hex is probably a good idea as I really hates large stacks that exist in Civ 4.

One unit per hex doesn't necessarily mean that there will be one Civ 4 type of units per hex. I can imagine that instead you will be able to "design" your units with different types of troops. How big those units could be or what type of troops they could hold would be depending on technologies and such. Even if it will not be like this you must agree that it would be extremely fun. I always loved the design part in those games that have it.

Also I am very much looking forward to the scenario tool. I still play Civ 2 because of the great scenarios that people have made. Civ 4 is not really the same in this regards. There are some good super mods but really no scenario the way it was made back in the Civ 2 days.

[Ijuin]

I would assume that the one unit per tile limit only applies to units on the map, and that cities and military bases (airbases and fortresses) can still hold some larger number (at least four).

I would hope that you can at least let a unit "pass through" a space occupied by another friendly unit. Let's say that you have a garrison blocking some isthmus. With a hard one-unit-per-tile limit, your garrison would have to unfortify and move aside to let another friendly unit pass, and then move back and refortify (including the time penalty for fortifying). This would REALLY hurt you if the unit that you are moving forward is a defensively weak one, because your isthmus is less protected while you have to move aside to let it through. In essence, it would mean that your own units would be an impenetrable wall to your other units.

As such, I would like to see the one-unit limit be for combat only--no unit may initiate or participate in an attack as long as it is stacked with another combat unit, and also any unit stacked with a defender should die with the defender (as was done in Civ2). That would force players to not stack for combat, but would avoid the problem of having to make your own units move out of the way. In real life you do NOT have to move one batallion out of the way in order to move another forward, unless the location is so crowded that it's already standing-room-only.

[vulture]

I would assume that the one unit per tile limit only applies to units on the map, and that cities and military bases (airbases and fortresses) can still hold some larger number (at least four).

I would hope that you can at least let a unit "pass through" a space occupied by another friendly unit. Let's say that you have a garrison blocking some isthmus. With a hard one-unit-per-tile limit, your garrison would have to unfortify and move aside to let another friendly unit pass, and then move back and refortify (including the time penalty for fortifying).

Well Panzer General is mentioned as the inspiration for the combat system, and while that doesn't mean "it is exactly like Panzer General", it is a bad idea to lift out some parts of the system and not others; the PG system was so popular precisely because the interplay of mechanics worked well, meaning you have to be very careful about what you chose to leave out lest it break the usuability and fun of the system entirely.

PG allowed units to pass through each other, and allowed movement of multiple hexes per turn. Dismounted infantry could move 3 tiles (heavy weapons infantry could move 2, courtesy of heavier loads). Land vehicles could move up to 8 or so tiles for the fastest. And units could move through each other to get to any unoccupied tile in range (after pathing around any unpassable terrain like rivers or swamps).

But that system depends on units moving multiple tiles per turn. Often many tiles. That isn't going to be as straight forwards on a civ map without greatly rethinking the scale of the map and the size of a city radius. Conversely, sticking to the same scale, it suddenly becomes a big advantage to the defender able to use the road network (or railroad network) to move units large distances while the attacker is limited to one or two move units in enemy territory (if unable to use enemy roads)

Of course it is fairly useless to speculate (although it can pass the time to examine some of the issues that need to be resolved); if the designers are at all competent, they will have worked the system out and refined it in numerous play-throughs on paper of a variety of test scenarios to see how combat plays out, and tweaked the rules to make it interesting and fun, long before it ever got as far as being coded. And then tested it again when it was coded to make sure the implementation and UI work well together in game, tweaking it again as necessary. Issues that people are worrying about such as logjams of units, where new units are positioned on the map and so on ought to show up in the paper playthroughs and be resolved there before a line of relevant code is ever written.

[Jaybe]

... Issues that people are worrying about such as logjams of units, where new units are positioned on the map and so on ought to show up in the paper playthroughs and be resolved there before a line of relevant code is ever written.

WHAT!? Unit logjams are a MAJOR factor in warfare. Troop movement & deployment; a whole army collapsing because of front-line troops routing to the rear.

For the player not to have to deal with it is okay as long as it is abstracted, but it SHOULD be represented.

--
Realism is not opposed to good game play. It just takes better game design to make a game that plays well also be more realistic.

[onodera]

I would love to see the SMAC-like zone of control make its return. In brief, in case there are younglings here: enemy units cannot enter not only the tile your unit is on, but also any tile adjacent to it, unless you have a treaty of friendship. This made purely defensive units worthy, as you had to have 3x fewer stacks to defend your borders.

[wodan11]

I would love to see the SMAC-like zone of control make its return. In brief, in case there are younglings here: enemy units cannot enter not only the tile your unit is on, but also any tile adjacent to it, unless you have a treaty of friendship. This made purely defensive units worthy, as you had to have 3x fewer stacks to defend your borders.

That's not quite how SMAC works. Let X denote any tile your unit is on or adjacent. Enemy units cannot move from an X tile to another X tile, unless they already have one of their units on the destination tile. Enemy units can freely move from a non-X tile to an X tile.

[rah]

And just for the record, it's not just a SMAC thing. It is originally from old board games in the early Avalon Hill days. And Yes, I'd also like to see it's return. (despite the difficulties of programming the AI to deal with properly. )

[Arrian]

Having never played Panzer General, I'll reserve judgment on the combat system and just hope they know what they're doing. Combat in Civ has always had a lot of room for improvement, but it's also important to realize that it's more than a wargame. I assume Jon knows this.

A comment I saw elsewhere made sense to me: Rivers, at least big ones, should be serious obstacles early in the game. Fords would be important.

I like the idea of resources being limited. Building endless units with 1 iron source seems silly. The Civ3 implementation was to have resources randomly disappear/reappear. That sucked, hard. I'd give each resource a value representing how much of it is there. "Iron - 150." You get 150 uses from it and then it's exhausted. You don't get blindsided by this. You can plan ahead.

Renewable resources should obviously work differently (horses, elephants if they're in again). Speaking of which, it seems to me that a possible new resource would be hardwood timber, required for building large sailing ships. These types of resources would have a regeneration rate. Use too much too fast, and you'll run out (for max realism, the regen rate would be affected by your use, too, but that might be a bridge too far).

-Arrian

[Krill]

But that system depends on units moving multiple tiles per turn. Often many tiles. That isn't going to be as straight forwards on a civ map without greatly rethinking the scale of the map and the size of a city radius. Conversely, sticking to the same scale, it suddenly becomes a big advantage to the defender able to use the road network (or railroad network) to move units large distances while the attacker is limited to one or two move units in enemy territory (if unable to use enemy roads).

Something I've been thinking about is that roads should be usable regardless of where they are on the map and diplomatic statuses. That's one way to stop the defender road spamming, and equals out the advatnages a bit.

[Wernazuma III]

Something I've been thinking about is that roads should be usable regardless of where they are on the map and diplomatic statuses. That's one way to stop the defender road spamming, and equals out the advatnages a bit.

Yes, it was ridiculous that you couldn't use roads on enemy territory. CivRev doesn't have this, so I hope they'll give up on that in Civ5 too.

Instead, they could introduce supply lines, where your units, esp. those depending on special ressources weaken without working roads/rails and with enemy units between them and their border. Of course, this is only a wet dream...

[Theben]

I assumed the "no enemy roads" was an abstraction of partisan warfare slowing down your units.

As for multiple resources, they could allow benefits from having multiple resources of a type (like the magic resources in FFHII). FE, having X iron / y# of cities allows a -5% cost for iron units, or +5% combat strength, or some such.

[rah]

I assumed the "no enemy roads" was an abstraction of partisan warfare slowing down your units.

That was my understanding, but it may go a touch overboard, because it would still be faster moving down a road than without one. Assuming you'd be being harrassed regardless if you were on a road or not.

[gribbler]

So I guess you could get two moves on enemy roads and three on friendly roads.

[Jaybe]

If you move in a route march (i.e., on the road/rail, at its speed), then you are NOT deployed for battle! Subtract 1/2 or more from your combat strength if attacked.

If you are deployed for potential combat, you are using the route as a path to take, but you are definitely NOT moving at optimum speed. Scouting units ahead and to flanks can help, but they can't move real fast and scout well simultaneously.

[Seeker]

I'd just like to Attention Whore and point out that in the old days of the original List (although i don't think I made it off the forum and onto the final List), I was the first one to suggest Panzer General style combat, although from the sounds of things they're implementing it a lot different from what was proposed by the people in that old thread.

I am still very much in favour of a 5-Star type system with hexes for Civ.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?t=104480

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?t=3622