we been over this already. your wrong cus your going at it whit a sod mind set. your not supposed to be able to move your embarked units 100% safe just cus you got more naval units.Originally Posted by nbarclay
your challange is not relevant cus there are other ways you should go about it.
and for ffs why do you spend all this time writing these long ass post when you can just download the god damn demo.
Regardless of all the flames flying back and forth, fact is the AI cannot deal with 1UPT in any way at all.
Given that, which I do not believe is in dispute, the concept ruins the game. While the SoD is pretty poor compared to the combat methods in other strategy games at least it works so is currently better than it's replacement.
Anyway, must dash back to my current CivIV game ^^
i dont think the bad ai completly ruins the game. i doubt all of you guys are running around beating the game on diety every game you play. i win most of the time but thats cus a culture victory is way to easy to pull of atm.
i have faith they can fix the ai. other games have managed to use 1upt descently.
I view that as an indictment of the AI, not an indictment of 1UPT. Besides, was there ever a Civ AI that you couldn't mop the floor with?fact is the AI cannot deal with 1UPT in any way at all.
Again... as pointed out by others, your "challenge" is irrellevent. Your lack of knowledge of the actual game makes your "deductions" simply bad guesses with nothing to back them up.
As far as your long rant on why you haven't even bothered to download the demo...
1) HAHAHAHHAHAHAAHA... a single data point is better than no data point.
2) You would at least see how the naval combat actually worked
3) Yep... you are in no mood to actually learn the game, so instead, you just make stuff up here in the forums.
4) Yeah, why bother trying the game since you already made up your mind that you hate it... so we should care what you make up why?
5) Based on what you have said in the first four points, this one is just an excuse and a bad one at that.
What it really comes down to is that you have no intention of every trying or buying the game, but you still want to come here and post about stuff you know nothing about and have no experience with, and claim you are right and know more than those that actually play the game. And then you insult people because they don't go along with your claims of being right.
Again... if you ever want to be taken seriously, play the game.
Keep on Civin'
RIP Baron O
Real military tactics involve those pickets, outriders, and observers being given orders that if an enemy force they can't handle themselves heads toward their position, they are to fall back on the main force so they don't get killed. Unless scouts can see at least one unit farther than the distance an enemy could attack them from, the turn-based model of the game sabotages the ability for scouts to operate under such rules. There is some potential for players to compensate for slightly less visibility by never having scouts use the last part of their movement unless they need it to withdraw after seeing an enemy, which in turn would require the forces they are scouting for not to move faster than the scouts are able to move safely. But requiring players to adopt such a strategy is both unrealistic and an extra micromanagement headache.
If Civ V had unit types that represented small, specialized scouting ships costing only a small fraction of what serious warships do, that would be sufficient. It wouldn't matter if three scouts have already used up their movement for the turn when a fourth spots the enemy because the scouts that have already moved couldn't contribute noticeably to the convoy's defense anyhow.
But without truly cheap scouting units, the optimal scouting strategy with visibility no more than barely over a turn's movement is a micromanagement nightmare. In order to maximize the scouts' opportunities to help defend a convoy if an enemy is spotted, it is necessary to move the scouts one tile at a time, alternating between them, so when any of them spots an enemy, the others will have movement left to have the option of heading back to reinforce the convoy. The only way I can think of to avoid players facing that micromanagement nightmare is to extend the visibility range to two turns' movement so if one scout uses up its movement, and then another spots an enemy on its first move, the scout that used up its movement can still get back in time to help.
(Note that caravels in Civ V are nowhere near cheap enough to serve the role of cheap, very lightly armed scouting units properly. When four scouts cost as much as two and a half top-of-the-line warships, there's a serious imbalance favoring sweeping tactics over convoys with scouts.)
If naval scouting were handled properly, with scouts able to stay away from heavy enemy warships at least long enough to rejoin the main convoy, it would be a whole lot more micromanagement hassle than it's worth. Extending the range of visibility to reflect a presumption that scouts exist without players having to manage scouting themselves would accomplish the same purpose with a whole lot less hassle. And from my perspective, handling scouting improperly is too unrealistic and unreasonable to be fun.
You're misrepresenting the choice. The real choice is would I rather spend my time micromanaging how to defend my transports, or would I rather not have to deal with that issue and get on with enjoying other parts of the game? I've dealt with micromanagement issues similar to what 1UPT in naval combat creates enough to have no doubt that my answer is that I'd rather get on with enjoying other aspects of the game.In the real world the ocean is gigantic, and ships are tiny specs on them, and only in the satellite era can the location of enemy shipping be identified with any serious precision. But this is all besides the point.
The point is this: The function of the game is to provide an interesting and challenging set of problems to overcome. Protecting your transports from enemy ships is one of those problems. Which is more interesting? Having to expand your naval vision to spot and destroy threatening enemy vessels before they can maneuver inside your formation to kill your transports, or just parking them on the same tile as your Ironclad? I know which I'm picking. Maybe you know which you're picking, and it's different. That's fine. It doesn't make 1UPT fundamentally flawed, or any more or less realistic than any other piece of absurd Civ-style simplification.
Real military tactics involve those pickets, outriders, and observers being given orders that if an enemy force they can't handle themselves heads toward their position, they are to fall back on the main force so they don't get killed. Unless scouts can see at least one unit farther than the distance an enemy could attack them from, the turn-based model of the game sabotages the ability for scouts to operate under such rules. There is some potential for players to compensate for slightly less visibility by never having scouts use the last part of their movement unless they need it to withdraw after seeing an enemy, which in turn would require the forces they are scouting for not to move faster than the scouts are able to move safely. But requiring players to adopt such a strategy is both unrealistic and an extra micromanagement headache.
If Civ V had unit types that represented small, specialized scouting ships costing only a small fraction of what serious warships do, that would be sufficient. It wouldn't matter if three scouts have already used up their movement for the turn when a fourth spots the enemy because the scouts that have already moved couldn't contribute noticeably to the convoy's defense anyhow.
But without truly cheap scouting units, the optimal scouting strategy with visibility no more than barely over a turn's movement is a micromanagement nightmare. In order to maximize the scouts' opportunities to help defend a convoy if an enemy is spotted, it is necessary to move the scouts one tile at a time, alternating between them, so when any of them spots an enemy, the others will have movement left to have the option of heading back to reinforce the convoy. The only way I can think of to avoid players facing that micromanagement nightmare is to extend the visibility range to two turns' movement so if one scout uses up its movement, and then another spots an enemy on its first move, the scout that used up its movement can still get back in time to help.
(Note that caravels in Civ V are nowhere near cheap enough to serve the role of cheap, very lightly armed scouting units properly. When four scouts cost as much as two and a half top-of-the-line warships, there's a serious imbalance favoring sweeping tactics over convoys with scouts.)
If naval scouting were handled properly, with scouts able to stay away from heavy enemy warships at least long enough to rejoin the main convoy, it would be a whole lot more micromanagement hassle than it's worth. Extending the range of visibility to reflect a presumption that scouts exist without players having to manage scouting themselves would accomplish the same purpose with a whole lot less hassle. And from my perspective, handling scouting improperly is too unrealistic and unreasonable to be fun.
You're misrepresenting the choice. The real choice is would I rather spend my time micromanaging how to defend my transports, or would I rather not have to deal with that issue and get on with enjoying other parts of the game? I've dealt with micromanagement issues similar to what 1UPT in naval combat creates enough to have no doubt that my answer is that I'd rather get on with enjoying other aspects of the game.In the real world the ocean is gigantic, and ships are tiny specs on them, and only in the satellite era can the location of enemy shipping be identified with any serious precision. But this is all besides the point.
The point is this: The function of the game is to provide an interesting and challenging set of problems to overcome. Protecting your transports from enemy ships is one of those problems. Which is more interesting? Having to expand your naval vision to spot and destroy threatening enemy vessels before they can maneuver inside your formation to kill your transports, or just parking them on the same tile as your Ironclad? I know which I'm picking. Maybe you know which you're picking, and it's different. That's fine. It doesn't make 1UPT fundamentally flawed, or any more or less realistic than any other piece of absurd Civ-style simplification.
nothing you said have anything todo whit 1upt. but is rather a list of tweaks.
your either trolling or over thinking it.
Wars with armies spread out across wide fronts are a relatively recent phenomenon. Through most of history - even as recently as the Napoleonic Wars - the normal approach to warfare was to try to concentrate a big "stack" and fight it out with the other side's big "stack." Things were much more complicated on a tactical scale, but stacks of doom are a good representation on a strategic scale.
The perception of stacks of doom being "unrealistic" is partly a result of people thinking too much about modern warfare and not enough about how wars were fought historically, and partly because the mechanics of how stacks of doom go about fighting each other have essentially nothing to do with how real-world battles are fought. Ironically, 1UPT in and of itself doesn't fix the latter problem at all because you still end up with units attacking one at a time instead of working together at the same time. The battlefield may look more like people think a tactical battlefield ought to look, but in some ways, the mechanics are actually worse because attacking units on multiple tiles can focus on a single defender instead of having multiple defenders share the task of trying to absorb the attack. I have no idea what, if anything, the Civ V mechanics do on top of the 1UPT paradigm to mitigate that problem.
Also note that it would have been possible to implement 1UPT for land warfare while retaining the traditional Civ combat model for naval warfare. So even if 1UPT can be viewed as making more sense than stacks of doom for land warfare, that doesn't justify imposing it onto naval operations. The decision to implement 1UPT for land combat is something I'm willing to keep an open mind about in spite of having serious reservations, but the concept is by its very nature such a bad fit for naval combat on the scale Civ operates on that my only real question about it is exactly how bad it is.
If you're going to use the quote feature, you need to either quote accurately or put what isn't quoted accurately in square brackets so readers can recognize that it's not part of an actual quote. Just quoting part of a message would be fine (and useful to identify what message you're quoting from), but replacing what I wrote without any hint that what's in the quote box isn't really a quote is grossly improper.
It is difficult to talk about how well or badly 1UPT works without issues of possible tweaks coming up. The 1UPT concept is by its very nature a bad fit for naval combat on a strategic level map, but tweaks can make a big difference in how the negatives balance against the potential to make the game more interesting for players who don't mind the unrealism and the extra micromanagement.
I've never played Civ5 either, and I have to say, those dinosaur-riding cavemen I just made up for it really detract from the game's atmosphere as well. Shame on them!
1011 1100
You obviously haven't studied statistics, or you missed a very important lesson if you did. To illustrate how dangerous it is to trust a single point of data, consider the question of what the average result will be from rolling two six-sided dice. If you try to answer that question by rolling a pair of dice once, you might get lucky and get the correct result. Or you might get unlucky and roll a two or a twelve, causing you to mistake one of the most extreme results possible for average. Most likely, you'll get a result somewhere in between - on average, you'll be wrong by almost two if the dice are balanced correctly. The data point is likely to be better than just picking a number at random out of the possible outcomes. But trusting a single data point will probably be worse than the result of a guess that the average result will probably be at or near the middle of the possible outcomes.
There are things I definitely can learn from the demo. (I've finally decided to try it, assuming I can get it to work properly, after running into a few more issues where I would find detailed knowledge of the game's mechanics useful.) But there are a number of issues regarding the overall feel of the game where I'll have no way of knowing whether trusting my experience playing the demo would be useful or misleading.
Don't quit your day job and try to make it as a mind reader. If it weren't for Steam, I would have played the demo several days ago. I actually reached the point of downloading it, but while I was downloading it, I learned about the need to sign up for something I didn't want the hassle of. The point your attempt to read my mind missed was the cumulative effect of straws on camels' backs. When a person is on the edge between doing something and not doing something, it doesn't necessarily take something big to tip the balance.5) Based on what you have said in the first four points, this one is just an excuse and a bad one at that.
My challenge doesn't require 100% safety. It allows for a possibility of killing two of the units being escorted, or one warship and one of the units being escorted, if the attacker has average luck. Considering how suicidal it ought to be for surface ships to head straight for the ships being escorted in a convoy without dealing with the escorts first, I figure that's about as good as an attacker has a right to expect using such tactics.
And my mindset has nothing to do with stacks of doom. It has to do with real-world naval tactics. A convoy that sees enemy sails on the horizon is not going to sit in the same formation waiting for the enemy to close. It's going to rearrange its formation to put the warships between the enemy and the ships that are trying to stay out of combat. If that can't be done reliably, something is wrong with the model.
In essence, you're saying I should adjust my gameplay to fit whatever unrealistic nonsense the developers arbitrarily decide to force on me. I don't accept that position. I view it as the developers' responsibility to try to design a combat model that represents important real-world concepts in some kind of reasonable manner. The exact mechanics don't necessarily have to match real life, but the representation needs to make enough sense and work well enough to come across as reasonable.your challange is not relevant cus there are other ways you should go about it
Since convoys are one of the most important concepts in naval warfare, I regard game mechanics that interfere with their ability to function in some kind of a reasonable manner as a serious flaw. And I think my challenge is a fair test of whether or not a way of representing convoys is reasonable.
I probably know statistics better than you, since I know that one data point is better than NO data points. You really should practice what your preach.
Gee... you have finally agreed that some knowledge is better than no knowledge.There are things I definitely can learn from the demo. (I've finally decided to try it, assuming I can get it to work properly, after running into a few more issues where I would find detailed knowledge of the game's mechanics useful.) But there are a number of issues regarding the overall feel of the game where I'll have no way of knowing whether trusting my experience playing the demo would be useful or misleading.
Good for you.
Gee... you have gone through the hassle of posting bad assumptions here, but you can't bother to download a free game because you have to sign up for something? You had to sign up here to do just that.Don't quit your day job and try to make it as a mind reader. If it weren't for Steam, I would have played the demo several days ago. I actually reached the point of downloading it, but while I was downloading it, I learned about the need to sign up for something I didn't want the hassle of.
The point you seem to have still missed... is that nobody cares about your opinions of the game since you haven't even played it. And one thing you are right about... a single demo game won't really add much credibility to what you say. So either put up or shut up... buy the game, understand the game, learn the game or continue to be abused for making crap up while thinking you are some kind of expert. It's that simple.The point your attempt to read my mind missed was the cumulative effect of straws on camels' backs. When a person is on the edge between doing something and not doing something, it doesn't necessarily take something big to tip the balance.
ENJOY!
Keep on Civin'
RIP Baron O
Your "challenge" is just made up crap and not relevent to Civ V.
Again... you want to claim realism... but stand by the SOD... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Once again since you have seemed to miss a simple fact... the CIV series isn't realistic, and doesn't attempt to be. Again, please explain how in ANY Civ game, movememt is realistic. Oh, that's right, you can't.It allows for a possibility of killing two of the units being escorted, or one warship and one of the units being escorted, if the attacker has average luck. Considering how suicidal it ought to be for surface ships to head straight for the ships being escorted in a convoy without dealing with the escorts first, I figure that's about as good as an attacker has a right to expect using such tactics.
And my mindset has nothing to do with stacks of doom. It has to do with real-world naval tactics.
Thanks for proving why SODs are stupid. Only in 1UPT do you actually have to THINK about rearranging your deployment. With SOD's, you just play stupid and keep your SOD on track. With 1UPT you need to actually respond to the threat and use some thought. The SOD concept is a bad model... and is totally wrong.A convoy that sees enemy sails on the horizon is not going to sit in the same formation waiting for the enemy to close. It's going to rearrange its formation to put the warships between the enemy and the ships that are trying to stay out of combat. If that can't be done reliably, something is wrong with the model.
Yep... in essense we are saying you need to understand the game and play it right. Just because you try to cram your ideas (which aren't any more realistic than what the game provides) down the designers throat doesn't make you right.In essence, you're saying I should adjust my gameplay to fit whatever unrealistic nonsense the developers arbitrarily decide to force on me. I don't accept that position. I view it as the developers' responsibility to try to design a combat model that represents important real-world concepts in some kind of reasonable manner. The exact mechanics don't necessarily have to match real life, but the representation needs to make enough sense and work well enough to come across as reasonable.
The SOD concept was lazy developent and bad planning... but I guess you like it since no thought is required... even if it is totally unreasonable.
Again, your challenge is nothing more than crap, and has nothing to do with the game. The big flaw here is that you know not of what you speak. Until you actually understand the game and how it works, you won't see that 1upt approach is far better than the mindless SOD approach.Since convoys are one of the most important concepts in naval warfare, I regard game mechanics that interfere with their ability to function in some kind of a reasonable manner as a serious flaw. And I think my challenge is a fair test of whether or not a way of representing convoys is reasonable.
But yeah, we understand, you can't be bothered to actually think and use strategies or tactics. You just want it stupid and easy.
Keep on Civin'
RIP Baron O
Ming, you have yet to offer any reason why a good combat model shouldn't be expected to satisfy the terms of my challenge. You just don't like my challenge because the Civ V combat model can't pass it, and maybe because you have an irrational prejudice against allowing a simple strategy to work well enough that a more complex one isn't needed.
Basically, what you're arguing is that you don't care how broken the Civ V combat model is as long as it's broken in a way that suits your tastes. The problem is, not everyone shares your tastes, and rules that arbitrarily and unrealistically push people to pursue the kind of strategy you prefer instead of the kinds they prefer are not good for the game. I want to have a choice between convoy strategies and sweeping strategies instead of being pushed into sweeping strategies because flaws in the game's mechanics prevent convoy strategies from working correctly. I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to want.
I contend that any combat model that wants to be viewed as credible has to pass my test, give or take a little if someone wants to argue that the exact parameters should be altered slightly. Convoys are an important concept in naval strategy because they work, and any set of rules that sabotages their ability to work must be regarded as flawed. That doesn't mean convoys should be foolproof; they could run into a stronger enemy force, or could have a force that's a little weaker get lucky. But against enemy surface ships, the escorts need to have a fair chance to fight as a concentrated force to try to keep the enemy away from the rest of the convoy.
Why should ANYBODY care if Civ V does or not not "pass" your hypothetical and irrelevent supposed challenge?
And please explain why it is irrational to want a combat system that's better than stacking 200 units together?
You are the one arguing it's broken, and you haven't even played it. While people that have actually played the game do admit the AI needs to be improved, that doesn't make the 1UPT concept "broken. You are the one that talking about "taste" and personal opinion when you say that you won't buy the game because you don't like a combat system that you haven't played.Basically, what you're arguing is that you don't care how broken the Civ V combat model is as long as it's broken in a way that suits your tastes.
Yeah... silly me, I actually like to have more strategy than simply moving 200 units a single stack. And again, you are the one being arbitrary about what you think is good for a game you haven't even played.The problem is, not everyone shares your tastes, and rules that arbitrarily and unrealistically push people to pursue the kind of strategy you prefer instead of the kinds they prefer are not good for the game.
You keep talking about how SOD's provides multiple strategies... 1UPT provides actualy more strategies, so your point is in error.I want to have a choice between convoy strategies and sweeping strategies instead of being pushed into sweeping strategies because flaws in the game's mechanics prevent convoy strategies from working correctly. I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to want.
Why don't you take the test before you claim it doesn't pass it.I contend that any combat model that wants to be viewed as credible has to pass my test, give or take a little if someone wants to argue that the exact parameters should be altered slightly.
You still have convoys in Civ V. Just because it isn't a single strateglyless SOD doesn't mean it isn't a convoy.Convoys are an important concept in naval strategy because they work, and any set of rules that sabotages their ability to work must be regarded as flawed.
You do that with proper strategy in Civ V... why don't you play it and see instead of whipping a dead horse when you haven't even played the game.That doesn't mean convoys should be foolproof; they could run into a stronger enemy force, or could have a force that's a little weaker get lucky. But against enemy surface ships, the escorts need to have a fair chance to fight as a concentrated force to try to keep the enemy away from the rest of the convoy.
Keep on Civin'
RIP Baron O
All:
You are flogging a dead equine; and no matter how much I try not to look, like a gory car crash, I just can't resist a peak every now and again. But seriously, you guys ran out of anything meaningful to say about 3 weeks ago... so do us all a gianormous favor and just ignore the OP until he learns that people aren't going to waste anymore time on him until he ACTUALLY PLAYS THE GAME.
Then it is my fervant desire that everyone continues to ignore him, cuz I am over it already.
Let me approach this a different way. In the real world, units on both sides move at the same time. In Civ, movement is turn-based: Civ V frigates can move five tiles, and destroyers eight, before the other side can move at all. In order for a Civ combat model to work in a reasonable and realistic manner, there has to be a way to reconcile this difference in movement structures in a reasonable and realistic way. Otherwise, instead of the results of battles being based on strategy and tactics, they're based on whose turn it happens to be when the two forces meet.
The mechanism for reconciling a turn-based combat model with the fact that movement in the real world is simultaneous also needs to deal with the issue of visibility in a reasonable way. In open terrain, it is completely absurd for an attacking force to be able to cross a defender's entire field of vision and attack before the defender can react at all. So visibility rules have to prevent that kind of situation from happening, or else set things up so the defender doesn't need to be able to react.
Stack-based combat reconciles these issues by allowing the defender's units to already be where they need to be in order to work together effectively before an attack starts. That makes the fact that the defender can't move during the attacker's turn unimportant unless the defender needs to be able to defend multiple tiles with a single unit or stack, in which case the model breaks down a bit because the defender can't defend more than one tile at a time without splitting its forces and opening them to a danger of defeat in detail. (This is a problem in protecting seafood resources in Civ IV: the turn-based model often doesn't allow a defending warship to intercept an enemy headed for a resource on a different tile even if the tile is adjacent.)
Other turn-based games reconcile the disparity between real-world simultaneous movement and the games' turn-based movement by keeping the amount of tactical time that turns represent short enough that neither side can move more than one or two tiles before the other gets a chance to move again. That greatly limits what either side can accomplish before the other has a chance to move to counter the enemy's moves, so even thought movement isn't quite simultaneous, it's close enough not to create any glaring problems.
A variant is to divide turns into movement phases. For example, with five movement phases, a unit with eight movement points would move two tiles in the first phase, one in the second, two in the third, one in the fourth, and two in the fifth. A unit with four movement points would have one movement point each in every phase but the third. That makes it possible to represent differences in speeds with greater precision, and to have some game mechanics operate on a per-turn basis while others operate on a per-phase basis.
With a five-phase movement model and adequate visibility, 1UPT could work for naval combat in Civ. Movement and visibility would be represented in a reasonable and realistic way, so strategy and tactics would be focused on how to go about fighting battles, not on exploits. Scouting would occur for a purpose of trying to locate the enemy in order to attack or to improve chances of avoiding unwanted battles, not for a purpose of trying to prevent an enemy from having an opportunity to exploit a gaping flaw in the movement model. The catch is, a stack-based combat model works well enough that it's questionable whether a more complex model that doesn't have exploits to complicate things would be enough more interesting to be worth the extra time it would require.
The reason why I view naval combat in Civ V as fundamentally flawed is that it is focused far too much on exploiting flaws in the way movement and visibility are represented, and on preventing the enemy from exploiting the flaws, instead of on kinds of strategic and tactical concepts that make enough sense in and of themselves that they ought to work in any game with realistic mechanics. When strategy and tactics are centered on exploits rather than on realistic concepts, I regard them as worse than useless.
By the way, when strategy and tactics revolve around exploiting flaws in a game's mechanics, it tends to give humans a huge advantage over AIs because humans tend to be a lot better at identifying and exploiting flaws. This raises an interesting question as to how much of the trouble the Civ V AI has is a result of inferior AI programming and how much might be caused by a flawed combat model that humans are able to exploit the flaws in more effectively than the AI. I'm not in a position to try to answer that question at present, and I don't know whether I ever will be, but I regard it as worth asking.
You are right... no need to waste my time with somebody who won't even bother to play the game. He knows not what he says...
Keep on Civin'
RIP Baron O
You folks who fussed at me for not trying the demo failed to mention an important thing about it. It only goes through the medieval era, meaning it's completely useless for learning about naval combat on the open seas. The tech tree goes straight from Education and Physics to Future Tech, and the Civilopedia has no information on techs or units between the medieval era and the future era. (Future Tech is modified to enable the prerequisites for scientific and diplomatic victories.) Before you pressure someone to play a demo or make a fuss about his not having played it, you need to make sure you know enough about the demo to know whether it would be relevant.
Ming (and anyone else who wants to chime in), how many turn-based games have you seen other than Civ V that use a 1UPT model with movement rates of four tiles per turn or higher (or per phase if turns are subdivided into phases), and that allow units to execute such long moves and attack at the end of the move (either move and then participate in an attack or attack using their final move)? And how many other such games make it possible for a unit to face attacks from multiple units that were outside the defender's range of vision before they attacked?
I see that the person who won't even try the game is still speaking... just more nonsense...
Enjoy... nobody is taking anything you say seriously... and for good reason.
Keep on Civin'
RIP Baron O
I'm taking what Barclay says seriously but am having a problem because I just finished a whole box of popcorn. At the rate of a bag a day I'm going to have to go get more.
You're going to become a popcorn fatty if you don't go easy on the butter.
"Our scientific power has out run out spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men." - Martin Luther King Jr.
"A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself." - Joseph Pulitzer
No. For a reason that becomes very stupid when you take it too far. You keep claiming experience is the only way people can learn anything useful, and completely ignoring the fact that an awful lot of useful information can be obtained by applying deductive reasoning to a game's mechanics. And you keep mistaking the fact that you don't care about the issues I raise as evidence that I'm misunderstanding the game instead of recognizing that different people care about different things.
I'd like to restate my criticism of how naval combat in Civ V works as simply and succinctly as I can, and I'd be interested to hear people who have played the game comment on to what extent they've noticed the issue and how they feel about it.
The big problem in balancing a turn-based game is preventing the question, "Whose turn is it?" from being unreasonably important in determining the outcomes of battles. Many games deal with the issue by having slow enough movement rates and good enough visibility that players have plenty of opportunities to react to each other's moves, with a result that the fact that combat isn't quite simultaneous makes little difference. Civ III and IV deal with the issue a different way: they use a stack-based model that enables a defender's units to support each other without any need for the defender to be able to move during the attacker's turn. In these kinds of games, the fact that the game mechanics are turn-based rather than simultaneous has some impact on choices of strategies and tactics, but not enough of one for players to feel like they're being forced to go way out of their way to deal with limitations imposed by the turn-based mechanics.
In contrast, in naval combat in Civ V, the combination of high movement rates, limited visibility, and a turn-based combat model makes it possible for attackers to do things that are totally different from what would happen if the movement rates and visibility rules allowed players a more reasonable and realistic opportunity to respond to each other's actions. In many situations, the game mechanics do not allow defenders to reposition their formations while an enemy force is closing in like real-world convoys would. And the mechanics do not compensate for this inability to react by providing a way to pre-position escorts so it doesn't matter what direction an attack might come from. Because of these limitations, players are forced to adopt radically different strategies for defending unarmed ships from what would work if the combat model provided a more realistic representation, either explicit or implicit, for the ability for naval forces to react to each other as the distance closes between them.
Players can consider the need to adopt different, more complex strategies a good thing if they adopt Ming's attitude that the only thing that matters is strategic complexity and it doesn't matter whether the mechanics that provide the complexity are realistic or absurdly unrealistic. But it can be a serious negative from the perspective of people like me who want the abstractions in Civ to be related to real-world concepts in some kind of reasonable way, and who don't want to have to waste time and thought trying to work around game mechanics that create grossly unrealistic situations.
Last edited by nbarclay; February 27, 2011 at 21:47.
No... I've NEVER said it's the only way. But I have said that you really can't understand the game unless you have played it. You keep saying you are applying deductive reason (based on assumptions, not facts) when a better alternative is available... ACTUALLY PLAYING THE GAME.
Yes... we know you don't care about strategy, and you keep bringing up realism, when NOTHING about Civ 1 through V is very realistic.And you keep mistaking the fact that you don't care about the issues I raise as evidence that I'm misunderstanding the game instead of recognizing that different people care about different things.
We know you don't care for a game you have never played or even tried, and keep trying to make up excuses why you have no interest in it... while hanging your hat on the SOD style as being "more realistic"...
And none of us really care... especially what you think about a game you have never played.
Keep on Civin'
RIP Baron O
well civ IV and siege units comes to mind. this isnt a problem that is unique to 1upt. if you think naval units can move to fast thats just a balancing issue and not a problem whit 1upt.
to be fair i havent hade many big naval battles cus i prefer playing on small pangea maps. but i have hade a few when i let the random map do its thing. and by proper scouting i never hade much problem moveing embarked units.
the bigger area you have to move thru the bigger area the defender have to keep an eye on aswell. bigger maps in my experiance make it easier to make suprise attacks.
Facts are facts regardless of whether they come from playing the game or from reading the Civilopedia. Trying to misrepresent facts as if they were merely assumptions just because they come from a different source is unfair and dishonest.
The fact that my priorities are different from yours is not a valid basis for claiming I don't care about strategy. Civ is a complicated enough game that it only makes sense to add strategic elements if they make the game enough more interesting to be worth the extra time required. With naval warfare, T have no doubt at all that the changes involved in 1UPT would cause me to spend far more time in tedious micromanagement and in tedious, mechanical calculations than in making strategic decisions that are significantly more interesting than the corresponding decisions in a stack-based combat model. The fact that I don't view a small advantage in strategic thinking as worth a much bigger disadvantage in drudge work doesn't mean I don't care about strategy.Yes... we know you don't care about strategy,
Further, a lot of the strategic thought associated with 1UPT in Civ V, at least in regard to naval operations, is the wrong kind of strategic thought. When I apply strategy, I like to feel like the strategy is based on principles that make sense in and of themselves, not like the central focus of my strategy is figuring out how to exploit, and to prevent enemies from exploiting, game mechanics that make no sense. The juxtaposition of high movement rates with low visibility in a turn-based 1UPT game is just plain stupid because it interferes with the ability for the two sides to react to each other's movements in a reasonable manner.
Nothing about Civ is realistic in terms of mechanics, but just about everything is intended to be realistic as an abstraction. As long as the abstractions make sense, the game can feel realistic if people judge realism in terms of the abstractions rather than the exact mechanics. If it weren't for that abstraction-level realism, the game wouldn't be anywhere near s popular as it is.and you keep bringing up realism, when NOTHING about Civ 1 through V is very realistic.
But an abstraction where enemy surface ships can cross my entire field of vision and cause serious damage before I'm allowed to respond is jarringly unrealistic, unless there's a game mechanic that allows my fleet to respond in a reasonable way without my having to do anything. In order for 1UPT to provide a reasonable abstraction, there would need to be either better visibility or a movement system that divides turns into movement phases.
Excuses??? Before Civ V came out, I had high hopes that it would be a game I'd want to rush out and buy the way the previous two were. The fact that I haven't bought it is a reflection of the fact that I have serious reasons to doubt whether it would be worth my money. Using the word "excuses" is unfair and prejudicial.and keep trying to make up excuses why you have no interest in it
That shouldn't surprise me, though, because your entire strategy in responding to my arguments has been focused on unfair misrepresentations of my ideas and attempts to prejudice readers against me.
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