Civ 4 - The List of BAD Ideas.

[hexagonian]

Responding to the following...

Originally posted by skywalker
Stacked combat. There are enormous problems with this, but I'd like to detail a few:
1. Limit to the number of units on a square
This is bad. Really really really bad. It is a HARDCODED limit, even, and can be incredibly annoying. If I want the best defense in a city, no units can enter it.

Not true, because you can rearrange your stacks easily, based on unit strength. Simply move out the units you want elsewhere and replace them with the units you want to defend.

The (potential) problem lies in the fact that since you are limited to a certain amount of units in a city, the attacker can bring in multiple attacks to wear down that stack. But that is what you already have to do with the civ3 model. (Generally, you have to bring in a lot more units than are in the city to take it). The key though is to allow the defender to build buildings that will greatly increase defensive bonuses and thus greatly increase the resistance strength of those units - something that CTP2 does have in place.

(And look at history and the difficulty of fighting within a city, and the use of buildings as defensive modifiers within a city is very plausible.)

Plus completely surrounding a city in CTP2 is very unit-intensive (as it should be), so you would have to really place an iron grip on the city to prevent reinforcements from punching through to relieve the defenders.

To be honest, CTP2 does not do this second factor half as well as it could, but my point is that I really believe that coding can be created to do so.

Originally posted by skywalker
Moreover, it limits the size of my ATTACK forces. It places huge limits on the game and even really hinders scenarios.

Again, not true because you still can bring in a vast amount of units to a target. A city is surrounded by 8 tiles - 12 units per tile - that makes for a potential force of 96 units. This is certainly not a huge limit, at least in my mind...

And if you want to take it a step further, add in the next ring of tiles around the city as possible tiles that can hold additional units.

Originally posted by skywalker
2. Air units + bombardment
Civ3's current air unit system (which IMO is a huge improvement over Civ2) would function poorly here.

Again not true because it would be easy to give those types of air units a coding designation that places them outside the normal unit restiction. Since they automatically fly out and return to their base on their turn, they would never be part of the stack.
CTP2 uses air units with a set number of turns in the air before they have to refuel. They have the capability to bombard a target, the same way that a land bombard can. I would agree that the civ3 model is better because it is more streamlined, but again, my proposal would work within the framework of stacked combat.

Originally posted by skywalker
Ditto for bombardment.

Again not a problem since your bombards are part of your land units. With the 96 unit limit around a target, some of those slots can be filled by land bombards. CTP2 already uses bombards effectively, since there is a counter-bombard flag that automatically allows a bombard unit to fire back automatically when it is bombarded.

Originally posted by skywalker
Plus, scenario issues - Civ3's system offers infinitely more possibilities.

Not without a scripting language - already in place in CTP2.

Originally posted by skywalker
3. Ugliness
Combat in CtP2 (the only version I bought) was just plain UGLY. I hated it, it was tedious in a way that Civ3 combat isn't (not that Civ3 combat can't get tedious, but it does so in its own way).

A matter of opinion based on a preference...so it is not worth the time to argue...(although I have yet to hear it explained to me just why CTP2 combat is tedious. I've certainly been trying to explain why the civ3 model is.)

My point all along is that despite its problems, the CTP2 setup is superior in just about every way over the current civ3 setup.

And I believe that it can be improved upon - I do not believe that retaining the current civ3 setup allows for much improvement, but that is just an opinion. It's just that I have yet to hear any compelling arguments to the contrary.

And based on the poll, there is a lot of others who feel the same way.

[Jon Miller]

still doesn't change the fact that I

and most others

did not find CTP combat fun

I am sorry that I have not been able to exaplin that to you

Jon Miller

[Asmodean]

Originally posted by Jon Miller

and most others

The thread we've got going on the subject says another thing.

Asmodean

[Jon Miller]

youcan look at sales and other such means

just because most the people here like CTP does not mean that here is not an outlier

also, maybe most people like Civ3 style limited stacked combat (I like this)

Jon Miller

[Asmodean]

But Jon...sales doesn't say what people think about one particular feature. It says what franchise is well known and can back up their title with the name "Civilization".

I don't know what people you refer to, when you say most people. Most people here at Apolyton like stacked combat a la CtP2. And we are, after all, makinf an Apolyton list, aren't we??

Asmodean

[Maquiladora]

Theyre voting on the combat system, nothing else, and the voting is leaning heavily towards stacked combat.

Im sure if the voting had gone the other way youd have a different opinion on the value of the poll, Jon.

[Jon Miller]

I really enjoy your thoughts on my character

now, how well do you know me again?

Jon Miller

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
I'm not quite sure what would require it to be a hard-coded limit?

Display, and it'd probably be a lot easier to code. Both CtP and CtP2 had hardcoded limits IIRC (which could sort of be gotten around with scripting).

I do agree that stacked combat wouldn't quite work for bombardment of a city, however one could have such units operate as a supporting unit in ArmyvArmy combat and as a Civ3 bombard elsewhere.
Care to explain the scenario issues?

The "support unit" role in stacked combat makes artillery a lot like many other units. The ranged bombard in Civ3 gives a LOT of interesting scenario options for units while still allowing you to simulate normal-attacking artillery with high attack units like Civ2 did.

That's a problem with presentation and not the concept.

Yes, but the flaws in presentation are derived from the structure of the combat

Though I see your point.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by hexagonian
Unfortunately, with the civ3 setup that does not place any limit on the size of stacks, you cannot prevent the use of huge stacks as the most viable strategy, irregardless of pricing.

irregardless?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by FinnishGuy
AI has to move every unit around pointlessly every time...

This is easy to fix - it's in an ini file.

[Kuciwalker]

My point all along is that despite its problems, the CTP2 setup is superior in just about every way over the current civ3 setup.

Wrong. The limit on the number of units on a tile is an ENORMOUS problem, especially for scenarios (CtP's scriping language is not a part of this argument), and does severely limit the forces you can bring to bear (and with which you can defend). You can't shuffle things around in the enemy's turn.

[Kuciwalker]

Another bad idea: SMAC unit workshop. It was OK for SMAC (though I found it incredibly annoying after a while), but NOT for a Civ game.

Also: the SMAC Government model. Again, great for a sci-fi game, bad for a civ game.

And more: the SMAC terrain model (including the 3D-ness) - see above reasons

Finally: nukes behaving the way Planet Busters did in SMAC.

[Fosse]

Agreed on exclusion of SMAC unit workshop and terrain model. I'd like to see nukes as a compromise of PBs and current nukes.

I'm all about a "social engineering" sort of thing, as I go on about ad naseum in other threads.


Regarding the scripted solutions not being part of the argument... Well... we're looking for an ideal solution. If someone else found a good one then I don't care if it was commercial, user made, or open source. A good system is a good system, and we should be holding out for one.

I'm not willing to say that stacks (IMO the better way) shoud be left out because of imperfect implementation before, any more than resources should because they've had imperfect implemenation before.
But I appreciate you bringing sound reasons to the table.. even though I disagree with you on this issue.


"Irregardless" is a word. Means exactly what "regardless" Think means.
Think flammable/inflammable.

[Kuciwalker]

Irregardless" is a word. Means exactly what "regardless" Think means.
Think flammable/inflammable.

from dictionary.com:

Usage Note: Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so.

[Kuciwalker]

some more ideas that shouldn't be in:

Civ3 style ZOC - bring back what we had in Civ2!
Civ2 style unstacked combat - destroying a stack by destroying the top unit is ridiculous and aggravating
The AI phobia of trading cities, such that it will only trade them for peace in Civ3
The automatic declaration of war when you have an MPP - make it like civ2, where you could choose not to honor an alliance (in Civ3, the only way to cancel an MPP less than 20 turns after is to declare war).
Palace/City View/Wonder Movies - I never watch them and they take up development time