Contemplating the Design of Civilization...

[Melboz99]

Hey all,

There's a lot of debate over the 1 unit per tile in Civilization V, and I'm not going to beat that dead horse any further. What I would like to ask is what changes would you make to the Civilization series to improve upon the realism, the strategy, and of course the "fun" factor.

Here's my problem with the Civilization series as a whole, from my first experiences with Civ 2 this has been stuck in my craw....

Why the hell does it take 5 *years* to cross the oceans between continents on a standard map with a nuclear submarine? It only took Columbus 5 weeks to cross the Atlantic!

That's an odd question, but one I feel has never been answered, or discussed at any length. Civilization II used railways to give unlimited movement to land units, but then why weren't modern-era units able to use highways to accomplish the same?

"Why does it take 5 years to move a rocket artillery unit between cities?" is another similar question.


I think the franchise as a whole has had some great games, but I feel there is room for improvement. And by improvement, I'm not talking about making the graphics better, adding in additional Civ's, or units, buildings, w/e. I mean there's a ton of room for improvement in the form of core design changes, the kind that could add some realism to the game. You know, maybe a helicopter could fly over a coastal tile? Maybe simply re-basing an air unit shouldn't consume all of that unit's movement for an entire year?


And I realize that deep down the game is all about strategy, and I'd like to see that continue. But lets be honest, the game has always been fundamentally designed with game mechanics that simply don't jive with reality and can be heavily immersion-breaking at times.

Thoughts?
Ideas?

Dan O.

[Robert]

In any past year any unit/person/verhicle could reach any part of the world (expect perhaps of the poles) within 1 year.
We'd have to get rid of any movement point to make civilization 'realistic'. But civ isn't supposed to be realistic, it's supposed to be a good strategic game. And with strategic games it's important to make strategic moves.

Apart of that I totally agree with you, civ could use some changes in it's core game.

[Ijuin]

The problem game-wise with making units have huge movement per turn is that it becomes impossible for one civilization to react to another when the one can move his entire military to anywhere within a wide region before the other player even gets the chance to move. Gameplay then becomes a matter of "whoever strikes first, wins", assuming that the one who strikes first has a sufficiently large attacking force.

If 5 years for crossing a continent sounds bad in the modern age, then how bad is 100 years to go between cities six hexes apart in the Ancient era? We could have more turns in the game, spaced closer together (e.g. 1 turn per month in modern times instead of 1 per year), but then building construction and research would have to be slowed down so that you don't hit the future tech era while it's still B.C., so in the end what you would have is a super-Marathon mode.

[MxM]

Gameplay fun >> realism. Removing limitations will make game less tactical. Imagine chess where the pieces could do whatever they want to do.

[Melboz99]

Here's a couple more oddities to think over...

How is it that you can suddenly realize in 1900AD that you're first warrior unit has been fortified in the Arctic for 6,000 years?
How is it that Calvary can upgrade to Tanks?


I really think Civ V added something great to the franchise which has been largely overlooked, the limited resource usage. In Civ IV, a Civilization with 1 tile of Iron could pump out 100 tanks without a problem, giving the other Civilization which had 10 tiles of Iron no advantage what-so-ever.

I feel that the 1UPT was an effort to resolve some of these things, but it did create other problems.

I'd like to see units stacking the way you typically have them grouped in reality, as-in, a stack or "group" of Archers, a stack of Swordsmen, a stack of Tanks, etc.

This would still enforce using terrain and tactics to strategically place ranged units, mele, and mounted and prevent creating the infamous "stack of doom", but it would also prevent the even worse carpet of doom, as well as the other complications created by trying to prevent the carpet of doom by placing restrictions on unit production.

You could potentially have a stack cap, say 10 archers in a stack at max. Perhaps certain units would have smaller caps, such as tanks, or battleships for instance.

Honestly, I don't see any reason why this sort of thing couldn't be implemented. You can already stack workers with ground units, and they were able to add stacking with embarked units and naval in Gods and Kings. Allowing stacking same-type units together shouldn't be impossible.

[Lambiorix_be]

In any past year any unit/person/verhicle could reach any part of the world (expect perhaps of the poles) within 1 year.
We'd have to get rid of any movement point to make civilization 'realistic'. But civ isn't supposed to be realistic, it's supposed to be a good strategic game. And with strategic games it's important to make strategic moves.

Apart of that I totally agree with you, civ could use some changes in it's core game.

I agree too.

One thing that I contemplate sometimes is the fact that I choose policies like freedom and rationalism and at the same time I as absolute leader let my people do only what I want. Where is the freedom in what. If you choose for freedom and rationalism then I think your actions should be limited somehow and that way you could use broadcasting towers or some kind of secret police to persuade your people. Even the construction of certain buildings and units should be affected. Free people rather have a bank or stadium then another soldier or barack.

It would open up a new way of playing and force the player to actually choose civics in line with his actual behavior. A very limited example of this exists in Civ Rev where you cannot declare war when you are in a democracy and you have to agree to peace when it is without conditions. (Annoying at first when you are about to take its capital. But now I know and change to a republic before going after the capitals of the other civs)

[Sir Og]

Most features can work well or not work at all depending on the implementation. That includes interface, balance, AI, connection with other game features, etc.

The problem with civ5 is that the new features (most of the game) lack the necessary user interface, game balance or AI sofistication to work well.

[Elok]

I haven't played V, but the idea of unit numbers restricted by resources doesn't appeal to me. In IV, you can only build three missionaries/executives, and it's a pain in the butt. You can't just queue up a bunch of them and forget it, nope, you have to build three, use them up, build three more, use them up...and if you change your mind and decide to build that missionary in a different city, you have to go to the first city to remove one from the queue so you can build it in the other city. Having similar restrictions for the majority of combat units as well just sounds like a nightmare, especially if the game's interface is as shoddy as everyone says.

[Melboz99]

I haven't played V, but the idea of unit numbers restricted by resources doesn't appeal to me. In IV, you can only build three missionaries/executives, and it's a pain in the butt. You can't just queue up a bunch of them and forget it, nope, you have to build three, use them up, build three more, use them up...and if you change your mind and decide to build that missionary in a different city, you have to go to the first city to remove one from the queue so you can build it in the other city. Having similar restrictions for the majority of combat units as well just sounds like a nightmare, especially if the game's interface is as shoddy as everyone says.

It's not that form of a cap...

Iron for example comes in tiles with 2-6 Iron. If you have a tile with 2, another with 4, and a third tile with 6, you have 12 iron and can build 12 units that require Iron, such as swordsmen.

Where this adds to the game is that in Civ IV if you had 1 horse tile you could build an unlimited number of horsemen, there was no motive or reason to go acquiring more.

In Civ V, there are other was of acquiring additional resources to fuel a larger army, such as allying with a City State that has that resource, or trading for it with an AI.

In the end, I frequently have more iron than I need, usually have more horses than I need, but it still provides me with an advantage to AI's which have less, and pillaging resource tiles has an effect immediately rather than as soon as you pillage *every* resource tile of theirs.

In short, it does do a fairly good job of adding a strategic element to resources.

[Myrddin]

[QUOTE=Melboz99;6125956]
I'd like to see units stacking the way you typically have them grouped in reality, as-in, a stack or "group" of Archers, a stack of Swordsmen, a stack of Tanks, etc.
[QUOTE]
Agreed. One of the things that I liked in CTP, along with a good empire-wide management system so that you could tweak happiness and production across your whole empire.

The downside of stacking was that it also had a limit on units per tile. Anyone who's played CTP knows that limits on units per tile leads to a lot of micro-management of unit movement and that the AI has a large problem with it. Main reason that I haven't bought Civ V yet .

[Dr Strangelove]

You could restrict unit numbers by civilization population and supply lines.

Here's something that I've always thought about the game Civilization: By the year 4000 BCE the entire Earth was inhabited. When your scouts move out at the beginning of the game they ought to run into "barbarians" in every hex. The challenge of the early game should be to bring those barbarians into your civilization. Barbarian cultures might be similar to your in terms of language, general economic culture (agrarian vs herder vs hunter) social culture (patriarchal vs matriarchal) and values ( peaceful vs aggressive). Some would assimilate voluntarily, especially those with similar culture and language, others would not - those which are dissimilar and militant. Assimilating barbarians might mean incorporating some featrues of their culutres. At some points you might have to make decisions on how to deal with a barbarian. Assimilating an aggressive tribe might mean taking on the aggressive traits, which would modify how you could deal with other tribes and civs, or you could simply wipe them out and take their land.

Regarding stacking I think it would be nice if you could customize your armies. Instead of armies of just legionnaires or archers or horsemen you could design a force like the Romans used to composed of a main body of Legionnaires with auxillary archers and horsemen. It would require a more sophisticated combat engine obviously.

[Melboz99]

I'm coming around to the realization that the main fault of Civ V's "fun" factor and pacing is the micromanagement of units. Even *if* you only have 20 military units between scouts, ranged, mounted, melee, and naval, moving them every turn is a PITA.

Stacking would allow for a serious improvement in game pacing, as you could select 6 cats, put them in arty mode, and bombard a city with 3 clicks instead of 18.

One other idea I have in regards to stacking is that since we now have 100 HP units instead of 10, what if we were able to join/band like units together to simply add HP?

You could build a single archer at 10HP, then add another for 20HP. You could have a cap, or perhaps let resource and maintenance costs keep it somewhat in control.

The net effect would be almost identical to stacking, but with the extra upshot of not having to manage stacks. In Civ IV, simply selecting groups of units was a bit of a pain, the UI just didn't jive with my PC-based Ctrl+Click to individually select/deselect, Shift+Click to range select mentality.

You'd simply have a single unit to move, upgrade, heal. The biggest downside would be that of promotions and not being able to micro them.

Dan O.

[Melboz99]

My brain keeps on churning, and I'm now thinking about Risk....

In Risk, grouping 5 infantry creates a mounted unit. What if grouping units of certain quantities provided benefits? For example, 5 mounted units combined would be given an extra 1 movement point. 10 mounted units together receives an +1 range of sight. 10 Archers together could shoot over hills, 5 swordsmen together gives an extra 10HP

[Sir Og]

The current 1upt can be made a lot better if there is a better interface that allows to select the whole formation and move it as a whole instead of moving individiual units. (this would also require a sophisticated pathfinding AI) Also there should be abilty to assign shortkeys to formations.

Currently the units we see on the map represent both strategic placement of armies and an abstraction of the tactical formation. Micromanaging the tactical part is OK but there should be some way to move multiple units at a tme otherwise it is getting tedious very fast.

[Elok]

Re: the unit cap, I was familiar with the basic mechanic. The difference does not affect my basic concern that caps in general are a hassle. Say, for example, that you want to mount an offensive in new territory--time to build tanks! Your Germans have got a nice, industrialized cluster of cities near the border of Aztec Mexico, just itching to pop out panzers--but uh-oh, you reached your current tank cap on the previous offensive, in which you conquered a rival on a whole different continent! All those tanks are occupying the cities of what was once Russia. So, you can either arrange to haul all those tanks (one per tile) across a continent and an ocean to fight with them, or go and disband one for each tank you want to build in the city around the world. It was even more annoying than that in IV because missionaries were designed to be used up so you had to constantly go back to refresh your queues--but then, you didn't need all that many missionaries. If you add in expected losses, I'd expect to constantly struggle to keep track of whether I was presently at or near the cap for all umpteen unit types, especially if multiple unit types compete for one or more resources.