That stupid 1 turn = 1 year move-range issue

[Ralf]

Some civers just cannot forbear themselves (it seems) to, over and over again, hang up their "realistic" airplane-, or railroad move-range arguments on that damn late-game 1 turn = 1 year-issue. I say: lets talk about whats best for game-balance and gameplay instead, shall we. Ask yourself:

Was Civ-2 a totally awful game, just because it took you 12 months (= 1 turn) to move your tank through (only) 2 tiles of non-roaded & non-railroaded forest-terrain?
Or 12 full months to move your tank through 9 tiles of road-improved terrain?

Was that "realistic"? If not - did this horrific lack of move-range realism ruin the Civ-2 gameplay beyond repair?

Bottom line:

You can have any airplane/ naval vessel/ land-unit on RR:s move-range opinions you like, but PLEASE:
For the love of God - DONT hang it up on that stupid Civ backdroop timescale, over and over again. Find something else to hang it up on. Game-balance & gameplay, for instance.

[polypheus]

It has never been an issue for me because I have never interpreted the timescale literally. Its just a way to mark technological progress so that instead of obtaining "Mobile Warfare" in turn 400, you can obtain "Mobile Warfare" in, say, 1900.

It also somewhat surprises me that they use this timescale argument because if taken to its natural conclusion then every single unit should be able to have near infinite movement since even slow moving modern ships can circle the globe within a year's time.

[TechWins]

Couldn't agree more. If you're so hung up on the turn issue than go play a RTS.

[S. Kroeze]

Re: That stupid 1 turn = 1 year move-range issue

Originally posted by Ralf
Some civers just cannot forbear themselves (it seems) to, over and over again, hang up their "realistic" airplane-, or railroad move-range arguments on that damn late-game 1 turn = 1 year-issue. I say: lets talk about whats best for game-balance and gameplay instead, shall we. Ask yourself:

Was Civ-2 a totally awful game, just because it took you 12 months (= 1 turn) to move your tank through (only) 2 tiles of non-roaded & non-railroaded forest-terrain?
Or 12 full months to move your tank through 9 tiles of road-improved terrain?

You can have any airplane/ naval vessel/ land-unit on RR:s move-range opinions you like, but PLEASE:
For the love of God - DONT hang it up on that stupid Civ backdroop timescale, over and over again. Find something else to hang it up on. Game-balance & gameplay, for instance.

I'll ask you another question: Did you generally enjoy warfare in CivII?

As you probably will know, realism is for me quite important for the enjoyment of a game. And I didn't enjoy warfare in Civ, while defense was generally far too easy. Until the arrival of the Howitzer and Railroad, warfare in Civ resembled eternal trench war, where the AI just continued launching suicidal attacks on your circumwalled cities. City walls and barracks in border towns always did the trick.
Realism factors like wastage and more mobility of units, especially of naval units, could have resulted in more dangerous and sometimes unexpected attacks, especially when the AI would be able to use its superior numbers with some discernment.

Generally Civ works just because it is rather realistic, certainly when compared with many other computer games.

[Chronus]

"Did you generally enjoy warfare in CivII?"

Um . . . well . . . yes, actually.

True . . . some things were annoying . . . such as the one unit defending the entire stack. But, overall, I liked the simplicity.

One of the major reasons I wasn't absorbed with AOK was not due to its RTS nature, but rather, because the units seemed to have a billion different kind of stances and a billion different kind of formations, etc. I know, I don't have to use them. But not using these tactics seemed to place you at a disadvantage (as it should).

If the time scale bugs you, then see it as a chance to be creative. Picture each turn as a century in the early part of the game, and work your way down to one turn equals an hour in the last parts of the game (or whatever scale you prefer). No, it won't be perfect, but it may help.

[joseph1944]

The year thing is a ref; point and nothing else. Since I play on the lower level, I try to have Democracy by the year 0 A.D. After that I did not care what year it was. And unless the AI was building the Space Ship I waited until Eleven Years prior to the end game before starting the Space Ship so I would max my score.

[MORON]

Civ Combat = Boring

Civ Building = Good

[Grumbold]

I dont care how far units can move in a single turn apart from the huge difference that railroad makes which is just too weird. What I do care about is being able to fight a decent war any time after the invention of gunpowder when techs come thick and fast. If I've invented the M1 Abrams tank and F15 before I have had time to attack more than one city with the shermans and prop fighters I built the minute their tech became available then the game system is screwy. That is my big problem with Civ II. You can't sail/march/fly round the world faster than you can progress through massive tech changes so armies are out of date too quickly.

[TechWins]

I wish war in Civ could be more strategical. Such as that you can't win a war, when not using your navy, air, and land units all together, without loosing a lot of units. I mean it's pretty boring and unrealistic when you can swarm a nation with just tanks and take that Civ over with ease. I think it should be that you're really going to need a balanced military to win at war easily. The combat strategies are just lame and fake! I want more strategy in war!

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Grumbold
If I've invented the M1 Abrams tank and F15 before I have had time to attack more than one city with the shermans and prop fighters I built the minute their tech became available then the game system is screwy. That is my big problem with Civ II. You can't sail/march/fly round the world faster than you can progress through massive tech changes so armies are out of date too quickly.

Why must your combat-units necessarily be in sync with your tech-tree advancements? Why is this so important? Why cant you just use your WW2 style prop-fighters, despite the fact that you already advanced to "advanced flight" - or even "stealth" (stealth figther) in the tech-tree? Why must this supposed inconsistency be such a big problem?

The only thing you should care about is that your cities can produce competitive enough combat-units (both in terms of quality & quantity), comparing with all your surrounding AI-neighbors.

The tech-tree is basically just a gradually more diverse "city build-possibilities trigger". What is "obsolete", or not, should only be dependent on your general military power & combat unit-quality, comparing with your AI-neighbors - NOT comparing with that damn backdrop tech-tree.

[Biddles]

Again on grumbold's post: That is more of a unit upgrade thing anyway. As long as firaxis includes a good unit upgrade feature I would probably upgrade all my units as soon as I have the next tech (As I did in SMAC with my synthmetal garrisons as soon as I discovered plasmasteel). This way there is no inconsistency, military units are never disbanded anyway. Military units have histories dating back hundreds of years (i.e. they participated in such and such a war).

People just need to realise that too much realism does not mean better gameplay, there are some areas where compromises have to be made so that the game is playable (you could decrease the amount of turns in the modern age to 1 per month to put the MP's into proportion, but imagine trying to play the extra 1100 or so turns) and fun (Let's face it, the current system is enjoyable).

[lord of the mark]

well on the one hand I agree - the range issues in Civ 2 ARE annoying - highly annoying - they interfere with the "willing suspension of disbelief", the historical feel that I enjoy when playing the game. The time needed to concentrate forces is annoying, but not for gameplay reasons so much - it can be considered simply a strategic challenge - but it rules out certain HISTORICAL strategies and tactics - for example AIrcarft carriers, historically very important, are virtually useless in part because of the difficulties in assembling air wings and escorts in a timely fashion. Another strike at the suspension of disbelief.

On the other hand - the social-political model remains is highly simplified - and while there will be some improvements in civ 3 (ie cultural model) there will be some added unrealism (CSU's). So apart from the difficulty of putting in realistic movment in a 6000 year game (the infinite movement vs 30,000 turn problem) i think it just as well to keep these unrealistic elements in. Though i understand why it annoys. I can only suggest playing a scenario.
Right now im playing a scenario that takes place over roughly an 80 year period, with monthly turns, and the movement has a far more realstic feel.

LOTM

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by Ralf
Why must your combat-units necessarily be in sync with your tech-tree advancements? Why is this so important? Why cant you just use your WW2 style prop-fighters, despite the fact that you already advanced to "advanced flight" - or even "stealth" (stealth figther) in the tech-tree? Why must this supposed inconsistency be such a big problem?

1) Because it jars my sense of realism. The "suspension of disbelief" mentioned by others. The world military press the best units into service a.s.a.p. not hold them back

2) If your neighbours are technologically equal to you then the defensive units can be built to the new tech standard while you are still advancing your out-of-date units. Unit upgrade may help here, if implemented.

3) For me this IS a game-balance / gameplay issue. Getting the flow of tech/turns right. Having 200 turns to play with pikemen but only 20 to play with a modern style of unit needs some more balancing. I know the game is not about being able to faithfully represent battles through history but it would be nice if it wasn't so totally abstract.

[SerapisIV]

In accordance with the suspension of disbelief concept, adding in an upgrade feature would to wonders to fixing this problem. More technologically advanced units could more readily be fielded and no longer would Civ armies be using catapults next to artillery. Besides that, it was such a great feature in SMAC, why would it be dropped? I think though that it should still be made more realistic though by making upgrades only possible in cities, not mid-campaign an ocean away in an enemy civs territory.

[lord of the mark]

might i suggest that the realistic answer to the catapults in the age of howitzers problem is not upgrades, but attrition.

What happens to an old cat when guns are invented - is it upgraded - no its used until it falls apart (which would happen anyway) but it is not replaced, or is replaced with the more modern weapon. Old pikemen arent retrained as riflemen, they go on pension. Attrition would also deal with the issue of a unit holding a fort hundreds of miles from home, cut off from replacements, for thousands of years!!!

Surely just as unrelasitic as the obsolete units.

My understanding is that EU and other games have attrition, though it is quite a learning for those not used to it. Civ2 has attrition for helicopters only. Obviously the slow maovment is also an issue here. I dont want my ship to attrit away faster than it can move around the world.

LOTM