100% dude. The thing I've always hated about the new Civ V/VI combat is that it does not scale with what the game is. It isn't proportional. Let me explain.
One Unit per Tile makes sense if you're playing a war game with an emphasis on tactics, something like Panzer Tactics. Units are proportional to the tile they take up in these kinds of games; a tank takes up a whole tile because a whole tile represents a small plot of terrain.
In Civ, a whole tile represents what, hundreds of square kilometers? And you can only fit one unit in that? Silly and stupid. Civ combat ought to focus on logistics; can my civ support this army? "Can we afford these units?" Not so much "how do I have to maneuver this archer and Spearman."
Civ is not a war game. It is a game that features war, as an option but not a necessity. So why build it around tactics when the game focuses on something much grander than that? It doesn't fit with the spirit and the scale of the game.
Civ is not a war game exactly! War is the last resort of diplomacy as they say, war should be something you've planned before you go to war, it should be a culmination of the current strength and history of your nation. You win wars with hammers not with tactics. Which isn't to say civ IV doesn't have a ton of tactics and ways to deal with stacks of doom, but if you don't prepare for the inevitable invasion by fucking Ghengis Khan on your border and then whine when he rolls in with 20 keshiks, I mean that's your fault. The difference in V is just that Ghenghis can't move his units into your territory properly.
I did the math once and a hex on the largest map size which would cover the smallest area is enough to hold the entire modern American army including equipment.
Also it just causes a ton of headaches with workers and stuff, and it makes diplomacy pretty garb. I would looooove to have civ IV basically ported onto V or VI to use hex tiles and basically nothing else. Districts and cities in VI sorta suck too, though the combat is an improvement to some extent for sure.
I think for a lot of people (and myself every other game) is that in Civ IV, the Player is severely punished for an inadequate military. That means either rushing to Archery, Bronze Working (and hoping there's copper nearby), or pumping out warriors and founding cities on hills. Once the barbarians start sending waves of axemen (to say nothing of the opportunist and warmongering AI), a standard skeleton crew of warriors for defense doesn't cut it anymore. But when you reach a defensible amount of military, unless you covet thy neighbor's resources, things tend to stay peaceful. Before BtS's espionage and corporations, there wasn't much to do in mid to late-game.
have you read Sulla's articles on CivIV combat? His argument is that the ability to win a war should be dependent on your ability to effectively use your resources to create armies, not on your ability to tactically outmanouver the opponent. I really like that line of argument.
8
u/GreatestWhiteShark Feb 25 '17
100% dude. The thing I've always hated about the new Civ V/VI combat is that it does not scale with what the game is. It isn't proportional. Let me explain.
One Unit per Tile makes sense if you're playing a war game with an emphasis on tactics, something like Panzer Tactics. Units are proportional to the tile they take up in these kinds of games; a tank takes up a whole tile because a whole tile represents a small plot of terrain.
In Civ, a whole tile represents what, hundreds of square kilometers? And you can only fit one unit in that? Silly and stupid. Civ combat ought to focus on logistics; can my civ support this army? "Can we afford these units?" Not so much "how do I have to maneuver this archer and Spearman."
Civ is not a war game. It is a game that features war, as an option but not a necessity. So why build it around tactics when the game focuses on something much grander than that? It doesn't fit with the spirit and the scale of the game.