Loved Civ4, but thoroughly hated just about every change made in Civ5. The one change that killed it for me was how units cross oceans; instead of loading them onto transport ships, they…cobble together rafts and paddle across??? Srsly???
With Civ6, as with Civ5 it’s gonna be “wait and see” to see how the new changes pan out. Not happy at all about retaining the one-unit-per-hex rule, but having city slots for buildings & wonders sounds very intriguing.
Disagree there. This was a huge improvement which trimmed out the almost useless transport ships. Again, it’s an abstract mechanic that replaced a very specific one, and overall was appropriate for the genre.
More like, you are automatically assumed to have transport vessels at an appropriate technology level, but the logistics of producing them and moving them around are abstracted away.
At least in Civ 2, it’s not that tough. Transports are cheap, hold several units, and are fast enough to avoid most enemy warships, assuming you don’t blunder into them. I’ve never found them to be all that cumbersome.
I did play a game back in the 80s called Command HQ which also abstracted transports. You could have any land unit cross the sea, but if they ran into a warship they were dead meat in an instant. As long as Civ doesn’t allow them to fight back effectively at sea then it’s not really a problem. But if your tank is blowing away destroyers as if they were infantry units then that’s not realistic.
I loved Civ1 and Civ2. I’ve played all of them since. But once I discovered Europa Universalis, I’ve spent more and more time with Paradox games. They’re the only strategy games I play anymore (mostly CK2, but EU4 also and now Stellaris). The only thing Paradox lacks compared with Civ is the dawn of history to futuristic sweep in a single game. But it’s not enough to draw me back into Civ.
That was a fun game. They had a mechanic that I haven’t seen elsewhere: units occupied multiple “squares”. Each unit occupied 3x3 squares. The center square of each unit could not overlap with the center square of any other units. The outer eight squares could overlap. Allied units would defensively help each other when overlapped. Enemy units would fight each other when overlapped. The greater the overlap, the greater the interaction (for good or bad).
This simple mechanic allowed for control of the density of the front. Allied units separated by two squares would act as a perimeter–enemy units could not slip through without engaging. Or, you could overlap allied units at maximum overlap, which forces an advancing enemy to engage at least three units. Six, if the front was two-deep and the enemy advanced deeper.
One of the more interesting tile-based war mechanic.
Yeah, I used to really dig that part of it. Plus it was an early real time game. I like turn based games because it’s just easier to handle, it’s not about issuing as many orders as possible as quickly as possible, but turn based is also very unrealistic.
This. I’ve been replaying a lot of Civ5 due to the Civ6 announcement. My “take city” attack package is 5 siege units, 3 ground troops, 3 ranged troops. This will drop a city in 3 turns at most. A useful cheese tactic is cheap chaff troops that will die in 1-2 hits from city defenses, the AI will target these instead of your siege units, leaving them unmolested to pound the city to rubble. Once you get to howitzers with a 3-hex shooting distance, taking cities is even easier.
I just didn’t find that having to fiddle with transport ships particularly enhanced the game experience for me. On the other hand, in a recent Civ V game that I was playing, when I wanted to invade the landmass where the Incans were, I just selected each of my units, chose a destination and said, “Sic 'em, boy!” I enjoyed the hell out of that!
It still does if the units are particularly vulnerable at sea. If they have the same attack power at sea as on land then the seas are pretty meaningless.
Besides, the way “transports” were handled in Civ5 was stupid and unrealistic, giving off images of D-Day troops crossing the English Channel in primitive Kon-Tiki style rafts.
Well, as a general rule, I don’t enjoy being invaded.
I’d argue that even with the rule change, the oceans may not be as secure a border as before, but they aren’t a free path to my front door, either. As it’s already been stated, embarked units are very easy pickings, so if I didn’t bother stationing a couple of ships to watch out for an invasion fleet, then I really don’t have anybody but myself to blame when the bad guys start coming ashore looking to fuck shit up. I do agree with buddha_david that the way it looks when the units hop into the water doesn’t look all that great. But that’s a fault of the animation, not the general concept.
Well I guess it’s unrealistic, but so is the notion of an immortal Zombie George Washington who has been leading the nation of America since prehistory, guiding them through glorious golden ages whilst they lounge in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon in the shadow of the Great Wall of China, both of which they built.
It’s a game about broad strokes - not so much about realistic details.
