Civilization 5 Announced

[Olodune]

Jon Shafer is lead designer ....

Neat.

On the whole the preview sounded intriguing to me: I was a big fan of Panzer General -- but it will be quite a change if they really stick to the one unit per hex rule! I hope they can code the AI to handle a more fickle combat system ...

[Yazilliclick]

I wonder how no stacking units is going to affect unit production. If there's no stacking units in cities then they can't all just pop in the city when production finishes so there's going to have to be some sort of army placement in that case no?

[Jabah]

I used to play wargames when i was much younger and the 1 unit/tile was effcient/acceptable but in that case, you had units that had power within the same order of magnitude.

My first thinking about this 1 unit limit (including inside city) is that having a military technological advantage is going to be a lot more deadly than in civ4, no way could could compensate quality with quantity if you can't attack the same unit more than 3-4 times a turn (plus no way you could have a lot of 'reserve' if you don't have enough startegic backlines).

So a 10 knights army should be going to kill any civ without pike or elephant (if the units stats are the same - and if the healing system is the same with incredibly powerfull medic).

I will still wait and see before saying I don't like this 1 unit limit but it seems to be quite hard for a game that is supposed to be a 'civilisation' game more than a tactical battle game.

(holding a front city will be also a complete nightmare - 1 unit inside a city really seems a strange idea - no more pink dot ™ for us )

[Krill]

I'm getting the feeling from previous previews, that units auto upgrade, which would only exacerbate the situation.

Oh, and on the pink dot, don't rule that out. Provided your military is in a good enough position, you could easily settle up on a civ...if the enemy can't reach the city, they can't attack the city...

[Rowain]

My first thinking about this 1 unit limit (including inside city) is that having a military technological advantage is going to be a lot more deadly than in civ4, no way could could compensate quality with quantity if you can't attack the same unit more than 3-4 times a turn (plus no way you could have a lot of 'reserve' if you don't have enough startegic backlines).

So a 10 knights army should be going to kill any civ without pike or elephant (if the units stats are the same - and if the healing system is the same with incredibly powerfull medic).

I don't think so after all those 10 knights can't attack the same tile too
and there is the ranged-attack which increases the number of units you can use in the attack.

[Jabah]

I don't think so after all those 10 knights can't attack the same tile too
and there is the ranged-attack which increases the number of units you can use in the attack.

Of course, but they will be crunching any unit on their way with a 5 tiles wide front

[Rowain]

Of course, but they will be crunching any unit on their way with a 5 tiles wide front

That will depend on what tuile defenses are possible and what a city will bring to its own defense.
And if the Knights have a 5tile front the defender can still have his archers behind the frontline bringing 1 or 2 of them to the fight against each Knight too.

But in truth we don't have enough Information right now to decide if it is good, bad or not important. I tend to take an optimistic view, that Firaxis knows what they do and if Sirian works there too I have little doubt that the result will be a good and fun game.

[Rowain]

Speaking of Information: Preview

One of the biggest changes to the game is the new one-unit-per-hex restriction. Previous Civ games have been dominated by the "stack of doom" where players create an unstoppable super unit by piling all of their units in a single square. That strategy is not available in Civ V, which should, the designers reason, pull combat away from the cities. Now when an invading army enters your territory, you'll want to send your spearmen and warriors and swordsmen out to fight them in the fields around your towns. Cities will automatically defend themselves now, and can benefit from increased defense based on certain structures or technologies, so you don't necessarily need to garrison a unit for defense but you can if you want to.

Edit another interesting topic: about AI:

At the lowest level, the tactical AI uses the forces at hand to win a battle on a local scale. One step up from that, the operational AI picks which battles to fight and makes sure that the necessary forces are available. Moving even higher, the strategic AI manages the empire as a whole, focusing on where to build cities and what to do with them.

At the top of the ladder is the grand strategic AI, which decides how to win the game. If the grand strategic AI decides to go for a conquest victory, the strategic AI will build the infrastructure needed to wage war and the operational and tactical AIs will choose and fight the battles. That way the tactical AI won't be fighting battles merely for the sake of fighting battles, but because those battles are relevant in the grand strategic AI's big picture.

[Imhotep]

All these changes may work in SP. However I have the feeling the game is developed with focus on SP. Doesn't bode well for the MP crowd...

[dsplaisted]

It's nice that there are previews out now so we know a little bit more about the game.

Adjacent allied units will be able to swap positions.
No technology trading! Instead, you can enter into a research agreement with other civs.
Your culture expands one tile at a time, instead of going from radius 1 to 2 all at once.