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[USEC_OFFICER]

...

Did you really read through the entire thread just to post that?

[IronyOwl]

I noticed it on the workshop, but ignored it because I had no interest in having blizzard in civ.

Same.

If it's the one I'm thinking of, I gave it a try.

Interesting, but wonky and unpolished. The hero talent system was pretty clever- there were six or seven color-coded disciplines, each consisting of three basic skills and three advanced skills. To get each basic skill, you needed... hm. Either the basic skill before it, or just the corresponding basic skill on an adjacent track. To get the advanced skill, you needed the matching basic skill in that color. The clever part comes from the fact that each hero has a "starting" track that they had full access to, and then could only get adjacent skills by filling out their home track enough to support them. So a mage could learn warrior stuff if they wanted to, but it'd be kind of a long trek through all the skills they might not particularly want in the way.

Perhaps a diagram is in order:

1	2	3		4	5	6
1	2	3		4	5	6
1	2	3		4	5	6

So if you started at Green, you could get 1 right away. I think you had to get 2 to get 3, but can't swear to it. 4 required 1, 5 required 2, and 6 required 3. To get blue, on the other hand, required you to have points in green, so if you wanted Blue 3, you had to get Green 3. I forget if you also needed Green 6 to get Blue 6, or if Blue 3 would cover it. To move on to purple, you needed a similar foundation in blue.


But yes, very wonky. There was pretty much nothing to build but wonders, and the documentation wasn't very good. Normal units sometimes had mana, but couldn't actually cast anything as far as I was able to discern. The item system was particularly odd, since it jumped up pretty significantly in power and cost each age; you could also get items from defeating barbarian encampments, but those were less predictable.

TL;DR: The newest installment in the Civ series had some neat ideas, but I think they were rather clumsily implemented.
Also, is there a way around the difficulties I've had with waging war? You know, cities not really ever dying (seriously, why can't you march a military unit into an unguarded city anymore?) and not being able to move units into position as fast as they're produced.

Presumably so that taking cities is a major accomplishment, as opposed to a natural extension of having a bigger military in the area. In my opinion, that combined with units routinely surviving combat is a much better way of doing things. You can have nice little sieges now, as opposed to smashing your units against theirs until they all die or it becomes clear you're not going to make it with what you've got left.

So, you might want to try treating your armed forces more like little hero squadrons you level up and less like an unstoppable tide of iron. Might be more fun, whether or not it turns out more effective.

[scrdest]

Jesus, GWG, why did you make a megapost replying to FOUR YEAR OLD posts? Anyhow:

Re: Sieges

Sieges are fairly straightforward. If you use, y'know, siege units. If you're using infantry, you're basically telling a bunch of soldiers to charge the walls with ladders, while under defender fire. Or hacking at the gate with whatever they are armed with. Sure, it will eventually work if you throw enough bodies at it, but it's hilariously inefficient.

What you're supposed to do is bombard the defenders into submission, then march in triumphantly with the infantry or armor to take care of the actual assuming control part.

During the sieging part, the role of melee troops is to shield the ranged attackers from enemy infantry and taking out ranged units which could damage them. For small cities, the whole siege won't last longer than like three turns.

I believe the change was partially caused by the attempt to make cities more quality over quantity, so that you wouldn't have some guy who forgot doing research marching into the capital of modern-age country with his warriors and taking over the city because the defender forgot to put troops in it because that would be obviously pretty silly.

[forsaken1111]

GWG I really hope you don't expect people to reply to 3-4 year old posts that you're commenting on.

More on topic though, I would be up for some multiplayer with both expansions

[GreatWyrmGold]

...

Did you really read through the entire thread just to post that?

I found the rest of the discussion interesting, too.

Jesus, GWG, why did you make a megapost replying to FOUR YEAR OLD posts?

...
Because I had stuff to say.

Anyhow:
Re: Sieges
Sieges are fairly straightforward. If you use, y'know, siege units. If you're using infantry, you're basically telling a bunch of soldiers to charge the walls with ladders, while under defender fire. Or hacking at the gate with whatever they are armed with. Sure, it will eventually work if you throw enough bodies at it, but it's hilariously inefficient.
What you're supposed to do is bombard the defenders into submission, then march in triumphantly with the infantry or armor to take care of the actual assuming control part.
During the sieging part, the role of melee troops is to shield the ranged attackers from enemy infantry and taking out ranged units which could damage them. For small cities, the whole siege won't last longer than like three turns.
I believe the change was partially caused by the attempt to make cities more quality over quantity, so that you wouldn't have some guy who forgot doing research marching into the capital of modern-age country with his warriors and taking over the city because the defender forgot to put troops in it because that would be obviously pretty silly.

The problem is that siege units are not exactly the lowest-tech units. War being impossible until the medieval era...doesn't make sense, from a gameplay or a simulationist perspective. Also, they're slow enough that by the time they get there, the units I've sent to soften up the cities are blocking the way. This wouldn't be a problem without the one-unit-per-tile restriction; however, combining the two means that in order to wage war, I need to either waste tons of time with hordes of archers and pikemen dealing with the unguarded city, or else delay the war so the siege engines can come in. It's just not fun.
Another issue with your description is that the same problems arise when the city has no walls, or no...you know...defenders. If there are actually defenders? Sure, I need to kill them. But once I do, there's the city itself, which has way more health than any other unit. What, am I killing everyone in the city before taking it? And that's not getting into the times I've whittled down a city to 0 health but couldn't take it because it regenerated its health before I could.
I've been more or less doing the "bombard the defenders into submission" part, but having to take dozens of turns doing so to an undefended city is just stupid. And you know what? If there was zero military presence, a bunch of trained guys with stone axes could (briefly) take over. Also, you require A. one civilization with modern technology; B. one nearby civilization without anything but basic technology; C. the former to fail to defend its cities; and D. the latter to manage to get to said cities. This isn't going to happen, ever. When the circumstances required to have an issue come up are less likely to occur in the game than the resultant consequences would be if that happened IRL, it's not a problem.

[forsaken1111]

Let us say you intend to invade (in real life), say, new york city and that there are no 'units' aka no organized armed forces in said city.

Do you think that because there are no organized military units in the city (for whatever reason) that there would be no resistance? You would have people popping out of every window and hole firing guns at you. When you are 'attacking the city' you are putting down the city's militia and civilian resistance.

And really it isn't even that hard to do. A few archers behind your swordsmen and you will take the city in a turn or three.

[LoSboccacc]

anyhow the whole premise seems a lot personal preferences on how combat pans out.

I for one enjoyed war in this game a LOT more than any other previous installment and I was utterly surprised when I found myself at war with Chinese in ancient times, conquering a city with two warriors and then coming down to raze another later on with warriors and an archer.

[Niveras]

Anyone have any favorite mods?

I'm preferably looking for something that makes sweeping changes to the game, maybe even adds new mechanics. Kind of the Rise and Fall or FFH for Civ4.

I've seen a couple total conversions (Nights, the Communitas project - which I think was on hiatus last I looked a few months ago) but they all boil down to just tweaking numbers. I think when I went looking deeper there were a few other projects that were trying to port SMAC or an "inspired by FFH" fantasy total conversion into Civ5 but they were not really in a playable/"buggy-but-otherwise-complete" state.

I'm not sure if it's because the community isn't there, or if Civ5 just isn't has moddable as Civ4.

[forsaken1111]

I'd really have loved a diplomatic model in Civ similar to what they're developing for Star Ruler 2 where the diplomacy is an entire minigame with influence and backstabbing.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Let us say you intend to invade (in real life), say, new york city and that there are no 'units' aka no organized armed forces in said city.

Do you think that because there are no organized military units in the city (for whatever reason) that there would be no resistance? You would have people popping out of every window and hole firing guns at you. When you are 'attacking the city' you are putting down the city's militia and civilian resistance.

And really it isn't even that hard to do. A few archers behind your swordsmen and you will take the city in a turn or three.

New York City has pretty few guns, as far as things go. But that's beside the point. Any fighting force of reasonable size and qualtity would be able to take NYC without much issue. (Not to mention that the police force should count as at least a small garrison.)
And no, that's not how it's been working out. I say this from experience, with far more than a few units. Unless swordsmen are that much better than the pikemen and horsemen I've had access to?

I'm not sure if it's because the community isn't there, or if Civ5 just isn't has moddable as Civ4.

Elsewhere in the thread, I've heard people say Civ V is easier to mod at the surface (ie, adding new units) but harder to mod at the core (ie, add new mechanics).

[LoSboccacc]

I don't see how you can say that with so much real life recent examples in the last ten years.

[forsaken1111]

If nothing else, there is plenty of gasoline they could hurl at you.

[scrdest]

It's hard to take a city when the city is trying to kill you.

Also, improvised weapons. Never underestimate them.

Also, it scales with size. A single company of troops scattered around New York is what in local slang is called 'free guns and ammo'.

[Digital Hellhound]

I'd imagine any city has a garrison, city watch, police force, etc. (depending on the era) as well, if militias alone don't satisfy you.

I agree that the combat is much more enjoyable than Civ IV's, and seeing those ranks of soldiers spread over the landscape gives you a sense of, well, these massive formations marching on your command.

[IronyOwl]

And no, that's not how it's been working out. I say this from experience, with far more than a few units. Unless swordsmen are that much better than the pikemen and horsemen I've had access to?

Could you give specifics? You're complaining about having to move pikemen to make room for your slow catapults in one breath, and then claiming it's taking you dozens of turns to take a city in another.

The former sounds kind of trivial, like you're complaining about not being able to smoothly avalanche another empire away in one giant wave like you could in previous games. With the damage cities can do to attacking forces, I'm not even sure how the latter is possible unless you're cycling out (or maybe Branniganing and the replacing) just a handful of troops that aren't quite up to the task.