Can't be the only one to despise combat and war

[яise]

Like the title says...combat sometimes makes zero sense, attacking but going second? retreating armies moving across the map (saw one horseman move across an entire continent), sometimes the reinforce function seems to just not work, and if you can win/lose on turn one then the second army is irrelevant.

war score doesnt make any sense either. occupying multiple cities including the enemy capital while they occupy nothing. but then being forced to surrender *checks map* 5 territories, and 404 gold? Why on earth would someone who is occupying enemy cities, give those up, and then more off their own?

[knighttemplar1960]

The combat mechanic is OK (better than Civ V or VI and is reminiscent of Civ IV). The simultaneous moves that the AI can make but the player can not, is not. The war support system needs a rework and the forced surrender needs ash canned completely or perhaps woven in piecemeal to the civics tree so that you can gain a benefit for taking that bit of the forced surrender mechanic.

There are reasons that interest in this game has wained so quickly and other older 4x games that have issues have more daily players than Humankind but the developers don't seem to be interested in player feedback or aren't inclined to act on it.

[Dorok]

The combat mechanic isn't yet fully ok. But recent updates fixed fairly a weird case. Now when a stack get cornered and can deeply only one troop or two, when combat ends the stack gets back its ability to flee. And if there's no flee direction in back, then stack can flee through enemy stacks. It's not a perfect fix but it improves greatly a big design hole in the system. In my opinion, when no flee direction in back, the stack should always be allowed flee through enemy stacks.

What's not ok in combat mechanic:
- Units that AI are playing 3 to 4 time in a round should never exist, this needs to be removed from game design. 6 units like that, they play 18 to 24 times in each round, NOT ACCEPTABLE.
- Erratic combat area, I save reload and check the exact same combat and attack, hugely different combat area, this needs a fix.
- Case of preview combat area deeply wrong should never happen anymore. This must be fixed and that it comes from sudden additional reinforcement the preview want hides because you can't see them is NOT ACCEPTABLE.
- Initiative system needs a tuning, a first quick fix should be that all units start in defense mode when not having the initiative, but it requires a deeper think on that.
- Combat area start should always let open tiles, and never ever auto deply stacks up to fill the combat area, because this makes deployment phase lame when the area is full of units.
- Combat area defined by angle of attack needs a system more fair for defender, it's too easy abuse the AI by over exploiting this aspect.
- Combat area blocking everything is a doubtful mechanic when the game allows siege that can last centuries (like 10 turns). Perhaps the area blocked should be smaller, or perhaps the game can allow move through it without enter in the combat and eventually with move points cost, or other ways, but it should be improved. That's a secondary problem, but a few time it can be very annoying.
- The LOS system is still too often non intuitive, LOS is always a complex affair, but if this could be improved that would be a good improvement. At least see units you can attack if you move at a tile is a good system, but it's not enough.
- There's still a few bugs related to move and fog of war, it should be managed more properly not just let the unit finish an impossible move through walls. It could allow stop the units and let it free move to fix the surprise from fog of war, like retreat a bit if needed.

Remove forced surrender means infinite wars or AI kind enough to give up on it. It's not way that simple. The war system is already good and get some tuning, it just need some more tuning.

That said some fake infinite wars system could be fine, for example refuse the forced end of war would add 10 stability penalty to each town at each round, this could add some flexibility and still avoid boredom infinite wars.

EDIT:
That said I played a war with no opponent having war support lost at each turn, that's interesting even if it can create infinite war. I think the problem is complex or by accepting boredom infinite wars. Otherwise, to repeat it, yeah the whole system can certainly be improved with some tuning.

[Dale Kent]

Forced surrender and giving back nearly everything when you have captured every enemy territory and city, and killed off every enemy army, is the most insane mechanic in any strategy game ever. It's better to ransack the enemy cities and settle your own outpost new than to capture and hold enemy cities.

That mechanic design totally sucks and kills the game in my opinion.

[Dorok]

Originally posted by Dale Kent:

Forced surrender and giving back nearly everything when you have captured every enemy territory and city, and killed off every enemy army, is the most insane mechanic in any strategy game ever. It's better to ransack the enemy cities and settle your own outpost new than to capture and hold enemy cities.

That mechanic design totally sucks and kills the game in my opinion.

You consider the comment that follow as an insult, but how can I say it differently.

Learn play, learn capture juicy efficient AI towns, and then compare with destroy them, lol, then you'll see how wrong is your comment.

And then to do that you need learn play, to keep it short I'll just quote one trick, don't damage a city you want take by removing it some territories.

[Dale Kent]

Originally posted by Dorok:

Originally posted by Dale Kent:

Forced surrender and giving back nearly everything when you have captured every enemy territory and city, and killed off every enemy army, is the most insane mechanic in any strategy game ever. It's better to ransack the enemy cities and settle your own outpost new than to capture and hold enemy cities.

That mechanic design totally sucks and kills the game in my opinion.

You consider the comment that follow as an insult, but how can I say it differently.

Learn play, learn capture juicy efficient AI towns, and then compare with destroy them, lol, then you'll see how wrong is your comment.

And then to do that you need learn play, to keep it short I'll just quote one trick, don't damage a city you want take by removing it some territories.

I played this game plenty of times, including all through the gamedevs. My feedback then was the same as it is now. The forced surrender mechanic, and forced giving back most of what you captured, is the stupidest mechanic in any strategy game.

You will not convince me otherwise.

[Dorok]

Ok, you won't convince me either that it's better to let in hand of some crap AI code the decisions of wars end.

[Dale Kent]

So you believe that it is great game design, and a fun game mechanic, that after waging a full-scale war with an AI, capturing every territory, every city, and defeating every unit of their army (so they effectively no longer exist), and then because your own war support hits 0, you are then forced to hand back most of their cities and territories (and in some freak situations some of your own territories)?

And further, that to counter this war support - forced surrender mechanic, that it is good game design, that IT IS BETTER to ransack all the enemy cities and territories, and found your own outpost in those territories?

[Dorok]

Lost war, that's the problem? It's probably because you didn't put care of some rules.

Ransak can have different contexts, what you describe is calling for a lost, except perhaps with some badges.

So I can't understand what you mean. You pretend ransak is more efficient but what you describe is a call to lost the war.

I was commenting after the war, capture a juicy city is much more efficient than ransak everything, at least for some AI cities, you just need make your pick.

[chaney]

If you have a cultural or religious grievance on a "juicy city" you can take it, sure.

I'd like to learn how to take juicy cities that you don't have a grievance for. What best player authority is employed then?

I'm not against the general notion(s) of war support, and even agree that occupying a city where you don't have citizens supporting you is not going to be very easy - the systems make huge abstractions here but it's not always "sensible" or "crap."

It would be excellent to see a flexible system developed, the existing one is pretty restrictive. Offering more ways to generate grievances would be one thing, allowing occupying an unwilling city would be another that could work if it came with sufficient penalties in terms of that city and international diplomacy.

Hoping this can be a discussion better than a dichotomy.

[Dale Kent]

Originally posted by Dorok:

Lost war, that's the problem? It's probably because you didn't put care of some rules.

Ransak can have different contexts, what you describe is calling for a lost, except perhaps with some badges.

So I can't understand what you mean. You pretend ransak is more efficient but what you describe is a call to lost the war.

I was commenting after the war, capture a juicy city is much more efficient than ransak everything, at least for some AI cities, you just need make your pick.

I realise re-reading my post that I said "because your own war support hits 0" when I meant to say "because their war support hits 0".

Please re-read my post, using "their war support" instead.

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by chaney:

If you have a cultural or religious grievance on a "juicy city" you can take it, sure.

I'd like to learn how to take juicy cities that you don't have a grievance for. What best player authority is employed then?

I'm not against the general notion(s) of war support, and even agree that occupying a city where you don't have citizens supporting you is not going to be very easy - the systems make huge abstractions here but it's not always "sensible" or "crap."

It would be excellent to see a flexible system developed, the existing one is pretty restrictive. Offering more ways to generate grievances would be one thing, allowing occupying an unwilling city would be another that could work if it came with sufficient penalties in terms of that city and international diplomacy.

Hoping this can be a discussion better than a dichotomy.

Its been discussed to death. Only a small minority of the player base think its a good or even intuitive system and think it should remain the way it is. The rest have given their input and negative reviews and have abandoned the game (perhaps waiting in the wings to come back) hoping that the devs will take the input seriously and make some much needed changes.

So far the devs appear to be forcing the game that they want on the players that don't want it and it shows in their revenue numbers.

[shakee]

Originally posted by Dale Kent:

So you believe that it is great game design, and a fun game mechanic, that after waging a full-scale war with an AI, capturing every territory, every city, and defeating every unit of their army (so they effectively no longer exist), and then because your own war support hits 0, you are then forced to hand back most of their cities and territories (and in some freak situations some of your own territories)?

And further, that to counter this war support - forced surrender mechanic, that it is good game design, that IT IS BETTER to ransack all the enemy cities and territories, and found your own outpost in those territories?

With that comment you could argue/trash the whole city concept because you can just liberate an outpost and take it as a free city (this has been patched, but was long enough there...). Just because there is a cheesy way to circumvent game systems does not mean the mechanic is trash. Since you could use cheats which would mean basically every game for you is trash?

[chaney]

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

Its been discussed to death.

Has it? Yes the 'duck season / wabbit season' game has been played, but I don't recall much actual discussion on this forum. Maybe on the g2g forum or the unfortunately named discord?

The low player retention does indicate a problem for sure.

Part of it is the learning curve/poorly/incorrectly communicated concepts and details. That could be improved on its own and would help some players. Bugs are another problem of course.

Then there are game concepts: the "religious war" of those who expect everything to work as in the Civ series or demand it not working the same is already perfect. I'm not really convinced lots of concessions in that direction would lead to a better game, although some players would find it more accessible. Regardless, it isn't such dichotomy - we can do better than that, and most of us I believe really do not think in such polar ways.

I'm in the camp that wants the good notional systems to be expanded/fixed/improved to make a new and better game. War support is a bit more rounded out than religion, but both are quite underdeveloped. Giving the player more options/authority in those systems is certainly possible. History is full of justifications (some persuasive others infinitesimally thin) for occupation/invasion/annexation/etc. Am I the only one that thinks a handful more would allow a more satisfying system for the player? I'm mostly thinking of single player here, but the unwillingly occupied city notion is one that can apply to human opponents as well as a functional abstraction mechanic to model the will of the citizens - not just that of the benevolent leader (e.g. player.)

To be frank, I'm skeptical that this kind of improvement is in the cards, but I've not yet lost all hope. I'm sure some changes will take place, and only hope they will be substantial.

[Dale Kent]

Originally posted by shakee:

With that comment you could argue/trash the whole city concept because you can just liberate an outpost and take it as a free city (this has been patched, but was long enough there...). Just because there is a cheesy way to circumvent game systems does not mean the mechanic is trash. Since you could use cheats which would mean basically every game for you is trash?

The only reason the cheese method was found to be viable, was because the current system doesn't allow a war of elimination against an enemy. The designer decided the player is not allowed to do that, so made the war support/surrender mechanic to remove a player choice.

In a strategy game (where the point is to give the player choices), that is really bad design. No matter what you say to defend it, the truth remains that you cannot wage a war of elimination against an enemy, and keep the spoils of war.

[Gedemon]

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

So far the devs appear to be forcing the game that they want on the players that don't want it and it shows in their revenue numbers.

In case you've missed the dev's announcements on that:

War Support: Many players have expressed frustration with wars coming to a sudden and sometimes premature end, often denying them the gain they were aiming for. However, some people have also spoken out in support of the war resolution system. So, while we will maintain the war resolution and surrender system, we want to implement an option that allows the winner to continue pressing the war at a certain cost or risk.