I could get behind this if they rebalance things to accommodate it. Something like forcing all units to be placed in armies or garrisoned in cities so you don’t have to worry about the AI spamming single units all over the map thus making you enter combat mode to fight each one individually (that would get tedious). Maybe have the number of armies that can be fielded limited by technology or population level, or possibly handle it like the great general great person unit.
I want a Civ with more abstract and less fiddly warfare. Shuffling units around and fighting wars is the part of the game that I care the least for. I can’t be the only one?
This would be a huge improvement for combat gameplay, but see, it would expose the non-tactical AI still further as being unacceptably bad. Because Civ is all about the illusion of meaningfulness. If you are distracted for 90% of every turn with unit movement, the thin illusion of some kind of world outside your border can be maintained a bit longer. But if all you do is interact with “AI” that has no notion of its own game-interests and goals because it has no planning model, the illusion is much harder to maintain.
I would love to see something like this but I don’t expect to see it happen.
Imperialism was mentioned above. Troop movement was brilliantly handled in that game. I agree that the tactical combat didn’t take too long but I usually just let it auto resolve.
2 words
Endless Legend
the best civ clone ever made…no problems with armies…no cluttered map…great tech platters…its perfect
I liked Endless Legend, but it did not scratch the Civ itch for me.
I want to love the Endless games, but I’ve bounced off every time. I’ve tried ES about six times and EL maybe five.
It’s probably the fonts. Man, they use the worst fonts.
It’s like they just highlighted ‘Endless Legend’, clicked the drop-down menu and randomly selected it. Like a thoughtless child, just wandering by a garden, yanking leaves along the way!
OMG. Avatar!
Ugh, the tactical combat there was not interesting.
Endless Legends’ combat was. … not fun.
However, it was imho better than 1upt.
Sorcerer King’s combat was notably better than both, but had its own issues.
I think I agree with all of what you just said.
I loved AoW3 combat.
Oooo, that is an even better example. It may be a little involved to fit into a Civ game, but it’s the best combat in a 4x game. Age of Wonders 3 strategy layer is pretty light compared to Civ.
I liked Endless legend quite a bit, but I do agree that tactical combat didn’t add a lot to the game. But it was tremendously better then Civ V or VI combat.
I think Endless Legend had significantly better combat as well… and I just autoresolved all battles. That alone makes it better than Civ5/6.
I mean, AoW3 is the best 4X ever made. You guys are being super unfair to Civilization VI.
I so prefer the Endless games to AoW3, but i think at this point in my life i’m sensitive to time/in-productivity/value. It’s why i look on Paradox games with such a jaundiced eye now, when i hear things like the “average” game of EU4 lasts a 100 hours or something. On paper games like AoW3 are better but in the end i don’t feel like i’m making any more “meaningful” decisions than EL, and EL plays much, much faster. Endless Legend’s combat estimate is pretty accurate actually and i rarely am able to win significantly more decisively than what the auto-resolve estimated (where, Total War games, for ex., usually undervalue your ability to win manual combat) so i almost always auto-resolve EL combat. Even so EL manual combat is both really clever and totally janky.
But i also like the aesthetic more in Endless Legend, and AoW 3 plays like complete crap on the Mac (it gets completely confused about that Retina Resolution thing and it crushes the GPU).
Really? I find AOW3 plays pretty quick tbh.
Haven’t struggled with any Mac nonsense, though.
That’s a really weird way to spell Imperialism 2.