You have tiny balls near your units, which indicates how many units you have in one slot, it can have various colors : green for full movement, white for inactive, yellow for movement used but not entirely, red for movement completly used.

But the number of these balls can't exceed 7, so if you have 12 units on a slot, you'll still see 7 balls, this can lead to misinformation, misunderstandings.

The first thing we can suggest is :
Don't put a 7 limit to the number of balls.
Put the exact number of balls for the exact number of units on the slot.

But after, if we have 1000 units on a slot, the balls will flood and hide all the screen...

So I'll bring another suggestion :
Limit the possible number of units in each slot.

This suggestion can help for the balls problem, and also for realistic reasons : You can't have 99999 warrior armies on a single plain, there isn't enough space, you'll need to use other lands to put your armies.

And i suggest this for another reason too :
When you put your mouse cursor on a slot where you have tons of units, the left big bar which indicates you the units with their powers, levels, experience etc. goes to a too big height, the bar goes outside of the screen, and you can't see the informations about all your units that are set at the top of this bar.
This is annoying.
The solution for this can be simple : Make a moving bar next to (at left) this screen like Windows OS's moving bars which allow you to go up and down on a window.
This can stop this problem, and you'll be able to see all your units on this information pannel.
But the best solution isn't this bar, the best solution is a limit for the number of units on one slot, and that therefore the information bar won't go outside the screen.

So set a maximum to each slot, i first thought to 7 units, but ~ 10 or a little more would be fine.

(Put the moving bar idea too, even if there is a limit, the bar can even go outside of the screen)

For the cities, put a higher limit, like 15. (or maybe more)
(This is also realistic, because you can put more armies in vertical buildings, than you can put on a wild land)
Don't think that this is a problem for defense, if there is 3 armies of 10, you won't be able to face them with your limit of 15, but you can put other defense units in the slots that are just outside the city, and thus, you'll be able to have more than 15 units. (10+10+10 ..) (this can be a real strategic issue which will make you to have better defenses, and this can lead to a new and interesting type of fight for big sieges (when the number of units is higher than the limit of each slot))

I had an idea like this but with much smaller numbers. I was thinking along the lines of 1 unit per food produced per square plus an extra 1 (so 3 units on grass land, 1 on desert ect...ect...). In cities it would be 5 + food surplus. Note that the units would actualy consume this food, so keeping a large army in a city might result in it starving. Forts would double (or triple) the amount of units capable of being in that square.
This would give rise to new tactics like burning your farms to force your enemy to spread his force out so you can kill it more easily. it would also make war on tundra/desert a lot harder.

I had an idea like this but with much smaller numbers. I was thinking along the lines of 1 unit per food produced per square plus an extra 1 (so 3 units on grass land, 1 on desert ect...ect...). In cities it would be 5 + food surplus. Note that the units would actualy consume this food, so keeping a large army in a city might result in it starving. Forts would double (or triple) the amount of units capable of being in that square.
This would give rise to new tactics like burning your farms to force your enemy to spread his force out so you can kill it more easily. it would also make war on tundra/desert a lot harder.

Yeah maybe, but this isn't very realistic :

You need to have Cities' citizens that work on squares to produce food.
Military units can't produce food on a land, they aren't workers or farmers !
And they don't have time to make food !
(Although we can consider that they collect what they find like berry bush or something like that, that's true that this argument isn't a problem, we can compare food to "toughness" of units, how hard the land is, how hard the units resist)

Moreover, this will limit too much the capacity of each land, 1 to 3 or 4 is a too tiny number, cities will be uncapturable.
If we take this idea, we should take the food produced x2 or x3 :
grass land = 2 food so 2x3 = 6 units.
toundra = 1 so 1x3 = 3 units.
And this thing is imbalanced :
too many on river plains (3 food)
not enough on deserts ... (although this is realistic, desert is hard for armies' travelling)
The numbers won't be enough high, each square should admit maybe a max of ~ 7 units, lower will probably be annoying.

Don't you think that number of units = number of tiny balls could be good?
And a limitation of the number of units on each square?
And a bar to see all the units when the information left screen goes and throws up at the top of the screen?

This suggestion can help for the balls problem, and also for realistic reasons : You can't have 99999 warrior armies on a single plain, there isn't enough space, you'll need to use other lands to put your armies.

I've wondered about limiting the numbering of units per tile for reasons of gameplay, but the argument that it's unrealistic to have loads of units on a tile because "there isn't enough space" is utter rubbish if you're looking at realism. You could fit the entire planet's population onto islands too small to show up in Civ. Allowing everyone about 2 square feet to stand on you could easily get everyone into Greater London, which is only part of a city tile in Civ terms. Granted there are going to be other practical issues, but the amount of space required by any Civ army is never going to be within several orders of magnitude of the size of a tile.

For gameplay reasons though it might be interesting, and the approach of stacking your entire army on one tile still seems to have survived despite collateral damage. It needs to be considered as an idea on its own merit though, not just something to make part of the interface look better.

For the issue of the coloured balls, wouldn't it be simpler just to have a different symbol (say a square) that would indicate 10 units (so for 9 units it would display 9 balls, and for 10 one square), and maybe something else like a triangle for 100 units just in case? That way you could display any number of units up to 999 in less than 30 symbols. Or to make it even simpler, you could just replace the existing coloured balls with a number, which would be far more efficient.

Damn it, I was writing on this post, and a ****ing bug makes it erase all, so I have to redo all, and the quality and the explanations will be much more bad than before..

I've wondered about limiting the numbering of units per tile for reasons of gameplay

This is what I meant too.

but the argument that it's unrealistic to have loads of units on a tile because "there isn't enough space" is utter rubbish if you're looking at realism.

No.
This argument is true.
You can't have X units in the same piece of land, this is mathematically impossible, the room is always limited.

You could fit the entire planet's population onto islands too small to show up in Civ.

Huh ?
How?
Can you put all the entire Earth planet inhabitants in the Japan Island? No.
The room is limited no matter the land.
This will be a problem for our planet too soon ...

Allowing everyone about 2 square feet to stand on you could easily get everyone into Greater London, which is only part of a city tile in Civ terms. Granted there are going to be other practical issues, but the amount of space required by any Civ army is never going to be within several orders of magnitude of the size of a tile.


You can say what you want.
The facts and the truth will be the same :
The room on each tile of land is limited.

and the approach of stacking your entire army on one tile

This is unreal, how much big the army is, how much room will be used by it.

not just something to make part of the interface look better.

The left screen bar that shows the units is also a problem, the units, as unlimited currently, can goes and throw up at the top of the screen, and you can't see all of them, so we must have a bar that allows to show the top informations.

For the issue of the coloured balls, wouldn't it be simpler just to have a different symbol (say a square) that would indicate 10 units (so for 9 units it would display 9 balls, and for 10 one square), and maybe something else like a triangle for 100 units just in case? That way you could display any number of units up to 999 in less than 30 symbols. Or to make it even simpler, you could just replace the existing coloured balls with a number, which would be far more efficient.


Yeah good idea, a symbol that takes 5 or 10 units is good, like for food = big bread, or for production = big thing, or for money = gold bag.
But the best thing, is indeed a number, so you don't have to count and to calculate the number of the units in the tile, when there are many symbols...
The only thing that you lose is the informations about the color of the balls : who moved? who is sleeping? who is ready ? With a number, you can't now, maybe a button that switch from one mode of indicator to another can be good :
-Number mode : how many units are there here? => This is the only available for ennemy armies display, and this is logic, you can't know and you don't want other informations about ennemies' armies.
-Status mode : are the units ready, moved, inactive? (=> red, green, white, yellow tiny ball like in the horizontal unit bar)
This last mode gives you all the tiny balls even if there are many units in each tile, but I think if the other problem is solved (number of units limited in each tile), the number of balls in each tile won't be insane.

Can you put all the entire Earth planet inhabitants in the Japan Island? No.

In terms of is it physically possibly to do, there would be no trouble whatever in fitting everyone on Japan. Taking the population of the Earth at about 6.5 billion you'd have a several hundred square feet each. Is it practical to arrange this, then no, but for reasons of impracticalities of transport, and the pointlessness of the task, not because there isn't enough room.

This will be a problem for our planet too soon ...

The issue is feeding and supplying the population, not where we actually find space to put the people. Since this argument seems to be whether a certain number of troops should be able to occupy a (very large in real terms) area of the map, it is not supplying that is an issue (the troops could be all over the place and you'd still have the supply issue), but simply the amount of land they'd have to stand on.

You can say what you want.
The facts and the truth will be the same :
The room on each tile of land is limited.

The room on a tile is indeed limited, but if you argue about realism I must point out that given the apparent scale of a civ map a tile could comfortably hold billions. Space is not an issue.

As I've said though, gameplay trumps realism, and it might be interesting to try this for gameplay reasons even though it is unrealistic.

In terms of is it physically possibly to do, there would be no trouble whatever in fitting everyone on Japan. Taking the population of the Earth at about 6.5 billion you'd have a several hundred square feet each. Is it practical to arrange this, then no, but for reasons of impracticalities of transport, and the pointlessness of the task, not because there isn't enough room.

Lol so you say that having all humans on Japan is possible?
I don't understand how you can believe it.
Even if you put each one of them all next to the other, it won't be possible, and even if it is possible, they can't live like this for food, mental, and other needs problems.
So for the same reasons, you won't be able to put billions of men on a piece of land, this is very unrealistic.
Putting a limit on the number of armies on each tile will be realistic.

The issue is feeding and supplying the population, not where we actually find space to put the people. Since this argument seems to be whether a certain number of troops should be able to occupy a (very large in real terms) area of the map, it is not supplying that is an issue (the troops could be all over the place and you'd still have the supply issue), but simply the amount of land they'd have to stand on.

No... You can't have 9999999 men on a piece of land, this is totally unrealistic.

The room on a tile is indeed limited, but if you argue about realism I must point out that given the apparent scale of a civ map a tile could comfortably hold billions. Space is not an issue.

How can you put billions of men on a single tile ?

gameplay trumps realism

I also know that gameplay and game balancing is more important than realism.

and it might be interesting to try this for gameplay reasons even though it is unrealistic.

Even if realism is secondary, this is important too, and we have to consider it.
We can't totally ignore realism, if not, the game will be something awful.
But my suggestion about limiting the number of units on each tile is for gameplay, AND for realism.
Realism because it is absurd to have an unlimited army on a single tile,
Gameplay because this can make imbalance, it can break some strategies, and limited armies on each tile can give many interesting strategy things.

Even if you put each one of them all next to the other, it won't be possible, and even if it is possible, they can't live like this for food, mental, and other needs problems.

Food, mental etc, yes I've already said would prevent this from being practical, it is your statements that there would be an insufficient amount of space to physically fit them it that I am objecting to as they are mathematically wrong. The statement "Even if you put each one of them all next to the other, it won't be possible" is wrong. Period. This is not a debatable issue; it is a simple calculation.

Land Area of Japan: 374,744 square kilometres.

374744 square kilometres = 374,744,000,000 square metres.

Population of Earth = 6,500,000,000 (give or take a bit)

Space available for each person if entirety of world's population is fitted into Japan = 57.6 square metres

Draw a square with a side length of about 7.6 metres. You will see that it is not difficult to fit one person in this amount of space.

I'm not suggesting that it is possible for the entire population of earth to live on Japan, merely that there is sufficient space for all the people to be there at the same time, though food etc would need to be supplied from outside, and claustrophobes might not find it to their liking.

No... You can't have 9999999 men on a piece of land, this is totally unrealistic.

The population of New York is nearly twice that number in reality, yet in Civ a city always manages to occupy one tile. Is this therefore unrealistic?

I don't understand your calculation and how do you come to these results.

If we take your "Land Area of Japan: 374,744 square kilometres." and "6,500,000,000 population", we have :

6,500,000,000 : 374,744, 000, 000 = 0.017.

So in 1 m², we have 0.017 man.
So for 1 man, we have 58.8 m².

To have 1 man per m², we should have 3.82 x 10^11 people, which is more than our 6.5 x 10^9 people.

Ok your thing is : 374,744, 000, 000 : 6,500,000,000 = 57.6.

1 man = 57.6 m²

So, mathematically, you are true and I'm wrong, we can put it.
But for the living reasons (foot, mental etc.), we can't.
So for the same reasons, this is absurd and unrealistic to talk about putting each man next to another in a land, they need X m² each one, not only 1 m².
And I don't know how big a Civ4 tile is, but I know that we can't put a big number of units in a tile, even mathematically with "each man next to another".
And better is to leave maths as they are, this is unrealistic to set infinite for each tile, for mathematically like living reasons.

The population of New York is nearly twice that number in reality, yet in Civ a city always manages to occupy one tile. Is this therefore unrealistic?

In cities, you have buildings, and I have mentionned it in the main post :
"For the cities, put a higher limit, like 15. (or maybe more)
(This is also realistic, because you can put more armies in vertical buildings, than you can put on a wild land)"
But in a horizontal and straight wild land, you have less space, and in the forests, where the trees occupy more than 50% of the space, you have even less space for armies, so I'll suggest to put a lower limit for forests and jungles

Whatever it is realistic or not, I was thinking the same thing recently, i.e to limit the number of units that can be stacked on one tile, this could have some interesting effect on the game, maybe have some technoligies raise that limits, cities, of course, would have an higher limit (or even no limit at all) and even forts could have an higher limits, so they could become a valid option, at least.
Maybe every unit could have a certain value different for unit type, 1 for infantry, 2 for mounted units, etc and a tile couldn't contain more units which sum of these values go over a certain numbers.
I wonder if there is some mod that already do something like this, anybody knows?

edit: Put different limit to different terrains would be complicated. What do you do if you need to move a 5 unit stack in a terrain that can only contain 2?

maybe have some technoligies raise that limits, cities, of course, would have an higher limit

Good idea.

(or even no limit at all)

No, No, No, infinite is bad, very bad.

and even forts could have an higher limits, so they could become a valid option, at least.

Very good idea, and so the forts will finally become interesting to make, now they just give 25% defense instead of 50% so they are useless.

Maybe every unit could have a certain value different for unit type, 1 for infantry, 2 for mounted units, etc and a tile couldn't contain more units which sum of these values go over a certain numbers.

Maybe Yes, but also maybe No (among other reasons, for balancing issues).
This has to be more analysed.

edit: Put different limit to different terrains would be complicated. What do you do if you need to move a 5 unit stack in a terrain that can only contain 2?

This is not a problem, just break your group, you can't have all at a time ...