I wonder why everyone here talks about stacks of doom as something bad?


I totally love the clash of big sized armies!

of course there are big armies of men going to war against an other country! of course they don't attack with like 5 buddies and take down the enemies cities!


and NO, SoD doesn't mean automatic victory!

How often did I lose a big deadly stack to just 2-3 well placed units and some bad luck?

how often did I engage an enemie's big doomstack n the way to my cities and managed to win in an glorious battle?


I even sometimes marked landmarks for places where some epic battles I where fought!


Well at least SoD has never been so annoying to me that it justifies the complete revamp fail that Civ V has undergone to and that made all other parts of Civ V fail too.


Why don't you like SoD?

1. They were boring.
2. They were unrealistic.
3. They were unbalanced.
5. They required almost no strategy.
5. They made battles feel incomplete, and simplistic.

You said that you liked the idea of a big army vs a big army, to me SoD made it seems like small vs small, now that they sprawl out it makes it seem larger and more dramatic to me.

Thats what I feel about them. They were one of the things that I felt were broken in Civ 4, *remove*allong with wonders being too powerful.*remove* I have been corrected I was thinking of the wrong version. The other problem I had was civ 4 was Elizambeth and Haya Capac. I thought that *Finantial + Philisophical* was too powerful, and industrial could also replace philisophical by using wonders for great people.

I'm glad both of those things have been changed. There are otherthings I wish weren't changed, but SoD are not one of them.

The Civ 2 Great Library which gave you the techs owned by any other 2 countries...that was a good one, and the Howitzers that ignored city defense.

wonders were not too powerful, they were just right (now civ2 wonders were too powerful).

I won't say SOD's were great, but they are better than 1 upt. I actually would have liked to see an army system similar to CTP2. It's the best of both worlds. No more stacking 50 tanks into a stack. Armies should be diversified to counter threats from flanking units etc. You would still have lone units, they would hopefully slow down the army in time for your army to get there in time to save your cities. I think this would represent both classical warfare, and modern warfare really well.

lots of luck

there were too many situations where outcomes were determined by who managed to click fastest with their catapults

I love the feel of the new 1UPT. Lining up your army along the borders with the artillery behind. SoD was boring.

Admittedly the AI handling of 1UPT isn't so good, but I enjoy the tactical feel of 1UPT better than the old SoD.

Shamelessly copypasta'ing from another thread I posted in

I don't like your example though. I hated megastacks. They felt unweildy to me. This is possibly because I favour the tactical flavour that civ offers, rather than the beancounting strategic side of the previous ones, especially the beancounting of war.

It always felt like 'Do I have enough raw crap to throw at him/her in order to win?'. Especially with siege. Siege early on had retarded survival rates, to the point where you either invested withdrawl chance promotions and had a weaker collateral damage, or you spammed collateral and suicided it en-masse on every city you marched up to. Yes, this did mean your footsoldiers survived and became better promoted but honestly, it just felt like I wasn't being rewarded for preserving some of my units.

Late game became a little better, your units could perform a better variety of war tactics (especially with the advent of air units). Mid-game was defined by massive megastacks of cannons and rifles, which would result in you spamming your way through empires connected to yours, making it stupidly easy to win.

The only thing I begrudge CiV for not having is a group select button.

I agree. SOD worked fine for the scale in civ and a big plus for mobility. SODs were able to be used by the AI in a meaningful way that provided a challenge to the player. 1upt would be great is the AI could handle it equally as well as stacks.
I felt some degree of accomplishment when winning or even stalemating in wars against leaders like Montezuma and Julius, that meant my city defense and offensive SOD were well configured.

As far as no strategy. The same general rules of battle apply for the SOD that apply to 1upt; cities with siege/range, when cities are low defense/HP slap them with everything else, and don't leave siege/range units undefended. The AI in CiV has problems with the first and last bits of strategy.

Now about Wonders. There were 50+ Wonders in CivIV many went obsolete depending on tech, were only buildable in a certain era, and only effected the city they were built in. The CivIV wonders have smaller values than the wonders in civV and there are more of them spread around the Tech Tree meaning more accessibility for all of the civs in a game.

I personally like the Stacks of Doom. If a civ that had a production advantage was able to build a bigger, stronger army, so what? I liked how strong economy-building had an effect on the effectiveness of your military. That meant that good strategy could have a bearing on your military tactics.

Personally, I have played up through Emperor, and I usually haven't encountered SoDs bigger than maybe 15 units or so. I have found that there's actually a lot of tactical thinking to do, for example how to transport troops safely when the enemy's cavalry is inside your back lines, or adjusting which units you build depending on what strategic resources your enemy has (or does not have) access to, or figuring out whether to sacrifice catapults or to save them (weighing the advantages of a short blitz versus a longer, sustained attack that gives your enemy more time to strengthen their defenses), etc., etc.

I'm not expressing any opinion on Civ 5, because I haven't played it yet. I'm just saying that I don't think SoD made combat SO 'broken' that it was absolutely essential to scrap it.

SoDs might've been okay for EARLY wars, but after a while you'd get just massive SoDs and it'd get ridiculous. I hate shuffling through 30-50 units to get to my catapults, then to my swordsmen, then to my knights, etc. And I'd always be looking for a particular one of each unit and it was a huge pain to find it. I'm not sad at all to see the SoDs gone.

I'm still trying to finish my first game of this. Tedious is all I can say. I'm trying to shuffle around enough units to take Rome. I'm playing earth map, but Rome is where Vietnam would be for some reason. It's a large map though, but it's still hard trying to maneuver my units in such a way they don't get slaughtered.

At this point, I can't see how I can finish one game. Whose idea of fun is this? SOD's aren't nearly as much of a pain to find your catapults or whatever.

There has to be a better way to move around units in 1 upt. At this point, I'm just going to give up on taking cities and go for cultural, space victory or whatever. War just isn't fun in civ5.

1. They were boring.
2. They were unrealistic.
3. They were unbalanced.
5. They required almost no strategy.
5. They made battles feel incomplete, and simplistic.

You said that you liked the idea of a big army vs a big army, to me SoD made it seems like small vs small, now that they sprawl out it makes it seem larger and more dramatic to me.

Thats what I feel about them. They were one of the things that I felt were broken in Civ 4, *remove*allong with wonders being too powerful.*remove* I have been corrected I was thinking of the wrong version. The other problem I had was civ 4 was Elizambeth and Haya Capac. I thought that *Finantial + Philisophical* was too powerful, and industrial could also replace philisophical by using wonders for great people.

I'm glad both of those things have been changed. There are otherthings I wish weren't changed, but SoD are not one of them.

The Civ 2 Great Library which gave you the techs owned by any other 2 countries...that was a good one, and the Howitzers that ignored city defense.

Unrealistic? I dunno....They weren't great and coulda been VASTLY improved....but most armies for most of human history moved about in "stacks".

Yup, armies did move around that way. You don't see Hannibal have his armies scattered all about the Roman country side back in those days did you? He would have really struggled with 1upt as the Italian peninsula isn't that wide. :)

Yeah SOD's are just boring in every sense. In civ 3 and 4 no matter what difficulty you played on you could always win with simply one stack; no tatics. 1 upt sucks but its far better then sod. Civ 3 and 4 was simple get iron or horses, and build one big stack of swordsmen or horse archers. have all cities keep building the same unit and one city build archers (or spearmen in civ 3) then just crush one civ after another. No need for siege or any mixed units as even if they shoved 12 cannons at your stack it didn't matter cause you'd just keep pumpin out more troops to send to that one stack and just keep rolling over cities.

Bobafett0610, what difficulty level would you play? I find that perhaps what you're saying was true in my games at a lower difficulty level, but at a higher one I wouldn't want to just "have all cities building the same unit" because that would mean busting my economy on army maintenance and falling behind in the tech race.

@Capttight

I think it was called "Sid" or something in civ 4 for highest difficulty. But yes it would strain the economy thats for sure but after you wiped out 4 other civs with just swordsmen or horse archers it didn't really matter, cause with your few workers that would be built at the start, they're improving things the whole time ofcourse and then after you take a small break to build some other buildings in your cities you'd just save up your cash for a few turns, upgrade your horse archers or swordsmen and repeat. civ 5 pisses me off in a lot of ways, 1 upt including, but at least its somewhat requires me to pondor my moves instead of shoving one stack around the map on every hill/forest tile i can find going city to city.

SoDs might've been okay for EARLY wars, but after a while you'd get just massive SoDs and it'd get ridiculous. I hate shuffling through 30-50 units to get to my catapults, then to my swordsmen, then to my knights, etc. And I'd always be looking for a particular one of each unit and it was a huge pain to find it. I'm not sad at all to see the SoDs gone.

Those are UI problems. The mechanic worked nonetheless.

1. They were boring.
2. They were unrealistic.
3. They were unbalanced.
5. They required almost no strategy.
5. They made battles feel incomplete, and simplistic.

You said that you liked the idea of a big army vs a big army, to me SoD made it seems like small vs small, now that they sprawl out it makes it seem larger and more dramatic to me.

Thats what I feel about them. They were one of the things that I felt were broken in Civ 4, *remove*allong with wonders being too powerful.*remove* I have been corrected I was thinking of the wrong version. The other problem I had was civ 4 was Elizambeth and Haya Capac. I thought that *Finantial + Philisophical* was too powerful, and industrial could also replace philisophical by using wonders for great people.

I'm glad both of those things have been changed. There are otherthings I wish weren't changed, but SoD are not one of them.

The Civ 2 Great Library which gave you the techs owned by any other 2 countries...that was a good one, and the Howitzers that ignored city defense.



1. Boring
If SoDs were boring, 1UPT doesn't exactly make my blood run any faster either. Both still allowed me to left-click and right-click at my leisure. Failure to click quickly enough didn't result in a 'Game Over' screen for both instances.

Maybe there's delight to be had by surrounding that horseman with 12 spearmen, but that's a very rare occasion, doesn't really offset 1UPT's flaws.


2. Unrealistic
1UPT is actually more unrealistic than SoDs. Because of 1UPT, they had to make Archers shoot two tiles away to be worthwhile, same range as a Catapult. To distinguish the Longbowmen of the English, they had to shoot up to 3 tiles, same as a Modern Era Artillery!

A balance would probably be like a limit of 5-6 units per stack, RoM: RAND allowed that, but sadly the AI can't really handle it, a fantastic job by RAND modders nonetheless.

3. Unbalanced
A stack of pure Axemen wouldn't do well against a smaller stack Horse Archers in Civ IV. The thing is Combined Arms is not needed if and only, if the opponent doesn't employ Combined Arms. The AI of Civ IV does utilize Combined Arms, so making a pure stack wouldn't do much for your war effort.

1UPT doesn't break the balance further though.

4. No strategy
Siege Engines in Civ V are only good for one-tile bombardment. Siege Engines in Civ IV would wreak havoc on a stack. You have to choose; multiple smaller stacks, or a large combined stack.

1UPT doesn't actually add strategy either, just tactics. If you faced a line of Horsemen, send Pikemen against them, if they swapped their frontline with Swords, you'd just swap accordingly too. SoD does this tactical-level swapping automatically within a stack. 1UPT just adds more clicking.

5. Incomplete, and simplistic.
Without Withdrawal, units would die after a battle. A bit of a downer, agreed, but it sure sped things up.

Just my 2 cents!

Stacks of Doom seem to be the thing some people love to trash, even though 1upt turned out to be worthlessly hopeless. I like them, and a few of us said that Civ 5 should use limited stacks instead of 1upt before 5 was released. The reasons being that AI would not be good with 1upt, among other things. We were jumped then, and it's plain as day 1upt is far worse in every aspect than stacks.

Stacks have proven to be better than 1upt, because these companies just don't have the money to pour into making AI good enough in this type of setup for 1upt to work as well as we would like.

I suppose for those that absolutely see stacks as just 'horrible', also feel games like Alpha Centauri are horrible because of stacks? Didn't think so.

Hopefully in C6, they will use limited stacks and get back to Civ's foundation. Or maybe they (2K) will make it a real-time FPS like we all know they want to.

I for one, is glad to see stacks of doom gone, coz I have a tendency to go overboard with them, SoDs everywhere! Even have em protect a city everywhere too.

Homeland defense could easily consist of 100 units with like 10 per metropolis depending on the lay of map that is. And that's the minimum.

Oh I had invading sods Vassalizing enemy countries which in turn produces even more sods protecting me invading my enemies And I proceeded to vassalize even more countries in turn gives me further superior view of world looking for invading sods intend on decapitating me, but I can see them coming far far away already thanks to my vassals protecting me and vice versa.

I prefer 1upt allows far more interesting battles to occur.

With SoDs, its a production number battle.

While with 1upt, eh dunno.

Interesting fights does happen with sods but for me, they're unfortunately too far and few while I've been having alot of interesting fights on civ 5

No point going back to those hideous stacks.

And as we can see, it wouldnt be very healthy decision from Firaxis to make them come back. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=389254

No point going back to those hideous stacks.

And as we can see, it wouldnt be very healthy decision from Firaxis to make them come back. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=389254

The poll was conducted in the Civ 5 forum. It is entirely natural that a feature which is actually present in Civ 5 will be the most popular one with the voters, but that doesn't mean that out of the potential buyers of Civ6, the majority prefers 1UPT.

SoD was great. Sure it had its flaws, but nothing that couldnt be fixed. A 10UPT or 15UPT would bring the best from both worlds and be a little bit more realistic. 50 armies sharing the same tile was a bit overkill. OTOH is 1 unit of archers in a huge area a bit...RTS strategy like and lacking the Epic battles that Civ4 had. I mean, close your eyes and think about the grand war movies. Not really a 1UPT that comes into my mind.
1UPT also negates combined arms tactics and its a somehow micromanagement disaster to move a "grand" (which it never really feels like) army against the enemy. 1 by 1 by 1 by 1 by 1, oh f.ck another of my allies is blocking my way....
Just for the record : I love 1UPT in some TBS games. Panzer General, Battle Isle and the like. Its great there
because of different unit movements (usually ALOT more moves per unit which made different real life battle tactics possible),
because its a battlefield (not an entire world.),
because the units were preplaced (not having to move them into position, which for the player is boredom and for the AI is.... mmm.... difficult to say in a nice way)

The poll was conducted in the Civ 5 forum. It is entirely natural that a feature which is actually present in Civ 5 will be the most popular one with the voters, but that doesn't mean that out of the potential buyers of Civ6, the majority prefers 1UPT.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=389254

This poll has 988 voters. How many people there are in Civfanatics? Does civ4 forums have another 1000 voters from wich over 70% would certainly vote for ''Against'' option?

You can speculate all you can but what i see right now are some hard numbers ''For'' 1upt.

Another way is to combine it. Make the armies walk in stacks but attack in 1UPT.
F.ex. :

DO YOU WISH TO ATTACK CHARLEMANGE? : YES / NO / INFO (bringing an infoscreen on Charlemagne)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=277281&stc=1&d=1293702047

TACTICAL VIEW OR AUTORESOLVE?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=277282&stc=1&d=1293702047

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=389254

This poll has 988 voters. How many people there are in Civfanatics? Does civ4 forums have another 1000 voters from wich over 70% would certainly vote for ''Against'' option?

You can speculate all you can but what i see right now are some hard numbers ''For'' 1upt.

I am not the one who is speculating :p These numbers aren't "hard numbers" because the sample they are derived from is highly biased.

I am not the one who is speculating :p These numbers aren't "hard numbers" because the sample they are derived from is highly biased.

Really? Im the one whos speculating?

And as we can see, it wouldnt be very healthy decision from Firaxis to make them come back. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=389254


The poll was conducted in the Civ 5 forum. It is entirely natural that a feature which is actually present in Civ 5 will be the most popular one with the voters

I think i just gave you the numbers and you are the one who is speculating :)

I really miss those SoD :(

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=389254

This poll has 988 voters. How many people there are in Civfanatics? Does civ4 forums have another 1000 voters from wich over 70% would certainly vote for ''Against'' option?

You can speculate all you can but what i see right now are some hard numbers ''For'' 1upt.



Members: 201,131

I am for the idea of 1upt too but not the civV implementation.

Members: 201,131

I am for the idea of 1upt too but not the civV implementation.

Yeah i agree that the combat AI could be MUCH better. I have said this many times but i say it again. IMO the combat AI needs a difficulty settings of it own, so that we would have two difficulty settings, one for game and one for combat AI. This way the ones that doesnt really care for tactical combat in civ game can adjust it to easy.

Really? Im the one whos speculating?






I think i just gave you the numbers and you are the one who is speculating :)

You didn't just "give the numbers", if you had just written the link you would have done that. But you also said "it wouldnt be very healthy decision from Firaxis" to make SoDs come back - that was speculating, and given the sample of the poll is extremely biased, your speculation was quite unfounded.

You didn't just "give the numbers", if you had just written the link you would have done that. But you also said "it wouldnt be very healthy decision from Firaxis" to make SoDs come back - that was speculating, and given the sample of the poll is extremely biased, your speculation was quite unfounded.

I gave you the numbers that are available. And according to those available numbers, it wouldnt be very healthy decision from Firaxis to bring back stacks. This is what we DO know. Your comment about where the poll is located is pure speculation.

What mod are the screenshots from Vincentz from? It looks awesome.

Stacks versus 1UPT isn't really the debate here. It's the somewhat absurd unlimited stacking that turn stacks into SoD. Although stacks of ennui may be a better term for the things.

Ironically Civ5 has swapped mindless boring combat for mindless boring everything else. Now if only we could have Civ4, but with fun combat.

@ krasny
The first picture is from my mod (see my sig), while the second is a constructed setup of how I could imagine battles to be more epic using 1UPT in a tactical view/popup.

Another way is to combine it. Make the armies walk in stacks but attack in 1UPT.
F.ex. :

DO YOU WISH TO ATTACK CHARLEMANGE? : YES / NO / INFO (bringing an infoscreen on Charlemagne)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=277281&stc=1&d=1293702047

TACTICAL VIEW OR AUTORESOLVE?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=277282&stc=1&d=1293702047

OR

SIRE! CHARLEMAGNE HAS BESIEGED OUR CITY OF PERSEPOLIS, AND IS PREPARING AN ASSAULT. WOULD YOU LIKE TO DEFEND OR AUTORESOLVE
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=277286&stc=1&d=1293707516

LET THE WAR BEGIN!
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=277287&stc=1&d=1293707516

The second screenshot is only a plan. :cry:

I look forward to playing it when it's released!

I wonder how this double screen would work in multiplayer....

I wonder how this double screen would work in multiplayer....

Autoresolve :mischief: and/or pause game. But I think that 99% of Civilization games are played single player, so even though it couldnt be done in MP it would still be justified.
BTW can Total War be played in MP? And how do they "fix" it if it can.

Stacks of doom were a big improvement over the 'stacks of precariousness' which came before them, whereby you could kill an entire stack by defeating one defending unit.

Call to Power implemented a much better way to deal with stacking units long before even Civ3 came out. But Sid Meier personally insisted on completely ignoring any civ game made by another company or by other people. The end result was the retardation of the progress of the Civ series which continues to this day.

Autoresolve :mischief: and/or pause game. But I think that 99% of Civilization games are played single player, so even though it couldnt be done in MP it would still be justified.
BTW can Total War be played in MP? And how do they "fix" it if it can.

I don't know for total war, but seeing all the cries for MP functionnality in civ forums, i wouldn't say that MP is not to take into account...

To me, I attack early and win early in Civ IV. The SOD I use to conquer the world tend to be less than 20 units, reinforced by units to defend the captured cities and replace minor losses. I usually win in the 16th century or earlier when starting in the Ancient era. Since I attack early, the AIs don't have many troops.
Some of the people who complain about SOD, spend many turns to create a big stack of hundreds of units and then dislike the fact that the AI manages to crank out an even bigger stack during that same number of turns and defeat them at Deity level. Their solution should be: 1) play at lower level or 2) attack earlier with smaller stacks.
SOD is not much different from a big group of zerglings in Starcraft. Sure, if a poorly-defended base is swarmed by them then there's not much "strategy" required for the attacker. The strategy comes from managing the economy to create those units, targeting the right base and the timing of the attack, not the manipulation of the units in the attack itself.
People who like the manipulation of the units in a battle should probably play Total War not this simplistic 1upt battle which requires very little thought from the human but poses a big annoyance to do anything, 90% of them have nothing to do with fighting battles. I could almost swear that the AI is programmed to send units to stand around and block my workers from building roads. That's just pure annoyance, not battle strategy and it happen a lot more than fighting battles. Or my settler can't cross my worker who is busy building a road across a mountain pass. If I stack a settler on top of a worker, do they create a SOD and that's why it's not allowed ? /snark
I think 1UPT is a braindead idea. If it's confined to the battle only then it's not too bad but it is not. Calling it a new combat scheme is a misnomer. My settler and worker are not combating anybody. They just do the usual stuff done in any Civ game: building up an empire and making it prosperous. Why should anybody create 1UPT to prevent that and make the game annoying as hell to play ?

@Horizons:
True.

--------------------
And about that pool, I believe the numbers would be different if another pool was created now, all the last post are against 1upt.

1. They were boring.
2. They were unrealistic.
3. They were unbalanced.
5. They required almost no strategy.
5. They made battles feel incomplete, and simplistic.


I'm just curious what difficulty level these people played on... Because they always make Civ IV sound so easy; "Make an invincible stack to conquer the world, pump out missionaries to make everybody love you".

I would consider myself rather good at the game, playing mostly at Immortal. While an early axeman rush often is profitable, but it will hurt the science output and if you don't have plenty of gold/gems/beavers, it will be very hard to support all units and cities, unless of course you raze everything, which will hurt you even more in the long run. It's not like you can pump out 30 axemen and steamroll the world.

I cannot stress this enough: Civilization is about strategic management, not battle tactics... Like the original Settlers! games... The battle outcome will mostly be based on how well your empire is doing and on which units you send in. When people complain about the "my stack is bigger than yours"-issue, they actually complain about the very concept of the game, which is to be more productive/efficiant than your opponents.

I've built missionaries occasionally to increase my income, but I'm finding it hard to believe that someone successfully manipulated the entire world to love them. Religion is only one thing that affects the diplomatic modifiers and many Civs don't even care about it. And there will always be Civs that don't like the Civics you have picked. And if you actually waste all your hammers on building missionaries, your Civ will probably be crippled in many ways, so even if you actually make everybody love you, it's not like your going to win the game by doing so... At least not after they tweaked the AP in a patch.

And all these "exploits", are actually what made Civ IV such a great game. Yes, building tons of Axemen can be deadly powerful. But building missionaries on the other hand, can boost your income and improve your relations with other leaders. Spamming cottages will secure your economy in the future, but specialist can give you a quick economy boost. Spies can instantly bring the cultural defenses.

There are TONS of really powerful tools, but you can't use them all at the same time. And the AI can use these tools as well. This leads to endless combinations and stories to tell.

I'm finding it hard to believe that someone successfully manipulated the entire world to love them.Open borders, years of peace, fair and forthwright trading, fought a war together, honored a request, and I suspect I'm missing several more.

That doesn't touch on religion, which often needed zero missionaries (the dominant religion spread to you), or power ratios, which combined with distance both modify an AI's behavior.

Open borders, years of peace, fair and forthwright trading, fought a war together, honored a request, and I suspect I'm missing several more.

That doesn't touch on religion, which often needed zero missionaries (the dominant religion spread to you), or power ratios, which combined with distance both modify an AI's behavior.

If you fight a war together, that means that other AI's will hate you instead. What I meant is that it's very hard to make the entire world love you. Eventually someone will hate you.

To be able to befriend your closest neighbour by picking the same civics, religions and fight wars togehter is not an exploit; It's a realistic mechanism and it gives builders the chance to defend their wonders without launching pre-emptive strikes.

TACTICAL VIEW OR AUTORESOLVE?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=277282&stc=1&d=1293702047

This is unlikely to ever be in the game as long as it has Sid's name on it. He's pretty much said so already:

So I call it the "Covert Action Rule". Don't try to do too many games in one package. And that's actually done me a lot of good. You can look at the games I've done since Civilization, and there's always opportunities to throw in more stuff. When two units get together in Civilization and have a battle, why don't we drop out to a war game and spend ten minutes or so in duking out this battle? Well, the Covert Action Rule. Focus on what the game is.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_Action#The_Covert_Action_Rule

Isnt it excactly what he did in Pirates???

edit : besides. Sid's vision is Civ Rev. I certainly hope he doesnt have anything to do with civ 6 other than putting his name on the box

Of all the Civ-like games I've played Civ: Call to Power 2 had the best approach to this. There was a 12 unit cap on any one square with units ordered by functionality, i.e. melee at the front, ranged at the back and flanking at the sides. Ranged fired first, then melee hammered it out with flanking units attacking from the front or sides. As front units died the ones behind moved forward. It was simple and easy and the AI could handle it well. The stack couple was grouped into an army and very easy to move around. In many ways the game is superior to the current incarnation of Civ.

Isnt it excactly what he did in Pirates???

If you read the whole quote on the wiki page, he does mention it, but it sounds like he doesn't see it a problem in that game:

I think, individually, those each could have been good games. Together, they fought with each other. You would have this mystery that you were trying to solve, then you would be facing this action sequence, and you'd do this cool action thing, and you'd get on the building, and you'd say, "What was the mystery I was trying to solve?" Covert Action integrated a story and action poorly, because the action was actually too intense. In Pirates!, you would do a sword fight or a ship battle, and a minute or two later, you were kind of back on your way. In Covert Action, you'd spend ten minutes or so of real time in a mission, and by the time you got out of [the mission], you had no idea of what was going on in the world.

For the record, I loved Covert Action in it's day ...

This is unlikely to ever be in the game as long as it has Sid's name on it. He's pretty much said so already:


It probably can be modded in, though.

It probably can be modded in, though.

I don't know the first thing about modding, so I don't know what is and isn't possible, but if so, then great.

Sometimes I think that people forget about the whole point of modding when discussing Civ V. I've heard people ask why they should rely on mods to "fix" the game. While I'll agree that something like an adequate AI should be in the base game, other "problems" are exactly the thing of mods.

The designers have their vision of things, like tile yields, or production/tech times. Don't like them? Mod it. The whole reason mods exist is because different people have different tastes and mods allow people to tailor the game as they want it.

Its definately one of my favorite approaches in games. You have a strategic view for management and then action in a tactical.
It worked so sweet in tons of games, and while it somehow would focus on combat and battles, its perfectly capable of maintaining Civ'ing in the strategic view (maybe even better than 1UPT Civ5).

@ Dralix.
Yep, I read it, but after I posted:mischief:. But this idea wouldnt be very far from land battles in Pirates, maybe even shorter time, less micromanagement, better implementation. He does kinda contradict himself.

I'm surprised how many people like 1 upt. As I mentioned in an earlier post this thread, I don't think I'll ever finish my first game.

It took like 20 minutes to set all my troops up for a war declaration (some where ambhibious). That simply is not fun for me. 20 minutes just to get everything in position! Not to mention the war itself was very tedious. I guess I don't like tactical level games. They ruined civilization for me as far as I'm concerned. I prefer things on a strategic level. I prefer building, not spending hours on just one war.

Complain all you want about stacks -- boring, frustrating, whatever -- those are personal preferences. But you can't really call them unrealistic compared to 1UPT.

They are appropriate for the level of detail Civ is supposed to be. Warfare at the strategic level is about diplomacy and production. The only positioning you should have to micro at that level is getting your units to the correct theater and picking their objectives (which city you want to take first).

Stalin, Churchill, and FDR beat Hitler by outproducing him, not by putting archers tanks in the right spot to support the longswordsmen infantry. The people who had to do that part didn't have to deal with empire management. This isn't to say tactics isn't important and it's not a defense of stacks as fun -- it's just not really the same level at all.

Stacks allowed at least one lower level of warfare as well -- the operational level. SoD feels annoying and tedious to deal with when you play against AI because they probably declared war on you first after their stack had already formed. If you attacked first or if you fought against a human player, you would get to notice the operational level, which is much more fun than strategic level and makes more sense than the tactical level.

Force Concentration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_concentration) -- If you caught the AI unawares, you'll have a chance to defeat his units piecemeal as he tries to mass them into a stack of death.

Economy of Force (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_force) -- Human players are less willing than AI to only complete 1 objective at a time (the price of a SoD). So it's a race to see who had the right number of stacks in the right configurations.

I like Civ5's combat, it's kinda fun. It's jarring to me of course because of how inappropriate it is to strategic empire management, but that's fine, it's only a game. I am annoyed like hell by the Civ4 AI's stacks of death, like everyone else. But in the right conditions (usually against human players), stack combat is actually very exciting. It's just not as unrealistic as everyone thinks!

In war history books and wikipedia articles, they always show maps with clean lines to signify the front. Other than a few exceptional wars like the late stages of Korea, the late stages of the Iran-Iraq war, or the western front in World War 1, that's actually pretty deceptive. Most of the time, what you really had were mass concentrations of units shadowing each other, kind of like stacks chasing other stacks. The rest of the "lines" were relatively minor units trying look for weaknesses to exploit (smaller stacks separated to expand your field of view so you couldn't be surprised through the fog of war).

The opening of Napoleon's 1812 campaign in Russia can be summarized as a humongous French stack chasing a Russian stack as it fell back trying to accumulate more and more slaved/drafted units. His retreat is eerily similar to a huge stack of damaged units trying to get back to friendly territory as it is nipped in the heels by fresh enemy cavalry and hounded by Russia's own and now-complete (and fully-healed) stack of doom.

I'm really oversimplifying and generalizing, but again it's really not that unrealistic!

On Civ IV I played on Noble and V I play on Prince. It's not that I can't play higher difficulties I just like the difficulties where the AI doesn't get "bonuses". That is if and when I play by myself which I rarely did. I usually did hotseat or LAN or online. BTW still waiting for my hotseat 2k.

I know in my original post it sounded like I was saying 1UPT was the only way, as if I don't see any flaws, but I see the flaws in 1UPT. I just rather have the 1UPT over the SoD.

For example units can't move over the same tile even in peace time. Lots of units are difficult to move all at once, even when they don't need deployed till they arrive.

Personally I would favor stacks where only one leader unit can attack or defend. This would make movement easier, and eliminate the blocked path problem.

Smaller hexs might help too, or sub hexes.

Most of good classic TBS used 1upt. Check (freeware) Panzer General 2 or Wesnoth, among others. Advance Wars is also great, though not free.

But so far, for world-scale empire-building game I think SOD is both more wieldy and more realistic. Most of the history wars, except first half of 20th century, was decided in SOD vs SOD - like battles.

The great thing about 1upt is that we get multiple versions of this discussion every single day!

I liked them. Especially since they were much easier to use/manage in MP; compare that to the complete and utter unplayable garbage that is Civ5 MP and you'll know what I mean.

I'm just curious what difficulty level these people played on... Because they always make Civ IV sound so easy; "Make an invincible stack to conquer the world, pump out missionaries to make everybody love you".

I would consider myself rather good at the game, playing mostly at Immortal. While an early axeman rush often is profitable, but it will hurt the science output and if you don't have plenty of gold/gems/beavers, it will be very hard to support all units and cities, unless of course you raze everything, which will hurt you even more in the long run. It's not like you can pump out 30 axemen and steamroll the world.

I cannot stress this enough: Civilization is about strategic management, not battle tactics... Like the original Settlers! games... The battle outcome will mostly be based on how well your empire is doing and on which units you send in. When people complain about the "my stack is bigger than yours"-issue, they actually complain about the very concept of the game, which is to be more productive/efficiant than your opponents.

I've built missionaries occasionally to increase my income, but I'm finding it hard to believe that someone successfully manipulated the entire world to love them. Religion is only one thing that affects the diplomatic modifiers and many Civs don't even care about it. And there will always be Civs that don't like the Civics you have picked. And if you actually waste all your hammers on building missionaries, your Civ will probably be crippled in many ways, so even if you actually make everybody love you, it's not like your going to win the game by doing so... At least not after they tweaked the AP in a patch.

And all these "exploits", are actually what made Civ IV such a great game. Yes, building tons of Axemen can be deadly powerful. But building missionaries on the other hand, can boost your income and improve your relations with other leaders. Spamming cottages will secure your economy in the future, but specialist can give you a quick economy boost. Spies can instantly bring the cultural defenses.

There are TONS of really powerful tools, but you can't use them all at the same time. And the AI can use these tools as well. This leads to endless combinations and stories to tell.

Excellent post.

@Bad Brett
@marty4286

Love your posts!

And marty, from what I know of the Civil War, while there were fronts WITHIN battles, but there were also "stacks chasing each other" between Lee and Grant and mobility of "stacks" themselves became an issue. I agree that SoDs are not necessarily "unrealistic."

Again, the argument isn't between 1UPT and stacks, it's between 1UPT and SOD. As has been mentioned, SOD != stacks (rather SOD instanceof stack :) ).

I like 1UPT, and I like small stacks. 1UPT is not really ideal for strategic games on maps this small, it's too "horizontal", but SOD was too "vertical", I just had a big stack from which I would choose units to attack another vertical stack.

1UPT "looks" better on the map, with units spread out and ranged and flanking units represented well. But it just has problems with the scale of the maps and the AI. Choosing between 1UPT and SOD I'd probably go with 1UPT because I like the idea better. However, for me the real solution would be limited stacking (closer to CTP than to the Civ III army) or a tactical battle map (would be very cool but it's far from Civ's philosophy and might be jarring going to and from).

And lol at Kerosene31's post. So funny because it's true.

Is Carpet of Death better than Stack of Death?

I'm no fan of either of those. SOD where kinda boring and with equal situations, whoever attacks first with siege will be the winner. On the other hand, 1UPT is just slow, way too slow in comparison to move 30+ units with just one click.

If I have to choose I'm sticking with SOD because they are faster to manage and they felt pretty epic, and at least you still have the option to play with more tiles if you want (mini-stacks in this case. Sometimes they are better than just one big stack)

This post is not the 'great truth' this is simply just my opinion.


It was frustrating to search and count trough my giant SoD(s). ''Does it have enough SAM infantry to survive enemy Gunships, ah I only have 6 SAM infantry in my 50+ unit SoD, lets build at least 4 more’’. I didn’t like it, IMO it was unnecessary micromanaging to just pump up units to a stack to make it bigger and to manage those stacks. Also, because I could stack units in a cities I also MUST stack units in cities to protect them properly, this also raises the overall unit count. IMO, this type of system where you just keep on pumping more and more units isnt really too strategical, altough I am 100% sure that the AI is much MUCH better at pumping hundreds of units than it is in 1upt tactical combat, but unfortunately the AI is so good at pumping out units that this actually becomes a problem, because it just makes you pump even more units and eventually you have over 400 units to manage. Although even that isnt enough in some civ4 games, typically the ones with big map and hard difficulty level. And yes you must also manage those huge stacks so that you have the best units for the job to take a city, defend a city but you also you need (suicide) siege weapons and units to defend your other units from air attack, so you cant just ignore the unit stack micromanaging.

IMO, it doesnt matter if its 1upt or infinite stacking (SoD) the only way for the AI to compete with human players is that it builds more units than the human player does. But in SoD system at higher difficulty levels, this means hundreds and hunreds of units. Managing of hundreds and hundreds of units and building competitive stacks out of them becomes so very, VERY hideous. Im not saying that it would be always fun to move rather large army in 1upt system but at LEAST 1upt has lesser units AND at least 1upt has some tactical combat in it.

IMO, if you look it purely from gaming/fun perspective, 1upt tactical combat (or some other tactical system wich is not just based on ‘bigger is always better’ -like unit spam that infinite stacking a.k.a. SoD represents) will be a much better solution for civ game. It doesnt only have less units to manage but it also adds tactical perspective to the battles.


This post was not the 'great truth' this was simply just my opinion.

I don't think 1upt will ever work properly in a Civ game so they'll have to come up with something better. Stacks make plenty of sense from an historical perspective and from a gameplay perspective. They just need to learn from what was done with stacks in the past to improve them for Civ 6.

Is Carpet of Death better than Stack of Death?Since the only way to get a Carpet of Death is by playing the game on Settler or being the AI on Immortal or Deity, while simply playing a Civ game with stacking always lead to one dimensional SoDs (heh, literally one dimension too), I'd say yes, the nonexistent-in-normal-gameplay CoD is better than the always-occurs SoD.

Since the only way to get a Carpet of Death is by playing the game on Settler or being the AI on Immortal or Deity, while simply playing a Civ game with stacking always lead to one dimensional SoDs (heh, literally one dimension too), I'd say yes, the nonexistent-in-normal-gameplay CoD is better than the always-occurs SoD.

I would love to play against your 1 dimensional SOD. It would be a welcome break from fighting the AI that uses some depth when making a stack.

I like stacks for 1 reason: Wars were not one sided. In Civ5 to beat the AI in a war all you have to do is beat it at its front line. The rest is city razing. In previous Civ's the AI could lose its main army but it could easily build back its army quickly. This led you to make tactical choices in wars. For instance you should shut down the AI's high production cities so it can't produce units as fast. Send a strike force there to take the city while the AI's main army is distracted with your other army. Stacks brought out tactical war, not tactical combat. Your not a commander in Civ, your a world leader.

Stacks in Civ4 were greatly improved from Civ3 and there was still more Fraxis could have done with stacks. What other fun games use stacks?: the Total War series uses stacks, although there is RTS combat when the stacks colide, the turn-based portion of the game involves the use of stacks. Paradox games use stacks (excluding HoI3 which has a tactical front system). EU3 is a great example, you have stacks of units and you send them to invade provinces.

What games don't have stacks? Panzer General, chess, checkers.

Panzer General is a strategy war game, so is chess, and checkers to a degree. Total war is a war game as well, but it has empire management in it. EU3 is a perfect example: yes watching the units fight is boring, but combat is not the point of EU3. You are suposed to lead a nation, using trade, diplomacy, espionage, religion, ect. Sound familiar? Sounds like Civ. Stacks are part of Civ, and I embrace them.

Soooo, you're saying Civ 4's combat was boring, but that's good because it makes the rest of the game look better in comparison?

I like stacks for 1 reason: Wars were not one sided. In Civ5 to beat the AI in a war all you have to do is beat it at its front line. The rest is city razing. In previous Civ's the AI could lose its main army but it could easily build back its army quickly. This led you to make tactical choices in wars. For instance you should shut down the AI's high production cities so it can't produce units as fast. Send a strike force there to take the city while the AI's main army is distracted with your other army. Stacks brought out tactical war, not tactical combat. Your not a commander in Civ, your a world leader.
That is not a problem with 1upt. That is a problem with build time.

Civ4 wars were over in one turn. If they weren't, it was just a clean-up afterwards. The AI put all its units in one giant stack and let itself be mowed down by collateral damage. There is no defending war in Civ4, it was terrible all around. Civ4's strength was in building.

(Yes, I'm talking about high difficulties like Immortal and Deity).

Soooo, you're saying Civ 4's combat was boring, but that's good because it makes the rest of the game look better in comparison?

The recent threads have been talking about stacks of death and none of CivFanaticMan's posts imply or use any word that can be construed to mean 'boring' as his description of the CivIV SOD.

His post was very much the opposite of what you are trying to imply. He said he liked SOD for one reason, he mentioned 'fun' games that have stacks, and for a game on the level of civ that combat was ancillary to what empire building is about.

That is not a problem with 1upt. That is a problem with build time.
Combat doesn't exist in a vacuum. The implications of 1UPT is more than simply just 1 unit on a tile, Sullla talked it in his review. The choice to make the map 1UPT meant production times had to be lengthened.


Civ4 wars were over in one turn. If they weren't, it was just a clean-up afterwards.Assuming that you are on the same continent, I believe? Even so, the inevitable loss of some of your units due to SoD would mean you wouldn't be able to push as deep as you like into enemy territory in a non-stop blitz.

Civ V, once the line is broken, its flat tank country all the way to Washington. No meaningful resistance afterward, simply because of long build times.

The AI put all its units in one giant stack and let itself be mowed down by collateral damage.
I have yet to see this happening. Even on lower difficulties that I play, the AI has multiple unit stacks shifting about. Maybe my experience with the AI differs from yours.

There is no defending war in Civ4, it was terrible all around. Civ4's strength was in building.
Wait till your army is overseas invading and your neighbor decides to invade you. Suddenly, you'll be trying to put together a coherent force to resist invasion.

yeah... stacks are boring. I have so much fun with the new Carpets of Doom!

Since the only way to get a Carpet of Death is by playing the game on Settler or being the AI on Immortal or Deity, while simply playing a Civ game with stacking always lead to one dimensional SoDs (heh, literally one dimension too), I'd say yes, the nonexistent-in-normal-gameplay CoD is better than the always-occurs SoD.

I played Civ4 mostly on Noble, and never actually seen a SoD bigger than maybe 30 units. On higher levels when AI have huge discounts on upkeep AND promotion of obsolete units - yes, there were humongous SoD. But that's a problem of poor AI programming, not stacking mechanics in itself.

Combat doesn't exist in a vacuum. The implications of 1UPT is more than simply just 1 unit on a tile, Sullla talked it in his review. The choice to make the map 1UPT meant production times had to be lengthened.

I read his article, and disagree with him on that point. You can put more units on the map than what we're seeing and the game will also still be fine. It would also be nice to be able to lose a unit and not think "well gee, this siege is over". Units right now don't die in a well played game, and if they do, they hurt way too much to replace. Decrease unit/building build times, and increase damage across the board, and we'll see a much better game.

Civ V, once the line is broken, its flat tank country all the way to Washington. No meaningful resistance afterward, simply because of long build times.
Not really, post-patch. This is much more common in Civ4 as after the *HUGE STACK OF EVERY UNIT IN THE EMPIRE* is defeated in one round, the only thing stopping you is city defense %. The AI was dumb enough to put all the eggs into one basket even on Deity. Honestly, I'd prefer the Civ5 AI of archer martyrs than go back to that.


Assuming that you are on the same continent, I believe? Even so, the inevitable loss of some of your units due to SoD would mean you wouldn't be able to push as deep as you like into enemy territory in a non-stop blitz.

Wait till your army is overseas invading and your neighbor decides to invade you. Suddenly, you'll be trying to put together a coherent force to resist invasion.
Not in Civ4 BTS. The AI was incapable of running a decent naval war. Can we leave naval wars out of this entirely? The AI sucks at them in both Civ4 and Civ5. I've never been impressed by it.

If I want to navally invade an AI in Civ4, it's the exact same thing as the same continent except less chance of a repercussion, and less need of land bombardments. I land on a hill/forest next to a city, the AI stupidly attacks me and loses, then turtles in the city and loses its remaining units. No fun at all.

I have yet to see this happening. Even on lower difficulties that I play, the AI has multiple unit stacks shifting about. Maybe my experience with the AI differs from yours.
It's the strategies used and less about difficulty. Just mosey on next to an AI city next to a hill and watch what happens. I played on Prince when I started and saw this all the time, then moved to Immortal/Deity and saw this all the time.

I've seen much better out of the Civ5 AI than the Civ4 AI. The difference is in Civ5 there is more choices that the player and AI have to better their situation, but the AI doesn't use them nearly as well as the player does. Once they actually make the AI half decent, then 1upt will shine as the better mechanic. Until then I think we have to suffer.

SoD didn't do it for me. I didn't like stacking units to win... It didn't feel like a war... your whole army in one square.. and I hated how siege worked as well. In Civ5, I spend more time in war. Figuring out things like logistics, and how to take a city and move troops. I have to consider movement and swapping troops. Placing units that heal in the right locations. Forming small armies at choke points and have ranged units support those chokes. I like the building and I like the 1upt. I understand that some players like the combat of stacked units.. and maybe there is a happy medium. But I find myself having a lot more fun with 1upt.

The game has flaws, that is for sure... but for me, how war works currently isn't one of them. (To note. I separate the mechanic 1upt from the AI. To me, they are separate things so I don't blame 1upt for the failing AI, I blame the designers.)

The problem was that units were too cheap in the modern era. You could easily produce a Tank in three turns, and that made late game battles very tedious. This could have been fixed by doubling the production costs. In the early game, SoD's are rarely a problem.

The problem was that units were too cheap in the modern era. You could easily produce a Tank in three turns, and that made late game battles very tedious. This could have been fixed by doubling the production costs. In the early game, SoD's are rarely a problem.

Question: Do you or anyone else see ''the best defender always defends'' -thing as problem in SoD's?

Question: Do you or anyone else see ''the best defender always defends'' -thing as problem in SoD's?

Yes, because I was the one (maybe there were others before me, I don't know) who suggested that the attacker should pick the weakest defender instead.

That way you could move your units together and store them in a single tile, but it would not be a good idea to put the entire stack outside an enemy city.

My point is that problems should be solved with innovative solutions, not restrictions (as in Civ V).

My point is that problems should be solved with innovative solutions, not restrictions (as in Civ V).

A really good solution, IMHO, would be allowing some ranged units and/or mounted units to be able to target a certain unit in a stack, similar to "stealth attack" in Civ3 Conquest.

1. They were boring.
2. They were unrealistic.
3. They were unbalanced.
5. They required almost no strategy.
5. They made battles feel incomplete, and simplistic.

This.

1. They were not boring. I like building lots of units and gigantic battles!
2. I'm sorry, they were not unrealistic. What's unrealistic about being able to concentrate force in one particular area? That's pretty realistic, if you ask me. (and conversely, what's realistic about 1UPT?)
3. How exactly were they unbalanced? And why can't they be fixed?
4. Wrong. you need to know which units to stack, and how to counter enemy's stacks.
5. That's a matter of personal taste. Personally, I like big armies and strategic (as opposed to tactical) combat.

Yeah, great that 1UPT is fun to play, however - it kills the Civ game. Adds one plus in combat area, while many minuses in all others, so game in whole - loses.
Its mechanics just doesnt fit to STRATEGY game that focuses on building and empire. I won't list all reasons here, because there were a lot of similar threads that explained this problem already.

Whats the need for turning Civ with 1UPT into Panzer General modelled wargame? The franchise that actually didnt stand the test of time? If you really are soooo excited about 1UPT, why not to play original PG, which is definitely better wargame than Civ5 in terms of AI, challenge and possibilities? Simply, I don't understand that.

For "building empire" game to work properly, another combat mechanics is needed. Simple mechanics that resulted with SoD's in Civ4 surely isnt the top of creation. Unfortunately for devs, it should go into system that looks simple, but shouldnt be simple - with unit per tile cap, and different penalties and bonuses that should encourage player to spread his units.

1. Boring
If SoDs were boring, 1UPT doesn't exactly make my blood run any faster either. Both still allowed me to left-click and right-click at my leisure. Failure to click quickly enough didn't result in a 'Game Over' screen for both instances.
Then the fault is in your play style. Sorry ! Most of the people enjoy 1UPT more than SODs. :(

4. No strategy
Siege Engines in Civ V are only good for one-tile bombardment. Siege Engines in Civ IV would wreak havoc on a stack. You have to choose; multiple smaller stacks, or a large combined stack.

Siege Units in cIV were suicide units => Unrealistic & no strategy. Suicide your catapults, then follow up with rest of your stack. The one who brings more dozens of troops will win => Boring

Then the fault is in your play style. Sorry ! Most of the people enjoy 1UPT more than SODs. :(

I'm sorry, but you don't speak for "most people".

Siege Units in cIV were suicide units => Unrealistic & no strategy. Suicide your catapults, then follow up with rest of your stack. The one who brings more dozens of troops will win => Boring

Unrealistic =/= no strategy, as 1UPT demonstrates.

Suicide siege units are a problem, but that's not a problem with the concept of stacking, but rather the implementation.

Soooo, you're saying Civ 4's combat was boring, but that's good because it makes the rest of the game look better in comparison?

well if thats the case, then Civ5's combat is fun, but that makes the rest of the game look boring...

I'm sorry, but you don't speak for "most people".

What about THIS (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=389254) ? :thumbsdown:
Unrealistic =/= no strategy, as 1UPT demonstrates.

:scan: Sorry but that does not make sense. 1UPT requires more strategy than SODs & that is obvious.

What about THIS (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=389254) ? :thumbsdown:


That poll was not comparing SOD to 1UPT nor was it factoring in the AIs ability to handle 1UPT. Your conclusion that most people enjoy 1UPT more and SOD is not supported by that poll.

I for one am not against 1UPT but because of the limited AI, mobility issues, and scale of civ I enjoy stacking more.

The strategy between stacks and 1upt are the nearly the same; Pikeman > mounted unit, swords > pikeman, melee > siege(range). Taking up more than 1 tile does not increase the strategy of civ. It does increase tactics if you were a civIV player that only used a single stack but I usually have more than one offensive stack at the ready.

What about THIS (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=389254) ? :thumbsdown:


How about "it was a poll done in the Civ5 forum, so it is to be expected that Civ5 features will be popular"? Try doing the same poll in the Civ4 forum :p

Bad ideas can win internet polls and still be bad ideas.

First SoD can be unlimited,but actually they are not.Game mechanic like maintenance directly limit them.Others like gold-research-culture-espionage slider or the Pacifism civic are factors too.
Second, people that saying stacking is unrealistic are ignorant,both in gaming and history.
AI in Civ4 is good and normal difficulty is challenging.I love to play archipelago or small continents maps and find AI capable in naval combat and invasions.Stacking BS,SB and Carriers is not a problem for AI.Great fun every time! :)
The OUPH idea looks amateurish.I didn't have any problem with SoD and didn't know that there is such thing until i browse through forums.Never find it annoying,unrealistic or bad game mechanic.
There is obviously a room for improvement and going deeper with something like logistic and supply or better army system.This was really my hopes for Civ5,but OUPH is just FAIL.

The common recurring arguments against SoDs I noticed in this thread are that it's boring and it contains no strategy.

I'd then like to know how 1UPT is not boring and has strategy. All I seem to see is SoD-bashing but not showing how 1UPT offers the things SoDs don't. Care to point out how 1UPT addresses the SoD limitations then?

Stacks of death are not that bad. Would it be possible to just limit them to 12 or 20 units?

CTP2 limited the size of stacks, gave penalties for over stacking, but also had a combined arms bonus if your stack had a mix of unit types. Honestly, it was a far better solution then 1UPT as you could actually play MP without it degenerating to a clickfest.

Stacks of Doom are great!

Different strokes for different folks, or whatever floats your boat, etc.

The fact is that different people are bound to like different system. It's largely subjective. But the chances are that the maximum number of people will be happy with a system that allows for strategic variation, a competent opponent, and most importantly, fun gameplay. Both SoDs and 1upt have drawbacks based on those criteria. But perhaps 1upt allows for more of the first and last, even if less of the second.

I'd then like to know how 1UPT is not boring and has strategy. All I seem to see is SoD-bashing but not showing how 1UPT offers the things SoDs don't. Care to point out how 1UPT addresses the SoD limitations then?How to make and use a stack in Civ 4:

1) Pick a unit A. Preferably the current best unit you have access to (e.g. UU or a or the best counter-unit to what your opponent seems
2) Identify the counter to that unit. Pick a counter B to that counter. Spam 60% A, 40% B into a stack.
3) Throw stack at enemy stack. Game will automatically pick the best unit for you to attack with and the best unit for the defender.
4) If the defender always getting to field the counter to your attacker in every matchup is causing undue hardship, add a few siege units to your stack. Suicide siege units on enemy stack before returning to step 3.

Repeat this procedure up through air units at which point you can swap bombers in for siege units, assuming you ever reach them. Failure to maintain a single stack will make it easier for single-unit spam to overwhelm each stack individually.

Notice how little is going on once the stack is built? Stacks lead to crude attack-move meat grinder tactics. They're the bane of any RTS, and tolerating them in a TBS doesn't help the game.

For good stacks, you have to let attackers target the best thing to attack, not the worst. This means that when you field a counter to the enemy, it can actually do its job of bringing down the unit it was built to destroy, instead of just acting as a stationary speed bump because your counter can't reach its intended target. Adding multiple equipment options for units on both attack and defense lets you design counters more directly and puts more depth into the stack designing as well (e.g. GalCiv2 or AC), but I don't think it's necessary to make stacks fun as stacks worked well enough without it even in GC1 (which did have intelligent targeting for stacks).

Of course, this leads to the problem of glass cannon units being difficult to use effectively since they'll all be targeted first. 1UPT handles this effectively. If you Horseman have a path to the enemy Archers, they get to attack the Archers. You can also position your troops in a defensive arrangement to prevent your glass cannons from being attacked first and force the enemy to attack the units you want them to, but defensive lines can be flanked or a weak defensive line can be broken. You're not victim to defenders who can't defend or attackers who can't attack what they need to.

Care to point out how 1UPT addresses the SoD limitations then?

Good question. Good luck getting it answered. I can't think of any SoD problems 1UPT addresses that are not tainted by the fact it is only half an improvement since the AI is unable to play the game.

How to make and use a stack in Civ 4:

1) Pick a unit A. Preferably the current best unit you have access to (e.g. UU or a or the best counter-unit to what your opponent seems
2) Identify the counter to that unit. Pick a counter B to that counter. Spam 60% A, 40% B into a stack.
3) Throw stack at enemy stack. Game will automatically pick the best unit for you to attack with and the best unit for the defender.
4) If the defender always getting to field the counter to your attacker in every matchup is causing undue hardship, add a few siege units to your stack. Suicide siege units on enemy stack before returning to step 3.
So there is indeed planning and strategy required to make a good stack to go against the opponent. As you described, you cannot just spam 100% of your current best unit, Warrior, UU or Horsemen, and expect to wallop the enemy.

If you encounter difficulty, you need to use your Siege Engines to soften the stack. So this is strategy on the part of SoD!

In fact, Soren Johnson and his team made some excellent subtle balances to SoD. If Siege Engines are causing trouble, split your stacks or place Cavalry adjacent to the catapults in the stack. The Siege Engines would be damaged by flanking and its effectiveness would be reduced subsequently. Civ IV encourages smaller varied stacks, but if you felt that your strategy would work better as a single stack, they didn't stop you either.


Repeat this procedure up through air units at which point you can swap bombers in for siege units, assuming you ever reach them. Failure to maintain a single stack will make it easier for single-unit spam to overwhelm each stack individually.
And the opponent would just counter with Fighters based in his cities? Again, it still required a mix of forces, i.e. strategy. SAMs and Mobile AA also grants an interception chance. If you have neither Air Power nor AA, then you'll just have to proceed in either smaller stacks or halt your advance altogether until you get that Air Defenses up that you so desperately need, strategic advance or strategic hold, we could choose.

Compare this to 1UPT where Air Power means nothing when you can only bombard one tile, which doesn't significantly deal the damage that the introduction of Air Power was supposed to represent.

Notice how little is going on once the stack is built? Stacks lead to crude attack-move meat grinder tactics. They're the bane of any RTS, and tolerating them in a TBS doesn't help the game.
Until your stack is reduced, of course, then you'll have to build that careful composition of units based on new realities. If you try to leave one unit behind to heal, it'll just be wiped off by the nearest cavalry.

Compare this to Civ V's 1UPT where if I encountered a force of counter-units to my frontline, the massive traffic jams of the back would prevent me from sending my counter-units where I need them most.

The consequences of 1UPT, which led to slow production times as addressed by Sulla, meant that insta-heal was provided as a promotion for 1UPT to be viable in Civ V

If anything, 1UPT resembles the meat-grinder more than SoD, where your line pushed the opponent's hex-by-hex.

For good stacks, you have to let attackers target the best thing to attack, not the worst. This means that when you field a counter to the enemy, it can actually do its job of bringing down the unit it was built to destroy, instead of just acting as a stationary speed bump because your counter can't reach its intended target. Adding multiple equipment options for units on both attack and defense lets you design counters more directly and puts more depth into the stack designing as well (e.g. GalCiv2 or AC), but I don't think it's necessary to make stacks fun as stacks worked well enough without it even in GC1 (which did have intelligent targeting for stacks).
I can agree with the Intelligent-Targeting concept, but also consider this from another point:

Why would I bother placing my weaker units into a stack when it'll be selectively targeted and destroyed anyway? I might as well place individual units in different tiles, at least it'll occupy space. 1UPT carpeting results.

In one previous Civ, Civ II, I think, stacks were destroyed once one unit lost combat. Civ IV released how broken such a system was and changed it to its current form.

If I'm in a stack, I should be able to enjoy the stack's protection, that's the basis of a stack, not a design error.


Of course, this leads to the problem of glass cannon units being difficult to use effectively since they'll all be targeted first. 1UPT handles this effectively. If you Horseman have a path to the enemy Archers, they get to attack the Archers. You can also position your troops in a defensive arrangement to prevent your glass cannons from being attacked first and force the enemy to attack the units you want them to, but defensive lines can be flanked or a weak defensive line can be broken. You're not victim to defenders who can't defend or attackers who can't attack what they need to.

Yeah, if the map was big enough a la Panzer General. Civ V, however, is not. The map sizes at Standard and lower are so small that it constrains any maneuver of units. I get more traffic jams than I get battles.

At larger maps, the game has all sorts of scaling problems and issues on top of technical unoptimization that makes the game unplayable. Large maps problems have been discussed elsewhere, if you're interested.


I have no issue with 1UPT by itself. But its implementation in Civ V is downright horrid and actually does the 1UPT concept a great disservice.

I just can't get it, how 1upt can be better. It's just a pure limitation. You can have 1 unit per tile in Civ4, if you want. In some cases (i.e. with threat of collateral) you are even encouraged to split forces.

Add some pre-bomber ranged bombarding in civ4, may be some more penalties for (over)stacking, some limiters for unit spam - but noooo, they have to throw everything out the window and make Traffic Jam:The Game.

Maktaka attacks with wall of text!


The problem people have with Civ 4's stacks isn't their construction, it's their use. There's no focused attacks, no maneuvering to engage vulnerable targets, no ability to use choke points unless you get really lucky and find a 1 tile gap somewhere, and once your siege units take their turn for the splash damage (assuming you have siege units in the stack) there's no difference between the order your units in the stack attack in since they'll be forced to attack different units anyway until every unit of a particular type gets attacked. You design the stack, send it on it's way, and....stop.

Splitting a stack into two just reduces the strategy your opponent needs to put into his own single stack. If you split into two even stacks instead, this just means your opponent only needs 20% of the stack to be the counter-counter unit B instead of 40%. If you counter siege units by splitting your stack, your just end up letting your opponent focus even more single-unit spam.

Why would I bother placing my weaker units into a stack when it'll be selectively targeted and destroyed anyway? I might as well place individual units in different tiles, at least it'll occupy space. 1UPT carpeting results.Maybe you don't. Maybe you keep fragile attackers safe a turn's distance behind the front lines, let your burly defenders secure the space around the planet/city, then move the attackers in and take down the target and its defenders. Other options that open up when your attackers are smart and get to choose their target or when you have 1UPT:

1) A stack of powerful units is moving in. Do you try to match their powerful units with your own heavy hitters, or build harassment units that can at least do some damage and take out a couple enemy units piece by piece? You can't do the latter in Civ 4, the damage gets spread out across the defenders as they each rotate in, then they heal up for a turn or two and it's all for naught.

2) Your enemy is keeping his attackers mixed in with their escorts. You can attack with your planetary defenders, but assuming these are defenders, they won't be very effective (note that this applies better to GalCiv1's combat system, where if def>att for a unit, it gets 1/2 def added to att when defending, so counter-attacking with dedicated defenders carries a significant penalty). Will you try to attack with defenders anyway to take advantage now, or wait until you can build/buy/move over your own attacker units that can hit the fragile attackers better? In Civ 4 you should always wait, as unless you have enough units to force sub-par defenders to rotate in and get killed, a spot of healing and the attacker's back to normal from your attack.

3) Your enemy is keeping his glass cannon units back from the front lines. Will you take advantage of the weaker total stack strength of the front lines now and attack there, or try to maneuver fast units past the front lines to hit the glass cannons? With everything in a stack in Civ 4, you can't hit attack units until all defenders are dealt with, so there's never a reason to keep them back.


For the record, I hate the instant heal promotion, it makes it far too difficult to actually pull off the maneuvers that 1UPT should allow (e.g. hammering a weak point or flank to make an opening). Remove that and you could arguably bring down build times on units some since units will need replacing more often. If you're at war, you should lose units.

For those same reasons, I have no problems with a large army getting bogged down in tight quarters. If the straight path is only two tiles wide and you wouldn't be able to reinforce the front lines easily, find a new path or take the losses. Narrow passes are easier to defend, and 1UPT accurately reflects this. The majority of the fighting that I've done in CiV occurs in open areas where you can get 3+ units arrayed around a single target effectively and still have room for 2 ranged units plus a reinforce path behind them. If the defender is able to take advantage of narrow areas more often than not, kudos to them.

In Civ4 there were flanking. In FfH there is Marksman (targeting weakest units), along with Guardsman, that is counter-Marksman.

Defender can't choice himself what unit to use for defense, as it would break the turn order. That's why it should be a little "unfair" for attacker.

But Civ4 stack fights have a lot of space for strategy, and with some modding it can be made even deeper.

In my opinion the stacks of doom indeed weren't great. The reason why I like 1UPT more than SoD is, as mentioned, it brings more chess-like tactics to the game. This way there is really a big difference how you place your troops on the field. The first comes meelee, and they're being followed by archers and siege units. In my opinion this is just much better than the way that it was in Civ IV/III.

In 1 UPT the turns are longer since manouvering is quite a bit harder, but I like it that way. The system in Civ V ends up with me having fun wars. The AI is indeed a bit helpless especially when it comes to the usage of siege units but still its not possible to beat it by just brainlessly rushing the units from place A to B and attacking whatever you like. However, the problem in Civ V is that there is not much to do when you're not at war so the game becomes boring. From the victory conditions, the only really intresting one is the domination victory :/

Collateral Damage is the keyword for counter-stack strategy.

Also often enough everything is just terrain-based: lead those big enemy stack into a valley of death, with the hills around suddenly fortified with good counter units and some collateral damage-givers; the stack is history.

And finally stack-breaking through damaged units: a stack can't move on in full size if some units fought and got damaged, they cause a slow down of at least 1 turn or they are left behind.
this leads to effective guerilla tactics against big stacks.


so this are just some short examples of numerous tactics possible with stacking enabled.
It's complete Bullcrap to say Stacks only need to be build up with best unit and then thrown at the enemy and everything is in butter.


1UPT completely destroys civ in terms of creating uncountable UNLOGIC gamemechanics.

I'll try to keep my response shorter to avoid tl;dr

1) A stack of powerful units is moving in. Do you try to match their powerful units with your own heavy hitters, or build harassment units that can at least do some damage and take out a couple enemy units piece by piece? You can't do the latter in Civ 4, the damage gets spread out across the defenders as they each rotate in, then they heal up for a turn or two and it's all for naught.
This is all very theoretical. It's not like you can do this in Civ 5 either, owing to long build-times. Sending harassment units in Civ 5 would also be for naught given that you're basically giving away free experience to opponent units which buffs them up and makes them even stronger + chance for insta-heal promotion found in Civ 5. And similarly, waiting and healing for 2 or more turns with defensive buffer units around the injured unit would result in full health. This is no different from halting a stack to heal. (As expressed by poncratias and tylor in the two posts above mine! :goodjob: )

2) Your enemy is keeping his attackers mixed in with their escorts. You can attack with your planetary defenders, but assuming these are defenders, they won't be very effective (note that this applies better to GalCiv1's combat system, where if def>att for a unit, it gets 1/2 def added to att when defending, so counter-attacking with dedicated defenders carries a significant penalty). Will you try to attack with defenders anyway to take advantage now, or wait until you can build/buy/move over your own attacker units that can hit the fragile attackers better? In Civ 4 you should always wait, as unless you have enough units to force sub-par defenders to rotate in and get killed, a spot of healing and the attacker's back to normal from your attack.
I'm not too clear on GalCiv's combat system so I can't comment on that. But this scenario doesn't exist in Civ 5 either. One city can only garrison one unit. And if Garrisoned, City Defense Power simply increases. With a City in Civ 5 effectively acting as a stationary super-artillery, it now becomes always better to attack, since City Health recovers so quickly and bombardment of units so deadly. You must already have a swarm of units waiting to rotate into the siege for it to be viable, there isn't even a choice present to camp outside the enemy's city.

3) Your enemy is keeping his glass cannon units back from the front lines. Will you take advantage of the weaker total stack strength of the front lines now and attack there, or try to maneuver fast units past the front lines to hit the glass cannons? With everything in a stack in Civ 4, you can't hit attack units until all defenders are dealt with, so there's never a reason to keep them back.
If maneuvering Cavalry to hit Siege Engines in Civ 5 was possible, then that person/AI isn't defending his Siege Engines very well. With 3-4 Melee Units in Civ 5 to a pair of Siege Engines is pretty much enough to make the Siege Engines invincible for a turn or two for you to respond.

In Civ 4, Cavalry units had a Flanking Ability which would damage adjacent Siege Engines every turn no matter how large the stack is. This is why I said earlier that Soren Johnson and his team made excellent subtle balances to the SoD system.

1UPT is not inherently bad, but in Civ 5, it is implemented rather poorly IMO.

That poll was not comparing SOD to 1UPT nor was it factoring in the AIs ability to handle 1UPT. Your conclusion that most people enjoy 1UPT more and SOD is not supported by that poll.

I for one am not against 1UPT but because of the limited AI, mobility issues, and scale of civ I enjoy stacking more.

The strategy between stacks and 1upt are the nearly the same; Pikeman > mounted unit, swords > pikeman, melee > siege(range). Taking up more than 1 tile does not increase the strategy of civ. It does increase tactics if you were a civIV player that only used a single stack but I usually have more than one offensive stack at the ready.
What about this one. ;)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=405888

After playing 1upt, I would welcome stacking back. One of the common complaints I see with stacking is that, in general, it appears that the guy with the largest stack wins. 1upt promises that if you are a better tactical thinker, you can simply outmaneuver an opponent. I too hoped to flex my tactical muscle and pull my own Marathon or Thermopylae(except without all my men dying in the end :) ). But if you think about it, isn't it more realistic, as a rule, that the guy with the bigger stack wins in open combat? I know that throughout history, there have been many, many instances where a smaller army routed a much larger one, but these seem to be the exception to the rule. At the strategic level, If your army is caught vastly outnumbered, the best you can hope to do is to do enough damage to slow/stop the other army and/or get your men out alive. Those famous historical upsets were usually determined by a combination of tactical genius(which is hard to model in a Civ game,) tactical/strategic blunders by the enemy, and superior soldiers.

In terms of the strategic value of stacking, well, expect losses if you bring a knife to a gunfight. You have to pick the right units for whatever eventuality and keep your stack well supplied with fresh troops. You have to make the decision of how many units to cram into a tile. Do you take a calculated risk of collateral damage by moving all of your units together? Do you need to have some loose troops available to cover a retreat of the main body?

With 1upt you have a lot less options. You move your troops one by one and that's that. It's one thing to position your men to rout another army. It's another thing to position your troops to be effective on the world stage. Civ V makes no distinction between the two, and once you get past the novelty of drawing up your own battle lines, stacking doesn't look all that bad in comparison.

P.S. Happy New Year everyone! :)

What about this one. ;)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=405888

Camikaze and aziantuntija offer reasons why that poll is off. All of the random_numberUPT could have been summed up as an xUPT option. Where x is any number greater then 1. "Stacks of DOOM!" and "1 UPT is perfect" are worded in a polarizing ways that could effect how a person votes.

I am curious on how you view the results. Do you view it has 60% of the people wanting stacking of some sort, 40% pro-1UPT against 15% SOD, or 85% not wanting Stacks of DOOM!.

Regardless of how you perceive that poll there is only 60 votes the point goes back to you trying to say most people agree. That poll is of poor sampling size, questions, and quality. It does not represent what most people think.

i am all for SoDs with some overcrowding penalty and battle resolution as in CtP :goodjob:



In terms of the strategic value of stacking, well, expect losses if you bring a knife to a gunfight. You have to pick the right units for whatever eventuality and keep your stack well supplied with fresh troops. You have to make the decision of how many units to cram into a tile. Do you take a calculated risk of collateral damage by moving all of your units together? Do you need to have some loose troops available to cover a retreat of the main body?

determining optimal stack composition is imho a perfect example of tedious MM :thumbsdown:

besides the cons of a SoD would have been magnified if the ai did build more enough siege

SoD > 1UPT.

period.

Camikaze and aziantuntija offer reasons why that poll is off. All of the random_numberUPT could have been summed up as an xUPT option. Where x is any number greater then 1. "Stacks of DOOM!" and "1 UPT is perfect" are worded in a polarizing ways that could effect how a person votes.

I am curious on how you view the results. Do you view it has 60% of the people wanting stacking of some sort, 40% pro-1UPT against 15% SOD, or 85% not wanting Stacks of DOOM!.

Regardless of how you perceive that poll there is only 60 votes the point goes back to you trying to say most people agree. That poll is of poor sampling size, questions, and quality. It does not represent what most people think.
Simply you are not to be convinced (and there is no need for that either). Maybe you assume that you represent the majority of the fans or something. :crazyeye:
It is very clear from several polls that most people prefer 1UPT over SODs though some think that Firaxis could have chosen a middle path.

Those in this thread who hate SoD and love 1upt must not have attempted multiplayer yet. Because civ 5 multiplayer is a really bad joke, and 1upt is responsible for at least half of the problems (the other half being bugs, crashes, freezes, no lobby, etc.) Civ 5 multiplayer (when it works) is a deranged clickfest.

So I can see how some would enjoy rolling a braindead AI over and over again, but if you should try to play a game against another actual person you will realize how awful these choices were for a game like civ. Say what you like about SoD but at least it made for a remotely functional game experience.

And if you think that in a game that does allow stacks (i.e. civ IV), the SoD is the consummate, surefire strategy that always wins, you probably weren't that great at that game. Try reading this page: http://www.garath.net/Sullla/Civ4/RBPB2-5.html

3) Throw stack at enemy stack. Game will automatically pick the best unit for you to attack with and the best unit for the defender.

Yeah, go ahead and do that on Immortal or Deity. I guess you'll be very successful...

Simply you are not to be convinced (and there is no need for that either). Maybe you assume that you represent the majority of the fans or something. :crazyeye:
It is very clear from several polls that most people prefer 1UPT over SODs though some think that Firaxis could have chosen a middle path.

I would thank you for not trying to tell me whether or not I can be convinced or infer that I think my opinions are representative of the majority from just a few posts.
When I post my opinions I do so without needing or wanting some sort of validation that the majority agree with what I say.

Since the majority is an important aspect to your posts then how about this for a funky thought.
What if the majority, you believe in so, are wrong?

determining optimal stack composition is imho a perfect example of tedious MM :thumbsdown:



Having to move all my units one by one, tile by tile, across a continent is another perfect example of tedious MM :thumbsdown:

Yeah, go ahead and do that on Immortal or Deity. I guess you'll be very successful...
I did that all the time on Immortal and won. Stop cutting and pasting, and notice that he also mentioned using bombardments. Stack warfare requires almost no thought.

The goal of 1upt was to make players think during wartime. The problem is the AI sucks at thinking, so it can't keep up. We're suffering either way, through our choice of no thinking (stacks), or bad AI (1upt). At least the AI can be improved.

Stack warfare requires almost no thought.


You didn't read the link I posted above. Sullla defeated attacking stacks from 5 different enemy (human) players at once because all of them thought like you do, just walk a big stack in a straight line and win. Just because you can beat the AI with a boneheaded strategy like that doesn't mean give you the authority to say that it's all there is because it's not. In fact you are showing no more intelligence in your strategy then the AI itself!

You didn't read the link I posted above. Sullla defeated attacking stacks from 5 different enemy (human) players at once because all of them thought like you do, just walk a big stack in a straight line and win. Just because you can beat the AI with a boneheaded strategy like that doesn't mean give you the authority to say that it's all there is because it's not. In fact you are showing no more intelligence in your strategy then the AI itself!
I read the article months ago. The keyword is "human". I would wager over 98% of the games played in Civ4 and Civ5 are against AI. When discussing if stacks are good or bad for the game, we have to take that into account. I shouldn't have to prep my post with "by the way I'm talking about the AI" when it's the vast majority of games.

Secondly I also play my fair share of multiplayer. Moving a stack towards a key city to raze is still one of the best strategies. One counterexample of better play that worked out for Sulla shouldn't mean we stick with a broken mechanic.

Honestly I don't see why there is any defense of Civ4's warfare at all. Stacks turns a huge war with a couple 10s of turns of unit building into a 1-turn army defeat and a burned city. It takes away flavour from individual units as what matters in big armies is collateral damage and a lot of soakers. The *only* redeeming quality is that the AI handles it better, but by your post you're completely skirting around that and instead talking about multiplayer.

OH! There's also these gems in your link:
Now it was time to watch and wait for the enemy moves. Dantski split up his stack in the south, presumably to pillage two different tiles, and that would have been a disastrous tactical mistake if we had had the units to exploit it. (Do not split up your stacks in this game unless you have a REALLY good reason for doing so!)
Dantski foolishly split up his stack again, I guess for pillaging reasons
I'll repeat my point, unconvinced by that link: 1upt allows a lot more thinking on the part of the human player, so we should stick with it. It will take time for the developers to make the AI better.


Finally, you can get your point across without the insult at the end.

I did that all the time on Immortal and won. Stop cutting and pasting, and notice that he also mentioned using bombardments. Stack warfare requires almost no thought.

The goal of 1upt was to make players think during wartime. The problem is the AI sucks at thinking, so it can't keep up. We're suffering either way, through our choice of no thinking (stacks), or bad AI (1upt). At least the AI can be improved.

The strategy is assembling your army and knowing when to use it. Players are usually cautious and start wars when they feel certain that they'll win, so it's not surprising that they'll think stack warfare requires "no thought".

But even if you dislike the combat in prior versions, you do have to compare it to what we have now. The knock on the Civ 5 alternative is that it fails as a tactical challenge (e.g. it's far, far easier than prior combat models at the same difficulty level), is clunky, and messes up other game mechanics in a feeble attempt to solve its shortcomings. Those are all severe.

My hope is that we end up with mini-battles on tactical maps (with an auto-resolve option) and return to having actual armies, perhaps with size related to empire properties (a la EU3) and a much more engaging empire-building model.

But even if you dislike the combat in prior versions, you do have to compare it to what we have now. The knock on the Civ 5 alternative is that it fails as a tactical challenge (e.g. it's far, far easier than prior combat models at the same difficulty level), is clunky, and messes up other game mechanics in a feeble attempt to solve its shortcomings. Those are all severe.
Yeah, I agree that Civ5's 1upt needs a lot of work. I think we'd be better off with more pieces on the board, and a higher production rate. I don't think we'd be overcrowding at all, in fact the only times I see severe overcrowding is due to bad AI design. Make units cheaper, consider increasing maintenance, then adjust the AI so it follows more of a "wartime / peacetime production and unit count". The current system is bad, because losing even a couple units hurts way too much. Even if it doesn't solve the balance or bad AI, we should still feel an improvement. When a game is too slow in its pacing, its flaws stick out a lot more.

I'm hating on stacks because that's what this thread's about right down to the title. Really on this forum we should be discussing more about how to improve the current system *while sticking to the designer's intentions*. For combat, we should stick to the confines of a 1upt system and figure out what we could do to make it better rather than discussing a complete reversal that the game designers would never implement.

My hope is that we end up with mini-battles on tactical maps (with an auto-resolve option) and return to having actual armies, perhaps with size related to empire properties (a la EU3) and a much more engaging empire-building model.
I dunno, I don't fault 1upt for taking away from empire-building. I fault bad empire-building from taking away from empire-building. I can easily imagine a 1upt game with a strong empire component. I fear if there was a tactical map that it would make Civ5 feel like 2 separate games rather than 1 whole picture. There needs to be a focus, with one of the maps (strategy or tactical) taking the back burner. In Total War, strategy takes the back burner. I don't know if you could do the same in Civ.

(I've actually never played EU3... I might have to!)

When are we going to understand that Civ is not a war game, therefor combat strategies are unneeded. Stacks fitted perfectly with a game like Civ and could still be improved upon. Tactical war is something that should have been improved upon, not tactical combat.

First, any stacking limit creates movement problems - and the lower the stacking limit the more severe they get. That alone explains the sluggish performance of Civ 5, as well as many of the odd AI tactics - and that is a severe cost to the mechanism. For this reason alone I want stacks - I can trust the computer to move pieces from A to B, but not to solve an elaborate shuffling problem - especially when moving to the wrong spot can kill pieces in war.

Second, I think there are semantic issues here. I can certainly see the tedium in the Civ 4 unlimited pile of stuff model. But would two units per hex really create a litany of horrors? Do tactics vanish when you can put more than one unit in a hex? You could abstract "archers protected by foot soldiers" in a stack, even create your own formations and order in which battle is resolved - and do it with whatever stacking limits you wanted. You could limit troops by having the maximum army size tied to total population, or have a soft stack cap (attrition when too many units are in the same place). Naval convoys could be much more realistic if they moved and fought as a unit and you could actually protect the transports. In short, there are many creative solutions and improvements to the Civ 4 model.

In my view the lack of stacking is a basic design error, and until it is abandoned at the strategic level the game will suffer.

Without even going back and reading any post in this thread, I realize by the thread title I was going to have to put the OP on my constantly growing list of people who give me aneurysms with their posts.

Stacks of doom are trash. There is nothing fun about stacks of doom. They're incredibly stupid and unusable and are so easy to take down with a few simple units. People complain about the AI's inability to handle armies in CiV but like to ignore that in CivIV, the AI isn't smart enough to divide up stacks and avoid getting smash to death with five catapults or something ridiculous like that.

Stacks of doom are not great. That's why xUPT was implemented into RAND as a bonus, at first unsupported option. So many users started using it that it became supported. I'm not sure, but I think RiFE uses xUPT as well now. Why?

Because giant stacks of doom are stupid. Plain and simple. There's nothing awe-inspiring about them. There's nothing hard about taking one down. Stack busting in CivIV was as easy as sending 5+ catapults at something and then mopping up. It was that bad and simple to handle. Anyone who is impressed by a SoD in a game is easily impressed.

What else? Oh yeah, it made terrain pointless because siege units dominated period. If you had more siege units than your enemy, there's a good chance you won the battle. It doesn't help that if you smash the big stack, the war is over.

Seriously, the only challenge of the war when it comes to CivIV is the first few turns of the war. It was something you could expand on. It was something that no longer worked.

Second, I think there are semantic issues here. I can certainly see the tedium in the Civ 4 unlimited pile of stuff model. But would two units per hex really create a litany of horrors? Do tactics vanish when you can put more than one unit in a hex?

Agreed. The problem with war in Civ4 isn't the concept of stacking. The main problem is the sheer number of units that come into play later in the game, which is tedious to manage and reduces the significance of any single unit to almost nothing. The other problem is that there's no limit on stacking, which means you can concentrate all that force on one point.

This is why I liked Civ5's 1upt rule at first. It forces units to spread out more, but goes too far in that direction. It doesn't fit the scale of a typical Civ map, so the land gets cluttered with units. It's also part of the reason why human players can get such ridiculous K/D ratios against the AI. Since they can't concentrate their units, you never need to face anywhere near their full force at once. In Civ4 I actually fear surprise invasions from the AI, because it can load several galleons full of units, declare war, and ram them all into one of my coastal cities on the same turn. In Civ5 I barely even care if the AIs declares war on me, since it's unlikely that they'll actually capture cities.

I think it would be fun to allow mini stacks of 4 units, make units somewhat cheaper, and limit each civ to 20 units or so. You'd still have to make interesting decisions about how to compose your stacks and where to deploy them. It would allow more concentration of force, but not too much.

I think it would be fun to allow mini stacks of 4 units, make units somewhat cheaper, and limit each civ to 20 units or so.


This is a terrible idea.

Let me tell you why.

The idea that Madagascar can field the same size army as the People's Republic of China is pretty asinine, no?

Indeed it is.

Terrible hard limits like that are terrible for a reason. You talk about "1upt not fitting the scale" but in the same breathe talked about limiting civilizations to just 20 units?

If you want to punish the AI, use hard limits like that because those will kill it. If I had the same number of units as the AI, ever, I will win. Because I'm smarter than the AI at war planning. The reason why the higher difficulties increase AI production is because everyone knows that the AI isn't as good as a human.

Without even going back and reading any post in this thread,
Then perhaps you could read them at some point? :rolleyes: Some of the arguments for and against SoDs deserve to be evaluated and discussed even if you might disagree with them.

Stacks of doom are trash. There is nothing fun about stacks of doom. They're incredibly stupid and unusable and are so easy to take down with a few simple units. People complain about the AI's inability to handle armies in CiV but like to ignore that in CivIV, the AI isn't smart enough to divide up stacks and avoid getting smash to death with five catapults or something ridiculous like that.
I don't believe the AI pours all of their units to a single giant stack waiting for you. From my experience, they like to keep 2-3 smaller stacks in reserve.

Besides, no point sending your forces piecemeal against a giant opposing stack, if you can get it within your borders, the road movement bonuses would allow you to unleash your catapults against them first.

Because giant stacks of doom are stupid. Plain and simple. There's nothing awe-inspiring about them. There's nothing hard about taking one down. Stack busting in CivIV was as easy as sending 5+ catapults at something and then mopping up. It was that bad and simple to handle. Anyone who is impressed by a SoD in a game is easily impressed.

What else? Oh yeah, it made terrain pointless because siege units dominated period. If you had more siege units than your enemy, there's a good chance you won the battle. It doesn't help that if you smash the big stack, the war is over.

If the opponent, AI/human, decided to mass his entire invasion force in one giant stack then he should rightly deserve the penalty of Collateral Damage by Siege Engines. In fact, even the loading screen occasionally hints that moving in a stack has its disadvantages.

So, either you split your stacks up, or you better have some screening forces ahead of you. If you want, you can even go 1UPT in Civ IV! Just don't expect the opponent will share the same thoughts as you though.

I can't get into civ4 because of the stacks of doom, which is really a shame because it is better than 5. I played a game or two and enjoyed it, I just hated the stacks.

I don't hate Stacks of Doom. I played Civ 4 and all it's expansions and enjoyed stacks of doom but I got my fill of Stacks of Doom now and am ready for something new. Bring on 1upt.

Even after all the post I am still not convinced that stacks were better than what we have now even with the current flaws.

The one downside to IV was stacks wars would end in 1 turn when 1 stack beats the other.

I don't really understand all the buzz around the 1UPT tactical attributes.Maybe it is for a 4 yrs old, but once you've put your first archer on a hill defended him with 2 swordsman... you've done it all.

Moreover since MP is broken and the AI is absolutely dumb; how can one really appreciate the "advantage" of the tactical flavours. If its means that winning the large majority of your battles cause a fussy feeling of being smart after defeating the AI (a very dumb one) well fine... I guess 1UPT is just for you. But otherwise, how can you enjoy the tactical values of something you're basically the only one to "play" the way it should?


I agree SOD had its flaw... AI was dumb too, always bringing everything on an initial wave, most often stacking it for 10-15 turns on the frontier so you didnt even had to spy to see it... but really it was never has bad has 1UPT.

This is the worst idea they could have made... and has far has I'm concern (and till they prove me wrong, and they most likely wont) they've KILLED the franchise.

how to defeat a Civ4 ai stack of doom (any size, any units):

1. Get 6-10 catapults (with city attack)
2. Get a lot of swordsmen (with city attack)

Yield your first city (hopefully it is crappy).

Attack with catapults. Bring all enemy units to 1/4.
Attack with swordsmen, repeatedly, until enemy stack is dead. AI will sit in the city and try to heal while you repeatedly massacre their entire stack (you will kill an amount equal to your amount of swordsmen each turn).

It's also ridiculous to make the AI horrible with 1upt. Moderation is key. Limited stacks is what they should do for 6 so they don't ruin the game again. There are plenty of ways they can be implemented in a better way so combat is enjoyable and 'all units together is most powerful' is not the case.

Simply you are not to be convinced (and there is no need for that either). Maybe you assume that you represent the majority of the fans or something. :crazyeye:
It is very clear from several polls that most people prefer 1UPT over SODs though some think that Firaxis could have chosen a middle path.

A poll that asks for a preference between 1upt and SoDs is asking a leading question. SoDs is a negative descriptor. I assume that's how it started off, and I assume that's how it has been ever since. It's been that way ever since I've seen the term, at any rate. It would be fairer to ask whether people prefer '1upt' or 'stacks' (although people would automatically assume SoDs here, even though that would most likely specifically not be the case) or ask whether they prefer 'carpets of doom' or 'stacks of doom' (although CoDs haven't developed nearly as much of a negative association as SoDs has). If you're asking for a preference between a reasonably neutral idea and a directly negative one, it's no surprise people will go for the former.

I USED to like it back in the days. But thats because I didnt know any better. The removal of stack of doom was the ultimate political correct deed.

Now battles feel like they have strategy to it. You trust what you see on screen.

Stacks of doom are not great. That's why xUPT was implemented into RAND as a bonus, at first unsupported option. So many users started using it that it became supported. I'm not sure, but I think RiFE uses xUPT as well now. Why?

RAND?

RiFE?

Please enlighten me!

I will face it. Even if they can implement limited stack sizes then there are still dozens of combat models. They will choose the dumbest, most crippled variant.

1upt, limited stacks, sods. It doesn't matter.

Without even going back and reading any post in this thread, I realize by the thread title I was going to have to put the OP on my constantly growing list of people who give me aneurysms with their posts.

Stacks of doom are trash. There is nothing fun about stacks of doom. They're incredibly stupid and unusable and are so easy to take down with a few simple units. People complain about the AI's inability to handle armies in CiV but like to ignore that in CivIV, the AI isn't smart enough to divide up stacks and avoid getting smash to death with five catapults or something ridiculous like that.

Stacks of doom are not great. That's why xUPT was implemented into RAND as a bonus, at first unsupported option. So many users started using it that it became supported. I'm not sure, but I think RiFE uses xUPT as well now. Why?

Because giant stacks of doom are stupid. Plain and simple. There's nothing awe-inspiring about them. There's nothing hard about taking one down. Stack busting in CivIV was as easy as sending 5+ catapults at something and then mopping up. It was that bad and simple to handle. Anyone who is impressed by a SoD in a game is easily impressed.

What else? Oh yeah, it made terrain pointless because siege units dominated period. If you had more siege units than your enemy, there's a good chance you won the battle. It doesn't help that if you smash the big stack, the war is over.

Seriously, the only challenge of the war when it comes to CivIV is the first few turns of the war. It was something you could expand on. It was something that no longer worked.
:agree:

I loved CIV 4, especially with ROM installed, and I played it for hundreds of hours. The only thing I really disliked about the game was the SoD. I think 1upt is better but unfortunately it definitely has its problems.

Somebody out there needs to come up with a better solution. Combat in CIV has to fun, interesting, and challenging.

RAND?

RiFE?

Please enlighten me!

No clue what RiFE is, but RAND is short for Rise of Mankind: A New Dawn. Rise of Mankind is a mod that greatly expands cIV (New techs, units, resources, civics etc etc...) and A New Dawn is a large feature add-on (Fixed borders, advanced diplo, ruthless AI, XUPT, revolutions, etc etc...) that goes with RoM (it is a mod mod). RoM:AnD (or RAND) has made cIV one of my favorite games of all time. (and if you don't like a feature in the game, you can simply turn it of.)

On-Topic
Civilization is a empire building and grand-strategy game. War is an integral part of it, HOWEVER war is not the most important part of it, and should a zoomed battle system be implemented that MUST get the back burner to strategy. Unfortunately my favorite combat model of all time could not work in civ. In reality a war would be a clash of two armies/navies or if the losing side had enough troops clashes between a series of armies, by the mediaeval era it was possible to survive the destruction of your main army and come back again every time, but as time went by fewer and fewer troops were needed to control a larger and larger area, by the time of the American civil war a war became an engagement of several armies in several places in rapid succession, and finally with the first world war a war was a series of battles fought along an entire front. In cIV we fought the pre 20th century way of war, and in ciV we fight the 20th/21st centuries' way of war. What we really need is a combat model that allows for this change of scale.
/rant

how to defeat a Civ4 ai stack of doom (any size, any units):

1. Get 6-10 catapults (with city attack)
2. Get a lot of swordsmen (with city attack)

Yield your first city (hopefully it is crappy).

Attack with catapults. Bring all enemy units to 1/4.
Attack with swordsmen, repeatedly, until enemy stack is dead. AI will sit in the city and try to heal while you repeatedly massacre their entire stack (you will kill an amount equal to your amount of swordsmen each turn).

Yeah, do this to a city with 100% cultural defense, behind a river, stacked with CG3 Longbowmen. Even if you somehow manage to capture the city, you will most likely lose your entire army in the process.

It's funny how so many people try so hard to convince us that SoD's required no strategy at all (especially compared with the four horsemen before the patch :rolleyes:). In reality, there are a lot of decisions that need to be made that you ignored eniterly.

Problem 1: City is behind a river
Options: Suffer from a 25% defense bonus or waste 1-2 turns, losing the defense bonus and perhaps have to put the stack on plains instead of hills

Problem 2: Cultural defenses are 100%
Options: Spend 5 turns bombarding it to 0%, use a spy (which requires planning), outnumber the enemy

Problem 3: Enemy keeps chopping new defenders while you are bombarding
Options: Stop bombarding and do a suicide attack, keep bombarding or pick a different city

Problem 4: Enemy have many strong defenders
Options: Promote catapults with CR1 and hope that they will win the battle, or suicide them with B1 to cause more collateral damage

Problem 5: The enemy were lucky and survived the first attack
Options: Attack with wounded units to keep the momentum, or let them heal while you wait for reinforcements.

Problem 6: Enemy reinforcements are on the way
Options: Withdraw to safer location and take care of the enemy stack first, or, capture the city and hope that you will be lucky enough to survive an enemy attack

Problem 7: War weariness is becoming a huge problem
Options: Make peace with the AI to save the economy or killing him off completely

So, to sum it up, any idiot could capture one or two cities by using said tactics, but if you want to capture 10 cities on a higher difficulty level, you'd better put some thought into what you're doing...

To attack with the entire stack is just stupidity. I've accidently lost medics and GG's in the process. And if you play the game correctly, siege weapons don't have to be suicide units. A CRIII treb will take care of most defenders. The strategy lies in actually getting CRIII trebs.

So, to sum it up, any idiot could capture one or two cities by using said tactics, but if you want to capture 10 cities on a higher difficulty level, you'd better put some thought into what you're doing...
Since you mentioned difficulty level, we'll only talk about AI.

You don't need to put any thought even on Immortal or Deity beyond "move the stack to a forest/hill beside the enemy city, and Verdun it 5-6 times". Yeah, that's right, I used Verdun as a verb. And I don't fail as hard as the Germans.

This isn't about coming up with a tactic on the forums and implementing it. This is about years and years of Civ4 playing on Emperor+ using this tactic. Extra thought into the tactic includes moving around the river, yeah, or bombarding or using a spy. But it still holds: The central tactic used (even if it has to be modified) in Civ4 warfare is move a stack to a city, bombard, use collateral damage, and win.

Yeah, do this to a city with 100% cultural defense, behind a river, stacked with CG3 Longbowmen. Even if you somehow manage to capture the city, you will most likely lose your entire army in the process.


He said that he was yielding his first city, meaning the enemy will not be in a city with 100% defensive bonus. Second even a city such as you describe can be taken using the Verdun tactic, catapult down to 0% defensive bonus, move to the correct side of the river and bring plenty of troops particularly cheap anti-archer units.

This isn't about coming up with a tactic on the forums and implementing it. This is about years and years of Civ4 playing on Emperor+ using this tactic. Extra thought into the tactic includes moving around the river, yeah, or bombarding or using a spy. But it still holds: The central tactic used (even if it has to be modified) in Civ4 warfare is move a stack to a city, bombard, use collateral damage, and win.

Which in my opinion is just the right amount of battle tactics to have in a strategy game like Civ. They tried to make battle tactics more important in Civ 5, but since the game is so heavily unbalanced (horsemen before patch, importance of iron after patch and super dumb AI), you hardly need to use any tactics, except when you lure the AI into a choke point, which in my opinion is more an exploit.

He said that he was yielding his first city, meaning the enemy will not be in a city with 100% defensive bonus. Second even a city such as you describe can be taken using the Verdun tactic, catapult down to 0% defensive bonus, move to the correct side of the river and bring plenty of troops particularly cheap anti-archer units.
HEY! Verdun's MY reference joke! :)

Which in my opinion is just the right amount of battle tactics to have in a strategy game like Civ. They tried to make battle tactics more important in Civ 5, but since the game is so heavily unbalanced (horsemen before patch, importance of iron after patch and super dumb AI), you hardly need to use any tactics, except when you lure the AI into a choke point, which in my opinion is more an exploit.

Well personally I'm a tactics guy so I would prefer some more tactics, but I don't want CIV to get as tactical as say Total War, if I want that level of tactics I play well... Total War.

You can't separate out the design from the performance of the AI. They chose a model, with whatever theoretical virtues, that couldn't produce a competent computer opponent. And even in this approach, too complex for the computer to do well at, the tactics are extremely artificial and limited because of the lack of basic ingredients from real tactical games (opportunity fire, combined arms on defense, etc.) It's design 101: a clever concept is only a good idea in a single player game if the computer can use it well.

Which in my opinion is just the right amount of battle tactics to have in a strategy game like Civ. They tried to make battle tactics more important in Civ 5, but since the game is so heavily unbalanced (horsemen before patch, importance of iron after patch and super dumb AI), you hardly need to use any tactics, except when you lure the AI into a choke point, which in my opinion is more an exploit.
You sound like you're switching gears from "Civ4 required good, thoughtful tactics on higher difficulties" to "Those dead easy tactics is all that should be required in a strategy game".

You sound like you're switching gears from "Civ4 required good, thoughtful tactics on higher difficulties" to "Those dead easy tactics is all that should be required in a strategy game".

Dead easy compared to what? The point of reference is the new version - you know, the one where the AI can't use navies and performs consistently worse at any given difficulty level than it did in earlier Civs. I'm having a hard time reconciling the overblown dismissals of the Civ 4 combat model with the wholly embarrassing replacement that we got in Civ 5; are you really saying that Civ 5 is, in actual practice, better? I just want to make sure that I understand your point.

Nono. I'm not talking about Civ5 at all, instead Bad Brett's view of Civ4 tactics. He said that that level of tactical thought is good for a Civ game. Sorry if I confused you.

Is tactics that much more complex in Civ5?

They chose a model, with whatever theoretical virtues, that couldn't produce a competent computer opponent.


That is just an opinion not a fact.

It is my opinion that the 1upt model does not mean that we can't get a more competent AI opponent. I think Civ 5 not having a more competent AI opponent is more related to the release being rushed. Will the AI ever be competent enough so that without other bonuses it can beat the diety players? Obviously not but it is my opinion they can make it considerably better than it is now.


And even in this approach, too complex for the computer to do well at, the tactics are extremely artificial and limited because of the lack of basic ingredients from real tactical games (opportunity fire, combined arms on defense, etc.) It's design 101: a clever concept is only a good idea in a single player game if the computer can use it well.

I haven't figured out for myself if I think that bringing in more tactics as you mentioned would be a good thing or not... Though I agree with the fact that the whole concept is not very worthwhile if the developers don't make the AI be able to effectively use the tactics.

They chose a model, with whatever theoretical virtues, that couldn't produce a competent computer opponent.

That is just an opinion not a fact.

Hmm, it may not be a fact as concrete as, say, "water is wet" but it certainly rises above the level of mere "opinion". I would call it more like a "general consensus".

It is my opinion that the 1upt model does not mean that we can't get a more competent AI opponent

Right, but we haven't. The only hard fact about this is that the AI is currently pretty bad. There is as yet no concrete evidence to suggest it will be improved.

HEY! Verdun's MY reference joke! :)

Yes, but it was a really good one.:)

Really what we need is some concentration on AI. No combat model in the world (Other than a chess/checkers/risk model is going to help if the AI is a blithering idiot. We have already seen that the AI requires a numerical advantage to win a stack war, and a numerical and TECH advantage to win a 1upt war against a human opponent, other games posses similar errors on the AI side the TW series being an example; how do you kill 12,000 Mongols with 600 englishmen? Apparently by sitting in Acre and letting them come. It's ridiculous, the last time I lost an even fight with an AI in a strategy game was when I was like 8 or 9 (Warning: definition of even fight may very) A truly even fight between a human and an AI would be a slaughter if a human player were put in control of the AI forces. Few games posses AI that I truly feel is up to an fight against a human without advantages.

When the AI becomes capable of giving us a fair fight on noble then will the combat model become a serious issue.

Is tactics that much more complex in Civ5?

Since the combat AI is so awful I'd say no. I think it is even easier than Civ 4.

Actually I am looking for something in between SOD and 1UPT, The two opposite approaches are both dull. My preference is small sized stacks to add tactical depth, for example a stack limit of 3 units per tile where you can make combos like:

1 Spear, 1 Horse , 1 Archer
1 Spear , 1 Sword , 1 Horse
1 Infantry, 1 Artillery , 1 anti-tank


you see in these small sized stacks units support and complement each other, which is superior to 1UPT and more tactical than SOD.

Is tactics that much more complex in Civ5?
I like that someone asked that. I know it's *more* complex than Civ4, but I'm now questioning the degree.

Even though there's more factors than just this, generally the more complex the game the worse the AI is at it. I think that since the AI appears to be worse in Civ5 than Civ4 (at land at least), the tactics are more complex. It's also just the general amount of thought I need to put into a turn. In Civ4 I didn't need to put much thought in, and in Civ5 the longer I think the better war I wage.

I'm repeating myself. I think Civ5 is more complex, thus the AI can't cope as well. But it has more room for the AI to grow, so it's probably the better system in the long run as the designers improve it.

A truly even fight between a human and an AI would be a slaughter if a human player were put in control of the AI forces. Few games posses AI that I truly feel is up to an fight against a human without advantages.
This is a good point, and the more I think about it, the less I actually care if the AI could ever keep up in a one on one fight against a human. I'd be happy if the AI could use every individual part (like naval, bombarding, sieges, fast and slow units) without many stupid mistakes. As long as it's halfway competent then we can always even things out by giving it more units (hopefully without carpeting the map). We'd have a really fun game then.

Since the combat AI is so awful I'd say no. I think it is even easier than Civ 4.
I think bad AI is a result of a complex tactic system. The tactics system is a lot of visualization, which AIs suck at. Consider the game GO for example. It's a really visual game, and the best AI isn't better than an average human player.

The thing you have to realize about stacks in civ 4 is that they're NOT countered by collateral damage. Maybe that was the intention, but the way it's implemented, splitting up a stack won't reduce your collateral damage at all. Well, not unless you split it into less than 5 units, which is too small of an army to do anything.

The REAL counter to stacks in civ 4 is the fork- the ability to threaten multiple cities at the same time. If you've got an invasion force that can potentially hit 3 different cities or resource tiles, and they can't counterattack in time, they'll have no choice but to split up their army into three pieces. The more places you threaten, the more they'll have to split up their army. The "stack of death" where you put all your army in one tile just doesn't work.

Unfortunately, the AI in civ 4 still leaves a lot to be desired. It doesn't try to threaten more than 1 city at a time, and it always leaves behind a garrison in every single city. So, when fighting the AI, you don't need to worry about being forked, and there's little point in sneaking in to take out vulnerable cities. The giant stack of death works pretty well against the AI- but only because the AI is so stupid and has such monstrous production advantages.

He said that he was yielding his first city, meaning the enemy will not be in a city with 100% defensive bonus. Second even a city such as you describe can be taken using the Verdun tactic, catapult down to 0% defensive bonus, move to the correct side of the river and bring plenty of troops particularly cheap anti-archer units.

This isn't a limitation of SoD. This applies for every strategy game out there. Throw enough units at something and it will be defeated. Notice how vague the strategy is:

how to defeat a Civ4 ai stack of doom (any size, any units):
1. Get 6-10 catapults (with city attack)
2. Get a lot of swordsmen (with city attack)

So what exactly is "a lot"? Is 8 a lot? Is 20 a lot? And how would this strategy differ if used in Civ 5? If I build 30 Swordsmen in Civ 5, I, too, can defeat any AI army of the same era.

Sure, unit spam is a strategy, but it is a really inefficient one.

This isn't a limitation of SoD. This applies for every strategy game out there. Throw enough units at something and it will be defeated. Notice how vague the strategy is:



So what exactly is "a lot"? Is 8 a lot? Is 20 a lot? And how would this strategy differ if used in Civ 5? If I build 30 Swordsmen in Civ 5, I, too, can defeat any AI army of the same era.

Sure, unit spam is a strategy, but it is a really inefficient one.

But if a city is really valuable you can choose to do so. But the combat model should prevent such things from happening. It is really strange to loose 90% of your army but still atttacking at full strenght.

For example the new combat model should use a morale modifier. If you lose 10 units in your stack for 1 in an enemy stack the organized attack modifier will drop (or what ever the other combat model parameters are). You have to abort your attack and use more ranged firepower. (And hope in the mean time the enemy doesn't bombard your units strength and morale below freezing point).

A good combat model contains more that 4 lines (is complicated) and is well tested. And I don't see that happening. Especially in combination with an good AI.