1 unit/tile overkill

[Thoughtful Thug]

Originally Posted by Sonereal

If only they had made a new AI instead of using the combat AI from the Civ4 Beta.

I don't know if that is true or not. But I know it is by far the weakest thing about the game.

[RockyBalooba]

Originally Posted by GeneralMatt

Unfortunately all the other aspects - civilzations, leaders that were chosen, city names etc - give the impression they were trying to create something with at least a slight resemblance to history.
Now we are to believe that is not the case and that it is merely a coincidence that there is any resemblance to historical events, places, and people?

Seriously, the only war that I can think of where 1 Upt would work on a strategic scale would be the Great War, on the Western Front, but even then it was cramped and concentrated in a small enough area, that this may not even be appropriate.
I would like to hear of another instance where there was anything similar. Last I checked, the Romans and Carthaginians used "Stacks of Doom" (86,000 and 56,000 at Cannae), Marlborough used Stacks of Doom (52,000 at Blenheim), Napoleon used Stacks of Doom (72,000 at Austerlitz), Wellington used Stacks of Doom (68,000 plus 50,000 Prussians at Waterloo), and the Prussians and Austrians used Stacks of Doom (221,000 Prussians and 206,000 Austrians at Koniggratz).

At any rate, I do think some limitation is justified, but I would base it on some simple logistical calculation, such as, for example, 1 unit per tile on tiles with no roads, two with roads, four with railways, and so forth. It could be expanded even further by taking into account the type of terrain, whose borders they are in, if its farmland/town, and other things. Specific numbers could be toyed around with, but the general principle is worthwhile I think.

You put it well in words what I really wanted to say...

Civilization 5 should support stacking of troops, BASTA!

[bernlin2000]

Originally Posted by Abremms

have you actually played the game? it works fantastically. easily the best change they made, combat is fun now.

Originally Posted by The Snug

Yeah, I've played it, and it sucks.

Nice contrast between the two posts, but I think you both are overstating 1UPT: it needs some adjustment, but it is a large improvement over the stacks of doom. It makes no sense for civililian units, and I don't see why military units can't travel in stacks (with some sort of large combat penalty), and then set up closer to the battlefield in a 1UPT fashion.

[Rince]

I said it before and I'll say it again: Having even limited stacking would undo all the advantages of 1UPT. It's either 1UPT or >1UPT.

The idea about stacking them just for travel is nice though.

[JLoZeppeli]

The good: the game is more tactical.

The bad: this type of tactics are on a wrong scale. This is far too big to have the dynamics of Panzer General. The movement is way to short to make it decent. The line of sight of ranged unit is interrupted too often by hills and forests to make it decent on battlefield (admit that, how many times the game forced you to put on the front line ranged unit because of the terrain type?).


And there is another issue by muntains and neutral force units, they block your movement as well, and it is unforgivable, because it has not logical sense, like the exploit to defend allied city-state (put your unit around the city state without declaring war to the offender, so he can't attack the city....)

So i wanto to understand ho the idiotic fans could explain that to me, with some use of the brain, please...

[Path-x]

1 unit per tile is plain stupid!

When in real world army is attacking the enemy line they don't attack by having infantry at one location and then armored units 200km away. They attack at the same spot, close to each other to increase their power, momentum, penetration ability and mutual support. One unit per tile is just the stupidest thing I have ever seen in any civ game.

[apotheoser]

I have a very strong feeling that John Shafer never played Master of Magic, and neither did anyone else in this thread who says "it's either infinite units per tile, or 1upt."

The level of ignorance is astounding. Problems like this were solved decades ago by other games, but since we have some 26-year old wunderkind making Civ 5, we get an idiotic attempt to reinvent the wheel. Good job.

[apotheoser]

Originally Posted by Abremms

because if you have any limit on it at all, then it essentialy because 1upt anyways, where one unit = one full stack. if you have a 3upt limit, then no one is going to field less than 3 units on a tile.

its simper to just do 1upt. have you actually played the game? it works fantastically. easily the best change they made, combat is fun now.

This person never played Master of Magic, for example. The limit was 9 in MoM and nobody was running 100% stacks of 9 units.

[Zelig]

Originally Posted by Watiggi

I think Civ 2 had the best way of dealing with stacks.

Yes, I find it really weird that nobody has mentioned this. I can't really see any downside of using this mechanic in civ 5 instead of 1UPT.

You could alternatively implement some form of high collateral damage rules pretty easily:
1. Strongest defending unit in stack always defends.
2. Every unit in stack takes equal damage.

[aTobin]

Originally Posted by Zelig

Yes, I find it really weird that nobody has mentioned this. I can't really see any downside of using this mechanic in civ 5 instead of 1UPT.

You could alternatively implement some form of high collateral damage rules pretty easily:
1. Strongest defending unit in stack always defends.
2. Every unit in stack takes equal damage.

Can you explain how it worked in CIVII?

I think 1upt is a better system than before, but as now the AI just cant handle it at all, that have to be fixed.

Personaly i think 1upt at sea, and 4upt at land with a 1/4 maintenance should be the best solution.
With a remaining unit production cost, this should also solute te problem with the pretty unnecessary +Hammer% buildings.

Graficaly, One unit should have 3 men so then you have 4 units on a tile you should se 12 men

[Zelig]

Originally Posted by aTobin

Can you explain how it worked in CIVII?

Unlimited stacking, best defender defends, but if the defender loses, every unit on the tile is killed.

Because civ2 always had either the attacker or defender killed in combat, for an equivalent system in civ5, you'd need to do like I mentioned in my previous post - when a defending unit in a stack takes damage, every unit in the stack takes equal damage.

[Earthling]

Originally Posted by The Snug

I believe the intent of the 1upt was to alleviate the burden of dealing with SOD's that could number upwards of 100 or more.

This is the worst misconception that exists on the entire forum here. It's not just you or your fault of course, you probably heard it from some dozens of others first.

If the developers had this as their actual "intention" they were complete fools - but I don't think that was the case. The "intention" was to introduce something new to the series that would impress players/take up a lot of time/allow for just doing more stuff moving units around in combat, because it was believed players were "bored" with the older civ games.

The reduction of the total number of units was accomplished an entirely different way with an entirely different reason - by increasing the cost of units and changing AI handicaps. Neither of those things proved effective, but they are also unrelated to having 1 unit per tile - they could have simply reduced production and made units more expensive overall regardless of whatever system unit movement and combat used.

[pi-r8]

Originally Posted by Earthling

If the developers had this as their actual "intention" they were complete fools - but I don't think that was the case. The "intention" was to introduce something new to the series that would impress players/take up a lot of time/allow for just doing more stuff moving units around in combat, because it was believed players were "bored" with the older civ games.

Well, they certainly succeeded there. Civ V games take me at least 5 times as long to play as Civ IV games did, and I don't think it's just because I'm new to the game.

[Venger]

Alot of cocksure foolishness in this thread...

I have advocated a 2-4 stack and -1 range adjustment (-2 to longbows) since release, for a great many reasons. But mainly, because it is, with a long history of Civ playing, what I consider to be the best balanced system satisfactory on all levels. It removes SOD, which from both a gameplay and sensibility standpoint are a bit silly. It resolves movement issues, where neutral units in your territory create tedious bottlenecks, or ridiculous scenarios where your general cannot share a tile with a worker. It treats combined armed armies like true armies, and allows common sense options like escorting a wounded unit, or providing cover for ranged units, etc.

Old era ranged units should have ranged attack only to adjacent tiles. Anything more is just mind boggling silly. If I can shoot arrows across a one hex lake and damage a unit on the other side, that is just ridiculous. And the reason it exists is because of the 1UPT limit. The natural design is to have a archer unit stacked with melee, allowing a ranged attack into an adjacent unit before a melee strike. The fact is cavalry, melee, and ranged units all occupied the small battlefield tightly on a scale so small it would represent a pixel on your screen.

It would seem to me a trivial thing to change the stack limit to 2-4, with a stack/no stack option in the start game menu. I believe this is where we will end up, with folks able to play what they find most enjoyable. And I believe over time, that will begin to heavily favor the small stack option.

[Teodosio]

Originally Posted by Venger

It would seem to me a trivial thing to change the stack limit to 2-4, with a stack/no stack option in the start game menu. I believe this is where we will end up, with folks able to play what they find most enjoyable. And I believe over time, that will begin to heavily favor the small stack option.

It seems to me that a limited stack, let's say 3 units, keeps many of the disadvantages of unlimited stack.
With 3upt in medieval era you could just stack one crossbowman, one longsword and one pikemen and there would be no counter to your stack. Indeed it would not be very different from having unlimited stack.

Stacking units was the big downfall of Civ4. Civ4 had great many different units with different strenghts and weakness. You had cavarly useful against archers, pikemen useful against cavarly and so on. In the end all of this was utterly useless because of stacking.

Let stacking rest in peace. There are many games that have implemented 1upt with a decent A.I., try Battle for Wesnoth for an example. Let's just hope Civ5 A.I. will improve

[jaldaen]

Originally Posted by noid

I like the idea, somewhere on the forums a read an idea to introduce mass to the stacks value. Different terain could home a certain amount of massed units (and different units would have different mass)... It would make wars even more tactical, and would remove most of the annoyences of the 1upt system, w/o introducing the dreadfull SODs back to the game.

This is a very interesting idea... thanks for brining it up. It has a lot of interesting possibilities and it gives another reason to build a road beyond connecting cities for trade.

[Venger]

Originally Posted by Teodosio

It seems to me that a limited stack, let's say 3 units, keeps many of the disadvantages of unlimited stack.
With 3upt in medieval era you could just stack one crossbowman, one longsword and one pikemen and there would be no counter to your stack. Indeed it would not be very different from having unlimited stack.

Your stack is flexible, but would be overwhelmed easily by a three melee stack. I can't imagine you don't see the difference in seeing a stack of three or a stack of thirty. A stack of three can be defeated, easily, by three melee units. Even two units would render that stack combat ineffective. A stack of thirty? Not possible, you cannot chew enough of them up to weaken them. But three? You'll easily overcome them. Part of the problem with facing a SOD is trying to actually kill a constituent unit - this is far easier, in fact far, far easier in a limited stack. Think of it in this term - what would be easier to kill, 1 stack of thirty, or 10 stacks of 3? Under recent Civ engines, the latter, because you would have the ability to defeat in detail.

To me, the problems with SOD were:

Tedium
Silliness
Inability to deal damage (except with siege, and even then, you likely didn't do near enough damage and lost your units because they had to "melee" the stack)

Make the stacks small, and you defeat them all. And now that you have a stack, you avoid the tedium of movement, add the ability to protect a wounded unit, cover for archers, realistic ranged attack, etc.

Note, gameplay would dictate some of the more nuanced decisions to make about a limited stack - how is ranged damage applied, who defends in melee, etc. But it is a more elegant, richer system to my mind than 1UPT, which killed the SOD but brought it's own issues.

[Barbarian King]

Originally Posted by lawrie

since when is civ 5 a simulation?

[Teodosio]

Originally Posted by Venger

Your stack is flexible, but would be overwhelmed easily by a three melee stack. I can't imagine you don't see the difference in seeing a stack of three or a stack of thirty. A stack of three can be defeated, easily, by three melee units. Even two units would render that stack combat ineffective. A stack of thirty? Not possible, you cannot chew enough of them up to weaken them. But three? You'll easily overcome them.

I don't think it's really different. I think that 3upt has the same disadvantage of unlimited stack, i.e. killing counters and rock-scissor-paper mechanics.

Example, related to yours. If I want to succeed in battle I have to manouver my forces in such a way that I can attack your rock with my paper and so on.
Let's say you have a 3 unit stack. One paper, one scissor and one rock.
I attack you with 3 papers. In your example you think I can overwhelm your stack easily but I think it's not the case. In fact, my first attacking paper meets your scissor (best defender) and dies. My second paper perhaps is barely able to kill your scissor. In that case, my last paper meets your paper, that being the defender could be fortified or located in good terrain, so the chances are against me.

This generic example shows that:

1. it is not easy at all indeed to beat a mixed stack, whatever the tactics you employ; you could only beat it with superior numbers (tactics=useless);
2. my papers rarely get in contact with your rock, i.e. the rock-scissor-paper mechanics is shattered again.

I believe that 1upt can and will be improved but there's no sense in going backward.

P.S. Besides theory I experimented playing 2upt and 3upt with "A New Dawn" mod for Civ4. It has the same old problems, it's difficult to employ counters and to use tactics and terrain. Mixed stacks rule.

[migkillertwo]

Originally Posted by The Snug

Why not allow 2 or 3? Why go from infinite to 1; there was no suitable number between those two extremes?

Why not permit army groups ala civ3? An army group that could permit 1 mounted unit, 1 ranged unit and 2 infantry units. That would seem reasonable to me.

Because it will only accomplish what 1upt has already accomplished, an emphasis on troop placement, but will create even more tedium in battles.