Does anyone else miss stacking wars

gps said:

Well, here's the definition of Simulation taken from Wikipedia:

Simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time.[1] The act of simulating something first requires that a model be developed; this model represents the key characteristics or behaviors/functions of the selected physical or abstract system or process. The model represents the system itself, whereas the simulation represents the operation of the system over time.

In that context I have no problems at all with abstractions or simplifications in the simulation modell for gameplay sake. I am sure it would be pretty confusing to have leader traits change every third or four turn. Or how would you know when to start counting BC as long as you don't know when christianity will actually be founded?

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Well yeah, my point is that realism is nice when you can get it, but gameplay comes first. It makes no sense to count years in BC/AD inside of Civ, but it's more practical and gives you a sense of the era you're in, if you're ahead of time or not (launching a spaceship in the 16th century is kind of fun).

So I don't have a big problem with archers shooting over hundred of kilometers, because the gameplay of 1UPT is more enjoyable than stacks were. I also think stacks have realism problems, which makes the choice even easier and obvious to me.

I should note that I do like the idea of limited stacks (2 to 4 would be a good range I think) of similar units.

I would support a stack which allows a ranged unit & melee unit along with an air unit.

MisterBoomBoom said:

I would support a stack which allows a ranged unit & melee unit along with an air unit.

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lolwut

Sonereal said:

lolwut

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I'm guessing he meant ANTI-air unit. At least that's what I hope he meant.

yes...sorry...u got the idea.

Funky said:

Fluffball,

I am not really interested in a long discussion, so let me just respond briefly to your first two points. When I say war requires more skill and thought I am clearly refering to the human players, not the AI! That something is challenging for a human says nothing about how the AI is able to handle it. The simple fact is that the AI can deal with stacking much better than with 1UPT, the combat therefore becomes more challenging and requires more thought in Civ4.

What you say about realism really baffles me to the extent that I don't know if you are serious. Yes, you do "bunch up your troops in a single mass" in Civ4, it's called an army, that's how wars are fought... I don't know where you got the idea that nations would spread their forces across the entire land in war. Look at Stalingrad or Verdun, for example. Each would be one square (hex) in Civ, and both places served as battlefields for millions of troops on each side. Suggesting that the traffic jams of Civ5 have anything to do with realism, is a fantasmagorical misrepresentation of the scale of the map. That's not even going into archers shooting hundreds of miles, cities hurling stones just as far before catapults are invented and many more nonsensical aspects from the point of view of realism.

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I would suggest you actually research those battles more carefully...without a prolonged response i could easily point out for Verdun that while the battle was concentrated in a small area, relatively, the 'millions of troops' that took part did not all take part at the same time. A proportion of units were at the front actually fighting and continually cycled in and out of the battle as they became exhausted or suffered casualties.
Stalingrad is often thought of as a battle for a city and that the city was the battleground but it was a small part of the overall battlefield in the battle for the city.
Taking both those battles in a greater context also it should be noted that Verdun was one point of a front line that stretch from the Belgian coast to the Swiss border so while there was a concentration of forces around Verdun the two sides had their forces spread had their forces spread almost the length of Europe.
The same should be noted for Stalingrad the front line stretched from Lenningrad in the north of Russia to the caucuses in the south of Russia.

When it comes to realism, i already said that the game was a gamey representation of reality with a lot of artistic license to make the game fun and balanced. What i was pointing out though is that 1upT gives a more realistic sense of battle and the potential tactics and pitfalls of it than 1upT.

Going back to the Stalingrad example the battle was eventually turned and won when the Russians counter attacked and surrounded the German forces.
In a Stacking scenario where you can have an infinite number of units any thought of surrounding a force only serves to detriment your situation.i.e. you weaken your stack by splitting it to surround the enemy where as in a 1upT scenario you can use advanced tactics such as surrounding and cutting off an enemy force.

Fluffball said:

Taking both those battles in a greater context also it should be noted that Verdun was one point of a front line that stretch from the Belgian coast to the Swiss border so while there was a concentration of forces around Verdun the two sides had their forces spread had their forces spread almost the length of Europe.
The same should be noted for Stalingrad the front line stretched from Lenningrad in the north of Russia to the caucuses in the south of Russia.

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Valid point. But WWI and WWII were the only examples in 6.000 years of documented human history that we ever saw 'millions of troops' and fixed front lines dividing whole continents - as it is basically mandatory in Civ V. It did not happen in antiquitiy, it did not happen in the middle ages, it did not happen in the renaisance and it did not happen in the early industrial age. So I still don't think it's a very good or realistic representation of 6.000 years of historic warfare...
Alexanders Persia campaign was SoD style, so was Ceasars conquest of Gaul, Hannibals crossing of the Alps or Napoleons march to Moscow...

Fluffball said:

I would suggest you actually research those battles more carefully...

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I regularly teach this stuff at my school, but thanks for the suggestion. Aside from that, your post actually backs up my point. Note that I obviously didn't claim that the battle of Stalingrad or of Verdun were the only battles going on at the time, or that there weren't front lines during the world wars. This is no contradiction to Civ4's system at all, where in large wars it is very sensible to split up your stacks and where small battles and skirmishes occur every round along the battle lines.
The point is that the big conflicts between countries throughout human history virtually always manifested in battles of large armies in small spaces (a city, a village a valley, a field etc). GPS is right of course in pointing out that before the world wars Civ5's system looks even more bleak. 1UPT can in no way represent how wars have ever been fought, which douses any ambition of wanting to be realistic.

What i was pointing out though is that 1upT gives a more realistic sense of battle and the potential tactics and pitfalls of it

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If the world was a battlefield, this statement would be correct. But until it is, there is no argument for realism in 1UPT. You can of course pretend that you have a battlefield before you when you are moving your troops, which I guess some people do. But pretending is a bad basis for a cogent argument of realism.

Scale realism (that is actually what is discussed here) goes from highly "unrealistic" to more "realistic" dependent on the use of a tiny map to a large scale map. The units themselves are also being assumed to be of a certain size (platoon, brigade, division, army etc) which from my knowledge is not ever really well defined by design.

b. Does it matter? "Realism" with this game was never really high on the priority list. You want realism? Go pull out a game like Avalon Hill's "The Longest Day" and get your grognard on!

shaglio said:

I'm guessing he meant ANTI-air unit. At least that's what I hope he meant.

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Why should anti-air units get a special stacking rule if they're melee units?

I thought making anti-air units count toward the penalty would be a good idea because it still requires protecting anti-air guns and makes air campaigns against an AI that spams anti-air guns not impossible.

gps said:

Valid point. But WWI and WWII were the only examples in 6.000 years of documented human history that we ever saw 'millions of troops' and fixed front lines dividing whole continents - as it is basically mandatory in Civ V. It did not happen in antiquitiy, it did not happen in the middle ages, it did not happen in the renaisance and it did not happen in the early industrial age. So I still don't think it's a very good or realistic representation of 6.000 years of historic warfare...
Alexanders Persia campaign was SoD style, so was Ceasars conquest of Gaul, Hannibals crossing of the Alps or Napoleons march to Moscow...

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not true. Clasical china have been a battleground for millions of soldier. Persian army of xerxes is also huge, and simply can't put into one hex, otherwise there won't be the movie '300'. Alexander army is actually divided as 4 or 5 division each lead by his 4 general and himself.
And i do believe hannibal only bring a small to medium group when crossing those mountain,leaving the large group as a decoy.

Syailendra said:

not true. Clasical china have been a battleground for millions of soldier. Persian army of xerxes is also huge, and simply can't put into one hex, otherwise there won't be the movie '300'. Alexander army is actually divided as 4 or 5 division each lead by his 4 general and himself.
And i do believe hannibal only bring a small to medium group when crossing those mountain,leaving the large group as a decoy.

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The difficulty in correctly evaluating the actual sizes of these armies aside (they were doubtlessly significantly smaller than ancient historical texts suppose), any ancient army could easily be fit into a hex/square in Civ, if we take the map we are playing on to be even a small planet.

I like the system as it is now, loved the hex map, love the tactical aspect. Don't care about realism or historic accuracy.

The great pity is that AI doen't handle it very well, water and air management is atrocious. But the idea totally hooked me.

Sonereal said:

1UPT is awful for scale, and anybody who actually plays Civilization should know this.

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My english is awful. So, I don't understand what you meant, sorry.

Sonereal said:

Why should anti-air units get a special stacking rule if they're melee units?

I thought making anti-air units count toward the penalty would be a good idea because it still requires protecting anti-air guns and makes air campaigns against an AI that spams anti-air guns not impossible.

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You'll have to ask MisterBoomBoom. I was just clarifying what I thought he meant by "air" units (since air units already do stack in cities and on carriers and can't occupy tiles on the map otherwise).

Memoryjar said:

My english is awful. So, I don't understand what you meant, sorry.

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scale = échelle (in this context at least). He means it makes no sense to have only room for one unit on a hex, considering that hex represents thousands of square kilometers, especially once you have archers shooting over those same hexes.

So it's just how you want to play. Sonereal you want more realistic gamplay (warhammer player ? ), I want fun and challenge. 1upt is funnier.
Thanks Teproc.

Syailendra said:

not true. Clasical china have been a battleground for millions of soldier. Persian army of xerxes is also huge, and simply can't put into one hex, otherwise there won't be the movie '300'.

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As said above: a typical tile on a Civ 4 standard Terra map is about 148.000 square kilometers (that's a little bit more than England or Louisiana and a bit smaller than Florida). Even if we are talking millions of soldiers, I don't think it's a big problem to fit them all in there...

how would a limited stacking mechanic actually work, I wonder.

Alexey86 said:

how would a limited stacking mechanic actually work, I wonder.

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Like that for example.

I'm currently testing the next version, hence my interest in the current discussion (even if the subject is far from new, there are still ideas to develop)