Every time a new civ came out and they promised to kill the stack of doom and every time i felt disappointing.
After 4 i had given up and generally had lost interest in the series with no plans of buying future games. Then i came across a news piece where they mention 1upT and my belief in the series has returned.
It's not perfect but it is the first attempt and no matter how bad the game is/has been i couldn't contemplate going back to any form of military unit stacking. If they brought back any form of military stacking i would at best be dubious and highly likely to shy away from the game as it would be a huge step backwards.
The stack system has many significant advantages over 1UPT.
1) It makes war challenging, since the AI is actually able to comprehend it and pose a threat to the human.
2) It requires a lot more thought and skill than 1UPT, especially on higher difficulties or multiplayer, when it often comes down to on par stack vs stack fights.
3) You can move your army in 1 second instead of having to move every single unit every turn.
4) It fits the scale of Civ a lot better.
5) It places higher emphasis on the strategical aspect of the game rather than the tactical one.
6) It avoids awkward mechanics in besieging cities.
7) It's a lot more realistic.
We must be honest and face the truth, namely that 1UPT has many major disadvantages compared to stacking (some even game breaking, like the hopeless AI). Now the stacking system in Civ4 isn't perfect, in particular the way it handles siege units. But it's patently obvious that the future of Civ lies in an improved stacking system and a complete disregard of this 1UPT nonsense.
I have added numbers to your points for easier reply.
Your first point contradicts your second point, comparatively the AI is stupid that is why it can comprehend stack better then 1upT. If stacking required a lot more skill and thought that 1upT then the AI would be able to comprehend 1upT better than stacking and would be better at it and thus war would be more challenging with 1upT.
Point 7 is just a complete joke...it has been thrashed to death in the past and i could probably go on for hours about why those 5 words are wildly inaccurate. In simple terms stacking is like bunching all your troops up into a single mass and throwing them at the enemy. Even the most basic military forces in history with any form of organisation have broken down their forces into individual units because forces work best in that fashion.i.e. specialised sub sections that work together as a whole rather than a mass rabble. In no little part because in the real world a mass of units squashed into a small area work inefficiently and actually tend to interfere with each other which leads us to logistics or point 3.
Many battles have been won by logistics or more specifically the efficient movement of forces and if you push all your forces down a single road for example you inevitably end up with huge traffic jams which hinder your movement. With stacking you can effectively move an infinite number of units through a single point without any consequence, with 1upT you have to plan and organise your movements to make them as efficient as possible...sometime you still get traffic jams but that is like real life where there may not be a perfect answer but you are instead looking for the least worst answer.
Point 4 is a relative and therefore disputable point as there is no real signification of what each unit is meant to represent in real terms, everything in the game is at best a gamey representation of the real world with a liberal amount of artistic licence taken to make the game playable and as much as possible, balanced.
For point 5 i can't really disagree but whether that is good or bad is down to the individual but if you don't like tactical games then one has to ask, why play a game where the tactical element is so prominent?
For point 6 i don't see awkward mechanics i see it as an extension of my first point where it helps to show that 1upT requires more thought and skill than stacking.
