Yet Another 1UPT/Stacking Whatever Thread

Sonereal said:

Civilization V's entire economic system works different from CivIV's for the sole reason that costs had to be balance to limit the number of everything. Yeah, "tactics" are fun, but it is hard to feel like you're fighting a massive total war when there are only a handful of units, especially compared to CivIV where I'm regularly sending dozens of units into the meatgrinder every battle.

In that sense, what can help a lot is simply making units easier to kill and lowering the cost for units.

Make it so units can't heal outside controlled territory for free. Replace the very idea of unit "health" with "supply/manpower" that cities can produce, and healing units drains.

Make the amount a unit can heal in the field dependent on how flanked they are. If a unit is on a hill surrounded by six hexes, three enemy-controlled hexes and three non-enemy controlled hexes, halve the amount the unit can heal.

Allow stacking, but decrease the rate each unit in a stack can heal based on the number of units in a stack. If there are four units in a stack, then each unit can only heal 1/4th the usual rate. A stack of ten units that is nearly completely surrounded? Easy pickings.

That way, the natural tendency will be to try to spread out, protect your flanks, and try to surround the enemy stacks. Stacks, on the other hand, are something you would use to bust a hole into something, like a front. There wouldn't be the forced 1UPT of Civilization V, nor the unlimited benefit of massive stacks of Civilization IV. You'll have a system that has pros and cons for stacking and not stacking.

As there should be. You see in other GSG games, like Paradox games, that there are pros and cons to stacking, including attrition.

Meanwhile, units would be cheaper. Supply could increase naturally based on a settlement's production, or can be built like wealth and research. During peacetime, supply stockpiles. War will drain your natural surplus quickly, and while units may last a while in the beginning, they will begin dying in droves as you run into crippling supply shortages.

Unit placement no longer would be just tactical decisions, like Civilization V. Unit placement would be strategic decisions as well. You can't just level a handful of units to godmode and cheese your enemies to death.

TL;DR. Cheaper units. Replace health with supply. Make cities produce supply like they produce wealth or whatever. Allow stacking, which lowers the rate your units health. System now naturally balances out to favor a limited number of units spread out across several hexes instead of being forced into that situation via game mechanic, or forced into one mega stack due to imbalance.

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