Annoying problem

[zeeter]

I've recently taken a page from the AI's book and begun to stack very large amounts of troops atop one another to form a sort of army. Doing this works extremely well when moving because I can create say three stacks of fifteen legions each and use the J command to move them as three units instead of forty-five.

My problem comes when I get to where I'm going. I have to fortify or sentry each legion or hit the space bar for each one - each turn. Then when I'm ready I have to wake up each legion one-by-one.

Conversly, I could move the entire stack one space each turn to save time, but then I'm out of position.

It would be nice if I could use the "J" command, then hit "Y" to sentry all legions in the stack, then have some type of command that will follow the "J" to wake all of the sentried units in the stack. A drawback here is that legions that I want to remain sentried will become part of my army group, but to counter this I could wake them all at once, then sentry two or three and continue.

Is there a command that is out there that does this already?

[Catt]

Nope.

But someone else on these boards pointed out a mildly helpful solution in terms of waking units (at least it was new to me at the time). When you right click the stack and are presented with the list of stacked units, hold the shift key and wake each one -- this at least avoids having to right click repeatedly to pull up the drop down again and again.

[zeeter]

Thanks! I'll try this tonight.

[Zouave]

Originally posted by zeeter
. . .
My problem comes when I get to where I'm going. I have to fortify or sentry each legion or hit the space bar for each one - each turn. Then when I'm ready I have to wake up each legion one-by-one . . .

Yes, we've all noticed that. If you fortify a moving stack of units you have to wake each one up separately - a daunting tedious task in the Modern Era.

I had expected such as holding down the Ctrl key would allow you to select a bunch of units at the same time. But after three patches Firaxis still hasn't given us that option. Nope.

[zeeter]

Well, the shift command seems to work pretty well. Saves a lot of time. It doesn't help much when sentrying or fortifying, but we can't have everything.

Thanks for the hint!

[Zouave]

It occurs to me that all units can be combined into a single stack resulting in something more realistic than individual unit combat: STACK combat. And that is something first proposed five years ago after Civ 2 appeared.

Say you have five swordsmen and three spearmen in a tile you have 18 attack and 13 defense. You attack a group of three pikemen (9 defense) you have a clear superiority. You could potentially do other things such as issue various orders to the stack as to what type of attack (frontal assault; outflank, etc, all with different possible results).

Also, stacks with different units (say, bombardment, horsemen, immortals) would be generally more effective - the benefit of Combined Arms.

All this would change combat - for the better. Less tedium; more realism. Don't expect Firaxis to even consider it.

BTW, I used Ancient units as examples above as I long ago edited way up the artificially low-rated post-gunpowder units.

[Oda Nobunaga]

It would indeed make combat more realism ; it would also make the game longer and tedious for those of us who simply don't care about detailed military simulation. Realism does not necesarily equal better gameplay.

Now, I agree that you should be able to use stack to attacks (it just plain make sense), but kept at a simple degree, to avoid the burden of over-micro-management. Civ isn't supposed to be a warmongering game with only fighting as a path (unless you set your victory conditions to that, but the point remain it's not what the game's about)..

[Maple]

To expand on Zouave's idea-

Make stack combat an option in starting a game that is called combat realism. If it is on, look at Zouave's plan. If it is off, then combat is like it is right now.

Make Combined Arms a technology or small wonder. Before it is researched/built, there is no bonus for different kinds of units. After it is researched, there is some kind of bonus.

[Trabpukcip]

Originally posted by Maple
To expand on Zouave's idea-
Make stack combat an option in starting a game that is called combat realism. If it is on, look at Zouave's plan. If it is off, then combat is like it is right now.

I realy like the idea of a fully customazable game... it would eliminate a lot of problems and a lot of threads...

[RX2000]

Originally posted by Zouave
It occurs to me that all units can be combined into a single stack resulting in something more realistic than individual unit combat: STACK combat. And that is something first proposed five years ago after Civ 2 appeared.

Say you have five swordsmen and three spearmen in a tile you have 18 attack and 13 defense. You attack a group of three pikemen (9 defense) you have a clear superiority. You could potentially do other things such as issue various orders to the stack as to what type of attack (frontal assault; outflank, etc, all with different possible results).

Also, stacks with different units (say, bombardment, horsemen, immortals) would be generally more effective - the benefit of Combined Arms.

All this would change combat - for the better. Less tedium; more realism. Don't expect Firaxis to even consider it.

BTW, I used Ancient units as examples above as I long ago edited way up the artificially low-rated post-gunpowder units.

So basically you are saying that ever stack of units should act as an army?

[damunzy]

Well Firaxis is talking about Stack combat with PTW I believe... along with auto bombard for all of your catapluts. One piece of tedium partially gone.