battle groups

my idea for battle groups is to help manage large number of units.

like an army, you load units into a battle group and then the battle group moves as one unit.

unlike an army:
* battle groups confer no combat advantage
* can contain any number of units
* units can be unloaded at any time.
* battle groups can be given names (racoon, pepper, 101st, what ever)

When attacking with a battle group you could have the option of
* deciding which units attack first and halting the attack at any time
* attack with everything this turn until victory is acheived.

some units might be left behind during a move after an attack (some units can't move after their attack while others have not moved yet) but all units would automattically move to rejoin the battle group ASAP and the battle group never moves faster than the slowest unit in the battle group.

The whole point of a battle group is simplify managing units.
It must be easy to see what units are in a battle group.

When I first heard that Civ 3 would have armies, this is the sort of thing I was hoping for!

For me the best remain the CTP system: a free (not linked to a special ability o unit) units assemblage where all units
combat simultaneously. So we can have a real Army vs Army combat. Also the retreat idea was good.

Putting many units into one easy to manage battlegroup?
Brilliant!

The stack movement options in C3C are a great improvement over previous civ3 versions and civ2, but you are right. It needs to be improved for civ4 and you have a very good idea. You should also be able to create bomber and naval battlegroups. Then, when I want to bomb a city back to the stoneage, it will only take one click of the mouse instead of 60 or 70.

The CTP system, in my opinion, is too far, especially since armies are limited to 12 units. I like the unit to unit combat of civ3 better.

I'm with you guys! Something similar was already suggested in the MOO2- styled unit design and combat-thread. They really should go this way

Anything that would help me not to have to move or direct 150 induhvidual units. Anything that would allow group movement would be welcome.

I play vanilla Civ3 v1.29f

What about an "escort" ability? Maybe an early small wonder or just make it inherent to all military units, or just defensive units. It would function like an enhanced "stack move". The "escort" unit can function like a regular unit but has an "escort" option/button (like "Bombardment" is an option). When "escort" is enabled, the player selects another unit which the "escort" then attaches itself to in a semi-permanent "stack move". Wherever the "primary" unit moves, the "escort" moves with it. The "escort" stays attached to its "primary" unit until the player activates it again or its assigned "escorted" unit is destroyed or becomes unavailable. More than one "escort" can be attached to each "primary", and if the movement rate of any "escort" is greater than the combined stack's allowable movement, or if any "escort" has movement left at the end of a turn, each "escort" with excess movement will fortify at the end of the turn, but will resume movement with the stack if its "primary" unit moves on the next or any subsquent turn. Defending during combat is as normal, the stack does not count as an army, so normal unit selection applies (highest defence gets hit first) and stealth units still get their choice of unit to attack. "Escorts" themselves will not attack unless they are activated individually (i.e. removed from "escort" duty).

Example 1
I assign an Aegis cruiser (say, move of 6) to "escort" my carrier (also a 6). From then on, the Aegis will not appear as a "ready" unit but the carrier will, and whenever I move the carrier, the Aegis moves with it. I them move my carrier 6 squares towards another continent, Aegis moves with it. On the next turn, I move the carrier 4 squares and launch airstrikes, after which, I leave the carrier in place. The Aegis then fortifies when I end my turn (having 2 extra movement). On my next turn, I move the carrier 3 more squares. The Aegis moves with it and fortifies at the end of my turn (with 3 extra movement).

Example 2
I assign a destroyer (move 7) to "escort" my transport (move 6). I then send the transport halfway around the world. After each turn on the way there, the destroyer will fortify (having one extra movement), and resume movement on the transport's automatic move. Once they get there, they get attacked by a bomber, which attacks the destroyer (which has higher defence, in this example anyway). After the bomber is done, a submarine attacks and chooses to attack the transport (stealth ability). The transport sinks, and on my next turn, the destroyer is a "ready" unit, since its "primary" has been destroyed.

Example 3
I assign a Mech infantry (move 2) to "escort" a settler (move 1). Then I assign a second Mech infantry (move 2) to the same settler. I then move the settler towards new territory along railroads and then onto an unimproved hill (no roads/railroads). The stack stops, neither Mech infantry fortifies because they have no movement available. On the next turn, I move the settler to a plain. At the end of the turn, both Mech infanrty fortify. On the next turn, I activate one of the Mech infantry (now off "escort" duty) and move it two (or one) squares away, and move the settler to another plain. The remaining Mech infantry fortifies at the end of the turn. On the next turn, I continue moving the first Mech infantry and tell the settler to build a city. Now, the second Mech infantry (left on "escort") has lost its "primary" and becomes a "ready" unit. I can tell it to move, or just fortify in the new town.

With the "escort" ability now described, call what jonathan_95060 described earlier "combined arms". Make it an optional tech (Military Tactics?) off of something during the industrial age (close to Replaceable Parts and infantry, probably). Every land based military unit can now "join" with any other military unit in the way jonathan_95060 described. Each and every unit can be individually activated, and so be removed from the stack.

Make these stacks, similar to WWII sub-divsional Combat Commands (A, B, and R), configurable such that the order of the units within the Combat Command, or CC, determine the order in which they attack. Say, in the Modern age, I put:

one Radar artillery,
two Artillery,
one Modern armor,
four tanks, and
two Mech infantry

in a CC called "Ebo's Fifth", and in that exact order.

If I want the whole stack to attack a city or something, the Radar artillery will bombard first, followed by the two artillery (in order) and then the Modern Armor will attack until destroyed or it retreats, then the tanks, in order, etc. If I capture the city, everything that can still move moves into the city, so I should get something to defend my artillery until the next turn. During my opponent's turn, he attacks my new city, which the Mech infantry defend first since they have the highest defence, followed by the Modern armor and then the tanks, as determined by hitpoints lost and all.

Alternatively, I could select just the Radar Artillery, the Modern armor, two of the tanks, and one of the Mech infantry to attack. If successful, then again, everything that can move does, and if unsuccessful, the remaining units can then attack (if they can) or sit and wait for reinforcements.

Naval battle groups would be tougher, since transports and carriers shouldn't attack. For air units, a tech off of Advanced flight to enable Bomber groups. I'll go into detail on these tomorrow or Sunday, since I have to head out to work now.

All new idea for unit ability are very good but the real point is that
posed by jonathan_95060: army (or battle groups) must be free, not conditioned by tech or single unit ability. Another important point is that unit must be free to join or leave an Army. With the Civ 3 system Army is a special and rare unit and all its components are lost: i.e. the unit loaded in an army cannot leave and so cannot be upgraded or used for other purpose (for me it is stupid).
In conclusion I think ( agreeding with capslock) that all abilities of the units loaded in an army must be used by the army: if i make a battle group of artilleries the group must have the ability bombard!

i miss artillery groups becouse now i have like 10 to 15 artileries guarded by one or two infantary.. but i have to bombard each unit once and that takes more time than it should if there could be artillery groups.. and i agree vwith anndra and others about unloading units for upgrade. that is stupid couse with army of swordsman i cant do nothing serious except to have it "guarding" my capital and do god damn parades..

a few words about use of armies in civ3.. i make armies of three or four infantry units which do not atack but i put them in newly conquered city so i elliminate the ressistance... and to guard strategical places

This may be a bit off topic, but not enough for me to start a new thread (Okay, I'm lazy. So what?). I think it wouldn't be too much to ask if pressing a button would make a faster unit retreat before it reached one hp. This would of course not be automatic: pressing the button (or clicking) would give retreating orders to the units in question, but the same probabilities of actually managing a retreat would still apply.

There is no reason why a surprised cavalry couldn't after losing a single hp to an attacking rifleman just retreat. It shouldn't wait until it was all beaten up and then run away. This would IMO be a very small thing to implement, but would increase the valuability of having the "retreat" option.

A single round of combat should always be fought until a retreat could be made - whether that one hp was lost by the defender or the attacker. And units should retreat with the last hp automatically (even if you didn't want it to) - this would reflect the fact that units that get their butts kicked rarely want to hang around anymore - no matter what you command.

By the way, I support the idea of artillery groups as well as armies as described here.

Battle groups will not replace armies. Armies, as implemented in Civ3, or something like it, with bonuses and advantages, would still be available. Battlegroups are merely a means of organizing a large number of units, Armies included, for ease of movement and attack. Battlegroups, as described by jonathan_95060, are a must for civ4.

It would also be nice if you could organize battlegroups, not just individual units, into larger battlegroups. ex) 3-4 units/Brigade, 3-4 Brigades/Division, 2-4 Divisions/Corps, 2+Corps/Army. Again, this is just for organization, and these groups provide no combat bonuses. They just make it 1,000,000 times easier to control so many units. This example provides for Armies of 36-128+ units all organized into easy to manage groups!

I ment battle groups by armies. I apologize for my sloppy use language.

I wonder if it could be made so that the military leaders of today would indeed be leaders of tomorrow: they could add bonuses to certain battle groups they are put in charge of? So the "armies" of Civ3 would in effect be battle groups with a leader that produced some bonuses..

OK, so the "Escort" idea was good, and my interpretation of jonathan's battlegroup idea was mostly on target except for the tech requirement? No tech required, just make all units able to "join up". What about automatically presume all units in a stack are "grouped"? Couldn't name groups then (which I entirely love the idea of), but it would save on having to select "Join" everytime. Were there other discrepancies? I don't know what SMAC is, so I don't have a reference point here. Is the ability to select which units in a battle group attack in a given assault, as I described, too much?

I am still working out my Fleet and Airgroup/Air Force ideas, but there is a separate topic that covers both those areas, and I may post in there, though if I do, I'll cross link, since they are similar methods of ComCon (to me, anyway) just with different units.

Just to get a feel of people's reactions, what would you guys think of an enhanced target grid for multi-unit "groups"? It is a concept I am considering to make naval and air groups more managable, though it could easily apply to land-based groups which include artillery. Basically, it's an expanded Bombardment option which has the usual grid showing available bombardment targets, but in each square of the grid, the total number of units capable of bombarding that square is shown, and when that square is selected as the group's target, all such units execute a bombard action on that square. Optionally, capable units can be selected from the available list, so not all units will bombard, and the remainder can bombard a separate target.

As for illustrating how this concept would apply towards land battle groups, say I have three (3) Artillery and four (4) Cannon in a battle group. By selecting any of these artillery pieces and then Bombard, a target grid would come up like this:

--- --- --- --- ---
| 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
--- --- --- --- ---
| 3 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 3 |
--- --- --- --- ---
| 3 | 7 | X | 7 | 3 |
--- --- --- --- ---
| 3 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 3 |
--- --- --- --- ---
| 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
--- --- --- --- ---

where X denotes the location of the battle group, the 3's represent the Artillery that can reach 2 squares, and the 7's represent both the Artillery and the Cannons being able to bombard the squares at a range of 1. By selecting a square marked "7", both the Artillery and the Cannons would bombard that square. By secleting a square marked "3", all the Artillery would bombard that square, and then the Cannons could bombard at a range of 1 with 4's showing instead of 7's on the grid (with the outer squares removed) showing the removal of the Artillery, who have already fired, from the bombardment pool.

As an example of the option I stated above with unit selectability, say I wanted to have only two Artillery bombard a square at range 2 and have the remaining Artillery and all the Cannons bombard at range 1. By selecting a square marked "3", a list showing all three Artillery would come up, from which I select two and indicate bombardment to commence. Now I select another artillery unit, the grid comes up with 1's instead of 3's and 5's instead of 7's, and I select a square marked "5". Again, the list comes up, showing one Artillery and the four Cannons. I select them all and execute. Conversely, I could initially select a square marked "7", select one Artillery and all four Cannons and execute, and then select one of the remaining Artillery, whereupon the grid shows all 2's, pick the appropriate "2", select both Artillery, and execute.

To Capslock:
I think better that the basic ability of civ3 army (ie grouping and combat together) was a battle group charateristic. The Shyrramar's idea is very good: leaders (or generals produced by leaders) could be unit that if joined to a battlegroup give special combat bonus.

To Ebonite
your grid idea is fine, but for me is too complex. I'm agreed with you about air and naval forces: armies are useful for all type of units, but a single grouping sistem must be applicated to all, for simplicity.
PS: SMAC is Sid mayer's Alpha Centauri, but I don't remember how attack precisely work.

to Shyrramar:
I'm agree with a controlled retreat ability, but why limit this to fast unit only? Also infantry unit can leave a combat, with low efficacy of course. Roman Legions were expert in this type of manouvers.

the original idea sounds alot like moving units in stacks,exept for the name,honestly i cant see what the diffrence is

i liked the battle groups in call to power,those were pretty nice,but i like how the armies work in civ3 more

in a modern army at least communications,command vehicles,electronics,radios etc which cost a bundle are there for one reason only,to get the diffrent units to cooperate

its an old tactic to attack the enemy between 2 units,where one finshes and the other one begins

may it be brigades divisions whatever,works well when the 2 are not cooperating

so i like the fact that armies cost alot to build

Originally posted by Anndra
to Shyrramar:
I'm agree with a controlled retreat ability, but why limit this to fast unit only? Also infantry unit can leave a combat, with low efficacy of course. Roman Legions were expert in this type of manouvers.

Click to expand...

Well, my initial idea was to make fast units more useful. If slower units could retreat also, then the success rate should be smaller. Otherwise everyone would just hit the retreat key whenever their archers were attacked. But perhaps that would only be more realistic - it would take quite nice an ambush to slaughter them all. If the retreat probability was linked to the difference in speeds between the combatants, why not? This would anyway preserve the intented empowernment of fast units. Don't know if it became too much a trouble to hit the retreat-key all the time when your attack-based units were attacked... Perhaps they should retreat automatically unless told otherwise? I rarely want my longbowment to fight it to the bitter end with an attacking Medieval Infantry!

I remember the home city thing too! That was older than SMAC, that was Civ2 ToT (which I still play... once a year... well... at least I did... a few years ago... ;p). I kinda liked it, because it gave the unit a unique feel. Of course, I frequently spend time renaming all my units to things like Red Demons and Blue Gargantuans just to have them like that, but I still liked being able to see where the unit came from.

It would not have to be a support thing.

Also, I really REALLY want some kind of Fleet system for navies. You should be able to use great leaders to build fleets, and there should be other ways to get them. Air Groups I am a little leery of. I think that they would not be as acceptable as Fleets and Armies. However, I really like the bombardment grid idea above, but the selection thing would be about as time consuming as any other way. Probably more annoying too, no offense.

Has anyone tried just loading an army full of artillery? I never have, but I would be interested in knowing how that would work out.

I think that the GL system needs a megaoverhaul, but that the armies are ok. I just wish that you could pull the bloody units out and upgrade them, and that armies were not so uncommon.

Maybe they could let us build different sizes of organizational bodies, like most armed forces do.

Artillery units cannot be loaded into armies. Only ground units with a hit point bar can be loaded into armies, like cavaly, tanks, and units that move on two feet. (Mech infantry have two feet, right?) Artillery, workers, settlers, leaders can not be loaded into an army. The little "load" icon does not show up.

No offence taken on the expanded grid idea. The individual unit selectability is just something I would find useful, even if others do not. Just because I have all that artillery doesn't mean I want to blow up only one sqaure with it.

To Shyrramar
I think that the retreat ability must have a value separated from movement, but modifiedby the difference of speed and by experience. So units with the same movement can have retreat value different. This ability work better with army or unit group: if you want evade the enemy attack all units must retreat! Another point is that if the retreat fail the retreating unit must have some disadvantage in combat (defense malus)
The automatic retreat is another question It is a uncontrolled fllee not a retreat! The automatic retreat at 1 Hit point left must have for me a secondary effect: the retreting unit is out of control for one turn: it cannot move or attack, but only defend.