A hybrid 1UPT-Doomstack system

[mzprox]

Being dissapointed that civ6 hadn't improved its 1upt system significantly I thought I'd write down my ideas. I have no doubt others already thought of something similar, but anyway, here it comes:

My ideal system is a hybrid, as stacks of units are alloved, but penalized.
The basic rule if a unit are in a stack when your turn is ended then that unit suffers a strength reduction until the end of your next turn. so the units are weaker if they get attacked in a stack and they are weaker if they attack from starting their turn in a stack. Let's consider it as some kind of logistic penalty.
There would be 3 basic categories: melee, ranged, support.
A melee unit would suffer 10% strength reduction from each other melee in the stack (up to -60%)
A ranged unit would suffer 20% strength reduction from each ranged unit in the stack (up to -75%)
Support units can give some bonus to the whole stack without stacking penalties (siege tower, great general etc)

As proposed ranged units would have more severe strength reduction from being in stacks, one melee and one ranged unit can be stacked without penalty. Ranged units strentgh should be adjusted accordingly so they are balanced.

Oher machanics:
Forts and citywalls would allow some stackings withouth penalty. more advanced forts would allow more
Great generals would reduce stacking penalties somehow.
In later eras porucable armies would also reduce stacking penalties
I propose we bring back transport ships. Naval invasions are quite non existent as of now.


The benefits as I see:
-somewhat eliminates the carpet of units, greatly reduce trafic jam, gives back city defense to the units (or at least they would play greater role), would allow the ai to march armies agains cities which are blocked by coast/mountains whatever. Other mechanisms that could be tied to unit stacking could increase tactical options.
The ai would still need to be good, butI believe it woud s@ck less. right now a few ranged units in a defensible position can kill unlimited number of ai units, becauseu it's very hard for it to use its advantage in numbers, and that is unrealistic

 

[Ryika]

That's certainly the most reasonable version of a hybrid-system I've read so far, but still... I would prefer them to rebalance the maintenance/production costs so that Infinite Unit Spam is a thing of the past than having them add systems to make the painful moving of dozens and dozens of units easier. Less units for less clutter.

Then maybe make Corps/Armies ignore Fortification bonuses from Units that are of a smaller size to allow for "strength in numbers" on a tile-basis without actually having huge "numbers" of units that need to be moved around.

 

[LDiCesare]

Call to Power did it right 20 years ago.

 

[AzemOcram]

It would also be nice if your own units could always move over your own territory, regardless of open border shenanigans by the AI (giving them the "your troops are at my border" warning would also help)

 

[RealAntithesis]

Some good ideas here. Can this be implemented by a mod?

 

[MooFreaky]

Personally, I'd be happy with one melee and one ranged unit on tile. When attacked both units take damage. If one dies, both die.

The concern I have with being able to stack ranged units, is that you will just stack ranged units. Sure they may be weaker, but the amount of damage they can produce is ludicrous and have no fear of taking reprisal damage. It would require a full opposing stack to defend against, and even then whoever attacked first would be at extreme advantage. And because damaged units can hide in a stack, unless you are able to kill the whole stack you are going to kill very little. This means that one side will win by a landslide, even if it is actually very close (as they can just heal surviving units).

If you spread out your units to maximise damage then they are easily picked off by the single stack of doom, as they will not be able to hide.


So while I like the idea, I feel there would be more need of negative reasons to stack. Making multiple units in a stack take damage from attacks would help, that way there is a reason to space out your units.

 

[RealAntithesis]

A reduction in combat values of stacked units should be sufficient - representing economies of scale as individual units become less efficient while contributing to the greater power of the whole.

Not sure if that makes sense for armies, but it also seems to be the idea behind the current system of corps (adding another unit gives diminishing returns: +10 and then +7). But corps don't feel like stacks - they feel like a more powerful version of a single unit.

Also we could add in collateral damage from siege attacks due to units being so tightly packed that catapult and artillery attacks become more efficient.

Also add a movement penalty since the logistics of keeping an army together is more complex than single free roaming units.

Enemy units attacking a stack should target the unit with the strongest defense (as this is what the defending army will expose to enemy attacks), and that defending unit should continue being the subject of subsequent attacks (to give attacking units a chance to kill off the stack).

Perhaps there could be a great general promotion (if there is such a thing) to cause more damage to stacks.

Anyhow, with sufficient controls and rules, I think stacks could be very viable without being overpowered stacks of doom.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Corps and Armies are stacks, it just doesn't show because you don't see more units. If the models showed more individual units people probably would realize it.

What Corps and Armies lack is combined arms. I wish we could combine melee with range and/or cavalry for specific effects. A Melee unit combined with Ranged could benefit from the Civ5 Impi special ability (fire a ranged attack before moving when they attack) rather than have increased strength. Melee + Anti Cavalry could receive a bonus against Calvary (with base strength unchanged). In both cases the Melee unit would become the base of the army with the other unit providing a bonus. Not sure how to combine Melee and Cavalry, maybe Cavalry has to act alone as fast strike forces.

If we could do this, the in-game models accurately showed all troops, and we could split armies to reorganize troops, then we would have something close to the Call to Power system which was actually very good.

 

[mzprox]

I realized that in current system stacks of ranged units can be broken, but:
-as suggested ranged units may get bigger reduction when stacked with other ranged
-some melee units, notably cavalries, could cause flanking damage on ranged and siege weapons

as for other anty stack mechanism: siege weapons, bombers would cause collateral damage just like in civ4.

And the whole system should be tested and unit strengths adjusted to make the game balanced

 

[dexters]

I think dooms tacks may be more unpopular than 1upt based on general feedback on forums. So probably not a good idea to suggest bringing back SOD under the 1 upt framework. sounds like design by committee with compromises everywhere.

They should just keep working ok 1upt and introduce limited stacking, combining of units etc. where appropriate

 

[wiggawuu]

I think dooms tacks may be more unpopular than 1upt based on general feedback on forums. So probably not a good idea to suggest bringing back SOD under the 1 upt framework. sounds like design by committee with compromises everywhere.

They should just keep working ok 1upt and introduce limited stacking, combining of units etc. where appropriate

they should just stop making civ games until they find someone with real talent and vision. Civ 6 is just a modded civ 5. Its garbage.

Moderator Action: Please be more civil in your discussion.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[mzprox]

1upt will never satisfy those folks who just hate the idea that archers shooting through cities, that the map is filled with units like a carpet, that no matter if you have a ten unit mixed army you can only attack with one per turn as the targt city happens to be on the coast next to a mountain.. etc
The thing that the ai sucks with the system is just one aspect.. but anyway.. no need to turn this into a new argument.
A mod might be nice, however without teaching the ai to use it correctly it wouldn1t do much, and it should be the duty of the developers to make a fun system, not modders'.

 

[stormtrooper412]

I was the first to complain when 5 switched to 1UPT because I was used to the stacks of doom. But stacks of doom were unrealistic and immersion breaking, 1UPT is definitely more strategic BUT it's not worth a damn without a semi decent AI.

A hybrid solution may or may not work.

 

[CultureManiac]

I played with SODs from Civ1 to Civ4. They ran their course. 1UPT makes for a much more interesting game. It's just the AI use of the units that needs to improve. Anyway, you can combine three units into a stronger army, and have a seige unit and GG in one tile. It's not exactly 1UPT as was introduced in CiV vanilla, when you couldn't even move over a worker.

 

[mzprox]

I too played lots of games of civ1-4 and haven't heard the expression "sod" many times and definietly not as something gamebreaking. Those games were more focused on strategy than tactical warfare, but tactics were very integral part of the game, especially in civ4. There were counters to stacks, not to mention that if you kept everything in one stack then your empire become vulnerable at other spots.
I don't know.. maybe these "sod"s were amultiplayer thing.. as in single player I wouldn't want more units than it was necessary because of their upkeep and i1d had rather attack from more than one side whenever i could.

 

[civplay]

I think it be cool. If your encampments allowed you to build a supply route/supply unit. Basically you can keep as many units as you'd like on the supply unit maybe at the cost of 1 food per 2 units, but if your enemy flanks you they can pillage the supply route like you can a trade route. The supply unit can no longer supply the entire, and a quarter of the the army dies per turn until you rebuild the supply route. Upon seeing the supply route was pillaged you have one turn grace period to start rebuilding the route or move units off the army. I think that would be pretty cool. Make the AI better at warfare, while adding more tactics for players. Its very challenging to flank AI carpet of doom. Also its very historically accurate.

 

[Lazteuq]

I think flanking bonuses can be a huge non-forced counter to doomstacks if they are made powerful enough. It also mimics real life: You don't want a dense mass of troops that can be easy to surround (example: Battle of Cannae, on a larger scale, the Germans in 1945 being attacked from all sides). I know V had flanking bonuses, but they didn't seem to be a big factor. If there are major flanking bonuses, you will naturally want to break up your armies, NOT to the point of only 1UPT, but to mini-stacks, more like real warfare.

I don't like the idea of making units weaker as they are combined because it doesn't really make sense. 100 soldiers in an area can shoot just as many arrows as 50 soldiers in that same area. It seems like a forced game mechanic.

Basically, I am thinking of giving a bonus to the attacker, instead of a penalty to the defender.

 

[Abade69]

Being dissapointed that civ6 hadn't improved its 1upt system significantly I thought I'd write down my ideas. I have no doubt others already thought of something similar, but anyway, here it comes:

My ideal system is a hybrid, as stacks of units are alloved, but penalized.

I think it's nice to have more people interested in improving the current 1UPT, as i got my own hybrid system in mind.

While i don't like the idea of penalties for stacks (don't see how the A.I is going to handle that in its dumb state), i think it has more to do with limits and production. Right now units are VERY easy to build in any city, so A.I starts spamming them all over the map. I'm making a new thread to discuss this, you are all invited

 

[Jarms48]

I do like that they added "corps" and "armies" though, it's a decent improvement over Civ V. I think they should expand this system to allow range units to combine with melee units though. Basically you could have 2 range units; more range damage but weak at melee, 2 melee units; better melee damage but can't attack at range, then 1 range and 1 melee; letting you attack at range and when attacked uses the melee units strength.

Melee units should be able to form corps with almost everything, other melee, range, and siege. That would give melee units a lot more viability, allowing them to be used as "tanks" (to use the MMO term). Everything else can only form corps with support (builders, settlers), and itself.

 

[LDiCesare]

I'll repeat myself.
I thinkone of thebest systems is that of CtP2 (or even MoM), where the number of units per tile was limited (12 and 9 respectively) but the composition of stacks mattered.
In CtP2, you wanted a stack of infantry+cavalry+archers/artillery because the game automatically played a mini battle where extra infantry only replaced lost infantry, whereas cavalry could flank, and archers were squishy but if put behind a good front row, delt a lot of damage.
The system prevented traffic jams by not having a carpet of units (keep the same prices as inciv, divide the number of army stacks we currently have by 4, of non-army stacks by 12). Production mattered in that if you as 2 or 3 stacksyou bet the one with a single stack. Tactics were not completely irrelevant either, but the ai could cope with them (there was bombardment, but only from adjacent tile).