Combat System for Civ VII

[Boris Gudenuf]

It's hard to think of something that is more advanced but at the same time won't be hell in late game when your entire map is covered with units. But what if your troops will through eras become more and more clumped together. I want combat to change every era. So it's very basic in the beginning to battle formations to combat with maybe more politics in them.

Another problem with 1UPT.
A stacking system with variable stacks according to technology and weapons development solves that in one swell foop, and also the variable concentration problem according to terrain (more troops crammed into urban environments or sieges or close terrain like rain forest).
People persist in thinking it's either Stack of Doom or 1UPT, which is simply lack of imagination and knowledge on their part, or a silly attachment to two systems that we know don't work in a Civ-style game.

 

[historix69]

About 30 years ago a german company released a 1upt hex tactic/strategy game called "Battle Isle 2" (probably most famous part of the Battle Isle series) featuring a supply system with ammo, fuel, spare parts (for repair) and allowed construction units to build roads, railroads, bridges, fortifications (trenches). Each supply type had its own land unit. There was also a supply ship type and even a tanker plane type. The map had a different scale compared to Civ games, around 2x2 hexes for a hex/tile in Civ. River tiles were actual water tiles, so you needed a bridge to cross a river or an amphibic transporter. The map had permanent Fog of War, so you always needed to have units nearby to spot enemy units. Artillery range was about 6 tiles, units in general had 4 or more movement per turn and some ranged units could move - attack - move in the same turn. Placing a supply unit near the front allowed other units to move there, get fresh supplies (ammo, fuel, repair) and then move back to the front. (Depending on situation this could be a lot of micro management.)
The game was pretty revolutionary featuring also changing weather conditions (eg rain could cause tiles to become muddy prohibiting movement for many units, frost allowed some units to move over frozen rivers and lakes, snow showed tracks of units who moved there recently), ... There were different sea-levels for submarines and surface ships, different altitude for certain plane types, ... Infantry could ride in combat transporters, but also in transport helicopters. There were also several train types for transport, supply, long range artillery, combat, anti-aircraft, ... Most units featured a variety of up to 4 different weapon systems with very limited ammo against specific opponents, eg the special Sea Plane type featured MG/autocannon (against other aircraft, ground and sea units), torpedos (against ships), depth charges (against subs) and AG missiles (against ground and sea units).

see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Isle

The game is still available on GOG as part of the Battle Isle Platinum Collection.
https://www.gog.com/en/game/battle_isle_platinum

Edit :
What if a game would feature 2 scales? One scale for the strategy part, the terrain type, for placing cities, etc. and a smaller scale for the tactical part to place and move units on the map, eg 1 strategy hex = ca 7 tactical hex?