Noob Question: Stack of Doom.

[civzombie]

Okay, maybe you do get it. Your comment "SoD is not impossible in IV - though inadvisable" was confusing.

Perhaps you meant to say that stacking all of your units into a single stack of homogenous units is inadvaisable. If that is what you meant, then I agree with that.

What I don't agree with is that SODs are dead or inadvisable. Quite the opposite, they are advisable in almost all situations. I understand SOD to mean a large stack of varied units, perhaps 7-8+ varied units. They stacks are key to taking over cities and protecting your own artilery. As you identified, having more than one of these SOD is also advantageous.

For the reasons I explained in my post, in nearly every situation I would rather attack my opponent with two stacks of 7-8+ units rather than three to five smaller stacks with 3-5 units each. My two large stacks would be much more able to take advantage of terain defensive bonuses and would be much better in terms of r/p/s effect. In almost every military tech period, and in almost every situation, my two large stacks be no more vulnerable to seige than the three to five smaller stacks of 3-5 units.

So to answer the original posters question, big SOD are not very hindered by the changes to seige and are still a great strategy. The R/P/S effect and the inability to defend your own seige units makes small clusters a poor alternative.

 

[Swiss Bezerker]

SOD is so civ3. Of course, their are still bonuses to using them and if u have a medic in the stack u can cure collateral damage...

 

[BlackMage]

I would rather use 3-5 SOD of 3-5 units than 2 SOD of 7-8, primarily as a collateral damage concern. One or two suicide artys or bombers can ruin your whole day.

 

[drjones]

If you are thinking in terms of stacks you are shooting yourself in the foot. Think armies with combined arms and specialized roles. THink terrain and inherint defensive bonuses. Basicly forget 1 stack = good or 1 stack = bad and adapt to the situation at hand.

For instance if you are attacking a single city and it has a jungle/hills combo next to it as the only cover then you would be stupid to move any of your units onto any other spot in case of counter-attack. On the other hand if you are prepairing to hit a heavily fortified city and will need 15 turns to get a few catapults into position go ahead and spread out your troops to pillage more efficiently but do not lose your combined arms bonus in the process, know what units your enemy might go at you with and make sure you have a counter to each one in every stack (or better yet 2 counters in case of a concerted attack/bad luck).

Also remember a stack of 10 partially damaged units is worth more than a stack of 5 fully healed units and a stack of 5 dead ones.

-drjones

forgot to mention: since the AI heals at such a spectacular rate in their cities it is important to bring massive force to bear in a short shock, otherwise you may take significant damage in a round of attacks and only wound their units, wounds which will be gone in 2-3 rounds while you are still half dead. It is tempting to try to soften cities up with aq few units whlie the main attack force moves in but it never helps much.

 

[cleverhandle]

I would rather use 3-5 SOD of 3-5 units than 2 SOD of 7-8, primarily as a collateral damage concern. One or two suicide artys or bombers can ruin your whole day.

How many turns of delay do you incur spreading out your forces and moving them through enemy territory to the target city? Unless the answer is zero, I consider it a poor tradeoff. Every extra turn it takes to move forces into position means more time for the defender to reinforce and fortify, more unit supply costs, and more war weariness.

And there's still the problem of having fewer "best defenders" left when you spread out. Having two pikes in one stack is quite a bit better than having one pike in two when the enemy's knights come to beat you down after the catapults hit.

 

[cleverhandle]

What was the point of the AI building those catapults if they're never going to get used? She was toast anyway, so they might as well suicide.

You know, it's weird because the AI doesn't seem very consistent in this behavior. I've had several wars like the type you describe, where catapults just stupidly sit in the city. But I've also had games where the AI throws *everything* at me. In my conquest of Delhi last night, Gandhi tossed every one of his 4 catapults (from both Delhi and the surrounding area) along with about 10 other mixed troops - even garrison longbows that were in the city! After his assault, Delhi was left with only a single full strength horse archer, two direly wounded longbows, a nearly dead cat, and a half strength knight. Fortunately I still had enough force to prevail, but I really admired his determination. I'd be interested to figure out why his behavior in that battle was so different than the ones you describe.