1 unit per hex. Poll

[Thoughtful Thug]

One of the few best addition to the game. But I don't mind the old ways. I just wish we had the option of both.

 

[niall78]

Boring; composing my army/SoD isn't simply an exercise in quantity. Firstly, I have to consider what type of troops my enemy is using. If cavalry is predominant in my opponent's arsenal, then spearmen/pikemen are necessary, in numbers, for stack defense. How large does the stack need to be? It depends on how large my opponent's army is. Is his army turtled up in a border city? Then I might want to hit it first, making the rest of the conquest quicker and easier. If that's the case, then it might be advisable to include a larger siege component. Is speed essential? Then my army should be primarily mounted. I don't find this kind of problem-solving boring at all.

Stupid; see above. Not an overstatement to say that intelligence is required to increase the probability of success.

Unrealistic; Not at all. Prior to the Napoleonic era, I can think of only two exceptions to this rule--a nation/empire's military might was marshalled into one large force, and operated accordingly. Whether we are talking about Frederick the Great or Assurbanipal, an army was the operative element in military activity. The two exceptions were the Mongol toumans and the Roman legions. The Mongols invaded Kwarism and the Sung state with 3 armies on both occasions. The Romans divided their legions into small armies very often, however, when the Romans fought a prolonged war, they combined many legions into a large army. Trajan used 10 legions when he invaded Dacia. Marcus Aurelius used 8 to fight the Marcomannic War.

In military theory, Concentration of Force is a well-known concept, and the army/SoD exemplifies it well.

Infinite; exaggeration. Historically, there have been VERY large armies created, even in the pre-modern periods. Darius' force at Arbela was immense, yet Alexander defeated this giant army with a skilled deployment of a combined arms force--see the first paragraph above. Or read a translation of Arrian. Penguin copies are inexpensive.

All that said, the idea of limitations is good. Terrain and habitation seem to be the primary limiting factors in pre-modern warfare. The Roman legions had no real logistic apparatus, allowing the soldiers to either forage or purchase their grain from local people--but there had to BE local people with grain to sell. Look at any map of Imperial Rome at its height and then apply this idea. The border stopped where food supplies stopped. Germania being the only exception. Terrain absolutely should be a limiting factor. Taking a large stack across an expanse of desert tiles IS certainly unrealistic. The solution would be to assign a support factor to specific types of tiles, augmented by habitation levels. Heavily populated grasslands/floodplains/plains should be able to support high military concentrations, whereas empy deserts should NOT be able to do so, with unit attrition, either hit points, or outright unit elimination, being the result of an attempt to cross such. Following out this idea, techs called "Plunder" and "Depots" in the early modern era (1500-1800) would allow armies some flexibility in terms of support, the former negative, impacting populations and economies, with the latter positive, with no adverse effects, but more limits. After 1800, industrial techs (Steam power, Assembly line, etc. and possibly a "Logistics" tech) would allow greater flexibility still.

I understand the rancor regarding stacks, but see further refinement of the idea as a solution, not elimination in favor of a wholly inadequate and inapplicable tactical system in its place. MO.

All that said, there is another element that I see missing from these polarized discussions; the middle ground. These discussions, more especially the theoretical discussions regarding possible fixes to the current state of CiV combat, seem to be a typical false dilemma fallacy--EITHER SoD, OR 1upt. In most of my late game wars, I do not use SoD at all, but instead build a very large military and invade on a broad front. Units do often coalesce around enemy cities when they turtle up, concentrating prior to the assault, but often move in 2 unit stacks, often with inf/art as a combined unit. Used carefully this approach can and DOES work, and it avoids the peril of a single cat appearing and hitting the army/SoD thereby doing lots of damage to lots of units. Identifying WHERE the enemy stack is located and disposing adequate force to counter it is necessary as well, but using the Broad Front strategy has proven very effective. Late game wars, including continental domination campaigns can progress with extraordinary speed. (I play habitually on Noble, huge continental maps, marathon speed)

I agree with this post 100%, like I said above 1upt is just an attempt to add tactical game play into a strategic game. This is a massive let down even without considering the large amount of tactical level games in the market that do the job much better already.

 

[MadRat]

I like 1UPT, it is actually a lot more fun then trebuchet stacks O'DOOOOOM! the IA just needs to be taught how to use it better.

IMHO the problem with stacks is that they didn't represent valid armies just abusive mechanics. The problem was the fact that there was very little risk to that rmy if they had a single great defensive unit and parked it next to a city. There are no supply lines, no forage and a never ending stream of trebuchet shots. The idea army was 1 holyhell infantry and 15 trebuchets. That isnt an army. An army is like 10 legions + a catapault. If we are going to use ideas from history like concentrations of force we would beed other ideas like lines of supply, forage and morale

Having 1 squad of commandos defending 4 artillery regiments from a massive army is silly.

If battles were resolved a la civ CtoP with battle mini games then yes stacks would work as a trebuchet spam wouldnt work as that army would annihilated by a well balanced smaller force.

Rat

 

[da_Vinci]

Infinite; exaggeration. Historically, there have been VERY large armies created, even in the pre-modern periods. Darius' force at Arbela was immense, yet Alexander defeated this giant army with a skilled deployment of a combined arms force--see the first paragraph above. Or read a translation of Arrian. Penguin copies are inexpensive.

I think your example here illustrates the flaw of the stacks of doom approach ... two giant stacks of doom facing off don't give the opportunity for the kind of tactical manuever that Alexander used to defeat Darius at Gaugamela or Arbela (your choice).

I think that large stacks by themselves are not unrealistic, but the way large stacks engage in combat in Civ 4 certainly is. It is like every combat happens at Thermopylae ... vast army fighting one unit at a time.

1upt has its problems too ... as a numerically larger army has to stretch out so far from the point of engagement that it becomes difficult to concentrate force effectively. This is compounded by the potential to heal defenders instantly, and for ranged units to take out attackers in a single shot. In turn based SP, I find defending pretty easy even against large numbers of troops (of course, if the AI were smart enough to spread that army across a larger front, might not be so easy). Maybe in 1upt rather than concentration of force, the attack theme needs to be multiple theatres of attack?

I read that in MP folks say the attacker is having the advantage ... so maybe under simulatneous turns things end up different?

dV

 

[cavilier210]

For.

Even if it's not perfect. But, stacks were too dumb.
Today, when i want to play Civilization, i think that i prefer launching the unperfect Civ V instead of the perfect Civ IV because of that.

Agreed. The stacks in Civ4 were so large sometimes that I couldn't measure the enemies numbers. It was ridiculous. It's also absurd. Military forces take up physical space, and that should be reflecting in a game that involves a military aspect,

 

[JLoZeppeli]

I think that no one has ever played Panzer general, it has a totally different map scale.

The Tetris Syndrome i have in Civ V is totally new for me, and i played a lot hex games...


There is no logic that can explain neutral units or allied units not stacking, like a natural obstacle... I wonder if Napoleon had the same problems with his allies, standing in front of his troops

Leaving aside the scale that make impossible sometimse to pass defences where the map has only one or two terrain tile... Or a mountain that make impossible to pass as formation o to biesiege a city(thinking of Hannibal and the Alps it make me laugh...).

 

[Zenstrive]

5:1. The hex is here to stay. Adapt that, whiners!

 

[Peregrine]

Appreciate your post, and agree. See the term "rudimentary" in my initial post in this thread, and my statement on "further refinement of the idea." Your thermopylae criticism falls under rudimentary and certainly applies.

I was under the impression that mounted units may attack siege units selectively in an army/SoD, thereby making unfeasible the combinations cited by Madrat. Rat, am I missing something here? I do recall seeing odd messages after a combat regarding "flanking damage" to specified units. Not sure I understand what is happening there, though. Can you (or anyone, for that matter,) explain?

Niall, thanks.

As mentioned in other places, other threads, there IS a solution available. It's been used before in games as old as Master of Magic and Centurion, Defender of Rome. This is the ideal solution, IMO. That is the resolution of combat into a tactical screen where the armies/SoDs are then deployed and fought. OF COURSE this implementation would very necessarily include a "quick resolve" button to satisfy those players who do not want to fight the tactical battles and to quickly resolve stack-vs-single unit fights. The tactical battle option should be both a macrogame toggle (flipped at start, ala no-tech-brokering, etc.) and an ingame micro that allows the player to general the important battles and pass on the skirmishes/mop-ups. I predict that the immediate criticism of this idea will be to posit the extended time element in playing the CivGame + tactical battles as unacceptably extended. My first answer would be to reply that, although individual tastes vary regarding time invested per game, many games are very, VERY time-invested anyway. Playing civ just isn't something you choose to do if you only have an hour to kill. My second reponse is more constructive--include in each civ a General unit. In order to stack X amount of units into a large army, this unit is necessary. This allows single-unit raiding parties, etc, but ONE general means ONE army. Possibly allowing the Romans and Mongols to have 1 or 2 more, for historical accuracy. If killed the unit regenerates free at capital. With early industrial techs (I seem to recall a Conscription tech in prior versions) more generals will be generated to allow for multiple armies--Napoleon was the first to use mass conscript armies and send several into action simultaneously. With the industrial techs (see last post for suggested techs), very large armies (ala 1914) appeared and the General rule should be obsoleted, allowing any units to stack and/or move freely.

These measures are; 1) easy to implement from a design viewpoint (though possibly it's too late for CiV) and 2.) neatly simulate the army size/logistic/leadership components that constrained the application of the concentration of force concept in the premodern eras.

 

[da_Vinci]

I was under the impression that mounted units may attack siege units selectively in an army/SoD, thereby making unfeasible the combinations cited by Madrat. Rat, am I missing something here? I do recall seeing odd messages after a combat regarding "flanking damage" to specified units. Not sure I understand what is happening there, though. Can you (or anyone, for that matter,) explain?

Mounted units who survive an attack (win or retreat) when defender is not in a city will inflict flanking damage to seige in the defending stack. But the seige are not the selected defending unit in the combat. The affected siege lose some hit points, similar to collateral damage, except that there is no limit ... enough flanking damage can kill them outright.

The only mounted (or any unit, as far as I know) unit that selective attacks a particular unit type in the direct 1v1 combat in BTS is the ballista elephant, which attacks mounted units in the stack if there are any. But that becomes a liability if you build a stack with say 5 or more elephant fodder chariots and no other horse. Then the elephants can't take out your axes or maces.

dV

 

[Asterix Rage]

I don't vote !

I'd like 3 or 4 units per tile ...

 

[Krall]

It's awesome

Just out of curiosity, why do you describe them as awesome?

 

[Jolly Rogerer]

Against. The idea of a single unit/army(?) of swordsmen/pikemen/archers/whatever solely occupying a single tile that is apparently supposed to represent hundreds of square miles of terrain is too jarringly unrealistic to tolerate. Civ combat systems have always been rudimentary when compared to games that specialize in warfare exclusively. Doesn't mean that the system shouldn't be improved. 1upt seems to be swinging the pendulum back all the way to civI and civII combat problems. A moderate solution seems elusive for the current design team. Short of abandonment, I see no solution for this. Unlike so many others, I saw no problem with the SoD. Using that acronym for a stack (in this forum especially) seems to be a pejorative. More accurately, a stack is simply an ARMY. Why the idea of an army is so unacceptable is still, to me, a mystery. At some risk of flaming reponses, my speculation regarding this is that so many have been victims of a large enemy army. Association? Perhaps.

ROFL and agree. To be fair the tactical combat system in Civ4 was silly too though. Sequentially sending in units one at a time to face the enemy's best defender isn't realistic and for me not fun either. But at least the game was only tactically unrealistic rather than operationally unrealistic. I would have preferred auto-resolution for army combats or a simple tactical sub-game to the series of match ups.

1upt reminds me the Civ1 and Civ2 days where a militia unit from a city of 10,000 people could somehow project power over hundreds of square miles sufficient to inhibit an armored division from a city of 1 million people from moving. 1upt now adds insult to injury in that the militia unit need not be an enemy unit, it can be one of your own. It's a step back even by the standards of the Civ series.

I don't mind beer and pretzel games, but why ignore decades of game design in order to hold on to gaming concepts that have proven themselves inferior? Civ1 was an inferior war game and decades behind the state of the art by the standards 1991. Its saving grace was that it wasn't primarily a war game. The mismatch between the scale of the main game and the scale of the combat system has always been at the center of this problem, and 1upt is simply an unwelcome return to this after a 1 version hiatus.

 

[phil9999uk]

A clear winner

 

[niall78]

A clear winner

Like much of the game there are no winners. 1upt might have solved the SOD problems while opening up a whole lot of other problems. AI can't handle it at all, the scale of warfare is now badly broken and it plays like a tactical game from the mid 80's. If this is the best thing about the new civ I really feel like crying.

By the way the thread is full of interesting suggestions and posts from numerous people. I don't post much because other people are saying it better, if some of the cheer leaders above have nothing to say why bother posting? There's plenty of flames to go round on the 2K site.

 

[JLoZeppeli]

A clear winner

a clear idiot....

Your poll sucks as it is... you can't compare an awful option with a bad option.... It is like asking if is better HIV than hepatitis... Better hepatitis of course, but is not good either!

 

[SMA333M]

I like the 1 UPT combat system but for moving reasons, I believe you should be able to stack them like this:

> you can only have 1 unit of same type on a tile; that means, only 1 melee unit, 1 archer unit, 1 artillery unit, 1 mounted unit (horseman, etc); for navy it will be the same.

> for modern age: 1 armor, 1 infantry unit (like paratroopers or mechanized infantry), 1 helicopter, 1 anti-air, 1 artillery; so this way it will still be 1UPT but for each unit type. You will be able to have max 5 combat units / tile in Modern Age/Future Age

> you won't be able to have 2 modern armors on same tile for exemple... but you can have 1 modern armor + 1 mech infantry + 1 mobile sam + 1 rocket artillery + 1 helicopter gunship


OR


> there should be transports in the end... for sea but also for land (like transport helicopter). So you can put let's say like 3-4 units in 1 transport. You will move that unit easier and faster, then you will unload units, each on it's own tile ofc.


OR


> make it possible to move all units like in a RTS game... selecting them and then telling where to go, with the option to keep formation and speed.

 

[Maxor127]

For. Looks like an overwhelming majority is for. Which is good, because it looks like most of us are on the same page with what works in Civ5 and what doesn't.

 

[Dhaeman]

I voted against because the AI can't handle it and it seems that a CTP system would be a better compromise which would get rid of stacks of doom and would be usable by the AI .

But you are not voting against 1UPT. You are voting against the game having good AI, which it clearly doesn't.

 

[phil9999uk]

But you are not voting against 1UPT. You are voting against the game having good AI, which it clearly doesn't.

Yes the poll refers to IUPT not the AI.

 

[lordqarlyn]

I like Carpets of Doom better than Stacks of Doom!

I'm cool with 1 unit per hex. My only gripe is I would like naval units to be allowed to occupy the same hexes as embarked units. AI always seems to find ways around my ZOCs!