2017 autumn patch - AI domination combat test

[Olleus]

There is of course Age of Wonders or Heroes of Might and Magic, which use a seperate Tactical Combat to resolve battles between stacks. Adding something like that, however, immediately makes a game much more war-focused, while Civilization is special in that it focuses less on war than most games of it's kind.

That's true. The entire Total War series and even Sid Meier's Pirates also have a different strategy and tactical map. It's hard to see what kind of tactical map setup could work for both archers and tanks however.

 

[SaMatra]

I always had an idea where you could stack as much units as you want but units suffer strength penalties due to overcrowding.

 

[RealAntithesis]

This is not really the place, but the problem with stacks is that you just end up with fewer 'bigger' units.

While this may be somewhat true, a proper stacked army is more than the sum of its parts - it adds the abilities of its constituent units (fortifiable, ranged, bombard, support etc) on one tile - which is a very valuable thing.

Also, the more units that are stacked in one tile, the less there are congesting all the other tiles with all the problems that causes.

My concept of stacked armies would involve Great Generals providing additional abilities to the army stack, which improve as the GG goes up levels.

The counter point would be that all units in an army are susceptible to bombard and cost more to maintain than the sum of its parts.

 

[phoinix]

While this may be somewhat true, a proper stacked army is more than the sum of its parts - it adds the abilities of its constituent units (fortifiable, ranged, bombard, support etc) on one tile - which is a very valuable thing.

Also, the more units that are stacked in one tile, the less there are congesting all the other tiles with all the problems that causes.

My concept of stacked armies would involve Great Generals providing additional abilities to the army stack, which improve as the GG goes up levels.

The counter point would be that all units in an army are susceptible to bombard and cost more to maintain than the sum of its parts.

I had a similar idea. Units are infinitely stackable but in order to stack every X number of units together, you need a great general charge. X can improve with techs/civics. So:

Advantages of stacking:
- best defender is selected every time.
- easier to move around
- more stealthy
- gg bonus

Disadvantages:
- siege units do damage to all stacked units.
- bonus idea for later eras: when outside friendly territory, requires a supply line, which uses the same mechanics as a trade route.