A possible solution to the stack of doom and 1upt debate

[ShadowWarrior]

This idea might have already been offered in this forum before. If that's the case, I apologize.

I suggest that all civilizations can not stack more than one unit on the same hex when the game first starts. But subsequently, civics technology will allow players to stack more and more units. For example, the discovery of certain civics may allow players to stack three units on the same hex together. Later on, the discovery of another certain civics may increase that number from three to six. Certain policies, civ unique attributes, and great generals can also increase the stackable number of units. So can certain districts, such as military districts.

To give incentives to unit stacking, I suggest that units stacked into the same hex effectively and automatically forms an army. The army will have "the whole is greater than the sum of its part" effect. If an archer has two hit points, and a warrior has four hit point, the two units together have six hit points total. But when they form an army by being on the same hex, they will have more than 6 hit points. The specific number can be determined by the designers themselves.

 

[679x]

I mean, we already have corps and armies, as well as support units. Those are pretty much a more balanced / simple / understandable version of this. I personally think that's the closest we should get to having multiple units on one tile. Since everything else in the game takes up a full tile (districts, improvements, resources, etc) I think it only makes sense that combat units do too. Also, there wouldn't be much of a reason to have units spread out, because a stack could come along and annihilate any lone units or even stacks without as many units as the other stack. So, warfare would just be 2 dense globs going at eachother like those battle robot competitions.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Corps and Armies already cover this, but I like the idea of limited stacking. 3-5 units of the same type (military/civilian/embarked) per tile. The game would have to be rebalanced however (cities can't be this squishy because the amount of units able to attack is larger).

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Command-and-control's another easy way to resolve this.

Let there be as many units on a tile as you want, but you can only give orders to say, 3 units, at the start of the game. As you develop your military infrastructure, that number gradually rises. A corps and an army count as only 1 unit each.

Now you can decide if you want to concentrate your forces in a single tile or spread them out for flanking support, etc. But there's only so many units you can attack with or reposition per turn.

 

[Haig]

I wish that 2nd expansion for Civ VI would bring us some limited stacking, like combining Corps and Armies or whatever.

It would help the a.i. a LOT in offensive.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Here I go again...
Being a military historian, and having plowed through this subject in the context of Civ V a couple of years ago, here's my take:

The ability to concentrate troops in a meaningful way has always been dependent on two things:
Command and Control
Supply

We can use Either or, better in my opinion, Both to provide 'limited stacking' (concentration) for Civ VI (or, more likely, Civ VII).

First, Command and Control. In the Ancient Era there was very little of either. The largest permanent units that have appeared in any of the (admittedly sparse) ancient texts are between about 300 and 700 men, and can be either all one type (archers, spearmen, 'warriors' with clubs, maces, short swords, knifes, javelins, etc) or a mixture, usually of what the game calls Melee/Anti-Cav (warriors or spearmen) and Ranged troops. Above that, nothing. That means that anything resembling an 'Army' of several thousand men is virtually uncontrollable. About the most sophisticated maneuver possible is 'Follow Me!' with a bright banner flying above your chariot so they can see who you are. In most battle depictions (again, very sparse and frequently propagandistic in tone) it appears that most of the fighting is done by a few 'Great Men' leaders while everyone else tries to stay out of the way. Homer's depiction of Dark Age Greek warfare in the Iliad is the same: a few Great Men do the fighting, the rest are, literally, 'spear-carriers' conspicuously unimportant to the outcome.
By the Classical Era you start to get more 'general' organized units: the Greek Phalanx seems to have been divided into line and file that were the same, so the 'standard' 8 rank-deep Phalanx had 'companies' of 8x8 or 64 men. Alexander's 16-rank deep Pezhetairoi pikemen had 16x16 units of 256 men as the basic unit. 6 - 8 of these were combined into Taxeis of about 1600 - 2000 men - the earliest 'Regiments' on a permanent basis, identified by their commanders' names and apparently recruited by region in Macedonia. A little later the earliest Roman Legion appears to have been a decimal organization of 100-man Centuries organized into larger Cohortes and Manipulares. The Persian Immortals were originally 10,000 strong, which implies another Decimal organization of 10 x 1000 man units, each of 10 x 100 man 'companies'.
And so on through the Eras. Development of larger, permanent military organizations, in fact, was sometimes much more important than any development in weapons technology. One Major Component of the Mongols' success was that they were organized into ferociously-disciplined units of 10, 100, 1000, and 10,000 man Tumens that could be maneuvered at will by audible or visual signals. Against a medieval European army that still maneuvered by 'Follow the guy with the biggest banner', this was a devastating advantage.

Second, Supply. The only way to send food to an army was by boat. Anywhere you couldn't send a boat, the army ate off the surrounding countryside or carried everything with it, which meant it could eat for a week or so and then started starving. No Army marched through Tundra before the Industrial or Modern Eras, because it could not be fed there. Very few tried to march through Desert, and when they did it frequently ended in Disaster (see Alexander the Great's march through the Gedrosian desert for a nasty and vivid example). That means some terrain will be virtually impossible to stack in unless you are next to a river or coast where boats can supply the units there. Even with roads, before railroads wagons, carts and pack animals could only extend a 'supply line' for about 200 kilometers or so, less in rough terrain, desert, jungle, tundra or marsh. Once you have modern roads/trucks or railroads, and modern powered shipping, virtually any number of units can be stacked and supplied anywhere, if you are willing to pay the price in Infrastructure. Notoriously, in WWII the USA, which was supplying troops in all parts of the world from Europe to the Pacific Islands, had upwards of 40,000 men in 'rear services' for every 10,000 Combat Troops. In game terms, that's a Supply Cost per turn approximately twice to four times the Maintenance Cost of the unit itself. Think twice before sending your Army far, far away!

So, to do a quick summary:
Stacking will vary enormously due to supply technologies and Command and Control technologies and techniques. This can, to some extent, be 'built in' by Era; for example, a Basic Stacking Limit might be:
Ancient Era:...................2 units
Classical Era:.................3 units
Medieval Era and later...4 units
Modified by Civics or Technologies that allow you to form multi-unit Corps (Industrial Era, historically) and Armies, and effects of Great Generals, which should definitely allow higher stacking levels in all Eras.

We could even include specific Units as multi-unit 'stacks', so that the Romans get the advantage (in the Classical Era) of a Roman Legion consisting of 2 Swordsmen which form one unit for stacking purposes, or, in the Atomic Era, the proper Military Civic might allow the formation of an Armored or Panzer Division consisting of one tank and one (motorized) infantry unit as a single unit for stacking with special combat bonuses for 'tactical combined arms'.

Support Units should be redesigned to include exclusively those 'non-combat' (military engineers, medics, supply convoys) units that enhance Combat Abilities or other unit attributes, but Never have any sort of Combat Factor themselves. BUT, because they represent extra 'tail', they would count towards Stacking - more mouths to feed within the same Tile, more elements to control within the same force. The development of Army Staffs in the Industrial Era will make a huge difference in Stacking Limits' by the way, especially including the stacking of Support Units.

 

[ShadowWarrior]

Here I go again...
Being a military historian, and having plowed through this subject in the context of Civ V a couple of years ago, here's my take:

The ability to concentrate troops in a meaningful way has always been dependent on two things:
Command and Control
Supply

We can use Either or, better in my opinion, Both to provide 'limited stacking' (concentration) for Civ VI (or, more likely, Civ VII).

First, Command and Control. In the Ancient Era there was very little of either. The largest permanent units that have appeared in any of the (admittedly sparse) ancient texts are between about 300 and 700 men, and can be either all one type (archers, spearmen, 'warriors' with clubs, maces, short swords, knifes, javelins, etc) or a mixture, usually of what the game calls Melee/Anti-Cav (warriors or spearmen) and Ranged troops. Above that, nothing. That means that anything resembling an 'Army' of several thousand men is virtually uncontrollable. About the most sophisticated maneuver possible is 'Follow Me!' with a bright banner flying above your chariot so they can see who you are. In most battle depictions (again, very sparse and frequently propagandistic in tone) it appears that most of the fighting is done by a few 'Great Men' leaders while everyone else tries to stay out of the way. Homer's depiction of Dark Age Greek warfare in the Iliad is the same: a few Great Men do the fighting, the rest are, literally, 'spear-carriers' conspicuously unimportant to the outcome.
By the Classical Era you start to get more 'general' organized units: the Greek Phalanx seems to have been divided into line and file that were the same, so the 'standard' 8 rank-deep Phalanx had 'companies' of 8x8 or 64 men. Alexander's 16-rank deep Pezhetairoi pikemen had 16x16 units of 256 men as the basic unit. 6 - 8 of these were combined into Taxeis of about 1600 - 2000 men - the earliest 'Regiments' on a permanent basis, identified by their commanders' names and apparently recruited by region in Macedonia. A little later the earliest Roman Legion appears to have been a decimal organization of 100-man Centuries organized into larger Cohortes and Manipulares. The Persian Immortals were originally 10,000 strong, which implies another Decimal organization of 10 x 1000 man units, each of 10 x 100 man 'companies'.
And so on through the Eras. Development of larger, permanent military organizations, in fact, was sometimes much more important than any development in weapons technology. One Major Component of the Mongols' success was that they were organized into ferociously-disciplined units of 10, 100, 1000, and 10,000 man Tumens that could be maneuvered at will by audible or visual signals. Against a medieval European army that still maneuvered by 'Follow the guy with the biggest banner', this was a devastating advantage.

Second, Supply. The only way to send food to an army was by boat. Anywhere you couldn't send a boat, the army ate off the surrounding countryside or carried everything with it, which meant it could eat for a week or so and then started starving. No Army marched through Tundra before the Industrial or Modern Eras, because it could not be fed there. Very few tried to march through Desert, and when they did it frequently ended in Disaster (see Alexander the Great's march through the Gedrosian desert for a nasty and vivid example). That means some terrain will be virtually impossible to stack in unless you are next to a river or coast where boats can supply the units there. Even with roads, before railroads wagons, carts and pack animals could only extend a 'supply line' for about 200 kilometers or so, less in rough terrain, desert, jungle, tundra or marsh. Once you have modern roads/trucks or railroads, and modern powered shipping, virtually any number of units can be stacked and supplied anywhere, if you are willing to pay the price in Infrastructure. Notoriously, in WWII the USA, which was supplying troops in all parts of the world from Europe to the Pacific Islands, had upwards of 40,000 men in 'rear services' for every 10,000 Combat Troops. In game terms, that's a Supply Cost per turn approximately twice to four times the Maintenance Cost of the unit itself. Think twice before sending your Army far, far away!

So, to do a quick summary:
Stacking will vary enormously due to supply technologies and Command and Control technologies and techniques. This can, to some extent, be 'built in' by Era; for example, a Basic Stacking Limit might be:
Ancient Era:...................2 units
Classical Era:.................3 units
Medieval Era and later...4 units
Modified by Civics or Technologies that allow you to form multi-unit Corps (Industrial Era, historically) and Armies, and effects of Great Generals, which should definitely allow higher stacking levels in all Eras.

We could even include specific Units as multi-unit 'stacks', so that the Romans get the advantage (in the Classical Era) of a Roman Legion consisting of 2 Swordsmen which form one unit for stacking purposes, or, in the Atomic Era, the proper Military Civic might allow the formation of an Armored or Panzer Division consisting of one tank and one (motorized) infantry unit as a single unit for stacking with special combat bonuses for 'tactical combined arms'.

Support Units should be redesigned to include exclusively those 'non-combat' (military engineers, medics, supply convoys) units that enhance Combat Abilities or other unit attributes, but Never have any sort of Combat Factor themselves. BUT, because they represent extra 'tail', they would count towards Stacking - more mouths to feed within the same Tile, more elements to control within the same force. The development of Army Staffs in the Industrial Era will make a huge difference in Stacking Limits' by the way, especially including the stacking of Support Units.

This is exactly why I proposed that the number of units that can be stacked into an army in the same hex be increased as new tech/civics are discovered. Like you have proposed, modifiers can include great generals, civ unique attributes, city improvements, etc.

I feel that we shouldn't restrict the stacking to the same type of units. Archers should be able to form an army with warriors.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I feel that we shouldn't restrict the stacking to the same type of units. Archers should be able to form an army with warriors.

Exactly. This is why we need to make a distinction between the current system, in which units of the same type are 'compiled' into a new unit of the same type but stronger (Corps, Army) and a true Stack, which is various types of units which can reinforce each other's capabilities.
This also means that the rules for combat between two stacks of varying types of units will have to be very carefully established.

There was a lot of discussion on this back in Civ V days when all the defects of 1UPT were first being confronted, but here are my thoughts:
1. First case: Stack versus individual unit. A real no-brainer: Ranged Units fire first, then Melee/Anti-Cav/Mounted units engage in 'close combat'. The priority could be Strongest in relative modified Factors attacks/defends first, or Fastest (modified relative speed), or Like Fights Like: Melee versus Melee by preference, etc. Of these, Strongest makes most sense to me, since that is the way most gamers would do it. - And Strongest should be determined not by basic Combat Factor, but by modified Combat Factor so that a Promoted unit gets priority over a non-promoted of the same size and type, and Modifiers are taken into effect - a Warrior takes priority versus a Spearman because of basic Combat Modifiers, all other things being equal, a Spearman takes priority in attacking/defending against a Horseman, etc.

2. Second Case: Stack versus Stack. Here's where it gets complicated. I can see two possibilities: either precise Priority Rules for each individual Unit in the Stack attacking or defending against each individual Unit in the other Stack, with Modifiers applying to each individual Combat, or a single combat in which each individual set of modifiers for each unit are all taken into account at once. The latter has the advantage that 'Combined Arms' Modifiers can be applied to the attack/defense of the Stack. For instance, a Stack containing all Mounted units might get a Mobility Modifier against a Stack containing a mixture of 'Foot' and Mounted, and a Major Modifier against a Stack of all non-mounted units - they can pretty much pick where they want to attack, or dodge any attack as they please. IF the tile in which the battle is taking place (always the tile being attacked) is Marsh or Forest or Rainforest of course, Mounted would lose all those Mobility Modifiers.
Combination Modifiers, or 'Tactical' Modifiers could be compiled from the historical examples: Horsemen with light infantry (Scouts) or Anti-Cav were dramatically more effective against other cavalry (examples: Alexander the Great's light horse at Gaugamela: 1000 light cavalry with 6000 Thracian spearmen behind them held off and tied up over 10,000 Bactrian cavalry, including armored heavy cavalry; German light cavalry with spear/javelin-armed infantry attached were so dreaded by Gallic heavy cavalry that they refused to attack them, according to Caesar). In the gunpowder period, Mounted, Melee (Musketmen) and Ranged (Field Cannon) were enormously more effective than any two of them: the Cavalry forced the enemy to form square, which made great targets for the cannon or infantry still in firing line. Attempts to attack the infantry exposed your flank to the cavalry, attempt to attack the cavalry and it retired being the infantry and artillery and then counterattacked when they had finished shooting you to bits...
There are lots of these, and they are really not available easily or normally to individual Unit combat systems - such as we have now.

Finally, Great Generals in a Stack Change The Rules. They may add special modifiers for Tactics, special modifiers to individual units or unit types, or allow a Stack to do things it might not be able to do otherwise, like Retreat Before Combat or Advance 1 tile extra after Victory.
"I'm facing a stack of all Mounted Units with Great General Timur-i-Lenk: Be afraid. Be very afraid..."
Basic Rule: Do Not Attack any Stack with a Great General nicknamed 'Stonewall' or 'Rock of'...

Finally, note that since now most combat will take place within the tile, all Ranges will become 1 Tile except for late-game Really Long Range types like Missiles or modern Artillery. That means the days of the lone wandering Archer are Numbered, because without something or someone to stop enemy troops from getting at him, he is Dead Meat: the standard reaction to ranged fire before gunpowder was to Charge the Shooters.

 

[RealAntithesis]

The problem with stacks of doom is how to counter them without it being absolutely necessary to have your own competing stack of doom. The single most effective thing a stack does is to allow the player to place all (edit : or at least more than one) of their units in one spot and concentrate an attack on a single or few targets without being spread across half the map.

'Armies' in this context should have some counter balancing negative traits to avoid becoming an unstoppable force. E.g. Requires a great general to create an army, vulnerability to bombard collateral damage, additional maintenance costs (increasing the further away from your closest owned or allied city to simulate longer supply lines), unit caps (increased through techs, civics, great general abilities), slower movement speed (i.e. in enemy territory). These negative traits can be reduced somewhat by great general abilities, which are gained when the great general goes up levels through army military engagements.

Apart from an army moving as one unit, individual units engage enemy units on an individual basis (which may be buffed by the effects of other units including support unit abilities) and can also be picked off one by one when attacked by enemy units, except bombard which damages all units in the army.

The same thing applies to great admirals and the creation of fleet battle groups.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The problem with stacks of doom is how to counter them without it being absolutely necessary to have your own competing stack of doom. The single most effective thing a stack does is to allow the player to place all (edit : or at least more than one) of their units in one spot and concentrate an attack on a single or few targets without being spread across half the map.

'Armies' in this context should have some counter balancing negative traits to avoid becoming an unstoppable force. E.g. Requires a great general to create an army, vulnerability to bombard collateral damage, additional maintenance costs (increasing the further away from your closest owned or allied city to simulate longer supply lines), unit caps (increased through techs, civics, great general abilities), slower movement speed (i.e. in enemy territory). These negative traits can be reduced somewhat by great general abilities, which are gained when the great general goes up levels through army military engagements.

Apart from an army moving as one unit, individual units engage enemy units on an individual basis (which may be buffed by the effects of other units including support unit abilities) and can also be picked off one by one when attacked by enemy units, except bombard which damages all units in the army.

The same thing applies to great admirals and the creation of fleet battle groups.

Perfectly stated, sir!
This is why I've been arguing since the original discussions concerning 1UPT in Civ V that 'supply line; or Logistics Rules should be applied to stacks to Keep Them Honest. Given certain technology levels, there are many types of terrain in which a Stack or concentration of forces simply cannot survive: tundra, desert, rainforest/jungle, and certain types of terrain, due to disease, were always deadly to armies and actually inflicted casualties on them: marsh, rainforest/jungle. Given those kinds of restrictions, plus the absolute necessity of either supplying food/fodder from outside or, basically, pillaging each tile as you pass through it, and the building of Stacks would be realistically curtailed in the game as it was historically. - until the railroad and internal combustion engine changed the rules.

 

[Phrozen]

Perfectly stated, sir!
This is why I've been arguing since the original discussions concerning 1UPT in Civ V that 'supply line; or Logistics Rules should be applied to stacks to Keep Them Honest. Given certain technology levels, there are many types of terrain in which a Stack or concentration of forces simply cannot survive: tundra, desert, rainforest/jungle, and certain types of terrain, due to disease, were always deadly to armies and actually inflicted casualties on them: marsh, rainforest/jungle. Given those kinds of restrictions, plus the absolute necessity of either supplying food/fodder from outside or, basically, pillaging each tile as you pass through it, and the building of Stacks would be realistically curtailed in the game as it was historically. - until the railroad and internal combustion engine changed the rules.

So a city surrounded by marshes on the coast would be an unsiegable fortress like real life Venice?

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

So a city surrounded by marshes on the coast would be an unsiegable fortress like real life Venice?

It would be a very expensive city to attack: with a good set of game rules, you could set up a sea supply line to keep the Stack/Army fed, but before Germ Theory/Sanitation Tech (mid-Industrial Era, approximately) every unit in the stack in the marsh would take Disease Attrition every turn it was there. Venice was founded in the first place by refugees looking for a place that could not be attacked easily, and it remained a one-city Power largely because no matter how big its opponents were (Ottomans, Holy Roman Emperor) attacking it directly was a near-suicide mission. 'Bad Air' (Mal Aria) is a bullet and arrow-proof attacker...

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

It would be a very expensive city to attack: with a good set of game rules, you could set up a sea supply line to keep the Stack/Army fed, but before Germ Theory/Sanitation Tech (mid-Industrial Era, approximately) every unit in the stack in the marsh would take Disease Attrition every turn it was there. Venice was founded in the first place by refugees looking for a place that could not be attacked easily, and it remained a one-city Power largely because no matter how big its opponents were (Ottomans, Holy Roman Emperor) attacking it directly was a near-suicide mission. 'Bad Air' (Mal Aria) is a bullet and arrow-proof attacker...

Good points.

I think the Venice as one city power thing, though, is overstated. It was a fairly wide spread empire through the eastern Med. Ruled and run by Venice, yes, but the Roman empire was run from one city, too (usually Rome).

 

[ShadowWarrior]

My thinking regarding logistic is this. I think all military units (including army, which I define as a bunch of military units grouped in the same hex, and joint into a cohesive force under a great general's command) requires constant supplies in order to maintain their hit points as soon as they move into enemy boarders. I propose that a new unit be created which is supply wagon in the ancient era, and logistic support in the modern era. When an army needs to go inside an enemy's boarder, they begin losing hit point as soon as they step inside. But if they are supplied by the supply wagon/logistic support unit, then their hit points will not be negatively affected.

The mechanics of the supply wagon unit works like this. We first click on the supply wagon unit. Then we select a button which, when clicked, ask us to click on whichever unit/army we want supplied. Then we click on that unit that we want supplied. As soon as we do this, we see a route similar to the routes generated by traders unit. This route is the supply/logistic route, which the supply unit will use to travel back and forth between its originating city and the army it is supplying. This route, just like the traders units' routes, can be plundered and destroyed. And of course, the route itself is constantly changing depending on the present location of the army being supplied.

Also, each supply unit may only supply a certain number of units. Lets say a generic supply unit can supply up to no more than 3 units. Then an army with 4 military units will have 3 of its unit working completely fine when traversing inside enemy territory, and 1 unit bleeding hit points with each turn until it literally dies.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

My thinking regarding logistic is this. I think all military units (including army, which I define as a bunch of military units grouped in the same hex, and joint into a cohesive force under a great general's command) requires constant supplies in order to maintain their hit points as soon as they move into enemy boarders. I propose that a new unit be created which is supply wagon in the ancient era, and logistic support in the modern era. When an army needs to go inside an enemy's boarder, they begin losing hit point as soon as they step inside. But if they are supplied by the supply wagon/logistic support unit, then their hit points will not be negatively affected.

The mechanics of the supply wagon unit works like this. We first click on the supply wagon unit. Then we select a button which, when clicked, ask us to click on whichever unit/army we want supplied. Then we click on that unit that we want supplied. As soon as we do this, we see a route similar to the routes generated by traders unit. This route is the supply/logistic route, which the supply unit will use to travel back and forth between its originating city and the army it is supplying. This route, just like the traders units' routes, can be plundered and destroyed. And of course, the route itself is constantly changing depending on the present location of the army being supplied.

Also, each supply unit may only supply a certain number of units. Lets say a generic supply unit can supply up to no more than 3 units. Then an army with 4 military units will have 3 of its unit working completely fine when traversing inside enemy territory, and 1 unit bleeding hit points with each turn until it literally dies.

The absolute First Rule of any 'supply' rules mechanism in any game is to Avoid Excessive Complications. I have played games in which every aspect of supply was minutely depicted. I will never knowingly play any of them again. Full Disclosure: in my mis-spent Youth, I designed such a game, and my friends were kind enough to play it - once. Never again.

So, whatever we can do to avoid extra Units, counting Supply Points, etc. should be done from the beginning. Also, historically, supply units are not very appropriate. Fact is, there was no way of carrying enough supplies overland for any distance to supply an army of any size, before the railroad. For any animal-drawn conveyance (cart, wagon, pack), the animals will consume the equivalent weight of what they are hauling after about 5 - 6 days or 100 - 200 km of distance/movement. That means any supply cart/wagon/train counter/ or unit consumes itself in one turn after about 2 - 3 tiles of movement. There were only two ways of supplying Ancient/Classical/Medieval/Renaissance Armies: by sea or river, or by 'living off the land' which meant making the land unlivable very quickly. That's another reason why sieges were so deadly: sitting in one place meant the army quickly ate up everything within reach, and began to starve without water-borne supply.

In other words, to keep the game playable, there are no 'supply lines' in the first 4 Eras of the game, except traced down a river or across coastal/sea tiles to a friendly City - a more restricted Trade Route, so to speak, and only required for armies or 'stacks'. Campaigning away from a river or coast or friendly city is only possible for those military systems that are composed of 'natural born raiders and pillagers' - barbarians, Scythians, Huns, Mongols - it is one of the great advantages of the pastoral civilizations that their men and animals are used to living off whatever they can catch or hunt, giving them tremendous strategic mobility compared to more 'normal' armies.

Sea and river craft, from very Ancient Era, can haul immensely more than any land transport system. Bronze Age ships reconstructed from Black Sea and Mediterranean wrecks can carry up to 30 tons each with an 8 - 10 man crew, and travel 200 + miles per day: nothing like that is possible away from a river or seacoast until the Industrial Era railroads.

So, a valid logistical mechanism in the game should have the following characteristics:
1. It is entirely sea/river based until Industrial Era
2. It ONLY applies to stacks or armies, and applies less or not at all to 'armies' of pastoral nomads or barbarians.
3. Any army can simply 'requisition' supplies from tiles it is passing through - friendly or otherwise, but if it remains in the tile more than a turn, that tile will become Pillaged: sieges are going to get very expensive, very fast - as they should.

Everything changes with the Railroads of the Industrial Era and afterwards.