Bringing the stack back

[dagriggstar]

While I've always felt the combat in each version of civ gets progressively better, I believe all that can be done with 1UPT has been done and the next step is to re introduce stacking to the combat system, for civ 7. I would describe 1UPT as a hard rule, it completely prevents you from doing something. I think the next step will be to instead have a series of softer rules to discourage doom stacks but allow the player to use them if they like.

I've always felt the game has struggled with differentiating unit classes/roles beyond the simple spear > horse > swords > spear rock paper scissors thing. What even is the difference between heavy and light cav again? Reintroducing stacks will allow for different types of roles. The only attempt at an anti stack unit previously was suicide siege units that did limited collateral damage in iv, a role they simply weren't effective in.

Anti cav = bonus vs all cavalry units. Cheap grunts of your army.
Ranged = These guys deal damage based on how big the opposing unit stack is. Something like +5 strength for each unit in the opposing stack. Deals unlimited collateral damage (damages all units in stack same amount can kill). Very weak in 1v1 situations. Until renaissance range of one, increasing to 2 and maybe later to 3 depending on gameplay. Expensive. Logic is that firing say 100 arrows at 1000 targets standing in a confined space will result in more hits than if there's only 50 targets in the same space.
Light cavalry or recon = when attacking the attacker chooses which defender in the stack to attack. Generally a weak unit good at taking out ranged units. These represent skirmisher type units throughout history used to harass large forces.
Heavy cavalry = if a heavy cavalry unit gains a decisive victory over a defender in a stack of units, the unit stack is dispersed randomly to the 3 tiles behind it. Dispersed units take additional damage depending on terrain that they disperse to. If units cannot disperse (mountain, occupied tile by enemy) a further penalty is applied. Logic is that usually heavy cavalry is reserved for the decisive blow, causing routs.

Having units specifically designed to counter stacks should make the meta strategy to spread your forces out to avoid big losses from stacks.

 

[Ryika]

Sounds rather gamey to me, I don't like it very much.

I think in general stack-free combat with some support units works very well. What they should do in Civ 7, is to change the scaling of the world. Make tiles like... half as big as they are now and then create terrain in a way that actually creates battlefield on which units can battle properly. Archers with 4 Range, Cavalry with 6 Movement, Bombards that do AoE damage, etc. That way, you can actually have army vs. army battles where all units are doing stuff, instead of the system that we have now, where units just clog up once there's a little bit bit of rough terrain in the way.

 

[Greywulf]

I never want to see the "stack of doom" back again. It's one of the draw backs to going back to Civ 4, which I don't say lightly, as I love a lot about Civ 4, and I really miss Vassalage...still tempted to play Civ 4 again just to experience Vassalage again..
Anyway, removing the stack of doom added to the strategy of the game, and allowed front lines to form.

That being said, I do think there's some leeway here. Why not allow for say just two military units to stack? There's probably a balance we could find that would work, where we don't go near that dreaded stack of doom, but we expand a little bit more on the 1UPT system. I would support that.

 

[AmazonQueen]

I think this is 1 area Civ 6 has considerably improved on Civ 5. Corps/Armies and Support Units mean that you get some stacking without stacks.

 

[Sostratus]

I think this is 1 area Civ 6 has considerably improved on Civ 5. Corps/Armies and Support Units mean that you get some stacking without stacks.

where units just clog up once there's a little bit bit of rough terrain in the way.

It's easy for us to see these brilliant innovations (let's not forget the godsend of having an independent religious layer too!) but forget about movement rule changes and map generation. I believe based on a couple thousand hours between the games, that Civ6 has harder to navigate terrain in general compared with Civ5 (more hills, forests, mountains, lakes, other crap thrown in the movement rule change compounds this. I'm not really sold one way or another on the movement change. But this also means longstanding asks like "different civs units can move over each other when at peace" could come into play. There's no real reason my civilians and your military can't stand on top of each other, for example.

I do think combat units + support is better than stacks by a longshot. We can also pseudo stack with the corps system to increase unit strength by +50% and then +100%. I think that's pretty smart and helps us concentrate forces (although we can't split an army back up.) I think the support unit system has so much more potential, that once it's truly worked out, very few people will want to go back to stacks. For example: right now supports are just siege equipment and AA guns (useless) and medics, but there's no reason they couldn't do stuff like:
-upgrade muskets and Pike&shot into rifleman->infantry
-upgrade field cannons into artillery or 'mortar team' units
-Have AT crew and machine guns become support units that bolster tiles with anticav defense and a civ5 impi-like ranged attack when defending, respectively.
Earlier eras could see things like Mantlets (movable shields) to protect your valiant soldiers from cowardly ranged fire, or something. You could have units differentiated by both promotions and how you pair them up with a support unit.
You can see that we could make a much more in depth system for representing warfare just by playing with the support class. Because we have levers like maintenance cost, one could even set up a system where the military units are cheap, but paying for those support units to really make them the best of the best is expensive- so the ambitious general needs to be an enterprising merchant too, to pay for his fancy toys. Just an example of the flexibility a support class layer brings us.

The other thing that needs work is a clear roadmap for unit roles and classes. Where previous games had mounted units, we now have light and heavy cav; where there were melee units with different uses, we now have very separate melee and anticav. How these all interact with each other should be very clearly fleshed out and balanced. (It's not that poorly balanced now at the class level, it's poorly balanced at the unit level because of the design idea to place 1-2 era gaps between upgrades. Guess what: units with upgrades nearer the start win. Swords, knights, etc.) Then I think, 1upt will truly shine in terms of fun, the ultimate objective.

 

[Phrozen]

I kinda would like them to crib from the Total War series where you have stacks of units on the big map but when battle is initiated it zooms into a tiled battlefield. Also the ability to capture a city with a siege like was done through most of history rather than beating down the walls.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

The concept that we can have three same unit stacking and no different unit stacking except support (max 3 allowed) could be improved
giving some units a promotion perk for support unit once completed all other perks, like a bonus perk, that would allow different units army formation,
without the stack of doom or need to wait civ VII (mod).

 

[acluewithout]

It's easy for us to see these brilliant innovations (let's not forget the godsend of having an independent religious layer too!) but forget about movement rule changes and map generation. I believe based on a couple thousand hours between the games, that Civ6 has harder to navigate terrain in general compared with Civ5 (more hills, forests, mountains, lakes, other crap thrown in the movement rule change compounds this. I'm not really sold one way or another on the movement change. But this also means longstanding asks like "different civs units can move over each other when at peace" could come into play. There's no real reason my civilians and your military can't stand on top of each other, for example.

I do think combat units + support is better than stacks by a longshot. We can also pseudo stack with the corps system to increase unit strength by +50% and then +100%. I think that's pretty smart and helps us concentrate forces (although we can't split an army back up.) I think the support unit system has so much more potential, that once it's truly worked out, very few people will want to go back to stacks. For example: right now supports are just siege equipment and AA guns (useless) and medics, but there's no reason they couldn't do stuff like:
-upgrade muskets and Pike&shot into rifleman->infantry
-upgrade field cannons into artillery or 'mortar team' units
-Have AT crew and machine guns become support units that bolster tiles with anticav defense and a civ5 impi-like ranged attack when defending, respectively.
Earlier eras could see things like Mantlets (movable shields) to protect your valiant soldiers from cowardly ranged fire, or something. You could have units differentiated by both promotions and how you pair them up with a support unit.
You can see that we could make a much more in depth system for representing warfare just by playing with the support class. Because we have levers like maintenance cost, one could even set up a system where the military units are cheap, but paying for those support units to really make them the best of the best is expensive- so the ambitious general needs to be an enterprising merchant too, to pay for his fancy toys. Just an example of the flexibility a support class layer brings us.

The other thing that needs work is a clear roadmap for unit roles and classes. Where previous games had mounted units, we now have light and heavy cav; where there were melee units with different uses, we now have very separate melee and anticav. How these all interact with each other should be very clearly fleshed out and balanced. (It's not that poorly balanced now at the class level, it's poorly balanced at the unit level because of the design idea to place 1-2 era gaps between upgrades. Guess what: units with upgrades nearer the start win. Swords, knights, etc.) Then I think, 1upt will truly shine in terms of fun, the ultimate objective.

Yup. All of this.

The current combat systems feels very “almost there”. Corps and Armies; support units. The basic ideas are there, it just needs a bit more work.

There’s some dark chemistry between unit gaps and upgrading units, with some escalating unit cost thrown in, which also doesn’t help things.

I just end up feeling everything in the current game could work really really well, but it needs FXS to sit down and really look at the whole thing overall and then really tweak stuff. I keep trying to work it out on the back of an envelope and it’s a total brain melt.

There’s also another much deeper problem which is that while there is lots more tactical play from the map now, there isn’t much strategy built into the map. I never really feel like one city or another has any real strategic significance, beyond “ugh, that city has iron; ugh, that city has a good campus spot; ugh, kongo built the pyramids - yoink”. There’s no key trading city (trade node, whatever); no taking a holy city and gaining some political or religious capital (beyond wiping out a religion); and even resources don’t mean much after iron.

See, that then hurts units, because the game never throws up any strategic problems which you can then use units tactically to resolve. You never need pikes to hold the line, or knights to break through, because the only strategic objectives are “steal all the things” or “turtle” (with maybe a dash of pillaging or undermining loyalty).

 

[Quueg]

I kinda would like them to crib from the Total War series where you have stacks of units on the big map but when battle is initiated it zooms into a tiled battlefield.

Agreed. Endless Legend does this well.

 

[Socrates99]

Endless legends system is great for something like this. Age of Wonders too although i feel like Endless Legend did it slightly better.

 

[dagriggstar]

Bigger maps are always wanted anyway, that side of things the limit is computing power.

A map that zooms in on battles I feel will be hard for new players to grasp. I feel it'd be a layer more complicated than what civ wants to be.

Support classes, I mean historically speaking capturing siege equipment (catapults to artillery) was a thing. I don't like capturing say archers, I mean those guys should get slaughtered as part of the main army. That could be interesting.

Mostly though Id like stacking with a way of combating the stack, being able to win outnumbered. Plenty of historical examples of being able to hit and run or trap a large army on unfavourable terrain and slaughtering them. Something you can't get with the current system.
You also get wwi era front lines, as no one would put a five stack in range of an artillery unit that gains +20 strength per enemy unit on the defending tile. Attack with base strength +80.

 

[darkace77450]

I've lately come to the opinion that stacks should return, but not in unlimited fashion. I'm thinking trying max stack size to food production could be an appropriate way to handle them. An army marches on its stomach, after all.

Just spitballing here, but let's say your largest army stack can be no bigger than half the population of your largest city, your second largest army stack can be no bigger than your second largest city, etc. Or maybe each military unit has a food upkeep cost in addition to a gold maintenance cost. Perhaps the cap isn't a hard one; being unable to properly feed your stack could result in combat penalties. Civilization, leader, unique unit abilities as well as military policy cards (if policy cards are still a thing in the next iteration of the game) could allow a stack to exceed it's normal cap.

 

[acluewithout]

Civ VI already has limited stacking, and that’s been well received. I think that shows people are okay with stacking provided there is some sensible limit on it. Part of the “problem” with stacking in previous versions is that it feels silly infinitely stacking units on top of each other. Impose some limit on stacking, and suddenly it doesn’t feel as ridiculous.

 

[Absolution]

I never want to see the "stack of doom" back again. It's one of the draw backs to going back to Civ 4, which I don't say lightly, as I love a lot about Civ 4, and I really miss Vassalage...still tempted to play Civ 4 again just to experience Vassalage again..
Anyway, removing the stack of doom added to the strategy of the game, and allowed front lines to form.

That being said, I do think there's some leeway here. Why not allow for say just two military units to stack? There's probably a balance we could find that would work, where we don't go near that dreaded stack of doom, but we expand a little bit more on the 1UPT system. I would support that.

It is not true that there is not strategy for stacks. They have their own strategy, of how you build each stack, how you use each one, and the improvments or order of attacking by the opponent are extremely important for an outcome of a batlle.
Moreover, battles are way larger and diverse. Not only this is more realistic, it also allows you to experience the gap between a small army and a mighty one. Tactics may help, or even decide to the smaller's favour, but still, you certainly "feel" the difference in numbers of troops. A thing which is an absolute fun part of the game.

The strategy of unstacked units feels more like chess, or a game of spot-taking, rather than military-like strategy. Irrelevent and game-only causes are involved too often in the military tactics.

 

[acluewithout]

@Absolution What do you mean by “how you build them” and “order of attack “?

 

[Absolution]

I mean that you don't just go with a single stack into war. Sometimes you do, but many times you build several stacks:
One to attract enemy units, others for massive attack.
One made of siege weapons and defensive units to go early and reduce the citie's defense, another with heavy city attackers to finish the job.
The order of attack may vary - while it is sometimes better to start with your highest percentage combat, you may gamle on lower percentage in order to keep specific units with required promotions to later stages of the battle, when the rest of your stack will be mostly destroyed.
When you build a defensive stack for a city or a fort, you may want to include at least some units of anti-X (mounted, archery, or whatever), to surely stop an attack of a specific kind of units in case the enemy get right on your weaker spot.
This are quick descriptions and example I had on my mind, there are plenty of other tactical issues to consider and to use when fighting with stacks.