CIV VII: 1UPT, Stack of Doom or Carpet of Doom. What's your prefs?

[Lazy sweeper]

Pool your preferences!

I'm obviously for the comeback of the Stack of Doom.
We now have 1UPT and Carpet of Doom. I do not see any advantage having to play with carpet of Doom and 1UPT versus the old but
reliable Unit stacking (why stack of Doom was coined I have no idea, I never saw it that way).
Organize an attack is easier. Just multiselect all your units and move them where you want them to be, without having to re-organize
dozens of
units each and every turn.
Avoid bottleneck nightmares of cities with just one tile open for attacking the city, that with walls and one archers,
it become almost impossible to conquer. In my video there is a city I took and it took me 50 turns to conquer.
Losing catapults over maryannu archers in the process, untill I got man at arms and managed to break the walls.
It was the last city to capitulate of the Ottoman empire.

Age of Empire, AOE in shorts, has made new iteration of its game, without overhauling the core rules.
The fanbase it's there. The game keeps evolving but it is still in the old isometric view.

If it's not broken, don't change it.

 

[Krajzen]

Neither, I hope they will invent some new and interesting military system. For example armies being "decks of cards" you produce one piece at a time, small and with size limited by era to not turn into stacks of doom, filled with units, attachments, tactics, organisational techniques, generals etc. Then you send those decks on missions, and they generate zones of control, and when two hostile zones of control overlap then interesting things happen and eventually two armies may fight a battle in some manner (idk maybe unpacking into 1UPT for the time of battle like in Humankind)

Less tedious to move across map, better turn time processing, way easier to handle for AI to make wars a challenge, actually generate dramatic battles instead of bite-sized guerilla skirmishes x100, a way to incorporate a lot of culture-specific stuff etc.

 

[Krajzen]

Alternate idea: hybrid of 1UPT and stacking. Probably the mildest reform possible to minimise negatives of 1UPT while keeping its appeal.

You can produce units and send them to fight like 1UPT, but you can also combine many units of many types into armies (limited by size per era) for sake od movement across the map. You may move them as one super unit or unpack them again into several units, with both options having strong and weak points.
The crucial military decisions involve compositions of such armies and when they should be combined or split.

Advantages: several times less tiresome to move military around the map, nuch better AI turn times, much easier time for AI to be able to transport powerful challenge all the way to your cities, preserves the appeal of 1UPT "animated units fighting on the same layer". Disadvantages: may end up messy.

 

[Krajzen]

Third idea: hexagons within hexagons

A single hexagon can fit seven small hexagons inside it

Make it possible to make armies of up to seven units occupying one Big Tile and travelling together in a formation, but when they face enemy the map zooms into the area of several neighboring Big Hexes being split into many Small Hexes, and this is the tactical map where two (or more) armies fight.

Benefits: preserves the feeling of fighting "1UPT" on the actual world map which reflects local terrain, but again makes armies much more pleasant to move, code AI for, and have more breathing room and maneuver during battles themselves. It would also enable really cool city sieges, where the entire city is one hex filled with garrison army with its boundaries being walls with defense bonuses invader has to climb - instead of the cities being killer cannons themselves.

 

[Naeshar]

I kinda hope for an army system with some leader representative and singular units being assigned to it, not as units on the map. At the start these could be little and later big stacks, maybe spilling over to multiple tiles. The visual could contain multiple unit types in formation, instead of six musketmen or two knights you get a knight on flank and two-three muskets as your core. A battle would then be a single big combat, not spanning multiple turns.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

What's a Carpet of Doom??

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I would like the ability to stack different classes of units e.g. 1 melee unit, 1 ranged unit, 1 siege unit.

 

[SemiLazyGamer]

I had an idea of allowing doom stacks, but limiting them.

* Players can doom stack, but only one additional stack per unit per era (1 unit in Ancient, 2 during Classical, 3 during medieval, etc).
*Tied to Civics like corps and armies are in VI.

 

[1SDANi]

I'd prefer the return of stacks and collateral from Civ 4, the doom stacks from 1-3 were just plain bad from what I've read, and the doom carpets from 5 and 6 were somehow even worse. Ideally with a unit like archers or skirmishers having collateral so that new players won't mistake collateral as solely an anti-city ability. Maybe also with no limit to how low collateral can take a unit's health and/or to make all units in a stack take collateral damage so it's all the more clear that the only person putting all your eggs in one stacks will doom is yourself. Square tiles would also be nice, ideally with diagonal movement costing 1.5 movement, if only because it's weird that I can't move North or South in the new games.

 

[aieeegrunt]

I would like the ability to stack different classes of units e.g. 1 melee unit, 1 ranged unit, 1 siege unit.

The mod ARS Improved Movement does essentially this. It’s ridiculous how much this improves the game for both human and AI players

It also makes combined arms actually matter, instead of simply spamming the strongest unit.

3 UPT is the way to go. 1 UPT forces you to solve a sliding tile puzzle whenever you move your units, and stacks of doom means some sort of cumbersome stack management system needs to be included, and you can’t actually see the location and composition of your units on the map at a glance

3 UPT solves both problems.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

semi permanent army made out of stacks. and organizes similiar to either Total War series or Heroes of Might and Magic series.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

The mod ARS Improved Movement does essentially this. It’s ridiculous how much this improves the game for both human and AI players

3 UPT solves both problems.

I tried it, and uninstalled it.
it may solve the problem for you-the player but not AI.
And it feels out of whack. There are not advanced units UI buttons.

For one, one turn builders action, to have automations (clear marshes, dmg, buid road to, etc) makes no sense to have.
For military units, especially stacked, it would make a lot of sense to have detailed UI buttons for all units in a stack.

You have catapults and archers? Multi-bombard with all range units. Both Civ III and IV
Want to charge with just knights? Multiselect only shift-click a knight to select all ala Civ IV.
Want to stack all units in one big stack? Just double click on them.

The mod attempt to re-establish balance is a nice try, but a failed attempt, to me.
Too many out of place elements to make it even remotely fun.

And, units HP are completely unbalanced to work in the stack mode. I.E. Artillery is way too strong already, if you can protect it all the way, it basically
break the game completely.
Also, cities still have their own HP regardless of military presence. What's the point to defend a city with a strong garrison if it's only useful at attacking
but not for defence in any way unless you move outside the walls?

 

[Lazy sweeper]

What's a Carpet of Doom??

AI when programmed to have a strong military, spam countless cheap units.
Babylon war cart as far as the eye can see occupying every single tile of the map.
Thats a Carpet of Doom.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

Third idea: hexagons within hexagons

A single hexagon can fit seven small hexagons inside it

View attachment 693453
Make it possible to make armies of up to seven units occupying one Big Tile and travelling together in a formation, but when they face enemy the map zooms into the area of several neighboring Big Hexes being split into many Small Hexes, and this is the tactical map where two (or more) armies fight.

Benefits: preserves the feeling of fighting "1UPT" on the actual world map which reflects local terrain, but again makes armies much more pleasant to move, code AI for, and have more breathing room and maneuver during battles themselves. It would also enable really cool city sieges, where the entire city is one hex filled with garrison army with its boundaries being walls with defense bonuses invader has to climb - instead of the cities being killer cannons themselves.

Why not Octagons at this point? Nine smaller octagons in one big one.
Wouldn't Octagons allow cardinal directions?
It's an upscaling problem in both directions.
Movement points should be calculated linearly or exponentially? Not an easy one.

 

[kaspergm]

I would like the ability to stack different classes of units e.g. 1 melee unit, 1 ranged unit, 1 siege unit.

This is an idea that looks tempting on paper, but imo. this will not work in reality - or rather, what it will do is eliminate the whole point of having different unit classes. The point with unit classes is that each excels at something but has a weakness to balance this (at least that's how it should work on paper). Siege is powerful against city defenses but weak against melee attacks, ranged is powerful against melee units (and in Civ6 too powerful) but weak when defending, melee is strong against other units but vulnerable to ranged attacks, etc.

If you allow stacking of different unit classes, you take out the entire strategic element of combat. Instead of having to decide whether you bring more ranged units (making you strong on offense but weak on defense) or rather bring more melee units to make sure your army is not wiped, instead what you do is always bring stacks of one of each, making you strong on all aspects (or strong on neither, if you want). This is bad for gameplay. We had the same problems with Corps and Armies in Civ6, which may have seemed novel on paper, but in reality didn't really impact game a lot other than offering a flat combat bonus once you reach these features (which was double-bad, because it basically made the tech leader snowball).

I'm not sure I have the perfect solution for Civ7. I never liked the Stacks of Doom of 1-4. I don't really mind 1UPT, but I acknowledge the micromanagement and that AI struggles (put mildly). I think the best solution will be combat mini maps where you have armies battling each other (a number of combat turns within each game turn, a bit like mix of HoMaM and Humankind), but I know this solution is not popular.

One feature I do hope to see brought back is (melee) combat rating divided into an offense and a defense score. A big problem in Civ6 was that melee dominated anti-cavaly so heavily. Imo. melee should be stronger on offense, while anti-cavalry should be stronger on defense, so that you can use pikes to hold a defensive line, not only against cavalry, but also against melee units.

 

[Marla_Singer]

The question of 1UPT vs MUPT is different from the one of carpet of doom and stack of doom and I'm really bored of people thinking MUPT necessarily means SOD as it kills the debate for better unit mechanics in the game.

As I constantly repeat, there are many MUPT mechanics that can prevent SOD: attrition, collateral damage, logistics... There is absolutely no reason to think that the ability for units to share the same tile necessarily means the best combat strategy is to stockpile them indefinitely.

 

[Marla_Singer]

Third idea: hexagons within hexagons

A single hexagon can fit seven small hexagons inside it

View attachment 693453
Make it possible to make armies of up to seven units occupying one Big Tile and travelling together in a formation, but when they face enemy the map zooms into the area of several neighboring Big Hexes being split into many Small Hexes, and this is the tactical map where two (or more) armies fight.

Benefits: preserves the feeling of fighting "1UPT" on the actual world map which reflects local terrain, but again makes armies much more pleasant to move, code AI for, and have more breathing room and maneuver during battles themselves. It would also enable really cool city sieges, where the entire city is one hex filled with garrison army with its boundaries being walls with defense bonuses invader has to climb - instead of the cities being killer cannons themselves.

Hexagons within hexagons don't tessellate.

As a matter of fact, one of the big problems with hexagons is precisely that you can't subdivide them in smaller tiles, preventing Firaxis to explore that path to improve units move in general. You have no problem to divide a square in 4, 9 or 16 smaller squares, but you can't do so with hexagons. It's not the only problem about hexagons for what it's worth.

 

[Prester John 2]

The Civ4 mod Realism Invictus developed a genius idea to deal with stacks of dooms: limitless units, but there's a malus 'Promotion' for congestion (-10 % strength for more than 10 units, -15% more than 20 etc.) and damage by long range units (canons, bowmen) is applied to all units. So you can have large stacks but you also have to deal with overcrowding, similar to the problems the Romans had at Cannae.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

If you allow stacking of different unit classes, you take out the entire strategic element of combat. Instead of having to decide whether you bring more ranged units (making you strong on offense but weak on defense) or rather bring more melee units to make sure your army is not wiped, instead what you do is always bring stacks of one of each, making you strong on all aspects (or strong on neither, if you want). This is bad for gameplay. We had the same problems with Corps and Armies in Civ6, which may have seemed novel on paper, but in reality didn't really impact game a lot other than offering a flat combat bonus once you reach these features (which was double-bad, because it basically made the tech leader snowball).

The obvious solution would to be have stacks of say 5 units. Since 5 is not a multiple of 3, one unit type would always fall short. For ex: 2 melee, 2 ranged, 1 calvary or 1 melee, 2 ranged, 2 calvary. So players would be forced to pick how the stack would be unbalanced.

I would also point out that mixing multiple unit types in a stack is simply the concept of combined arms, which has been around in warfare for thousands of years. From present day armies all the back to Alexander the Great, armies have always had a mix of different unit types in order to be stronger. In fact, the great armies of history were stacks, they were not 1upt. For example, a Roman legion was actually not a single unit of swordsmen like we see in civ but a stack composed of melee, ranged, cavalry, with the ability to make siege weapons too. So stacks would be more historically accurate.

I don't think stacks have to be stacks of doom either. The reason civ4 had stacks of doom, which did take away a lot of strategy, is because the game did not do enough to stop infinite spam of units. The issue was the spam of units, not the stacks. And as others have said, there are ways to limit spam of units in order to have stacks without stacks of doom. I am a big proponent of limited stacks because they are historically accurate, they make moving units easier, less micro for the player and they fit the strategic scale of the maps. And I don't think stacks necessarily have to take out the strategic element either. The key is to give the player interesting choices with how to build their stacks and make sure there is not just one stack that is always the best. Here are some ways that I think you could add strategy and tactics with stacks:

1) Each unit type could require its own building in order to build that unit. Some units could also require a strategic resource to build. So it would not always be possible for players to build the "perfect stack".
2) Stacks could get special bonuses based on unit composition to encourage specialization. For example, +1 movement for a stack with only calvary, +1 defense for a stack with only range, +1 offense for a stack with only melee. So if a player wants to do fast moving strikes deep into enemy territory, they could build some stacks with only cavalry. If they want to build some armies dedicated to the defense of the homeland, they could build stacks with only ranged units and place them in castles. If they want to conquer cities, they could build a stack with mostly melee units and some siege units. You could still build some perfectly balanced stacks if you wanted some multi-purpose armies, but you would not have to do it for all your armies. You could have some specialized stacks and some balanced stacks.
3) Terrain should give bonuses to certain unit types. Flat terrain could give a charge bonus to calvary. So depending on the type of terrain your battles are fought on, the player might prefer more of a certain unit type.
4) Units could get special promotions like in civ4 that make them more suited for certain terrain type or certain roles. I love the unit promotions in civ4. This would also allow the player to specialize their stacks as they want.
5) You could have general units that also give bonuses to certain unit types. The player could pick a specialty for their general. For example, they could pick a cavalry specialty for their general that grants extra bonuses to calvary in their stack. This would further encourage the player to specialize the stacks to the general's specialty.

 

[aieeegrunt]

This is an idea that looks tempting on paper, but imo. this will not work in reality - or rather, what it will do is eliminate the whole point of having different unit classes. The point with unit classes is that each excels at something but has a weakness to balance this (at least that's how it should work on paper). Siege is powerful against city defenses but weak against melee attacks, ranged is powerful against melee units (and in Civ6 too powerful) but weak when defending, melee is strong against other units but vulnerable to ranged attacks, etc.

If you allow stacking of different unit classes, you take out the entire strategic element of combat. Instead of having to decide whether you bring more ranged units (making you strong on offense but weak on defense) or rather bring more melee units to make sure your army is not wiped, instead what you do is always bring stacks of one of each, making you strong on all aspects (or strong on neither, if you want). This is bad for gameplay. We had the same problems with Corps and Armies in Civ6, which may have seemed novel on paper, but in reality didn't really impact game a lot other than offering a flat combat bonus once you reach these features (which was double-bad, because it basically made the tech leader snowball).

I'm not sure I have the perfect solution for Civ7. I never liked the Stacks of Doom of 1-4. I don't really mind 1UPT, but I acknowledge the micromanagement and that AI struggles (put mildly). I think the best solution will be combat mini maps where you have armies battling each other (a number of combat turns within each game turn, a bit like mix of HoMaM and Humankind), but I know this solution is not popular.

One feature I do hope to see brought back is (melee) combat rating divided into an offense and a defense score. A big problem in Civ6 was that melee dominated anti-cavaly so heavily. Imo. melee should be stronger on offense, while anti-cavalry should be stronger on defense, so that you can use pikes to hold a defensive line, not only against cavalry, but also against melee units.

This is LITERALLY how combined arms works in real life. You have various unit types covering each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

Not chess like abstract nonsense

I tried it, and uninstalled it.
it may solve the problem for you-the player but not AI.
And it feels out of whack. There are not advanced units UI buttons.

For one, one turn builders action, to have automations (clear marshes, dmg, buid road to, etc) makes no sense to have.
For military units, especially stacked, it would make a lot of sense to have detailed UI buttons for all units in a stack.

You have catapults and archers? Multi-bombard with all range units. Both Civ III and IV
Want to charge with just knights? Multiselect only shift-click a knight to select all ala Civ IV.
Want to stack all units in one big stack? Just double click on them.

The mod attempt to re-establish balance is a nice try, but a failed attempt, to me.
Too many out of place elements to make it even remotely fun.

And, units HP are completely unbalanced to work in the stack mode. I.E. Artillery is way too strong already, if you can protect it all the way, it basically
break the game completely.
Also, cities still have their own HP regardless of military presence. What's the point to defend a city with a strong garrison if it's only useful at attacking
but not for defence in any way unless you move outside the walls?

The whole point of this is to NOT have an extra stack management subsystem. It works just fine without it. You can freely see and move all of your units without drilling down into submenus and other useless clutter

You also don’t have a confusing opaque subsystem of overstack malus nonsense like how Realism Invictus tried to do it. THAT mod got uninstalled very quickly. Not only was there the fiddly stack management but also a bunch of differential equation nonsense as well.