CIV VII: 1UPT, Stack of Doom or Carpet of Doom. What's your prefs?
- Thread starter Lazy sweeper
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Yeah, resource limits do prevent unlimited armies, but you can always cheat some of that away, especially before you get to the era where units require per turn maintenance (abusing policy card upgrades).
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Or you can just spam units that don’t require the resource. Money being a universal resource is a better hard limiting factor, IMO.
King Flevance
Deity
X UPT I think solves this. It can even gradually increase through tech unlocks. So in the beginning game, Maybe it is only 1-2 UPT. But military techs unlock it to 5-6 UPT in the modern age.
Then invisible units have a separate cap that does not have any weight on the standard cap. So any tile could have 5 UPT + 2 Invisible UPT.
This would allow smaller stacks of doom that would probably translate to a carpet of doom if not reeled in mechanically. But would allow for specialized armies vs. well rounded armies. Making actual armies the focus of your military instead of units similar to the idea they tried to attempt with armies in Civ Rev but mostly failed IMO - but make it WAY more tactical than Civ Rev's system. Each unit should contribute some tactical advantage and/or defense stat to the army. The unit makeup should dictate access to future promotions. There should be synergies with adding certain units to armies. An army of cavalry and archers should have different purposes than one of sword and spears or swords and horse archers. This would require the combat system to be much more in depth though and stray outside of Civ's simple design philosophy a bit. If they don't actually focus on balancing it and/or teaching the AI decent tactics with it, it could be a mess. But I do think limited stacking is the best of both worlds either way.
Then invisible units have a separate cap that does not have any weight on the standard cap. So any tile could have 5 UPT + 2 Invisible UPT.
This would allow smaller stacks of doom that would probably translate to a carpet of doom if not reeled in mechanically. But would allow for specialized armies vs. well rounded armies. Making actual armies the focus of your military instead of units similar to the idea they tried to attempt with armies in Civ Rev but mostly failed IMO - but make it WAY more tactical than Civ Rev's system. Each unit should contribute some tactical advantage and/or defense stat to the army. The unit makeup should dictate access to future promotions. There should be synergies with adding certain units to armies. An army of cavalry and archers should have different purposes than one of sword and spears or swords and horse archers. This would require the combat system to be much more in depth though and stray outside of Civ's simple design philosophy a bit. If they don't actually focus on balancing it and/or teaching the AI decent tactics with it, it could be a mess. But I do think limited stacking is the best of both worlds either way.
ThunderLizard2
Prince
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SOD will some supply related issues and constraints. I actually like something like HumanKind did.
Aquila SPQR
King
Strange, because it isn't impossible at all. Keeping one ranged defender in the city, building walls and castles and stationing two or three units next to it is enough. If the situation is worse than expected, sending there two or three units as reinforcement is something completely different than having to send somewhere 70 units at once.
What would people think about each tile having a supply limit, and hurting stacks that are larger than the supply limit allows each turn? Something more akin to the paradox games.
My idea is that each terrain has a base supply limit: Tundra, Desert and Snow would have 0 supply limit - hurting units each turn that end their turn the terrain. Plains could be 2 - and Grasslands 4.
Then features would add another factor: Floodplains and Oasis would add 3, Forest 1, and Marshes would be -1
Finally, Improvements would add to supply limits as well: every improvement would give +1, and a road would add another +1, while a town/district or a farm would add +2. Being inside your borders would add a +1 as well.
If you go above the supply limit you would initially take 5% damage per unit and turn - capping at 20% if you stack a lot of units. Civilian and Sentry units would be immune to supply damage. These numbers could of course be tweaked, but I like the idea as you would have an easier moving units while still needing to be mindful of geography.
My idea is that each terrain has a base supply limit: Tundra, Desert and Snow would have 0 supply limit - hurting units each turn that end their turn the terrain. Plains could be 2 - and Grasslands 4.
Then features would add another factor: Floodplains and Oasis would add 3, Forest 1, and Marshes would be -1
Finally, Improvements would add to supply limits as well: every improvement would give +1, and a road would add another +1, while a town/district or a farm would add +2. Being inside your borders would add a +1 as well.
If you go above the supply limit you would initially take 5% damage per unit and turn - capping at 20% if you stack a lot of units. Civilian and Sentry units would be immune to supply damage. These numbers could of course be tweaked, but I like the idea as you would have an easier moving units while still needing to be mindful of geography.
Leyrann
Deity
I'm mostly worried how difficult it would be to teach the AI to work with those supply limits properly. This is the kind of rule that an AI tends to really dislike.
1SDANi
The Fading Memory
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Please read the post I was replying to, my post wasn't serious, I really don't know why so many people thought it was. I was replying to a post claiming they it's impossible to beat a stack of 100 units. If an AI has built 100 and you haven't, you've already messed up regardless of whether those 100 units can be stacked. I really thought the "I focus all my production on buildings" part of my post would have tipped people off that I was joking around
1SDANi
The Fading Memory
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Doesn't sound too hard. 1UPT creates chain reactions of pathfinding issues, where you may need to move 3 units to move 1. If units took damage if they were over a tile's supply limit, for example, using the formula of [max(0, number of units - supply limit) / number of units], or in other words, if you have 3 units on a tile with a supply limit of 2, 1 damage is dealt divided across the three units, meaning 0.34 damage to each, then we'd have a scenario where you can make a slight tweak to A* pathfinding to reduce the value of a tile accordingly.
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Aquila SPQR
King
I don't have to read it, since you replied to my post and I know what I wrote.
Yes, it's much easier to repel an army of 10 units suddenly entering your territory than to repel an army of 100 units. I think it's rater obvious. Especially when AI gets the bonuses to training speed.
I played Civ IV with and without the stack limit. Playing without it is a nightmare. There are civs our there that are building insane amount of units. If you want to survive you must build units constantly as well. Say goodbye to your economy. And even then there will be someone who used the ridiculous AI reasoning and managed to walk across the entire continent just to stab you with a stack of 100 units. Great, it's rather obvious the garrison in that city won't be able to defend it, so you have to reinforce it by sending at least 70 units there. Cool.
Now playing with the stack limit. Imagine it's set to 20. Even if the enemy has 100 units invading - they have to divide it into 5 stacks. If you placed your city on a well defendable spot - it's possible that you'll have to defend against 20 units only. Of course they will have fresh units close behind, ready to replenish losses, but so will you, if you prepared yourself, because gathering 20 units somewhere is not the same as gathering 70 or 100 units somewhere.
I usually had full garrison of 20 units in the most important cities on the border, smaller garrisons in safer areas and two or three full 20 units stacks as mobile armies fortified in crucial spots. And wars were never more awesome. Invasions of 6-7 full 20 units stacks, creation of frontlines, long brawl for defensible terrain when my stacks were being constantly attacked and I was sending in reinforcements to hold the entire line of hills or a mountain pass, enemies breaking through the lines, me trying to close the gap... Instead of two insanely huge stacks roaming around that could conquer almost any city in one turn - there was a real war of attrition with frontlines, pincer movements and breakthoughs. I still remembr a war against Russians from months ago. They were bent on conquering me, invading as soon as truce ended every time with at least 7 full stacks. My cities and armies were on the hills, they were desperately trying to win, sending in wave after wave. My initial armies suffered severe casualties, so I kept reinforcing them. After 20 turns Russians lost shitload of units, so they gained access thourh Aztec lands and tried to stab me from the north. I had to create a new mobile army to defend that area. After I inflicted huge losses on their main axis of attack I decided to counterattack and sent few full stacks there to capture their city. Unfortunately I overestimated their losses and my armies were severely crippled when I reached my goal. I had to retreat back to my borders to replenish armies. They kept sending soldiers but because they already lost the bulk of their army they could mount any serious attack, only mini stacks of 2-3 units working together. On the power graph I was more on less on the same level while they were plummeting down constantly. And after many turns of war of attrition I gathered new armies, invaded and took what I wanted.
Amazing, realistic and extremely fun.
It's literally superior to unrestricted SODs in every aspect.
1SDANi
The Fading Memory
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My opponent has a stack of 100 units, I have 5 stacks of 20 units. I win because their stacks take more collateral damage than my stacks do. No need for artificial stack limits. If you build a stack of doom, that doom isn't your opponent's, it's your own.
Aquila SPQR
King
They smash though your first stack of 20 units, then they smash through your second stack of 20 units, then they have a high chance of smashing through your third and fourth stack since they still have advantage in numbers.
Besides, keeping 5 stacks of 20 units few tiles apart is the same as keeping one stack of 100 units there, so it's the same and you're imssing the point completely.
1SDANi
The Fading Memory
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Try that ingame. You'll find that their stack will lose. The difference is one of collateral. Collateral damage deals damage to 2 units, but never brings a unit to lower than 50% health, by diving your army into several stacks, you take advantage of that, reducing your opponent's damage per turn, and with a higher damage per turn, you'll kill your opponent's stacks before they kill yours. It's like button mashing in a fighting game, it's easy to do, but it puts you at a disadvantage against someone who actually knows what they're doing.
DeckerdJames
Prince
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Another balance mechanic that might be good for stacks is that as the stack grows larger, the more well know about it is. VISIBILITY. If you have a stack of 100 on the board, word of it will go far and wide. Therefore, a stack of that size might be visible on the map even in unrevealed areas and from great distances. Perhaps as far as 10 or 20 tiles away in the ancient era, and in later ages an army of that size could be tracked by word of mouth from around the world. So, secrecy could be a balancing mechanic with large stacks vs small stacks.
SupremacyKing2
Deity
I like that. And I think the opposite should also be true. A single unit might be completely invisible on the map, especially in certain terrain like jungle and forests, unless you move into that tile with your own unit. This would allow covert tactics like sneaking a single unit behind enemy lines to pillage tiles and cause mayhem.
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Interesting idea. I think that’d be cool.
In Civ4, it's almost always correct to pile up everything into a single stack even against collateral.
Though I still don't quite get the problem @Aquila SPQR had. From his description of the stack limit game he does build enough units to defend. In that case stopping an invasion of 100 enemy units with your own 100 units is quite easy. You hit them with collateral and clean up. There will be losses of course but you should usually get away with half their losses or less.
Boris Gudenuf
Deity
Elaborating a bit on How To Apply Stacking:
1. Stacking Limits, based on terrain and technology, that Severely penalize Overstacking. In the length of the average game turn, if you cannot supply food and (later) spare parts, replacements and fuel, units start to disintegrate fast.
2. Supply Sources. To avoid the penalties above, they would be, possibly, three types:
a. The Tile the stack is in. Sitting in a friendly city that is larger in Population points than the stack is in Units - No Problem. That tile already supplies that many people on a regular basis. Other terrain - a range of problems, not so much in tiles with Farms, Plantations, Villages or Settlements, and other infrastructure, to really, really serious in barren Tundra or Desert. You should quickly learn to avoid some tiles with large Stacks.
b. A Supply Line to a Supply Source. Source could be that friendly city if it is large enough, or a series of Friendly Cities if they are connected by, say, a Sea Trade Route or navigable River that can transport 100s of tons daily by ship or boat or barge. The length of that supply line would also be heavily dependent on the tile and technology: trace a line using pack animals over Tundra, it won't stretch very far at all. Over roads with motor vehicles = long supply line. Over a railroad to that set of connected friendly cities = virtually infinite on the map. Until, of course, an enemy unit plunks itself down on that railroad.
c. Enemy Tiles. You can almost always pillage the heck out of any enemy territory. That will keep your Stack generally supplied (but less so in late game, when the bulk of your 'supply' is ammunition, personnel and machine replacements not generally available in enemy territory) but only for (usually) 1 Turn. After that, you have to keep moving or suffer Penalties, because as a general rule, a Pilllaged Tile provides nothing to Supply.
Some units should have Special Capabilites vis-a-vis Stacking:
a. Recon units require no supply, but in Non-Supply status in the post-Gunpowder Eras they have 1/2 their normal Attack Factor. On the other hand, they can always reveal the contents of any Stack they are or move adjacent to, and in the late game, that might extend to any stack within a radius of 1 - 2 tiles (using advanced UAVs, helicopter-borne Special Forces, etc)
b. Barbarians, for this purpose, function as Recon Units, but with limitations. They can 'see' an entire Stack over a certain size ("too many troops to hide" rule), but may only give you the size in units and possibly Unit Types, not actual Combat Factors (because they aren't really trained reconnaissance types)
c. Unique Units. There are a host of potential Special Capabilities these could have related to Stacking: For examples
Hardy Troops could subsist on less, so can stack more units compared to 'regular' armies.
Stealthy troops, like most Native American warriors and many tribal warriors elsewhere, could be Invisible to other troops and possibly Invisible within a Stack until in combat.
Many forces are better At Home than elsewhere, so these as Uniques could get some of the Hardy or Stealthy qualities only in Home Territory.
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Moderator Action: Have removed a series of posts hijacking this thread with bickering over 1 UPT vs SOD. The bickering turned personal and uncivil, thus it was removed. Please do not continue this discussion in this thread, start your own thread to get into your details. However, keep it civil or it will also be removed.
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