I played Civ2 so long ago I don't really remember how I felt about it. But losing an entire stack from one combat would be even more frustrating. I mean, I just played with multiple units per tile before Civ5 without really thinking about the problems with it and how to fix them. But once I've played 1upt, I will never go back to previous CiV's, despite any other problems, because I find 1upt is just so much better. Anyway, I don't think you should provide 'incentive' not to do something, like stack units, to discourage people. As a player, then you have to worry about when you should and shouldn't do it, and you invariably won't find the right combination, which is frustrating. It's better to just not allow it. That's kind of the whole theme for changes to CiV5. There were so many things to do in Civ4, with sliders and espionage and corporations and everything. I always felt kind of frustrated by it, because I only ever had my sliders on gold and research, and I always had to put the minimum amount into the gold slider so that I wouldn't be losing gold per turn. I essentially just ignored espionage completely, so the whole mechanic was pretty much just wasted on me. And I always felt like I was doing it wrong. I guess, on the harder difficulties, the computer is probably going to be beating you in multiple areas just from the bonuses it gets, but with all the sliders, I felt like it was my fault it was beating me in the different areas. I like the fewer options you have in Civ5, because then I don't feel like I'm just balancing everything totally the wrong way.
Takkyon: By hardcore gamers I was merely referring to the people that played games which allowed the AI to field stacks of doom in the first place.
I've been playing Civ4 since it came out, and I really only had the problem you describe maybe a dozen times. It's there, no doubt about it, but I think most people are exaggerating when they bemoan it.
Again, I totally agree that it can be almost a game (as in that particular game, not the game per se) breaker when you see a huge stack of units approach.
At other times, when I found I had the sufficient forces to actually do something about it, it was statisfying whittling away the enemy forces before they could do any harm.
If it troubled you so much, I'm curious how you felt about the way Civ2 handled stacks.
For me, the downsides of 1UPT in Civ5 far outweight the positives, but that's of course personal preferrence.
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rezaf