Get rid of SODs

[Camikaze]

Well, yes, but it doesn't take away the ability of the player to do whatever they want. That is why exponential is better; it makes things prohibitive without prohibiting them. You still have a choice to make, if you so desire.

 

[Hail]

Well, yes, but it doesn't take away the ability of the player to do whatever they want. That is why exponential is better; it makes things prohibitive without prohibiting them. You still have a choice to make, if you so desire.

how about making the cap very high. let's say 1k with each unit taking ~10. the cap will only be reached when large SoD's will be created toward the endgame.

 

[r_rolo1]

I am strongly against hard caps and sincerely I would prefer a exponential maintenance system of any kind than a hard cap.

99% the same result as a "hard-limit".

BtS already has exponential maintenance in certain features, like the colonial maintenance. And , as you can notice, it didn't resulted in a hard limit

My biggest concern about hard limits is that they can be too low, too high or half of the time each, if you get near the middle

 

[MosheLevi]

There has to be a limit for the number of units in one stack.
In reality there is a limit for how many units can occupy a certain area so it would make sense to apply that to the game itself.

I am currently playing a game where the AI has SoD with 150 units.
This stack is invulnerable with the exception of nuclear missiles.

So 50 unit limit in one stack is reasonable.
Besides, more stacks will encourage more strategy.

In addition to that, it would make sense to increase the number of units that are affected by collateral damage the more units are in the stack (since these units are more crowded).
So instead of having hard limit for the number of units that suffer collateral damage, the limit should be based on percentage.

This way large SoD’s will be more vulnerable to collateral damage.

 

[Camikaze]

how about making the cap very high. let's say 1k with each unit taking ~10. the cap will only be reached when large SoD's will be created toward the endgame.

It's still a hard cap. And hard caps are always arbitrarily defined, almost by definition. And again, it removes from the game that element of choice. We do not want to eliminate SoDs, but just diminish their power.

There has to be a limit for the number of units in one stack.
In reality there is a limit for how many units can occupy a certain area so it would make sense to apply that to the game itself.

But in reality, that number is very, very high. Keeping in mind that a square is meant to be about 360 square km, it is entirely possible for an army to fit 360 000 000 soldiers in that tile (1 per square metre). That number will never be reached in civ. It would require a stack of thousands upon thousands of units. However, if an army did as such, and crammed one soldier in each square metre, they would be severely disadvantaged. They would be subject to much more collateral damage, for example, and would be harder pressed to distribute supplies over that one tile. But the point is that it would still be possible, if you were insane and so desired. An exponential system takes care of the disadvantages quite nicely.

I am currently playing a game where the AI has SoD with 150 units.
This stack is invulnerable with the exception of nuclear missiles.

But if they were subject to collateral damage of, say 20% of the stack at a time, then if you had five artillery units, they would damage the entire stack. Also, this would be putting a massive economic strain on the opposing civ, which could be extremely advantageous to you.

So 50 unit limit in one stack is reasonable.
Besides, more stacks will encourage more strategy.

Why not 51? Why not 49? It is an arbitrary number.
And an exponential system will severely diminish the power of a stack, without excluding the possibility of one.

In addition to that, it would make sense to increase the number of units that are affected by collateral damage the more units are in the stack (since these units are more crowded).
So instead of having hard limit for the number of units that suffer collateral damage, the limit should be based on percentage.

I completely agree.

 

[phungus420]

Probably the most important thing to improve Civ would be to get rid of the Stack of Doom.

While normally I think hard caps are in poor form, and usually think devolopers should strive to implement soft caps, this is the exception to the rule. The simplest, and most effective, and overall best solution would be to simply hardcap the number of units that a tile can support.

 

[r_rolo1]

I definitely agree with the simplest ( and , because of that, more easy to teach to the AI too ). But I'm not so sure of being the best

 

[Camikaze]

The difference between a hard cap and a soft cap is minimal, but important. Both would have almost the same effect on the use of SoDs. However, a soft cap would still allow an element of choice, albeit one that would disadvantage you if you choose to use SoDs. This element of choice is vital to the game, which is, after all, for fun. Your possibilities shouldn't be limited in the game, just discouraged.

Also, I didn't think the idea was to get rid of the SoD entirely. The idea was just to diminish their power, and make them much rarer in the game. The odd SoD would be absolutely no problem for the game, and might actually make it even better, with increased variety in warfare. By placing a hard cap on SoDs, you are just transferring warfare entirely from one form to another, not providing for both.

 

[r_rolo1]

Another thing that could be done easily , and in line with the sugestions made in here is to make the max number of units damaged by Collateral damage ( sic ) a function of the number of units in the tile instead of having a hard limit of 8 as it has now ( that can even be lower than that, because those 8 slots can include units immune to the collateral damage done by the the enemy , like siege vs siege ). Unfortunately , I think that, in case of that happening, the collateral damage would have to be rewritten as well, because even now it still is too strong ( even with all the cuts introduced in BtS and in the 3.17 patch ), but it would probably make more sense.... there is no big incentive in gathering 100 units in a tile if a single siege unit can damage 95 of them

 

[deanej]

Personally I think there should be no limit to the number of units collateral damage affects. It should be all the units in the stack, including the one the siege unit is fighting against. It should probably be doubled outside of cities and siege units should do collateral damage on defense as well as when attacking. Combining this with teaching the AI to defend by attacking a stack before it gets to their cities would probably go a long way to nerfing SODs while not requiring players to micromanage their military forces (as all other suggestions would).

I also think that the 350 km^2 estimate for tile size is way too low. The distance from Lake Erie to the city of Syracuse in western NY is about 150 miles. This is represented by one tile on Rhye's Earth map, creating a tile that is 22,500 miles^2.

 

[Camikaze]

The Earth maps are out of proportion. I think that there does need to be a percentage basis for collateral damage, perhaps 20% of units in a tile. Realistically, it would be hard to inflict collateral damage upon all units in a tile, but the more units there are, the more are likely to get hit.

 

[MosheLevi]

But if they were subject to collateral damage of, say 20% of the stack at a time, then if you had five artillery units, they would damage the entire stack. Also, this would be putting a massive economic strain on the opposing civ, which could be extremely advantageous to you.

That’s right.
That will then force players to have smaller stacks (let’s say 5 stacks of 20 units instead of one stack of 100 units).
The game will then be more strategic as players try to out-maneuver each other with their smaller stacks.
20% collateral damage may be too much to begin with.
However, that should be achieved with 3 or 4 promotions

Why not 51? Why not 49? It is an arbitrary number.
And an exponential system will severely diminish the power of a stack, without excluding the possibility of one.

The line has to be drawn somewhere, and 50 seems right.
Besides, with 20% collateral damge (for number of units) no one will have large stacks any more, so this limitation is not really necessary.

I think that there does need to be a percentage basis for collateral damage, perhaps 20% of units in a tile. Realistically, it would be hard to inflict collateral damage upon all units in a tile, but the more units there are, the more are likely to get hit.

Yes, I think most of us (if not all of us) agree about that.

I am currently play a game that I modded where military units cost half their original price.
In this game the number of units the AI and I have is enormous with many stacks of units all over the place.
The game is much more interesting with several SoD’s because it plays out like a chess game where each side is trying to out-maneuver the other side.

Getting rid of huge SoD’s will allow for more interesting chess like games.

 

[Rusty Edge]

A % collateral damage is fine with me.

Here's an alternative , a compromise of sorts. A larger stack would require a GG in it to "manage the logistics, coordinate movements," etc. Since GGs are increasingly difficult to obtain it's not a hard cap, but a stiff one. All you would have to do is set a limit per GG. I'm thinking in multiples of 3 since armies are often organized that way, such as 9 or 27 units per GG.

So you could have up to 8 (or 26) units in a single tile with no GG.
9 to 17 ( or 27- 53 ) with one GG.
18-26 ( or 54 -80) with two GGs, etc.

 

[MosheLevi]

A % collateral damage is fine with me.

Here's an alternative , a compromise of sorts. A larger stack would require a GG in it to "manage the logistics, coordinate movements," etc. Since GGs are increasingly difficult to obtain it's not a hard cap, but a stiff one. All you would have to do is set a limit per GG. I'm thinking in multiples of 3 since armies are often organized that way, such as 9 or 27 units per GG.

So you could have up to 8 (or 26) units in a single tile with no GG.
9 to 17 ( or 27- 53 ) with one GG.
18-26 ( or 54 -80) with two GGs, etc.

I like your idea.

Great generals could get their own promotions over time.
Some of these promotions could allow for a larger stack.

Of course, we will then need many more GG’s.

 

[rysmiel]

How would you define 'defending' units?

In the notion I described above ?

What I had been thinking was that in a system where units have independently variable attack and defense strength, and where this leads to specialisation of attacking units and defending units that a stack of doom would want both high-attack units and high-defence units, and I was thinking of the latter as "defending".

It occurs to me now, though, that if units attached to a stack had to be explicitly flagged as either "stack defenders" or not, and those that were "stack defenders" could do nothing but defend, and those that were not could not protect siege units, that might be workable. Maybe something like being fortified, except able to move with the stack.

 

[Camikaze]

A % collateral damage is fine with me.

Here's an alternative , a compromise of sorts. A larger stack would require a GG in it to "manage the logistics, coordinate movements," etc. Since GGs are increasingly difficult to obtain it's not a hard cap, but a stiff one. All you would have to do is set a limit per GG. I'm thinking in multiples of 3 since armies are often organized that way, such as 9 or 27 units per GG.

So you could have up to 8 (or 26) units in a single tile with no GG.
9 to 17 ( or 27- 53 ) with one GG.
18-26 ( or 54 -80) with two GGs, etc.

That's a good idea, but again, I'm leaning towards it still being possible to have a large stack without GGs, but to have an even greater penalty if you don't have them. Because if you're down to one city, you would have all of your units in one tile, most likely. So setting a hard limit on the number of units without a GG would preclude the possibility of a bit of resistance from the defending force. However, if you just instituted stiff penalties for those stacks that lack the required number of GGs, then you are still allowed the possibility of having a large army, without officer expertise.

Also, if you have no wars, you have no GGs. So those civs that do not war would not really be able to in future (particularly if the limit is set at 9). Basically, it would encourage warring even more in the game, which is probably not the best thing to aim for.

If this was to be implemented, even without a hard limit, which I would definitely agree with, I think GGs would have to be cheaper to get, and would have to be implemented in a different fashion. Currently, even units that are in a stack are independent of each other. So the GG unit could wander off from the stack, or get killed, or something. So, GGs would have to be attached to a stack as a single entity for the purposes of this feature. This would not be a bad thing at all. However, they'd have to be implemented differently to how they currently are.

In the notion I described above ?

What I had been thinking was that in a system where units have independently variable attack and defense strength, and where this leads to specialisation of attacking units and defending units that a stack of doom would want both high-attack units and high-defence units, and I was thinking of the latter as "defending".

It occurs to me now, though, that if units attached to a stack had to be explicitly flagged as either "stack defenders" or not, and those that were "stack defenders" could do nothing but defend, and those that were not could not protect siege units, that might be workable. Maybe something like being fortified, except able to move with the stack.

Having independent attack and defence strengths would only encourage stacks, IMO. For example, if you had a group of, say, 5 attacking units, they would have to be supplemented with probably 5 more defensive units. So, you would have a mini-stack instead of a small group.

 

[rysmiel]

Having independent attack and defence strengths would only encourage stacks, IMO. For example, if you had a group of, say, 5 attacking units, they would have to be supplemented with probably 5 more defensive units. So, you would have a mini-stack instead of a small group.

The benefit, as I see it, of doing things that way is to make stacks more expensive, because they need more different classes of units in them to be worthwhile; this to my mind is a thing that would reduce the dominance of SoDs because you could afford fewer of them for any given empire.

 

[deanej]

Most of the suggestions here seem to revolve around units in stacks not being independent of each other; remember that units in stacks are still separate units, they just all have the same orders and are near each other (given the size of a tile). Personally I think the limits for collateral damage should be removed compeletly; it just doesn't seem realistic to me that there should be a limit.

 

[Camikaze]

The benefit, as I see it, of doing things that way is to make stacks more expensive, because they need more different classes of units in them to be worthwhile; this to my mind is a thing that would reduce the dominance of SoDs because you could afford fewer of them for any given empire.

I suppose that could work, but it would definitely entail combining two units.

I think that you're meant to make the assumption in Civ that each unit already comprises both attack and defence capabilities. For instance, in real life, an armoured unit would consist of infantry support. Now, you can either take the view that this means that there should be attack and defence capabilities to reflect the different type of weaponry, if you will, in the army grouping, or you could take it to be that this is already done for you, with the image seen just the general representation of that which makes up the bulk of the unit. Now, the first of these would possibly be more realistic, but would mean that each unit you produce represents less actual troops, meaning that you need more of them, and need a stack of them. That's why I prefer the second view, whilst agreeing that the first does have merit.

 

[rysmiel]

I think that you're meant to make the assumption in Civ that each unit already comprises both attack and defence capabilities. For instance, in real life, an armoured unit would consist of infantry support.

In Civ 4, yes. In earlier versions of Civ with separately varying attack and defence strength, no; and that is a capacity for variance and fine detail choice and control that I think really should not have been lost.