Great general required to form an army

[ShadowWarrior]

I was thinking about the debate over stack of doom vs carpet of doom, and the compromise solutions, aka limited stacking. I like to suggest a variation on the limited stacking. If this idea has already been floated by another person in a previous thread, I apologize in advance.

My variation is this. All units must be grouped together to form an army under the leadership of a great general. Units that doesn't belong to any army fight at only half of their strength. There is a upper limit to how many units a great general can lead in an army. This upper limit may increases with other factors such as experience points, technology wonders or improvement.

Units that do not belong to an army can still occupy the same hex as the army, but such units will fight only at half their strength.

Units that belong to an army may share the same hex as its great general or may occupy the hex immediately adjacent where the great general is. Once that unit moves beyond the adjacent hex to the great general, that unit is automatically detaches from the army, and fights at half strength.

Great general themselves can have variations in their capabilities with regard to the size of the army they lead. Each great general have the same default number of units they can lead, lets say 10. But some particular great general can attach two more units in addition to the usual ten if those two units are strictly, say, ranged units. Other great generals may attach as high as 15 units if all of them are mobile units, such as cavalry or tanks, and such great general will add 20 percent to the base fighting strength of those mobile units. These variations are there mainly to make it interesting.

The limitation on the size of the army great general may lead is effectively a stacking limitation. But this doesn't completely eliminate the stack of doom issue because those units that doesn't belong to the army may still occupy the same hex as the army, and this is why I proposed that all units must belong to an army to fight at full strength. If units must belong to an army to fight at full strength, it doesn't make sense to send them out to fight wars in the first place if the great generals don't have rooms for them.

I also like to suggest another feature. All army outside of their empires' territory must be regularly supplied by a logistic unit, otherwise the whole army fights at half strength. This logistic unit travels back and forth between the home empire and where the army currently is. The game will reveal a clear line of route that this logistic unit travels similar to the trade routes. This line of route can be intercepted, making it necessary for the invading army to take the supply route into consideration. If the invading army penetrates too deeply into the enemy's territory, it might find that its supply route becomes more and more susceptible to interception.

 

[AriochIV]

I don't understand how this is different from stacks of doom. A stack of half-strength units will still be a stack of doom. A stack of units will be undefeatable by anything except another stack of units, unless it's a stack of units with a general, in which case it will be undefeatable by anything except another stack of units with a general. It devolves into stacks chasing each other around, which doesn't feel like real combat.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

I love this logistic line approach idea, it is highly consumable, like a trade route that can be plundered.

I don't understand how this is different from stacks of doom. A stack of half-strength units will still be a stack of doom. A stack of units will be undefeatable by anything except another stack of units, unless it's a stack of units with a general, in which case it will be undefeatable by anything except another stack of units with a general. It devolves into stacks chasing each other around, which doesn't feel like real combat.

I Liked Great Generals and Leader, and Governors.
Corps didn't use them. Yet they were there.

Ah, and stack of Bombers. They were also there.

 

[Dedrytus]

Call to power II had such mechanics. If I remember correctly player with first army had huge advantage over enemies without it. Just smaller stack of doom.

 

[Makenshi]

If that existed in Civ 6, there would be entire games where the player simply would be locked out of making corps/armies

Because of stupid Encampment spam by the AI, claiming all generals

Most games of Civ 6 I only get generals by the Industrial era and beyond, because that's when I can give myself the luxury of making camps that I never needed or ever will, fill them with the 03 buildings, and then spam training project while using that wildcard which gives a LOT of GG points.

These days I've been relying on Himiko when I feel that I need +5 CS, plus Oligarchy (or its legacy) and Wars of Religion.

A general and fascism are just icing the cake by the point I get them.