I hate Stacks of units

[mice]

If it's a close game i don't want to do stack attack too much because I might miss some vital thing. But maybe that is the answer for now.

Is it possible to mod the XML to make a stack limit?

 

[Gelvan]

hm, what about a stack limit which increases with difficulty level

settler: 3 units
chieftain: 4 units
warlord: 5 units
diety: bonus on stacks

something like that, so you could win war's easy on warlord but not so on emporer (because of 9 surrounding tiles of a city: it was like 9:1 on settler)

 

[Florian]

Jops,

What was unrealistic about the Civ I stack-elimination rule is that ALL units in a given square got routed if the ONE unit that had the best chance of defending lost the battle. There could have been 12 other units with exactly the same chance of winning, and not one of them even got the chance to try.

 

[mnf]

The problem is not that stacks exist. The problem is that stacks are difficult to manage.

Well said!

1) Armies
Units grouped together should create super units, not loose collections
of individual units. I propose that in combat, each unit will take a turn,
depending on their movement, morale, and type. Each combat turn, a
unit will deal and receive damage. Then the next unit in the army will
fight 1 round.

This reminds me of the Hearts of Iron system. To apply it on to Civ4 could mean something like this:

You build Divisions of Axes, Swords and Cats as you would now. But you also need to build a Commander. Then you assign multiple divisions to the Commander. Assigned divisions loose 20% strength each time they get assigned, and then has to "heal back" to full strength. From here on, you control the whole Command instead of the divisions under it. Of course you can detach the divisions, but that division will suffer a strength penalty if it is on the offense.

Each Commander has a rank. Low ranking commanders can only command 4 divisions. Over-commanding is allowed, but all units under that command suffer -10% strength penalty. With experience, the Commander levels up and is able to command more divisions. Promotions are assigned to the Commander instead of the individual divisions. If a special (and expensive) unit called an HQ unit is present in the tile or adjacent tile, then the command limit for that battle is +100%.

Combat is between two tiles, not two Commands. When one Commander initiates attack on another tile, all units in both tiles participate at the same time in the battle. The highest ranking Commander on each side sets the side's command limit and all units are still subject to over-command penalty even if they are each assigned to a commander of appropriate rank.

This will effectively eliminate multiple Commanders forming huge stacks. You can still swap out injured Commands and reinforce with fresh Commands, but that'll be the next turn you attack. Also, "combined arms" actually can mean something with this kind of combat, instead of the very much simplified countering units system. For example infantry with cats gets +10% city attack, or infantry with mounted units gets +10% critical hit.

One can also factor in a flanking bonus if you have friendly Commands able to participate in the attack from another tile. Something like that.

Now during each round in the combat, each division takes RNG roll and picks one enemy division and takes a whack. Each whack takes RNG roll to determine hit/miss as it is in Civ4 now. Repeat until some condition is met or maybe even make it happen real time and player can decide to withdraw from the attack or withdraw from the defense (meaning the defenders give up that tile). Siege weapon can be used to modify other division strength when not attacking cities, and when attacking cities, used to reduce city defense over a period of time (during which the combat between other units are already happening).

You can put in a promotion that allows a Command to have ZOC or something. Don't know how that would work out. Or make it a special unit like a Scout attached to a Command lets the Command enjoy a ZOC.

Random thoughts.

Edit: People will still want and find ways to bring huge stacks, though. You need to cut it at the production source. Use maintenance or a hard/soft/moving cap to the number of divisions/commands a country can have. But this whole system is making combat even more complicated.

 

[MrFrodo]

No doubt, managing large stacks can be a PITA, I spent two hours last night just regrouping from conquering one big continent and getting in position to conquer the next. It wasn't the most enjoyable 2 hours of gameplay. I do play pretty slow though.

On the other hand, I am enjoying this version of Civ, with BtS, better than any of the previous ones.

 

[Aurelius321]

Well it would be the same type of reorganization it takes in RL (note I said same TYPE not exact same thing ). If the US wanted to move out of Iraq and into China it would take years to accomplish not one week.

No doubt, managing large stacks can be a PITA, I spent two hours last night just regrouping from conquering one big continent and getting in position to conquer the next. It wasn't the most enjoyable 2 hours of gameplay. I do play pretty slow though.

On the other hand, I am enjoying this version of Civ, with BtS, better than any of the previous ones.

 

[lulu135]

There are lots of good ideas for complex mods here, but I think without changing the game mechanics too much, a stack limit seems like the best simple solution. Say, 6 units for a regular square, 8 units for a fort (gives them some extra usefulness) and 12 for a city. If you want to attack a city with a huge army, then you have to come at it from multiple directions.... just like real life. Also then unpassable terrain becomes useful as a natural defense for shielding cities from huge attacks. Certain buildings, such as castles, could increase the maximum in a city, and there could a special GG promotion which increases the limit of his square.

The numbers aren't set in stone, but it should be large enough so an attacking stack can have a mix unit types like siege/mounted/gunpowder depending on what the defense has.

 

[Ghandi33]

I don't know if anyone has ever played Europa Universalis, but a lot of what people are talking about is done in it. Everytime I play Civ4 and get into a big war I always think, "man I wish combat was like EU". It has: large stacks represented as single armies, single armies fighting (and sometimes retreating) in a sensible fashion, attrition taking place when large armies tromp through non friendly territory, and finally you actually have to supply some of your population to carry all those axes and guns! I sincerely hope the devs take a close look at it before making civ5.

 

[Neo Guderian]

Stack caps are a bad idea imo. The reasoning is as follows:

If attacking on foreign soil, the defender has the bonus of road movement.
If the attacker and defender are equal strength, the defender has the advantage of being able to attack an enemy stack, move another stack along roads or rail, and attack again; ad infinitum.

The whole point of build super stacks are to be able to counter the defender's ability to move in reinforcements by shear weight of numbers.

We need a better combat system than arbitrary limits and tedious unit management.

 

[GenocideBringer]

Turn on Stack Attack in the options will remove the tedium of watching all those individual battles.

Other than that, I don't see the problem with the stack thing. Your incentive not to make huge superstacks of everything? Collateral damage.

 

[mnf]

Actually collateral damage promotes big stacks. The more you have in a stack, the more units you have at full health after the barrage. It would be a different story if collateral damage didn't have a target cap and damaged every single unit in the tile. But as it is, you *need* big stacks to counter collateral damage.

 

[Spitefire]

simple make collateral damage more effective the larger the stack it hits rather then less effect.

 

[Aurelius321]

You can also turn on quick battles so you don't have to watch EACH battle as it goes on

 

[A1CBOZ]

Am I the only person to think that the size of an army should be regulated by population?

Also, aren't 2 million man standing armies really overdoing it and total unrealistic? You should be able to have a small standing army to keep the peace and protect your borders, but when you feel threatened you could begin to raise more troops and draft ( a better draft system than the crap that's used now) to get a fighting army, then disband the forces when the war is over. It would be realistic at least.

And another thought, during war, how about making war/military related techs cost less/ be researched faster, to show how the country is focusing on winning the war? Cause if your country is in a massive struggle for survival, I think people would be working a little harder to make a better gun/ armour, than a better way to grow food....

 

[sourboy]

I think there should be stacks, but with a limit of troops allowed. Maybe 10 per tile...?

[btw, anyone found a mod script to add this to the game?]

 

[Tlalynet]

I always wondered how you can support such huge armies with no consideration for population, soldiers are trained form civilians arnt they? Why not limit your military to your population number, It can still be big but it would stay under control.
Sorry BoZ already said that about population.
CTP tried the whole war readiness thing but CTP was never as good, they did have some interesting concepts though.

 

[Nay]

The problem presents itself by the massing of units aganist massings of units inside a city, bolstered during sieges forcing AI to mass even more units.

Also, late game takes this to a logical extreme, when AI cities have nothing else to do but produce units.

While i work 10 turns on an axemen, later on i do modern armors in 2-3 turns.
This means, i have 3-4 times the stack sizes in late game, and so does the AI.
This in turn makes

.) turns last 5 times as long since if you dont queue 4 orders at once theres 5 cities every turn that need new orders.

.) naval invasion impossible

you cant just land with 50 units, since whlie you built 50 units (and 12 transports, and 15 destroyers to protect them) the AI also built 50 units, plus 20 more while you were on sea, and by railroad and airdrops has a zillion units in the city by the time you attack.

Modern combat needs to be changed, i was hoping for that in BTS.
MY suggestion:
increase the hammer cost for units by 50%/age from the amount they need now.

Impossibly large armies are a thing of the past.
Xerxes might have marched to greece with 1 million men, but why not?
In a time of ballistic missiles and (god forbid) tactical nukes, who in his right mind would amass 5000 tanks in one place?

There are just too much units in the later ages, and too few in the beginning, it needs to be switched around.

By increasing the cost to build, you are decerasing their numbers without changing game mechanics.