Large army movement - a logistics nightmare!

[Watiggi]

Has anyone else built a huge army and found it rather interesting navigating and negotiating it through tight areas?

I currently have about 9 longswordmen, 4 horsemen, 2 generals and 4 tribuchets. Getting them through choke points and other tight terran formations is pretty cool. Must be what the real armies of old must of had to figure out too! I'm loving this 1upt mechanic.

 

[HamTard]

That's probably more units than you actually need for an invasion force. I do like having to think about how I position my units though.

 

[Drake L. Dragon]

With the positioning in those narrow points also brings a geopolitical aspect into the game, which was basically never present for any of the earlier games. For example, I tried capturing the city-state of Cape Town with my 5 horse archers and three spearmen, but the city-state had a body of water covering all of the back of that city and water covering one tile on the city's right. The city also had a mountain covering one tile on the city's left. Therefore, since that was in my second playing of Civilization V, you could guess how surprised I was at this much higher level of military strategy necessary now that there is no unit stacking. The muse of realism has been fed well in Civilization V, because, as you can guess, taking over that city-state was much, much harder than I had ever imagined at that time.

 

[Countmonte8242]

Movement of armies alone is enough reason to make me wish they hadn't tried the one UPT thing. I'm also guessing it might have something to do with AI turns taking longer. It simply has to take longer for the AI to calculate movements with that rule.

I'd actually have preferred they went back to the combat implementations of Civ 1 and 2, where units could stack but if you are attacked and die, all units in the square die with the defender. Therefore stacking units on the combat field was a no no, but at the same time you didn't have the movement limitations that we are seeing now. This alone may cripple the fun of the game in the long run for me.

I wanted to get away from the tedium of huge SoD's that was saw in Civ IV. But unit movement in Civ V might actually be more tedious right now.

 

[BjoernLars]

The muse of realism has been fed well in Civilization V

Hehe... nice quote.

I find the 1UPT a blessing. Sure it gets difficult to maneuver units at times, but it adds new and different challenges to the game.

 

[alpaca]

At the moment I have a mountain pass to defend against Napoleon. If I didn't have it, he'd wreck me, but if negotiating terrain is a nightmare for players (and it sometimes is), the AI doesn't seem to handle it with any efficiency at all.

Another bad micromanagement thing is that for reinforcements, the multi-turn moves for the embarked portion of your journey don't include the increased movement points later in the game, so if you build a unit and want to send it to the other side of the world, it'll try to go over land a lot even though it would be faster in water.

 

[Czacki]

I find it pretty awful and cool at the same time.

Awful because how tedious is to move your army.
Cool because no more stacks of doom = good.

As for "realism"... 1 field of civ4 map could represent a city of several milion inhabitants. YOu think that you can't accomade 20 stacks in a place as big? I don't think so. Realism wise, it's actually worse in civ5, where a stack of tanks is roughly the size of a city and nothing else can fit there.

 

[Hailas]

The worst thing in CiV 4 was totally no punishment from lateral movement of enemy units. This made fortresses totally useless. You bring out the army, but enemy simply passes by. In CiV III at least some units would give you a whack if you move by them, in Original Civilization, lateral movement was impossible.

So, Sid Meyer finally did this quantum leap from strategy to tactics

However, it really needs reintroducing older concepts - like the Army from Civ III, where stacking was possible with Great General. Maybe even some engineers units or so - but time will tell, because I expect lots of modding to be done to somehow shape this raw material.

 

[jjkrause84]

It's a big boring having to move huge armies over the ocean (instead of stack can we select "blobs" and order them to move please!) but the limitations it forces on an invading army are downright delicious.

I've found the best answer is befriend (or ally with) a city-state and launch from their borders. Normally you're in great shape to hit an under-defended part of your enemy's front and you can deploy at your leisure beore declaring war.

 

[pagh80]

I find it pretty awful and cool at the same time.

Awful because how tedious is to move your army.
Cool because no more stacks of doom = good.

I agreee.

Its great during a war where you are setting up your forces at the front. But all the logistics of moving them from one part of your empire to the other or just moving them during non war time is a real pain.
Same can be said about non combat units like workers, settlers, GP and more. I just wish they would be allowed to stack cause its such an annoyance to always make sure one worker can get past another worker without having to spent 2-3 extra turns moving around it.

The system needs some change imo. It only works and is nice with combat units during war. Otherwise its kinda a pain.

Atleast why not just let non combat units stack(only let one worker work a tile at the time). That would remove much of the pain of the system.

 

[Boojumhunter]

1upt is going to provide some very nice 'puzzle' situations. Almost like a chess set up... 'black to win in 3 moves'

Not to mention a few good '300 spartans' scenarios

 

[Hailas]

Movement in stacks but combat screen when fight occurs, where you can then deploy your formations before the battle starts.

 

[Czacki]

That could be a civ of next generation: a combat screen. With tactics and everything.

Leave the stack movement alone unless you want the game to look like civ 5: tiny overpowered single units which lead to economy problems (you don't need a massive army anymore to win which is sort of stupid.)

 

[LaRate]

I'd also like to have a possibility to "park" my units during peace time for not to clutter my map with military units. My workaround now is to park them embarked at sea guarded by two or three navy units ... but this is not quite realistic now, is it?

I'd vote for a possibility to stack units in peace time on own territory - possibly also only in forts or citadels or in cities that have barracks. Or maybe allow cities to shelter a number of units depending on military buildings (barracks, armories, military academies).

 

[Boojumhunter]

I'd also like to have a possibility to "park" my units during peace time for not to clutter my map with military units. My workaround now is to park them embarked at sea guarded by two or three navy units ... but this is not quite realistic now, is it?

I'd vote for a possibility to stack units in peace time on own territory - possibly also only in forts or citadels or in cities that have barracks. Or maybe allow cities to shelter a number of units depending on military buildings (barracks, armories, military academies).

I like this... A 'camped' unit does not count towards stacking limits. It has 0 defense.

 

[Watiggi]

I find it pretty awful and cool at the same time.

Awful because how tedious is to move your army.
Cool because no more stacks of doom = good.

As for "realism"... 1 field of civ4 map could represent a city of several milion inhabitants. YOu think that you can't accomade 20 stacks in a place as big? I don't think so. Realism wise, it's actually worse in civ5, where a stack of tanks is roughly the size of a city and nothing else can fit there.

I wasn't implying that the realism aspect of it was related to the size of the units versus the cities and surrounding land. I was refering to the logistic side of things of having to command an army through different types of land formations. Imagine the conquerors of old moving their invading forces through enemy territory, negotiating the terrain formations and what not with their large army. For the first time in a Civ game, I find myself having to consider this aspect of conquest.

 

[Nutteria]

Not only that.I sumbled upon a citystate I wanted to get rid of(If it aint military its puppet-state that is my motto ) but when I approached I realised that I can not siege it.

It was on water with mountins on both sides and hill in the middle so if I place a knight on the hill my Ballistas(Yeah playing rome atm and LOVING IT! ) can`t shoot at the city.It was a small nightmare to capture that one loosing 2 ballistas and a Legion was quite a price for furs and whales

Tho what I find a bit disapointing is that you don`t really need to much of an army to crush your opponents.I have 3 legions 2 knights(beelined to knights with 2GS hehe) and 3 ballistas and there is literally nothing that can hold my siege.At the same time the army is small and moble enough to not cause bottleneck problems.

What I whould like to see more are bigger armys haveing more value in the game because currently you don`t need them atleast not while playing against AI.

 

[Ronnoc]

I tried moving a large force and it was near impossible. I got artillery too far in front and could not get a defensive unit in front because of the stupid stacking restrictions. It is starting to drive me crazy.

 

[eewallace]

All in all, I like the new one unit per tile rule--I have been dealing with the congestion problem by constantly upgrading units and having fewer of them.

With a few exceptions though to liking one UPT: First, a great general really SHOULD be able to merge with a unit--they are annoying, standing there taking up a tile and being weak as a kitten, and unrealistic, too. Why would a general be standing around alone rather than with the soldiers she is commanding? Also, why can't we have an exception to this rule for putting units onto ships? Having units "embarked" but needing a ship next to them just seems weird. (I keep thinking of soldiers swimming along beside their ships...)

 

[ChaplainDMK]

I find it pretty awful and cool at the same time.

Awful because how tedious is to move your army.
Cool because no more stacks of doom = good.

As for "realism"... 1 field of civ4 map could represent a city of several milion inhabitants. YOu think that you can't accomade 20 stacks in a place as big? I don't think so. Realism wise, it's actually worse in civ5, where a stack of tanks is roughly the size of a city and nothing else can fit there.

I think that each unit in Civ represents an army or division (or some other large army unit).
So "modern armor" is actualy a Armored division, a "jet fighter" is actualy a Fighter squadron etc.
That would also explain Mechenised infantry (APCs) defeating tanks, when a 30mm cannon shell would never penetrate a MBTs armor.