Longshot Combat

[yoshi]

By this, it would get a more realistic flair - a town could hold just x defenders - and just the same x would stand for an "army" of attackers

In the 'Total War' series, various 'fortress' improvements allow you to keep more men in them --during sieges.
Limiting the number of units that can occupy a City, Fortress or Airbase tile is reasonable, as it emphasizes the size of the defences (i.e. a larger city can hold more troops than a smaller one). It has the effect of ensuring that the player will not put all his units into a city and hold out there --some of the units must stay in the field. Of course, the max size of armies would have to be limited to contain only as many units as the largest city, otherwise huge armies would have an advantage vs. cities as they would contain more units (at max. size).
This is a good point. Adding one 'max. # of units' caption per city size to the Editor would achieve this effect. It could always be set to 0 for those who don't want the limitation. And for those of you concerned with AI, all I can say is that this would not have much of an impact on AI behaviour.

Get 1 army, the game is over. An immortal or knight army would be like attacking with a tank, but with a ton of more hit points.

Yes, I considered that.
First I should say that in real life, you could technically go around beating everyone if you put together a suffiently large army and nobody else had one. You would of course be held back by the enormous cost, supply problems, prisoners (assuming there are any), ect. --Civ3 has none of that.
It's assumed that other civs will also build Armies --if the AI can't handle that, you know who's fault THAT is. Although single units will have a tough time dealing with a powerful Army of (30?), their own Armies will come to the rescue and a massive battle will ensue between the two.
The idea is that this 'focuses' combat rather than having it spread equally all over the place. In reality only guerilla warfare is spread out, usually military forces have a few big battles and that settles it. Historically, the fate of entire empires have been decided by one or a few major battles. The Napoleonic Wars are a good example. And assuming it could handle it, this would make the AI much more challenging rather than just irritating as it endlessly sends single units to their doom against your well-defended cities.
I think this is some thing crucial and perhaps it should get its own post.

Your point about HPs highlights the need for more distinctions between units of various ages --especially in the later eras.
Even then, an Army of Knights would still beat a Tank in reality, it's just that they would come out of it a few 'Sirs' short.

And just think what an Army of Tanks would do. The only way of countering this would be to build a similar Army of your own, Whoever wins (assuming the victor comes out of with enough units still alive) has free reign.

This would do a lot for Civ3's combat strategy.

 

[Bamspeedy]

This would do a lot for Civ3's combat strategy.

Don't agree with you there.

It would just be a matter of who the first person is that can gather the largest stack of units together and launch the offensive.

I wouldn't want my game decided by ONE battle. If my 'army' of units fell to your 'army' of units, then your army is just going to stomp all over my civ and the game is over. It would be highly unlikely that I would be able to gather enough re-inforcements together to form another 'army' and strike your army after you've destroyed the bulk of my entire military force.
Whoever has the production advantage and the initiative wins.
Whatever 'maximum' number of units is set as the limit for an army, you know that people will max that out to increase their chances of winning.

First I should say that in real life

In reality

Historically

Tell me again what you said in another thread that was something like "reality shouldn't be taken too literally".

 

[Commander Bello]

I can't agree with the idea of the one-and-decisive battle either.
Even, if the Napoleonian Wars have been decided by just some, or maybe even only one battle, CIV is a game and should bring as much fun to the player as possible.
I guess, only few players would like the idea of miscalculating their chances and then - ooops.. New game.
About the idea with the upper limit of units per town / fortification / whatever, I would say that the open terrain should allow for less units than a town. Why? Because of the logistic problems you will encounter in reality, when different units march in open terrain: they will struggle and race for the best camp grounds, they will block each other at road intersection, stations and all this kind of stuff. In a town, there would be much more space and less need for moving the units back and forth....
So, a game like CIV will always have to find the balance between simulating reality and offering hours of fun and challenge.

 

[yoshi]

I wouldn't want my game decided by ONE battle.

Sorry, I exaggerated my example. Armies should not be SO decisive that they would mean the difference between winning and losing. The idea is really just to 'focus' combat so that it isn't spread all over the map.

Clearly the limit on Army size means that even if you man it with your most powerful units, it can only take so much. You're not going to go stomping around beating everyone with one Army for two main reasons: a)unlike my 'ideal' example, you would probably lose about half your Army's units in a confrontation with another Army; b) even if it has no armies, the enemy civ will still have lots of units to fight back with (I don't know where you got the idea that you lose your whole fighting potential by losing an Army --even my exaggerated example didn't go that far).

Even if you increased the max. # of units that can be loaded into an Army, the enemy would still have many units with which to fight back with.


Think of Napoleon's Russian campaign: at first, Napoleaon's Armies managed to fight their way deep into Russian territory by defeating the enemy's Armies, so the Russains resorted to single unit (Cavalry?) hit-and-run tactics to gradually wear down the larger French groups.

Tell me again what you said in another thread that was something like "reality shouldn't be taken too literally".

I'm glad there's someone out there who actually reads through my whole post (although it's odd that you went out of your way to pick out quotes from my other posts --the 'examples' weren't really necessary). The reason why I somethimes use the 'reality arguement' is because it's only reasonable that a reality-based game (i.e. human civilization) should be based on reality to a degree.
In the case of Armies, it's not that Civ3 should be just like reality but rather that realism is the most logical way to go (i.e. big groups are better than small groups). It's really just a matter of physics.

If units had supplies and armies gave an equal supply bonus to all units loaded into them, then moveing around in Armies would be of great advantage. Likewise, if Armies gave units a combat bonus, that too would make Armies more imortant. It's logical that there be big advantages in forming large groups rather than small ones --the physics of reality just happen to work that way (sorry if that bothers you). Likewise, in modern times with the arrival of automatic weapons, large groups become less decisive as just anyobody can put up a fight (i.e. Guerillas).
Basing stuff on reality just saves time in terms of figuring out what works and what doesn't. In other words, it's not for the sake of realism.

About the idea with the upper limit of units per town / fortification / whatever, I would say that the open terrain should allow for less units than a town.

First, I should say that placing a limit on terrian would limit things too much (aside from the implied, 'not enough space on island' glitch) and would complicate things as you would then have to remember each terrain's limit. Putting aside the logistical problems (none of which would really limit the amount of forces that you can place in a region if you're basing it on reality), it seems logical that you could have unlimited units on 'open' terrain as CIV has no specific proportions. How would it improve gameplay? It seems as though it would just get in the way.

In Cities, Fortresses and Air Bases on the other hand, space IS limited (i.e you can only cram so many forces into a fort or planes onto an airstrip). In the case of cities, the limit would be based on city size. The improvement to gameplay is as I said in my previous post.

 

[Commander Bello]

Ok, I will try to make my point more obvious...

First of all, when speaking of "armies" I don't refer to the CIV-meaning of this term as long as not stated so.

My idea would be to have an upper limit of units per tile. If we enhance this with your suggestion of upper limits per town ("town" here should substitute all other "man-build" objects on the map as forts, airports etc.), I would suggest to have towns allow for more units than the open terrain.
Now, how could that look like?
Let's assume, you decided to get rid of the evil Whatsoevers and plan to take their town at your border, then you will more or less gather your troops at the border. Assuming, that there would be an upper limit of 10 units per town and an upper limit of 5 units per open terrain in place, then you will have to check for what the evil AI has placed near that town.
You can already assume that the town will be defended by the maximum number of units possible, so by 10. Additionally, you spot to other AI-"armies" sitting next to that town, making for up to 10 other units.
If we further assume that you will need 150% of troops to successfully conquer a heavily defended enemy town AND afterwards enough troops for quelling resistance and holding it against counter attacks, than you can start calculating:
You will need 15 units for taking the town (how many of these units will survive the battle is unclear at beforehand, so you have to assume, that it will be just the one and last unit to take it). Since you know about the two armies waiting to counterattack your wore-down troops at the next turn, these two armies (with assumed 10 units in total) then must be of 150% of your troops to successfully throw you out of that town again. So, for holding the town successfully, you will then need 8+ units (7 units would be the 100% basis value for 10 enemy units to total up to 150%).
You will need at least 23 units in total then to perform your attack successfully. Since you are a human being who most times tend to handle easy numbers, you decide to have 25 units.
These 25 units you will gather at the border in 5 different tiles (5 units per each tile).
With the equivalent of the "j"-command you will mark all of the first "army's" units for attack and perform it. Let's say, you would have built an army of 5 divisions (that would be the real-world equivalent). After a brutal fight, your army is defeated, in other words you lost all your 5 divisions. Now the same goes on for the second and third army, until at the end your troops may march in.
After that, the last 2 armies rush into the town to fortify it.
Of course, you could have attacked the enemy's additional 2 armies in open space as well but then you would have needed additional 5 units, so an additional army of your own.

Of course, this example is quite simple and doen't take either different combat values, extreme sequences of RNG-based numbers nor terrain values into account!

Now, if we then assume that the above mentioned town has been founded at an isthmus, it becomes even more interesting since you have to check whether armies #4 and #5 will have the chance to get into that town in the same turn.
According to my point of view, this would greatly enhance the strategic depth of the game.

In my idea armies would still consist of single and in principle independantly acting units which are just in case of combat merged together to a virtual "super-unit" which will exist just for this fight. For attack reasons you would have to use the equivalent to the "j"-command as you do already for movement reasons whilst for defense units per tile would automatically merge.
So, 5 Spearmen would merge to a super Spearman of 5/10/-- (= since it just is in place for that very combat) whilst 5 attacking Swordmen would merge to 15/10/-- (hope to have stated the correct numbers since I have adjusted them for my games and don't remember the original values in the moment).
How to distribute the damage to the units would be another point of discussion, as I have to admit. On the other hand this shouldn't be to complicated...
It would be a nice idea then to first distribute the damage to the less experienced units so that there would be an additional advantage for the veteran and elite units....

You then could still make use of the CIV-army concept. But, then the GL would have to additionally boost the combat values of that CIV-army.

I really would like to learn about your thoughts to this concept.

 

[socralynnek]

This would normally be a big advantage for the Attacker, since he can choose where to attack, and the defender would have to defend the whole boarder (with the concept we have now, this isn't such a big problem because every unit can fight on on one)
The other thing is, that you can see a unit as a representation for a whole army.

Reality: In reality in most wars, the defender had enough time to see the army of the attacker coming, such that he could gather his troops together.

Another two problems : A town can be attacked from 8 sides, that would mean 8 attacking armies, but only 1 defending.
And you would have to build a lot of units just to defend, so "civilised concepts" wouldn't have any chance (according to another thread, it is already a problem)

 

[Commander Bello]

This would normally be a big advantage for the Attacker, since he can choose where to attack, and the defender would have to defend the whole boarder (with the concept we have now, this isn't such a big problem because every unit can fight on on one)

To this I can't agree. Of course - and this is absolutely realistic - the attacker has the advantage of choosing time and location of the first battle. I can't see, why "automatically" built armies would make it harder to defend... the AI is stockpiling units anyway... and who of the Humans performs attacks with just one unit?

Another two problems : A town can be attacked from 8 sides, that would mean 8 attacking armies, but only 1 defending.

For that, my idea was to have more units allowed in towns than in open terrain. On the other hand, if the town would already be subject to encirclement then you will no longer have to worry about single units and armies

And you would have to build a lot of units just to defend, so "civilised concepts" wouldn't have any chance (according to another thread, it is already a problem)

Well, if you don't like the military options of CIV then I doubt that it will be the right game for you.....

 

[yoshi]

...enough troops for quelling resistance...

Although this is not what Commander Bello was referring to, it raises a point I hadn't condidered: if cities had a unit limit, quelling resistors and martial law would be a problem. I think that instead of set limits on units, it should go by citizen you can only have x # of units in City per Citizen (x being set at 1 i guess --but alterable though the Editor; 0=infinite). This would not apply to Forts and Air Bases which would have a set limit.
Commander Bello, I understand what you are saying (although I wouldn't go as far as to call it simple).
One thing you fail to take into account is the proportional differences of maps of varying sizes. That is to say, on smaller maps, having to separate units (or groups --"divisions") in the manner to way most RTS games do, will cause the units to clog up the map --assuming they can fit at all (I refer to the 'island' example I gave earlier). This problem does not need to affect limited units in cities because they require no movement.

The other thing is, that you can see a unit as a representation for a whole army.

Each unit represents an undifined number, and if anything, a small group --Civ3 is not size-specific.
Armies reperesent large groups with Generals and organized tactics. They are designed for strategic play. The problem is that as they are in Civ3, they are not as effective as they should be.

The reason why reality doesn't work on a 1:1 basis is because of the problems I stated earlier. Using Armies is far more effective --although there are exceptions and advances in technology degrade the usefulness of massive groups. In gameplay terms, if units had limited 'supply' problems, and Armies offered more range, then attacking all over the border would be a bad idea as well as unfeasible in most cases. The reason why Armies are just usefula as one big unit is because Civ3 units have no such limitations. In order to make up for this, you have to make Armies so powerful that spreading your forces too thin and playing on a 1:1 basis would be foolish. This definitely adds strategy to the game and I don't see the need for all the fuss -aside from that players have just gotten used to the 1:1 combat (something I've always disliked about CIV and most RTS games).

Having units in Armies also deals with varied combat to a degree as overwhelming force is sure to wipe out small numbers --as it well should. The only way of countering is to build equal numbers or use 'light-infantry' tactics. As strategy gamers, how can you not like the idea?

 

[Bamspeedy]

b) even if it has no armies, the enemy civ will still have lots of units to fight back with (I don't know where you got the idea that you lose your whole fighting potential by losing an Army --even my exaggerated example didn't go that far).

Most players would stack the armies to the maximum size possible to increase it's potential. If the limit is 10 units, I will only use stacks of 10 units. If my 10 swordsmen lose to your 10 units, then all I would have left is re-inforcements and they would be coming in straggles as they are produced. If my re-inforcements are battling units 1 vs. 1 (the way it is currently), I have a chance to kill at least some of your units before you reach my capital. With this new method, reinforcements would be pointless and ineffective since they couldn't get in stacks together and would hopelessly be impaling themselves on your approaching 'army'. So effectively, the game is over.

Think of Napoleon's Russian campaign: at first, Napoleaon's Armies managed to fight their way deep into Russian territory by defeating the enemy's Armies, so the Russains resorted to single unit (Cavalry?) hit-and-run tactics to gradually wear down the larger French groups.

And that is how it works now.

How is my single units going to be able to pick off any units when your SOD (stack of doom) has dramatically increased defense values? If you send a stack of riflemen into my territory under the current system, I have a chance to pick off some of your riflemen with cavalry because it's 6 attack vs. 6 defense. The single cavalry won't stand a chance if your riflemen now have a defense value of 12 (or higher).

The 'battle of armies' is duplicated by when you first fight the AI civ and they send the bulk of their units (mostly offensive) at you. If you successfully destroy the bulk of their units, then you just have the 're-inforcements' to deal with (single cavalry units, like in your Napolean example).

The reason why I somethimes use the 'reality arguement' is because

Oh, ok I see how it is. When reality is used to support one of your ideas, then we should be accepting your idea because the game should be realistic. But when it is to refute one of your ideas then reality is just a guideline not to be taken too literally.

You then could still make use of the CIV-army concept. But, then the GL would have to additionally boost the combat values of that CIV-army.

Yes, this stacking of any units to form 'armies' does make the traditional 'army' pointless doesn't it. Conquests armies have been improved, but I still think they would be pointless if you could get the same effect without them.

According to my point of view, this would greatly enhance the strategic depth of the game.

Limiting the # of units/tile would increase strategy? Makes the game easier, IMO. You know there can only be so many units there, so you simply build enough units to secure the location. I want surprises. I want there occasionally to be 15 units there instead of 10. If he got 15 units there then I didn't launch my invasion soon enough, or gather/build my army quickly enough, or was simply unprepared for the fight.

It would also devalue the purpose of 'investigate city' (to see the garrison) and the 'steal military plans' spy option.

 

[Neomega]

I like the combat system as is. I hope they do not mess with the RNG too much.

 

[Commander Bello]

@Yoshi:

One thing you fail to take into account is the proportional differences of maps of varying sizes. That is to say, on smaller maps, having to separate units (or groups --"divisions") in the manner to way most RTS games do, will cause the units to clog up the map --assuming they can fit at all (I refer to the 'island' example I gave earlier). This problem does not need to affect limited units in cities because they require no movement.

A very good and strong argument... In fact I have to admit that I just play huge maps and for that I hadn't focussed on smaller maps.

Although this is not what Commander Bello was referring to, it raises a point I hadn't condidered: if cities had a unit limit, quelling resistors and martial law would be a problem. I think that instead of set limits on units, it should go by citizen you can only have x # of units in City per Citizen (x being set at 1 i guess --but alterable though the Editor; 0=infinite). This would not apply to Forts and Air Bases which would have a set limit.

Another strong argument although this problem could be solved by definition of 10 units (just referring to my example from above) to put an effective martial law into place.
Nevertheless, the idea of allowing settlements to hold as many military units as inhabitants isn't bad, either. By that, a town of 15 would allow for 15 units, whilst a village of 3 would just provide shelter and place for 3 military units... Not a bad idea, really.
This would greatly enhance the importance of building and maintaining BIG settlements, especially near the border. From a military point of view more than interesting, I guess.
On the other hand this surely will have some impact to the rules. How to maintain big towns far away from your capital? (I just assume that Palace and Forbidden Palace have already been built at some other location..) This could imply the need for altering the somewhat crude setup of corruption as it is right now (but discussing this would not fit to this thread, so I just wanted to mention it)
Back to the towns holding your armies: At least this concept would somehow simulate the medieval concept of having castles in which your military power was concentrated.
It would fit for modern time's war as well since even in our days we are still fighting for towns - at least to a high degree - (just some months ago we heard the news of the capture of Baghdad - noone was telling us about: "We proudly announce that our troops now occupied a dusty field with some hills to the north, and a gas station somewhere in the west.." :soldier: :tank: )

.....players have just gotten used to the 1:1 combat (something I've always disliked about CIV and most RTS games)

Seems as if the both of us had similar views to the military options we would like to find in a game like CIV....

 

[Commander Bello]

@Bamspeedy:

Most players would stack the armies to the maximum size possible to increase it's potential. If the limit is 10 units, I will only use stacks of 10 units. If my 10 swordsmen lose to your 10 units, then all I would have left is re-inforcements and they would be coming in straggles as they are produced. If my re-inforcements are battling units 1 vs. 1 (the way it is currently), I have a chance to kill at least some of your units before you reach my capital. With this new method, reinforcements would be pointless and ineffective since they couldn't get in stacks together and would hopelessly be impaling themselves on your approaching 'army'. So effectively, the game is over.

To this I cannot agree, at least not totally.
First of all, a good military leader will always hold some reserves. Would be a nice idea to have this incorporated into the game as well....
Secondly, in your example your 10 swordsmen will at least put some damage to the opponent's (my - better: his ) army as well. Taking into account that his army consists of single units as well (please have a look to my comments some postings above) it will at least be decimated to a certain degree, thus limiting his abilities to move on with this very army.
Thirdly, as I developed my idea above, armies would be built by intention (the equivalent of the 'j'-command) for attack, but automatically for defensive reasons. Assuming to have this concept being in place (as you did in your quoted example) your reinforcement troops would race for some good location into his path to your capital, entrench themselves and block or slowdown the Evildoer's pace into the very heart of your empire. This would work especially since I presumed an upper limit of units per tile / army.
So, in your example his army of 10 would loose some units. Since at first it had to bear up against your initial attack AND defeated your army, we may assume that it contained some good defensive units (most times, defensive units will not be that strong in attack - at least not in the times of the swordsmen), thus limiting it's capabilities for offensive actions. Now, even if we assume that the RNG has been bribed internally by AI , it should have lost some 3 units... So, this very army will still have 7 units to use for counterattack. Now, he may move refreshment troops to the location of this army, but this will take at least one turn, won't it?
Surely, after the refreshment has taken place his army will be strong and powerful and in your given example will have the odds on its side - but this will be the punishment for you to have put all your eggs in one basket

Frankly, what I really don't like about the current combat system is exactly, what you seem to quote to be an advantage - that one will have the chance just to attack and look afterwards, how to go on. I assume that with my idea of having (semi-)automatically built armies one really has to put some thoughts about the military consequences of starting and waging a war (concentrating just on the military aspects, not taking the reputations losses and other consequences into account, of course)

 

[socralynnek]

Originally posted by Commander Bello

To this I can't agree. Of course - and this is absolutely realistic - the attacker has the advantage of choosing time and location of the first battle. I can't see, why "automatically" built armies would make it harder to defend... the AI is stockpiling units anyway... and who of the Humans performs attacks with just one unit?

But then you would have the situation, that either the town is taken or the attacker is killed totally. And that's harder for the defender, because now he can fortify with a smaller group and can bring in reinforcements.

Originally posted by Commander Bello


Well, if you don't like the military options of CIV then I doubt that it will be the right game for you.....

I like Civilization especially because there are plenty of ways to win a game (for example I like things like OCC) and you have to find a balance betwenn science, military and money, brcause each can affect each other
I like the military options but I don't like games in which you only build one unit after another, stack them, fight, build again... (So, you maybe should try Command & Conquer)

BTW Commander Bello: I always knew that you Pfälzer were much more aggressive than your peaceful, smart neighbors from Saarland ;-)

 

[Commander Bello]

@Bamspeedy:

Sorry for 'attacking' you once again, but you just put some good arguments into the discussion... Nevertheless, I'm convinced that they may be disproved.

Limiting the # of units/tile would increase strategy? Makes the game easier, IMO. You know there can only be so many units there, so you simply build enough units to secure the location. I want surprises. I want there occasionally to be 15 units there instead of 10. If he got 15 units there then I didn't launch my invasion soon enough, or gather/build my army quickly enough, or was simply unprepared for the fight

Firstly, except for the attack of towns, you will always know about how many enemy troops are waiting for you. You just have to right-click on the enemy troops.
Secondly, even if you wouldn't have the chance to look for the number of troops in a certain tile then your argument would be correct for the tile to tile-approach, but not for some 'regional' aspects of fighting. In principle, the 'limitation/army concept' would put the focus on a whole theater of war (a certain province of your or the opponent's empire), no longer on single tiles.
Since this will bring the movement rates into battles (at least as long as not the whole maps has been paved with railroads AND the battle taking place on your territory) the strategic depth IS increased - maybe, the tactical aspects will be a little bit simplified...
Thirdly, if you would have been unprepared for fighting then your arguments to which I referred in my previous posting have been invalidated by yourself...

It would also devalue the purpose of 'investigate city' (to see the garrison) and the 'steal military plans' spy option

Again, I hardly can agree to your opinion. Since towns / cities may ('should') hold more units than open terrain, it still is of interest how many units may be in that town. Ok, in the moment you really will have 20+ military units in a settlement of 2 at rare occasions, but about this one could start some discussion about the 'reality' aspects as well...Even, if the odds of attacking towns would be more calculable the value of 'stealing military plans' will be enhanced just because of the strength of the armies and the pure fact that you are not allowed to amass troops and troops and troops in that newly conquered town.
Again, with the concept of 'upper limits / armies' the focus will be put more on the theatre of war than just on the very tile thus making the difference between strategy and tactic.

Sorry for having stuffed the thread with so many postings....

 

[socralynnek]

I think the discussion is nice...

I played a bit with Battle Civulation by Zachriel...
Situation 5 Swordsmen attacking a town with 3 fortified spearmen(every unit 3 hp) (defense multiplier 185%)

First experiment with the rules we have now: The attacker has a 50% chance of taking the town in this round, average number of defenders alive 0.78

Second with army: (i.e. 15 attack with 15 hp against 6 defense with 9 hp)
The attacker wins 97.3% of the times with an average number of hp 8.53

That means: the attacker loses not really much hp, although 5 against 3 units is not that much more

Even 4 defenders would only win in 25 % of the trials.

So, I don't think, that should be the case

 

[yoshi]

With this new method, reinforcements would be pointless and ineffective since they couldn't get in stacks together and would hopelessly be impaling themselves on your approaching 'army'. So effectively, the game is over.

Your individual units would not win, but would gradually wear down the Army. This is the penalty for not investing in Armies of your own. If you do investin Armies, even if the victor is the enemy, he will be severly weakened after a battle with one of yours.

Oh, ok I see how it is. When reality is used to support one of your ideas, then we should be accepting your idea because the game should be realistic. But when it is to refute one of your ideas then reality is just a guideline not to be taken too literally.

How have you refuted by ideas using the 'reality arguement? I think your missing the point. The point is that a reality-based game should have realistic physics. No need to go over the top, but the 'strength in numbers' example is only reasonable.

 

[yoshi]

I shall sum up:

Combat-multiplying Armies are for the purpose of centering combat around these 'units.' It is meant to simulate the 'realistic' effect of plaqcing your forces into large, organized groups as opposed to scattering them all over the map. Although you would still be able to scatter units all over the map, they wouldn't be able to put up much of a fight against an attacking Army. As things are now, one blockading unit can do enough damage to an attacking Army that the Army will have to stop and heal before pushing on and that makes Armies highly ineffective (i.e. 1 unit should logically be paste if going up against a whole Army --all the 1 unit can hope to do is to do as much damage as possibe before being destroyed). Armies are designed for conquest and not to just to give a slight advantage to the individual units loaded into it.
Using the combat-multiplying effect, the idea is that if an Army appears on your borders, and you are unprepared, the best strategy is to pull back and let the Army take one or two cities (since the lone units in the area will be unlikely to put up a big fight) only to regroup, bring other units to the front line and hold the enemy Army until you can get your own Army/Armies to the area and kick the enemy Army's ass. If you don't have any Armies, you resort to surrounding the Army moving your individual units in such a way that they can attack first (usually using fast units which have a tendency to havce a better attack). You will gradually wear down the Army until it either has to retreat or be destroyed. For those of you who don't like the idea of marauding Armies
As for the comment about this degrading the usfulness of "Steal Military Plans," I should say that the opposite would be true. If you steal plans, you know where all the enemy's units are which is good, but if you steal plans and you find out that the enemy has a massive Army coming your way, knowing where the enemy's units are could mean the difference between losing (only if you're dumb enough to keep your unit numbers low, knowing full well that your neighbour is an imperialist --are you hearing this Canada?). Keeping your Armies updated (note to Firaxis: units in Army must be updateable and unloadable) would be a must.
A powerful Army (or multiple Armies) crossing your borders is far more of a threat than just a bunch of units that you can pick off individually. And, assuming it could handle building Armies, this would make the AI a more formidable player during times of war.

As for limiting the number of units that a city can hold, the main reason is that it prevents a civ from placing all its units into a single city; i.e. 100 units into a Town of 1 (that would be like putting multiple millions of troops into a small town of 10 000). Now, in reality (there it is again), you could technically fit millions of troops into a city, the problem is that you wouldn find it very difficult to feed them all --not to mention a tone of other logistical problems. Civ3 is nowhere near that complex so we just say it can't be done and that's that.
Limiting the number based on the number of Citizens seems logical enough as Citizens represent the city's physical size. Bigger cities should be centers of defense --crucial targets for the enemy.
Note: Civ2 (and Civ 1) gave the incentive to defend large cities because if you didn't, all units with that home city would disband.

From the gameplay point of view, limiting the number of units per city essentially (as has been said) keeps the battles 'in the open;' i.e. a certain number of units can't stay in cities so war ceases to be highly defensive (units get defense bonus from cities and attack any units with weak defense the come near) and becomes more battle-oriented (units are forced to go out and meet the enemy --like it should be. In other words, it keeps combat mobile, and in games more activity is a good thing.

'Total War' has an effect similar to this: a limited number of units can garrison a province and withstand a siege from the safety of a castle while the rest of the unlucky bastards have to go and engage the enemy or flee to another province.

That said, there is another problem (although it's minor) with limiting units in cities: what happens when you build units in a city that is 'full up?' I guess the simplest solution would be to just have the city hold off production of the unit until a unit has been removed and you get a pop-up saying something like: "You have too many units in this city. you will have to remove some for more to be built."

The only other problem (although it's only a problem if you don't like it) is that you can only heal a limited number of units in a city --they have to be removed and replaced with other damaged units. Personally I like that because it keeps players from just healing all their units at one time which then puts the attacker at an extreme disadvantage since all his units are damaged. Just for the record, I'm not saying that attackers shouldn't be at a disadvantage (vs cities at least), but rather that the disadvantage is a little too unbalancing.

As for the obvious problem of bombardment lowering population but not necessarily destroying the garrisoning units, one should assume that there is still enough 'room'...even if it's just ruins.

Just to keep with the topic of the thread, I think A/D-multiplying Armies would reduce the effects random combat outcomes as even the 'luckiest' individual unit won't stand much of a chance against an Army --whereas they do as things are now.

As for the comment about limiting units in cities making the combat less 'surprising,' all I can say is that any good leader/general will never go into a situation where he knows nothing about what to expect --only the bad ones do that, and most have come to a sticky end because of it. If you want more unexpected consequenses then add in features like giving double attack to units attacking from Forest squares and making them invisible while on those squares thus allowing for the possibility of surprise attacks. Conventional attacks should be highly gaugeable.

Another way of making differences that cannot be reproduced is to give Armies the ability to give give combat bonuses to their units and to give the GL experience that increases this bonus (I also mentioned this before).

Tell me again why none of this makes the game more strategic but makes it easier?

 

[Bamspeedy]

From the gameplay point of view, limiting the number of units per city essentially (as has been said) keeps the battles 'in the open;' i.e. a certain number of units can't stay in cities so war ceases to be highly defensive (units get defense bonus from cities and attack any units with weak defense the come near) and becomes more battle-oriented (units are forced to go out and meet the enemy --like it should be. In other words, it keeps combat mobile, and in games more activity is a good thing.

And fast units will be even more powerful.

Well, if a city can only hold a certain amount of units, my fast units can strike that city and know exactly how many units I will have to beat (1 unit in a size 1 city, 3 in a size 3 city, etc.) The small cities will be hopeless to defend even if you know I'm coming because my fast units can strike the city before your counter-attack. I'll just raze the cities so you couldn't recapture them anyways. When you lose cities, you lose money, unit support, have increased war weariness, etc. Eventually you wouldn't have the means to support any semblance of an army.

War would just be a raze-fest as the cities would be useless to try and defend. Warrior rushes in the early game would be even easier, since if the city just built a settler (and dropped to size 1), it will only have 1 defender.

Limiting the number based on the number of Citizens seems logical enough as Citizens represent the city's physical size. Bigger cities should be centers of defense --crucial targets for the enemy.

The city itself doesn't need to provide the resources to supply the army. Ever hear of supply lines? If a nation needs X number of troops at one location, that is how many will be there (in times of war/emergency), if they have that many troops available. If Mexico (or Canada) attacked a small little border town of the U.S., do you think the U.S. Military will only send 100 or 1,000 soldiers there?

You don't need to make changes like this just because someone could potentially go overboard and send 100 units (millions of soldiers) to 1 small city.

Combat-multiplying Armies are for the purpose of centering combat around these 'units.'

A toned-down version of what you are proposing I may be able to accept. 4 cavalry should not have an attack value of 24. That is simply too powerful. If you want to go back to 'realism', then I'll tell you that history if full of many examples of armies that were outnumbered but won. The smaller armies don't get slaughtered all the time (at least not 97% of the time, which is what socralynnek showed would be the result with your 'super armies')

That said, there is another problem

The only other problem

As for the obvious problem of bombardment

It's good to see you acknowledge all the problems with this. Maybe it isn't worth it?

First of all, a good military leader will always hold some reserves.

You can never be too-prepared. The more troops I mass, the more likely I am to win. Why would I want to send 10 troops and hold back 5 more units, if I find out later the first 10 troops wasn't enough (I was 1 or 2 units short of securing the location for example). Now I have a smaller army of 5 units, but since they probably won't be able to reach the location until the next turn, that leaves you time to bring in another army and now my 5 units is useless and it's a stalemate.

I can see holding some back in case the enemy flanks you, or some other sneak attack/ambush from another direction, but otherwise I throw everything I got at them.

Tell me again why none of this makes the game more strategic but makes it easier?

To me, strategy is about choices. You limit the choices, you limit the strategies. You are limiting the choices of how many units I can put on a tile or in a city. By making the 'armies' sooooo powerful, you are nearly FORCING me to be placing my units in the largest stacks possible (so I have the best armies possible whether I want to attack you, or defend against whatever large army you come up with).

Strategy is also about trade-offs. If I do put 100 units in 1 city I have the advantage of having a city that most likely won't be lost due to wars. However, the negative is that I'm probably leaving half of my cities undefended for you to strike them (or the 100 units could be lost in a culture flip or destroyed by a nuke).

 

[yoshi]

And fast units will be even more powerful.

This is a good point and gives substance to the arguement for Zones-of-Control. Civ3 is set to have limited movement in order to prevent a player from sending units too far into enemy territoy by slipping past enemy units that can't attack until their turn --this is the reason for the disproportionate movement/time ratio people complain about (although this isn't as much of a problem if you play in Simultaneous turn mode in Multiplayer). Nevertheless I don't like the idea of limiting Armies just because of this. Just assume that the threat is always there and you shuld be ready for it; i.e. garrison your border. Although combat-modifying Army of 4 Cavalry would be a force to even send Sid running, it still won't be fast enough go too far into your territory. That is, you will have enough time to bring you forces to the front before the enemy Army gets too far. If you're prepared, the use of many units, even without Armies can deal with an oncoming Army. Stacking your units will do you no good so you can attack from anywhere. You should always have at least one Army in reserve anyway --think of them as divisions sent to the various corners of your empire.
In light of what Commander Bello was saying, the city garrison limitation combined with these powerful Armies would make for great battles --as oposed to the tactic of runing for your cities and holding out there until you beat the attackers, then invade them because they have fewer units.
The garrison limit on cities is of less importance to combat than changes to Armies I'll admit, and it does have various problems attached to it, but it also adds some flavour to the generally montonous combat that afflicts Civ3.

If Mexico (or Canada) attacked a small little border town of the U.S., do you think the U.S. Military will only send 100 or 1,000 soldiers there?

The US would send forces to deal with whatever forces present a theat, so it would bypass small towns that don't have much military potential and would have smaller units 'deal' with such petty threats. So yes, it would work that way. It makes sense that small towns don't present much of a threat. In Civ3, a small town can present just as much of a threat as any other size 'city.' This means you have to treat every city equally, disproportunate to its strategic value.

BTW, a city of six could contain up to six units (if using the 1:1 citizen/unit ratio). That's usually about the number that the AI garrisons its biggest cities with. Likewise, a city of 12 could hold 12 units and that's more than enough to put up a good defense against anything but a combat-multiplying Army. But then , that's the idea: you have to put in extra effort to beat an Army --more than you would defeating a buch of individual units.

Personally, I think it would be great to steal my enemy's plans only to find that there are six massive Armies with eight of the civ's most powerful units each making their way towards my territory. It would require me to really put a lot of though into strategy and, if I had no Armies of my own would require the liquidation of all my units just to beat them or face...retirement. A massive battle would ensue and if I could get a few Armies into the field in time the battle would be titanic! If the forces of both civs were relatively equal and combined with the use of Artillery (that means craters), the landscape would be turned to mush, the population halved, cities turned to ruins, and economic devastation would follow for both. In addition to that their capacity to make war would be brought to near zero as losses would be huge. How can you not think of that as anything but absolutely awsome! Isn't that what half of civilization has been about? In other words, war brings darkness and death, not just some tile improvements destroyed and a few units lost every so often --if it's the AI attacking you.
And if you're on the sidelines, you can then take over both civs in their weakened state. I'm not a warmonger, but this sound delishiously fun and challenging to me --would definitely give incentive to being peace-loving and doing business and researching and developing culture and all that other bor...I mean fun stuff.

 

[Bamspeedy]

The US would send forces to deal with whatever forces present a theat, so it would bypass small towns that don't have much military potential and would have smaller units 'deal' with such petty threats. So yes, it would work that way. It makes sense that small towns don't present much of a threat.

If Mexico attacked and captured a small town in Texas, the U.S. would respond with an equal force. They would not say "oh, that's just a small little town, who cares much about it, just send 100 soldiers there while we sit the rest of our troops here in Dallas just to make sure they don't sometime in the future strike Dallas. The US would protect all of it's territory, regardless if the city is large/small. And they would not say "Come out of that little town and fight out in the open like real men!"

Each tile represents 100 square miles. A tile representing a city/town you can just image represents the outside of the city in addition to the city itself and maybe not all the units are actually 'IN' the city/town.

In Civ3, a small town can present just as much of a threat as any other size 'city.' This means you have to treat every city equally, disproportunate to its strategic value.

If I'm on offense, I still have an incentive other than city size to determine where I strike. Resources and wonders are two considerations. River cities and coastal cities are nice to strike to hurt their commerce (and possibly trade if they have limited cities with harbors). Cities with lots of production output are nice to hit to really hamper their war machine.

Under your method, for offensive I would always start off hitting the smaller cities (because there is less units in the city, so I'll hit them before they get any bigger and allowing them more units) until half your cities are gone and then I've really put the hurt on you.

On defense, currently yes I guess you do treat every city the same in one sense. (but only if you don't know where the enemy will come from). You can still choose to guard cities with varying amounts of units. You may want to guard a small city that holds a valuable resource more heavily than other cities. If I put too many units in one city, or on one side of my empire then I leave the other side of my empire, or other cities open for attack.

Under your method, on defense I would be stuck in following more 'rules' and it would be more like a formula and not allow me to be creative and incorporate 'strategy'. Size 1 city, great I can put 1 unit there, YIPEE! Don't give me limitations! The more limitations and rules you give us, the more 'clone-like' the games are going to be. Everyone will do exactly the same thing.