I see a problem with this on higher levels. I've played games where the AI has had over 10 units on every tile (while at peace!), and when I finally find an open tile and make my beachlanding there were a couple tiles that had over 100 units on it when they charged at my units.
The AI has a nasty tendancy to move units about the map ad eternum --particularly in it's own territory. It did this in Civ1 and 2 as well. I assume that designers see this as a means of getting the AI to secure its territory and keep the map updated --although if it DOES actually cheat (i.e. can 'see' everything), then this seems redundant. It would be far better if the AI built Fortresses all over it territory (particlualrly near areas bordering hostile neighbours) and garrisoned units there. It would also be nice if it sent EXPLORERS to reveal the map rather than having AI Cavalry units runing all over the map.
Just for the record, the reason why actual armed forces don't ususally move about a lot and reside in bases is becuase of the costs involved --Civ3 does't have this limitiation. Perhaps including a range limitation with supplies thus requiring a re-supply at a cost, increasing maintenance while outside friendly territory and substantialy reducing these factors for Explorer/Scout/ect. units would be a way to deal with this problem --assuming designers would want to.
The only thing I can say about the problem you've outlined is that placing a limit on cities would increase this problem but not so much as to make it significantely more problematic than it already is.
Besides, that's what Marines are for --it's just that there aren't any 'Amphibious' units in the other Ages.
That brings up another issue: you'd think not having the 'amphibious' ability in other ages would unbalance the game in circumstances like those you mentioned and the considering problem of 'island' (1 tile) cities.
Just to give a historical example, when the Romans invaded the Britania, they frequently found that the Brittons were waiting for them on the shore. This meant that Legionaries had to get into the water and wade to the shore amidst a a flurry of arrows and other projectiles only to have to fight hand-to-hand while still knee-deep! Almost sound like the Normandy invasions! This proves that amphibious landing is possible even from primative ships, thus it applies to any age. Considering this, each civ should have access to at least one 'amphibious' unit. In other words, all Foot units should have the amphibious flag. Conquests tweaked this flag by doubling the units' attack when attacking from ships. If all Foot units were to be given the Amphibious' flag then it should actually be divided in two: an 'Amphibious' flag for general Foot units and another 'Double Attack for Amphibious' flag for Marines which can attack from ships AND have their attack strenght doubled thus simulating their advantage over just any Foot unit --so as not to make Marines any less useful.
But what if I have a major production advantage over you and can produce 50 pikemen.
The idea is that you would take the extra 40 Pikemen and place them in strategic locations around the city (usually in strategically placed Fortresses). The units in the city are only a last stand. You would probably do this anyway since you don't want to have the attacker freely pillaging your tile improvements --the city limitation would be primarily to keep it that way. Persoanlly I dislike having to face a city packed with defenders EVERY time. In the end, combat simply becomes a sucession of sieges, which is boring and repetative. In other words, I'd prefer to face Cavalry in the open using my wits than just witing them out or attack the defenders in ways other than just the cities they occupy. Granted, as I said above the AI has its units running about all the time but they're usually not organized enough to pose much resistance let alone a serious threat --more of an annyance really.
I just don't see the demand for this like I do for things like locked alliances and other things that are in there, or will be in there in Conquests.
Its only fair that players crave 'big' features like new diplomacy options, but considering that all this would really require is one new field in the Editor like "__: Unit/Citizen Ratio per City" and a few minor changes to the AI, it wouldn't take much just to add it in for the hard-core minority. Whether to apply it to the core-game or not is debatable.
Speaking of the Editor, I was thinking of another addition along the same lines: another field that limits the maximum number of Units to the total number of Citizens a civ has.
Example: "__: Total Unit/Citizen Ratio" (-1 = 1 Unit per 2 Citizens)
I always found it absurd that a civ with plenty of production but a low population can build more units than it has people. In fact armed forces usually only account for a small percentage of a country's population and even if you were assume that mercenaries and immigrants are joining the armed forces (I don't know why you would), it still would be a minority. Obviously different government forms would set a maximum number but then, they already do that only now it would be a percentage of population instead of a fixed number. This should actually get its own thread. A 1:1 unit/citizen ratio should be acceptable to most players because although it would still be warped (e.g. US military personelle would equal in excess of 200 million --assuming 1 citizen equals the same proportion of people as 1 unit), it would prevent small countries that just happen to have a lot of shields (and enough commerce) to build armies many times larger than the population itself.
A possible addition to the unit/citizen ratio would be a way of reproducing the effect of population within units by adding a 'Citizens' caption in the Editor's 'Units' window. If this were the case, Battleships would require more Citizens, let's say 4, than Infantry which would only need 1.
Another way of limiting numbers (in the short term) of course is to just set units to consume population (something only Worker and Settler units do now), and increase the rate at which populations grow in order to compensate. I tried this by changing the rules but the result was that the population would grow back and allow me to build more units because there was no real population limit on units.
There is clearly a problem with the non-essential units (for defense) like Scouts, as well as with the loss of population from Workers and Settlers but if it proves to be a problem, they could always be made exempt for the 'ratio' (i.e. setting their respective 'Citizens' values to zero).
I don't know, I actually have to agree with yoshi on this (did I actually say that? ).
So miracles DO happen.
But it would have to be all tiles. No stacks-o-doom anywhere.
But if it were ALL tiles you would encounter the problems I brought up in my reply to Commander Bello (see 'terrain limitations' on page 3).
The reason why you wouldn't encounter those problems by limiting cities (although I encountered a few other minor ones) is because there is no movement invloved. That is, units don't require room for multiple groups of attackers to converge on a defender. Another reason for allowing 'stacks-o-doom' on non-city tiles is because this is meant to represent a higher degree of mobility thus large, organized groups get a certain advantage vs defenders. Another reason is more a theoretical one, and that is where you literally run out of space --unlikely that would ever happen though.
Most combats end with a couple of damaged units and no kills. It is all about forcing retreats (the defender is the one who retreats in KP).
Never played KP. Sounds good. Giving ALL units the possibility of retreating has been a dream of mine for quite some time. The question of what to do with faster units can be solved by simply allowing faster units to take a 'free shot' which may or may not destroy the slower retreating unit --this would make it well worth while to include at least one faster unit into an Army. Units of equal speed could retreat like 'units vs units of 1' (I can't believe they hard-coded that) do now. Historically, most engagements have tended to be about weakeneing the enemy, not necessarily destroying him in one shot, so this makes sense from that point of view.
Multiple stacks can attack one space at the same time to increase their odds of success...
Essentially simultaneous attack, right? This is the idea behind combat-multiplying Armies only applying it to a single square.
Other things that make this game great are an intuitive supply system (troops with no gas and bullets die fast) and a mobility based ZOC system.
I actually opened a thread specifically about Supply/Fuel/Ammo (see:
:[url]http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=61673&highlight=Supply[/URL] ).
Units get three new fields in the Editor's 'Units' window:
1. 'Supply' field that limits the number of turns a unit can remain outside friendly territory. Half-way point would be indicated by something like a flashing icon next to the unit. If the unit is not in friendly territory before supply reaches 0, the unit starts to lose health. Once health drops to nothing, the unit disbands (I included the health factor so as to provide a 'safety net' to units that can't get back in time). The unit must re-supply in a friendly city (just moving towards an Allied city does this --like the 'repairing' feature in Civ2).
I was thinking of adding a cost in gold to re-supply a unit but I got the problem: why does it cost the same for a Battleship to re-supply as it does Infantry? But considering that units in Civ3 don't even have individual maintenance costs (i.e. Battaleship costs the gold to maintain as does Infantry), this slight oversight is petty. I had some trouble with units in Fortresses because if they can re-supply there, it means that units defending in Fortresses are ata major advanatage vs units outside Fortresses and if you simply slow the loss of Supply for units in Fortresses, it means they can only stay there for so long. So I settled with having Fortresses connected to cities by Road act like cities themseleves (i.e. they resupply units) but if the Road is blocked/pillaged (thus disconnecting the Fortress from the city), units in the Fortress start 'using up' their Supplies but only at half the rate of units outside the Fortress.
I'm really for this one because, if applied to the core game, it would prevent units from circumnavigating the map in the early game which distorts things too much by making global conflict a reality while civs are still in the process of developing the Wheel (having China send over a bunch of units to France in the Ancient Age causes Civ3 to border on fantasy in terms of strategic realism).
2. 'Fuel' field that limits the number of moves a unit has before having to re-fuel in a city. Remaining Fuel would be indicated though vertical bar to the right of the units hitpoints. Half-way point would be indicated by yellow just like health. 'Running dry' is the same as that of 'Supply' but in this case, the unit's movement drops to 1 and disbands after x number of turns. Someone once mentioned that motorized units should just stop when they run out and be capturable by the enemy --the penalty for going too far away. When the enemy captures the unit, it regains full Fuel. If the enemy can't get it back then the same thing happens. If no one recaptures it after x number of turns, the unit automatically disbands. That last part is a bit complicated but it's still less so than including 'Fuel Trucks' that can be used to re-fuel units in the field. But whatever, you get the point. The re-fueling of units is simple in comparison: units refuel at cities connected to the fuel resource.
This of course implies another field, 'Fuel Type' which would determine which Strategic Resource must be connected by Road to the city in order for the selected unit to refuel there (i.e. Tanks require Oil, Ironclads require Coal, Nuclear Subs require Uranium --clearly nuclear subs could circumnavigate the map before they ever had to refuel so Uranium wouldn't be as 'strategic').
There is also the problem of losing control of fuel resources. It would be too easy if you could just take away the enemy's access to resources thus preventing him from using his motorized units, so I figured the easiest solution if to simply add a new 'Storage' improvement that 'stores' resources. Having this improvement in a city previously connected to whatever resource(s) means that if the city is cut off from the resource, it can still build and refuel for x number of turns (even though it no longer has access to the required resources). If cities with this improvement are captured (and the improvement isn't destroyed) the attacker is able to use this 'storage' to his advantage (think gas-starved German Panzer units taking over Allied fuel depots).
(Perhaps adding a required Improvement like units requiring Oil can only refuel if at leasst one of the owner's cities has a 'Refinery.' You could then use Precision Bomb all the enemy's Refineries thus cutting off his fuel supply that way.)
3. 'Ammunition' field that limits the number of times a unit can engage in combat or bombard before having to return to a city to 'reload.' Naturally, there should be a limit on how much ammo you can take with you (simply assuming that there are supply lines too big of an assumption), but there are far more problems associated with this than there are with Supply or Fuel. Firstly and most obviously, city defenders would have an unlimited supply of ammo (that would be like soldiers defending a city so as a result they never run out of bullets) which is highly unbalancing. I suppose you could assume that they have the infrastructure in place to keep making more ammo, but historically, part of the reasoning behind sieges is that the enemy will eventually have to run out. The only solution I can see is to have the Factory improvement as a requirement to reload. That way only cities with the proper infrastructure can hold out indefinitely. Of course, players would exploit this and invest heavily in building a Factory in each city...what the hell, let them. But what about pre-industrail ranged units? I suppose you could always have Barracks as the requirement instead...(?) As for Fortresses and Air Bases, I suppose you could just connect them via Road to a city with Barracks. If they get cut off, nuts.
) 
)
