No stack of doom ! good or bad?

[Jolly Rogerer]

lines? this the point...i can agreed on the matter that Sod can fit best the Stategic view of a conflict...but the lines...where are the lines in civ? front line, supply lines comunication lines, front, rear , flanks...really important things of strategic warfare in the whole history ,with sod you break no lines because no lines are here, you only have a giant army that can trash the basic aspect of strategy and smash the enemy piece by piece...this is why i never like it...

Portraying tactical and operational combat on a strategic map is an obvious weakness in the Civ series from the beginning. An equally problematic factor is the time scale. In a game where the minimum turn length is one year it's ridiculous that you can't move your forces more than a few tiles at a time. A soldier could be recruited and retire by the time his unit moved between friendly cities in the ancient era. How many years would it take to simulate Operation Desert Storm in a Civ game?

The reason that movement is so slow on the strategic map is that it is also the tactical map. In a turn based game where the minimum turn length is one year this can't realistically work. So they slowed the movement scale way down to give defenders an opportunity to react. It's a real immersion killer and makes wars and force redeployments last forever.

The problem with the SoD in Civ 4 wasn't a lack of realism, it's by far the most realistic portrayal of operational movement and combat in the Civ series. But it was implemented poorly. Specifically the decision to retain the asynchronous "it's my turn so my artillery gets to shoot and yours doesn't" factor, and the reduction of army vs army combat to a series of one on one match ups with the defender getting a massive advantage in choosing his champion last.[b/]

Fixing the problems with Civ 4's SoD system by using an algorithm to auto-calc the battle results between armies, or using a simple tactical map subsystem like MoM, HoMM etc. or even a more complex subsystem like the Total War series would be fairly simple. My preference would be for a simple subsystem with an option to auto-calc. It might even look a lot like the current 1upt system, albeit thankfully divorced from the strategic time scale and fought on a map that is dynamically scaled to the forces involved. Instead Fireaxis decided to reinvest once more in the tactical game on a strategic map paradigm. What's more they've introduced more unrealism and significant problems for the AI as well as the human by eliminating stacking altogether on the map.

--

As for the lack of static front lines, it's historically only a problem of the 20th century on the strategic scale of Civ. Before that populations and armies were simply too small for anything other than static point defense. Note that even the Romans couldn't keep invading armies out of their territory, despite their population and degree of organization. It wasn't until WW1 that armies were so large and their firepower so great that they could cover an entire battle front. Before that it was armies maneuvering across large spaces where it was difficult if not impossible to bring an unwilling defender to battle.

The main inhibitor of a SoD historically was logistical. For one thing forces were limited by what the transportation network could handle. For forces with access and control of the sea or a navigable river this was not a problem. But for forces which relied on overland transport distance and capacity could significantly limit the amount of supplies you could get to your army. This gave a defender opportunities to inhibit a superior force. They could for example build fortifications along the likely lines of advance and now the attacker is faced with a tough decision. Wait and reduce the forts while the defender's own SoD mobilizes and yours slowly wears away as winter approaches, or invest the forts and weaken your main army that way, or leave them and allow the bypassed forces to potentially threaten your supply lines. It's too bad none of these games models even rudimentary supply status, it would have been an interesting counter to an SoD bee-lining for your capital.

As for modern warfare it seems impossible to satisfactorily do it justice in a game of this scale in a turn based environment without some method of effectively making one strategic turn into a lot of tactical turns. In Desert Storm a force of 500,000 was brought together from all over the world, deployed, fought and returned home in the space of one Civ turn. I guess you could hand operational control over to your AI generals, assigning them forces and giving them objectives and hitting the end turn button after a short prayer. That's an idea that I personally find interesting, but I know would be difficult to implement and is almost certain to be unpopular.

 

[Roland Ehnström]

Civilization is not and never was a simulation of history. Civilization is a game. It's not meant to be perfectly realistic. Don't get me wrong, I like it to be as realistic as possible, as long as it doesn't make the gameplay worse.

You can argue that Stacks of Doom are more realistic on a strategy level, but what is certain is that 1 UPT makes for a much better game. It adds a tactical element to a strategy map, yes, so what? I'd rather have this than have no tactical element at all.

 

[Roald Amundsen]

I think all of you who say Civ4 is just about building a stack of doom and go on a rampage is playing on a lower difficulty than you are able to handle. Try ramping up to immortal or diety and play on rocky maps. There is no way you can just rely on a stack of doom in that scenario. In fact, putting all your units on the same tile will get you crushed as the need of occupying key hill positions is vital.

I found the old combat system to be quite satisfying. Not perfect but challenging enough. The world war 2 scenario in BTS (sorry dont remember the name of it right now, was it World in Flames or something?) did huge improvements to the system and think the developers could maybe rather have moved in this direction.

 

[man-erg]

but in civ4 you had the option to select multiple units together (press shift?), and I remember that I was able to give bombard command to several bombers in the same time .

Yes, it would seem that some of the harshest critics of the SOD in Civ 4 have very little experience of actually using one. There was far less micromanagement involved in moving a grouped stack of 10 (ie 1 click) than the tedious "Sprawl Of Doom" in Civ 5 (ie 10 clicks for 10 units).

And being able to fund and build such a stack required much more careful control of your cities in Civ4, more trade offs and strategic thinking, than the simple "ICS of small cities wins every time" in Civ 5.

 

[sosueme]

thinking about how I will move my units around the map and how do I protect exposed units and how to manage a huge battle , makes me feel that the combat will be slow , tedious and unenjoyable

I remember being in second or third grade and making toys "fight" by smashing them together repeatedly (and quickly learning that Transformers weren't really made for that kind of abuse). Fast forward a few years and I remember my grandfather teaching me how to play chess, where every move has consequences and controlling the board is key.

SOD = Smashing your toys together.
1UPT = Chess (maybe more like checkers really, but you get the idea)

Some people really like smashing their toys together, a lot of people based on some of the discussion here...and there's nothing wrong with that. Long ago, I learned to *like* what you may find tedious. I love 1UPT because I feel like that kind of play completely belongs in a strategy game, but it may not be for everyone.

 

[sosueme]

but 1UPT makes no sense, what to do if you are limited with hexes? If you play england on a world map does it make sense to be limited in troops because england is only few hexes on the map???

I see where you're coming from, but playing the largest possible size map helps with this a bit.

 

[pi-r8]

The more I play Civ V, the more 1UPT reminds me of this:

 

[Jediron]

Priceless

 

[HorribleHarald]

I just tried to play the Game,

the biggest disappointment was this 1UPT system, battles were too hard to control. I see that civ 4 is top version in this serie, now it's getting backward, why?
So why game designers didn't put some stackline, maybe about 4-6 units in the stack. So player can make armies and perhaps put great general leader it. Playing is more satisfying then.

 

[Deep_Blue]

SOD = Smashing your toys together.
1UPT = Chess (maybe more like checkers really, but you get the idea)

this

The more I play Civ V, the more 1UPT reminds me of this:

good one

1UPT = Chess (maybe more like checkers really, but you get the idea)

Iam an expert chess player actually my nickname "Deep_Blue" came from chess. I have to say 1UPT (with current AI) is retaarded when compared with chess or even checkers, the fact is that AI in CIV 5 fails awfully with 1UPT in the same way a monkey fails with chess.

 

[Jediron]

1 UPT is more populair by a greater number of people, because it is easier to see where everything is, they get the weird illusion that it is more "realistic & tactical" and because it is faster, instant fun and now more people can win the game. That's how i see it.

They took a tactical warfare system ala PG and implemented it on a strategical level.
fun for the populair crowd. More arcade(ish) and therefor attractin a whole new kind of players.

 

[aradae2357]

What if, instead of 1 upt we have a penalty to combat strength for each additional unit stacked on the tile. This penalty varies as n^2 - n where n is the number of units on the tile

1 unit : 0% penalty
2 units: 2% penalty
3 units: 6% penalty
4 units: 12% penalty
5 units: 20% penalty
6 units: 30% penalty
7 units: 42% penalty
8 units: 56% penalty
9 units: 72% penalty
10 units: 90% penalty

This penalty only applies to regular combat strength, ranged combat strength sees no effect. We get the normal flanking bonuses, also siege weapons do collateral damage like in IV. Archers and gunpowder units have 1 range. Hills increase range by 1.

 

[tupisac]

The more I play Civ V, the more 1UPT reminds me of this:

Brilliant! But in civ V you could still win if you had a GDR instead of king.

 

[Deep_Blue]

GDR king

 

[guczy]

What if, instead of 1 upt we have a penalty to combat strength for each additional unit stacked on the tile. This penalty varies as n^2 - n where n is the number of units on the tile

1 unit : 0% penalty
2 units: 2% penalty
3 units: 6% penalty
4 units: 12% penalty
5 units: 20% penalty
6 units: 30% penalty
7 units: 42% penalty
8 units: 56% penalty
9 units: 72% penalty
10 units: 90% penalty

This penalty only applies to regular combat strength, ranged combat strength sees no effect. We get the normal flanking bonuses, also siege weapons do collateral damage like in IV. Archers and gunpowder units have 1 range. Hills increase range by 1.

This is basically what Hearts of Iron 3 does and it works really, really well. But TBH my biggest problem with 1upt (which i still prefer over SOD any day) is that the map is too small. The standard map should be at least 10 times this big, but the problem would be that no computer could play that with the current engine.

 

[sosueme]

1 UPT is more populair by a greater number of people, because it is easier to see where everything is, they get the weird illusion that it is more "realistic & tactical" and because it is faster, instant fun and now more people can win the game. That's how i see it.

History has many examples where positioning, timing, terrain, and troop movement were key to the outcome of a battle. Consider http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gaugamela#The_battle.

I have to say 1UPT (with current AI) is retaarded when compared with chess or even checkers, the fact is that AI in CIV 5 fails awfully with 1UPT in the same way a monkey fails with chess.

I agree completely. The AI needs tons of work. That said, I prefer that 1UPT be the foundation that V is built on instead of SOD.

 

[Mikkow]

The most important thing I have to say about the suggestions of permitting some stacking is: it goes against the main game design which rests on having just one unit per hex. To permit more than one military unit there gives rise to many exceptions to the main idea, more things to look out for, stacking probably being a necessity to succeed. Think of it as "We have global empire happiness now, but with a certain technology you can get local city happiness to manage too in certain conditions and if you ignore it you are at a major disadvantage". Not good for the streamlining, for learning the game and so on.

The combat in Civ4 was never fun for me. The concept of capturing (after the fact) cities was fun but the combat was a tedious affair of primarily who was ahead in teching. Then, strategic resources. Then, industrial capacity. While real wars contain all these, there is much about military commanders and their strategy/tactics too.

Removing stacking, adding hexes and adding ranged units is what made combat interesting, stimulating and fun for me. It is not a chore at all (so far - never had a mega huge battle, but that should be avoidable with not playing on enormous maps).

The idea that moving many units close together in a crowded space being difficult is true. But I see it as a big part of the fun and I think that narrow confines with hilly terrains should cause these difficulties. The battle of Thermopylae for example: ultra-hardcore military units within a nasty choke point.

The only thing I personally have issues with is that the AI is incompetent at warfare. It feels as if I cheat in Civ5 if I engage in anything other than defensive warfare inside my own borders, never declare war on others, never capture cities. Lets hope patches/mods can bring the AI up to a decent level.

 

[Mikkow]

Posted by aradae2357
What if, instead of 1 upt we have a penalty to combat strength for each additional unit stacked on the tile. This penalty varies as n^2 - n where n is the number of units on the tile

1 unit : 0% penalty
2 units: 2% penalty
3 units: 6% penalty
4 units: 12% penalty
5 units: 20% penalty
6 units: 30% penalty
7 units: 42% penalty
8 units: 56% penalty
9 units: 72% penalty
10 units: 90% penalty

This penalty only applies to regular combat strength, ranged combat strength sees no effect. We get the normal flanking bonuses, also siege weapons do collateral damage like in IV. Archers and gunpowder units have 1 range. Hills increase range by 1.

This is basically what Hearts of Iron 3 does and it works really, really well. But TBH my biggest problem with 1upt (which i still prefer over SOD any day) is that the map is too small. The standard map should be at least 10 times this big, but the problem would be that no computer could play that with the current engine.

Try to imagine transferring HoI3 concepts to Civ5 in the following manner:

HoI3 provinces = Civ5 hexes representing not a whole province each but pieces of a province.

HoI3 Frontline width = Civ5 hexes being smaller than a whole province. Putting two units next to each other bordering an enemy is 'stacking', just graphically represented in more detail. Filling up the available frontline width. The Discipline promotion (Honor Social Policy) giving +15% bonus if next to allied unit, and other promotions making units more efficient is a simplified replacement for making units take up less combat width in HoI3.

HoI3 support attack = Civ5 'Flanking' combat strength bonus of +15% for each allied military unit bordering the target hex.

HoI3 unit supply & reinforcements & infrastructure system = Civ5 healing on the spot in enemy lands (slowest - the furthest away in the supply/reinforcement chain), or faster healing in friendly territory/cities (fastest - close to supply origin). Also literally rotating the unit with a fresh one - can do it if the infrastructure is developed enough (roads/railroads will hugely help with moving units around, since units can pass through hexes occupied by another unit if they have enough movement points to do so).

Building better infrastructure helps a hell of a lot with the whole logistics of moving units and keeping them supplied (healed) instead of causing traffic jams. It is not all that different when thought of in this way, I think.

 

[GIO888]

Bye Bye SOD. No missey U 4 sure.

 

[Deep_Blue]

SOD is gone but Stacks will be back I am sure.. but with limited stack units nomber this time and non combat units like workers can stack with no restrictions..