noob question about stacks -bts-

[ningram]

is there such a thing as too many units in a stack? i guess my fear is of enemy artillery doing a ton of collateral damage to my stack. do you guys make a lot of smaller stacks? are there units that are good against artillery that i've missed?

thanks

edit: i'm not talking specifically about the artillery unit, but any artillery-style unit, such as catapult, mobile artillery, bomber, etc.

 

[Percy]

Artillery units cannot damage ALL the units in the stack, they only damage up to a certain number. You'll have to wait for a good player to know more details though =P

 

[InvisibleStalke]

No, your stack can't be too big. The reason is that the collateral damage is limited to the top N units (higher values of N for later units). So in a really big stack there are still lots of undamaged units.

Multiple smaller stacks can see the AI concentrate their attacks on one of the smaller stacks and take it out. You will tend to lose more troops this way. The only real reason to divide your stack is when you think that both divisions can handle whatever gets thrown at them and you want to double your city capture speed.

I can't be certain but I think big stacks also have a deterent effect. When the AI sees a really big stack coming it tends to retire behind its city walls and wait to be pummeled.

If you are really worried about artillery in the late game particularly, escort your stacks with marines and machine guns. Marines are fantastic artillery killers and will survive to kill more of them. And Machine guns don't take collateral damage (in BTS) so they will survive to deal with other units that get thrown at your stack after the artillery.

Drill units also take reduced collateral and are a good promotion path for gunpowder units.

 

[GenocideBringer]

I would not send one Superstack at them for the reasons you stated...collatoral damage. Siege equipment is very cheap and can do massive amounts of damage. Sure, they can't hit EVERYTHING in your stack...but they can hit a lot. For example, the limit for the earliest siege weapon, the catapult, is 6. All it takes is a couple suicide siege weapons and that large force of yours isn't worth putting into combat.

 

[DaveMcW]

Artillery damage can be countered with Medic (assuming your stack survives 2 turns). It's even easier with a Medic III great general!

 

[GenocideBringer]

And if the stack gets attacked immediately after the barrage?

 

[DaveMcW]

If the enemy has enough units to wipe out your entire stack of doom, you should hide in defensive terrain or consider retreating.

 

[GenocideBringer]

I think you miss the point. If you have one massive stack, then he can nail you with collatoral damage and then attack you. If your army is so superior that even after getting nailed with collatoral damage, you could wipe your ass with him without using a Stack of Doom.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

I think you miss the point. If you have one massive stack, then he can nail you with collatoral damage and then attack you. If your army is so superior that even after getting nailed with collatoral damage, you could wipe your ass with him without using a Stack of Doom.

No, you are missing the point. With one stack of doom your army can absorb more damage than multiple smaller stacks. The collateral damage gets spread out over more units instead of the same units being hit over and over again.

If your army isn't big enough to survive the collateral hits you are getting then you shouldn't be attacking period. If it is big enough, then victory isn't guaranteed as you may still not have enough units to conquer their cities, but at least you won't get slaughtered.

Imagine splitting your stack into four smaller stacks. The AI can spend all their collateral damage on one stack and destroy it. Thats a quarter of your troops dead. Ouch. But if that damage got spread out over 4x the units, there would still be strong defenders left and much fewer casualties. The wounded units could be healed by your medic 3 (you will probably have one of these, but I doubt you can have one for each small stack) and recover in time to fight.

 

[dozenlong]

Having one massive stack is a bit risky, isn't it? Imagine you underestimate the enemy once, and boom; game over. Having a few stacks lets you feint and move and direct the AI where you want easier, and allows a bit of a backout plan if things don't go well.

 

[MrCynical]

Much as collateral damage was supposed to eliminate SoDs, it doesn't in practice, because of the cap on the number of units that take damage. Consider if I have 16 units. I could stack them all together, or split them, say into 4 stacks of 4. Imagine the AI now hits me with a couple of catapults, damaging 6 units at a time. With one stack, 12 units take a little damage, but I still have 4 strong unharmed units to defend. With four separate stacks the AI can hit one, leaving 4 substantially damaged units which are easy to pick off.

Add to that the way you need a mix of units to counter different attackers (e.g. spears to counter mounted. Axes to counter melee), and you can economise on these specialist defenders. You need a couple in each stack you have, so if I have four smaller stacks, I need more defenders. Now consider medics. OK there are promotions which affect surrounding tiles as well, but it's still simplest if I can keep one stack with a good medic buried somewhere in it.

The only way collateral damage would eliminate SoDs would be if it affected ALL units in the stack, no matter what. It doesn't however, so the single SoD is most effective.

 

[DaveMcW]

Even though collateral damage doesn't eliminate SoDs, it makes it easy enough for a superior force to wipe one out. So at least it's not as broken as Civ3.