"One unit per one tile" strategy thoughts

[xienwolf]

If there is a one unit per tile limitation, then it would require that a single unit can lose a battle and not die unless VERY heavily out-gunned. That or at least a removal of the automatic movement into a tile after defeating an enemy. Otherwise a battle line is too hard to maintain with the requirement to move new units in to position to fortify a breach.


Mostly, it would MASSIVELY increase micromanagement, unless you can select units from multiple tiles at the same time and give them persistent orders (try to get to tile X, if occupied, wait till it isn't).


Can you imagine having to shuffle units through a chokepoint in the middle of your land if there is a 1 unit limit? Worker is trying to build a pasture, but Horseman needs through, so move the worker to the side, move the horse in, move the horse past, move the worker back, re-order building. Now warrior needs through, move the worker aside, move the warrior in, move the warrior past, move the worker in....


HOWEVER! If "one unit" meant "All units on the stack act communally for attack/defense" then you get more of a "Combined Arms" warfare approach. You still bring in multiple units, and can bring them out one at a time. But there is no selection of the "best defender" involved, and when you attack someone else with overwhelming force (20 tanks) you aren't held at bay because they have swarms alone (2,000 scouts)

 

[dalamb]

At first glance one-unit-per-tile sounds like a terrible idea to me; I'd much rather see such a change as a mod. But I'm not much of a warmonger, and it seems like warmongers like the idea, so what do I know? I'd rather see the non-combat options made more interesting.

 

[Takhisis]

That's why I want a cap. Let's say you're holding the line against raiding enemy cavalry and trying to build a ditch (terrain improvement) so that they can't get through. You'd have to find a balance between your workers building the defenses and the soldiers guarding them, so that you don't have to keep stacks nearby to balance out each turn's losses with reinforcements. But if there was a one unit/one tile rule, then it'd be impossible.

 

[Maniac]

I am cautiously optimistic about the idea to remove unit stacking. I've always felt the supposed Rock/Paper/Scissors system of Civ4 never worked. Rock/Paper/Scissors only works if you can't have all three of those all at the same time at the same place. Removing unit stacking would achieve that.

That being said, I have no experience whatsoever with Panzer General. Does anyone know how the game resolves issues like this?;

1) assume a one plot wide land corridor ABC. A one movement point unit is on plot B. A two movement point unit is on plot A. Can I move that unit from A to C?

2) assume a two-plot island AB. Assume unit X on plot A and unit Y on plot B. Can units X and Y switch positions?

 

[Tlalynet]

Limiting units per tile (especcially to one) would greatly increase the tactical depth of the game, it seems like to much to hope for. I don't see why some people think its so limiting, even a one tile island has 6 approaches.

I would really love ending this fight to the death style combat. In civ games units feel like 1 guy (perhaps 3 for the visuals in civ4, but even then it fights like one guy) fighting 1 other guy to the death. I'd love to see 'Your legion attacked their legion, you suffered 250 losses and 150 injuries, they suffered 300 losses and 200 injuries' and only the injuries could be recovered to fighting form in the field. You have to go to a city to restore the losses, and both recovery rates are slow. If you attacked them and they only had injuries left you would get prisoners of war out of their stack that could be traded\executed\enslaved.

1 unit in cities would be way better too, it would bring the battle into the field like it should often be. Then you would need to surround\besiege the city in order to beat the unit with all its defensive bonuses.

 

[Takhisis]

If you could have regiments (stacks of units moving as a single block) then I'd agree with Tlalynet. But it doesn't appear to be the case. And regiments can be garrisoned together IRL. Each tile could have its own unit cap, set in the editor.

 

[ash88]

I am probably out to lunch here but...

One "Unit" in a tile could be made up of many "Regiments" or "Brigades" (or whatever you want to call them, here I will call them Regiments)

For example: Lets say I have a "Unit" of Warriors consisting of 5 "Regiments." On the map you see 5 guys. You come in with another "Unit" of Warriors consisting of 10 "Regiments." Well, that gives you a 2 to 1 numbers advantage - you have more Warriors on the field of battle in your Warrior Unit. Maybe my Warriors are experienced Veterans of battle though? Who knows.

Unless there is another source of information that I haven't seen the only thing it looks like is that you can't mix the *type* of unit.

So your cities then produce "Regiments" which you combine to increase your unit size?

This is all wild conjecture. Looking forward to being proven wrong.

 

[AlpsStranger]

If you could have regiments (stacks of units moving as a single block) then I'd agree with Tlalynet. But it doesn't appear to be the case. And regiments can be garrisoned together IRL. Each tile could have its own unit cap, set in the editor.

I respectfully disagree with you. I really hope we can get away from building "Over 9000" tanks and declaring ourselves master tacticians. IRL arguments and appeals to "seriousness" don't impress me half as much as a solid, well abstracted strategy game. Light on tedium, heavy on challenge. Heavy on planning ahead and knowing the meta-game, light on sifting through reams of garbage.

All tests, no homework.

 

[morss_4]

I am cautiously optimistic about the idea to remove unit stacking. I've always felt the supposed Rock/Paper/Scissors system of Civ4 never worked. Rock/Paper/Scissors only works if you can't have all three of those all at the same time at the same place. Removing unit stacking would achieve that.

That being said, I have no experience whatsoever with Panzer General. Does anyone know how the game resolves issues like this?;

1) assume a one plot wide land corridor ABC. A one movement point unit is on plot B. A two movement point unit is on plot A. Can I move that unit from A to C?

Yes. Friendly units can move "through" each other. They just can't stop "on" each other.

2) assume a two-plot island AB. Assume unit X on plot A and unit Y on plot B. Can units X and Y switch positions?

This I don't remember off the top of my head but I think the answer is no. Regardless such a feature would be easy to implement in Civ V.

 

[Tlalynet]

I think Takhisis has a point, as long as said regiments are limited by supplies (or just limited) in some way. Like Archer+Archer+Spearman would do more damadge than spearman+spearman+archer until the spearman was crushed then the two archers would be extremely vulnerable.

 

[r_rolo1]

Well, first of all, I don't see anything on the avaliable screens that prove or disprove the OP assertement of one unit per tile. In fact, they look a lot like the BtS screenies of the new units.

That said, I am strongly against that principle unless the concept of unit is completely diferent from the one in Civ IV ( more like the Civ III armies or with supply/ammo ) or if the tiles represent a so small piece of land that we can assume to talking about tactical manouvering. Otherwise it will be heavily borked and easily exploitable.

 

[AlpsStranger]

I think Takhisis has a point, as long as said regiments are limited by supplies (or just limited) in some way. Like Archer+Archer+Spearman would do more damadge than spearman+spearman+archer until the spearman was crushed then the two archers would be extremely vulnerable.

Archers having the ability to fire across several hexes makes this scenario seem unlikely. We are quite possibly looking at one unit per tile meaning exactly what it seems to mean.

 

[Tlalynet]

Oh most likely. I want one unit per tile and battles not being too the death (unless heavily outgunned as Xeinwolf said) but I think even counting on stacks being gone is optimistic. Most likely they just havn't showed any stacks in the screenshots (they didn't in the civ IV screenshots IIRC) and stacks of death are going to be alive and well in V

 

[xienwolf]

The idea of losses/kills being separate, and actual LOSS of a unit completely being pretty preventable (though only by frequently retreating to regroup) is the best ideal IMO.


Remember, the Stack of Death approach will be limited simply by the non-infinite resource mechanism they are implementing. So long as there isn't a no-resource unit which can be spammed effectively against resource requiring units of the era. A tile limit isn't the ONLY approach to removing that mentality from being the dominant factor. Also if ranged attacks do more damage against a tile which has more total units (thus a higher target density) that would also DISCOURAGE stacks of death, without DENYING them.

 

[AlphaShard]

I don't think we should assume that were seeing a restriction here. I think what we are seeing is a demo of what one unit of each type looks like. We don't know yet if stacking has been removed or not.

 

[say1988]

Besides, it could just be that the stack only shows the top unit on the screen?

I seriously doubt such a dramatic change to occur to a major part of the game. Combat has never been realistic and I don't see a reason for it to be. I could see restrictions on the size of stacks (whether hard caps or perhaps larger stacks suffer more collateral vs any attack) but not single units.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Personaly I hate this idea. I found the combat system in Civ4 to be perfect.
Archers and other "ranged" units firing across multiple tiles is ******** as it essentialy gives them a range of a modern artillery batery.

 

[r_rolo1]

It looks like Jon Shaefer said explicitely that there was a hard cap on one military unit per tile to a danish magazine ( see Sian post here ).

I stand my point: unless a military unit in Civ V is completely diferent from what it is on Civ IV or if the tiles represent a pretty small area ( unlike the 100 x 100 km of Civ IV ), this does not bode good.

 

[say1988]

Besides, it could just be that the stack only shows the top unit on the screen?

I seriously doubt such a dramatic change to occur to a major part of the game. Combat has never been realistic and I don't see a reason for it to be. I could see restrictions on the size of stacks (whether hard caps or perhaps larger stacks suffer more collateral vs any attack) but not single units.

 

[r_rolo1]

Making faith on Sian translation, it is a military unit per tile, period

"one of the first changes we made was to remove the possability to 'stack' units. Now that you can only place one Military unit at each tile, there would be created large fronts between the players that battle each other"