Proposal for stockpiling units in cities

[historix69]

In Civ5 as well as in other 1upt-games, the map or part of the map quickly gets crowded with increasing number of military units, which reduces playability and fun. This is a problem well known since the pre-Civ-age. It was already there in EMPIRE (Wargame of the Century), one of the first turn based computer strategy games in late 80s and a major inspiration for Civ 1. EMPIRE had no roads/railroads so the units travelled with normal speed over land or used the faster transport ships. In late game, due to high production rates, there were often more land units than land around the frontlines. EMPIRE allowed the player to stockpile units in cities at the risk that all units in a city get destroyed when the city is conquered. Stockpiling units in cities (also with different combat rules) was a common feature in Civ1 - Civ4 but was disbanded with introduction of 1upt in Civ5. Together with the removal of "roads on all tiles", the result was that managing military traffic jams in war and peace time became a major feature of Civ5. While cities usually already have a ranged unit as garrison, in peace time the field army with multiple units of infantry, cavalry, artillery had to be parked somewhere on the countryside in a way that they do not block the roads for other units. The same applies for the fleet. In my opinion, the fact that the player cannot stockpile units in cities or military outposts is a major design flaw in Civ5 and I really hope that the devs do not repeat this mistake in Civ6. (And I still hope they will correct it in Civ5 with a coming patch some day.)

Depending on the new combat system, which is not known in all details, I would suggest :

- Players can stockpile multiple (limited) or unlimited number of additional units in a city.
- Cities do have a specified garrison unit (defender) as in Civ5
- The player may switch garrison unit and one of the stockpiled units during his turn.
- Unused stockpiled units have reduced upkeep, e.g. 50% of normal upkeep. (peace time mode)
- Stockpiled units have a -50% penalty when attacking from the city tile (due to poor deployment in city) but fight at 100% when deployed to a free tile before combat.
- Stockpiled units may be damaged by siege artillery / bomber units bombarding the city - with higher chance of collateral damage for crowded cities. (Max. collateral damage should be limited.)
- If the city is conquered, all stockpiled units get destroyed.
(see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Singapore for historic example)

I suppose that with the new military districts in Civ6 the units might be stockpiled in the barracks (army), airfield (air force) and harbor (navy) tile rather than in the core city tile.

 

[Ryika]

I'm very much against this as it really goes against how I want combat to work. It should take place on the map, ideally on the borders between Civilizations, not by fortifying oneself in a city. That's what the district-system is already aiming to do, I think such a system as the one proposed would be very counter-productive to that.

It may work as a "hotfix" for the issue of units crowding the battlefield, but really, I'd rather have a proper solution than a solution that goes against the "spirit" of the combat system. They need to find ways to limit the number of units you can realistically deploy.

 

[historix69]

The stockpiling is in the 1st place meant for peace time to remove the unused military units from the map and remove / relieve the unnecessary micromanagement of moving / placing units which are far away from the battlefield.

It is not meant as a military strategy. On the contrary, it does allow to "Pearl Harbor" an opponent if he does not guard his cities well.

 

[Ryika]

But that doesn't change that it still runs into the same issue. If it reduced unit-maintenance, then what it's really doing is either allowing you to produce lots of units and then carpet them out once a war starts (probably sending you into negative gpt at that point, but you've saved money earlier) - or you don't and those units allow you to more easily defend a city.

It doesn't really diminish the problem with carpets of doom, I'd say it even makes it worse by somewhat reducing the problem of upkeep.

 

[historix69]

Stockpiling units in cities at low upkeep is actually also a way to simulate something similar to a modern conscripted army ... In August 1914 with outbreak of WW1 all involved nations mobilized millions of soldiers within days/weeks which were brought to the frontlines via train. All nations went into negative GPT ... none of them wanted to loose the War as a result of being stingy ...

Depending on the upgrade costs Carpets of Doom may easily become obsolete when researching better units ...

 

[qwerty25]

I like the idea of bombing and sieging damaging stockpiles units.

However, if you really want stockpiling, then you need a compelling deterrent not to use it as well. (to prevent like 5 musketman popping out every time one is killed around a city) Or like having all 5 musketman run back into the city to hide them pop back out.

So suggestions for deterrences:

Can only store one unit to stockpile per turn.
Can retrieve unit from stockpile once every two turns.


The store only one per turn prevents a massive number of units hiding in the city (you have to semi plan in advance)

The retrieve once per two turns, will basically penalise players who never retrieved their units ahead of time and are attacked in surprise. But since you save money by stockpiling them, during times of assured peace, you'll still have a reason to store them besides the lack of traffic.

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk

 

[historix69]

So suggestions for deterrences:

Can only store one unit to stockpile per turn.
Can retrieve unit from stockpile once every two turns.

Adding a feature to remove some unnecessary micromanagement from the game and then add deterrents to not use it seems counterproductive. Your suggestions would add more micromanagement ... Deployment is already limited by number of free tiles around the city.

... prevents a massive number of units hiding in the city ...

I do not see why positioning multiple units in a city is such a gamebreaking feature that it should not be used. Cities in Civ5 reached sizes of 20-30-50-100 population and military units in Civ5 were not drawing population at all so if dozens of specialists can live and work in a city tile, the smaller military units should do so, too.

In December 1941, the U.S. had "stockpiled" 8 battleships, 8 cruisers, 30 destroyers, 4 submarines, ca. 50 other ships and about 390 aircraft in Pearl Harbor. If only 1 ship per 2 turns would be allowed to leave the harbor, it would take 200 turns to deploy the fleet in Civ6. This would only make sense in a marathon-x-marathon gamespeed where a turn is equivalent to maybe 1 hour (instead of the normal year) and you almost play in Real Time.

I already proposed a number of disadvantages for stockpiled units based on realism/history.

- Stockpiled units have a -50% penalty when attacking from the city tile (due to poor deployment in city) ...
- Stockpiled units may be damaged by siege artillery / bomber units bombarding the city ...
- If the city is conquered, all stockpiled units get destroyed.

If you want to fight, you should deploy your units in time. On the other side, a commander might always withdraw his units into the safety of a fortress/city. If the attacker is not strong enough to siege the city, this is ok. If the attacker is reinforced and besieging the city than the city quickly may become a mousetrap for the units locked inside. If there is no relief attack, the city/fortress might be conquered and the units captured/destroyed as it happened to Cornwallis army at Yorktown 1781.

* We don't know how healing damaged units in Civ6 will be implemented but to avoid a massive heal effect to multiple units in a city, healing should be reduced or stopped when the city is under siege/bombardment.

Since there will always be people with different opinions, I would also propose :
* Stockpiling units should be an optional feature which people may activate/deactivate when setting up a new game.

 

[qwerty25]

Adding a feature to remove some unnecessary micromanagement from the game and then add deterrents to not use it seems counterproductive. Your suggestions would add more micromanagement ... Deployment is already limited by number of free tiles around the city.

You didn't quite clarify how retrieving units would work. I assumed you could move any of the X stored units off the city allowing you to retrieve up to around 17 (as long as they can move to a free tile) units at a time. Kinda like how you move "stacked unit" off cities sometimes.

I do not see why positioning multiple units in a city is such a gamebreaking feature that it should not be used. Cities in Civ5 reached sizes of 20-30-50-100 population and military units in Civ5 were not drawing population at all so if dozens of specialists can live and work in a city tile, the smaller military units should do so, too.

Its not. I'll clarify below

In December 1941, the U.S. had "stockpiled" 8 battleships, 8 cruisers, 30 destroyers, 4 submarines, ca. 50 other ships and about 390 aircraft in Pearl Harbor. If only 1 ship per 2 turns would be allowed to leave the harbor, it would take 200 turns to deploy the fleet in Civ6. This would only make sense in a marathon-x-marathon gamespeed where a turn is equivalent to maybe 1 hour (instead of the normal year) and you almost play in Real Time.

I already proposed a number of disadvantages for stockpiled units based on realism/history.

I'm not sure why you're confusing ships in real life and ships in Civ 5/6 as an example? Besides, it'd be kinda absurd anyways if you could have 50 ships pop out of a city in one turn I think we can agree.

If you want to fight, you should deploy your units in time. On the other side, a commander might always withdraw his units into the safety of a fortress/city. If the attacker is not strong enough to siege the city, this is ok. If the attacker is reinforced and besieging the city than the city quickly may become a mousetrap for the units locked inside. If there is no relief attack, the city/fortress might be conquered and the units captured/destroyed as it happened to Cornwallis army at Yorktown 1781.

* We don't know how healing damaged units in Civ6 will be implemented but to avoid a massive heal effect to multiple units in a city, healing should be reduced or stopped when the city is under siege/bombardment.

The main problem I have with your current implementation, isn't that you can have lots of units stored. I mean Civ 5 had plenty of units as you said before, that's fine.

The main problem is it doesn't prevent using the city as a "gopher hole". You could just store 20+ units inside. wait for the enemy to come, have them all pop out and attack. Then whenever a unit is low on health just keep retreating back to the city. It'll be virtually impossible to kill a damaged unit because they could infinitely retreat back to the city. Then you could on every turn continually rotate 6 or more units out and 6 or more damaged units back in to the city. The entire point of 1UPT was to prevent stacking during combat, stacking units for storage I'm okay with, but not as a part of combat strategy, unless there's a real effective downside.

For the attacker to surround the city to prevent retrieval of units sounds great, I don't know if it's possible in practice. Even with horses/tank, moving from the edge of the city cultural border to outside the city would take at least two turns. But if you can retrieve so many units in an instance, you can protect your surrounding tiles way faster than the attacker will ever reach you.

The only real disadvantage I see from using stockpiling right now is if the enemy already surrounded your city with 5 or 6 units and you somehow forgot to retrieve your units.... which I don't think will happen that often.

I agree the downside of retrieval once every 2 turns is too large, but I still think there has to be something. Many inside they start off with 50% hp to show their not ready or something idk. Or place a heavier limit on the number of units you can retrieve per turn. Like 3 or 4 per turn.