Proposal workshop: unit stacking ideas

[Tekamthi]

I see no particular reason to block army formation early.

There is no reason to block, necessarily, but there is no reason not to either? As you note there's not much issue with space early on, ie these units aren't as necessary as a solution as later on. It's nice to have representation of human progress in the game, and perhaps there's a case to be made here...

I am quoting from Wikipedia's page on "military logistics":

"Early armies were equipped with weapons used for hunting like spears, knives, axes and bows and arrows,[26] and rarely exceeded 20,000 men due to the practical difficulty of supplying a large number of soldiers.[27] Large armies began to appear in the Iron Age.[28] Animals such as horses, oxen, camels and even elephants were used as beasts of burden to carry supplies.[29][30] Food, water and fodder for the animals could usually be found or purchased in the field.[31] The Roman Empire and Maurya Empire in India built networks of roads, but it was far less expensive to transport a ton of grain from Egypt to Rome than 80 kilometres (50 mi) by road.[32][23] After the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century there was the shift from a centrally organised army to a combination of military forces made up of local troops.[33] Feudalism was therefore a distributed military logistics system where magnates of the households drew upon their own resources for men and equipment."

From this quote perhaps we can conclude it should become available in classical, but not ancient.

Consider enabling it via honor policy branch for those seeking it early, and for everyone else via a technology or national wonder slightly later on... Heroic epic perhaps a good candidate for enabling it

 

[pineappledan]

Strictly from a gameplay perspective it hardly seems worth locking it in the first place if you are just going to enable it that early

 

[pineappledan]

And why only land melee unmounted?

a) easier. constrains the scope to a single unit line instead of having to potentially rebalance every unit line at once
b) gives melee units a unique ability. Makes them stand out more from scout units, etc.
c) infantry tactics, until relatively recently, have relied on density and formation to a degree that other combat rolls have not. My initial thought was that scouts forming into massed armies was categorically silly, and they should be blocked from forming armies. Then I started to question where the line between a pike wall and scouts was, and I determined that there was no explicit need to depict massed archers or artillery barrages at the expense of watering down human wave tactics.
d) You reserve the space to make armies using different UnitCombats a unique ability unlocked for certain civs. For instance, Napoleon could get the ability to form armies with siege units as part of its UA.

 

[Tekamthi]

Strictly from a gameplay perspective it hardly seems worth locking it in the first place if you are just going to enable it that early

I am not against it being unlocked early necessarily, even from the get go... there are certainly other quotes from wiki that support the idea of large armies well back into the bronze age I think as well, and it doesn't seem impossible that earlier groups could've figured it out.

But the feature may be more interesting as something integrated with the rest of the civ world -- ancient warfare is kinda flat as it stands (perhaps rightfully so) -- if the armies were an early unlock rather than an always on, it might become a strategic objective of sorts for early warfare.

Alternatively maybe it's always on for melee, and a later unlock for other unit lines if it were expanded -- obviously if we had unitcombat_armor armies, they'd only become available much later anyway either simultaneous to or sometime after those units become available

 

[pineappledan]

If we were to lock the ability just to the spear/melee line, then I would just enable it starting with spears. We're already discussing enabling it on a unt-by-unit basis in that case, because we're barring Swords/Longswords from using it, and they share the same unitcombat.

The ability makes sense in the context of depicting a phalanx formation. On a warrior with a club it makes less sense.

 

[Tekamthi]

In some games, this kind of unit-by-unit upgrade is gated by an optional project of some kind... Think StarCraft/warcraft where individual unit types are upgraded via resource & time sink, and can be bypassed by the player to some degree.

This could be one angle, making their unlocks a bit of an extra hurdle that is more attractive to leading players and warmongers, but can be bypassed/delayed by the laggards and pacifists... ie spear armies require some kind of national project to unlock, once spears are obsolete it doesn't matter anymore, player that skipped this unlock is just unable to make spear armies, but it is open to them to unlock armies for any later units

 

[CppMaster]

Making ancient era an exception to this is not worth the complexity imho. Let's start with sth simpler and then tweak it if it's imballanced.

 

[Tekamthi]

Let's start with sth simpler and then tweak it if it's imballanced.

Always a prudent approach. In that case I'm on board with any first attempt being the melee/gun unitcombats only. Enabling for other pairings sounds interesting but best saved for later.

If this concept were really thoughtfully developed and carefully balanced, I imagine it would have potential to add a lot of depth to late gameplay ie the same way players must choose between different ideology paths and associated benefits, perhaps their ability to merge certain unit types and not others becomes a choice at this stage, leading to some variety between opponents on the battlefield in what types of armies they field... Eg. Beginning in modern or industrial when crowding is quite pronounced, player chooses one additional army type per era to unlock, etc., maybe even with greater combined arms choices available towards the end.

Edit: would we want some kind of adjacency malus on the armies themselves? ie if army adjacent to other army, -x% cs, or perhaps just reduced ability to heal?

 

[usadefcon1]

Napoleon could get the ability to form armies with siege units as part of its UA.

That's a really good idea.

 

[usadefcon1]

Napoleon could get the ability to form armies with siege units as part of its UA.

Denmark - Naval Melee Fleets
England - Naval Ranged Fleets
Mongols - Mounted Ranged Armies
Germany - Armored Melee Armies
USA - Air Force...

 

[Stalker0]

a) easier. constrains the scope to a single unit line instead of having to potentially rebalance every unit line at once
b) gives melee units a unique ability. Makes them stand out more from scout units, etc.
c) infantry tactics, until relatively recently, have relied on density and formation to a degree that other combat rolls have not. My initial thought was that scouts forming into massed armies was categorically silly, and they should be blocked from forming armies. Then I started to question where the line between a pike wall and scouts was, and I determined that there was no explicit need to depict massed archers or artillery barrages at the expense of watering down human wave tactics.
d) You reserve the space to make armies using different UnitCombats a unique ability unlocked for certain civs. For instance, Napoleon could get the ability to form armies with siege units as part of its UA.

The main issue is....will the other lines even be able to hold up if they don't have army power?

Are you going to really be able to use cbows and horseman against swordsman with 200 hp and blitz?

 

[Stalker0]

Remove Blitz from the warrior/spear line.
Armies gain +100 hp and Blitz.
Armies keep the promotions/XP of the higher level unit, but cost x2 to upgrade in the future.
(Maybe combine the HP, double attack, and upgrade premium in a single new promotion?)
Limit to warrior/spear lines.
Unlock Armies with a tech (so no free Blitz in ancient).

Is that it?

healing would need to double as well most likely....though perhaps that could be a weakness of the new unit.

 

[pineappledan]

I think 50HP would be the right amount. +100HP is over the top.

 

[pineappledan]

Denmark - Naval Melee Fleets
England - Naval Ranged Fleets
Mongols - Mounted Ranged Armies
Germany - Armored Melee Armies
USA - Air Force...

Spain - Naval Melee (Armada)
England - Naval Ranged (or make it a special ability of the Ship of the Line UU that can carry forward)
Poland - Mounted melee and Armor (for reasons)
France - Siege (Grande Batterie)
Mongols - Mounted Range

 

[Stalker0]

I think 50HP would be the right amount. +100HP is over the top.

so +50 hp, no CS boost, no healing boost, but a free blitz....I could see it

 

[CppMaster]

The main issue is....will the other lines even be able to hold up if they don't have army power?

That's why I'd prefer if all land and naval units were able to form armies at first to see which are OP and then maybe disable some or tweak values.

 

[Tekamthi]

While 200 hp sounds like a lot, consider that we are proposing heal at normal rate for one unit, so the hp total will recover at half the rate it would if these were separate units. It's possible that in-play these will fight quite often at less than full HP, we may only see them full during the initial encounters of a war.

That said, the ability to acquire blitz melee units without chasing it down in the promo tree would be quite powerful, shouldn't be understated. Might be enough with 150 hp.

Next question: can armies be city garrison? Consider blocking from entering cities entirely to mitigate unintended buff to city defense

 

[pineappledan]

It is far easier to gauge the power of 1 unit line in isolation rather than looking at how all unit combats fare with armies simultaneously. Adding armies to 1 unit line effectively means doubling the potential interactions (melee vs melee, melee vs archer, ARMYmelee vs melee, ARMYmelee vs archer, etc.) Adding all army types simultaneously would create so many new possible interactions; that functionally doubles the number of units in all eras.

Next question: can armies be city garrison? Consider blocking from entering cities entirely to mitigate unintended buff to city defense

There would be minimal buff to city defense because the CS wouldn't increase at all. It would just take longer to kill them. I think it should be allowed.

 

[usadefcon1]

Next question: can armies be city garrison? Consider blocking from entering cities entirely to mitigate unintended buff to city defense

I don't think that would be the optimal strategy anyway. You would want your vulnerable units in cities not your heavy hitters.

 

[CppMaster]

Adding armies to 1 unit line effectively means doubling the potential interactions (melee vs melee, melee vs archer, ARMYmelee vs melee, ARMYmelee vs archer, etc.)

Yeah and wouldn't you also know how army archers vs army melee or army archers vs melee turns out to be?