Splitting the Stack of Doom.. GOOD OR BAD?

[garric]

Me and my friends are at a split opinion on the argument. One of the Civ4 previews hinted at the stack of doom being nerfed, but did not note how. One way that it could be done is limit the # of units per square to 5, or make artillery damage every unit in the stack (my favored way.). But many of my friends say that the stack of doom should stay and be part of Civ 4. I do not think that it should be like that. The stack of Doom takes away the epic feeling of battles. WW2 wasn't fought by 1 ungodly large army of tanks attacking a city defended by another ungodly large # of tanks. But it seems that the playtesters and varios comments from other folks have persuaded Sid and his team to scrap the nerf, keeping the stack of doom very much alive.

What are your opinions?

 

[JBearIt]

I think the previews have indicated that artillery-type weapons will hit every unit in a stack.

 

[garric]

I think the previews have indicated that artillery-type weapons will hit every unit in a stack.

Another review said that tho, after numerous complaints from beta testers and email that they removed such features and made it identical to Civ 3 combat (Stack of doom = allowed.)

 

[vbraun]

Stack of Dooms are completly unrealistic, I mean seriously who heard of an army of all swordsman? Even if you do mix up type of troops you can fit 20 billion people into 1 square.

Down with SoDs!!

BTW, you actually have friends that play Civ?

 

[SonicX]

Having artillery hit all units in the stack might cause unbalanced artillery building ofcourse.
The best thing is the middle solution then :

Total damage to stack with
1st unit : 100 % of capability
2nd unit : 80 %
3rd unit : 64 %
4th unit : 51 %
5th unit : 41 %
6th unit and next : 33 %

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

According to a fairly recent developer interview, artillery-type units can cause collateral damage to up to 6 units . What determines how many actually get hit is unknown, but some people have theorised a combination of unit tech level and the number of units in the square. Therefore, SoD's haven't been completely nerfed, but there are clear downsides to them now. As has been discussed elsewhere, I think HARD stack limits are a bad idea, because it kinda 'throws the baby out with the bathwater'. Yes you punish those who rape the rules, but you also unfairly constrain those who may have no choice but to make the occasional SoD. Personally I think that, aside from the artillery solution mentioned above, soft stack limits are the best way to go. In this system, each tile has a 'preferred maximum' stack size and, if you exceed it, each extra unit causes your entire stacks' combat performance to degrade. Thus, people can form very large stacks 'in a pinch' but with full knowledge that they will be deterimental to their chance of success in the longer term.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[HourlyDaily]

The preferred maximum idea is a good one. In a way it replicates real life where units would not have room to fight properly if packed in too tightly (not talking about Phalanxes but look at what happened at Salamis and the Boudiccan revolt for instance)

You have to strike a balance somehow and that seems to help.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

I both want them and don’t want them, why???
It is both realistic. During most of human history communication has not been what they are today, such as a joint military operational center may be placed any ware and still able to command frontline units. That is the reason why there were so broad fronts during World War II.

During most of human history, most war was fought between large armies. To command units all over the place was not possible, by the time you got Intel from a unit it could be destroyed without the commander knowing it.
Only during occupation was forces divided, and guerilla warfare was common even during these times, but a guerilla force could not invade, only cause big problems.

So, large stacks should be common during most of human history until the Radio comes along. Artillery does not make much of a difference on a strategic level for concentration of force; a square is big enough for a million men to fight effectively in enemy artillery fire.

How this could be implemented in the game I have not the slightest, but I believe that there will be a way to mod it in, if there is I will certainly try to do it.

In my opinion the whole stack should fight at the same time, not single units fighting single units, but that is for another discussion.

 

[ThePersian]

Good in the sence of stratigy
Bad in the sence of MM

 

[frekk]

So, large stacks should be common during most of human history until the Radio comes along.

A bit before that, actually. Greeks were using torch and water "telegraphs", and Romans were using coloured smoke signals. The British, in the 16th century, developed beacons for military signalling, which eventually resulted in shuttered machine beacons by 1797 - the "Radiated Telegraph System", which allowed near-instantaneous communication across almost any distance of land (and could also be used at sea, sometimes). Electric telegraphs introduced in the 1830s were put to military use during the Crimean War. Telegraphs remained the principal form of signalling in WW1, because the wireless sets of the time were too bulky and very unreliable, so used principally for ships and aircraft.

But the "field army" of the medieval era had disappeared long before beacons and telegraphs - once naval cannon were adopted and the warship became one of the more principal strategic elements of war, officer corps were trained to operate in a more independant fashion. This was not restricted to the training of naval officers, because wars between imperial powers often occurred far from home, in the colonies, and it was a vital asset to be able to use small forces to cut off supplies, burn bridges, capture lightly defended forts and so on, so military officers of all types were instructed to be capable of functioning and carrying out orders independantly.

How this could be implemented in the game I have not the slightest, but I believe that there will be a way to mod it in, if there is I will certainly try to do it.

The idea I've had is to implement restrictions to the number of units that can be moved in a round, with modifiers given for advances affecting communication and transportation. Eg, one of the earliest bonuses would probably be horseback riding, because it allows messengers to move with speed. Computers, railroads, flight, radio, would be the sorts of advances which would raise the limit. Also there would have to be some mechanism for conducting major offensives and temporarily increasing that number for a few rounds - perhaps a gold payment, the sacrifice of a leader, or even a small wonder which generated this automatically every X number of turns.

In my opinion the whole stack should fight at the same time, not single units fighting single units, but that is for another discussion.

Agree.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

A bit before that, actually. Greeks were using torch and water "telegraphs", and Romans were using coloured smoke signals. The British, in the 16th century, developed beacons for military signalling, which eventually resulted in shuttered machine beacons by 1797 - the "Radiated Telegraph System", which allowed near-instantaneous communication across almost any distance of land (and could also be used at sea, sometimes). Electric telegraphs introduced in the 1830s were put to military use during the Crimean War. Telegraphs remained the principal form of signalling in WW1, because the wireless sets of the time were too bulky and very unreliable, so used principally for ships and aircraft.

Yes sure I do agree with you on every point, my regard to WW2 was more of a point in the difference in style between the ancient age and modern warfare.

The Greeks telegraph were more tactical, working within a tile in Civ rather than between armies at a distance, they were also rather crude and inaccurate compared to modern devices, the same goes for smoke signals. But I agree with you 100%.

If they had radio in 0 AD, there would probably not be armies in the size of 100.000 men facing each other.

Through modding the game we could be able to force all units in a tile battle together (with the powerful scripting and editing dll files). There could also be a big chance of incorporating some form of supply system to balance things out. I do think that small forces should still be able to operate, they just would not be very effective in combat on their own, accept against other small forces, pillaging, looting and destroy supply lines.

Now, get the computer to use this will be a nightmare, but since we will be able to handle all the AI code we could do this theoretically.

 

[Xen]

Stack of Dooms are completly unrealistic, I mean seriously who heard of an army of all swordsman? Even if you do mix up type of troops you can fit 20 billion people into 1 square.

Down with SoDs!!

what about teh Mongol Horde

regardless, I've always taken the old civ system for units to represent numbers of troops anologos to a Roman cohort, whith each individual hit-point being a Century in the cohort (with multiple cohorts going into aan army, forming a full legion) so stacks of doom arnt that unrealistic, just depoend on how you veiw what makes up a unit.

 

[Vael]

Given how large tiles are in Civ it's really not realistic to have 'collateral' damage amont a bunch of units. The only way it would happen in reality is if you had millions of men in a single small area. It's not like every man in an army is always crammed right up next to each other, waiting to get hit.

Another review said that tho, after numerous complaints from beta testers and email that they removed such features and made it identical to Civ 3 combat (Stack of doom = allowed.)

You have a link to this? I haven't heard about that...

 

[apatheist]

The two ideas that I have pushed that are relevant... The odds of collateral damage increase as the number of units in a tile increase. The increase would be balanced so that the odds of any given unit getting hit drop as more units enter the tile, but the odds of some unit getting hit increase as more units enter the tile. The other is that it may take extra move points to enter a tile that has lots of units already in there. Perhaps to enter a tile with less than 5 units costs nothing extra, while a tile with 5-8 units in it costs an extra 1/3 MP, 9-12 an extra 2/3 MP, etc. This would be regardless of terrain improvements like roads or railroads.

 

[frekk]

The Greeks telegraph were more tactical, working within a tile in Civ rather than between armies at a distance, they were also rather crude and inaccurate compared to modern devices, the same goes for smoke signals.

Surprisingly, they could actually send signals over quite vast distances. The reason we call them telegraphs is that they would operate in relays as a grid of points connected by straight lines-of-sight, so theoretically there was no limit to the range, for instance the Roman smoke tower relay net was estimated to be about 4500 km long at its greatest extent. Of course, the farther the message had to be sent the longer it would take. Other telegraphic systems were in use even among very primitive groups, for instance the Plains Indians would signal with mirrors, and in jungle terrain the drum was frequently used as a signal relay (eg in Mexico, Central America, Africa, parts of Asia) because line of sight was impractical.

If they had radio in 0 AD, there would probably not be armies in the size of 100.000 men facing each other.

That was actually more a factor of logistics limitations, and the relatively primitive self-disciplination process of ancient societies. The smaller the force, the more likely it would just ... wander off. And the infrastructure was just not there to have supply lines extending all over the place. So many factors go into this phenomena, its impossible to describe them all. Just the fact of armies moving by foot and wars that could only be conducted between the sowing and harvesting season, meant that something decisive had to be achieved in a short period of time, which tended to encourage the massed armies.

But not all actions were these kind of massed army actions, its just that the smaller actions are not memorable and so are referred to vaguely and collectively as "wars" and "raids" rather than "battles", and in general are not detailed. In 1000 years our own wars will look much the same, and people will think of WW2 in simplified terms of its most climactic massed battles (eg Kursk, D-Day, and a couple of others).

I do think that small forces should still be able to operate, they just would not be very effective in combat on their own, accept against other small forces, pillaging, looting and destroy supply lines.

Small elite forces should be very effective - the civ3 system of elite troops really does not do justice to what an elite force can do, or how difficult it is for even very large regular units to prevail over a small number of elite defenders. This was equally true in the ancient world.

 

[bio_hazard]

@vael

Why are military units assumed to be many individual people, but artillary only one? Seems like each cannon would likely represent a cannon corps, so makes it a bit more realistic that they could damage multiple units.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

Surprisingly, they could actually send signals over quite vast distances. The reason we call them telegraphs is that they would operate in relays as a grid of points connected by straight lines-of-sight, so theoretically there was no limit to the range, for instance the Roman smoke tower relay net was estimated to be about 4500 km long at its greatest extent. Of course, the farther the message had to be sent the longer it would take. Other telegraphic systems were in use even among very primitive groups, for instance the Plains Indians would signal with mirrors, and in jungle terrain the drum was frequently used as a signal relay (eg in Mexico, Central America, Africa, parts of Asia) because line of sight was impractical.

I’m not going to debate you over this, because I do agree. Of course there was a lot of factors why armies fought the way they did at different times, but communication is by far the most important element in any war, both in a strategic level and tactical. These comunication devices were very crude and easy to missunderstand using complex signals and not to mention slow, if anyone got a message wrong in the chain it would be distorted, we have all played that little game now haven't we. Whisper a sentence in once ear and pass it on, don't take many persons to get a very strange result in the end. (even if you are serious and repeat the message)

Supply was something many civilized empires were very good at. For example the Romans, they managed to supply their field armies quite efficiently even in enemy territory by using chains of fortresses with small garrisons.
But I agree, logistics is one thing that was harder, but even worse if you divided an army. Often smaller units operated in a larger area from a central supply area where either a fort or city was located in the ancient area up through the Middle Ages where more modern technology in both communication and travel were invented.

I’m not saying that I like the stack of doom; I just say that it is more reasonable that wars were decided by decisive battles rather than a coherent front.

As it seems there is no difference in fighting style with land units during the ages and that is something I would like to mod if it is possible. Logistics is something that is totally lacking in the game; the player also has an unrealistic omnipotent view of all action, and something you might only have in a modern war. There should be as you suggested a system who allow you to move, not a certain units but stacks, logistical rules would handle the number of units to be moved depending on where they are.

Small elite forces should be very effective - the civ3 system of elite troops really does not do justice to what an elite force can do, or how difficult it is for even very large regular units to prevail over a small number of elite defenders. This was equally true in the ancient world.

But we don't know if the engine will support that, the other Civ did a poor job of supporting small elite forces, since different support cost, requirement of certain buildings to build units etc is not a factor.
Without this, elite would be quite common. Most war is won by the common man, not the elite, a battle perhaps but not wars.

Pillaging and plunder should also be more lucrative, as should sacking av cities were you take their treasures and leave, why bother sometimes. The logistics of retaining a city should cost more than it gives in the beginning.

 

[Civrules]

Another review said that tho, after numerous complaints from beta testers and email that they removed such features and made it identical to Civ 3 combat (Stack of doom = allowed.)

Yeah, do you have a link about that?

 

[frekk]

Without this, elite would be quite common. Most war is won by the common man, not the elite, a battle perhaps but not wars.

All else being equal, war is almost always won by the side with better training and more experience. The "common man" armies of ancient European populations were typically hopeless against the smooth, machine-like functionality of professional Roman legions even in battles where they held vast numerical advantage. They fared no better in wars than in battles, for as long as Roman military discipline remained intact. The same was also true of Alexander's armies.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

All else being equal, war is almost always won by the side with better training and more experience. The "common man" armies of ancient European populations were typically hopeless against the smooth, machine-like functionality of professional Roman legions even in battles where they held vast numerical advantage. They fared no better in wars than in battles, for as long as Roman military discipline remained intact. The same was also true of Alexander's armies.

Sure, though in Civ terms, a Roman legion would not be a small Elite force, it would be a disciplined heavy infantry unit. Most roman soldiers were what I call common men. Elite units would be part of a legion, formed by veteran and seasoned soldiers who don't play much of a deferens in a strategic sense in the game.

Elite units would perform special tactical missions and raids; normally they will not fight in larger formation, though of course it has happened, such as Elite Roman Cohorts and Spartan Phalanxes etc...

There is a difference between Elite and just well trained and disciplined, that is military doctrine, not individual fighting prowess of the individual.
Most literature that I have read, the Gauls were much more powerful as an individual fighter than the Roman, they were both bigger and stronger, and generally had more experience with the sword, though the Roman legions managed to beat them despite a lesser number more often than not.

To the point I think we both agree that logistic, supply and command is lacking because the game is streamlined for the broader audience, I just hope we could be able to mod that in. Together we as a community could from ideas and do that after the game is released.
I haven’t worked on a proper mod for Civ since Civ II and I am willing to test my programming skills when Civ IV hit the shelves.