Splitting the Stack of Doom.. GOOD OR BAD?

[frekk]

Civ is about building a civilization. You have to make it bigger, better, fast, and be intelligent about your choices. My personal opinion is that if you can build a bigger and better stack than someone else, you win. Frankly, that IS historically accurate. If you have better weapons and more troops, you very often win the battle. If you are equally matched in equipment and training, it comes down pretty much to the skill of the commanders.

It comes down to the skill of the commanders. Exactly. And what do skilled commanders do? They maneuver their forces. You DON'T need to be equally matched - that's the thing. A skilled commander can defeat a force with better equipment and training, through tactical superiority - ie, through better positioning and maneuvering, employing encirclements and other strategies.

Single SODs operating alone are NOT historically accurate - unless accompanied by fronts of smaller forces. The decision of whether to use SODs or not, doesn't impact on the role of training, technology, size of army, equipment, or anything else. Nobody's saying that you shouldn't get an advantage for having more troops and better troops. That's not at all what the debate is about - it's about how those troops are used. 100 units - should they all be in one big pile, or one pile of 60 as a salient and 10 piles of 4 as a frontline? Sure ... you can do whatever you like, but the game is inherently geared to giving an advantage to one way of doing things. Let's make it the way that adds more depth to the game and allows more strategy - and even allows victory for a good commander over a slightly better force. That's *strategy* and I'd like to see it in the game, beyond mere production choices.

The tactic is ingrained into civ since civ1!

I hate to tell you this, but no. In civ1, as soon as 1 unit was destroyed, the whole stack died (so nobody made stacks, except you might put a defense unit to cover an attack unit).

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I hate to tell you this, but no. In civ1, as soon as 1 unit was destroyed, the whole stack died (so nobody made stacks, except you might put a defense unit to cover an attack unit).

....and in Civ3 this feature was removed-which is what led to the stack of doom in the first place. In Civ4, if I understand correctly, they are trying to strike a balance between the extremes of Civ1/2 and Civ3, with collateral damage to a stack via specific units, rather than a whole stack dying when the top unit is killed. I like that they have done this.
Another point is that I am not completely opposed to limited stacks of doom-particularly if they are not homogenous-I just feel that they are being abused in Civ3. My sense is that artillery effects will have the impact of pushing players towards using smaller SoD's, far less often-and that those they do make will employ combined arms tactics. I also think, though, that if this were combined with a soft stack limit and a system of logsitics/supply, then it would cut back the use of SoD's even further.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker

 

[Commander Bello]

The SOD currently is the most efficient military means available. One may like it or not, it is just the truth as this is pre-determined by current game rules.
For Civ3, we know that this is the case, for Civ4 we at least don't have any information which would indicate a change in this concept.

The only way to change this would be to re-invent the rules as of Civ1-2, which makes you kill the entire stack as soon as the first defender gets killed, but this is neither likely nor advisable or to limit the potential of the SOD by limiting the sheer number of units it contains.
This would be the unit cap per tile. Such a cap has the benefit to be easy to understand, not to get in conflict with any other game rules and to be easy to implement.

Whether its one supply line or 50 the process is the same, you need a front line. [...]

In Civ3, you just don't need a front line. You never needed one, and most probably, you won't need one in Civ4.

With the invention of the proposed supply lines, you would have to protect those lines, as already pointed out. The lower the number of supply lines to defend, the lower the number of units bound to this task will be. In turn, with a given number of defenders for the supply line, the chance for protecting only one line will be higher than for protecting many lines.
In any way, by the use of a SOD you will not only concentrate your main attack force but will be able to concentrate your supply line defenders as well.
The result of this is just that the most significant military tactics will be to make use of SOD's.

That would be the idea - breach the line at a weak point, and decapitate the salient from supply. What you'd usually have is SOD vs SOD, both backed up by a front of weaker stacks, and both struggling to put pressure on a weak spot and drive through it (without compromising the integrity of their own line).

Which line? Again, your assumption seems to be that there is a new feature in the game which causes players to build front lines. And again, there never was such a need in the past nor do we have any information that it will be in Civ4.

Unless the SOD is all made up of fast units - inadvisable under the rock/paper/scissor system - no, because it can only move at the speed of the slowest unit (unless it splits up). You wouldn't exploit a breach with a SOD, you'd fan out with fast units, cut supply behind his lines, and smash his unsupplied and encircled front with the slower units from the salient/SOD.[...] (in reply to my argument that a SOD would have higher penetration capability than a single unit)

The speed of the SOD doesn't matter in regards to penetration depth, when supply lines are around. What does determine the penetration depth, though, is the chance to protect them against counter attacks (see above)

Quote:
In case you would have many single units, the defender would be able to cut off many lines of supply with just one unit, making the single unit approach even more vulnerable.

Not really, because they would be arranged in a front. He'd have to get behind it first. With just a SOD, and no front, this would be rather easy - and in effect, cutting the SOD's one supply line would be exactly equivalent to cutting many smaller supply lines, since the aim is to achieve a higher number of unsupplied units (not a higher number of cut routes - thats just a means to the end).

Any SOD is assumed to break a line quite easily. As soon as this has been done, the supply lines are an easy prey. Again, the SOD proves to be the superior means to be used, even if it were the defender who would do so.

I agree. Aiming at the unstoppable Stack of Death is trying to treat the symptom, though, not the underlying cause. That's why I think supply lines are good and why per-tile caps are bad. The former is about making you manage more strategic factors and thus creating more options, while the latter is about closing off options and forcing the player to choose something second best because of an arbitrary and rigid game rule.

Supply lines area good idea. They just aren'tgood to prevent your opponent from using SOD's, as they just make concentration more powerful.
Less lines to protect = more chances to be successful in this.
And all game rules are arbitrary and rigid. That's just the nature of game rules.

It depends on how supply lines are implemented. I think they should be automatically routed by the shortest path to the nearest friendly city at the start of the turn. To block them, you place units in the way. You have to occupy the ground. A single unit would be insufficient unless it was a 1 tile isthmus. To keep your lines from getting blocked, then, you'd also have to occupy the ground and protect it against attackers.

Exactly! As supply lines will be the shortest path, it is quite easy to determine where they are and where you may interrupt them. Seems, we both agree on that.
Correctly you point out that one unit won't be sufficient to protect such a line. So, you will need many units to do so. That way, the need for protection lowers your chance to build a big (=successful) invasion force.

With the SOD, you limit the number of supply lines to protect and by that, the number of units used for this task, as explained some lines above. This leads to a higher chance for the one line of supply to stay unharmed.

In turn, the defender would use SOD's to break through the proposed broad front of units. After having done so, he is the one to decide which line of supply to interrupt. Soon, the former front of the attacker will collapse, as it will at least partially run out of supply.

Again, the SOD has proven to be superior.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I think that there is one thing you are forgetting though, Bello. If you have a single SoD-with a single supply line-then YES it is technically easier to defend, but it is also a heck of a lot easier for the enemy to spot. Also, how do you defend it? Why, with another SoD of course (with it's OWN supply line). You see where this is going?? This basically means that you need 2 SoD's for every assault and-if you lose the one guarding the supply line of the other-then you have effectively doomed 2 stacks to almost certain death. Now, if you spread your units out over a front, then you have lots of individual supply lines-each of which needs to be disrupted in order to harm the effectiveness of the entire force. This means that the player needs far fewer units to defend his supply lines-especially as the front itself acts as a defense against enemy units slipping 'behind the lines'. So, in fact, supply lines WOULD help to reduce the effectiveness of SoDs!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[apatheist]

With the invention of the proposed supply lines, you would have to protect those lines, as already pointed out. The lower the number of supply lines to defend, the lower the number of units bound to this task will be. In turn, with a given number of defenders for the supply line, the chance for protecting only one line will be higher than for protecting many lines.
In any way, by the use of a SOD you will not only concentrate your main attack force but will be able to concentrate your supply line defenders as well.
The result of this is just that the most significant military tactics will be to make use of SOD's.

I think we have a failure to communicate. You would have the same number of supply lines in either case; it's just that with a stack, all the lines would follow the same route. That's a single point of failure. If an attacker blocks that single route, they block many supply lines. If you distributed your units into 5 groups along a single front, not only would it be harder for an attacker to flank you, but that attacker would have to block more routes to obstruct the supply.

Which line? Again, your assumption seems to be that there is a new feature in the game which causes players to build front lines. And again, there never was such a need in the past nor do we have any information that it will be in Civ4.

I think his statement was more of a wish and a hope.

And all game rules are arbitrary and rigid. That's just the nature of game rules.

That's not at all true. Some rules are a gentle nudge. Caps are a poke in the eye. The best-designed rules are ones you don't even notice because they are so natural.

Exactly! As supply lines will be the shortest path, it is quite easy to determine where they are and where you may interrupt them.

Let's suppose you have a north/south isthmus 3 tiles across. Your forces are on the northeast side of the isthmus, with your cities in the south, so the supply line travels north through the easternmost tiles. Your enemy lands a unit on one of those easternmost tile behind your main force. What should happen then? I say that the supply line shifts one tile to the west. That may make the line longer, thus shortening your units' range, but it's still there. In order to block it completely, your enemy would have to place 3 units in a line completely blocking the isthmus. A partial blockade would be useful if the attacker is near the limits of supply. Pillaging roads would have an even greater effect by effectively lengthening the supply lines.

In turn, the defender would use SOD's to break through the proposed broad front of units. After having done so, he is the one to decide which line of supply to interrupt. Soon, the former front of the attacker will collapse, as it will at least partially run out of supply.

Except the defender who breaks through can't move nearly as fast as the attacker, as it's quite likely the attacker's home territory. So the attacker is not at such a disadvantage. It would be harder than that to fully cut off the force, since the supply line would automatically re-route to the next best path as described above. Also, the implementation of supply lines that I favor would cause your out-of-supply units to slowly bleed health. They wouldn't die immediately from lack of supply. That balances it so that the attacker still cares about protecting their supply lines, but not so much so that the attacker is so vulnerable. Finally, let's not forget that the counter-attacking defender has to worry about his supply lines for the units blocking supply.

Again, the SOD has proven to be superior.

That's an odd definition of proven. Or superior.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

If a supply line system was implemented, then fronts would make a lot of sense, for the reason I stated above-that each group of units in the front line basically protect the flanks of the group of units on either side-thus allowing for much longer supply lines. A SoD, on the other hand, becomes increasingly vulnerable, as a single long supply line is both easy to detect and disrupt-even if it is being strongly defended-because the defenders of the line can't exactly be everywhere at once!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[frekk]

The SOD currently is the most efficient military means available. One may like it or not, it is just the truth as this is pre-determined by current game rules.
For Civ3, we know that this is the case, for Civ4 we at least don't have any information which would indicate a change in this concept.

Who said otherwise?

The only way to change this would be to re-invent the rules as of Civ1-2, which makes you kill the entire stack as soon as the first defender gets killed

There are many, many other ways and many different ideas for how troops can be deployed. That, is just one. Off the top of my head I can think of 5-6 different ways to discourage SODs, without actually forbidding them or doing anything as radical and simplistic as civ1.

This would be the unit cap per tile. Such a cap has the benefit to be easy to understand, not to get in conflict with any other game rules and to be easy to implement.

But it's silly. There are real reasons why militaries operated along wider fronts, which CAN be modelled quite easily.

In Civ3, you just don't need a front line. You never needed one, and most probably, you won't need one in Civ4.

Well, we know this ... that's the problem we are discussing.

With the invention of the proposed supply lines, you would have to protect those lines, as already pointed out. The lower the number of supply lines to defend, the lower the number of units bound to this task will be. In turn, with a given number of defenders for the supply line, the chance for protecting only one line will be higher than for protecting many lines.
In any way, by the use of a SOD you will not only concentrate your main attack force but will be able to concentrate your supply line defenders as well.

But supply must extend in a line. Unless it is very short, the most efficient way to do this is simply to create a front - otherwise you would have to defend every single tile of the supply line. It has nothing to do with "number of supply lines" - a front has basically one supply line, same as a single stack. The only difference is that it can take many more routes to get to the front.

It's a rather odd idea, this "trailing front" thing, anyway. Armies are not comets! And is your only real objection here that you want to see horizontal fronts rather than vertical ones? A classic front will still have SODs of a sort - sitting out at the front of the line, pushing it forward. In any battle between large forces, you would get two fronts, each with SODs, trying to press through without letting the other SOD breach their own lines (and yes, numbers and quality of troops are still a big advantage of course, provided you don't use them foolishly).

Which line? Again, your assumption seems to be that there is a new feature in the game which causes players to build front lines. And again, there never was such a need in the past nor do we have any information that it will be in Civ4.

What? This is a bizarre conversation. We're discussing the merits of implementing *new* rules, not talking about non-existant rules.

Any SOD is assumed to break a line quite easily. As soon as this has been done, the supply lines are an easy prey. Again, the SOD proves to be the superior means to be used, even if it were the defender who would do so.

The SOD can breach an enemy line, and is in fact necessary to the task, but, without a front of its own, it cannot exploit a breach - or it loses access to its own supply line and in the process of attempting to encircle, becomes encircled itself. Besides, there is only place a SOD could possibly cut a supply line and that's at an isthmus. Anywhere else and a SOD is as useless as a third ear for cutting supply lines because it cannot encircle (without becoming something other than a SOD).

Supply lines simply DO result in fronts. They are utilized in virtually every one of the many hex-and-chit board wargames I've ever played, and they are the sole reason why one does not outrun his front - because if you do, you're dead meat, no matter how many forces you have.

A short excerpt from the supply line rules from one of the great classics of the genre, Avalon Hill's Rise and Decline of the Third Reich:

27.2 Supply Lines

(snip)

27.22 A unit is in supply if it can trace a line of controlled hexes, free of enemy ZOC, between itself and a supply source. Enemy ZOC over the unit and/or the source does not block this supply line as long as all hexes in the supply line between the unit and the source are free of enemy ZOC. Units adjacent to a source are always in supply ...

Being out of supply was death.

27.42 Unsupplied units may not move during their Movement or Combat phase. They may not advance to attack the enemy, may not advance after combat, may not exploit a Breakthrough, and may not advance to occupy an Attrition-gained hex. They may be moved by SR [Strategic Redeployment], but only if supply has been restored in the interim ... (snip) ... unsupplied units are eliminated if still unsupplied at the end of their player turn. This is so even if they were in supply at some intermediate point in their turn ...

That's how it works in wargames aiming for realism. Nothing so complicated needs to be implemented (the supply rules in that game go from sec. 27.1 to sec. 27.44) but something similar could certainly be implemented, with much the same results.

 

[Che Guava]

OK, how about this (my apologies to whomever I ripped this off from, I'm sure I saw this in an earlier thread!):

Whenever you make an incursion into an enemy'es territory, any tile that you pass through becomes part of your pseudo-territory or control zone: the cultural borders remain the same but the area is shaded in your civ colour. This denotes that you have occupied this territory and, while you have'nt annexed it, you have pacified it and it is under your control. This trail of pseudo-territory behind you becomes your supply line to your own territory. As long as you have a line of control to your own territory, neutral territory, 'friendly' territory (any civ you are at peace with), friendly seaport/airport, your units will continue to operate at normal. If an enemy unit gets behind your line, reclaims its territory (just by passing over it, unless there is a unit guarding it), your supply line is cut off, and your unit progressively loses strength over time (I'm not sure how this would work in the new combat system, but lets say it would be the equivilent of losing a HP every 2 turns that you don't have access to supplies).

This would create an incentive to spread your units over a broad area when you invade: a SoD would leave a narrow pseudo-territory behind your, easily broken up by a single enemy unit. Making a line of units across a larger area would be tougher to cut off, but might be easier to penetrate through. It would be a a balance, and bring much needed strategy into invasions.

 

[Commander Bello]

A general response to Aussie_Lurker, Frekk and the others who have been so kind as to give me their argurmens (it becomes just too much to answer each single argument in detail):
1) I very much like the idea of supply lines. I would be glad to see such a concept being implemented in Civ4
2) I very much dislike the overwhelming power of a SOD
3) Despite 1) and 2), currently the SOD is the superior form of using your military for both, attack and defense. I found no information that this might change (about the artillery thing I will discuss later). Furthermore, in Civ4 the SOD (due to only having one combat stat anymore) will defend by itself. It even offers more tactical options for attack, as in the SOD you will find the optimal combination of forces, but not in units spread over a whole front.
4) Supply lines only make sense if they are limited by nature, meaning that they may be interrupted and / or will be finite in some way. The absence of supply lines at all is just the same as having unlimited, unrestricted supply lines as we had in Civ3 (I guess, to this we all agree)
5) Any combat between a SOD and units deployed in a front line pattern will result in a victorious SOD, with the "front line units" being destroyed (we just assume that the RNG won't give the 1/million streak of results)
6) As the interruption of a supply line won't mean immediate death of the unsupplied units, a SOD would remain powerful for some additional turns, even if it would be cut off from supply
7) As, after all what we know, cities are still the main organisational item for your and your opponents empire, a military campaign will always be targetting at the cities
8) As I assume 5), 6) and 7) to be undisputed, the SOD will have a much bigger chance to take over an opponents city than "front line units" would have.
9) If we limit our examination to an orthogonal pattern (just for simplicity and easier counting) any town of the attacker will have only 3 adjacent tiles where the defender could deploy his force. As the defender in this discussion is assumed not to make use of SOD's, even the sum of units on these three tiles will not be as high as the number of units in a SOD (of the attacker)
10) The chance for the attacker to take a town will be higher than the chance of the defender to take a town

Ok, I guess I summed up all current information available.
Now, about the artillery units. We know that artillery units may damage up to six units in a stack (most probably this cap will be reached only by the most sophisticated and most promoted arties, not by a regular catapult).
In turn, this means that I would either have just one unit per tile to limit the colleteral damage OR that I would try to have at least 7 units per tile.
As 1 unit per tile will become an easy prey for any kind of coordinated attack, the logical conclusion is to have more units per tile. Any concentration of more than one unit at a tile in principle already means stack (leading directly to the stack of doom)
Based on this assumptions, the bigger just means the better. Having the bigger SOD means the more chances not only to survive but also to stay with the most tactical options (moving forward, splitting, rejoining, protecting wounded units and so on, whatever you like).

Now, about the front line idea:
I completely agree that this would be more realistic. It even would look much better (as being more intuitiv) on the map. Nevertheless, the rules don't offer any advantage for this kind of deployment, as (see above) all military conflicts in the end are targetted towards getting cities. So, in the end everything comes down to concentrate your units towards a single tile (the center tile of the targetted city). The benefit of holding enemy territory is rather low (ok, you may starve him down a bit or you may try to get hold of one of his ressources, but that's it.) If you don't take his cities, he will take yours.
So, front lines don't offer any strategic benefit. The tactical benefit very much is based on the given map, but overall will be low as well.
In the end, currently this makes front lines just an aesthetic feature, nothing more.

As we know that there will be caps in Civ4 (colletaral damage = 6 units) as there have been in Civ3 (colleteral damage = 1 unit) BUT no cap for unit deployment per tile, this already makes clear that having more units per tile means more success. This is just pure maths. The only thing which will be changed for Civ4 is one single factor in the whole formula.
As long as you add cap after cap to that formula, but there is no cap for the number of units at a given tile, still adding more units to that tile means to be victorious in the end. The other caps just may influence, how manyunits you have to add, but they don't influence the effect in principle.

To avoid this, my proposal (which I see is not very much liked, yet anyway..) is to have a unit cap per tile (let's say just 10 or whatever other number).

In this case, you really have to think strategically. This even would force you to make front lines, as otherwise your units would just run in battles of attrition.
The backside of the medal is that the AI would have to cope with this enhanced strategic feature as well, as afterwards it makes very much a difference which units are moved first and will enter combat first.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

As has been said previously, Commander Bello, I think that what started as a query about whether stacks of doom have been nerfed (which they have and haven't-depending on who you believe ) has grown into a more general discussion about in what ways the game could be altered to 'nerf' SoD's even more-without arbitrary limitations on stack sizes. Within the context of that discussion, supply lines, soft stack targets and collateral damage could potentially work together to make SoD's much less successful. That doesn't mean they will be in the game (aside from collateral damage), its just nice to dream about how such a system would work if all those components were there. Also, if I am not mistaken, you came up with what I thought was the definitive model for supply lines and, if it could be modded in, should be put in the game as a matter of urgency.
Perhaps this thread would be better off in the ideas and suggestions forum, given that this is what the thread has effectively turned into.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Che Guava]

Point of Information: is the SoD considered a large (>5) group of identical type units travelling together in a single tile, or just a large group of units (of any/mixed type) travelling together in a single tile?

If the former is true, I do think that civ4 may have solved the problem. If it's the latter, then probably not...

 

[Commander Bello]

Point of Information: is the SoD considered a large (>5) group of identical type units travelling together in a single tile, or just a large group of units (of any/mixed type) travelling together in a single tile?

If the former is true, I do think that civ4 may have solved the problem. If it's the latter, then probably not...

The SOD, if composed correctly, always consisted on different units. In Civ3, a SOD made of some good defenders, some good (=fast moving) attackers and a lot of artillery type units was almost unstoppable.
As I pointed out above, my fear is that this problem hasn't been solved yet, although I admit that it may have become harder to have the lethal SOD.

 

[joethreeblah]

The SOD currently is the most efficient military means available. One may like it or not, it is just the truth as this is pre-determined by current game rules.
For Civ3, we know that this is the case, for Civ4 we at least don't have any information which would indicate a change in this concept.

Yes.... we do.
We have pretty clear information.
The developers have said quite clearly that this would be changed.

 

[Superkrest]

you know...as optimistic as i am about all this info about what will be better and how its gonna be better and blah blah blah...i am very sorely reminded of the info (before i was a member i still frequented this site) being thrown at us about CIV3 . it was alot of the same. they screamed how the AI was gonna be more tacticly inclined and how much smother negotiations would be and soo on...They did improve drasticly...but they developers definity over stated the abilities of the game ...by quite large sums IMHO. I really hate to be the "glass half empty" guy, but i think , as said one hundred times before that things will improve but such concepts as the one we are toiling back and fourth over may still not be nearly as advanced as we all hoped. i think we all expect a little to much from this game. the navy revamp, air revamp, trade,espionage,religion,boarder repersentation,diplomacy,and most importantly AI intelligence...i really doubt that our prayers will be answerd on many of these issues. i think had aussie,apethiest,bello and quite a few more forum members been designers..i would be happiers about this games prospects..but lets not give the designers this much credit..your guys ideas are going to be better then the games. just look at civ3.

 

[joethreeblah]

Now, about the artillery units. We know that artillery units may damage up to six units in a stack (most probably this cap will be reached only by the most sophisticated and most promoted arties, not by a regular catapult).
In turn, this means that I would either have just one unit per tile to limit the colleteral damage OR that I would try to have at least 7 units per tile.

Or, say if each unit has a 20% chance of being injured, up to a maximum of 6... each time the stack is attacked by artillery, you would want your units to be spread out as much as possible, with 4 or less per tile.

 

[apatheist]

OK, how about this (my apologies to whomever I ripped this off from, I'm sure I saw this in an earlier thread!):
(snipped)

I posted a thread about having a "secure territory" action that a unit could do that would enable you to use foreign roads and railroads on that tile. That could definitely be used to extend supply lines into enemy territory. I think an adaptation of the Avalon-Hill rules quoted above would be best: you are within supply as long as there is an unobstructed path between your units and your cities. I would add a distance constraint to that such that your supply lines could extend (for example) 2 turns of travel for a green zone and 4 turns of travel for a yellow zone, with everything beyond being the red zone. Being able to use roads both in your territory and enemy territory would be essential in extending supply lines any reasonable distance, which would make flanking your enemy to disrupt their control over your territory (undoing their "secure territory") and/or pillage roads/railroads a very effective tactic. In the green zone, your units are as they are in Civ3. In the yellow zone, they would have a chance of losing 1 HP every turn, but could not lose the last HP. In the red zone, they would definitely lose 1 HP per turn and could lose the last one.

4) Supply lines only make sense if they are limited by nature, meaning that they may be interrupted and / or will be finite in some way. The absence of supply lines at all is just the same as having unlimited, unrestricted supply lines as we had in Civ3 (I guess, to this we all agree)

By definition.

6) As the interruption of a supply line won't mean immediate death of the unsupplied units, a SOD would remain powerful for some additional turns, even if it would be cut off from supply

It would have power, but it would be increasingly vulnerable to counter-attack. That would reduce your ability to maintain your offensive, consolidate your gains, and could increase the chances of your units being destroyed outright, a very costly loss.

9) If we limit our examination to an orthogonal pattern (just for simplicity and easier counting) any town of the attacker will have only 3 adjacent tiles where the defender could deploy his force. As the defender in this discussion is assumed not to make use of SOD's, even the sum of units on these three tiles will not be as high as the number of units in a SOD (of the attacker)

That's true, but the goal is to reduce the chances of that situation from arising in the first place. Presumably, to reach tiles adjacent to the defender's city, the attacker has to travel over at least 1 tile of their own territory and at least 1 tile of the defender's territory. That's at least 2 tiles of supply, and more likely 3 or more. That's territory behind the main army that must be protected. A way to protect against that is to leave units behind on those tiles, making the main force smaller. Another way is to advance in a broad front, so it is harder for the defender to flank you, which again makes the main force smaller by dividing it.

In turn, this means that I would either have just one unit per tile to limit the colleteral damage OR that I would try to have at least 7 units per tile.

Which I think is precisely the problem with caps. Having a floor or a ceiling on a value is artificial and unbalancing in precisely the way you describe. It makes it less likely that you'd have, say, 3 units on a tile because that is demonstrably worse than 1 or at least 7. It's like the floor and ceiling on science discovery in Civ3; you could discover any tech in 50 turns with a single scientist.

As 1 unit per tile will become an easy prey for any kind of coordinated attack, the logical conclusion is to have more units per tile.

Not necessarily. There's a bang for buck. Let's say you have a front 4 tiles wide through which your supply could travel. If the enemy wants to cut off your supply entirely, they have to block each of the 4 tiles. That's easy to do if you haven't occupied them, but if you have stationed even a single, relatively weak defender on each one of those tiles, it makes it less worthwhile for the counter-attacker to attack any single one of those units, because all it does is kill the one unit. They'd have to have a good chance of killing all 4 because that's the only way they'd get significant benefit compared to the opportunity cost of using that unit to counter-attack your main force.

So, in the end everything comes down to concentrate your units towards a single tile (the center tile of the targetted city). The benefit of holding enemy territory is rather low (ok, you may starve him down a bit or you may try to get hold of one of his ressources, but that's it.)

I partly agree. If you reduce it to the actual taking of the city, then yes, it comes down to concentrating your units on a single tile. However, in order to make sure you can reach that city, to make sure you don't get counter-attacked en route, and to make sure you can hang on to the city once you take it, you'll have to create a broader front. Perhaps there should be a modification to the supply lines mechanism to address that last part: a city in resistance cannot be a source of supply. So, even when you conquer that city, it'll still be in resistance, so your army's supply lines will still be from further back, enabling a defender to counter-attack more effectively even after you have taken the city.

As we know that there will be caps in Civ4 (colletaral damage = 6 units) as there have been in Civ3 (colleteral damage = 1 unit)

I don't count 1 as a cap. There's a software design rule of thumb: the only numbers program code should care about are 0, 1, and infinity. In other words, in general, your special cases should only number three: when you have no things, when you have 1 thing, and when you have an arbitrary number of things. This refers to the fundamental code of a mechanism like bombardment or science, not to the attributes of a particular thing like a Cannon or a University.

To avoid this, my proposal (which I see is not very much liked, yet anyway..) is to have a unit cap per tile (let's say just 10 or whatever other number).

It's not that specific one that I dislike, it's any cap at all. The game should have more organic, natural calculations that don't have hard edges.

 

[Commander Bello]

Yes.... we do.
We have pretty clear information.
The developers have said quite clearly that this would be changed.

Sorry, but this is just a circular evidence.
It will be better since the said it will be better.

From the few information available, I don't see the massive improvement. There may be a partial improvement, I've never neglected that.
Yet, the primary root of the problem doesn't seem to have been properly adressed.

Or, say if each unit has a 20% chance of being injured, up to a maximum of 6... each time the stack is attacked by artillery, you would want your units to be spread out as much as possible, with 4 or less per tile.

No, one wouldn't.
A SOD has 9 adjacent tiles, so only 9 "open flanks" to be attacked from. Splitting enlarges the number of "open flanks" thus offering more "avenues of approach" to the opponent AND additionally limits the number of your units per tile, making the complete destruction of such a small stack more likely.

 

[Hellfire]

#1... I want to personally apologize for the misinformation about the stacks In civ1 and civ2. That was dumb of me and I've been proper punished by a tall beautiful redhead

#2... All companies hype, and software companies hype to the nth degree. Yes you are right and it is something to look out for. I work for a software company and it works the same way. Hype hype hype... and then when it comes out, a lot of the details just seem like WTH??? Sometimes it's just the fact that it's hard to predict what other people will do, but sometime's it's just someone doing something boneheaded.

#3... Under the circumstances, I can kind of see how supply lines might be something to alleviate the SOD tactic (though I'm still not entirely in agreement that the SOD is spawn of satan). I don't like how artillery damages all units, only because it makes artillery very powerful. It also makes it hard to defend units and the idea that up to 6 units in a stack could suffer some damage punishes small reasonably sized stacks and doesn't nerf the huge 50-100 unit SOD stacks enough. It makes it harder to defend your offensive units.

 

[Timeeee4]

#1... I want to personally apologize for the misinformation about the stacks In civ1 and civ2. That was dumb of me and I've been proper punished by a tall beautiful redhead

#2... All companies hype, and software companies hype to the nth degree. Yes you are right and it is something to look out for. I work for a software company and it works the same way. Hype hype hype... and then when it comes out, a lot of the details just seem like WTH??? Sometimes it's just the fact that it's hard to predict what other people will do, but sometime's it's just someone doing something boneheaded.

#3... Under the circumstances, I can kind of see how supply lines might be something to alleviate the SOD tactic (though I'm still not entirely in agreement that the SOD is spawn of satan). I don't like how artillery damages all units, only because it makes artillery very powerful. It also makes it hard to defend units and the idea that up to 6 units in a stack could suffer some damage punishes small reasonably sized stacks and doesn't nerf the huge 50-100 unit SOD stacks enough. It makes it harder to defend your offensive units.

Even though realisticly(sp), having pikemen with you swordsmen won't save them from boulders falling from the sky. And in real life artilery are very powerful, and I don't think this was reflected in civ 3.

 

[frekk]

Any combat between a SOD and units deployed in a front line pattern will result in a victorious SOD, with the "front line units" being destroyed (we just assume that the RNG won't give the 1/million streak of results)

You're still thinking all or nothing. What happens to a SOD without a front line, that meets a marginally smaller SOD with a front line, but total equal number of units? I don't really see that single SOD has all that much advantage anymore, especially after it gets its supply cut and loses all its movement points and suffers lower combat ratings.

As the interruption of a supply line won't mean immediate death of the unsupplied units, a SOD would remain powerful for some additional turns, even if it would be cut off from supply

But less powerful. Remember, we're not talking about any disparity in the actual numbers of units available. Team A has 100, and Team B has 100. Team A has them all in one stack, Team B has them in one stack of, say, 75, and 5 of 5. If Team A gets cut off, his stack of 100, unsupplied, is probably not going to beat the other guys main stack, depending on how you fix numbers for supply. As I've shown above, in many games featuring supply, units out of supply at the end of a round are gone, finished, and removed - period. Not saying that's what it should be in civ, but you can certainly assign penalties high enough to discourage anyone from even thinking about exposing their supply lines to being cut.

8) As I assume 5), 6) and 7) to be undisputed, the SOD will have a much bigger chance to take over an opponents city than "front line units" would have.

Again, you're still thinking all or nothing! Fronts wouldn't be attacking towns - SODs would. Fronts, would be there to support the SOD and protect supply routes.

As the defender in this discussion is assumed not to make use of SOD's,

??? Why not ??? The defender of a city is at his supply point. He can lump everything into the city. There's no line to protect, and therefore no need for a front.

Now, about the front line idea:
I completely agree that this would be more realistic. It even would look much better (as being more intuitiv) on the map. Nevertheless, the rules don't offer any advantage for this kind of deployment, as (see above) all military conflicts in the end are targetted towards getting cities. So, in the end everything comes down to concentrate your units towards a single tile

But if there were supply lines, how could you protect them, when all your forces are in one tile? I mean, it works fine with the rules the way they are now. But it really wouldn't pan out with supply lines, because you've got to protect them. If you try to put troops on every square in a line extending back to your city, he just goes around your SOD and cuts the line somewhere along the road home. You'd have to pull back your SOD to deal with it and meanwhile, he'd be travelling further back, cutting it yet further back still. You would, in effect, be in retreat. The only way to protect the supply line to your SOD, is to have a front that he can't get around easily, and you've got your SOD right there to deal with it if he does. It's not like you've got 100 units, and you're going to spread them out all equally ... you would still form a main body. A flying wedge SOD.

So, front lines don't offer any strategic benefit.

Again ... how else are you going to protect a supply line?

If you put all your units in one tile, and lose supply, then your units are only at ... whatever, say 75% of their strength or whatever the effect of being unsupplied does. His will be at 100. So he can block your supply with 20% of his units in a front behind you, as well as form a SOD with 80% of his units - which has more combat power than your own, 75% stack. Then what good is your SOD?