Splitting the Stack of Doom.. GOOD OR BAD?

[frekk]

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.

Notthat powerful. Civ didn't do bad. Artillery was powerful because it made the soldiers easier to attack after a barrage, not really killed alot of them. Sometimes it did almost nothing. Have you heard of the "Creeping Barrage?"

In WW1, they would shell the enemy's line for DAYS on end, and then attack. When they got there, the Germans would all pop up from their underground tunnels and mow them down with machineguns, because as soon as the guns went quiet they knew it was coming.

So some French commander invented the "Creeping Barrage". The artillery fire would sweep up, across their lines, past their lines, and then come back again and start all over again (like a windshield wiper, sort of - it would "creep" back and forth over the lines). At some point, on one of the sweeps as it was passing towards their line, they would advance the infantry about 100 yards behind the barrage, which rolled over their line and kept going, as it had already done dozens of times. So, they wouldn't know when the advance was coming - they'd be sitting in the tunnels, listening to the barrage get farther and waiting for it to come back their way on its next sweep, when a couple of grenades would drop into their tunnel. Game over.

Artillery is only good, if you take advantage of it by attacking on the ground.

 

[Commander Bello]

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.

I agree, yet the typical distance towards the next town to be taken is something like 6 tiles or even less. As some of those tiles are within your borders AND it will take the defender at least 1 turn to cut you off from supply, the duration of being under unsupplied conditions will be 3 turns in most cases.
A SOD by definition should be strong enough (by its sheer numbers) to survive AND to take that town, thus becoming supplied again (and were it only because of foraging).

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.

I agree that having a front line makes the way around being much longer, yet it makes the line thinner and by that, more likely to be interrupted by a strong assault. After that, since the front line as being described by you already manifested the supply line protection, the attacker (the one who broke the front line AND is making use of SOD's) is almost free in deploying his units.
I agree that he won't be able to de-supply all front line units but he will very likely do so for some. So, on both sides we have conditions of lost supply - for some of the front line units and the SOD. Whom of them will reach the enemy towns earlier, may depend on the map conditions, yet the SOD seems to have the better chances to get that town, meaning cutting off even more supply from the front line units (and again, not all supply, that is clear).

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.

When you point out that having 3 units/tile will be worse than 1 or 7, you have proven my statement. More is better, as 1 unit will get lost in case of being attacked.
Without a cap you may concentrate as many units as available on a certain point. As long as you have more units (of comparable strength) and it will be physically possible to concentrate them, you will win. This is just pure maths.
In turn this means that the first to have allocated units to a SOD will have the decision left where and to which extent to attack. He is the one to decide, the other one only may react, putting him into the weaker position (from a tactical point of view)

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.

I agree. Yet, the SOD will be able to breach the front line. After that, said 4 single units will fall within the next turn, as the SOD holds enough troops to allow for attack on all 4 tiles. That would cause unsupplied conditions and has to be avoided, so the front line has to be reorganised, which makes it either disappear as a front line or less threatening.
Again, as the "front line commander" does not know about his opponents tactical considerations, he himself must prepare not only to secure or re-establish the supply lines, but must take preparations against a possible counter-attack on his own cities.
As only two adjacent tiles are available for counter-attack on the victorious SOD (see below) because the 1 supply line protector typically won't count and the third front line units are too far away (you won't make use of your fast units as this would leave the slower units unprotected - a follow-on consequence of the paper-scissors-stone concept), the SOD has the better chances to survive a counter attack by the front line troops. Again, massive concentration will be beneficial.
fSff (f-frontline units, S-SOD)
xxxx (x-supply line protectors = 1)

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.

Against the front line approach I already brought my arguments. Making the just taken town being resistent means adding a new change in the concept and requires quite a good balancing as otherwise it could make wars completely pointless.
Anyway, I don't confront that idea, yet I see some follow-on problems.

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.

??? Sorry, didn't get that.

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.

The problem is, the game just HAS caps.
As we know this for sure, we have to find a solution to cope with this.
As for the damage factor there are caps (1 for normal units, 6 for arties) the logical conclusion is to cope with that by making use of the missing cap for the other factor.
Again, here my idea is that there should be a cap for all factors - the number of units and the damage a unit can do towards other units.
The other option - to have "unlimited" damage - was tested in Civ1 and Civ2 and was - for good reasons - not used anymore.

 

[Commander Bello]

@Frekk:
As you may have read, I don't oppose the supply line idea at all.

My point just is, that a SOD under current and known (as far as we just know about it) future conditions still is the most powerful means of deploying your military.
Your argumentation now makes use of SOD's as well, thus just proving the validity of my arguments and by that is very welcome.

Furthermore, you assume that the front line units have unlimeted movement AND the SOD just stays sitting around, both of which is just not true.
As I've pointed out in my posting above, front line units will be able to move only one adjacent tile in total as due to the p-s-s concept moving away the fast units will leave the others less protected against the best attacker.
Furthermore, as an attack from DIFFERENT tiles (after all what we know) won't be a coordinated one, the SOD will be pretty much able to kill off this uncoordinated attack - just one after the other.

Sure, there will be massive losses for the SOD as well. But what the heck? It will have done its duty and will have killed what crossed its path.
Just move it back, refresh and get your award.

Once again: I don't defend the SOD!
I would like to get rid of its power. But I don't see this happen in Civ4, based on what I currently know.
Still, I assume the SOD to be what has to be used - maybe you will have to concentrate more units to make for a real SOD, but nevertheless - once you own one, you rule the map.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I'm sorry, but am I invisible here? As I have said previously, I too want to see SoD's toned down-but not completely eliminated . For that reason alone I feel that HARD CAPS on units per tile is the wrong way to go-because its arbitrary and inflexible. Also, I remember Sirrian once highlighted how hard caps favoured an attacker in most cases, and defenders in coastal situations (just wish I could remember the thread it was in!!)
Anyway, that said, I do believe that collateral damage will bring us part of the way towards reducing the use of SoD's-but only if the maximum number of units hit is in some way tied to the number of units in the square (it could be that this-and promotions-is what determines the 0-6 extra units hit, wheras tech level-and promotions-might increase the maximum damage done via collateral damage). This would potentially make people more inclined to keep their stacks smaller in order to reduce the chance for collateral damage.
I don't believe that this would be enough, however, and feel that soft stack limits could take us an extra part of the way-by having open tiles (plains, grasslands, tundra and desert) have a cap of 5, say, and hills, mountains, forests, marsh and jungles have a cap of 3, then each extra unit above this reduces the entire stacks' combat strength by 10%. This would allow players to still use large stacks of units, but reduce their 'uber-powerful' nature.
Lastly, if you threw a halfway decent Supply Line system into the mix too (I would suggest Commander Bello's myself ), then I think the SoD would be effectively history, but by player choice rather than outside constraint.
Will all 3 be in? Almost certainly not (well, not in Vanilla at any rate). Could they eventually end up in? Almost certainly-whether as an official expansion or a player mod. Would any of the 3 eliminate SoD's on their own? Almost certainly not, but any one on their own could help to tone down their effectiveness quite well.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Meleager]

This has probably already been mentioned...

but anything with increases the amount of stratagy rather then simple force I support. I quite like what I hear about artilery at the moment. Supply lines would be good too of course.

just my $0.02

 

[apatheist]

I agree, yet the typical distance towards the next town to be taken is something like 6 tiles or even less. As some of those tiles are within your borders AND it will take the defender at least 1 turn to cut you off from supply, the duration of being under unsupplied conditions will be 3 turns in most cases.

In which case every unit in your SOD will have potentially lost HP. How intimidating is a stack of 20 units if every single one has only 2 HP?

A SOD by definition should be strong enough (by its sheer numbers) to survive AND to take that town, thus becoming supplied again (and were it only because of foraging).

The number of units you have is limited.

I agree that having a front line makes the way around being much longer, yet it makes the line thinner and by that, more likely to be interrupted by a strong assault. After that, since the front line as being described by you already manifested the supply line protection, the attacker (the one who broke the front line AND is making use of SOD's) is almost free in deploying his units.

If I understand your meaning correctly, the counter-attacker won't have free rein in deploying his units lest he be vulnerable to a counter-counter-attack. You are correct when you say the thinner line is more easily broken, but it isn't more easily penetrated.

When you point out that having 3 units/tile will be worse than 1 or 7, you have proven my statement. More is better, as 1 unit will get lost in case of being attacked.

Exactly. I was agreeing.

I agree. Yet, the SOD will be able to breach the front line. After that, said 4 single units will fall within the next turn, as the SOD holds enough troops to allow for attack on all 4 tiles. That would cause unsupplied conditions and has to be avoided, so the front line has to be reorganised, which makes it either disappear as a front line or less threatening.

If you're saying that it will always be possible to break through, well, yeah. But giant stacks will be less powerful than they were.

??? Sorry, didn't get that.

It's a general rule for developing software. If you're coding in different types of behavior based on the number of things and you pay attention to numbers that are not 0, 1, or "other," it's a sign of less-than-perfect design.

The problem is, the game just HAS caps.

Which I say is a design flaw. A cap is where the designers got tired of thinking.

As we know this for sure, we have to find a solution to cope with this.
As for the damage factor there are caps (1 for normal units, 6 for arties) the logical conclusion is to cope with that by making use of the missing cap for the other factor.
Again, here my idea is that there should be a cap for all factors - the number of units and the damage a unit can do towards other units.

Er... caps are bad. Putting more caps in doesn't make them any less bad.

My point just is, that a SOD under current and known (as far as we just know about it) future conditions still is the most powerful means of deploying your military.

Powerful isn't a problem. Overwhelmingly powerful is a problem. More should never (consistently) lose to less.

 

[Mercade]

When considering the Stack of Doom, one also wonders about the Stack of Defence. Will the same rules of collateral damage apply when you attack a city with your artillery?

Often enough when you encounter an AI city, there is a stack of several dozen defenders to be found (40-50 in a King city is no exception), and AI seems to crank out defenders at a faster rate that you can destroy them and heal your troups. It basically requires a Stack of Doom now to even make a dent in such defences.

 

[frekk]

My point just is, that a SOD under current and known (as far as we just know about it) future conditions still is the most powerful means of deploying your military.

Isn't this an obvious, and assumed, given? Who is arguing otherwise?

Your argumentation now makes use of SOD's as well

Not "now" - refer to my earlier posts about salients in a front. My argumentation hasn't changed.

Furthermore, you assume that the front line units have unlimeted movement AND the SOD just stays sitting around, both of which is just not true.

No, quite the opposite. The front advances behind the salient (SOD, if you like), the whole resembling a flying wedge. I've mentioned all this numerous times quite clearly. Just count how many times I've mentioned "advance" and "flying wedge".

Wiki stub on flying wedges. Although this is a tactical, and not a strategic or operational formation, it is a good analogy for salients.

Furthermore, as an attack from DIFFERENT tiles (after all what we know) won't be a coordinated one

Whether you attack from 1 tile or 5 tiles or 15 tiles, it is all the same, so long as units attack one at a time as under the present system.

However, I am not whatsoever opposed to the SOD. I just think the lone SOD is rather silly. A SOD should need support from flanking forces and rearguards, such as a line of small stacks forming a front and advancing just behind it. One way to create an incentive to do this, is to implement the necessity to protect supply lines (which do not necessarily have to be anymore complex than simply being able to trace a route back to a city).

 

[frekk]

When considering the Stack of Doom, one also wonders about the Stack of Defence. Will the same rules of collateral damage apply when you attack a city with your artillery?

Just a guess, but I imagine so ... personally I think under the new artillery rules, it will not pay to amass too many defenders in a city - just enough to thwart light attacks from high-mobility units (and I imagine the best defenders will primarily be those which are good against high-mobility units). Instead the focus will be on preventing the enemy from reaching the city in the first place.

 

[Aphex_Twin]

There's nothing better than stacking 100 units on top of each other and taking a whole railway empire in 1 turn