Stack Crowding

[WarKirby]

I've just remembered an awesome idea from another mod I once played, that would be nice in FF.

Basically, whenever the number of units in a stack increased beyond a certain value, say.... 20. All units there would recieve the Crowded promotion, which gave a penalty to strength and withdrawal chance, as well as making the units take more collateral damage.

This provided a nice way to make stacks of doom less invincible, and forced spreading out of large armies, instead of crowding it all on the nearest hill forest.

The penalties started out small. -10% strength, etc. But it increased with more crowding. 30 units gave Crowded II, which adde a farther 20% penalty. 40 units gave crowded III, an additional 25% penalty, making vast stacks horribly weak.

I think it could have really improved the game a lot, if they ever did it properly. Alas, they never got around to teaching the AI that massive stacking was bad, so it ended up giving human players an unfair advantage. I think xienwolf would be capable of doing it properly, though.

It could add some more interesting tactical depth, beyond "biggest stack wins" tactics. Perhaps the focus on small numbers of elite units in FF would necessitate reducing those thresholds, but I think the concept has potential.

What does everyone think of this idea?

 

[Humakty]

What i think ? You could be nicer with TR team...

 

[Methuselah]

I think you should make a thread labelled "Warkirby's big ideas" and post them all there.

As for this suggestion - I really like it and would like to see it implemented *if* the AI can be taught about it too.

 

[TimSLS]

I think its civ 2 I'm thinking of (though might have been 1, they all sort of bleed into each other in my memory), but it used to be that if any unit in a stack out in the open lost a battle, they were all destroyed (or heavily damaged maybe, but I think destroyed). It introduced interesting tactics - you'd have to use forts and cities (simulating logistics and supply lines in a way), and couldn't just safely move your giant army out in the open. Best of all, it implemented a use for screening forces, as sometimes want to have an advanced guard, rear guard, etc flanking your army so your main stack wouldn't get attacked and wiped out in one blow.

But this would be way too radical a change to be worthwhile to implement (not to mention it has plenty of its own problems), so I'll have to get my nostalgia fix of it playing the civ 2 Dagor Bragollach scenario...which is occasionally worth prying away from FfH and FF if only for the sheer coolness of slaying balrogs with Fingolfin.

Though the original idea might have merit, if the ai could understand it.

 

[WarKirby]

What i think ? You could be nicer with TR team...

yes, you guessed my source

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

yeah, that was a very good feature of total realism. not sure how hard it would be to teach the AI about it, but it's a nice idea.

 

[zup]

If you don't like big stacks, play a lower difficulty and don't bother building them yourself.

 

[Willgar]

With FF in particular, biggest stack does not win. I would argue that dealing with a big stack of doom is much easier than having to defend a wide border from multiple mid sized stacks. With collateral damage spells and ranged weapons, a big stack is like shooting fish in a barrel.

Really love all the suggestions regarding additonal gameplay elements that are flooding in but would swap all that for a FF version that was as stable as core FfH and better AI. personally, i would rather see months of no new features for polish and stability.

 

[Humakty]

All in all, stack limitation would be a very nice feature, but, the TR team hasn't, for the moment, solved the main problem, which is that the AI doesn't know how to use this element.

While I don't doubt someone else (like the FF team) could succeed in implementing correctly this feature, I think that their time could be put to better use, like rendering the AI less clumsy in general, as a good player needs to play deity level to have some challenge during end game. (whereas deity forces most to WB a little at the start of the game, because of the absurd bonuses the AIs get)

 

[Iceciro]

Yeah, I would say that until we get the AI sorted out with the features we have NOW, we probabaly shouldn't cram more features that will make it play poorly into the game.

 

[WarKirby]

Well, unlike my infantry formations idea, this would be relatively simple for the AI to understand. It would just not make stacks greater than the threshold.

Granted, all AI coding is diffiucult. But this particular one is a simple concept, so it should be far less difficult than most.

 

[kdodge]

I really like this idea!

I also miss the days of distributed forts and screening forces.

 

[Randomness]

Great idea... but unfortunatly I must agree with the fact that the FF teams time may be better spent elsewhere.

 

[Tarquelne]

As long as the AI understands it I think it'd be great.

Unintended consequences might make the AI programming a lot more complicated than "Don't make stacks that are big enough to invoke the penalty." Especially around special cases like sieges and chokepoints.

 

[zup]

And city garrisons? 20 units versus 160 is pretty horrible odds.

 

[Aroldo]

I agree with Willgar and Iceciro. Better to stabilize/polish things. There´s so much stuff already in...

 

[WarKirby]

And city garrisons? 20 units versus 160 is pretty horrible odds.

If, when armiies are that big, you allow the enemy to reach your city, you've already failed anyways.

Beyond the first hundred turns of warrior spam or so, 99% of the combat is done outside cities. Proactive defending is a much better strategy than siting back behjind walls and allwing enemies to pillage and attack at their leisure.

 

[zup]

Not necessarily, though said it becomes impossible with the said numbers but I can give you an example of when to camp behind city walls.

<code>XPX
XCX
XPX

 

[zup]

XPX
XCX
XPX

X = whatever that's passable
P = peak
C = city, preferably on a hill

A border city, built in a mountain pass, your empire is to the west, the enemy assaults from the east. I'd rather just leave the eastern side unimproved and hang back behind my walls. It is only 3 stacks (60 units) that can be near it but the enemy can have more stacks further away which consist of fast units that can reach the city in one turn. And 20 defenders are supposed to kill how many attackers in one turn? This is exactly the sort of city you dump a stack of 100 arquebusiers in.

I say don't limit stack size or penalize large stacks. Unit maintenance already costs like hell (especially after 200% inflation).

 

[Honor]

Stack Crowding is not cool. Not cool at all. Encouraging micromanagement is a bad idea. If anything, mods should be looking to encourage unit stacking, not the other way round. So God no.