Stack Move + Overcrowding, making armies easier to manage

[Kiwi Tyrant]

I would like to see all Siege unit's being able to move under other unit's like Generals and Workers. Siege and Generals should also have the option of 'attaching' to a unit and thus moving when the covering unit is moved.

* If the covering unit suffer's damage, the attached unit simultaneously takes collateral damage (this damage is also based on Attacker's strength vs Attached strength).
* If the covering unit is killed, the attached unit dies too.
* Move at speed of attached unit, eg. 2

This would free up abit of time and congestion while keeping with the non-stacking theme. Not sure how you can free up moving large intercontinental invasion fleet's, but treating attached Siege like Workers when moving could help, and is balanced out by the associated risk.

 

[thordk]

All we need is land transports. Build some transport with weak defense, board your riflemen and cart them to the front.

Simple stacking would be a much to easy workaround to undermine the tactical use of the map layout.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Asking for limited stacking, move stacking, stack penalties and other methods for stacking. Any variations of stacking. Try thinking up other methods that keep with 1upt, rather than bend it.

I have no problem with the tactical ramifications of 1UPT, it is simply the micromanagement of having to move large armies that I have a problem with. Wasting time giving lots of orders isn't something that you can cope with via familiarity. It is a problem no matter how much you tolerate it.

If you disagree with the problem as I have stated it, I'd like to know why, or if you have found a better way to get a 8 to 20 unit army anywhere.

 

[Kiwi Tyrant]

All we need is land transports. Build some transport with weak defense, board your riflemen and cart them to the front.

Simple stacking would be a much to easy workaround to undermine the tactical use of the map layout.

If you place mixed unit's (siege & cavalry) in a 'cart', what speed does the land transport do? As fast as a horsemen galloping alongside it? When the wagon pull's up, disembarking unit's could be also be tedious.....


I would go further with my earlier post and also allow embarked unit's to 'attach' to escorting ship's (1 per ship). This would greatly optimize moving large invasion fleet's around the map. At the moment it seem's unrealistic that I have to escort and protect embarked unit's by trying to basically surround them. Again, time consuming. If a hex represent's a large area, why are my escorting ship's cruising a minimum of 100 km/miles outside the perimeter of my transported unit's?

 

[vandyr]

I enjoy moving each unit heh, helps me keep a firm grasp of the tactical picture.

And I hope unit stacking never, ever, ever returns to the Civ franchise, although I can see the argument for non combat unit stacking.

 

[greggbert]

Dude, in real life it's a massive task to move huge armies.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Dude, in real life it's a massive task to move huge armies.

But only for the soldiers doing the moving. When president Obama decides to conquer Mexico for its elephants, he will just tell the generals to do that, instead of giving them each specific order of where to move the troops each time.

 

[MikeJep]

I had previously thought about units deployed in combat vs. mobile. I also really hate that warriors - infantry have of 2 and mounted have 4 . It is similar to the problem we faced in . Trying to set up a naval perimeter only to have units with 6-8 movements zip in without a hitch was ridiculous (no ability to respond).

I propose the following to remedy.

Use a modified deployment mechanic of siege units to all land units. While not deployed (mobile) the units can utilize roads, possibly have an additional :c5:moves:, may not attack (without great penalty) and suffers a minor defensive penalty. When deployed (combat) the aforementioned penalties are removed as well as the ability to utilize roads.

I like stacking to much to let it go. I detest that units traveling in peace time can't move through each other, or they will leave the road they are traveling due to another unit in their path. I do however see the problem of stacks of doom. I would also like to see stacks have the ability to attack together.

I agree that putting a set -% penalty to isn't enough. Vary large number times -% penalty is still retains the ability to be very large number!

What about this idea instead. Order up the strengths of your stacked units from strongest to weakest (for the current combat). Apply the following penalty: n*(x=0.20). Were the first unit is n = 0 (100% effective). Second n = 1 (80% effective). Third n = 3 (60% effective). and so on until the sixth unit is n = 5 (0% effective) and would add nothing to the stack. This puts a soft unit cap of 5 units per tile. The x factor penalty of "0.20" could be adjusted as the player sees fit via moding. Want a soft cap of 3? then x=0.33 penalty.

You may see the need to put 2-3 units per tile but might want to spread the rest out.

 

[ArmChairAttila]

What i would do is to use great general to form army, and add formations options to him, or even allow him to setup troops in good direction, so moving general would mean moving whole army

This would be very nice.

 

[Callonia]

Naw, if you want to move units in a stack, they should be helpless like civilians, and they can't immediately disband the stack group until next turn.

So that you can't just move the whole stack through a chokepoint and spread them out and win easy. Will penalize scrupulous players who attempt that by losing their whole stack to a single military unit, and while I'm at it, they can be captured and used by your enemy.

There ya go, now stacks can be used for ferrying units but very bad to risk in battle lines.

I don't mind the time it takes to move some units.

 

[MkLh]

Problem: 1UPT makes it hard to move around large armies. 20 units = 20 move commands, and pathing isn't generally good enough for long goto's of 20 units.

Solution Part 1: Units can stack more than 1UPT
Solution Part 2: If there are other units in a tile with you, your strength decreases, and you cannot ranged attack, due to 'overcrowding'.
Solution Part 3: Stacked units may be given move commands en masse, and will all move at once.

Outcome: During combat, it is still not reasonable to stack units, due to the penalties involved, but you can still ball them up for when they are on the march. It also makes it so that small movements of armies can be done a little bit more efficiently.

Thoughts?

Even when you wouldn't have option of stack attacks, this kind of stacking would be tactically really beneficial and would change nature of war quite bit. You don't necessary need it. It would be a major improvement if units could just move without blocking each other. For instance, pathfinder would find the path that would not cross any other units path, or if this is too much to calculate, a crossing unit would wait for one turn until the other one has passed. If there would also be possibility to put captions on a map squares like in Civ4 (so you would be able to mark a square where you have sent an unit already), arranging units would be much more efficient.