Stacked armies

[Snovvdog]

Hello,


It's been a long time since I've been on this forum so apologies if it's been asked a lot:

Is there a mod that removes the 1 unit per tile limit and allows armies to be moved around efficiently ? Combat in civ 5 is very boring and tiring, I spend half the time moving my units around and turns take 5x as long as in civ4, especially late in the game, I don't play any mapsize larger than small as a result of the 1 unit per tile limit as I simply can't be arsed moving 200's of units around 1 by one every turn, it's especially annoying when you finish 1 ai and go for the next one. Is there a way to move armies like in civ4, so I spend 5 minutes waging war with a weak civ rather than 50 minutes ?

I don't see how this is ''realistic'', afaik in real wars nations concentrated their power in 1 place rather than smearing it out across the whole line when attacking.

Also annoying, having to wait for the animations to finish, for example I surround a city with 5 artillery pieces, I have to wait until it's done shooting every single time rather than quickly attack with all 5 of em in a second (I can't attack with artillery nr.2 before animation from artillery nr.1 is done), same with airplanes, why can't I bomb/strike with all 6 at once. Combat is extremely tiresome now, is there a way to speed up combat in civ 5 and moving units around, I don't want to waste many minutes per turn moving my units around.

I love civ 5 for the new happiness, culture use, the better exploration, city states, natural wonders, etc. But the combat is SOOOOO boring and tiresome now, it ruins the game for me, I haven't even finished 1 single game larger than ''standard'' simply because I'm bored at the end and can't be arsed spending 2 hours conquering a backwards weak civ on the other side of the globe. I like to take 30 seconds max per turn, not 5 minutes, but the game doesn't let me play fast .

Is there a mod that allows stacking, and allows selecting a stack/group in 1 go ?

 

[Peng Qi]

You could turn the animations off.

 

[Rinnero]

I don't see how this is ''realistic'', afaik in real wars nations concentrated their power in 1 place rather than smearing it out across the whole line when attacking.

Have you heard about such thing as line of front?

 

[vincentz]

hehe. imagine a waterloo battle, or a d-day converted into civ5.
the frontline would start at the top of norway and end around south africa.

 

[Babri]

hehe. imagine a waterloo battle, or a d-day converted into civ5.
the frontline would start at the top of norway and end around south africa.

And if real world was converted to cIV it would be fun to see city garrisons taller than Pyramids & other city buildings.

 

[Babri]

To OP : In cIV stacks of doom you could not represent conquests of Alexander, victories of Khalid bin Walid against much much larger Persian forces or Afghanistan defeating Soviet & US invaders. The point is that cIV was mostly about spamming units & crawling slowly through the enemy empire, suicide your siege units & then attack. CiV however involves much strategy, that is why ciV AI is difficult to program because spamming alone doesn't work.

 

[fleitner]

There is no mod that allows stacking of units.

I considered the battles in CivIV to be boring - just move your own SOD onto the SOD of your enemy - instant outcome (one way or the other). Now in CivV the battles are more more interesting, it makes actually sense to put the right unit in the right place

 

[Becomedeath]

Once again I'm forced to ask...if you want the play style of Civ 4, why aren't you just playing Civ 4?

This is a lot like complaining that you don't want to have to remember 6 different move types so could Chess just have the same moves as Draughts.

 

[Gehennas]

I agree with OP in some points: warmongering in Civ5 is boring. I don't have problems with animations - I like to play in simplified mode, but moving units one-by-one wastes a lot of time. I wish there be a magic button to move the whole frontline 1 tile forward.

Civ5 uses the combat model different from Civ3-4. In Civ4 one unit is equal to RL batallion (300-1300 soldiers). That is why there are units like grenadier or machinegun. In Civ5 one unit is equal to RL division (10.000-15.000) or even corpse (20.000-45.000). "Rifleman" unit = line infantry with grenadier battalions, skirmisher battalions and field artillery batteries. "Musketeer" = musketeers with pikeman support. "Infantry" consists of infantry with support of snipers, machineguns, anti-tank rifles, mortars etc.

Civ 3-4 "stacks of doom" made sense in early wars, but were completely absurd in industrial/modern era. In Civ 5 war model evolves from early era armies (when you can't afford the large frontline and just go from one city to another) to modern frontlines. It also makes more sense when protecting mountain passes.

 

[LegionSteve]

Once again I'm forced to ask...if you want the play style of Civ 4, why aren't you just playing Civ 4?

He already answered that:

I love civ 5 for the new happiness, culture use, the better exploration, city states, natural wonders, etc.

I like the combat in Civ 5, but moving units around in peacetime involves lots of boring micromanagement. Simple interface fixes like being able to click on a unit that already has move orders and see where its going would help. There really is no excuse for that feature being missing.

Even better would be the ability to group units somehow, e.g. give a bunch of units a 'follow' command aimed at one of your units. Then you would only have to give orders to the lead unit and the rest would follow (ineptly, because of the AI pathfinding). You definitely wouldn't use it in combat on the front line but it would take a lot less clicking to move an army from one side of your empire to the other.

Also I would like to be able to turn off combat animations during my turn but still see them for the AIs turns (otherwise its hard to tell whats happening when they attack). I can't find an option for that, if there is one please tell me?

 

[headcase]

hehe. imagine a waterloo battle, or a d-day converted into civ5.
the frontline would start at the top of norway and end around south africa.

Well, that may be more to do with the micro\macro confusion that Civ lives on, similar to how it takes years for a unit to advance one tile, etc.

If they want "stacks" in Civ5, they should bring back unit merging from Civ3.

 

[jtb1127]

Legions

There you go.

 

[Becomedeath]

He already answered that:

No, he said he loved Civ 5 for some aspects, but wants to pick and choose which aspects he keeps and then take Civ 4s combat style.

You can't take the rules and units of 1upt Civ and then put them into a stacking combat situation, it's an entirely different model of AI and gameplay.

Stacking: Civ 4

Not Stacking: Civ 5

You can't just suck the tactical and strategic brilliance of 1upt out of Civ 5 (albiet the AI doesn't quite understand it yet) and expect to be playing a game where the rest of the game works.

Fancy going up against a stack of GDRs? Cities defended by 20+ archers\catapults?

It's a totally different game, which leaves me bemused and bewildered as to why people keep insisting on taking elements of an entirely different game to make this one more like it's predecessor.

Change people, it happens. Embrace or be trampled.


And for the record, it's a strategy game, not a simulator.

 

[eris]

Hello,


I simply can't be arsed moving 200's of units around 1 by one every turn, it's especially annoying when you finish 1 ai and go for the next one. Is there a way to move armies like in civ4, so I spend 5 minutes waging war with a weak civ rather than 50 minutes ?
\ ?

Do you actually get 200 units? I'm sure I got to that in Civ4, but in Civ5 I can't envision having that many units in any practical game. And I don't seem to need anything near that scale to beat on the other Civs, even with my meager combat skills. I have no idea how my PC would ever handle that many units in the first place.

Am I falling for an exaggeration? If so, I would be interested in what is a reasonable figure for an unreasonably busy map. I can't recall seeing any such numbers.

I am not arguing the OP's original point. I like 1UPT myself, but the pounding of mass force against mass force did have its own attractions. Given people's tendency to overbuild units, myself included at times, some streamlining of the move interface would be a help. But the premise that there are literally hundreds upon hundreds of units on the board interests me. Am I playing that different? What amounts are reached and how do you get there?

 

[TM Moot]

That is why there are units like grenadier or machinegun. In Civ5 one unit is equal to RL division (10.000-15.000) or even corpse (20.000-45.000).

hehe

this tickled me, its actually a "Corps".

A "corpse" is what they become if they don't keep they heads down..!!

 

[Gehennas]

hehe

this tickled me, its actually a "Corps".

A "corpse" is what they become if they don't keep they heads down..!!

Oh, sorry. It is a new word in my vocabulary.

 

[Snovvdog]

You could turn the animations off.

Thanks, I forgot about that, that will help a lot.

No, he said he loved Civ 5 for some aspects, but wants to pick and choose which aspects he keeps and then take Civ 4s combat style.

You can't take the rules and units of 1upt Civ and then put them into a stacking combat situation, it's an entirely different model of AI and gameplay.

Stacking: Civ 4

Not Stacking: Civ

The things I mentioned I love about civ5, I hate how useless culture was in civ 4, I like the happiness (no war weariness) in civ5, simply spam stadiums in all city's and never have any trouble with war. I want civ 5 with civ4 combat tbh.

There is no such thing as strategy in my games usually, by renaissance I'm so powerful the AI is pathetic in comparison ( on prince difficulty), I want to finish these 2 games I still have to finish where I have modern armor and the AI is still at riflemen and even crossbows. I can take even their biggest cities with 2 or 3 units and wipe out everything on the way. But I have so many units it takes ages manoeuvring it all.

Do you actually get 200 units? I'm sure I got to that in Civ4, but in Civ5 I can't envision having that many units in any practical game. And I don't seem to need anything near that scale to beat on the other Civs, even with my meager combat skills. I have no idea how my PC would ever handle that many units in the first place.

Am I falling for an exaggeration? If so, I would be interested in what is a reasonable figure for an unreasonably busy map. I can't recall seeing any such numbers.

I am not arguing the OP's original point. I like 1UPT myself, but the pounding of mass force against mass force did have its own attractions. Given people's tendency to overbuild units, myself included at times, some streamlining of the move interface would be a help. But the premise that there are literally hundreds upon hundreds of units on the board interests me. Am I playing that different? What amounts are reached and how do you get there?

Okay not 200, but in my current (small map) game I have 90 military units, it's simpyl no contest.

My cities have nothing else to do, I'm not great early in game but by the middle game I usually have a mahoosive advantage over the AI and it's just tiring to pursue a victory. Often I just go for diplo rather than dom because it doesn't take as long ( usually by 1800 ad I have ALL city states allied or conquered), I have over 5 cities each with factory/nukeplant/20+ size so 100+ prod, all i can do is build units really, only to be stuck with em. In this particular game I have ALL the in game wonders ( except the ones yet to research, only india could build 5 and I've already conquered them, the rest built by me...).

The interface could be far more steamlined to not make an easy victory so painful and boring to reach.

And lag is not really a problem, I am an enthusiast gamer so I have pc which runs civ 5 maxed fine .

 

[Ranos]

Snovvdog

Just a few suggestions for you:

Play on a higher difficulty and you'll have more of a challenge. You won't get as far ahead and won't have as many units.

Delete a bunch of your units. If you aren't trying to win a domination victory, you don't need that many units. You also don't have to move every unit every turn. Find a place and fortify them, put them on alert or whatever.

Don't build as many units in the first place. If you have built all buildings and wonders, siwtch your city's production to gold or research.

I think the most military units I ever had in a game was 40-50. I had about a third of them in my territory for defense and the other two thirds attacking two different AIs. The defensive units were fortified in cities and the attacking units were split into groups so one group would heal while the other attacked. I was moving at most 12 units per turn because of this.

The problem isn't the mechanics of the game but how you are using them. Try some of my suggestions and you may find that Civ 5 is actually fun the way it is.

 

[Becomedeath]

There is no such thing as strategy in my games usually, by renaissance I'm so powerful the AI is pathetic in comparison ( on prince difficulty), I want to finish these 2 games I still have to finish where I have modern armor and the AI is still at riflemen and even crossbows. I can take even their biggest cities with 2 or 3 units and wipe out everything on the way. But I have so many units it takes ages manoeuvring it all.

So embrace the challenge. Make up your own rules for difficulty. For example, domination victory is too easy, so I make the rule that I can only take a capital last.

The game is there. It doesn't need changing on a fundamental scale.

 

[dicksan]

I agree with Snovvdog to some extent. I use the "stacking mod" and enjoy having many units crowded into one hex.

Consider this- The United States is ~3000 miles across the middlle and if you use the TSL mod and select "TSL Earth Huge", there are 18 hexs across the US. that equals more than 150+ miles across one hex-- I believe that is the highest "resolution" you can achieve in Civ5.

This blows away all the comments in this thread that refer to actual campaigns. Napoleon didn't move 150 miles up the road one division at a time.

One of the best parts of this game is the use of your imagination. You don't see 150 miles when you look at the map- you see one unit on a hex- but you travel 150 miles when you move it. When your army gets where you going you deploy your units and create a "front-line" ready to do battle.

Now you visialization changes and the units are now 1/2 half mile apart. The HAVE to be in order to kill each other. You also visualize a stacked as adjacent units-- not as units on top of each other.

I think that the ability to move stacked units all at once would improve the reality of a Napoleon moving his 300,000 man army into Russia prior to deploying and fighting. The same would apply to seagoing units. 'The old transport units allowed "stacking" and improved the progress of the game. Moving a army of land units across the ocean 3 hexes a a time is a "drag".

Just one mans opinion!