Stacking Limits

[unity.zero]

This gets to the heart of the matter. The question is scale. Is one tile in Civ5 equivalent to the size of Ft. Hood? And, when you look on a map, do you always see all the small towns and villages or only the larger urban areas? At 1:1,000,000 scale, you will not see anything but the major cities. At 1:50.000, you will see nearly everything.

This goes for "units" too. Ft. Hood (wiki of Ft Hood) is home to one major unit, III Corps. That unit consists of Armored and/or Infantry Divisions and their support units. An Armored Division contains all types of units as well (including Infantry, Artillery and support), in proportion. Does a "unit" in Civ represent a company of Spears (225 people), or a Division of Spears (16,000+ people)? So how would Civ5 represent III Corps?

In simulation/strategy games they have to make decisions regarding how simple or complex to make things and what scale they will use. Some of the things we think make no sense may, actually, make sense if we understand the decisions they make in their game design. Something to think about?

talking about tile scale in civ5? well, this is irrelevant in this case. i mean, if one city can fit on one tile than most certainly Ft. Hood can fit as well. as long as the matter about unit size (considering the previous note about scale) is concerned, well, even if we take one of the largest military formations of one type - divisions (infantry or armored alone for example) than, still more than one unit of that type can fit on one area i.e. one tile in civ. btw, i don't think that one unit in civ represents one division. in real world there were/are no divisions of archers, longbowman or artillery alone. so in civ they should be perhaps on the level between company through battalion up to the regiment scale.
i understand very well the concept of panzer general to whom many are referring about unit placement in civ5. well i'll comment little bit about the game since i've played it. this type of placement in this particular game is unit placement on the battlefield NOT on the global map. you don't see cities on this battlefield but roads, couple of bridges at the most with couple of hills. it is a battlefield placement not theater of war. it is local, NOT global placement of troops. before you start the actual battle in panzer general you choose which type of units on your disposal you wanna use on the field than go on the actual battle. so, the scale that panzer general uses for unit placement is waaay smaller that global map of the civ. entire map of the panzer general battlefield can be up to the couple of tiles to the most in civilization and still there (on the battlefield in panzer general) you can place more than a dozen different types of units. having this said, any direct comparison between panzer general and civilization about unit placement is totally wrong. there should be stacking limits in civ5 but NOT limited to one unit per tile. some tiles (regarding the terrain) should allow more units to be stacked; open ground for instance, since one can place more military ordinance there and less units to a terrain that would make that kind of placement impossible like hills or mountains. that i think, would be closest to reality.

thx...

 

[Senethro]

Well, 1upt is more unrealistic than SoD's were in countless ways when it comes to Civilization. The game took a big step towards unrealism and a supposed step towards gameplay. And with the possible leap towards vast micromanagement issues you think more would be concerned about it.

The one gameplay review I've read that said it wasn't as good as some of the earlier games had me concerned.

I'm not bothered by unrealism so much as people using unrealism to justify why they dislike a game mechanic and then go on to offer a half baked one to replace it.

 

[starstx]

Well, you can also say it is unrealistic to move a giant stack from tile to tile when at war which is how everyone does it. That is not very realistic to how countries handle war with deploying troops. They were trying to find a way to combat this but I think it would of been a good idea to allow x amount of units per tile as opposed to only 1 and the terrain idea of changing x to go with the type of terrain is not a bad idea either.

I personally like the idea of anything over the S.O.D. which to me is just as unrealistic mechanic as 1UPT to scale.

 

[unity.zero]

Well, you can also say it is unrealistic to move a giant stack from tile to tile when at war which is how everyone does it. That is not very realistic to how countries handle war with deploying troops. They were trying to find a way to combat this but I think it would of been a good idea to allow x amount of units per tile as opposed to only 1 and the terrain idea of changing x to go with the type of terrain is not a bad idea either.

I personally like the idea of anything over the S.O.D. which to me is just as unrealistic mechanic as 1UPT to scale.

i totally agree...

 

[Wacky_Warrior]

Reading this thread, something occurred to me. One of the key reasons for building a SoD is that you know your opponent will be doing that as well. With the new limits on number of units being built from a single resource (I know no details about this, but I know I saw it elsewhere), that will no longer be the case. 1UpT makes sense when the the number of units you can have is severely constrained, and each unit becomes much more important. It provides a way for a civ with limited resources to defend itself. Just like in the real world, arms races will now require significant trade-offs and costs, which I think will add to the effect. I suspect the potential for units to lose a battle but not be destroyed is also connected to these new limits.

Finally, 1UpT along with no units in the city (I'm not completely sure about this) will allow a lot of dffferent approaches for defence. Should be interesting and less annoying for those of us who prefer a more peaceful game.