Stackings and Combat mechanics

Unit stackings and combat mechanics

  • 1. Pre-Civ 5 'Unlimited Stacks of Doom'.

    Votes: 1 9.1%
  • 2. One unit per tile (1UTP); like Panzer General series, (Including Commander: The Great War)

    Votes: 4 36.4%
  • 3. Limited Stackings (No greater than 3 - 5)

    Votes: 2 18.2%
  • 4. Army-based stackings. No manual resolves

    Votes: 4 36.4%
  • 5. Army-based stackings. Divided combat scenes. (Heroes of Might and Magic series, Total War series)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 6. Army-based stackings. Amplitude's Humankind style

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    11
Joined
Jan 10, 2019
Messages
1,825
This affects unit class decisions considerably.
What's your ideas regarding to unit stackings and combat mechanics.
1. Reverts to Pre-Civ 5 'Unlimited Stacks of Doom'.
2. One unit per tile (1UTP). Current engines
With this option chosen, unit classes SHOULD be Era/Tech-based like in Civ5.
Pre-Gunpowder
1. Basic melee infantry (Strong defense, heftly benefited from dense terrain, bad when attacking cities,) formerly Anticavalry.
2. Elite Shock troops (Requires iron to train, requires specialized facility, consumes more popcap than generic class, stronger, also good at attacking cities, less vulnerable to ranged attacks, more upkeep)
3. Ranged (Archers)
4. Siege (Catapults be the first, can only attack cities or units in district)
5. Light Cavalry. Exists BOTH as Ranged and melee, shorter ranges than archer, flanking attacks negate Anticavalry effects. Requires no horse .
Chariot Archer is the first unit.
scouts upgrade to this unit.
6. Heavy cavalry. Strong shock attack units that mandatory requires Horses. Charging bonus only when attacking but not when defending. Also charging bonus only works when enemy is in open terrain.
BOTH cav units can Flank and Rout enemies.

7. Naval Melee:
- Any units with melee attacks became the same Naval Melee unit when embarked with the same attack attributes.
8. Naval Ranged:
- Any ranged attack land units became a different naval ranged unit with reduced damage dealing capabilities and strenghts
9. Capitol Ship: (Polyreme)

Gunpowder
1. Firepower infantry. No real disadvantages VS cavalry and swordsmen. Elite shock troops became this unit
2. Fieldgun. Formerly ranged, Can deal more damage to cities and fortifications.
3. Siege (Bombards being the first, and preceeding Firepower Infantry of any kind)
4. Light Cavalry (Hussars and lancers)
5. Heavy Cavalry
6. Mounted Infantry (No disadvantages against any Anticavalry ability, bad against real cavalry UNLESS promoted)

7. Naval Melee (Embarked)
8. Cruisers (Fast but weak, capable of ranged and melee attacks)
9. Capitol Ships: Manowar, Ships of the Line for example.
10. Naval Raiders

Industrial / Modern
1. Firepower Infantry; can earn technical upgrades to add MGs, Antitanks, FlaK, Trucks, and later APCs
2. Cavalry; All kinds of diversified cavalries of previous eras combined, helicopters became this class, requires horses, invulnerable to any Anticavalry (this unit is dismounted before fighting), can later earns technical upgrades as Infantry. Faster and more expensive.
3. Artillery: Ranged and Siege combined.
4. Tank: Strong aganst everything except those with Antitank tech upgrades.

5. Cruisers: Strong VS Torpedo units, can have tech upgrades to includes torpedoes of their own.
6. Torpedo vessel: Torpedo boats and submarines
7. Naval Raiders: No longer upgrades to Torpedo vessels
8. Capitol Ships:
9. Aircraft Carriers: Cannot earn any promotions (not easy to do so) but can have numerous tech upgrades instead.

10: Fighter plane (Orginally takes TWO carries space, one tech upgrade includes folding wings)
11. Dive bomber (Can land on carriers, same tech upgrades as fighters)
12. Level bomber (Long operational range. Cannot land on carriers)
13. Artillery Observer

3. Same as 1
4 - 6 Since F'xis (Along with many others) has penchants of adding pseudo units into rosters to represent Rock Paper Scissors rather than following actual unit formations (Musketeers and Pikemen as different units in different classes). I personallly think Army-based stackings work best with their penchants. though unit classes and listing will be different (There will be 'Ability class' tagged as well as mainclass)
These classes are as follows
Melee Infantry: Straightforwards. This time Anticavalry falls to this class as well.
- Warrior, Phalanx, Heavy Infantry (Swordsman is a subclass), Billman, Pikeman.
Ranged: Strong attacks VS Anybody at range, vulnerable in melee combat, eventually upgraded to Fusiliers in the next class.
- Slingers, Archers, Marksman (I don't really like the term Crossbowmen much, actually crossbowmen are 'inferior' militia or conscripts while marksman can also includes professional elite archers trained at very early childhood (some even before a kid can walk) that may use either crossbows, longbows or composite bows. Handgunners, Musketeers.
Range-Melee: Not as strong at range but not vulnerable in melee and even strong defense against cavalry charges.
Javelineers, Fusilier, Rifleman, Machinegunners. Infantry.

Ranged Cavalry: can attack BOTH mounted and dismounted.
Shock Cavalry: Melee cavalry, Strong attacks (Charge), can dismount to fight in siege. Flanking.
(Exists as both LIGHT and HEAVY.)

Siege: Can only deploy in sieges, can only attack city defense or enemy in terrain cover. (subjected to separate Siege slots)... (Similiar to Heroes of Might and Magic series)
Artillery: Can attack any units as normal as well as city defenses. very vulnerable in melee. shares slots with sieges.

Tank: resillient to either melee or ranged attacks except ones with Antitank ability.
Antitank: Deals significant damage to tanks, worst against other enemy in cover. sorely vulnerable to melee attack particularly by Range-Melee class.
Antiaircraft: can attack BOTH Air and land (except SAM). has its own slots.

Naval units.
- Melee ship. have prize ship ability. All melee land units became this ship when embarked.
- Ranged light ship. All ranged units became this unit when embarked.
- Cruiser.
- Capitol Ship.
- Torpedo vessel. (Includes submarines)

Air units
- Air Supremacy - AKA Fighters. best used against enemy aircraft
- Attack Planes - good VS ground units and ships
- Bombers - has Area of effect. good VS city defenses.

Whatchu think?
 
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Stacks were never really unlimited. I think IVs were capped at 20 if I remember right. I just hated constantly cranking out units. It was like filling buckets rallying troops and building stacks. War was really a low point in the series before V for me.

Lower limits would be fine I guess but I prefer 1upt. Amplitude's army setup is ok but I find I auto resolve a lot because I just want to get back to the game. The setup, victory/defeat screens, tactical rounds, etc slow the game down so much, even compared to V's carpet of doom battles.
 
Stacking should be unlimited but you should be incentivised in other ways against it. A couple of examples

1) If a heavy cavalry attacks and deals more damage than it receives (it wins), they deal additional damage to other units in the stack.
2) Ranged units, for example artillery, deal damage equally to every unit on a tile.
3) Light cavalry and recon should get free choice of which unit in a stack they attack.
 
I tried playing hoi4 recently and in that game you can stack a ton of army divisions into the same tile, but they cannot all attack the enemy. How many of the can attack is limited by the width of combat and the width of the divisions. Combat width is base 80 but is increased if you attack from multiple directions at once, and division width depended on the number of battalions in the division, with the normal being 10 or 20 or 40.

It would be easy to make a similar simple system in civ. Unlimited units can be in a tile. But each turn, your units in one given tile can only make one attack against units in another given tile. Once one unit in a stack has made an attack, the other units must then either attack in a different direction, or move to another tile before they attack, or simply wait as reinforcements.

Whatever unit enters a tile first will be at the "top of the tile" and will be the unit that enemies are targeting (so you don't have to choose who you attack in a stack, simplifying the interface). If one of your unit in the stack makes an attack on an enemy tile, that unit will be moved to the top of the tile, so that the enemy can counter-attack it. Ranged support could be allowed to attack while staying at the bottom of the stack, under the frontline units.

A healing/logistics system could also be implemented, by making only one unit in a stack able to heal. This could be the injured unit furthest away from the top of the tile.
 
1 UTP but maps should be bigger and spaces between cities should be wider. I would also put an emphasis on using terrain efficiently and cities should be easier target if not defended. Perhaps some type of stack would be allowed when army is stationed in firendly base/city and player could place all units on battlefield before battle.
 
Stacks were never really unlimited. I think IVs were capped at 20 if I remember right. .

Incorrect. The Civ IV forum has a thread with "biggest stack you've seen" with screen shots of 150, 200, or even 300 units of many classes stacked in (or next to) a city. Civ III had some large (not quite as large) stacks; in my games I've stacked 30 or 50 units.

To be fair, the folks in the Civ IV forums also say that they will divide these HUGE stacks into smaller stacks for a multi-pronged approach to take out AI cities. Since AI can capitulate and become vassal states, the goal is not to take only the original capital, or even the whole territory, but to inflict enough damage quickly enough to convince the AI to give up.
 
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I voted for limited stacks as to be in phase with the idea in my signature. I first thought 5 units/population-points would be fine, but 3 may be better. You can't either stack more than 3-5 population points in a same tile without building infrastructure, it is to say cities. Each unit in a stack is a population point also, needing food. You can travel with a stack and the pop points will automatically find food within 3 tiles range, as if they were citizen working the land. They can even build things moving, if it happens the tiles they work provide production. (siege weapons building, weapons maintenance, logistics, rest ?, distraction, supply carts construction...) If there is more food produced than necessary, the army can grow. Armies which stay a long time in the same place can create cities automatically. If a unit/population-point has no more supply and go through areas with no or not enough food (desert, toundra, ice...) it loses 10 hp with only 1 food, 20 hp with no food. Surplus food goes to units that have not enough in a range of 3 tiles. (automated by AI, that you can settle on "no starvation", "production", "growth"...)
 
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