Unit Stacking

[michaelkottler]

I am writing to express my concern regarding CIV V's prohibition against the stacking of military units. Although I understand the problems with the "stack of doom" and I do appreciate the one-unit-per-hex style of game play a la Panzer General, I feel it is unrealistic to allow only one military unit per hex, and I am wondering if anyone else feels similarly. Perhaps the stock-of-doom phenomenon would be better addressed by limiting the number of units which could be stacked or some other means short of allowing only one military unit per hex. In short, although I do appreciate the Panzer General approach, I feel it is more realistic and more fun to allow several military units to occupy the same hex (perhaps with a limit to the number of units allowed), and I am curious as to how others may feel regarding CIV V's prohibition against the stacking of military units.

 

[Cashew]

Get in line behind all the other threads that say almost word for word what you're saying right here.

 

[Dale]

Gameplay > Realism.

I believe this is a good move for the game, but this would be a bad move for reality.

 

[trickofthehand]

Wasn't it said somewhere that the maps were going to be bigger scale? Or was that just forum poster wishful thinking?

 

[Noddahrassa]

Wasn't it said somewhere that the maps were going to be bigger scale? Or was that just forum poster wishful thinking?

They sure will need to be. Since they introduced ranged fire starting with archers, it would feel kind of strange having your archers shoot over the English Channel, and then take 20 years to sail where their arrows fell.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I'm pretty certain there'll be a prohibition against ranged units firing from a land hex into a sea hex-or over it.

Aussie.

 

[Ahriman]

just forum poster wishful thinking?

This.
But this whole issue is a bit weird IMO; if you want a bigger map, just play on a bigger map size.
Civ4 supports gargantuan maps at the largest sizes.

I'm pretty certain there'll be a prohibition against ranged units firing from a land hex into a sea hex-or over it

Personally I doubt it. Cannon will most likely be able to fire on ships that are in coastal tiles.
If naval units can bombard land units, then land units should be able to bombard naval units.

 

[Noddahrassa]

I have thought a little about the 1upt rule, and I think I won't like it. Sure, it is necessary to spread armies out in the field, no discussion about that. The stack of doom is horrible and completely destroys a realistic war experience, because instead of fronts, breakthroughs and such stuff you just have a large bunch of troop trodding clumsily from city to city. However, 1upt leads to another severe "reality" problem, and although gameplay > reality, I'm a type who still likes to have both if possible.

I think it is unavoidable to have a scale problem concerning time, when you have a game spanning the ages, but still want to direct military units on a map. It simply does not take 100 years to sail to the New World, and it never did. Even ancient ships sailed from Mesopotamia to China in a matter of weeks, and a decent legion marched from Rome to the English Channel in a couple of months, not decades. However, I think this is unavoidable in a game. You cannot play 2-week-turns for 4000 years.

1upt introduces the same problem concerning space, which was largely absent until now. A tile represents huge areas, and of course you can have lots of units there. In Civ3 you had the phenomenon of warships shelling Madrid out of the Mediterranean, but this is gone, gladly. Soon, however, we will have units shooting across whole provinces and battles spanning out across continents. But what you need to span out is the war, not the single battle.

Now, I think there would have been a far better solution for this than 1upt, namely introducing supply requirements and supply lines. The basic idea is that each unit, when in enemy territory (or possibly outside friendly territory) needs one food or hammer for upkeep, and will lose strength (and regenerate none) if it doesn't get it from the tile it is standing on. You could still walk your stack of doom around if you wish, but on most tiles there will be only enough for 3 or 4 of the guys for upkeep, and the others will be withering away, so you would probably try to span out your army. Since this would give an unfair advantage to the defender, who could feed his stack while the attacker couldn't, there would be a remedy: supply lines. Each unit lays down a supply line on every tile it walks over. As long as the line is connected to friendly territory or to a sea tile without enemy ships, any units not being sustained from the ground could be kept up with gold from the treasury. Of course, enemy units can cut these lines.

I think this would give a very realistic war experience. You can pull your troops together, but then you risk being outflanked and cut off. You can also spread them out, create a stable front, and advance piecemeal or by sudden thrusts along the line. A scorched earth strategy would be available to the defender, pillaging his own territory to reduce the amount of enemy units that can live off his land and make them rely more on home supply. But major battles could still be fought in one place, on one tile.

You can also tweak this system in many ways. For example, laying a supply line could be made to reduce the strength of the unit doing it, so it wouldn't be done everywhere, making lines more vulnerable. Or maybe a supply line would enable the use of the roads and railroads on the tile, so that reinforcements can arrive faster along trails already blazed. A completely surrounded city might have it's defenders cut off from supply and upkeep, and make them live out of the granary.

Of course, these ideas all refer to the cIV playing system. In ciV some things may not apply. But I'm really not looking forward to units engaging each other at huge distances, and would very much have liked to have something else.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

That's cannon though, Ahriman. Also I think that cannon will be limited to coastal tiles only, wheras I believe that archers won't be able to fire into coastal or sea squares.
Of course that's just rampant speculation, but I think it would harm gameplay if it were done any other way.

Aussie.

 

[Osama Bin Davis]

I am actually looking forward to it, sounds like you will require more skills and actually think about how to attack rather than just stack of doom your way through!

 

[Danger Bird]

1upt introduces the same problem concerning space, which was largely absent until now. A tile represents huge areas, and of course you can have lots of units there. In Civ3 you had the phenomenon of warships shelling Madrid out of the Mediterranean, but this is gone, gladly. Soon, however, we will have units shooting across whole provinces and battles spanning out across continents. But what you need to span out is the war, not the single battle.

As a recent convert to the flexible-scale way of thinking (see this thread), partly because I don't think the developers are going to change this, I think the best way to think about it is the following:

Civilization is a large-scale game and a small-scale game, but (unlike e.g. Rome:Total War) both scales use the same map. This requires the player to be flexible in imagining what the map represents.
- When placing cities, considering trade routes, arranging the general deployment of forces, etc., the map is large-scale, each plot covering a huge area and the whole map representing a planet.
- When engaging in battle, bombarding cities, sending reinforcements for the next turn, etc., the area around the battle, on the same map, is now suddenly to be imagined as a much smaller place, for example, just the few hundred metres outside a city's walls. And the turns (though the date may still increment by 10 years or so) are to be imagined as something like days or weeks.

When the small-scale battle is over, you go back to thinking of that area as a huge region, and the turns as 10 years long. The battle appeared to span a thousand kilometres and 50 years, but you can think of it as having taken place somewhere in that area, and at some time during those decades.

Kind of messy - I'd prefer zooming into a separate tactical map, or having no tactical level at all - but the way they are doing it (1upt) allows a tactical level AND it keeps the game mechanics simple.

Now, I think there would have been a far better solution for this than 1upt, namely introducing supply requirements and supply lines.

Part of what you suggest is already there in Civ4: it costs more to keep units in enemy territory than in your own territory.

I agree with you though, that, if the objective of the developers was to weaken the SoD strategy, they could have used other ways. I like your supply-line idea, but I suspect that many players/developers won't (1. additional compexity, 2. can the AI deal with it?). My preferred approach would be simply units talking a certain percentage of attrition when in enemy lands (as no supply line is good enough to avoid attrition), but I think that this also would not be well received.

 

[GhostWriter16]

Well, is it realistic that archers take 25 years to move a space? I do like realism per say but absolute realism is not for a game like civ. Attrition might be ok if the damage was small, but I like 1UPT, they're armies, and one army per hex makes decent sense, and besides, its more fun, and fun is the name of the game, IMO.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

The only thing that worries me about it is that it seems to indicate that it's moving the franchise to be a bit more war-centered. I like to build, and for me the fighting has always been one more (needed and fun) obstacle towards that.

 

[Osama Bin Davis]

The only thing that worries me about it is that it seems to indicate that it's moving the franchise to be a bit more war-centered. I like to build, and for me the fighting has always been one more (needed and fun) obstacle towards that.

I am a culture/tech guy and play very defensive. I actually think this will help. It seems less more powerful units will beable to hold off a much larger enemy, while it was much harder to do that in civ 4

 

[Never]

I too think this 1UP thing may turn out to be a flawed concept. I just can't get my head around how reducing the amount of units available and 1UPT will work. For example invasions: surely you will need a lot of units to conquer someone, and if you are limited by how many units you can have by the amount of resources you have, if you're unlucky with a tundra start, how can you ever realistically turn that around?

I've mentioned it in another thread, and to me I think that they will somehow enable the player to increase the size of the army by expending population. If for example you have access to one iron, you will only be able to produce one Swordsmen. In my mind there must be a way of building upon that one Swordsmen 'unit' (increasing its size or whatever). The whole 1upt, low amounts of troops, and long troop building time all make sense if something like this is introduced. If you're invading someone you could do it with two Swordsmen and a couple of catapults sent on different fronts for example.

Back on topic: Civilization 2 stacking limitations worked well: You can stack as many units as possible, but if the defender dies, they all die. A concept around those lines, perhaps tweaked a little, would be the most realistic and - in turns of gameplay - tactical approach.

 

[jahg84]

I think the mixed scales (time and spatial) are what makes Civ so good. I think one of the lessons of cIV is that there is an optimal number of cities to deal with and more than that does not add much to the game. (Although the exact number is a matter of taste)
I think the same is true of units. I don't know if ciV will get the number right but I think some underlying hard limits to unit numbers needs to be put in. In cIV the city number limit was implemented in a interesting way that added to the game and reinforced the feeling that the limit wasn't just arbitrary. The 1u/h can do the same thing for units and add interesting features the SoD does not capture.
The alternative solution to the SoD that I've heard most often is limiting stack sizes. It seems to me that that is functionally the dame dynamic as 1 unit per hex but that you get the added privilege of building 10 (or whatever the limit is) units and assembling them instead of just building the one.
That said, I see two pitfalls that the new system can fall into. The first is that the front becomes constipated and every war becomes World War I. Boring. The second is that units become so difficult to produce that you can't build new units quickly enough to compensate for unexpected developements in a war - or to allow you to fight a war attrition style.

 

[Noddahrassa]

That said, I see two pitfalls that the new system can fall into. The first is that the front becomes constipated and every war becomes World War I. Boring. The second is that units become so difficult to produce that you can't build new units quickly enough to compensate for unexpected developements in a war - or to allow you to fight a war attrition style.

You should prepare for the second in any case. It was already mentioned that unit withdrawal from combat shall be much more common. Probably you will be pushing back your enemy until you reach your goal, but destroying his army will become harder.

 

[Ataxerxes]

I like the Panzer General, Elven Legacy style. One unit per tile, range units. Better for tactics.

But I don't think the tactical aspect fits Civ that well. Civ has always been more strategic in nature. In order for the ranged attack not to be an archer in Paris firing on, say, Brussels, the map would have to be enormous. Same for one unit per tile. It works very good in a war game where you're fighting a battle or a succession of skirmishes. I don't think it will work in a game that is more about building up an entire civilization.

It will eventually be a matter of taste, but my expectations for CiV are lowering.

 

[jahg84]

Another fear I have of the 1u/h system is that it will be tedious to move a group of units from one front to another. This does require some management so units don't get into each others way and so that the units arrive at the new front in the order you want.

 

[gingerbill]

Gameplay > Realism.

I believe this is a good move for the game, but this would be a bad move for reality.

obviously it's too early to say but i don't think it is a good idea for the game , Civ 3 is the only Civ game i never liked , hated the one unit per tile , i dont think it works game wise either. Hopefully it will work in Civ 5 but i'm worried .