Unit Stacking

[Aussie_Lurker]

See my point is that too many people are seeing the 1upt thing through the prism of the Civ1 to Civ4 paradigm-a paradigm which seemed to encourage the player to spam units-in the knowledge that you'd most likely lose 90% of them when you attacked your opponent. The advent of promotions, unit maintenance & collateral damage in Civ4 sought to alleviate this problem somewhat, but it still came down to who could field the largest stack-with the advantage almost always going towards the defender. Although we don't know all the details, everything seems to be pointing towards a substantive change in the system-resource limitations=fewer units; proper ranged attack capability; cities being able to defend themselves; units actually surviving combat more regularly. If unit maintenance & promotions are maintained-or even improved on-in Civ5, then the combination of all these factors (& 1upt) actually points towards active discouragement of unit spamming-a system where fewer, better quality units will almost *always* win the day over the person who fields 2 dozen cheap & nasty units!

Aussie.

 

[Suho1004]

The late game bogging down was not because of SoD it was because of large numbers of units/cities.

OK, I see the difference there. But I do think the SoD contributes to making the late game a little tedious to play in terms of military conquest. With all those units in one stack, it simply becomes a matter of dragging a huge stack around from one city to the next.

Even if you limit the number of units, though, you still have the problem of all combat centering around stacks, since single units will be at the mercy of the hordes. The game might not bog down as much with fewer units, but it would still be somewhat tedious.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

OK, I see the difference there. But I do think the SoD contributes to making the late game a little tedious to play in terms of military conquest. With all those units in one stack, it simply becomes a matter of dragging a huge stack around from one city to the next.

Even if you limit the number of units, though, you still have the problem of all combat centering around stacks, since single units will be at the mercy of the hordes. The game might not bog down as much with fewer units, but it would still be somewhat tedious.

I can agree on the tedium... however, that is because of the values of cities... to get full benefit from someone, you need to get the cities... and you will take them one, maybe two at a time... in most methods of combat.

(if you could conquer large areas very rapidly, then the late game would not bog down)

 

[Never]

I know gameplay >> realism. Until yesterday I was completely happy with the new 1upt system, until I realised the above. As Danger Bird wrote in one of the first posts of this thread, Civ is a large scale game and a small scale game and both scales use the same map. And while the small scale works well with the 1upt system (and gives us some nice tactical challenges a'la Panzer General), the large-scale might not work so well, because what it will mean is basically that small, yet powerful civs will never be able to build an army large enough to represent their production potential (goodbye One City Challenge?)

EDIT:
In other words, the question: "Who can make the bigger stack of doom?" will be changed into "Who has more land to store their units on?"

Yeah it's definitely going to be weird. I mean, let's say you're preparing for a war you will be forced to deploy units on every tile. I just can't get my head around how this is all going to work?

The only thing that I can think of is that maybe there will be a way to increase the strength of units after they have been produced? For example you could have a Swordsmen 4 times as strong as a normal Swordsmen. Possibly something to do with spending population or production and time?

 

[Ahriman]

I mean, let's say you're preparing for a war you will be forced to deploy units on every tile. I just can't get my head around how this is all going to work?

How its going to work is that you will have many fewer units. Your empire might be 10 cities with 15 tiles each, but you might have an army of 20 units.

 

[demeryt]

See my point is that too many people are seeing the 1upt thing through the prism of the Civ1 to Civ4 paradigm-a paradigm which seemed to encourage the player to spam units-in the knowledge that you'd most likely lose 90% of them when you attacked your opponent. The advent of promotions, unit maintenance & collateral damage in Civ4 sought to alleviate this problem somewhat, but it still came down to who could field the largest stack-with the advantage almost always going towards the defender. Although we don't know all the details, everything seems to be pointing towards a substantive change in the system-resource limitations=fewer units; proper ranged attack capability; cities being able to defend themselves; units actually surviving combat more regularly. If unit maintenance & promotions are maintained-or even improved on-in Civ5, then the combination of all these factors (& 1upt) actually points towards active discouragement of unit spamming-a system where fewer, better quality units will almost *always* win the day over the person who fields 2 dozen cheap & nasty units!

Aussie.

I see your point. Yeah, the 1upt concept definitely requires a new perspective, and we're used to the concept of stacking units (with various implications) in Civ1 - Civ4.

An important point you mentioned - units will survive combat more regularly, which, as my general/limited knowledge of military history allows me to guess, is what happened usually in the battlefield. I'd risk a notion that it was/is rare for a "unit" to be completely annihilated so that it literally disappears. Even after a tough battle some remnants most often withdraw / flee / hide in forests, etc. Units are thinned by the enemy, then restocked with new men and gear, then cut down in combat again, then resupplied again, and so on. Civ4 was definitely a step in the right direction combat-wise (the withdrawal promotion being a good example of this).

About the part about preparing for war and having to send units one after another territory-wise - well, if we assume that 1 unit represents as many men/gear as is possible to fit into 1 square, then yes, they have to be dispatched one after another, because regiments/divisions/armies do walk towards the battlefront one after another (there's only so many men you can put together in a limited space - as many as 1 unit represents).

 

[ShadowWarrior]

I think the main problem with 1 unit/per hex is that this limitation is being applied at the strategic level.

Civ is a grand strategy game. We spend most of our time looking at the big picture through the map that shows placement of cities, units, and terrain types. We then make our grand strategic decisions on what to do. Once we did that, we zoom in to each individual cities to make tactical decisions on what to produce in that city, or we zoom in on individual units to decide where this unit should go next, and what improvements it should work on.

The positive about 1 unit/per hex is that it introduces tactical refinement to the military aspect of the game that in the previous series are tactically crude enough such that there's no variety of options to choose from when it comes to strategic decision making for military. The only option is SoD. By introducing 1 unit/per hex, the game takes on greater tactical subtleties that will provide greater strategic options other than simple SoD.

But we resist this 1 unit per hex because this feature is still a tactical feature, not a grand strategic feature. Yet, this tactical feature is being imposed on the strategic level of the game. In another word, this tactical feature is being played on the map where we make strategic decisions. This creates a sense of lack of realism (where realism is not what we perceive as being realistic in the real world outside of computer, but realism as in what we have come to accept as being sufficiently realistic in Civ series given our experience with the previous titles).

But psychological perception to what is realistic or not aside, there are good reasons to believe that this 1 unit per hex feature is going to disrupt the game play in a way that we are not sure is necessarily good. It is true that tactical decisions often affect strategic level. But such cause and effect is not necessarily smoothly represented by introducing 1 unit per hex feature (which is a tactical feature) onto the strategic level of the game. This is the main reason I myself oppose this feature.

If however whenever two opposing armies fight each other, and the game zoom into another screen also based on hexagon, but each hexagon represents a significantly smaller piece of land in terms of size than at the strategic level, then the 1 unit per hex feature is certainly very acceptable.

 

[snowlyon]

How its going to work is that you will have many fewer units. Your empire might be 10 cities with 15 tiles each, but you might have an army of 20 units.

not anything bad here...just using the example. 20 units. 20 moves you will need make when marching to war. assume late game'ish...25 cities and 50 units (purely guessing as we dont really know the numbers to be actually involved).... the part that I would see getting old really fast...moving those units one at a time individually every single turn when you have decided crush those pesky neighbors. yuck~

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

@ Snowlyon-if there isn't some kind of group unit movement system in place, then I can accept that moving 20 individual units could be a drag. However, I do have faith in the developers that they've identified this particular snag in the 1upt system, & have designed a UI that can deal with it *without* the tedium.

@ Shadow Warrior-I personally don't see any problem with having some level of tactical decisions in a grand strategy game. Given the number of men/equipment I feel Civ5 is going to represent, I think you can best consider it as Grand Tactics-or tactics that apply at the more strategic end of the battle (like will I attack across a river, create a choke-point somewhere or fortify my armies in the foot-hills). The promotion system in Civ4 already allowed for that, to some degree, but its impacts were largely negated by the SoD approach).
Also, I have to say that any combat system which draws the conflict *away* from cities, & out into the open, should be welcomed!

Aussie.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

@ Snowlyon-if there isn't some kind of group unit movement system in place, then I can accept that moving 20 individual units could be a drag. However, I do have faith in the developers that they've identified this particular snag in the 1upt system, & have designed a UI that can deal with it *without* the tedium.

That would be Very hard, because with SoD your 20 units are always exactly where you want them to be (in the stack)
With a BoD (block/blob of death) your 20 units will have to change Relative position as they move over the terrain (dealing with defensible terrain/high ground/impassable terrain)

This is why I think that 20 units will be somewhat high for your actual invading army...
probably more like 12, maybe a naval escort of ~8, and a 'home guard' of ~5 just sitting in your cities to get mobilized in case you are attacked.

That should be a massive army

Hopefully an army of 5-8 units would be considered fairly large in the game (even with 50-80 cities).

 

[Ahriman]

20 moves you will need make when marching to war.

That would be Very hard, because with SoD your 20 units are always exactly where you want them to be (in the stack)
With a BoD (block/blob of death) your 20 units will have to change Relative position as they move over the terrain (dealing with defensible terrain/high ground/impassable terrain)

No. You have a group movement system that you use to send a big block of units off to "march to war". Then you start to handle them individually once you get to the front.

Yes, you'll need to handle units individually when they're at the front, but a sensible group movement system will reduce the MM drag of getting them there. And honestly, you often want to micromanage the order in which units in a stack attack in Civ4. So we're used to a higher MM burden during wartime; there is no crime in that.

 

[primem0ver]

I am glad that someone brought up Master of Orion because I have been thinking it provides a nice solution (even if it won’t be used) to this issue (not that I have much of a say… but who knows). In addition to providing an optional battle screen, its third installment provided a very unique approach to "armies". As unsuccessful as Master of Orion 3 was, here was a game that took both realism and tactics under consideration when it came to fighting battles and wars. In this particular game, one built units but the units themselves could not leave a planetary system (a city in Civ terms) unless they were grouped as an army/squadron etc… A small exploration or reconnaissance “army” could be 1-2 units. The largest “army” was somewhere between 20-40 units (I can’t remember the exact range). In addition to a limit on units, there was also a size range for each type of unit. Armies of a larger size had to have representatives of each role present or they could not be created. An example of this in Civ terms is that a large army would need 7-10 hand to hand/melee units, 2-5 ranged units, 2-5 flank units, and 2-3 bombardment/siege units, etc… (actual numbers of course may be debatable).

If a system such as the one above were used, having one army per square would be perfectly acceptable and as realistic as one can expect from any perspective that I can see here. As long as these armies couldn’t attack from more than a single 100+ mile tile away (unless they were aircraft or missiles), then tactics and a limited form of “stacking” could both come into play without violating the sensitivities of us more “realism” inclined people.

Unfortunately I am inclined to side with SoD perspective since I prefer the grand scale/realism approach and this approach doesn't seem to be in the cards since the whole 100+ mile away bow and arrow attack seems perfectly acceptable to the Civ5 team.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

No. You have a group movement system that you use to send a big block of units off to "march to war". Then you start to handle them individually once you get to the front.
Yes, you'll need to handle units individually when they're at the front, but a sensible group movement system will reduce the MM drag of getting them there. And honestly, you often want to micromanage the order in which units in a stack attack in Civ4. So we're used to a higher MM burden during wartime; there is no crime in that.

When they are not at the front, you give them a goto order to their position at the front, and then take the assembled group.

Not a group order, but

Turn 10... give 20 different move orders to your 20 units
Turn 11-15... give Zero orders as your units execute their gotos
Turn 16.... give 20 different move orders for your assembled army to move into hostile territory

There is no time a group move order would be useful... "go to" definitely, but not "Group"

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Yep, Ahriman understands what I'm getting at. You click a dozen units (with, say, the Ctrl key held down), give the 12 units a single go-to order. Then, when they reach their destination tile (or as close to it as each units' movement allows), they spread out-1upt-into the most appropriate conformation, ready for you to individually switch around as you please.

Now I'm not saying this is *how* they will do it, but it seems a fairly simple & logical approach to me.

Aussie.

 

[Schuesseled]

Yep, Ahriman understands what I'm getting at. You click a dozen units (with, say, the Ctrl key held down), give the 12 units a single go-to order. Then, when they reach their destination tile (or as close to it as each units' movement allows), they spread out-1upt-into the most appropriate conformation, ready for you to individually switch around as you please.

Now I'm not saying this is *how* they will do it, but it seems a fairly simple & logical approach to me.

Aussie.

that sounds like perfectly reasonable way of doing it, and if the civ 5 team dont do it, i hope some modders will.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Yep, Ahriman understands what I'm getting at. You click a dozen units (with, say, the Ctrl key held down), give the 12 units a single go-to order. Then, when they reach their destination tile (or as close to it as each units' movement allows), they spread out-1upt-into the most appropriate conformation, ready for you to individually switch around as you please.

Now I'm not saying this is *how* they will do it, but it seems a fairly simple & logical approach to me.

Aussie.

It seems a lot better to determine Where you want them to be (in the 'deploying area') and then send them there.

In any case, the fact that just "group moving" in combat is bad/impractical means that they Really need to limit the numbers of units.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I think you'll find that any arbitrary cap on total unit numbers will not sit well with the fans Krikkitone. I'm all for soft limits-via resource limitations, maintenance & the like, but an artificial "no civ can have more than x units in the game" system would be far worse than any group movement system could be!

Aussie.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I think you'll find that any arbitrary cap on total unit numbers will not sit well with the fans Krikkitone. I'm all for soft limits-via resource limitations, maintenance & the like, but an artificial "no civ can have more than x units in the game" system would be far worse than any group movement system could be!

Aussie.

I agree on no hard limits, I'm talking about what the designers should aim for (which they can balance with 'expensive' units._

An important thing is the appropriate Scaling of those units through the tech tree, if a single city at the start of the game can support 6 warriors, then an Average industrial age civ on an Average map should support a similar number of Infantry.
ie 1 stone age city: 6 Warriors, 10~20 Industrial age cities: 6 Infantry...

This means that maintenance should be a major limiting factor. Especially since a 'production' limiting model tends to have the number of units increasing throughout the game.

It also means you should have several 'scales' of units.... ie the 10~20 industrial cities should be able to support 6 Infantry or ~20 'minor infantry'... so that a Small industrial civ still has flexibility. (they may do this with Armies)

 

[snowlyon]

@ Snowlyon-if there isn't some kind of group unit movement system in place, then I can accept that moving 20 individual units could be a drag. However, I do have faith in the developers that they've identified this particular snag in the 1upt system, & have designed a UI that can deal with it *without* the tedium.

assuming the best, there will be some form of "group" based orders. this, while helpful, will still none the less get tedious (imo) given the level of micro managing needed before every fight. this meaning once they get there we would have to move units around to assure they are set up according to how we want them to attack. this means group move will more than likely 'end' a couple hexes away from target. this will then be followed by a turn, or possibly two, of arranging the troops. finally we can launch the attack but need to spend the couple turns moving each individual unit up to the 'front' to engage the enemy.

taking that x10 x20 x30 cities....that will get old and tedious after the initial "ooo-aaah" factor wears off. In addition, wouldn't be surprised if this wasnt one of the first thing some modders gun to change...assuming it works something like the above.~

 

[KrikkitTwo]

assuming the best, there will be some form of "group" based orders. this, while helpful, will still none the less get tedious (imo) given the level of micro managing needed before every fight. this meaning once they get there we would have to move units around to assure they are set up according to how we want them to attack. this means group move will more than likely 'end' a couple hexes away from target. this will then be followed by a turn, or possibly two, of arranging the troops. finally we can launch the attack but need to spend the couple turns moving each individual unit up to the 'front' to engage the enemy.

taking that x10 x20 x30 cities....that will get old and tedious after the initial "ooo-aaah" factor wears off. In addition, wouldn't be surprised if this wasnt one of the first thing some modders gun to change...assuming it works something like the above.~

Well part of that will be mitigated by increased unit movement.

I wouldn't be surprised if a sufficiently overpowering army can't take one city a turn... so you move each of your units once and get a city.

If My units are moving around rapidly either taking a city or crushing one of their armies each turn, then it wouldn't be as bad to have to move a dozen units each turn (because I also have to do several city things each turn anyways.)