What's the biggest Stack of Doom you've ever seen?

[Gastric ReFlux]

After getting to the point of always whomping on the computer on Regent level, I started my latest game at Monarch level. I was the Chinese and started on a continent with 5 other opponents. After some ancient wars, it was just me and the Persians controlling most of everything. So around 1400 AD everything settles into a peaceful phase and I begin doing a massive program of infrastructure building along with building more military and cannon, because eventually I'm going to want to knock Xerxes off the map.

By 1700, the buildup has been going well. I've snagged all the Industrial Age wonders and have the factories and railroads almost all in place. I'm beelining for Motorized Transportation and get to it before anybody else. Just as my first batches of tanks are popping out of the core cities and just after I built the Intelligence Agency, I see what looks like almost every one of Xerxes' units crossing into one tile on the border.

I right-click on the stack and see about 150 Persian units--Infantry, Riflemen, Immortals, and 1 musketman. All in one tile, all in one stack.

And this was just too juicy. I had figured on going in to his territory to slug it out, but now Xerxes had just sent almost all of his forces right to where I could bring every piece of artillery, every early tank, every cavalry unit, every extra infantry to eat it alive.

In the ensuing carnage, I had a turn where I generated a GL, built an army and had it win a battle, got another GL, built the Heroic Epic, got another GL and built the Millitary Academy, got another GL and rush-built a factory. That was all in one turn mind you.

After about 4 turns, the military advisor told me we had a strong army compared to Xerxes.

So that's the biggest Stack of Doom I've ever seen.

 

[Zouave]

Putting ALL your units in one place at the same time is very bad strategy and just shows again what a dumb AI this is.

There is an old military axiom: concentration is the product of calculated dispersal. In otherwords, spread out your enemy; make him wonder where the main attack is coming from, and then hit him. This basic principle is lost on the AI.

 

[D9phoenix]

Usally i see the complete opposite with the AI. In my games they rarely concentrate there military units. Take my current game, the Iruqouis are fighting the chinese through my territory ( yes i mean through i have RoP's with both of them ) they throw units at each other solo and spread out over the entire border. Which is a huge border btw.

 

[Frog Propaganda]

Let them mass in a nice condensed group...more cost effective for my ICBMs.

 

[Richard III]

The biggest stack of doom I have seen so far was my own, by far. 110 units worth for an invasion of a mid-sized American Island during the the tank-and-infantry era. The massive group was a fleet, with three carriers fully loaded, four BBs, four DEs and the rest all transports and units. It had a diversion force of three transports, fully loaded, swinging alongside.

The AI doesn't seem to build up that much against me, frankly. Most I have seen from it is about 30-35 riders in one stack.

R.III

 

[WarlordMatt]

Actually, the biggest SoD I've ever seen from the AI was from barbs (I'm not sure if this is it, my memory sux)! The barbs were on Raging, and the military advisor pops up saying, "We have heard of a massive barbarian uprising near [Iforgetthecity]!" And I'm like, "Uh oh." Suddenly 17 barb horsemen come trotting up to one of my newly settled cities with one spearman protector.

Gastric ReFlux, could you post a screen of your monster SoD?

 

[Zachriel]

I saw four stacks with <more than> fifty in each stack, composed of mech infantry, tanks and at least 6 armies. I was very weak at the time, but it turns out that they were just passing through.

 

[Gastric ReFlux]

Originally posted by Zachriel
I saw four stacks of fifty, composed of mech infantry, tanks and at least 6 armies. I was very weak at the time, but it turns out that they were just passing through.

There was nothing else on the other side of me. It was almost certain that Xerxes had decided it was time to invade me. Funny, since I was planning to invade him after 4 more turns when our last per-turn deal expired.

The big problem with this SoD's concentration of force is that it got dropped on a square where on its next turn, it could only move one square in any direction, with no good defensive terrain to sit on. So that allowed me to bring all my force to bear on it with hardly a worry of someplace else coming under assault.

I should have taken a screenshot of it.

 

[dojoboy]

I went up against three Chinese stacks (2 x 50 / 1 x 75). My advisor said our military was average to Mao's. My spy showed Mao had over 300 Mech Infantry. This is were he was stronger than I. Well, with three well placed tactical nukes and modern armor finishing off the rest, my advisor informed me that our military is strong compared to China.

 

[God]

Biggest SoD for me was ~80. Actually I had 2 in that range. One was made up of mostly infantry, longbowmen, and riflemen, and the other stack of Mech Infantry and a couple of Modern Armor.

The infantry stack was bombarded to death and finished off by my tanks and cavalry. It tough because I lost something like 20-25 cavalry, even after the infantry were bombarded. I did that for 3 turns. Thankfully they only have 1 move. I also lost around 5 tanks. Ofcourse I had tons of injured tanks and cavalry that could retreat, and I spent 2 turns after the SoD healing and then marched into the Russian territory.

 

[Gastric ReFlux]

Yeah, bombarding is essential. I was glad that I had built all that artillery. Without it, that SoD would have been impossible to tear apart, and I would have lost a lot more of the tanks and cavalry I had been using. With the softening up, there were lots more chances for the tanks to attack twice and get promotions to elite, which then resulted in that later turn where I picked up 4 Great Leaders.

And I just loved it when I started getting to the bottom, listening to the sound of Immortals clanging against tanks.

 

[Stone]

The AI seems to alter strategies depending on units. Once they get to infantry and higher they really start stacking the units. Before that they seem to like 4-5 unit stacks at most.

The largest I saw recently was a major tactical error on my part, but required. The game was all but over; it was just me and the Iroquois. But they were going to beat me to the space ship, so I had to do something. I had 7 cities on his main continent with several mech infantry and modern tanks in each. So I cheated a little, I signed a RoP and moved 10 tanks within 2 squares of his capital. Then I hit him with two ICBMs and finished him off with the tanks just outside the blast area.

I destroyed his capital and the spaceship, but on his turn he leveled 5 of my seven cites and I could see at least 4 stacks of 100+ units. We also started a major air war. I had a good set of fighters, but he must have had 50+ planes also. It was neat to watch.

I’m sure the battle would have gone on for a long time, but I only need 2 more turns to finish my spaceship. He could not get enough troops over to my continents in time to stop that.

 

[Zerzes]

Originally posted by Stone
The AI seems to alter strategies depending on units. Once they get to infantry and higher they really start stacking the units. Before that they seem to like 4-5 unit stacks at most.

Not entirely true. I have faced a stack of 44 Japanese swordsmen/spearmen before even musketmen existed. And this was only on regent. A few centuries later he returned with 60 samurais and 28 swordsmen/pikemen. At that time I had just started to crank out cavalry and riflemen though...

 

[Gastric ReFlux]

Interesting. I never got to see SoDs like that on Regent level. But that may have been because I usually got the AI so thoroughly dominated they just didn't have units to make the stacks. This time, I finally had an opponent, on the same continent, who had the ability to assemble a SoD. Well he had enough to assemble a few SoDs.

 

[Barker]

I'm sure those that don't regularly see stacks of death are warmongers. I only notice stacks of death in games where I am relatively peaceful for long periods of time.

All those soldiers get pretty bored in AI country when it is peaceful, so they all get together to knock off some cold ones. By the time they are good and sloshing drunk, they go looking for a fight. They probably recall some deal where I swindled them out of some gems and furs, and decide they are going to get even.

 

[Gastric ReFlux]

That is true, the world I was in did settle into a long period of peace which allowed a period of building with no one losing any units.

Another interesting thing was that Persia hadn't built any cavalry. Xerxes had horses, but he hadn't built any offensive units to replace his Immortals. Other than that, his forces were fairly well updated, with just a small percentage of older units because he didn't have the cash for the upgrades. As a result, the SoD just wandered in to to get mauled and never tried to maul me back.

 

[God]

I war alot and still see SoDs. The AI just likes to move them like that, however I haven't ever seen SoDs of 20+ units in the Ancient and early Middle Ages. Then usually its just 5-8 immortals walking in or around 10 longbowmen.

 

[The Last Conformist]

I once saw two Massive Barbarian Uprisings combine - may've been close to fifty barbarian horsemen in that SoD. Not impressive compared to the 100+ stacks some of you've mentioned, but it was so early in the game that it must've represented a good fraction of all military units in the world. Or rather, it would've if it hadn't been barbarians, since MBUs for some reason lamost never split, with the result that they usually only wreck on city. An AI Indian one in this case, hehe.

Xerxes, who appears to love stacks, once sent a number of stacks in the 20-30 range, mostly Infantry, against me. The funny thing was that about half were Conscripts, and that when I eventually conquered the Persian heartland, all the cities, which'd been size 12-20 before, where size 6. Idiot AI.

 

[Sodak]

Originally posted by God
I war alot and still see SoDs. The AI just likes to move them like that, however I haven't ever seen SoDs of 20+ units in the Ancient and early Middle Ages. Then usually its just 5-8 immortals walking in or around 10 longbowmen.

I'm in a game as the Japanese, and started a war with India, sometime around 800bc. Within 3 turns of starting it (!), a swarm of 18 archers and warriors poured over my frontier town - defended by a spearman and a swordsman. It seems Gandhi was going to start the war anyway... Luckily I managed to sack two of his towns and secured peace, as I was on their continent and had only minimal reinforcements to ship over.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

The absolute nightmare:

23 Transports with 8 Mech inf each
20 Transports with 8 modern Armour each
16 Transports with 8 Radar Arty each minus 1 Arty - a settler instead


landed that on the coast of India (after making sure they had no Oil!!!!!

turn 1: they lost 25 Tanks attacking me, plus like 20 Mech. Inf.
founded a city on the landing site ( a hill)

turn 2: the Indians threw over 200 Mech Inf at my city. They won a littel over 10 fights - I won the rest RIP India!


Aside from that i have often seen AI stacks of around 40 or more units - but only if that civ lacks fast moving attackers!