Why stack of Doom was never a problem... patches were optional...

[ClockSpeed]

I haven't played civ 3 so I may be missing something here. How are armies the counter-argument to SoD? SoD can also consist of armies

Armies in Civ3 are very likely to crack the defenders in an enemy stack, exposing the attackers with weaker defensive stats to your own attackers. Also artillery usually works against stacks for the same purpose. The stack could have more defenders, at the cost of attackers, or a defensive army, so its a strategic decision how to stack. Also, it is usually not optimal to put your all of your units in one stack, as this leads to less flexibility while invading or in a multifront defense, so you split them up.

The way I see it:
Civ 1-3 - strategy focused warfare
Civ 4 - somewhat strategy focused warfare, Rock Paper Scissors, suicide catapults and bombers, first experiments with a tactical approach
Civ 5-7 - tactical focused warfare

I'm in favor for focusing more on the tactical depth in Civ7, the Commander mechanic seems like a step in the right direction
I hope the AI in can use the systems at play

Still I prefer stacks

 

[friendlysavage]

As someone who prefers combat in Civ 4 to Civ 5/6, warts and all, this new iteration actually seems like a wonderful merger of both.

Commanders are basically Balanced Doomstacks, with benefits from both combat systems. Can't wait to try them out in practice

 

[Lazy sweeper]

As someone who prefers combat in Civ 4 to Civ 5/6, warts and all, this new iteration actually seems like a wonderful merger of both.

Commanders are basically Balanced Doomstacks, with benefits from both combat systems. Can't wait to try them out in practice

You are welcome! Yes it's a step toward balanced Doomstacks.
Maybe city walls could act as immovable stacking feature so cities could hold more troops inside to whitstand the sieging?
Would you prefer harder to conquer cities or a single unit that could conquer a city on its own if it has no troops inside and neither walls?

 

[I was NC]

I'll never understand why people on here act like the only 2 options are SoD or 1UPT.

Exactly. Being on either end of any continuum is almost always wrong. The answer always has been three or four units on a tile, which is possible in VI with a mod (playing it now, works well). The approach in VII seems promising.

The better argument imo is the civ 2 system where early production is so low it a actually hurts your economy if you only build units. Like the optimal units per city in 2 is probably like half what it was in 3.

Ah, Civ II, my first love. Each unit had to be assigned to a specific city. Sending it to war reduced city happiness, which was realistic. Ironically, the unit being killed then led to happiness being restored, which was a bit of a bug.

My favorite exploit was JS Bach's Cathedral: having it meant one citizen always was happy regardless of the war situation. So I'd build a city with a population of one, attributed many of my units to it, and didn't worry about unhappiness.

Sad that my brain has room to remember such useless knowledge more than two decades later, but not the name of the person I just met at a reception.

Moving units across the map in 1UPT is tedium without the excitement. Moreover, it's manifestly unrealistic. How big is a tile that can fit a modern urban metropolis? How many soldiers are in one unit? So why would an archer unit prevent another unit from being in the same tile? Even if the unit needs to live off the land, there's no way the maths work.

Millions of personnel and many thousands of vehicles of different types, all on one hex, able to instantly move/fight however they want in combat, is much less realistic. While 1UPT has downsides, the premise of an SoD was utterly immersion-breaking for me.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

This thread is so strange.

These new "unique units" are going to be the death of the franchise.

 

[aelf]

Millions of personnel and many thousands of vehicles of different types, all on one hex, able to instantly move/fight however they want in combat, is much less realistic. While 1UPT has downsides, the premise of an SoD was utterly immersion-breaking for me.

I have no idea where you got the idea of "millions of personnel" from. Unit sizes in Civ never gave the impression of being that big, since we start from pretty much the Neolithic Age after all (there wouldn't be millions of soldiers at any point until the industrial era, for that matter). Maybe thousands of personnel per unit? To get millions, you'd need to stack thousands of units, which I grant might be possible, but very unrealistic in most situations.

 

[I was NC]

I have no idea where you got the idea of "millions of personnel" from.

Okay, a dozen modern infantry divisions, ten tank groups, however many artillery, multiple anti-aircraft, helicopters, and support units all together would be more like around a half million. Having that many units together in one hex, all able to move however they want, just does not seem at all realistic to me.

 

[aelf]

Okay, a dozen modern infantry divisions, ten tank groups, however many artillery, multiple anti-aircraft, helicopters, and support units all together would be more like around a half million. Having that many units together in one hex, all able to move however they want, just does not seem at all realistic to me.

First, the modern era, where there are such divisions, is a small part of the entire civ timeline.

But a more salient point is, how many people are in a city that occupies one tile? So how big an area must one tile represent? And if that tile can only have one archer unit, that's not immersion-breaking?

 

[I was NC]

But a more salient point is, how many people are in a city that occupies one tile? So how big an area must one tile represent? And if that tile can only have one archer unit, that's not immersion-breaking?

People can and do live in high rises. I'm far from a military expert, but don't understand the same to be possible for combat. I already noted that 1UPT has problems and the answer is allowing three to four to stack. But for me, one is less immersion breaking than infinity.

 

[aelf]

People can and do live in high rises. I'm far from a military expert, but don't understand the same to be possible for combat. I already noted that 1UPT has problems and the answer is allowing three to four to stack. But for me, one is less immersion breaking than infinity.

Even before high rises, cities could have millions of people.

Well, YMMV, but an infinity of units being stacked is very unlikely to happen, while 1UPT is on all the time.

 

[I was NC]

Even before high rises, cities could have millions of people.

Very few cities reached seven figures, and even then people lived in multi-story buildings.

Regardless, it's good to see there's no argument that three to four units per tile makes sense. Nice when one of these threads resolves a matter.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

It was boring to just shove 10 catapults, 6 spearmen, 6 swordsmen, 3 horsemen, etc.. all on the same tile, double click them, and then just throw that at a city. The only "planning" is just to make sure you have enough of each unit to protect the strongest units, and then ram your suicide catapults against the enemy.

The planning was in the exact mix of units you required and the balance of how soon to go to war vs how many units to build.

Stacks of doom were definitely easier to manage for the AI and less tedious to move about the map.

 

[No. 2 Bunger]

Even before high rises, cities could have millions of people.

Well, YMMV, but an infinity of units being stacked is very unlikely to happen, while 1UPT is on all the time.

Makes me think of https://xkcd.com/2106/. Pretty sure there are numbers between 1 and infinity. Hopefully someday a game will examine this possibility.

 

[Core Imposter]

It seems that some people like to play sandbox civ and others like to play wargame civ. Some people like to move units around and others find moving units a nuisance. Who knew?

I just want Civ 7 to be a game wherein every decision has to be weighed against security risks which makes every decision meaningful. Waiting to hear about that and pretty much that only. But that's me.

 

[aelf]

Makes me think of https://xkcd.com/2106/. Pretty sure there are numbers between 1 and infinity. Hopefully someday a game will examine this possibility.

I don't think anyone disagrees that a middle ground is superior. The rest of the thread is here for you to read.

Personally, I just like to point out misconceptions about SoDs, as well as the fact that 1UPT is not more immersive. People just tend to justify their preferences with nebulous concepts (for Civ games) like immersion and realism.