Stacked vs Single Unit Combat - The Battle Continues

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by Solver

Please give me a real example of tactics in civ 3. Is it deciding when to attack a certain unit in the field and how to move your attackers? If so, that also exists with the stack system.

I've mentioned many times I prefer stack combat, and diversity is another reason. In CtP2, late Industrial Age I use:

Machine Gunners - very decent all-around infantry
Artillery - bombarding and very strong ranged attack
Cavalry - for quick raids and pillaging
Infantrymen (Musketeers) - cheap defensive infantry that I can mass
Spies - intelligence, enough said

This is not to mention the different types of ships...

In Civ 3, early Industrial I use:

Cavalry - attack.
Riflemen - defend.

Then, Infantry replaces Riflemen (at which time it's near impossible to take a city, Infantry defends better than Cav attacks). Then, Tanks replace Cavalry - but that remains two units at all times. With then possible "speical" support from Marines, but there's a ton of those in CtP.

Stacked combat is better, all, all the way.

Ok..I poking around some and found this post.

Solver, my buddy from Hosting me at his detention camp to Modererating most of the Forum's I am involved posting in to the observing me as perhaps the absolute worse EVER Call To Power PBEM'er..

But I am really enjoying my CIVIII:Conquets Experience and look forward to what is in store for CIVIV!

I have an opinion about this stacked versus single attack:

I like in CIVIII Conquests where some units attack and fall back. What i dont like is the idea of single attack one after another. In reality an army wouldnt attack a single unit at a time, they would bum-rush a fortified position to overwhelm it.

I would just like the option is all and having come from CTP and some CTP:2 like the idea.

i would like to have a certain number capped though..not like a 20 stack of Tanks that wouldnt be too sweet.

maybe say a battalion of 9-12 tanks or whatever per stack

Thats my vote and oh in defense of Jon..he has that right to want single stack attacks..

Maybe I can play him one day..and one at a time he loses his military might!!

Ok

Thats my input

S*T*A*C*K*E*D A*T*T*A*C*K*S!!!

It was good enough for my man Wyatt and its good enuff fer me!

Gramps

[Dominae]

One the main arguments that I'm hearing from the "Stacked" camp is that pushing 50+ units around is boring.

How about looking at this from a different angle: what is it about the game that makes you produce so many units?

Answer: units need to be cheap because gamers have a low attention span and want to see things built quickly (over 10 turns is too much for any Civ3 unit, IMO). But cheap units means plentiful units. And this in turn leads to tedium.

Solutions:

1. Return to production-based upkeep (i.e. the more units you build, the fewer you can support, so the fewer overall). Although the Civ3 system of using Commerce for upkeep has the advantage of being intuitive and simple, it's also has the major disadvantage that Commerce is plentiful so it's relatively easy to field a huge/tedious army.

2. Introduce an artificial unit cap system à la RTS genre, and make surpassing it very expensive (as in, an inefficiency % loss to everything - Commerce, Shields, Culture, Happiness, etc.). I'm thinking of the tiered system of Warcraft 3 here, which I believe is exemplary. For those of you who are not familiar with it, bigger/badder units cost more "upkeep points", so for example a Tank would cost more to have around than a Spearman. In Warcraft 3 this favors having a bunch of weaker (low upkeep) units around, but the power of the units could be arranged in Civ4 so that a Tank would always be worth more than, say, 10 Spearmen (in combat and in upkeep).

Of course, this is already present in a more primitive form in Civ3, where upkeep is based on the number of cities you control. This runs into ICS-type problems (more cities = more units = more tedium). Upkeep needs to be disassociated from cities entirely.

3. Increase the cost of units so that fewer get built. In Civ3 you can have 200 Cavalry running around half way through the Medieval era. It's not unusual for late Ancient-era stacks to be some 30 units strong. The upgrade option amplifies the problem (again, because Commerce is too plentiful). The problem here is that, as mentioned above, the cost of the first unit will seem too high; imagine waiting 20 turns to build every Pikeman!

Somehow, the first units need to be relatively cheap, while subsequent units need to be more expensive. Not as upkeep, but as an up-front cost. I imagine that such a staggered cost system would be both more and less intuitive than the upkeep-based solutions above.

4. I'm sure there are other options that I'm not thinking of right now. Sorry if I've repeated something that appears higher in the thread.

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by Dominae
One the main arguments that I'm hearing from the "Stacked" camp is that pushing 50+ units around is boring.

How about looking at this from a different angle: what is it about the game that makes you produce so many units?

Answer: units need to be cheap because gamers have a low attention span and want to see things built quickly (over 10 turns is too much for any Civ3 unit, IMO). But cheap units means plentiful units. And this in turn leads to tedium.

Solutions:

1. Return to production-based upkeep (i.e. the more units you build, the fewer you can support, so the fewer overall). Although the Civ3 system of using Commerce for upkeep has the advantage of being intuitive and simple, it's also has the major disadvantage that Commerce is plentiful so it's relatively easy to field a huge/tedious army.

2. Introduce an artificial unit cap system à la RTS genre, and make it very expensive (as in, an inefficiency % loss to everything - Commerce, Shields, Culture, Happiness, etc.). I'm thinking of the tiered system of Warcraft 3 here, which I believe is exemplary. For those of you who are not familiar with it, bigger/badder units cost more "upkeep points", so for example a Tank would cost more to have around than a Spearman. In Warcraft 3 this favors having a bunch of weaker (low upkeep) units around, but the power of the units could be arranged in Civ4 so that a Tank would always be worth more than, say, 10 Spearmen (in combat and in upkeep).

Of course, this is already present in a more primitive form in Civ3, where upkeep is based on the number of cities you control. This runs into ICS-type problems (more cities = more units = more tedium). Upkeep needs to be disassociated from cities entirely.

3. Increase the cost of units so that fewer get built. In Civ3 you can have 200 Cavalry running around half way through the Medieval era. It's not unusual for late Ancient-era stacks to be some 30 units strong. The upgrade option amplifies the problem (again, because Commerce is too plentiful). The problem here is that, as mentioned above, the cost of the first unit will seem too high; imagine waiting 20 turns to build every Pikeman!

Somehow, the first units need to be relatively cheap, while subsequent units need to be more expensive. Not as upkeep, but as an up-front cost. I imagine that such a staggered cost system would be both more and less intuitive than the upkeep-based solutions above.

4. I'm sure there are other options that I'm not thinking of right now. Sorry if I've repeated something that appears higher in the thread.

Well, I am headed to bed now work tommorrow

But many interesting points brought forward with your reply

Thanks

Gramps

[Fatwreck]

Very good post Dominae

I myself have never thought of a system similar to Warcraft 3 but now that you mention it, it makes so much sense...

[Max Sinister]

Yes, a plain "every unit needs so-and-so much gp for maintenance" would be better. Plus, at the current system despotism is so much better than monarchy: Unless the number of your megalopolises is at least half the number of your towns, despotism is cheaper. Often much cheaper. Yes, despite higher corruption, I've seen it so often.

[Drachasor]

Hmm, well, to advertise my own idea, my idea here could handle this pretty well.

The problem with Civ II's system is that your individual cities had to handle the troop cost of any troops they made. If my idea was used, then excess shields could also go to support costs on troops.

However, I am a strong advocate of stacked combat, as it makes things have a much, much more realistic feel. When you outnumber the enemy 10-1, you shouldn't lose anyone attacking them on an open field, but non-stacked combat makes that happen. It is silly and anti-immersive.

A CtP-like system would be best, probably. Flanking and some other considerations would be nice, but not as essential as a basic stacked combat system. The Army system is Civ3 was better than nothing, but not nearly as good as the CtP system. Anything that made me feel like my Archers were *Archers* and not some sort of early legion would be nice. There needs to be something to encourage unit diversity. Hmm, perhaps even the classic Civ model needs to go too, but that might be too drastic.

-Drachasor

[Kramerman]

Originally posted by Drachasor
Hmm, well, to advertise my own idea, my idea here could handle this pretty well.

The problem with Civ II's system is that your individual cities had to handle the troop cost of any troops they made. If my idea was used, then excess shields could also go to support costs on troops.

However, I am a strong advocate of stacked combat, as it makes things have a much, much more realistic feel. When you outnumber the enemy 10-1, you shouldn't lose anyone attacking them on an open field, but non-stacked combat makes that happen. It is silly and anti-immersive.

A CtP-like system would be best, probably. Flanking and some other considerations would be nice, but not as essential as a basic stacked combat system. The Army system is Civ3 was better than nothing, but not nearly as good as the CtP system. Anything that made me feel like my Archers were *Archers* and not some sort of early legion would be nice. There needs to be something to encourage unit diversity. Hmm, perhaps even the classic Civ model needs to go too, but that might be too drastic.

-Drachasor

my thoughts as well

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Locutus
The question shouldn't be stacking or no stacking. A few luddites aside, everyone agrees stacking is superior. The question is should be how the stacking system could be made even better than it already is.

You can have certain units give bonuses to an entire stack, and some other units can work against a whole stack instead of just one unit.

For example, arty gives an offensive bonus to the whole stack so each individual unit gets it. Furthermore, arty attack can damage the whole stack (much like Alpha Centauri) instead of individual units.

[Quezacotl06]

Stacking doesn't make a large difference in the overal turnout of combat.

If you have 4 units, and ur surrounded by 3 enemy units, 2 things can happen.

Stacked: you move ur wad of 4 over to the 1. Naturaly, they're crushed. Then the 2 attack you, and they die too, while you suffer some loss yourself.

Individual: you move 1 against 1 of them. If you lose it, send another, say the 2nd 1 wins. Then you send ur other 2 to take out the remaining 2. And let's say that you win.

In the end, you end up with the same turnout. Unstacked means that u just have more control over ur battalions, and combat is more fluid.

Armies in civ3 are unrealistic anyway. When u build spearmen, you're not building 1 spearman taht will take over a city of 10,000 (population size 1) by itself. The individuals obviously represent armies already, right?

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by Quezacotl06
Stacking doesn't make a large difference in the overal turnout of combat.

If you have 4 units, and ur surrounded by 3 enemy units, 2 things can happen.

Stacked: you move ur wad of 4 over to the 1. Naturaly, they're crushed. Then the 2 attack you, and they die too, while you suffer some loss yourself.

Individual: you move 1 against 1 of them. If you lose it, send another, say the 2nd 1 wins. Then you send ur other 2 to take out the remaining 2. And let's say that you win.

In the end, you end up with the same turnout. Unstacked means that u just have more control over ur battalions, and combat is more fluid.

Armies in civ3 are unrealistic anyway. When u build spearmen, you're not building 1 spearman taht will take over a city of 10,000 (population size 1) by itself. The individuals obviously represent armies already, right?

In an abstract sense yes, I mean it could mean a platoon, a company, a battallion, a Brigade or a Division....

Gramps

[Adagio]

Stacking does make combat easier. It's better to move once and attack with 10+ units at the same time, than to move 10+ times to attack with one unit at a time...

[bigvic]

stacking limits, stacked combat option, and imho, just plain less units what about giving cities and forts some kind of intrinsic defenders or something. the more units on board, the more tedius the game as a whole becomes. i see stacking limits and stacked combat as integral to solving this.

i think that if they could get the average number of units in play down to about a third of what they have now the game would play a lot more smoothly and be superior tactically as well as strategically.

ctp did have civ3 beat for the most part in this area.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Well, I feel that the place where stack limits should be MOST important would be in cities. Lets face it, how would any of US feel if there were hundreds of thousands of soldiers deployed on our streets? Yet this-and even worse-is allowed to happen frequently in Civ! Having a barraks should allow you to store more units within a city, but ultimately the numbers should be very few. This would NOT, however, stop you from having units in nearby forts-to come to the city's defence when needed.
Ultimately, though, most military forces DREAD city combat, and as such we should be aiming at having most battles occuring in the open, with resort to city combat being more of an act of desperation.
Also, though, I love the idea of cities (not forts) having intrinsic defenders. When enemy units enter a city, there should be a quick 'resolution' to see how much damage the units recieve (if any) based on the size of the city, its level of happiness, the strength of the invader etc etc.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by The_Aussie_Lurker
Well, I feel that the place where stack limits should be MOST important would be in cities. Lets face it, how would any of US feel if there were hundreds of thousands of soldiers deployed on our streets? Yet this-and even worse-is allowed to happen frequently in Civ! Having a barraks should allow you to store more units within a city, but ultimately the numbers should be very few. This would NOT, however, stop you from having units in nearby forts-to come to the city's defence when needed.
Ultimately, though, most military forces DREAD city combat, and as such we should be aiming at having most battles occuring in the open, with resort to city combat being more of an act of desperation.
Also, though, I love the idea of cities (not forts) having intrinsic defenders. When enemy units enter a city, there should be a quick 'resolution' to see how much damage the units recieve (if any) based on the size of the city, its level of happiness, the strength of the invader etc etc.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

good points

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by The_Aussie_Lurker
Well, I feel that the place where stack limits should be MOST important would be in cities. Lets face it, how would any of US feel if there were hundreds of thousands of soldiers deployed on our streets? Yet this-and even worse-is allowed to happen frequently in Civ! Having a barraks should allow you to store more units within a city, but ultimately the numbers should be very few. This would NOT, however, stop you from having units in nearby forts-to come to the city's defence when needed.
Ultimately, though, most military forces DREAD city combat, and as such we should be aiming at having most battles occuring in the open, with resort to city combat being more of an act of desperation.
Also, though, I love the idea of cities (not forts) having intrinsic defenders. When enemy units enter a city, there should be a quick 'resolution' to see how much damage the units recieve (if any) based on the size of the city, its level of happiness, the strength of the invader etc etc.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Without Zone of Control, this does nothing. The reason you put defenders in the cities is that if you try to engage them on the field, a fast unit could go right around you to the city and burn it to the ground. Stacked combat does nothing to alleviate this problem. In fact with limited numbers you'd actually have to make MORE moves. If a fast enemy has say 10 stacks all within range of your city, instead of being able to concentrate all your units in the city you now have 1 in the city and a bunch of defensive stacks surrounding. This is actually MORE micromanagement.

Also, this idea that stacks will somehow magically cut down on the micromanagement is IMHO bunk. Stacks by themselves don't cut down on anything. Its the ratio of unit cost to total economic output that determines the number of units. Depending on this balance you could have a game with stacked combat with twice as many stacks as there are units now, or you could have a non-stacked game with one tenth as many units as there are now.