Stacked vs Single Unit Combat - The Battle Continues

[Jon Miller]

I personally don't like the mamoth stacjs in civ3

I would prefer civ2 or smac style methods of keeping units from being overstacked

Jon Miller

[rah]

My vote is for stacks.
In civ II where two or three decent defenders on good terrain can hold off an army, is just silly. Every city has three quality defenders or two defenders and one mobile attack unit,..............Boring. There has to be more terror involved when you spot that army stack (not knowing what's it's composed of) trying to figure out how best to defend it.

Losing a stack of units because one lone crusader killed one defender is just plain stupid.

[Shogun Gunner]

I'm not a CTP person. I bought and played Civ 1, 2 and 3.

However, I did buy CTP 1 and played five or six games before putting it away for good. One thing that did make an impression was the improved combat handling over Civ 2.

I would like to see a carryover of this, like Trifna mentions, into the next version of Civ.

What about choosing actions for each of your units? A bombards G; D assaults G; E assaults G; F defends against H and I. B and C opportunity fire. Orders entered first, then actions carried out concurrently.

Your Troops......Enemy Troops
...B...D--------------G...J
A......E--------------H......L
...C...F--------------I...K

Actions could be:
Frontal assault (ala Kamakazi)
Assault (move, fire, move, fire)
Ranged attack (stay in position, fire)
Opportunity Fire (like cav/tanks when you pass by the position)
Defend
Fighting withdrawl (retreat, fire, retreat, fire)
Retreat
Flee (drop your sh*t and haul a55)

Different choices produce advantage and/or vulnerability. For example, choosing opportunity fire means nothing if the enemy doesn't advance on your position (out of range). Frontal assault is very costly when the enemy is in "opportunity fire mode"

Another example, counterbattery fire could be an option for artillery to artillery combat which we haven't seen at all in Civ. I love reading in the Civlopedia about Radar Artillery's ability to locate enemy artillery by tracing back the trajectory of the fire and destroying the enemy artillery. Can't really do that in Civ, can we? This new combat system may be able to incorporate those changes.

This would finally bring some "combined arms" concepts into the game, hopefully without too much micromanagement, because the additional work is the downside here.

Bottom line, adopting something like this would overcome one of my greatest objections to combat in Civ. Too much knowledge of the enemy reduces the combat into a decision tree analysis exercise of probability. What ever happend to "THE FOG OF WAR?" We all have seen the threads How come three of my Modern Armor units got destoyed attacking a Rifleman on a hill? People whine and complain a lot. Someone inevitably posts an application they compiled in C++ that will tell you when you should attack and when you should defend taking into account all bonuses of terrain, etc. Boring It's time for something new.

[Locutus]

I like your suggestion Shugun Gunner A bit like the BotF system. If not for Civ4, I will certainly keep it in mind for the CtP2 Source Code project...

[statusperfect]

I vote for stacks. More tactics = more fun

[Fosse]

I really don't want to see a tactical minigame included. I know it could be optional... but that would be like saying automated settlers are an option.

What I'd like are to give general orders before a turn begins from a list of reasonable strategies, such as Divide and Conquer, Dig in and Hold on, Full Frontal Assault, and then have those orders and my troops fight it out against the other guy's orders and troops.

I can't imagine any tactical minigame included being good enough to warrant having it, while at the same time being "mini" enough to get on with the turn.

[Jon Miller]

I hate the idea of a tactical minigame

I don't want to even see battles (as is seen in the pick)

I definitely don't want any control of them

I do want it so that it is advantageous to have no more than 50-60 moveable troop peices at any one point in the game

in the bad ideas area see some more points against stacked combat (especially as in CTP, I don't mind what is in Civ3 as much)

Jon Miller

[Trifna]

Personally, what I want from stacking is to see an advantage to a group of units that is more in quantity. THIS is a major and simple addition from stacking.

Now what some call a "mini-game" seems, to me, more to bring to each unit its real place. When I see a catapult or damaged unit being attacked while there's 10 other units, it just seems silly to have such things "random". It could be all automatic, it would be the best to me. My goal with chosing stacked units is not really to start managing each battle.


PS: Jon, "I do not likeit " is not a complete argument, explain why...

[Jon Miller]

I ahve played tactical minigame games (like AoW, MoM, Heroes, ect)

and while they were all fun, they were much more limited in scope than civ

if something is to have as grand of scope as I would like Civ to (And as Civ has had in the past)

than Tactical Minigames would be a terrible idea

when you have more than 50-60 moveable peices, than the forward momemtum gets lost and you lose the one more turness

at elast I do

I almost always quit games of Civ3 at that stage

also, in the past there were real, good reasons to not concentrate troops too heavily

these were:

logistics/supply
vulnerbility to flanking action
vulnerbility to artillery

like

bombard should work better against stacked units
stacked units attacked should get -1 to their defense for every other side where their are enemy troops (this should be tech dependent)
losses should occur in a square after the stacking limit has been reached

this is probably too complicated

Jon Miller

[DarkCloud]

I agree Jon Miller, a "tactical minigame" addition would be tantamount ot civ-suicide. CTP's tactical minigames were annoying little resource-dump wastes taht took away from the general game experience. CIV IS NOT A GAME FOCUSED UPON INDIVIDUAL HEROES OR TROOP COLUMNS... civ is a game focused upon the marshalling of large amounts of troops (like a wargame... a classic wargame) and the management of large amounts of resources.

Civ Is macro while Heroes of Might and Magic focuses upon the war units...

If civ were to focus on war mini-games then the game would lose its focus and its flavor... war would become the focus instead of management.

-
Tactical units should instead gain powers relative to their basic composition... I would suggest three levels of consideration to this debate:

A: No stackable Units (HARDLINE STANCE)
B: Only stack units of the same type ("Fortification Stance" After CivII's fortification tile-type)
C: Stack Combined Forces (The 'REALISM' STANCE... whereby modern wars are fought with many levels of units)

--
Basically, I would definitely support B... but C would be somewhat troublesome (I would still support it, but only if it could be implemented correctly.)

As a possible method of implementation, I would like to suggest the following scenario:

Combined forces have, as all civ Units do:
Firepower
Health
Defense
Attack

However, certain units, when augmented with each other, such as Infantry and Armor, gain bonuses relative to their basic composition in the force since they historically work well combined.... Forces that do not historically go together *IE cavalry and tanks- will suffer penalties from the difficulties issuing forth from combined forces tactical difficulties.

[Jon Miller]

I like yuor idea Darkcloud

Jon Miller

[DarkCloud]

thank you!

merry christmas!

[TimeTraveler]

I'd prefer stacked units myself.

However, I think if it's possible, there ought to be a rule option at the start of the game as to whether or not the stacks would be allowed. That way, those that prefer stacked units get them and those that don't prefer stacks don't allow them.

My two cents.

[Trifna]

Like you say, it is very very easy to just put an option to have no stacks. Or perhaps the only stack that would be permitted in this case would be to move more units at the same time, exactly as if you had moved them one after another.

[Jon Miller]

oh

I love moving units at the same time

that and having your units attack one right after another

but if there was less stacking in the game, it would not be as needed

Jon Miller