Stacked vs Single Unit Combat - The Battle Continues

[Fosse]

A couple of things:
We don't have to have a max of 12. You just took this as what CtP did, and decided that it would apply to army combat for Civ 4 if they went that way so that you could argue against it.

I personally support a "soft" unit cap. Whereby there is an optimal size for armies, and going over that optimal will give you diminishing returns due to the logistics of handling so many troops.

Secondly: Simulating combat will always have some instances that are unrealistic. Unit by unit is unrealistic because it doesn't account for the fact that troops work in tandem. Saying that the whole concept of army by army combat is flawed and a bad idea because sometimes troops are in great defensive positions in mountainttops is silly, and I think that your supporting arguemnts are a bit weak.

Unit vs. unit is more unrealistic more of the time than army vs. army. And army vs. army is always less tedious and more efficient than unit vs. unit. In my opinion, and apparantly in the overwhelming opinion of this poll, it is also always more fun.

[Kramerman]

I am for a 3rd type of system, just an entirely new type of comabt system, or perhaps something borrowed form like hearts of iron or something. All i know is they need to introduce more types of modifiers (leadership, morale, etc) and a more strategic/tatcital system in general. the classic civ comabt system has always been one of the weaker elemnts of the game to me.

but i like the stacked CtP2 system better than the single unit system, so id vote for that if i had to choose

[Myrddin]

Stacked combat ala CTP2 is better IMO because it gives you more meaningful choices eg

what units do you put in an army stack (balanced offence/defence for open field combat, a siege train - bombard units with some guards, fast-movers for pillaging only, etc),

how do you group them and sequence the attacks (the limit of number of units in a tile means you have to think through your logistics),

retreat option allows recon by fire,

the expense of losing an entire army means you have to pick your battles carefully and sometimes give up a city to keep an army in existence, and prepare for the counter-attack

CTP2's city defence bonuses and bombard option makes capturing cities more a matter of a well-planned siege than simply throwing units at the city


I'm not sure whether it would be a good idea allowing the player more intervention in the battle resolution - at the moment CTP2 only allows 'retreat' to call off an attack that is unwinnable. Some things that could be added:

setting out the army disposition at the start of the battle
additional commands eg hold, ranged fire only, attack,charge
being able to split the army eg right, centre, left, reserve

but getting this to work for the AI and making it balance with the rest of the game would be a major challenge

[Shogun Gunner]

Tactical Minigame

I just posted this in another thread, but it really belongs here more. I have braced myself for skywalker and jon miller's wrath...

If a tactical minigame was introduced because of stacked combat.... I would hope that the "tactical minigame" utilizing stacked combat was made very robust.

What I mean is that a stack of troops meets an enemy stack of troops on one tile. Then the tactical minigame opens up.

That one tile (from a strategic perspective) expands to 40 tiles (tactical perspective) and each tile has unique geographical features. Your one armor unit breaks down into three or four armored companies. Other units have similiar breakdowns -- from division level to regiment level. You would play a game like Steel Panthers or Panzer Leader. Many of the CTP features (like retreat was mentioned right above) would be incorporated.

no, this isn't quite civ anymore, but I have to admit I would be totally into it if this concept was introduced.

[TheBirdMan]

Originally posted by Myrddin
Stacked combat ala CTP2 is better IMO because it gives you more meaningful choices eg

what units do you put in an army stack (balanced offence/defence for open field combat, a siege train - bombard units with some guards, fast-movers for pillaging only, etc),

how do you group them and sequence the attacks (the limit of number of units in a tile means you have to think through your logistics),

retreat option allows recon by fire,

the expense of losing an entire army means you have to pick your battles carefully and sometimes give up a city to keep an army in existence, and prepare for the counter-attack

CTP2's city defence bonuses and bombard option makes capturing cities more a matter of a well-planned siege than simply throwing units at the city


I'm not sure whether it would be a good idea allowing the player more intervention in the battle resolution - at the moment CTP2 only allows 'retreat' to call off an attack that is unwinnable. Some things that could be added:

setting out the army disposition at the start of the battle
additional commands eg hold, ranged fire only, attack,charge
being able to split the army eg right, centre, left, reserve

but getting this to work for the AI and making it balance with the rest of the game would be a major challenge

Well thinking/written - you have my fully support!

[Kuciwalker]

Re: Tactical Minigame

Originally posted by Shogun Gunner
I just posted this in another thread, but it really belongs here more. I have braced myself for skywalker and jon miller's wrath...

If a tactical minigame was introduced because of stacked combat.... I would hope that the "tactical minigame" utilizing stacked combat was made very robust.

What I mean is that a stack of troops meets an enemy stack of troops on one tile. Then the tactical minigame opens up.

That one tile (from a strategic perspective) expands to 40 tiles (tactical perspective) and each tile has unique geographical features. Your one armor unit breaks down into three or four armored companies. Other units have similiar breakdowns -- from division level to regiment level. You would play a game like Steel Panthers or Panzer Leader. Many of the CTP features (like retreat was mentioned right above) would be incorporated.

no, this isn't quite civ anymore, but I have to admit I would be totally into it if this concept was introduced.

Hope you're braced enough

Has anyone here played SW:Rebellion? That was a game that sucked even more than CtP(2). A pretty astounding accomplishment. The game got bogged down in incessent micromanagement, largely because of its "stacked combat" and tactical minigame. C4 will take FOREVER if it includes one of these.

[Shogun Gunner]

I thought that was going to be worse than it was. Thanks for going easy on me skywalker!

No, I've never seen that game, and it wouldn't surprise me if many of the games with "tactical minigames" would suck. A tremendous amount of detail to get right....

[HodJay]

here goes,
stacked is better but there are still problems with it.

Per the discussion about tactics, neither single unit nor stacked has anything to do with tactics; tactics are the maneuvers, formations, etc. that the individual units would be performing to achieve the desired result (usually to decimate your opponents units).

Which was one of the problems with stacked units of CTP (still my favorite though I can't seem to make it work with XP - damn you Bill Gates!), two infantry units and an arty would destroy 7 cavalry units without taking any damage. Surely that would be close to the truth, but 7 cavalry units might be able to exhaust or outflank the infantry and get some of those big guns.
(I've never been a fan of 'healing' units but some parts of the game you can't make better without making them more complicated and then would it be as fun)

I liked what Shogun Gunner was saying. MOO3 has something like that with land combat where you select an order (out of about 12, like "feint", "flank", "double envelopment", etc.) and the computer generates a result based on the comparison of your orders versus the enemy's, multiplied by troops strength, then divided by gravity or something like that. Although there were no visuals it sounded pretty vicious.

Yes, sensai Shogun, that sounds like a good idea.
So, if those are the two choices, stacked vs. single, then make mine STACKED! please.

[Kuciwalker]

Per the discussion about tactics, neither single unit nor stacked has anything to do with tactics; tactics are the maneuvers, formations, etc. that the individual units would be performing to achieve the desired result (usually to decimate your opponents units).

Actually, there are somewhat limited tactics in C3's non-stacked combat. Tactics being maneuvers performed by military units below the strategic level.

[rah]

While I like civII, stacked, as in ctpII, it solves the one problem I have with civII, You put 3 muskets on a mountain top and you can't take them out. Using a large stack you could, which seems to make more sense and makes it more strategic on how you do your home defense. Road are more important.

I like ZOC ala civII, but then I'm biased from playing all those Avalon Hill board games as a lad. Almost all of them used a similar type ZOC.

[Kuciwalker]

You can take out anything in C3, it just depends on how many units'll die as you do it.

[TheBirdMan]

Re: Re: Tactical Minigame

Originally posted by skywalker

Has anyone here played SW:Rebellion? That was a game that sucked even more than CtP(2). A pretty astounding accomplishment. The game got bogged down in incessent micromanagement, largely because of its "stacked combat" and tactical minigame. C4 will take FOREVER if it includes one of these.

Not only Rebellion has this feature. Shogun has it too.

Even though a full game of either Rebellion or Shogun takes FOREVER, I still find them interesting, because I can choose to fight myself or let the computer do the fightings for me.

I had almost the computer to resolve all fightings in Rebellion as I didn't find it attractive (the computer made a better "output" of the battle that I was able to anyway ).

For Shogun I take command myself of the fightings in all battles in the early and mid game but in the late game, where you are not really in doubt that you are going to win, I am very happy to let the computer do the work for me. That "saves" lots of hours micromanegement for me.

IMO you can't say that minigames generally sucks. That depends on the design of the game.

[ThePlagueRat]

Vote stacked and you'll be very happy!




(or go buy ctp)

[Shogun Gunner]

Re: Re: Re: Tactical Minigame

Originally posted by TheBirdMan


Not only Rebellion has this feature. Shogun has it too.

Yes I do, but I don't like to brag...

[hexagonian]

I've mentioned it before, but 'Chariots of War' is another game that uses stacked combat and a tactical minigame. Suprisingly, I do have to agree with Skywalker that the combat in a tactical minigame can become as tedious as in civ3, because the player has a lot of control over the types of manuevers (flank, charge, envelop, hold, etc, as well as unit placement on terrain and positioning in relation to other friendly units) so you can end up spending several minutes deploying forces for each battle.

But that can be overcome by allowing the computer to set up battles for both itself and yourself - and as pointed out by HodJay, general orders could be implimented without having to manually place units on the field of battle)

That said, from a standpoint of gameplay/tactics, CTP2's setup is still the best balanced in concept, not necessarily in execution in its current form in CTP2 (for instance, the programming needs to make it more focused, for instance). It simulated the idea of tactics in a general sense, and allowed for a streamlined execution of battles.

..still firmly pro-stack!