Stacked vs Single Unit Combat - The Battle Continues

[MrBaggins]

12 vs one is firstly realistic because of the map scale we are talking about.

Also, you should note that 12 attackers never simultaneously attack one guy in CtP combat... for a start you only have a front line of 6. Being that an individual unit could be attacked from different directions, I don't see the situation being unrealistic.

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by skywalker
... which has nothing to do with the merits of stacked vs unstacked combat, as virtually everyone agrees that Civ3-style ZOC was a mistake and Civ2-style ZOC was good.

But I am also dealing with the inherent problem of tedium within a single-unit vs single-unit setup that is compounded by the tedium that is brought about by the elimination of ZOC that effectively doubles the number of units strung out on a front line.

I do need to clarify this though - it is the total disregard of trespassing agreements by the AI that is the real culprit. This necessitates the need for long fronts to stop what amounts to a MAJOR gameplay irritation. With a ZOC rule, I could probably stomach the trespassing since I could set up strategically placed units, but without the rule, I have to set up in every tile that touches the front.

[Rasputin]

you should have included "leave it as it is in civ3" as an option in poll ...

[Peter Triggs]

you should have included "leave it as it is in civ3" as an option in poll ...

That's quite true. I bet it would have been the overwhelming choice of Civ3 players, who, after all, are the market that Firaxis is aiming their games at. We CTP2 players are the Mac owners in this situation. Billy didn't get all that money by trying to please them.

[LDiCesare]

HOM&M, MOO, MOM- all used stacked combat and this greatly helps the AI when it comes to combat

MOO ai being helped by stacked combat? Urgg... If you let it play tactical combar, the ai would lose your battles happily...
But stacked combat is the way to go. CtP2 system was very good. Better than any other system I found. Adding more special powers than ranged / flanking might be an option, though.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Rasputin
you should have included "leave it as it is in civ3" as an option in poll ...

Yeah, that's odd. I would think C3C might be more appropriate, as its the latest...

I'm an admitted Civ fanboy, but even I would vote banana over the Civ2 (howitzer/engineer army) model.


And I must be the only one around to find the ZoC of Civ2 to be utterly ridiculous and lazy. How large are tiles? 100 square miles or something? How can a warrior unit control tiles adjacent to his own? We can't do that now very well... I think you should have to physically control each tile. The AI rarely crosses my territory anymore, though when I first got the game, they did it incessently. After being kicked out once, they seem to stay away from my land (fearing war).

[realpolitic]

Originally posted by statusperfect
I vote for stacks. More tactics = more fun

:d: 80% are for Ctp stacks, about what I expected, in Ctp it adds a dimension to the game and speeds the game up (because you have to attck in groups).

[Fosse]

realpolitic:

Agreed. I'll say again, it seems to make sense to go onto talking about how we'd like to see stacks, instead of whether we want to... since we overwhelmingly do.

[Admiral PJ]

I oppose having all units in stacks, you need plenty of unstacked units to scout and recce to defend and explore/attack.

I've not played Ctp yet, tho I may compile its source code to see if its any good ( it was designed by a Lawyer so its got to be good NOT ). Sending everything around in stacks would be easy , but you'd end up having more trouble than you started with. You'd have to have 50 stacks to take over the world in the end, and it would make micromanagement far worse. Each city needs units to defend it.. i'm not going to have a big army stack of 5 units defending one city when it could be off fighting a war.

If we have more stacks and armies, they need to be better than the Civ3 Armies. Armies are like stacked units, and I think they make sense.. they could be expanded upon for Civ3. Army combat could come into being in the late Ancient era, the Classical era to be precise perhaps relating to the Monarchy Advance, which was alot to do with millitary organisation.. the king effectively being the General of the army. Feudalism also brought about advances in army tactics, leading to professional standing armies.

Someone needs to define the different types of stack options.

I think some stacks should be available as an option.. where the stack can have a General or Knight commanding it. Depending on his skill and technological , tactics and training level he can work out what units to defend with, and what to attack. The player must be involved in all stages.. I hate having combat resolved automatically simply based on an abstract defencive value. One example here is The player could select skirmish mode, where the stack units spread out and think for themselves, but the general
still directs them to ambush or harrass the enemy. Formations and combined warfare tactics can be simulated too.

I'd prefer to go for unit detail and quality , over quantity.
Anyone can make a large tank army, but its more interesting making a couple small stack armies and many skirmishing scout and fast attack cavalry class units .

CTP2 had a battle screen where the stacks battled it out.. tho this dosen't have much strategy in it I believe.. if we went this way it would have to be a battlefield on which to play upon.

Civ isn't CTP , lets try to keep some of the old great game intact.

[Fosse]

PJ,
You don't have to move around every unit in stacks! In the CtP series most of the early game is played with single units in fact, because you have so few and they have so many things to do.





Off topic: The compiled source code still requires the commercial CD.

[Admiral PJ]

I think we could have Units spread into fronts and Stack like advantages. Like i said before this here, a General, call it a Commander would be a Leadership unit that controls a group of units. These units could include Marines, Fighterbomber jets , Destroyers to allow them to work together to both bombard and soften up targets alongside normal ground combat - Combined Tactics.. I think this is why people are thinking stacks would be useful in part.
The units would be linked to the commander only through command structure, they could be 50 miles away if communications allowed it. This is similar to a modern millitary structure where the Marines have support Bombers and artillery as well as Supply trucks etc.
You could have 10 infantry troops spread into line formation and the commander can be given orders by you to go on Defencive or Sentry duties, which organises the whole Battalion/'Stack' into that stance.

[Admiral PJ]

Tactical minigames.. Shouldn't that be a separate topic?
I'm thinking of putting that in my originally coded game (nothing to do with the ctp source code i should add, for clarity). It allows us coders a lot less work, but it can make a worse game as it reduces strategic planning.

Having a minigame means the rest of the map isn't being animated or drawn so it saves on computer processor overhead. The advantage is that the player has to play out the battle in one area till a result is reached, and dosen't have to halfway through leave this battle and concentrate on a drought in China or a skirmish with the English etc.

If civ can do this minigame well, it could have a lot of advantages. You could have one minigame set in a Modern European City style, with separate buildings and rivers and roads as tactical obstacles or defencive fortifications. This is why i'm considering it for my game project.

Its possible to make this concept work on the large world map, just section off a part of it and make it a battlefield.
The major problem is reinforcements.. if a units just outside the battlefield, shouldn't it be able to join the battle if it lasts more than a day for example.
The solution is to keep minigames short and allow a battle to continue to the next Fullworld game turn ends for reinforcements , though they should be called tactical combat games/levels.

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by Admiral PJ
Sending everything around in stacks would be easy , but you'd end up having more trouble than you started with. You'd have to have 50 stacks to take over the world in the end, and it would make micromanagement far worse. Each city needs units to defend it.. i'm not going to have a big army stack of 5 units defending one city when it could be off fighting a war.

Well, here is a sample gamefile of my current CTP2 Cradle game. This is on turn 290, so I am well into the game. This is to illustrate that army management is greatly streamlined in a stacked situation.

Note that there are not a lot of stacks. Most of my cities are garrisoned by anywhere from 2-12 units, based on how hot things are. On this front, I am not dealing with a lot of units - this front is somewhat isolated and the enemy is halfway around the world, but I am also outclassed on unit type (base enemy infantry unit Legion - 30A/30D/15HP against Hoplites - 15A/20D/12HP), so I have to make sure that I have numerical superiority. This is not a particularly hot front either.

I have several units out on the perimeter and when something shows up, I send out my lone stack to deal with it. I'm on a steady military build up there, yet because of battle attrition and that there are no enemy cities to hit, I have to expend a lot just to make sure I do not lose anything.

My southern front (not shown) is a lot hotter, but the civs/units down there are more technologically similar and because I'm close to hostile cities, the enemy stacks are larger when they show up. I am treading water down there. I did most of my war expansion in that area, and I have gone back and forth on a few cities. Nevertheless, it is pretty much the same regarding deployment - only a few stacks. I would like to put together a lot of stacks and do a major push, but it is hard to put it together AND cover all of my bases.

I have to carefully manage troops because when a battle can wipe out an entire stack, the stakes become very high - unlike in civ3 where single-unit combat can be easily stopped. (One of the reasons why stacked combat is such a rush, IMO...)

And since I cannot load a city with infinite units, I have to pick my battles very carefully.

[Jon Miller]

I don't like city garrisons

civ3 also doesn't have lots of stacks, I don't like that

Jon Miller

[Kuciwalker]

I see this as where the fortification bonus - that can still be in an army vs. army system - comes in. Given those bonuses, we can simulate the effects of great fortification. I appreciate the argument, but I don't think that this one instance makes the system of unit vs. unit more realistic as a whole. Besides, if two guys are in that fortress on a mountain top, then one of them isn't taking a break while the other one fights off the attackers.

The defense bonuses, unless they are EXTREMELY LARGE (like, 300-400%, maybe), are not helpful. The fact that multiple units are engaged in combat at the same time means that the only truly viable stack is one between 8 (probably only defense) and 12 units (given a max of 12). Stacked combat, in allowing multiple units to attack one unit, is actually unrealistic in that it ignores the fact the many times, only one unit at a time would be able to come into position to attack that other unit. In stacked combat, the power of a force increases exponentially with size, rather than directly, as in C3.