Stacking Limits Y/N

[MrBaggins]

Originally posted by skywalker
MrBaggins - the reason for a soft cap is so that, as I said, you can have them there for non-combat purposes. For example, in CtP2 I always got pissed when I realized I couldn't build a navy (or, in fact, any units at all) because I had 12 defenders in each city. A soft cap allows for those sorts of things, but has the same COMBAT effect (and combat is the problem) as a hard cap.

Well... I've been toying with the idea of separating the "any unit" limit out by type.. so... for instance.. 12 land units, 12 naval units, and 12 air units could fit in a city.

My concern is combat balance, and specifically how different attacking forces would interact (I.E. would an attacking ground army, attack just the ground defenders, or the naval defenders too, and what about air units?)

This would probably result in a situation where naval and air units could be captured, or perhaps they should be displaced instead.

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by Agathon
The one problem with variable caps is that if stacks can be fixed a la CtP, then it will be a pain to keep stacking and re-stacking.

You can enable stacking on a turn-by-turn basis by having a checkbox next to each unit on the pulldown list that would enable those selected units to go into battle at the same time. This would allow you to select your attacking units one time instead of having to do it every time you send a unit into battle as it currently is in civ3. The checks would only work for that turn and are cleared for the following turn.

A second checkbox could allow you to lock the grouping too.

This same principle can be used for subgroup movement (if you onlly want to move 20 units in a 50 unit stack), as well as a having the mass-group move feature that is now in place to use if you want to move the entire stack of units.

Originally posted by Skywalker
MrBaggins - the reason for a soft cap is so that, as I said, you can have them there for non-combat purposes. For example, in CtP2 I always got pissed when I realized I couldn't build a navy (or, in fact, any units at all) because I had 12 defenders in each city. A soft cap allows for those sorts of things, but has the same COMBAT effect (and combat is the problem) as a hard cap.

IMO, Sea units should be generated in the coastal tile instead of the city anyhow.

You can also generate the unit created in an unoccupied tile that is within the city radius, if the city is completely full. It makes sense to do that too because the city radius is considered part of the city.

[MrBaggins]

Originally posted by hexagonian

Originally posted by Agathon
The one problem with variable caps is that if stacks can be fixed a la CtP, then it will be a pain to keep stacking and re-stacking.

You can enable stacking on a turn-by-turn basis by having a checkbox next to each unit on the pulldown list that would enable those selected units to go into battle at the same time. This would allow you to select your attacking units one time instead of having to do it every time you send a unit into battle as it currently is in civ3. The checks would only work for that turn and are cleared for the following turn.

A second checkbox could allow you to lock the grouping too.

This same principle can be used for subgroup movement (if you onlly want to move 20 units in a 50 unit stack), as well as a having the mass-group move feature that is now in place to use if you want to move the entire stack of units.

I think Agathon's issue is more to do with movement over tiles of differing (variable) capacity... so say you can have 20 units move through a plains terrain tile, but only 8 through a mountain tile.

This would force you to break up units which move in a combined form, or stack. I.E. Its not just limited to CTP stacking.

If you have solely individual movement, you're already dealing with a nightmare of micromanagement, so you might not actually notice this variable capacity limit, if you can stand the game long enough to get to the point of building enough units to move in combination, that is.

In conclusion, the problem isn't army management (its one of the relatively good bits of the CTP2 interface, for instance), instead its having variable tile capacities. They are plain bad ideas. Either have a set limit, or no limit (and a soft cap for combat effects.)

IMO, Sea units should be generated in the coastal tile instead of the city anyhow.

You can also generate the unit created in an unoccupied tile that is within the city radius, if the city is completely full. It makes sense to do that too because the city radius is considered part of the city.

I like the idea... except I can see a couple of issues:

• If your city is connected to a number of sea tiles (perhaps even two bodies of water,) how is it decided where a naval unit gets placed? I assume randomly. If so, then that removes a possibly critical strategic choice for a player... he might need the newly built unit to be in tile X, to reach a unit in tile Y, but might be a couple of tiles further away, due to random placement.
  
  A method of dealing with this might be to allow free movement to any sea tile adjacent to the city, on the turn that its built. Would complicate the AI just a *tad* but thats probably very minor, considering the AI sucks using the navy at the moment, anyway.
• If you are blockaded (all adjacent tiles are blocked by non-domestic units,) or full, can you still build a naval unit from this city? If so, how does it get placed? A random next-nearest sea tile?
• It would probably be necessary to give transportable units a free board transport to an adjacent sea tile, to mimic the current behavior of having a unit asleep and leaving with a transport, automatically taking the sleeping unit with it.

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by MrBaggins
I think Agathon's issue is more to do with movement over tiles of differing (variable) capacity... so say you can have 20 units move through a plains terrain tile, but only 8 through a mountain tile.

In my mind, I agree that a variable cap based on terrain type ends up adding tedious micromangagement without offering any substantial strategy considerations.

However, I also agree with Agathon's assertion that the hard cap as it stands in CTP2 does create some management issues such as reorganizing the makeup of your armies - especially if you have to break apart a stack to move through it all the time. This would be the same problems with a variable cap, because the basic premise of a variable cap does put a limit on number of units on a tile. The problem with the CTP2 format is that you do spend a lot of time reorganizing stacks because the stacks are locked.

Ideally, your proposal is the best - a hard cap with the flexability to bypass the cap limitation only when moving through a tile. And as you know, I'm in favor of a hard cap limit and I do want the cap only to be soft for the purpose of movement.

What I was suggesting was a way to move/attack with a stack of units with a feature that allows the player to either lock the units in a stack for an unlimited time, or to lock them only for a turn. If Firaxis does retain the unlimited unit occupation of a tile format, (and it is entirely possible that they will), then an efficient way to manage those unit stacks needs to be presented...

[Trifna]

I think that you wont get too much MM if you simply put one limit for open field, and another for big mountains. Is there truly a use of more nuances?

[Shogun Gunner]

Originally posted by lajzar
btw, the actual support:combatant ratio is about 3:1, not 10:1. And support personnel tend not to be anywhere near the front line if the high command has any sense, so they aren't usually a factor in figuring supply requirements.

But the main argument against huge stacks is gameplay, not supply.

I think both are important (gameplay and realism). I acknowledge realism is second to gameplay.

Also, I did some quick research here at work and the support is much more than 3:1 for each of the branches of US armed forces. It varies from service to service (Marines the lowest, Army the highest), but the numbers are much closer to 10:1 than 3:1.

Its not just supply/support. In my original post, I was thinking more about the unit tactics. Today's armies have huge kill zones and the common refrain is "if you can see it, you can kill it". For this reason, jamming a lot of personnel and equipment into a small area actually just provides more targets. In ancient warfare, thousands upon thousands of soldiers line up to get within arm's reach (or perhaps short range projectile reach) to kill the enemy. Hence, large stacks makes more sense for ancient armies.

[lajzar]

Also, I did some quick research here at work and the support is much more than 3:1 for each of the branches of US armed forces. It varies from service to service (Marines the lowest, Army the highest), but the numbers are much closer to 10:1 than 3:1.

I agree that if you only consider those directly employed, you probably get about a 10:1 ratio.

But I bet you didn't factor in wives and children. They may not be directly employed by the military, but in an economic model, they are supported by the military exactly as if they were employed.

I still think unlimited stacking is the way to go for movement, coupled with a limit on the number of units that can actually engage. The defender then fights with whatever is present if within teh combat stack limit, else drawn semi-randomly from what is present, upto he combat stack limit, if he has too many units present. Everything present is then vulnerable to collateral damage.