Knowing the size of stacks

[Historical Atze]

Hi, you probably do not know me as I've almost never posted in this forum before. But you certainly know Eivind as creator of scens like Blitzkrieg or Belle Epoque. Some days ago I had a discussion about a "trick" in Civ2 I discovered years ago and which is used on German Webring Forum in every scenario since then. Eivind, however, supposed it to be cheating.
It goes as follows.

First, there's a stack visible to you and you want to know its size then you right click on the stack and then decrease the size of the window to the lower right where the topmost unit is visible. When the window is small enough the unit disappears and instead the window sais something like "10 more units".

Second, the problem with cities is that this trick doesn't work as you see no units. This is unless you have a city within 2 squares range of the other city or there's a unit moving into the city and you can see both the square where it came from and the city with a single unit of yours. Then you see the topmost unit within the city and can apply the "trick" as described above.

What do you think about it. Have you heard about it before? Do you use it? Do you also believe it to be cheating?
Greetings Atze

PS: I hope I posted in the right subforum and there is no thread about this already - I have found nothing.

[rjmatsleepers]

My opinion - for what it's worth.

"cheating" is too strong. It is an exploit and appears to be unintended by the games designers. For SP, it's up to each individual which exploits they are happy to use. For other types of game - MP, competition, whatever - the rules simply have to be agreeed in advance.

RJM

[SlowThinker]

I answered already:
Knowing the size of stacks - at CivFanatics
(and I am interested if you think it can improve or harm the game)

[Historical Atze]

I do not know if it improves the game or harms it. I think it's just a change and wanted to make you all aware of it so no-one uses it while the others can't.

What do you mean by "interested" - do you propose anything else?

[rah]

Originally I have negative thoughts about this. But it's like black clicking and using "closest to". You can ask people not to do it but you really can't stop them, so it's probably best that you just inform people that it can be done and let the decide whether they'll do it.

Especially now with CIV IV where you can see stacks, I guess I don't think of it as that big of a thing. Especially since it just tells you the number and not what's in the stack. Deciding to attack new cities, it might come into play if you're interested in if that phalanx you saw moving with the settler is the only defender. Maybe a few other specific circumstances.

No, I have no problem if people use it.

I'll have to try it to make sure I understood how it's done.

[Historical Atze]

If there are problems, just ask here or send me an E-Mail . I am glad to help.

[JCP]

I have a difficulty : there is no right or left click on mac version !

[Historical Atze]

Well, I can't help you with mac . On windows you can get the same effect by pressing the "V"-Button, maybe it works there, too.

[Scouse Gits]

Interesting ...

I don't really have an opinion

Stu

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by Historical Atze
What do you mean by "interested" - do you propose anything else?

No, I only meant I was curious.

Originally posted by JCP
I have a difficulty : there is no right or left click on mac version

Frankly said I wasn't able to work H. Atze's instructions, but I noticed all I need is to shrink the status window so that the picture of a unit (of the stack I am examining) doesn't fit inside.
So I thought this was the trick described by Atze.

[Historical Atze]

It's as you say. The status window this one's called? Ok, learned another thing .

[SlowThinker]

Ah!
I not good english, but maybe better wording is this?

"and then decrease the size of the window where the topmost unit is visible to the lower left "

[Straybow]

"and then decrease the size of the window where the topmost unit is visible to the lower left "

Nah, just say:

" move the view cursor onto the stack or city, then drag the lower edge of the status window up until the image of the topmost unit disappears... "

[Historical Atze]

So, now we have 3 different sentences all meaning the same. I think most people should understand now - thank you 2 . Maybe I'll post a screenshot of it later this weekend.

[Nilat]

I think it is an exploit which should not be used.. shame if some people get an idea from this now and begins to use it. Although for some scenarios it might be good (can't think of any examples) and it could be allowed. It could be a recreation of scouting by your troops to know the general size of an opposing army. However, this information that scouts give can be deceiving as the enemy may conceal some hardware (just real life examples).