Problems with not stacking

[Dinner]

The more I think about it the more I dislike the idea of not being able to stack units. Here's a few reasons:

1) It will take to long. Right now with a few clicks I can move large numbers of units all at once and that makes playing multiplayer very easy. It seems like in the new system I will have to individually order each unit so this is going to become a nightmare for MP players.

2) Units have also healed more quickly in cities or if they are in a stack with a unit which has the medical upgrade. If there is no stacking then what use is the medical upgrade really? Most people will probably opt for a combat related upgrade instead as you'll have to make each unit the best fighter possible and because the medical upgrade, if it is even in the game, will be virtually useless. Sure, we might still have the unit in cities healing bonus but imagine the nightmare of trying to rotate all of your unites in and out of cities all the time to hurry up healing. Again it's just a mess.

3) Noncombat units like Settlers and Workers will be extremely vulnerable. Since the guarding unit can't sit right on top of the noncombat unit we're going to see barbarians and wild animals kill huge numbers of our workers and settlers. I for one don't think that will be very fun.

4) You've always been able to rush building roads or what not by stacking lots of workers in a tile all doing the same job. This is now gone so expect to spend a lot more time trying to connect that bronze or chop that forest.

What do you folks think?

[Nostromo]

I was under the impression that only military units couldn't be stacked.

[Dinner]

That would help with one issue at least. Will it be possible to group units? I recall Civ3 was released without this option but it was later added with a patch though it was to late to fix the bad interface which didn't have a button for grouping units until after you paid for an expansion.

[wodan11]

Seems like you're assuming a lot here, and then drawing conclusions off of your assumptions, and then complaining about the conclusions. What if the assumptions are not correct? The whole logic falls apart.

[Guynemer]

[MxM]

My understanding is that there will be much less units, so the hassle of handling them, even if they are not stackable, will be much smaller.

[Kropotkin]

I figure that the idea behind non-stacking, and perhaps also fewer units, are that it makes the tactics more interesting. As it is now I personally enjoy combat in the earlier parts of the game more because it involves more than moving huge stacks of units towards the nearest enemy city.

[MikeH]

They've already said you can stack a civilian unit, a military unit and an air unit. Just not 2 land based military units.

Seems like you're assuming a lot here, and then drawing conclusions off of your assumptions, and then complaining about the conclusions. What if the assumptions are not correct? The whole logic falls apart.

[ColdPhoenix]

The more I think about it the more I dislike the idea of not being able to stack units. Here's a few reasons:

1) It will take to long. Right now with a few clicks I can move large numbers of units all at once and that makes playing multiplayer very easy. It seems like in the new system I will have to individually order each unit so this is going to become a nightmare for MP players.

2) Units have also healed more quickly in cities or if they are in a stack with a unit which has the medical upgrade. If there is no stacking then what use is the medical upgrade really? Most people will probably opt for a combat related upgrade instead as you'll have to make each unit the best fighter possible and because the medical upgrade, if it is even in the game, will be virtually useless. Sure, we might still have the unit in cities healing bonus but imagine the nightmare of trying to rotate all of your unites in and out of cities all the time to hurry up healing. Again it's just a mess.

3) Noncombat units like Settlers and Workers will be extremely vulnerable. Since the guarding unit can't sit right on top of the noncombat unit we're going to see barbarians and wild animals kill huge numbers of our workers and settlers. I for one don't think that will be very fun.

4) You've always been able to rush building roads or what not by stacking lots of workers in a tile all doing the same job. This is now gone so expect to spend a lot more time trying to connect that bronze or chop that forest.

What do you folks think?

We don't know exactly how it will work so it's a bit early toi start criticising. Anyway:

1) There will likely be fewer units.
2) Who's to say if the medic promotion will work in the same way (maybe it will heal adjacent units) or if it'll even exist.
3) It's already been said that you can have a civil and a military unit on the same tile.
4) Who knows the way roads will work? We've already been told they'll be different (fewer, more important roads).

[Ming]

Yeah... I find it hard to have any opinion on whether I will like it or not... whether it will be good for MP or not, or how medic units might work (assuming there still are medic units) or many other questions. We just don't know enough yet. I've played many traditional hex based war games with limitations on the number of units per hex, and they were fine. But who really knows at this point how they are going to do it.

It seems a tad early to be jumping down their throats.

When we know more, THEN we can jump down their throats

[rah]

Yeah, who knows. Maybe there's a medic unit that's not considered a military unit. Or if it's a military unit it acts like the double medic promotion (like coldphoenix mentioned)

[Blaupanzer]

No need for Chicken Little complaining, sight unseen. Once the sky has actually fallen, THEN we can, as Ming put it, "jump down their throats."

[rah]

But we're so bored and it too long of a wait for the game to actually come out.
whine whine whine whine.

[Proteus_MST]

My understanding is that there will be much less units, so the hassle of handling them, even if they are not stackable, will be much smaller.

Yes, according to the previews and the interview with Shafer there seem to be certain mechanisms at work to reduce the number of units.

You have to pay upkeep for your units.

Obviously the units you can have is more connected to the strategic resources than before.
Each source of a strategic resource you have (iron for example) can only support a certain number of units that need it (I read something about 5 for iron) meaning that after 5 swodsmen for example you can only build another one if either one of your swordsmen gets destroyed/disbanded or if you have a 2nd source of iron at hand.

Battles on the map usually don´t end with the destruction of one of the2 units (so that you don´t need a large number of replacement units in warfare and have a longer lifetime of the individual units)

Another difference to previous parts seems to be, that cities are able to defend themselves without the need for a garrsison unit (with its defense capabilities getting enhanced by building crtain buildings within the city), further reducing the need for units.

All in all it sounds like the military system has changed for the better

[wodan11]

Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if Firaxis realized that there are inherent graphical display and memory problems with using 3D modelling with large numbers of discrete animations. And, from a realism perspective, seems to me there are some actual improvements to be made by a big change in approach to the game. From Civ1 on, it's always been "more more more!" in terms of number of units.

It actually would be pretty cool to have mechanisms dealing with supply & logistics, trench warfare, etc. Heck, it'd be really cool to be able to rout your opponent's army. It breaks apart into its constitutent elements and they all run amok into the rear... totally clusterfarks whatever terrain, units, and supply lines are behind it.