1UPT: the Civ 1 approach!

[Robert]

So we now have 1UPT.
1UPT, combined with the ranged units and the very different unit-types, is very interesting for strategical warfare reasons! Great!

It's not so great though for army planning, army moving and army storing purposes. Getting your army lined up correctly is a micromanage nightmare! (micromanaging in the bad sense of the word. MM in itself is good, ofc )

So that's why I wonder, why not merge the Civ1 approach with the Civ5 1UPT approach. In civ1 you could stack armies, when attacked the best defensive unit would defend. If it lost, the entire stack was gone.

So why not introduce stacks with the civ1 limits to civ5, and improve and expand it!

- it's possible to move multiple units to one tile
- when multiple units move into 1 tile, then before the end of the turn a 'leading unit' (LU) must be assigned
- this LU will be the one you can select and move, the rest of the stack will follow
- when attacked, the LU will defend
- Only the LU can attack
- the stack can move with the speed of the slowest unit
- if during a battle the LU dies, the entire stack dies
- the entire stack receives the same damage the LU does during every battle
- It's possible to unstack, all units can then be moved to different tiles.
- the turn of unstacking, none of the non-LU of the stack can attack
- at the end of the unstacking turn, new stacks can be formed of course

Advantages:
* move big armies easier
* easier to manage your armies / store them in your territory
* create real armies, bring them to the front, unstack them there
* no stacks of doom! if the LU dies, all units in the stack die. The stack is for moving and managing, not for waging war
* all 1UPT strategies are applicable

In fact it combines the strengths of 1UPT for warfire with the strengths of stacking for army manegement
It removes the bad micromanagement (for army management) while it keeps the good micromanagement (for warfare)

So what am I overseeing?
Any opinions? Is this a good idea or not?

[Ming]

Not a good idea...

IMHO, it brings back the dumbest idea from Civ I and II... where one unit dies, and the whole stack is dead.
The only real advantage of yours that I would agree with is that it's easier to move and store armies.
And I disagree that it keeps the micromanagement for warfare, since the whole stack could die before it unstacks.

While it's good people are trying to think of some alternatives, I don't really have any major problems with IUPT with the exception of the auto pathfinder.

[Nikolai]

Yeah. Let's solve the dissatifaction with 5 by reintroducing 1's worst feature.

[Robert]

@Nikolai
It's not civ1's worst feature. It's inspired by Civ1's worst feature, but then improved for 1UPT.

@Ming
the whole stack dying is up to the player to prevent. In fact it's quite easy to prevent, never keep a stack within striking distance of the enemy.
Firaxis could implement auto-wake up if friendly and/or enemy units come into striking distance.

For war-purposes it's 1UPT
For non-war purposes it's civ4 style

It's the best of both worlds.
You argue it b/c you apply the non-war purpose to a war situation. Players will learn to not do that as soon as they lose their first big stack.

[Nikolai]

I see the worst of two worlds. I see no benefit in reintroducing the one death = all dead feature. For war purposes it's 1upt and civ1 combined into a bad mix. For non-war purposes it's civ4 with the potential of Bad Things Happening (tm) civ4 never had, see war purposes.

[Dinner]

There are already so few units in Civ5 (due to the cost of supporting each unit and the long build time) that I just do not see making it easier to kill those few units as being an improvement to the game.

[rah]

Yeah, a single sneak attack taking out your entire home defense force. It would be nice to have some staking for moving units like trucks or trains, but considering what they did for water transports i doubt they'd go the other way for ground movement.

[Robert]

Yeah, a single sneak attack taking out your entire home defense force. It would be nice to have some staking for moving units like trucks or trains, but considering what they did for water transports i doubt they'd go the other way for ground movement.

simply don't stack your home defense force.
You're thinking too much from a non-adapted gamers pov.
The game itself will teach you how to handle it.

It'll teach you to not have stacks if any unit is in attack-range.

There are already so few units in Civ5 (due to the cost of supporting each unit and the long build time) that I just do not see making it easier to kill those few units as being an improvement to the game.

the improvement is that you can move stacks around and you do not have to micromanage every step of every individual unit.
Kill all units in 1 stack only ensures that nobody will use stacking for warmongering. During war armies will be 1UPT again.

Once again, don't reason from the current situation. don't reason like "I will lose my 20 units stack".
B/c you will play the game in such a way that you will not lose it. 1UPT is so strong that there's no reason to keep units stacked during war situations.

[rah]

It'll teach you to not have stacks if any unit is in attack-range.

that is quite difficult once the modern era introduces things that fly

[Robert]

Good point!

[dannubis]

Why not allowing stacked units but with severly weakened stats? (Modeling the reduced mobility when traveling in a long column). Thuis way stacks are vulnerable but you don't loose the entire stack in a single attack.

This would allow for Pearl Harbor type of events as well, BTW.

[OzzyKP]

Yea, definitely don't bring back having the whole stack die at once. That was, as others have said, a very bad idea from Civ1 & 2.

I like 1UPT.

There are plenty of other issues with the game that are more of a problem than 1UPT. That is a real winner imho.

[Proteus_MST]

Another thing to consider would be the capabilities of the AI in handling stacks.

Thanks to the long building times every unit lost takes a long time to replace. Now imagine a human player attacking an AI Civ and killing a stack of 5 units within the first few turns (either because the AI had stacks of units near the border, thanks to the previous peace between player and AI, or just because the human player waltzed through the AIs lands in Blitzkrieg style, attacking at places the AI considered to be hinterland (and therefore safe for stacking).

With only a single attack this would make the human player the almost sure winner of the war.

[Ming]

I like 1UPT.

There are plenty of other issues with the game that are more of a problem than 1UPT. That is a real winner imho.

What he said

[Quick]

I also like it.