EC3 New Idea #20 - Stacked Combat

[korn469]

by Atahualpa

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</font>Okay, then I say: STACKED COMBAT (or combined combat or lets say: a better UNIT-model!)
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[korn469]

Atahualpa

if asked why out of the five things to put on the new ideas thread why would this idea belong? what are the greatest strength in adding this idea? and what if any weaknesses or exploits does this idea have?

what are some of the areas this would be better than civ2 in predicting the outcome of a battle? should there be unit caps to the stacks? could stacks integrate |land/air/sea| units or could it only intergrate units from one domain |land| |air| |sea|?

[TheTron]

Stacked units acting as a single unit is very important. it lets us group units and move them together. pikemen and archers grouped should get the best attack and defence of both units, and the lowest speed. the number of units you can stack is based on the level of military technology, none to start and 4 or 5 in late eras. They require a generic commander to bind them together. Great commanders might offer themselfs for hire from time to time and give a bonus (att,def,mov,free tech) if hired and might only be available after a certain tech level is achieved.

you have discovered the tank
General Patton would like to join your army for 400 gold and 3 gold per turn. He will give his army +3 to attack.
or
General Hannible would like to join your army for 400 gold and 3 gold per turn. He will tell you the secret of the War Elephant.

Spys might be able to assassignate or subvert such leaders.

This would add more convienent and more relistic combat and leaders would add more gameplay and strategy options.

[Tiberius]

I love this idea with the commanders!

[Tiberius]

Here's a proposal how this commander idea could be implemented in Civ3:
After a certain discovery (Tactics maybe?) you should be able to build a "Military Academy", and it would give you the possibility to build military leaders (commanders), but at a very high price, to discourage the overuse of them. Than, adding this leader to a stacked army, he will boost the army's attack and defence strength.
The leader will have 0 attack strength but a great chance to survive in battle, and even if the army is destroyed, he must have a chance to escape, just like the spies.
Of course, there must exist the possibility to assassinate the leader with a spy.
Thanks for idea, Tron!

[Ekmek]

I love the commanders idea. I'm also all for making units as customizable as possible but giving several attributes options.
One attribute I would like to suggest would be the limited build option. This way you can only build so many of a unit. It can be either a set number or a percentage of the population (this figure itself should be customizable for scenarios)

[don Don]

SMAC has decent stacking rules, so this is almost certainly a moot question.

[korn469]

Don Don

are you talking about the same SMAC that i bought, USA version 4.0, you know the one with no stacking system? much less a decent stacking system

until a group of units can move and attack simultaneously as a group i feel that stacking is inadequate and that firaxis needs to implement some form of stacked combat

korn469
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by korn469 (edited February 29, 2000).]</font>

[Atahualpa]

uuuppss sorry guys. I just got an email with an EC3 update. I have completly forgotten that I posted something there.
Okay, now we have time till wednesday for any additions.

Someone could really have mailed me that there is a thread and so on.

Thetron: I couldnt have said it better. But I thought of some changes: first, I wouldnt give the whole unit the best strengths of the unit that is combined with it. What if you have 2 pikemen and only 1 archer?
So I suggest that a stack is replaced by a simple (commander) icon on the map. There are different commanders available: land, sea, air, space(?).
The commander idea has already pretty good developed. I rather think you have to build a tavern and there commanders appear at random in early stages of the game. After the developement of tactics you can train commanders for yourself. But, training is very expensive. However, for a war against a neighbouring country, you just need to train some, cause there arent enough commanders that appear at random.
Next I think, the number of men a commander can control is limited. This combines with the recruiting idea I think. So we take the recruiting idea as precedence! Of course, commanders develop and get better. So that we have green commanders, trained, experienced, veteran, crack and elite (yeah Sid Meiers Antietam I know, but its a good game!). So a green commander can support less men than an elite commander!
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Wow, the more I get into this idea the more exciting I get! This could really evolve as one of the greatest ideas!
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I dont know how the recruiting guys handle special units, but I think it is only one person specially trained. So I think, special units, dont need a commander. I also dont know what the idea for settlers is. I dont have much time right now, to go in the recruiting idea as well. Will do that later however.

So to sum up what came to my mind: You can appoint any of your soldiers to a commander, but if he hasnt a special commander ability he gets penalties and such. You can train commanders but again, only those soldiers with the commander ability can get past the experienced level. Soldiers without commander ability can only get till experienced (again, levels are: green, trained, experienced, veteran, crack, elite). Now, for every army or unit you want to form you need a commander. When you dont have one, appoint one of your soldiers. When you have one, assign him to them. Of course, you cant assign a naval-taskforce commander to a tank platoon!
So this is not yet how stacked combat works (it was an explanation of the: [quote]a better UNIT-model![quote])

Stacked combat should work this way:
When two armies engage each other should view a generated battlefield in a 2D isometric view. There all of your men are displayed. Lets use 1 representive unit for every 50 men. That would make 20 units for 1000 men and 200 units for 10000. 400 for 20000. Nah I think using fixed numbers is not a good idea. Lets say, the number of how many men represent one unit depends on the overall number of men involved. So when you have 5,000 men and your opponent 7,000. That would make 12,000. Now lets say, we aim for a max of 200-400 units (altogether, so to say: 100-200 on each side) that would make 12,000/200=60 men/unit and 12,000/400=30 men/unit. I dont know what the graphics engine can handle. Firaxis can also make the number dependant on the cpu speed, amount of ram.... to allow smooth battles even on slow computers.

Now those two armies appear in formation and you can move them and tell them at which other unit-formation to shoot at. Or you can tell them to leave the formation then you can move them for yourself one by one. Or you can make your own formations and select (lets say, you want to make 2 formations out of 1) select 5 units and connect them to formation 1 and select the other 5 and connect them to formation 2. Now you have to seperate formations and you can assign them seperate orders.
When you select ranged units, you can either choose a tile (on the battlescreen) to fire at, or target an enemy formation. You can also move etc. but you cant close combat them. Except for some units like the tank, who can overoll his enemies (warning: may get complicated).
Has one ever played Ceasar II? There is a similar combat system, which works just fine there!

This is how I think stacked combat should work!
Now come on quickly comment, we dont have much time left,
ATa

P.S.: sorry again I really forgot about this!

[Tiberius]

oops
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Tiberius (edited March 06, 2000).]</font>

[Atahualpa]

Tiberius:

ATa

[Glostakarov]

On a small aside, one of the annoying things about stacking rules in some games (notably CTP, but there are others) do not allow more than 9 units to ever be in the same square. This means that other units cannot move past, they have to move around. This has always struck me as completely silly. In CTP i would have to break up groups of 9 to get them past cities unless I built a road off to the side or something. The limitation didn't affect how many units I could move through a space, just how many at once. This odd/arbitrary limitation is something that should be avoided with stacking rules.

[Atahualpa]

Just realised that I didnt go quite deep into the combat model:
When two formations engage each other in hand to hand combat. The attack strength of the attacker is taken and compared with the defense strength of the defender. Now, a number of units falls on the defender side. The attack strength of the attacking formation must be higher than the defense strength of the defending formation. Else, 15% less damage is inflicted for every 1 difference. This means, if a formation with strength 5 attacks a formation with strength 7 it does 30% less damage. Next time the attack strength of the defender is taken and compared with the defense strength of the attacker. Then it is vice versa and so on, till one withdraws or till one formation is destroyed. These changes happen every x seconds. (note: combat is realtime, could be done tb however too). In Realtime modus, 1 turn is z seconds. And in 1 turn (or every z seconds) a unit can make one attack or move x tiles or whatever. Now, fighting in formation should give bonuses. So to say, the units that have another unit to their left, right and back get a +x bonus to their attack and defense strength. (note: I dont want to give numbers as this must be all prototyped to see whats best!).

Now, when ranged units fire at other units, the ranged strength is taken and compared to the ranged defense value of the attacked unit. The ranged defense value serves as armor value too. And the ranged attack value must be higher than the ranged defense value or the chance of casaulities inflicted sinks by 15% for every 1 point difference. So when a formation with 8 ranged attack engages a unit with 11 ranged defense then about it inflicts 45% less damage. This is to prevent CtP's Phalanx vs Tank (not really phalanx vs tank, but you know) problem.

The overall attacker always has the first stroke/shot. And a unit may either move or attack in one turn!

When speaking of strenghts, the strength of the whole formation is taken. This means, the larger a formatio is the more bonuses it gets. a 3 unit in a row formation gets a 10% bonus.
a 4 unit in a row formation gets a 10% bonus.
a 4 unit quarter formation gets a 10% bonus.
A 6 unit rectangle formation gets a 15% bonus.
A 2 unit in a row formation gets a 5% bonus.

The system uses 5% bonus for every adjanct unit. Now the max number of adjanct units is 3 in a formation. There cant be more than 2 rows! This would make 15%. The highest bonus for one unit in the formation is taken as overall formation bonus.

ata

[Atahualpa]

Glostakarov: This stacking system is different. Here the size of your stack is limited by your commanders skill level.

Nevertheless, a good point, cause this stacking system wouldnt allow you too to have two stacks in the same square. Cause else, the defender is in big advantage when he can have 3 elite commanders with 3x men in one square while the attacker is limited to 1 elite commander with x men.
So the attacker would have never a chance. Best would be to allow multiple commanders control a stack. When two commanders enter a square you can choose to combine those two and create a super stack. Nevertheless, I would allow more than 2 commanders on one square.
comments?

ATa

[don Don]

I really don't want them spending time on tactical/operational level stuff that the AI will be incompetant at anyway. Better to concentrate on the strategic level, including AI, and ignore formations etc.

Commanders could be a good thing, especially if they aren't eternal but expire after a variable number of turns. Allowing small bonuses for combinations of different kinds of units, e.g., Cavarly and foot, is about as tactical as it needs to get.