Stacked Units

[Caspian]

When units are stacked, what dictates the top unit. What I mean is, if there are two ground units in the same square, which one will show and which one will be hidden? Is it simply the last unit to move into the square that shows on top, or is it something to do with the unit stats?

I had the idea you see, that a special camoflage unit could be created to blend in with the terrain and cover up anti-tank guns. If a player ran into one the gun would show up and fire. This wouldn't work if the anti-tank guns were stacked on the top, or if the camo unit had a higher defense factor than the gun.

[Heresson]

I don't know, obviously, but that's a good question.
Perhaps the ;ast one that came there?
Or the best when it comes to defence stuff?

[Caspian]

Well, problem resolved. I just loaded up the game and gave it a try I'll try not to be so lazy in the future

It seems very simple as far as I can see. Just the last unit that moved into the square, regardless of the unit stats. That certainly makes things easier.

[Henrik]

Thats not allways true in my experience
I cannot give any rules for what affects it though, but I have definatly had situations where a unit other than the latest one to move is shown on top.

[Caspian]

Oh dear. The observations I made were only over the first couple of turns of the Jules Verne scenario. Does anyone else have any ideas about this situation?

[William Keenan]

Perhaps the display order is the order in which they appear in the rules.txt.

[Caspian]

Hmm, good idea. However I tried this already. Using the same two units. It always seemed to be the last unit that moved into the square. I'll try another scenario and see what difference using a ground unit with an air unit makes. (not that this makes a fig of difference with my camo/AT-Gun combination)

[Mercator]

I think I figured it out... It's as you said (last unit to move in on top), with one notable exception: units with an attack of 0 never appear on top of a stack (edit: unless there only are zero-attack units in it, of course).

In fact, as far as the stack-order is concerned, there are effectively two stacks, both ordered from newest entry to oldest entry. The top stack contains all offensive units, the bottom stack contains all zero-attack units and down to the "oldest" zero-attack unit.

You can nicely see the order by clicking on a stack. The topmost unit there will be the newest attack unit, then the older attack units downward, and at the bottom you find the 0-attack units, starting with the most recent one to enter.

So... Just make sure your camouflage unit has an attack value other than zero, and you're off!

As a side note, this stack order is preserved in the savegame as the last two integer values of a unit's details. The first of those two indicates which unit is directly above it, the last indicates which unit is directly below it.

[Caspian]

Thanks very much Mercator. That settles the issue then.