Civ 4 idea: Armies instead of units

[Optimizer]

Combat in Civ 1, 2 & 3 is made according to a tactical model, where each unit type (swordsman, chariot, tank etc) is controlled separately.

Such models would be useful for pure wargames which simulate campaigns in a limited geographic region during a few years or less - like Caesar's conquest of Gaul or the Spanish civil war.

A game that spans 6 000 years of world history needs a strategic combat model where the player controls armies rather than units.

The easiest way to make a new combat model would be to borrow it from some other strategic game, for instance Europa Universalis.

A compromise would be to keep the combat system of Civ 3, but putting more emphasis on Armies.

[Fosse]

Optimizer, could you explain what you mean when you say "more strategic combat model?"

I understood this (from your first post and my own bias ) to mean "Like CTP." But then "Like CTP" was the second choice, so I'm now confused.

Also, check this related poll for some possible insight to your question.

Regards,
Fosse

[Optimizer]

There would be several ways to create a new combat model. Let's think of the first option as any kind of models with no units.

[Fosse]

Okay, then I vote for stacked, CtP influenced (not copied!) combat.

I can't imagine that a "unitless" model would feel at all like Civ. What sorts of things would we be talking about? Power projection?

A well thougth out stacked combat system would give us so much more than any variation on Civ 1,2,3's single unit combat. Talking about Civ 3 style armies doesn't do it, either.

Civ 3 armies are still just a series of one-on-one combats that use combined hitpoints. If there were enough of them, and they could be big enough (and readily available to all) then micromanagment might be reduced, but the actual combat model would remain unenhanced. It's a half solution.

Go, stacks, go!

[Trifna]

Stacked or armies, as long as you have a number of men and they really die instead of a unit that heals back (which change everything).

But, at all cost, no on the field army planning like Legion or Lords of the Realms.

[Optimizer]

A unitless army could for instance contain a number of men, a number of swords & shields, a number of horses and a number of bows. There would be an experience level too, and maybe other statistics.

[Trifna]

Well I think that even WITH a unit, you can have a number of men. But I don't see why there should be "number of bow", "number of armors" and so on. What would be easily done I think would be to have something like "one division of bowmen = 1 unit", but this division can get hit and lose men (thus efficiency) and so on until it doesn't exist anymore.

You'd simply need to refurnish it in men, but you wouldn't need to manage anything like "separation of the army, x men here, y there". Instead, you'd chose which UNIT goes where (stacked or not, this path or this other...). I think that www.supremeruler2010.com (the game I'm looking at right now) has something similar to this.

[Lord_Davinator]

keeping it real... units and armies ... with more emphasis on armies... a unit being a battalion or something I guess...