Stacked vs Single Unit Combat - The Battle Continues

[Skanky Burns]

This is the thread to debate the relative merits of using a combat system similar to that employed in Call to Power versus the system we all know and love from Civilization 1 or 2.

Let the fireworks begin.

[Jon Miller]

I think everyone know's my vote

having the tactical element is an integral part of civ

if it isn't there, than it isn't civ, it is some other game (like europa universalis), now that game might be good, but it isn't civ

Jon Miller

[Maquiladora]

Youre right jon, it wouldnt be civ and thats why i think they wont use it for civ4 but something completely new.

cut from other thread -

Okay if we're quibbling then CtP2 has more strategy in composing forces..... tactics, one knight attacks a city then another attacks, then another etc until all the defenders die or you lose all your knights, dull IMHO.

[Trifna]

It isn't like civ is now, thus it can't be incorporated... Civ ain't any religion with dogmas :P

The tactical element would be kept if you'd get an advantage when you have more units all in the same place, since it would mean you can decide to strongly defend one place, or try to defend more places.

PS: I believe that there's stack un-CtP style also... like Spartan style, which is presently a game in beta.

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by Theben in t'other thread
Just out of curiosity, how do CtP2 scenarios deal with stacking?

I'm not sure I understand the question. (so why quote it dufus?)

CtP2 scenarios, or at least in the five* where battles really occured, made use of stacks because it meant that you could have more advanced battles than simply a WW1-stylee wave after wave of howitzers (or catapults, cannons, whatever)
This means that rather the tactics being in solely getting the right units to the right places, you have to get units in the right places with the right other units.
I will explain the LotR scenario, which I have played more extensively that the others, though the same can apply roughly for all. Middle Earth is a world, the large scale is important, but most of the action takes place either in Isengard, Helm's Deep or Minis Tirith. The way the map has to be done leaves a very small area for those battles. Two or three tiles at most. This leaves no room to cut supply lines, exert ZOC influences and whatnot that you'd do in Civ2, so under the Civ combat system you would be forced into a single pair of tiles brawling over control. It would be boring, quite simply. In CtP2, each individual battle becomes more important because you are using more of your force at once.

Outside of seige combat, it also makes travel in numbers more important. The strength of the whole stack becomes an issue rather than just the strength of the strongest defender in the tile. The ambusher cannot get away with having one assault unit, it needs backup, and if it is a ranged unit such as a cannon or catapult, it wouldn't even work unless it had at least one infantryman to stand behind and fire from range.

Scenarios are built knowing that stacking is in place, it is never an issue to overcome or otherwise, except in the rare instances where more than 12 units are essential in one tile. Harlan's Alexander the Great scenario has issues with the AI being unable to get stacks to pass on roads for example. Hannibal Ad Portas overcame the problem somewhat in his scenarios by making the General unit into a transport unit for catapults. But that is a separate issue really, and stacked combat has never been a design problem.

[Fosse]

Stacked.

Why?

Well... the reasons for stacked are:
1) More realistic.
2) Less Micromanagment.
3) The community wants it.
4) Additional possibilites*

Reasons against stacked combat are:
1) It's the status quo.
2) Jon wants it.

*Additional possiblities? Well, if your military is divided into armies, instead of units, each army could have different standing orders. You could craft orders so that your 5th cavalry will attempt to flank any enemy forces that your 10th infantry is engaging. The old supply layer could be added without overcomplicating things. And dozens of more ideas that I can't think of.


And Jon Miller... I only pick on you because you are the vocal proponant of the single unit way. I mean no harm.

[centrifuge]

Has to be stacked, the one on one nonsense that is the current civ model needs to go

[Jon Miller]

where do you people come from?

I didn't think that many people played CTP period

Tass, do you even know what tactics is?

tactics in civ take place outside of cities

I agree that in city combat, tactics is really low

but that is only one type of combat

and Civ4 should make out of city combat more important

Jon Miller

[Tamerlin]

As far as I am concerned, the One unit against One unit combat of Civilization 2 is certainly one of the worst "feature" of the game, the second worst one is the removal of the whole stack because you lost your best defending unit. In my opinion the civilization combat system is tedious and boring...

IMO again, stacked combat is the only combat system suitable to grand strategy games like Civilization or CtP2.

[Solver]

Jon,

Please give me a real example of tactics in civ 3. Is it deciding when to attack a certain unit in the field and how to move your attackers? If so, that also exists with the stack system.

I've mentioned many times I prefer stack combat, and diversity is another reason. In CtP2, late Industrial Age I use:

Machine Gunners - very decent all-around infantry
Artillery - bombarding and very strong ranged attack
Cavalry - for quick raids and pillaging
Infantrymen (Musketeers) - cheap defensive infantry that I can mass
Spies - intelligence, enough said

This is not to mention the different types of ships...

In Civ 3, early Industrial I use:

Cavalry - attack.
Riflemen - defend.

Then, Infantry replaces Riflemen (at which time it's near impossible to take a city, Infantry defends better than Cav attacks). Then, Tanks replace Cavalry - but that remains two units at all times. With then possible "speical" support from Marines, but there's a ton of those in CtP.

Stacked combat is better, all, all the way.

[Nikolai]

I think the idea of stacked combat sounds good. That'll be my vote.

[Fosse]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
where do you people come from?

I didn't think that many people played CTP period

I don't think that having played the CtP series is necessary to see how superior the system is. I played CtP some, didn't much like it in its unmodded state, but loved the military system.


I agree with you that more out of city combat should be emphasized, though. I can't exactly think of how it should be done, however.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
Harlan's Alexander the Great scenario has issues with the AI being unable to get stacks to pass on roads for example.

That is a bug in the AI itsself if it tries to pass a tile and it has to realize that the tile is blocked it doesn't search for another path, Dale located this already in the code. Of course this problem could also be solved by not setting a limit units per tile, but again we have the unrealistic Civ2 system with the possibility to place infinite units on one tile.

-Martin

[Trifna]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
where do you people come from?

I didn't think that many people played CTP period

Tass, do you even know what tactics is?

tactics in civ take place outside of cities

I agree that in city combat, tactics is really low

but that is only one type of combat

and Civ4 should make out of city combat more important

Jon Miller

Jon, one vs one is what put the LESS tactic/strategy. If you can stack, then you can divide (as usual) OR stack. Both are still possible.

[Asmodean]

Yeah...I would like to see Firaxis go with stacked combat as well. It's just the better option

Asmodean

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Solver
Jon,

Please give me a real example of tactics in civ 3. Is it deciding when to attack a certain unit in the field and how to move your attackers? If so, that also exists with the stack system.

I've mentioned many times I prefer stack combat, and diversity is another reason. In CtP2, late Industrial Age I use:

Machine Gunners - very decent all-around infantry
Artillery - bombarding and very strong ranged attack
Cavalry - for quick raids and pillaging
Infantrymen (Musketeers) - cheap defensive infantry that I can mass
Spies - intelligence, enough said

This is not to mention the different types of ships...

In Civ 3, early Industrial I use:

Cavalry - attack.
Riflemen - defend.

Then, Infantry replaces Riflemen (at which time it's near impossible to take a city, Infantry defends better than Cav attacks). Then, Tanks replace Cavalry - but that remains two units at all times. With then possible "speical" support from Marines, but there's a ton of those in CtP.

Stacked combat is better, all, all the way.

in civ3 it is the same but there are no spies

so yuo have
artillery
infantry
guerrila
calvary

JOn Miller

[Skanky Burns]

Damn, I didn't think the debate would be this one-sided.

Although I am not too upset - stacked combat seems to me to be the better option.

[Jon Miller]

there are a lot of vocalCTPers here

Jon miller

[Maquiladora]

Asmodean
Skanky Burns
Nikolai
Fosse
Trifna
Tassadar

I wouldnt describe these as CtPers. 13 people have posted here, 22 have voted.

[DarkCloud]

Stacked combat, for certain! That way you can have regiments and form large armies to do battle on the screen! However, insteaad of each unit fighting individually as they do in CTP I... I would suggest that the units combine their firepower and suffer damange as per one unit versus one unit... Example:

Classic Civ-
Unit X attacks A... kills A suffers 50% damage.
Unit B attacks X... kills X, suffers 25% damage.

My suggestion-
Unit X,Y attacks A... kills A, suffers 25% damage (because when there are more units attacking ,they will likely suffer less casualties)

--
The second way is just more realistic!

[Fosse]

I own CtP one... I played one game to the end, and had several abortive starts later on. Never bought CtP 2. SMAC was my game of choice before Civ 3 (and still would be, except it has become SO easy in Single Player).

We argue for stacked combat not because of CtP, but because it's the better way.

[Trifna]

Originally posted by DarkCloud
Stacked combat, for certain! That way you can have regiments and form large armies to do battle on the screen! However, insteaad of each unit fighting individually as they do in CTP I... I would suggest that the units combine their firepower and suffer damange as per one unit versus one unit... Example:

Classic Civ-
Unit X attacks A... kills A suffers 50% damage.
Unit B attacks X... kills X, suffers 25% damage.

My suggestion-
Unit X,Y attacks A... kills A, suffers 25% damage (because when there are more units attacking ,they will likely suffer less casualties)

--
The second way is just more realistic!

This is exactly the whole potential of stacking. Imagine:
the most basic strategies all imply puting less or more units in different places, having as a goal to catch the other in number superiority. This could easily bring something very nice to Civ.

[Locutus]

The question shouldn't be stacking or no stacking. A few luddites aside, everyone agrees stacking is superior. The question is should be how the stacking system could be made even better than it already is.


One suggestion that is sometimes heard is to make the placement of units on the battlefield (partially) manual rather than automatic, so that the human player is capable of micro-managing the battle.

The advantage of this is that sometimes the automatic placement leads to less-than-ideal results and manual placement by humans could lead to better combat outcomes. It also creates more the feeling of active involvement in the combat model, rather than just being a passive observer who can only sit and watch the inevitable outcome appear.

The downsides are obviously more (in the long run potentially tedious) micro-management and an even bigger advantage for the human over the AI (the AI will obviously still follow the automatic placement rules). It also creates a huge problem for implementing this in MP games.

This is not necessarily an improvement I myself agree with, but thoughts on this or other suggestions for improvements would be welcome.

[Trifna]

I already played both games that are managing their battles, and not. In boths cases I found that it was possible to make something great out of it. But for Civ, I do not really wish to micromanage battles, I'd do nothing more than simply having automatic and with very little changes to do than to decide:
- long range class: what to put behind (as long range)
- protected class: what melee unit to try to protect a bit (like a good but wounded unit)
- first class: the ones fighting

So I guess that this could be done in many ways and the AI wouldn't get too much disadvantage. Perhaps the first class could consider as an advantage to have a mix of units or something (fast moving units, basic infantry, "hidden war" units...).

I don't want to manage everything, EVEN MORE TRUE in a game covering all history. It's not like games covering a short period where the same combat system always stays coherent.

[Theben]

IMHO stacking is definitely the way to go. Just look at any other TBS game: HOM&M, MOO, MOM- all used stacked combat and this greatly helps the AI when it comes to combat, as well as reducing units on main map (which helps speed up AI 'thinking').

My question in the other thread concerned more of the 'quest' style scenarios, where units=individuals and should not be stacked. (El Dorado, Fav Flight's scenarios).

[lord of the mark]

how about a tactical combat screen where you control individual units, with the alternative of letting the computer resolve stack vs stack battles - Im thinking of the system in the "imperialisms"

[Locutus]

I don't have experience with Civ2 quest style scenarios, but if they're RPGish, then I think CtP also has at least 2 good scenarios of this kind (1 fanmade, one by Activision (7 Samurai)). Stacking doesn't really change much in this respect, and can even be disabled with a simple bit of SLIC code, if needed.

[hexagonian]

IW,

Nice plug on the 'LOTR Scenario'...

Single-unit combat and management is tedious and takes little thought. CTP is superior in every way in terms of gameplay. With stackable combat, the problem lies in making sure that the AI can effectively compose a balanced force - and has been pointed out, to make sure that the AI pathing is not blocked by a full stack

The 'Spartan' combat model (or Chariots of War, as that game is the released precursor of Spartan) has a nice setup. It takes the CTP2 setup one step further as it allows you to manually place the position of units for the battle, as well as eliminating the tedium of moving forces. The end result is a setup that is a marriage of both simplicity and tactics.

Face it, single-unit battle are probably much easier to program and it benefits the AI the most because there is no limit on what can be placed on a tile. There is no thought needed, because sheer numbers often help the AI make sure that it has a variety of units to cover its needs.

I'm guessing that is why Firaxis retained that setup. I say that they ought to challenge themselves to raise the bar and make an AI that can effectively use stacked combat.

[Solver]

Looks like we CtPers have taken this thread over .

[Jon Miller]

I at least find the tactics fun, and when I go to sleep on them, I can lose a lot more than I would otherwise

also, if you look at my suggestion, I am not totally against stacked combat

I just think that it should be more on Civ3's level

stacked combat represents organization

and let's face it, organization played in integral roll in warfare

but it also changed in ways that we would associate with tech

therefore stacked combat (like armies in civ3) shuold not be free, but tech dependent

Jon Miller