Stacking Limits Y/N

[Kuciwalker]

Another reason for soft caps is it actually reduces MM - in a non-combat situation, it's easier to just stick everything together than have to spread it out over many tiles.

[Agathon]

Ideally, if you are going to defend your territory it is best to have units in cities and forts, that can sally forth to smite the infidel. I wish that railways would be fixed too. It just seems unrealistic that your tank can only move two tiles while his can beam in from the other end of a continent and have two goes at yours.

[Agathon]

What about limits on how many units can pass over a stretch of river? I mean, bridges aint that big.

[lajzar]

Ideally, if you are going to defend your territory it is best to have units in cities and forts, that can sally forth to smite the infidel. I wish that railways would be fixed too. It just seems unrealistic that your tank can only move two tiles while his can beam in from the other end of a continent and have two goes at yours.

Thats why I proposed making the Rail Depot a city improvement with a transport function similar to civ2 airports.

[Agathon]

Don't get me started on airports. The fact that you can transport heavy armour through them wrecks the game - even with the one unit per turn limit.

I liked CtPs railroads. Enough to make a difference, but not ridiculously so.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

OK, my 'solution' to the whole Infinite RR issue is as FOLLOWS:

RR should only grant its unique movement bonus if it is entered onto via a city, fort, outpost or airport! i.e. if you move onto a RR midway along its length, then you should still get a movement bonus (maybe 1/4 or 1/5), but should not get the unlimited movement rate! In addition, every city/fort/outpost/airport that the unit moves through should cost 1mp, regardless of whether or not they're travelling by rail!
Thirdly, you could reduce the amount of RR's used in the game by giving them a maintainence cost, per turn, which would come out of a PW budget!

An alternative measure to help balance RR's is to have a 'Loading Factor'-or a maximum number of units which can travel on a certain section of RR per turn, though this option feels a little unweildy!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[Agathon]

What's wrong with 10 squares for tanks?

Actually, this is a good topic. How about someone start up a separate poll on railroads. I already have two threads up, so it's someone else's turn.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Agathon
What about limits on how many units can pass over a stretch of river? I mean, bridges aint that big.

Over the course of a year?

[MrBaggins]

I tend towards a hard cap, with an exception: more than X (say 12 for sake of arguments) units can exist in a tile, provided its not a destination... I.E. a maximum stack wouldn't block another armies passage.

Ultimately, though, keeping the cap limit, is a sensible method of maintaining strategic limits on defence.

Soft caps could work too... but ultimately its a good idea to limit the number of entities within a game, and theres no real reason to have 50 units as opposed to 12 when you consider that units are composed of an abstract number of men/machines/whatever. Its always better to have less "things" where you can... better for the AI, and less crap for the human to worry about. 500 units could be represented in about 40 size 12 stacks, which are perfectly managable. I wouldn't recommend a maximum number of units, necessarily... support costs aside, just pointing out that a stack of 12 isn't particularly limiting.

[Kuciwalker]

MrBaggins - the reason for a soft cap is so that, as I said, you can have them there for non-combat purposes. For example, in CtP2 I always got pissed when I realized I couldn't build a navy (or, in fact, any units at all) because I had 12 defenders in each city. A soft cap allows for those sorts of things, but has the same COMBAT effect (and combat is the problem) as a hard cap.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Attrition is also a FANTASTIC Idea, BTW. We've discussed it elsewhere, but a very simple notion of supply would be a worthwhile addition to the game, and improve the ability of tactical 'finesse' to win out over Brute Force!
For instance, even if you CAN have a mega-death stack of 200 units, they won't do you a great deal of good if-deep within your enemies territories-your enemy sends half a dozen swift scout/horsie units to cut your lines of supply!!! Then, you have to get that mega stack back home before they wither away and die ! If you don't believe such a thing could happen, just ask Napolean in Russia (those damned COSSACKS!!! ) or Russia in Afghanistan (those damned Mujjahadeen !!!)
Anyway, I know this idea belongs in a different thread, but I definitely think that stack limits and supply/attrition would add a new, tactical depth to the Civ Series!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[Fosse]

Originally posted by GePap
But defensive bonuses should remain- it is realisitc to say that troops in a fortress or a city have a huge defensive edge- history has probalby more examples of long sieges that pitch battles-

But at what cost? If my armies attack your armies in your cities then your people die, your industry is destroyed, your morale plummets, and you generally have a horrible time. Right? So why in Civ do we focus on the fact that, at the beginning of the battle, the defenders have a better tactical position (rooftops for modern snipers, behind walls for medeival troops, etc) without touching on the horrors of war at your doorstep?

the problem in civ is that the defenders forces never begin to starve, thus they do not have a long term reason to engage the enemy in battle after 20 years of siege and their stores running out.

I disagree. The problem is that there is no disadvantage to having your city serve as the front line.

The way top make war moe dynamic then is introduce problems with supply- but then that eats up too much processing power.

You don't need to throw supply into it... just make battles fought in city squares have horrible consequences in those cities. Then the defender has to meet you in the field, like in the real world.

On terrain-certainly terrain should have diffeent caps- you can not fit as many forces through mountain passes and jungles than plains- and it would make wise use of terrain even more important.

Yuck. So if you want to move your stack of infantry across a mountain range you have to break it into several smaller stacks? Part of the idea of stacks is to help reduce micromanagment.
And I'll say with confidence that terrain type stack limits will wreak havoc on AI path finding.

[Fosse]

Originally posted by skywalker
Another reason for soft caps is it actually reduces MM - in a non-combat situation, it's easier to just stick everything together than have to spread it out over many tiles.

When skywalker agree (like now), it's 100% When we disagree though...

I tend towards a hard cap, with an exception: more than X (say 12 for sake of arguments) units can exist in a tile, provided its not a destination.

I would rather have soft caps, but as long as this "loophole" exists I wouldn't tear my hair out. This isn't an interface friendly solution for those of us who like to use our keyboards for movement. Also, what if an army is "in transit," ends a turn on the same tile as a full stack, and gets attacked that turn?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by skywalker
Um, isn't that basically what the Germans did? Stack lots and lots of tanks on the Belgian border and stroll towards Paris?

No. Check the number of armoured division in there.

[Paddy]

stacked limits could damage events such as the DDay landings

[MrBaggins]

Originally posted by skywalker
MrBaggins - the reason for a soft cap is so that, as I said, you can have them there for non-combat purposes. For example, in CtP2 I always got pissed when I realized I couldn't build a navy (or, in fact, any units at all) because I had 12 defenders in each city. A soft cap allows for those sorts of things, but has the same COMBAT effect (and combat is the problem) as a hard cap.

Well... I've been toying with the idea of separating the "any unit" limit out by type.. so... for instance.. 12 land units, 12 naval units, and 12 air units could fit in a city.

My concern is combat balance, and specifically how different attacking forces would interact (I.E. would an attacking ground army, attack just the ground defenders, or the naval defenders too, and what about air units?)

This would probably result in a situation where naval and air units could be captured, or perhaps they should be displaced instead.

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by Agathon
The one problem with variable caps is that if stacks can be fixed a la CtP, then it will be a pain to keep stacking and re-stacking.

You can enable stacking on a turn-by-turn basis by having a checkbox next to each unit on the pulldown list that would enable those selected units to go into battle at the same time. This would allow you to select your attacking units one time instead of having to do it every time you send a unit into battle as it currently is in civ3. The checks would only work for that turn and are cleared for the following turn.

A second checkbox could allow you to lock the grouping too.

This same principle can be used for subgroup movement (if you onlly want to move 20 units in a 50 unit stack), as well as a having the mass-group move feature that is now in place to use if you want to move the entire stack of units.

Originally posted by Skywalker
MrBaggins - the reason for a soft cap is so that, as I said, you can have them there for non-combat purposes. For example, in CtP2 I always got pissed when I realized I couldn't build a navy (or, in fact, any units at all) because I had 12 defenders in each city. A soft cap allows for those sorts of things, but has the same COMBAT effect (and combat is the problem) as a hard cap.

IMO, Sea units should be generated in the coastal tile instead of the city anyhow.

You can also generate the unit created in an unoccupied tile that is within the city radius, if the city is completely full. It makes sense to do that too because the city radius is considered part of the city.

[MrBaggins]

Originally posted by hexagonian

Quote:

Originally posted by Agathon The one problem with variable caps is that if stacks can be fixed a la CtP, then it will be a pain to keep stacking and re-stacking.

You can enable stacking on a turn-by-turn basis by having a checkbox next to each unit on the pulldown list that would enable those selected units to go into battle at the same time. This would allow you to select your attacking units one time instead of having to do it every time you send a unit into battle as it currently is in civ3. The checks would only work for that turn and are cleared for the following turn.

A second checkbox could allow you to lock the grouping too.

This same principle can be used for subgroup movement (if you onlly want to move 20 units in a 50 unit stack), as well as a having the mass-group move feature that is now in place to use if you want to move the entire stack of units.

I think Agathon's issue is more to do with movement over tiles of differing (variable) capacity... so say you can have 20 units move through a plains terrain tile, but only 8 through a mountain tile.

This would force you to break up units which move in a combined form, or stack. I.E. Its not just limited to CTP stacking.

If you have solely individual movement, you're already dealing with a nightmare of micromanagement, so you might not actually notice this variable capacity limit, if you can stand the game long enough to get to the point of building enough units to move in combination, that is.

In conclusion, the problem isn't army management (its one of the relatively good bits of the CTP2 interface, for instance), instead its having variable tile capacities. They are plain bad ideas. Either have a set limit, or no limit (and a soft cap for combat effects.)

IMO, Sea units should be generated in the coastal tile instead of the city anyhow.

You can also generate the unit created in an unoccupied tile that is within the city radius, if the city is completely full. It makes sense to do that too because the city radius is considered part of the city.

I like the idea... except I can see a couple of issues:

• If your city is connected to a number of sea tiles (perhaps even two bodies of water,) how is it decided where a naval unit gets placed? I assume randomly. If so, then that removes a possibly critical strategic choice for a player... he might need the newly built unit to be in tile X, to reach a unit in tile Y, but might be a couple of tiles further away, due to random placement.
  
  A method of dealing with this might be to allow free movement to any sea tile adjacent to the city, on the turn that its built. Would complicate the AI just a *tad* but thats probably very minor, considering the AI sucks using the navy at the moment, anyway.
• If you are blockaded (all adjacent tiles are blocked by non-domestic units,) or full, can you still build a naval unit from this city? If so, how does it get placed? A random next-nearest sea tile?
• It would probably be necessary to give transportable units a free board transport to an adjacent sea tile, to mimic the current behavior of having a unit asleep and leaving with a transport, automatically taking the sleeping unit with it.

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by MrBaggins
I think Agathon's issue is more to do with movement over tiles of differing (variable) capacity... so say you can have 20 units move through a plains terrain tile, but only 8 through a mountain tile.

In my mind, I agree that a variable cap based on terrain type ends up adding tedious micromangagement without offering any substantial strategy considerations.

However, I also agree with Agathon's assertion that the hard cap as it stands in CTP2 does create some management issues such as reorganizing the makeup of your armies - especially if you have to break apart a stack to move through it all the time. This would be the same problems with a variable cap, because the basic premise of a variable cap does put a limit on number of units on a tile. The problem with the CTP2 format is that you do spend a lot of time reorganizing stacks because the stacks are locked.

Ideally, your proposal is the best - a hard cap with the flexability to bypass the cap limitation only when moving through a tile. And as you know, I'm in favor of a hard cap limit and I do want the cap only to be soft for the purpose of movement.

What I was suggesting was a way to move/attack with a stack of units with a feature that allows the player to either lock the units in a stack for an unlimited time, or to lock them only for a turn. If Firaxis does retain the unlimited unit occupation of a tile format, (and it is entirely possible that they will), then an efficient way to manage those unit stacks needs to be presented...

[Trifna]

I think that you wont get too much MM if you simply put one limit for open field, and another for big mountains. Is there truly a use of more nuances?

[Shogun Gunner]

Originally posted by lajzar
btw, the actual support:combatant ratio is about 3:1, not 10:1. And support personnel tend not to be anywhere near the front line if the high command has any sense, so they aren't usually a factor in figuring supply requirements.

But the main argument against huge stacks is gameplay, not supply.

I think both are important (gameplay and realism). I acknowledge realism is second to gameplay.

Also, I did some quick research here at work and the support is much more than 3:1 for each of the branches of US armed forces. It varies from service to service (Marines the lowest, Army the highest), but the numbers are much closer to 10:1 than 3:1.

Its not just supply/support. In my original post, I was thinking more about the unit tactics. Today's armies have huge kill zones and the common refrain is "if you can see it, you can kill it". For this reason, jamming a lot of personnel and equipment into a small area actually just provides more targets. In ancient warfare, thousands upon thousands of soldiers line up to get within arm's reach (or perhaps short range projectile reach) to kill the enemy. Hence, large stacks makes more sense for ancient armies.

[lajzar]

Also, I did some quick research here at work and the support is much more than 3:1 for each of the branches of US armed forces. It varies from service to service (Marines the lowest, Army the highest), but the numbers are much closer to 10:1 than 3:1.

I agree that if you only consider those directly employed, you probably get about a 10:1 ratio.

But I bet you didn't factor in wives and children. They may not be directly employed by the military, but in an economic model, they are supported by the military exactly as if they were employed.

I still think unlimited stacking is the way to go for movement, coupled with a limit on the number of units that can actually engage. The defender then fights with whatever is present if within teh combat stack limit, else drawn semi-randomly from what is present, upto he combat stack limit, if he has too many units present. Everything present is then vulnerable to collateral damage.