Whoa, stacks!

Lorizael · October 17, 2001, 00:14

In the recent preview a Firaxian said something intriguing about stacks. He talked about armies and how they helped each other out in combat, a new unit coming in when the old one was hurt, etc...

But he also said in general that no more did the death of one unit mean the death of a whole stack. And this is w/o armies. He said that the strongest from each stack will fight, and when one dies, the second strongest comes in and so forth.

Wow... maybe I just misinterpreted the interview, but I hope not.

Wittlich · October 17, 2001, 00:23

Lorizael, I concur with your impression concerning the damage taken to units while they are stacked. But if you want to move this stack of units as a force, you will need an "Army." IMO, individual units can be stacked together for defensive purposes, but if you want this stack to move, you will need to give individual movement orders to each of your units, unless of course, it's an army - in which case it can be moved as one force (one movement order).

Lorizael · October 17, 2001, 00:36

Yah but that isn't as much as a bother as it used to be because you will be able to send units to a specific spot so you don't have to move them every turn.

korn469 · October 17, 2001, 00:40

Army=three units (four with pentagon)

the army is a ministack, you can build armies, or turn a great leader into an army...the army is a land transport of sorts...when an army attacks/get attacks the strongest unit fights when it gets damaged the next strongest fights, this keeps going until the army is either victorious or until all of the units in the army are dead

stack

the stack is simply a group of units (and/or armies) on a single square...in civ3 there is no longer collateral damage so if 15 warriors hold a square, it will take 15 attacks to clear them out, unlike an army a stack fights one unit at a time, so if a stack of units get attacked the strongest unit defends until it is dead, and not until it gets damaged

this is what we know

Jaybe · October 17, 2001, 01:06

Quote:

Originally posted by korn469
...
stack

the stack is simply a group of units (and/or armies) on a single square...in civ3 there is no longer collateral damage so if 15 warriors hold a square, it will take 15 attacks to clear them out, unlike an army a stack fights one unit at a time, so if a stack of units get attacked the strongest unit defends until it is dead, and not until it gets damaged

this is what we know

Italics added

Excuse me?
Korn, can you document that? I had not heard that it was different than with Civ2, other than for armies.

korn469 · October 17, 2001, 01:14

this is from soren johnson Firaxis

Quote:

There is no collateral damage in Civ III, so stacks are not wiped out after a loss.

check it out here
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=25180

so unless he meant to say that collateral damage works like it does in SMAC, then it would take 15 attacks to clear out 15 warriors

Jaybe · October 17, 2001, 01:25

I stand corrected,
and your conclusion is reasonable, though not NECESSARILY true.

I don't know what other conclusion to draw either. Perhaps we'll find out next week after the gag rule expires.

Nemo · October 17, 2001, 02:02

It seems like "stacked" units will be like in SMAC, not CivII. And it seems that "armies" pool there offensive/defensive points together to act like one big super unit.

Jaybe · October 17, 2001, 02:58

Well, that's what I get for not having SMAC experience!

Rather than ask re what I'm missing, I suppose I'll just wait for the game.

...
Scrap!!
So, does the attacker automatically advance after clearing the square, as in CtP?

Why not just sacrifice a Warrior to do reconnaisance if you don't know how many and how powerful the stack is? Did SMAC show you how many is in the stack ala CtP? ... (and numerous other questions...)

Basically, all my concepts of how combat works are down the drain!
Everybody, ignore all my previous posts regarding combat!!

Run away, run away!

Zanzin · October 17, 2001, 03:12

Quote:

Originally posted by Nemo
It seems like "stacked" units will be like in SMAC, not CivII. And it seems that "armies" pool there offensive/defensive points together to act like one big super unit.

To my knowledge, Armies don't pool their offense and defense points together - if they did, it would create a far to powerful unit.

Other than that though, I really don't know how the combat in civ3 works - we've heard a lot of things from Firaxis, and they've been, it seems, particularly scarce with information on combat. which makes me

Jaybe · October 17, 2001, 03:33

Zanzin,
Read the thread "Please Explain Armies." The last post date was October 12. It explains armies rather well, with plenty of Dan posts.

Grumbold · October 17, 2001, 04:01

Quote:

Originally posted by Zanzin
To my knowledge, Armies don't pool their offense and defense points together - if they did, it would create a far to powerful unit.

Just the hitpoints it seems. Dan corrected some wrong points in my summary but not that one.

From Dan:

Quote:

IMHO, the only real motivation for using an army is that you get to pool hitpoints. Consider that if you have the Pentagon and you put 4 elite units into an army, you've got TWENTY hit-points to play with during an assault. It allows you to even the playing field somewhat if you have a lot of weaker units and you need to take out a couple of stronger ones, but it doesn't tip the scales so far that you're going to see warriors taking down a tank.

Skanky Burns · October 17, 2001, 04:05

A link would be nice

Sarxis · October 17, 2001, 04:45

From cgonline

"Leaders are a new type of military unit that act as a sort of transport for other military units and make combat, well, pretty much completely unlike combat in past Civilization games. They have ditched concepts such as the unit zone of control in favor of different game mechanics, such as restricting enemy units from using roads and rail systems within your borders. "In Civilization II, if you attacked a stack and you defeated the best guy in the stack, they all died," Briggs grins. "Not any more. You have to defeat them one by one. One thing you can do is build an army. The way you build an army is you have to get a Leader, and you get Leaders from successful combats. If I had an Elite guy, and he got promoted, it would produce a Leader." If you send a Leader back to one of your cities, he can do one of three things: he can finish production of whatever project the city is working on, he can lead an army, or he can build a Military Academy that allows the city to produce armies that don't require Leaders. "It's like 'teach a man to fish...' that kind of thing," says Briggs.

A regular stack of units fights one unit at a time, strongest unit first. An army lets all the units jump into the fray. "When it attacks, the first guy attacks until he's about to die, then the next guy stands up and attacks until he's about to die... Armies are really powerful, because you can do a lot of damage all at once." So a stack of Musketeers facing an army of Musketeers of equal size would almost certainly lose. Not that you'd ever see two stacks of Musketeers fighting it out, since only the French can build Musketeers."

Faboba · October 17, 2001, 05:03

Quote:

Originally posted by Zanzin

To my knowledge, Armies don't pool their offense and defense points together - if they did, it would create a far to powerful unit.

lol!

If you put enough units together in the right ammounts ( and they DID pool attacks ) to get 99 the army would become nuclear!!!

Anyhoo.

I was my understanding ( and this would make both the program more understandable and easier to add new units to ) that when you made an army it just became one big unit. It pooled hp and ( I was thinking about this, this morning ) probably either takes the highest defence / attack values ( which it silly cause you'd just army a howitzer ( if possible - see artillery units thread ) and a mech infantry ) or ( more likely if they DO go with the one-big-unit idea ) takes the average attack / defense values of all the units in it ( the numbers wouldn't get TOO silly as there's only gonna be at most 4 units there )

Anyone heard if naval units can be 'armies'

( For the balance a military academy is prolly going to be one big / long ****er to build in order to get across the idea that the time which could have been used by your leader to lead a vast host is being used to create some namby-pamby boot camp. )

old dog · October 17, 2001, 06:12

Quote:

Originally posted by Faboba
Anyone heard if naval units can be 'armies'

No, I have read a few times that armies can only consist of land units.

Stuie · October 17, 2001, 06:33

Quote:

Originally posted by old dog
No, I have read a few times that armies can only consist of land units.

I recall seeing this somewhere as well, but I cannot remember where. I've searched pretty diligently for the thread/article/faq that contained the info, but to no avail!

Grumbold · October 17, 2001, 07:05

Quote:

Originally posted by old dog
No, I have read a few times that armies can only consist of land units.

That's because a stack of naval units would be a navy instead

Unfortunately it seems naval task forces and airborne 'big wings' (if we ever need them) have to wait until later. Perhaps it will give them something extra to include with multiplayer

I must admit that I'd missed the news that Armies were unconfigurable once they have been created. I could have got quite worked up about that piece of nonsense if it wasn't already too late to make a difference. It's like saying the 1st Armoured Division has to disband every 10 years so that it can be reformed with rookie troops just to get the new tanks and equipment in. Then again the same applies for standard units and I've not seen mention of their upgradeability either.

campmajor! · October 17, 2001, 07:23

Pfew, I still don't have it clear in my head.

I think I will just wait and see how it works once I play civ3.....

korn469 · October 17, 2001, 12:09

Quote:

I was my understanding ( and this would make both the program more understandable and easier to add new units to ) that when you made an army it just became one big unit. It pooled hp and ( I was thinking about this, this morning ) probably either takes the highest defence / attack values ( which it silly cause you'd just army a howitzer ( if possible - see artillery units thread ) and a mech infantry ) or ( more likely if they DO go with the one-big-unit idea ) takes the average attack / defense values of all the units in it ( the numbers wouldn't get TOO silly as there's only gonna be at most 4 units there )

Faboba

armies do not combine into one large unit, and they do not truly combine hitpoints

here is what happens

lets say you have 2 cavalry and a knight in your army

elite cav 6.3.3 5hp
veteran cav 6.3.3 4hp
regular knight 4.3.2 3hp

this means the army would be able to move 2 squares and that when combat started the most powerful unit would fight first

so the elite cav unit would fight until it had been damaged to the point where the vetern cav unit was more powerful (ie had better odds) at that point the vet cav unit would fight, the vet cav would continue to fight until either the damaged elite cav or the regular knight had better odds, they would continue switching off like this until all three units had either died or until the army won

does that explain it better?