This game badly, badly needs a "keep together" command - Page 2

Redstar · December 12, 2001, 23:13

"6. Times 8 individual units stack load onto another transport.

"

I just want some clarification.
AM i right in thinking you can no longer use multiple transports to ferry a group of units to a faraway land in just 1 turn?

In civ2 you would just have to land a transport on another transport and then click that transport...all 8 units would transfer and off you go again.

Now it seems like you must manually wake them up and drag them into next transport...so you only get 2 transport moves instead of unlimited per turn.

Am i mistaken in this?

(its no biggie, i'm just curious)

Monoriu · December 13, 2001, 00:14

I support!

smellymummy · December 13, 2001, 02:09

Quote:

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
If you support this idea, please register your support with a post on this thread

I've posted about this, and am very happy to see theres a concerted effort to influence the patchers to include this.

we need grouping! The end game is to tedious! Why more 20 bombers one by one, when they all go to the same location eh? Whats the point? Time INefficient as it is now. FIX IT! thanks

smellymummy · December 13, 2001, 02:13

Quote:

Originally posted by Redstar
"6. Times 8 individual units stack load onto another transport.

"

I just want some clarification.
AM i right in thinking you can no longer use multiple transports to ferry a group of units to a faraway land in just 1 turn?

In civ2 you would just have to land a transport on another transport and then click that transport...all 8 units would transfer and off you go again.

Now it seems like you must manually wake them up and drag them into next transport...so you only get 2 transport moves instead of unlimited per turn.

Am i mistaken in this?

(its no biggie, i'm just curious)

redstar, moving a unit onto a transport eats up movement (even i think all movement for mobility units, ie 2 move units) so yeah, cant be done no more. Use airports, however limited, its the best you can do.

Ancientfool · December 13, 2001, 02:47

I hereby fully and unconditionally support this feature. Thank you.

MisterMuppet · December 13, 2001, 04:41

Here, Here.

Jeje2 · December 13, 2001, 07:11

Yup, I sure would like this.
(Even better would be to fix the automated worker - so I could use it and thus reduse the need of moving units every turn myself.)

Zanzin · December 13, 2001, 07:50

I hereby register my support as well.

A simple thing to implement, it would make the game infinately better

The Viceroy · December 13, 2001, 10:16

NO NO NO .... I don't like this idea .. I love moving hundreds of units, one by one .. especially on a huge map .. when you've declared war on the evil zulu's .. who happen to be on the other side of the planet ...

moving all those units one by one, over hundreds of squares ... whats better than that ??

AS IF !!!!!

No wonder so many of us stop playing the game in industrial age and start a new game ...

I fully support grouping .. and let the AI group also .. that would reduce AI time also

... making the game a tad faster for our poor sub 2Ghz CPU friends

..

Max Webster · December 13, 2001, 10:27

Once again I voice my support for some kind of stacking system.

Leonidas · December 13, 2001, 15:30

The idea of having a "Group Command" was expressed by several people just a few days after the game was released. . .

However, instead of moving units by rail, ship, etc, etc. . .

How about this:

1) If you have a city with an airport, enable a function called AIR TRANSPORT - it would be a type of abstract cargo plane. All units, up to eight (or whatever the number), within a city can be "cargo-lifted" to another location with a simple click of the mouse. You would then be able to airlift units, in stacks of eight, anywhere on your continent.

2) Have a city improvement or small wonder called "Air Re-fueling Capability", and this would allow you to airlift units anywhere in the world.

3) Now the destination for these units could be a city (that you captured or built, and has an airport), or (horror of horrors) be able to build an airport anywhere in the world so it could allow these "transport planes" to land.

The end-game is very tedious - it should be fun - not work. . .

Cypselus · December 13, 2001, 17:36

Imagine, the game might actually be fun.

Much else remains to be done. But, stacked movement would be a good start.

Alexander's Horse · December 13, 2001, 18:58

It would be nice if a Firaxian could respond to this thread. Could something like this be implemented into the current game?

antoinebj · December 13, 2001, 19:48

BRING IT ON!!
Stack movement! yeah!

Pembleton · December 13, 2001, 19:53

I DON'T SUPPORT STACKS!

And here's why. Um..., actually I can't think of any reasons...hmmm....

so I guess I have to support it by default.

Libertarian · December 14, 2001, 04:13

Quote:

It would be nice if a Firaxian could respond to this thread.

Indeed.

HulluKarhu · December 14, 2001, 04:49

I got fed up with having to move units one at a time on land.
At sea at least I could stick a few jets on a carrier.
I lost count of the number of times that I hit shft/return to make and immediate end to a long turn.
Thank heaven for Shft/A for my workers..I think they took art or knitting lessons at railway building school though.
By the way I won by diplomtic victory at the first vote..bit of a disappointed as it was only 1987 and I was about to just start to attempt a take over of Russia...so I was surprised that Russia voted for me I had two carriers sat just off their coast at the time and had just given Cathy the finger when she wanted my world maps. She said she was angry so I though war was on the cards within a few turns.
But Russian obviously did not want another winter war against us Finns.

Alexander's Horse · December 14, 2001, 20:56

Ka bump.

Dida · December 14, 2001, 22:07

by the late industrial age, I either quit the game or stop having war. Why? Because it is just too damn tedious having to move hundreds of units half way across the planet to attack the other guy.

So what if he take 1 of my cites, I have 200 of them.
That's why the end game is more boring than ever.
I'm totally sick of moving each and every unit separately every turn. Come on, Let us have stacked movement.

Marko Polo · December 14, 2001, 23:05

AH has it right, we ABSOLUTELY need tools to handle stacks.

A quote from \Civilization3\readme.txt:

"* Multiple Unit Activation: If you right-click on a stack of fortified/garrisoned/holding units, you may activate multiple units by SHIFT+Left-Clicking on each one. Close the window by just Left-Clicking on a listed unit."

This works ok. Here is my practical idea: what if player would press shift + CTRL when activating those units? That would tell the program that the player is about to give a command which applies to all those units. When the player releases the keys the pop-up screen would vanish and the player would be able to give "go to", "fortify" or maybe"disband" command to all those activated units. As a programmer myself I think that this shouldn't be too hard to implement. Just make a loop which executed the given command to all those activated units.

The above would have DRAMATIC boost in playability at the current late game tedium.

Even better would be a new "keep together" or "group" command. Just shift+ctrl -click the units as above and issue a new "group" command. It would make a "virtual group leader" unit (equivalent to army leader) which has the movement points according to the slowest member of that group. You could move then that group around and load/unload it to ship. However, before attacking with those units you should "ungroup" them first. Further, if someone attacks that group, the group would immediately automatically "ungroup" and defend themselves as individuals.

Of course, grouping workers to effective 2/4/8 teams would be extremely nice. Worker groups should of course be able to do everything that workers can without ungrouping.

Also, grouping settler + defensive unit and sending them to their destination square would be truly awesome!

I too really REALLY badly hope that someone at Firaxis would respond something to this thread. The need for this functionality is so huge. In fact, I was very disappointed that nothing like this wasn't included at patch. Still, given the fact that we all need so desperately this functionality and on the other hand it really isn't too hard to program I have high hopes that we actually see Firaxis doing this for us.

Thanks in advance, Firaxis!

Capt Dizle · December 15, 2001, 00:01

Its a feature guys. Balances the AI vs the human. The AI can't conceive of stacked movement. To balance that we have the mind numbing job of moving units one by one.

Then we give up and quit thus granting to the Soren AI one more victory.

Just kidding. A little needle for Soren won't matter as I am surely "on the ignore list".

I support this proposal.

ak · December 15, 2001, 03:31

Just right click and select Group. Move stack. Right click again and you still have the individual units listed for complete flexibility. The group would move at the speed of the slowest unit.

SithUK · December 15, 2001, 06:07

I TOTALLY 100% SUPPORT STACKING - Why hasn't a Firaxian replied to this......?

Sith

Marko Polo · December 15, 2001, 08:51

Quote:

Originally posted by Redstar
"I just want some clarification.
AM i right in thinking you can no longer use multiple transports to ferry a group of units to a faraway land in just 1 turn?

In civ2 you would just have to land a transport on another transport and then click that transport...all 8 units would transfer and off you go again.

Now it seems like you must manually wake them up and drag them into next transport...so you only get 2 transport moves instead of unlimited per turn.

Am i mistaken in this?

(its no biggie, i'm just curious)

Yeah, you are right. "Shipchaining" technique in Civ2 doesn't work at Civ3. Further, you can't move units from transport to another when in sea. This is realistic of course.

However, you can load/unload your troops at CITIES in a transport infinitely. So, if you have "chain of cities" and a transport available in each of them conveniently to the enemy front you can still do the trick.

Alexander's Horse · December 15, 2001, 18:49

Quote:

Originally posted by jimmytrick
Its a feature guys. Balances the AI vs the human.

No it isn't - its a glaring oversight.

faffy · December 15, 2001, 19:12

I support the idea. But I also would like to know what the technical difficulties are for stacked movement. Such an obvious thing can not be overlooked by the talented people of Firaxis. So there must be something against it that they decided not to include stacking of units. I can imagine the heated discussions among the programmers on this subject, but it seems that Sid or another reponsible person vetoed the stacked movement and now the whole company follows the "being silent" policy about it. Let's hope that with this thread we can convince them to include stacking or at least shed light on the reasons behind this decision.

Faffy

Arkatreides · December 15, 2001, 19:24

I support as well!

I has been a long time since I actually finished a game instead of just retiring when it gets tedious.

Bakunine · December 16, 2001, 00:06

S

U

P

O

R

T

Redstar · December 16, 2001, 00:15

", you can't move units from transport to another when in sea. "

yes you can...but only 1ce per turn.

m0nk33 · December 16, 2001, 00:39

100% agreed.

At the heart of it, Civ3 is a great game, but the player spends alot of time doing/watching repetitive actions. I bet total time for a game could be cut by 25% if a few simple features were added.