Stack Movement Solution?

[Willem]

It seems to me that the problem of end game movement could be easily solved if the Army unit was utilized better. If there were more Pentagon type buildings, but with the ability to add more than just one unit at a time, 5 or 10 say, then by the Modern Era, you could have Armies of 40-50 units. Rather than dealing with individual units, you would be moving Armies around the map. You could have a combined arms approach by restricting the units in the Army to just one type. So you could have an Artillery Regiment say, or an Infantry regiment, with the same abilities as the base unit. By the end of the game, the individual units would only be useful for loading into the Army, or for light defence/recon.

A similar approach could also be used with Workers. Have "Teams" rather than individuals.

[Grrr]

What happens when your stealth fighter regiment (say 50 planes) attacks an AI warrior. You just lost 50 Stealth Fighters.

[yin26]

The game is fine as it stands. I'm tired of all this complaining. If you don't like all these units (units you were no doubt screaming to have in the game, by the way), simple solution: Don't make so many units. If you were any good at the game, you'd know how to get the same goal accomplished much more efficiently.

[Capt Dizle]

You tell'em Yin!

Darn whiners. Bah, humbug.

[ACooper]

Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Where's Lib? Where's Lib?

[Willem]

Originally posted by yin26
The game is fine as it stands. I'm tired of all this complaining. If you don't like all these units (units you were no doubt screaming to have in the game, by the way), simple solution: Don't make so many units. If you were any good at the game, you'd know how to get the same goal accomplished much more efficiently.

Well as a matter of fact I can. I don't generally go around war mongering so I tend not to build that many units. I'm just trying to offer a positive solution to one of the problems that keeps getting repeated here, rather than close my mind and write the game off. Maybe you should try it sometime, you might actually find some merits in the game, or even the Editor.

[Libertarian]

Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Where's Lib? Where's Lib?

Right here. And I heartily endorse Willem's idea of "teams".

Early on, when I was an avid supporter of Firaxis and the game, the twin issues of unary movement and bizarre activation sequencing were already game-spoilers for me. But I had counted on a fix from the patch, and had even assured people that they likely would be, since they were obvious problems. That was before Firaxis had set my posts to be ignored. At least automatically.

I had pointed out that the most natural way to develop your tiles is to form brigades of workers: a grassland brigade, a hill and forest brigade, and a mountain brigade. These teams can move from tile to tile making the necessary improvements.

Unfortunately, as the empire grows, more and more workers are required, and so my turns ended up going something like this in the late game:

[right click on stack of workers, mountain brigade... ...hold down shift and select each one I need... ...move activated worker...]

Now, if that were merely repeatable, it would be bad but not SO bad. Instead, when the second worker selected ought to activate, here's what happens instead:

[tank stuck on mountain in England activates... ...recall where workers were located... ...scroll until I find them... ...decide which stack of workers I was dealing with... ...right click the stack... select them all again... ...move activated worker... ...wait patiently... ...ah! next worker activates!... ...move him... ...damn! that's a worker from a hill brigade!...]

So, now I have to reestablish the two brigades, moving one from the mountain brigade to replace the errant one from the hill brigade.

And so it goes. The relentlessly wacky interface makes my necessary work an absolute drudgery so repulsive that I dread the coming of the next turn.

The interesting decisions of the early game have been replaced by the mundane decisions of the late game. And the random discontinuity of the unit activations makes even those decisions unbearably tedious.

[Zachriel]

Once I have Military Academy, I start producing Armies. I usually have a 5-10 by the modern age. They kick.

On the issue of settlers, in the early days I micromanage, but by the modern age I use shift-a. Works quite well.

On the city screen, I set the worker allocation to automatic for all cities, with a few exceptions. I set the build queue manually.

[Zachriel]

An example

[Dev]

Let me guess, no comment, no word, no nothing from Firaxes about stacked movement yet ?

/dev - be back to check in another month

[Alex]

Originally posted by Willem


Well as a matter of fact I can. I don't generally go around war mongering so I tend not to build that many units. I'm just trying to offer a positive solution to one of the problems that keeps getting repeated here, rather than close my mind and write the game off. Maybe you should try it sometime, you might actually find some merits in the game, or even the Editor.

You obviously don't know Yin, do you?

[Grumbold]

If they WERE to expand the idea of armies, hopefully it would be to introduce proper ones. You know, with tanks, infantry, artillery and support units all in the same stack and used to attack simultaneously rather than queue up one at a time to engage (one of) the enemy....

A tank never had to be so weak it could lose against a pikemen in CtP because you could mug it with 5 pikemen and 4 catapults at the same time and maybe win!

[Navyman]

As a person who advocates naval warfare I would like to see a "fleet" that is same as the "army." Where, many ships can be grouped together into a fleet. One thing I hate more than moving my 100 workers around one by one is to move my 8 carriers, 12 destroyers, 8 battleships, 6 subs, and 20 transports around one at a time trying to keep them in a defensive formation while in transit. Grrr....

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Grumbold
If they WERE to expand the idea of armies, hopefully it would be to introduce proper ones. You know, with tanks, infantry, artillery and support units all in the same stack and used to attack simultaneously rather than queue up one at a time to engage (one of) the enemy....

A tank never had to be so weak it could lose against a pikemen in CtP because you could mug it with 5 pikemen and 4 catapults at the same time and maybe win!

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Personally, I am quite happy leading the free world with my tank armies. (I have no trouble with the combat system, and a well-planned battle will normally execute accordingly.)

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Navyman
As a person who advocates naval warfare I would like to see a "fleet" that is same as the "army." Where, many ships can be grouped together into a fleet. One thing I hate more than moving my 100 workers around one by one is to move my 8 carriers, 12 destroyers, 8 battleships, 6 subs, and 20 transports around one at a time trying to keep them in a defensive formation while in transit. Grrr....

I agree. A Naval Leader would be nice, too.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Navyman
As a person who advocates naval warfare I would like to see a "fleet" that is same as the "army." Where, many ships can be grouped together into a fleet. One thing I hate more than moving my 100 workers around one by one is to move my 8 carriers, 12 destroyers, 8 battleships, 6 subs, and 20 transports around one at a time trying to keep them in a defensive formation while in transit. Grrr....

I agree. But why stop there? Having a squadron of planes might satisfy those players that can't sink ships at the moment. An individual plane can't, but a squadron can. Just like the Japanese required a large number of planes for Pearl Harbour, it would require a large number to sink a Battleship.

BTW, has anyone tried to create a Sea/Air based Army yet? It seems to me that all that's required is to change the terrain flag. Armies are just glorified transports after all.