Stacking, culture, and ICS

[Theben]

It appears that, in addition to leaders and nationalism, civs will be allowed to have 1 stack per 4 cities early on. I believe this may re-open the door for ICS, as sleazers will have more stacks available to them than perfectionists.

I propose that to counter this, Firaxis uses the culture rating of a civ to allow for more stacks for a civ. Bear in mind that it's not actually the culture itself that grants a military bonus, but the infrastructure it represents that allows for greater military flexing.

That it, without further info on how culture ratings add up.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Theben
It appears that, in addition to leaders and nationalism, civs will be allowed to have 1 stack per 4 cities early on. I believe this may re-open the door for ICS, as sleazers will have more stacks available to them than perfectionists.

Perhaps the max number of pre-nationalism unit-stacks should be dependent on the empires summarized number of population-points, instead of number of cities. This way perfectionist could be compensated by their bigger cities.

I propose that to counter this, Firaxis uses the culture rating of a civ to allow for more stacks for a civ. Bear in mind that it's not actually the culture itself that grants a military bonus, but the infrastructure it represents that allows for greater military flexing.

This is also a solution - (maybe) a better one. Anyway, I hope they adjust this sleeze-advantage, one way or the other.

[splangy]

with anti-ics measures there is no need

[korn469]

theben

i don't think that this will really encourage massive ICS because it seems that a one stack perfectionist civ could fend off attacks from a two stack ICS civ because of the ICS safe guards and because even more than that, one MASSIVE stack would have an advantage over two smaller stacks, even if the combined size of the two smaller stacks was slightly larger

in stack to stack warfare from what i read the most powerful units always attacks or defends, and it sounds like this is a one at a time battle resolution

so if you have one size six stack...with three legions and three archers against two size four stacks with two legions and two archers each i think that the size six stack would win the first battle taking no causulties and could probably take the second stack as well (especially if it had a turn to recover)

fsL=full strength Legion
fsA= full strength Archer
dL=damaged Legion
dA=damaged Archer

fsL attacks fsA
fsL attacks fsA
fsL attacks fsL
fsA attacks either dA or fsL
fsA attacks either dA or fsL
fsA attacks either fsL or dL

in each case the larger stack has the advantage and the same would hold true if the larger stack was defending (especially if it was behind city walls since this is a perfectionist civ fighting off a ICS barbarian)

so unless stacks have a size cap on them (which no mention has been made) one larger stack can deafeat two smaller stacks (especially if the number of units are the same)

but i am just making a slightly educated guess...i might be totally wrong

[Inverse Icarus]

[list=1][*]if someone can pull off an 80 city empire, and keep it happy, why the hell shouldn't they get 20 stacks of units? firaxis already said it'd be extremely hard to maintain an empire.[*]splangy: what disease was that?[/list=1]

[KrazyHorse]

splangy, you're wacko. World War II ended up costing over 50 000 000 casualties (counting military and civilian). No single outbreak of disease has killed that many in the last 50 years. If you're thinking about the influenza epidemic of 1919-1922, then it was after World War I. This outbreak killed upwards of twenty million, but had nothing to do with American soldiers returning home; it was simply a new variant of an old disease which would have crossed the Atlantic anyway. The epidemic didn't just take place in the U.S, as would be expected if the soldiers "imported" an exotic disease; Europe suffered a great deal as well.

[Alexander's Horse]

Why is everyone so against ICS? Don't you like a tactic that works?

[Inverse Icarus]

no, ICS isnt a tactic. It's sleeze.

keeping it simple for the feeble minded comrades.

[Rasputin]

what advantage does this stacking give you if they still fight/defend as individuals, surley a stack would defend better as a group coolectivley thans as each indiviual unit, this seems no better than current civ 2...

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Rasputin
what advantage does this stacking give you if they still fight/defend as individuals, surley a stack would defend better as a group coolectivley thans as each indiviual unit, this seems no better than current civ 2...

Individual units (also the slow-moving ones) within an army doesnt attack/defend "to the death". Instead each attack-, or defence-unit step down then their damage-bar goes red, and his undamaged shoulder-buddy steps up in order to continiue the attack/defence-duties.
Also, dedicated defence-units doesnt carry out attacks if they can avoid it. Likewise dedicated attack-units doesnt join-in to defend (as long as there are defend-units still is available).

So, in a sequential matter, an Civ-3 army really fight as a whole.

[Inverse Icarus]

are non-military stakcs avaiulable? and if so, are they still with that whole 1 per 4 cities deal?

i think 2 workers stacked together would get those roads built quicker, but probably would cause problems with colonies.

and stacked settlers, found a city and bring it up to size 8 on its first turn.

[Theben]

Originally posted by korn469
theben

i don't think that this will really encourage massive ICS because it seems that a one stack perfectionist civ could fend off attacks from a two stack ICS civ because of the ICS safe guards and because even more than that, one MASSIVE stack would have an advantage over two smaller stacks, even if the combined size of the two smaller stacks was slightly larger...

True, but the perfectionist will likely have more than one city. So a civ with 12 size 2 cities could have 3 decent sized stacks, while the civ with 3 size 10 cities only gets one huge stack. Unless you feel confident about your ability to shift that one stack around, otherwise the rest of your cities are at the sleazers mercy.

Uberkrux-

Well, why should a civ with 8 size 12 cities not be able to have more stacks, as opposed to a civ with 48 size 2? The pop points are the same.

[cyril25376]

Another good anti-ICS-measure is to reduce the effectivity of certain wonders, e.g. the pyramids should not count as an granary for every city of your civilisation, but only for 10 , 12 or 15 of your cities.
Another example is the Hoover Dam, it should not count as a plant for all your city on the same continent, but only for lets say 15 cities.

[Urban Ranger]

If the limitation on the number of stacks is supposed to reflect the constraints of C&C (command and control), I reckon it should be a function of the culture of a civ. This doesn't work well with primitive civs that are basically a collection of city-states (e.g. feudalism), so there should also be a limit on the size of the stacks in these cases.

[splangy]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
splangy, you're wacko. World War II ended up costing over 50 000 000 casualties (counting military and civilian). No single outbreak of disease has killed that many in the last 50 years. If you're thinking about the influenza epidemic of 1919-1922, then it was after World War I. This outbreak killed upwards of twenty million, but had nothing to do with American soldiers returning home; it was simply a new variant of an old disease which would have crossed the Atlantic anyway. The epidemic didn't just take place in the U.S, as would be expected if the soldiers "imported" an exotic disease; Europe suffered a great deal as well.

i meant WW1 sorry, and i heard from the history channel that it was traced back to the gas cannasters the germans used? any way im gona change it to somthing else that has more to do with civ

[Grumbold]

I think the whole way Civ-3 is allegedly emulating armies is bad, but the 1 army per 4 cities seems particularly silly. If generals/admirals were ranked for skill then there would always be one stack you wantedto do the major battles with but as many less competent ones available as you had men to put under their command. If the generals themselves cost gold to support then there would be an additional incentive to pay no more of them than you needed to do the tasks at hand. Replace all these artificial game limits with sensible reasons to do the same thing.