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[scrdest]

My main issue with this is the continuation of the clusterfuck that is one-unit-per-hex. That fucked over the balancing of Civ5 and made it un-fun, and I don't want this ruined in the same way. :c

I will heavily disagree. I played 4 and combat only became tolerable once I discovered the mod I used had an option to limit UPTs, otherwise it was just smashing doomstacks against each other and micromanaging counters over and over.

[Delta Foxtrot]

I haven't played 5, but that sort of 1v1 systems have a risk of heavily favouring unit quality over quantity. And I'll be damned if I can't play with my USSR style horde.

But I agree, one thing I've disliked in all civ games is the hundred strong doomstacks.

[Descan]

Having a military of 5 dudes and having a military of millions are not the only options

I can settle for like, a limit of 5-10 units per hex. But not only did it fuck over the AI in terms of path-finding around the map, but they had to bump up the cost per-unit in hammers and that had ramifications for everything else production-wise. :/

And to go off the conversation I just got done reading, my favourite faction WOULD be the Cybernetic Consciousness if they were the other flavour of transhuman. As it is, the whole "hive-mind" thing never jived with me, I like my individuality thank you, I just want it to be better. Because of that, I'd say I like Deidre, possibly Zhakorov/Lal as a second.

[Neonivek]

I remember a game a while ago where you could "reinforce" mech units with infantry. In that infantry can "join" the mech's unit or separate.

[Delta Foxtrot]

It's tricky. Master of Magic had a max of nine squads per army (a spear troop squad have six guys while a demon lord 'squad' would be a single guy for instance). Even that didn't quite work for me since 9 spear squads would get plastered by ~4 moderately elite units and even less truly elite ones very easily. I can think of a few other examples that had limited combat army sizes that erred too much on the side of unit quality.

I guess it's really hard making a balanced combat system that appreciates both unit quality and quantity without going overboard with either. Maybe Hearts of Iron with its army doctrine modifiers? And even that's not quite civ-like game so direct comparison is pretty hard.

Either way, I don't play civ(likes) for their army system so at worst they'll do it as badly as it's always been done.

[Neonivek]

One way to do it Delta Foxtrot is simply to limit the player's ability to keep making elite units somehow or to make elite units "specialists" or make ordinary units a necessary building block.

In Panzer General for example, yes... the great units were great, but you had a very limited ability to field them and the game was all about making the best out of what you got.

In advance wars they do it by both making infantry absolutely necessary but also making the best units in the game really slow.

Warlock is an interesting case I only bring up because it is the complete opposite but is also blissfully unaware. In Warlock expensive units are better then cheap units because fodder just doesn't work in that game.

Which also brings us to Civs and stuff... The reason why Fodder doesn't work in those games is because fodder just becomes filler for delaying. It lacks the ability to truly weaken the enemy without slowing yourself down.

[Niveras]

I re-iterate CtP2's method of one "army" per tile. It doesn't need to be as rigid as CtP; armies could vary in size unit-wise depending on what those units are - standard infantry would take up one "combat tile", a tank column might take up two, with the basic limit being maybe four at the minimum and techs allowing that to be expanded. Maybe also an option to add an extra tile or two with great people (generals). There's a lot that could be done in that way - adding add non-combat units for secondary effects: workers to reduce maintenance or add/improve healing, great persons moving through armies adding a 10 turn morale [bard/artist] or attack [religious/science] or defense [engineer] or whatever bonus. Could also have an army limit and maintenance cost by number of armies, with great generals negating maintenance and army support costs (e.g. making the army free).

I will admit, though, that some of these may not make sense in the "future tech". How do you explain the ability more accurately coordinate an army (e.g. allowing more units in the army) when all the technology that could allow for such a thing already existed? In the past, new doctrines and new technologies for that, but anything after the modern day internet (or, at the least, radio) won't increase that significantly.

The per-tile limit would apply to armies; other unittypes may or may not be limited. In cases where a player stacks military units without combining them into an army, all non-army units in the tile suffer severe collateral damage in the case of a loss (the idea being that all non-defending units were basically "in camp" and not prepared for battle). In cases of attack... probably allow only unit to attack from a given tile per turn. So you could theoretically move a stack of doom around, but only one could attack, and if you're ever attacked back and lose you'll probably lose the entire stack.

Basically, I'd like to see some more innovation in the vein of the unit representation in 4X games, and an "army unit" mechanic seems like underrepresented way to go about that.

[Neonivek]

It could work with one tank unit and two infantry units per tile.

[Jacob/Lee]

I think Caveman2Cosmos (the CivIV mod) had a few different settings for capping the number of units on a tile. I'd like to have multiple units on a tile with a cap, since it prevents stuff like this and also prevents the construction of uncrackable doomstacks stationed on hills that take an insane amount of units to kill. Caveman2Cosmos also gave a bonus to attacking depending on how close you were to fully surrounding the defender's tile. If they can't think of a completely new concept for military units that would solve those problems, I would at least like to see a unit cap per tile that isn't one.

[Shadowlord]

It's tricky. Master of Magic had a max of nine squads per army (a spear troop squad have six guys while a demon lord 'squad' would be a single guy for instance).

I think this is something that they borrowed from the Warlords series. Warlords I had this back in 1989, and that was followed by Warlords II in 1993 (MoM came out in 1994). IIRC you could have one army per tile, no more, and each castle (city) was four tiles in size so you could have four defending armies. You would want to lead your armies with heroes for maximum effectiveness in Warlords, and could equip them with items, just like in MoM, but it was much more straightforward - basically a multiplayer fantasy wargame with 'castles' where you could recruit different troops, and heroes, and quests that could give your heroes items or special units. No spells or city management beyond making units or buying the capability to make a different unit (which was expensive as hell, so you generally wanted to capture a city that could make it instead, if at all possible).

I'm mainly only familiar with Warlords I and II, however. There were later games in the series which I didn't really play, and then they made the Warlords Battlecry series, which were RTSes - and were fun, but I can't get anyone to play them.

[loose nut]

I'll chime in as approving 5-10 units per tile and flanking bonuses as a way of mitigating the excesses of Civs 4 and 5.

[Levi]

I MUCH preferred the 1 unit per tile in Civ 5.  I will remember it always as the reason of my defeat when my roommate used it to line up a bunch of artillery that could shoot further than mine, and protected it with a couple lines of cannon fodder that I could not get around. 

The tactics felt way cooler than the stack of dooms.

[Rez]

IMO, they need to continue making big changes to combat in civilization. I liked the hex map and there had to be an end to deathstacks, but war is nearly as bad in civ5 as in civ4.

Couldn't you use generals to make armies that would attack with all their constituent units in civ3?  Allow the player to contruct a general for every city they have, who can combine a number of units into an army that moves together and attacks together.  Armies can't stack.  Independent units suffer a major malus in their rolls against armies.  Cities aren't gigantic artillery complexes and can't be made into them.  Maybe you can construct AA and artillery complexes as improvements.

[Puzzlemaker]

I liked the one unit per hex, it definitely added strategic value, instead of a stack of DOOOOOM.  Cities needed to be toned down, they were ridiculous to capture. 

Maybe having a max number of squads per hex, or something.

[Twi]

I'll chime in as approving 5-10 units per tile and flanking bonuses as a way of mitigating the excesses of Civs 4 and 5.

Also cities need to be bigger BUT if I read the PC gamer article right, that IS happening in here to some extent. :v