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The problem isn’t really the existence of death stacks so much as the fact that the map is too zoomed out for _any_ tactical nuance. This creates extremely unre

The problem isn’t really the existence of death stacks so much as the fact that the map is too zoomed out for _any_ tactical nuance. This creates extremely unrealistic game-y mechanics when you have two opposing stacks of 50 guys and one guy moves right while the other guy jukes and runs into a city that’s not defended. I actually love Humankind’s approach where you have a fairly chunky stack and the stack gets spread out over the map into individual units during combat where you do some short term tactics that pulls in all surrounding units as reinforcements with temporary combat only movements.

29athrowaway 2y ago
You can pick the world size. Knowing how to concentrate your forces is a tactical element. Once you get railroad you can move your units across your territory easier.
- jncfhnb 2y ago
  “Put everyone in a single stack” is not an interesting tactic or knowledge check imo.
  - dmoy 2y ago
    There was a year-ish period of sc2 which was death stacks, I think at that point I went back to watching sc1 lol I agree, it's not fun or interesting
bigger_cheese 2y ago
I played a lot of the original Civ but it was in the early 90's so my memories are a little hazy now. Units on the world map had a "zone of control", you couldn't move units through tiles adjacent to an enemy unit, so the behavior you mention where you could juke past a stack of units wasn't possible, you could put units around cities and similar to create blockades, cut off reinforcements etc (including with naval units). There was even a tile improvement you could build "fortress" which was useful to build in chokepoint areas as it gave defenders a big advantage. It made this blockading tactic more effective. The big difference I feel going from old school civ games vs newer games is map tile improvements in old games you had to dedicate a unit to upgrading the tiles around cities (you would have units dedicated to permanently building irrigation, mines, roads and in late game they'd be on pollution cleanup duty to avoid global warming occurring). In modern civ they've abandoned this. Alpha Centauri was the peak civ game for me had so many cool things you could do like nerve stapling (removed the cities unhappy population permanently but also removed specialists), population booms - where you could grow cities extremely fast by funneling a massive amount of growth resources into them, Supply crawlers (could ferry resources from any tile on the map to crawlers home city), multi tiered social civics (for example rather than just playing a constitutional republic, you could be a combination of Democratic/Planned Economy or Fundamentalist + Free Market, Police State + Green Economy etc.)
- toast0 2y ago
  > The big difference I feel going from old school civ games vs newer games is map tile improvements in old games you had to dedicate a unit to upgrading the tiles around cities (you would have units dedicated to permanently building irrigation, mines, roads and in late game they'd be on pollution cleanup duty to avoid global warming occurring). In modern civ they've abandoned this. I haven't played Civ VII, and I don't think I played much of Civ II or III, but tile improvements is still a thing in Civ IV, V, and VI. In Civ I, the settler unit would do tile improvements and found cities, and at some point they switched to a settler that only founds cities and a worker unit that does tile improvements. In Civ VI, the worker only has a certain number of charges and then disbands, and they separated out road construction to happen with trade routes, but you still need workers to irrigate and add mines and whatever you need for special resources (in Civ I, there was one special resource and it was called resources; later games there's like spices and bananas and coffee and gold and what have you)
  - bigger_cheese 2y ago
    In Civ I there were resources, for example jungle tiles could have "gems", hills had "coal", grasslands had "game" etc. There was also another resource "luxuries" which is what I think you are talking about, you obtained these via establishing trade routes between cities, or by creating specialized citizens (entertainers).
- bee_rider 2y ago
  I think the issue is that people actually want to do tactical fighting with flanking and concentrating attacks, but the scale is quite odd. Zone of control is a good game mechanic but it’s very game-y; I can’t pass this guy who’s standing a city’s distance away from me? Maybe a better mechanic could be for units to be able to pass by each other, but it could cause attrition for the moving unit (representing the fact that the moving unit will have trouble foraging with all the entrenched defenders hanging around).
  - distances 2y ago
    Civ 5&6 apply zone of control well, I think: you are able to move past enemies, but it takes all of the unit's move points. So the advancing is slow and dangerous.
Aerroon 2y ago
I have to agree: Humankind has a much better base for combat.
ethbr1 2y ago
The problem is that Civ has never modeled military logistics. That gap means death stacks are magically logistically-supported. But fair, as that's not the kind of game it wants to be.
krige 2y ago
That's kind of the niche Age of Wonders occupied, a civ-lite strategic layer and xcom-like tactical layer. Too bad 4 is hideously bland (I'll blame paradox and focus group testing for that)

29athrowaway 2y ago

You can pick the world size. Knowing how to concentrate your forces is a tactical element. Once you get railroad you can move your units across your territory easier.

jncfhnb 2y ago
“Put everyone in a single stack” is not an interesting tactic or knowledge check imo.
- dmoy 2y ago
  There was a year-ish period of sc2 which was death stacks, I think at that point I went back to watching sc1 lol I agree, it's not fun or interesting

bigger_cheese 2y ago

I played a lot of the original Civ but it was in the early 90's so my memories are a little hazy now. Units on the world map had a "zone of control", you couldn't move units through tiles adjacent to an enemy unit, so the behavior you mention where you could juke past a stack of units wasn't possible, you could put units around cities and similar to create blockades, cut off reinforcements etc (including with naval units). There was even a tile improvement you could build "fortress" which was useful to build in chokepoint areas as it gave defenders a big advantage. It made this blockading tactic more effective. The big difference I feel going from old school civ games vs newer games is map tile improvements in old games you had to dedicate a unit to upgrading the tiles around cities (you would have units dedicated to permanently building irrigation, mines, roads and in late game they'd be on pollution cleanup duty to avoid global warming occurring). In modern civ they've abandoned this. Alpha Centauri was the peak civ game for me had so many cool things you could do like nerve stapling (removed the cities unhappy population permanently but also removed specialists), population booms - where you could grow cities extremely fast by funneling a massive amount of growth resources into them, Supply crawlers (could ferry resources from any tile on the map to crawlers home city), multi tiered social civics (for example rather than just playing a constitutional republic, you could be a combination of Democratic/Planned Economy or Fundamentalist + Free Market, Police State + Green Economy etc.)

toast0 2y ago
> The big difference I feel going from old school civ games vs newer games is map tile improvements in old games you had to dedicate a unit to upgrading the tiles around cities (you would have units dedicated to permanently building irrigation, mines, roads and in late game they'd be on pollution cleanup duty to avoid global warming occurring). In modern civ they've abandoned this. I haven't played Civ VII, and I don't think I played much of Civ II or III, but tile improvements is still a thing in Civ IV, V, and VI. In Civ I, the settler unit would do tile improvements and found cities, and at some point they switched to a settler that only founds cities and a worker unit that does tile improvements. In Civ VI, the worker only has a certain number of charges and then disbands, and they separated out road construction to happen with trade routes, but you still need workers to irrigate and add mines and whatever you need for special resources (in Civ I, there was one special resource and it was called resources; later games there's like spices and bananas and coffee and gold and what have you)
- bigger_cheese 2y ago
  In Civ I there were resources, for example jungle tiles could have "gems", hills had "coal", grasslands had "game" etc. There was also another resource "luxuries" which is what I think you are talking about, you obtained these via establishing trade routes between cities, or by creating specialized citizens (entertainers).
bee_rider 2y ago
I think the issue is that people actually want to do tactical fighting with flanking and concentrating attacks, but the scale is quite odd. Zone of control is a good game mechanic but it’s very game-y; I can’t pass this guy who’s standing a city’s distance away from me? Maybe a better mechanic could be for units to be able to pass by each other, but it could cause attrition for the moving unit (representing the fact that the moving unit will have trouble foraging with all the entrenched defenders hanging around).
- distances 2y ago
  Civ 5&6 apply zone of control well, I think: you are able to move past enemies, but it takes all of the unit's move points. So the advancing is slow and dangerous.

Aerroon 2y ago

I have to agree: Humankind has a much better base for combat.

ethbr1 2y ago

The problem is that Civ has never modeled military logistics. That gap means death stacks are magically logistically-supported. But fair, as that's not the kind of game it wants to be.

krige 2y ago

That's kind of the niche Age of Wonders occupied, a civ-lite strategic layer and xcom-like tactical layer. Too bad 4 is hideously bland (I'll blame paradox and focus group testing for that)