stacking limit ?

[scout1]

Still trying to get the hang of this game. Playing the tutorials. Noticed retreats and advances seem to have no stacking limit. Given the scale changes with the scenario (which means the answer is "it depends"), is their a stacking limit ?

[JAMiAM]

Nine units per hex.

[scout1]

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

Nine units per hex.

Is this irrespective of unit size for a given map scale ?

[Veers]

ORIGINAL: scout1

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

Nine units per hex.

Is this irrespective of unit size for a given map scale ?

Yes.

[golden delicious]

With TOAW, we have density penalties and traffic penalties. As such, the main reason for a maximum number of units is that it's simpler for the computer to manage, and easier to display to the player.

Strictly speaking, the stacking limit should be in terms of density penalty. But this might require a lot of reworking. It would also break one or two scenarios.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

With TOAW, we have density penalties and traffic penalties. As such, the main reason for a maximum number of units is that it's simpler for the computer to manage, and easier to display to the player.

Strictly speaking, the stacking limit should be in terms of density penalty. But this might require a lot of reworking. It would also break one or two scenarios.

Unlimited stacking would probably also be bad for us. A lot of us wouldn't be able to resist the temptation to detail things even more finely -- 'now I can have those engineers as a separate platoon -- no more problems with the stacking limit.'

So we wind up with hopelessly cluttered, unplayable monsters. This would not be an improvement.

Nine's about right. If your scenario is bumping its head against this limit a lot, you need to think about combining some units -- not start asking for a higher stacking limit.

[L`zard]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

With TOAW, we have density penalties and traffic penalties. As such, the main reason for a maximum number of units is that it's simpler for the computer to manage, and easier to display to the player.

Strictly speaking, the stacking limit should be in terms of density penalty. But this might require a lot of reworking. It would also break one or two scenarios.

Unlimited stacking would probably also be bad for us. A lot of us wouldn't be able to resist the temptation to detail things even more finely -- 'now I can have those engineers as a separate platoon -- no more problems with the stacking limit.'

So we wind up with hopelessly cluttered, unplayable monsters. This would not be an improvement.

Nine's about right. If your scenario is bumping its head against this limit a lot, you need to think about combining some units -- not start asking for a higher stacking limit.

Myself, I'd go with nine to the hex, were it not that air and naval are stuck in there along with fixed units, and all reguardless of map scale.........

[Erik2]

ORIGINAL: L`zard
Myself, I'd go with nine to the hex, were it not that air and naval are stuck in there along with fixed units, and all reguardless of map scale.........

Yes, it would be nice if the scenario designer could set the max naval/air units in a hex, these should be in addition to the land units.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Nine's about right. If your scenario is bumping its head against this limit a lot, you need to think about combining some units -- not start asking for a higher stacking limit.

Take Seelowe. An airfield unit, a brigade HQ, one of those artillery "regiments" which turns out to have around three guns, and two battalions split into three having taken heavy losses.

Hex is full- with a total of maybe a thousand men. There's not even a green density light.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Nine's about right. If your scenario is bumping its head against this limit a lot, you need to think about combining some units -- not start asking for a higher stacking limit.

Take Seelowe. An airfield unit, a brigade HQ, one of those artillery "regiments" which turns out to have around three guns, and two battalions split into three having taken heavy losses.

Hex is full- with a total of maybe a thousand men. There's not even a green density light.

See 7.11 in the wishlist. If all sub-units of a sub-divided unit counted as one unit for stacking purposes, the above wouldn't be at the limit. That should fix most of the problems that are encountered.

The idea of basing it entirely on density could result in unimaginable stacks. Someone will design a 50km/hex scenario using platoons, and the game will have to handle stacks of 5000, etc.

[hueglin]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Nine's about right. If your scenario is bumping its head against this limit a lot, you need to think about combining some units -- not start asking for a higher stacking limit.

Take Seelowe. An airfield unit, a brigade HQ, one of those artillery "regiments" which turns out to have around three guns, and two battalions split into three having taken heavy losses.

Hex is full- with a total of maybe a thousand men. There's not even a green density light.

See 7.11 in the wishlist. If all sub-units of a sub-divided unit counted as one unit for stacking purposes, the above wouldn't be at the limit. That should fix most of the problems that are encountered.

The idea of basing it entirely on density could result in unimaginable stacks. Someone will design a 50km/hex scenario using platoons, and the game will have to handle stacks of 5000, etc.

If someone makes an unmanageable scenario, you can choose not to play it. I agree with those who want the stacking limit removed. In a game that has so much scope for fine detail, it just seems way too arbitrary to set a limit of 9 units per hex. It's not like we need to worry about the pile of counters falling over!

[vahauser]

hueglin,
 
I disagree.  The stacking limit of 9, while artificial, is at least graphically presentable using the GUI.  Trying to display stacks larger than 9 (say, in the attack planner) is problematic to say the least.
 
While 9 might not be perfect, it does at least have the advantage of being readily presentable using the GUI.  Changing the GUI to handle larger stacks might not only be impractical from a programming aspect, but it might also look like crap too and thus be unusable to the vast majority of players.
 
Don't misunderstand me, I not a big fan of 9.  But 9 at least works reasonably well most of the time.  And until somebody can prove that some number larger than 9 is practically and aesthetically superior, then I'll continue to advocate sticking with the poison I know instead of the poison I don't know.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

See 7.11 in the wishlist. If all sub-units of a sub-divided unit counted as one unit for stacking purposes, the above wouldn't be at the limit. That should fix most of the problems that are encountered.

The idea of basing it entirely on density could result in unimaginable stacks. Someone will design a 50km/hex scenario using platoons, and the game will have to handle stacks of 5000, etc.

Since the unit limit is 4,000, this would be impossible. Aren't we usually on opposite sides of the "let designers make unplayable scenarios" argument?

Anyway, the obvious limit to the number of units which can appear in a hex is display. At present the attack planner and the group composition view are both limited to nine units. Even for your suggested change, you would need to modify this to allow the player to have access to all the units, either displaying them all at once or allowing the player to scroll through. There's also the matter of how the data on the units is stored, but this may be easier to handle.

There more or less has to be some upper limit on the number of units in a hex for memory reasons- but there's no reason this should be nine. Sixteen (a four-by-four display) or twenty-five (five-by-five) would fill up less quickly. For lower resolutions, the 2D (small) icons could be used for this, and the view could even scale according to the number of units in the hex.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Nine's about right. If your scenario is bumping its head against this limit a lot, you need to think about combining some units -- not start asking for a higher stacking limit.

Take Seelowe. An airfield unit, a brigade HQ, one of those artillery "regiments" which turns out to have around three guns, and two battalions split into three having taken heavy losses.

Hex is full- with a total of maybe a thousand men. There's not even a green density light.

See 7.11 in the wishlist. If all sub-units of a sub-divided unit counted as one unit for stacking purposes, the above wouldn't be at the limit. That should fix most of the problems that are encountered.

Yeah -- but this sounds like a lot of work from a programming point of view. The displays, etc.

At the same time, if such things happen frequently in a scenario, it is a design flaw. There are too many small units running around the map. The designer needs to get a grip and combine some of them.

I should know: it came up in Seelowe. Okay: more brigades and fewer battalions. Combine the brigade AT and engineers. Put some of the divisional artillery in the divisional HQ's. The result was a better, more playable scenario.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Nine's about right. If your scenario is bumping its head against this limit a lot, you need to think about combining some units -- not start asking for a higher stacking limit.

Take Seelowe. An airfield unit, a brigade HQ, one of those artillery "regiments" which turns out to have around three guns, and two battalions split into three having taken heavy losses.

Hex is full- with a total of maybe a thousand men. There's not even a green density light.

It does happen occasionally -- but not much. That's what I mean: there was a problem, I treated it as a design problem, and I corrected it. The scenario is better as a result, not worse.

The one place where the limit still chronically comes into play is when the German is rushing air-liftable units into the 'airfields' he has captured. Subdivided and reorganizing units pile up, and he can't land another regiment at Detling that day.

I'm quite happy with that. The Ju-52's would indeed pile up as they tried to wedge their way onto that one grass runway. No problem at all.

[ColinWright]

I tend to look at this from the point of view of practical play.

Sure, in a completely perfect simulation, we'd have to concern ourselves with the minutia of supply, discipline problems arising out of that battalion having been 'resting' in central Paris for two months, etc -- but do we really want that? Isn't the idea that we're able to do without a staff and hundreds of subordinate commanders and manage the campaign ourselves, directly? This is achieved through simplification. Hopefully accurate simplication -- but definitely simplification. Your supply trucks just come up on their own: the issue is getting the engine to make them do correctly. We don't want bloody 'ration units' and such. At least, I don't.

Similarly with the stacking limits. Managing fronts where each stack contains 10-20 units would suck. The nine-unit limit forces reasonable design and leads to more playable scenarios.

Now, if no limit existed and we were deciding what limit to set, what limit would we choose? Gotta be something: the computer can't just allow for an infinite number of units in each hex. I think we'd wind up picking nine. At any rate, it's a fine choice. So I say stick with it.

[wolflars]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

Take Seelowe. An airfield unit, a brigade HQ, one of those artillery "regiments" which turns out to have around three guns, and two battalions split into three having taken heavy losses.

Hex is full- with a total of maybe a thousand men. There's not even a green density light.

[wolflars]

Furthermore for those who play against the AI, Elmer most likely could not handle larger stacks properly. As is, he has difficulty not over stacking and getting the density penalities.

9 seems fine. Hell, it might even be too many. Scenarios with too many units, thus too many large stacks, limit maneuver unrealistically in a game that is supposed to model operational warfare. It is unfortunate that many scenarios suffer poor design resulting in campaigns that rely more on attrition than maneuver, partly because of poor unit size to hex size ratios and too much map clutter.

I think the density penalities are too low, players should be really punished for overstacking. Think about it, say a scenario has divisions as the primarly element at 10 km hexes (or even 15 km), and a player stacks 9 divisions in 10 kms!!!! Unless its a parade I doubt they will be very effective.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: wolflars

Furthermore for those who play against the AI, Elmer most likely could not handle larger stacks properly. As is, he has difficulty not over stacking and getting the density penalities.

9 seems fine. Hell, it might even be too many. Scenarios with too many units, thus too many large stacks, limit maneuver unrealistically in a game that is supposed to model operational warfare. It is unfortunate that many scenarios suffer poor design resulting in campaigns that rely more on attrition than maneuver, partly because of poor unit size to hex size ratios and too much map clutter.

I think the density penalities are too low, players should be really punished for overstacking. Think about it, say a scenario has divisions as the primarly element at 10 km hexes (or even 15 km), and a player stacks 9 divisions in 10 kms!!!! Unless its a parade I doubt they will be very effective.

? You'd definitely get a density penalty if you put nine divisions in a 10 km hex.

[vahauser]

What Colin said. 

Even in dense assaulting environments, the most densely-packed divisions take up at least 10-15 square kilometers each.  And since the area of a 10km hex is 86.60 square kilometers, then trying to cram 9 divisions within that area is historically ridiculous. 

For example, the II SS Panzerkorps at Kursk (3 large divisions plus supporting troops) attacked along a frontage of approximately 3-4km per division.  This was considered to be a very dense assault frontage.  In TOAW III terms, this means that the II SS Panzerkorps probably couldn't be squeezed into a 10km hex (at least not realistically), but it could fit into a 15km hex.  And a 15km hex has an area of 194.86 square kilometers.

EDIT: We're talking WW2 densities here. A Napoleonic army could fit into a 10km hex because the unit densities were so much greater in 1805 than in 1943.