Biggest stack wins

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    • Biggest stack wins

      By and large the mechanics of this free-to-play game are very superior to many paid turn-based games with move-one-unit and resolve-combat-one-unit-at-a-time type mechanics.

      That being said, the one mechanic that is most bothersome to me is the limitless stackability of units. The result is whoever creates the bigger stack wins. Esp. a stack of 30 tac bombers, for instance. Wars play out like pre-civil war, pre-franco prussian war era where giant armies met on a battlefield to win wars instead of wwii era operations with actual fronts.

      This could be solved with real limits on stack-size. I've heard there is some diminishing returns with stacking, but in practice it seems to have no effect, so if there is, it is too weak and poorly modeled. The limit needs to be more pronounced.

      Stack limits make historical sense because of logistics limits in the real world. The German offensive in Wacht am rhein / bttl of the bulge famously bottlenecked and met with delays. The american 3rd army advance across france had trouble with supply keeping up. Anyway, wwii was fought with fronts - not with napoleanic armies.

      Otherwise a great game

    • The game mechanic that limits effectiveness of stack size is in the state based damage efficiency of the units.

      SImply put over a certain number of each unit does not add combat effectiveness. Those that take time to learn and understand the SBDE will be much better players than those that use the "doom stack" strategy.

      Also most players that use "doom stacks" have a weakness and are vulnerable to something, be it air, artillery, or simply a well put together stack of your own. When I see a doom stack I scatter my own forces and make split up their stack to chase me down.



      As you can see, A stack of 10 tactical bombers is only 64% efficient.



      For the complete list of SBDE limits go to this thread:
      forum.callofwar.com/index.php?…y/&postID=59775#post59775
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    • I was able to find an Ally today with a larger air stack to observe the SBDE of.


      So when you stack 70 tactical bombers together they are 14% efficient.





      @Stormbringer50 I hope you plan to split that group up before you attack. ;)
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      VorlonFCW
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    • VorlonFCW wrote:

      I was able to find an Ally today with a larger air stack to observe the SBDE of.


      So when you stack 70 tactical bombers together they are 14% efficient.
      Forget proper Anti-Air guns. That guys enemies can use soviet anti-air.

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    • This has always been a problem lo afaik. I think the highest number you can have in stack for the most strength is like 5 but they die really quick. I don't know how to fix it tbh, because sometimes you just need massive armies. If we could have units like in HoI, that would be better.
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    • Quasi-duck wrote:

      This has always been a problem lo afaik. I think the highest number you can have in stack for the most strength is like 5 but they die really quick. I don't know how to fix it tbh, because sometimes you just need massive armies. If we could have units like in HoI, that would be better.
      I agree units like HoI would make it better or where you can have certain platoons instead of single units. Or where you cant just spam missiles and Nukes late game. Id like to see where the further you increase your territory the longer it takes for your units to get the supplies needed. Example: A unit from the US lands in Ireland but the province doesn't have a port or factory. Which without the port the unit would take more damage trying to attack due to the lack of supplies being able to reach the area. An the unit would not be able to heal at the end of the day

    • VorlonFCW wrote:

      I was able to find an Ally today with a larger air stack to observe the SBDE of.


      So when you stack 70 tactical bombers together they are 14% efficient.





      @Stormbringer50 I hope you plan to split that group up before you attack. ;)
      well yeah, V. they are grouping there as they fly in from various points. then when they go on patrol from there they will be split into stacks of 5 or 6, like good hearted people do.

    • Actually the SBDE mechanism is quite elegant, even if it is not perfect (It works on troops of the same type and level only now, I would rather see it work in a simple "unit count" way, but that may be nitpicking).

      In the pre-WMD era (L2+ rockets and nukes), a doom stack is quite simply handled by just giving it room, avoid direct combat, take back the provs it leaves behind it, and kill anything that splits off it. In the mean time, your own dispersed forces can take ground much more effectively, so you have a net territory gain while his doom stack keeps hitting air.
      After WMD, the big stack is very vulnerable to them and it can be damaged or killed at less than 40% of the cost required to build it.

      As for the historic use of "doom stacks"... at the battle of Kursk (1943) for example, about 2 million Soviet soldiers were massed over about 300 km of front line... so that's about 7,000 soldiers per kilometer. In later battles this became even more (3 million would march on the CITY of Berlin). I'm not an expert on Napoleonic warfare, but I doubt if they matched those concentrations in the 19th century on single-battleground battles.
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    • VorlonFCW wrote:

      So when you stack 70 tactical bombers together they are 14% efficient.
      Right so 70 TACs together have the power of 70 * 0.14 = 9.8 TACs. Quite a diminution. There are plots of SBDE vs stack size for many units somewhere on the forum.

      BTW Vorlon, you don't need to find a single big stack to get the expected SBDE; you can just multi-click them and it will show it to you.

    • My favorite way do dispatch doomstacks is to take a bunch defensive units with high SBDE (Anti-tank and mot. infantry work well for this) and sit them in the path of my enemy's doomstack on terrain where my opponent's units will be disadvantaged (mountains or city) and let my combination of better efficiency and defensive stats take care of them.

      Even if my force is destroyed, the doomstack will be sufficiently reduced in size so that I may destroy it with my regular forces.

      This move only needs to be executed in the pre-nuclear period, nukes make doomstacking a suicidal tactic.


      However, in my days as a noob in this game, my wars with other bad players often devolved into clashes of giant armies with the bigger army usually winning. I can agree with the OP that is game is no fun when you use bad tactics.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by Gitargy ().

    • MontanaBB wrote:

      dirge wrote:

      The result is whoever creates the bigger stack wins.
      Nope. Not correct, by a long shot.
      And after Day 41+, I can make very large stacks of 25 to 35 units disappear in a blink of an eye with only one unit of my own. After nuclear rockets become available, creating large stacks of units is called "dumb."
      If the stack is big enough, it can be called "dumb" any day. Note the accurate picture for lvl.6 infantry.
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    • injinji wrote:

      If the stack is big enough, it can be called "dumb" any day. Note the accurate picture for lvl.6 infantry.
      Indeed, Miss I.

      More to your point, creating large stacks of units that include numbers of individual unit types far in excess of their SBDE-efficient number is dumb. (If you're a newbie, and you're seeing the SBDE abbreviation for the first time, I strongly urge you to enter "SBDE" into the search dialog at the top right corner of this page, click search, and start reading.)

      This game is all about creating mismatches, in order to inflict far greater damage and casualties on your opponents than your forces suffer in the process. If you're not thinking in those terms, and you're not applying game dynamics such as terrain strength bonuses, defensive vs. offensive strength advantages, state-based damage efficiency ("SBDE"), and using standoff weapons such as tactical air, artillery, and naval gunfire, then you're playing checkers while your smarter opponents are playing three-dimensional chess.

      Assembling the bigger, stronger stack of units and then slamming your big stack against your opponent's big stack may win a battle or two, and you may defeat a few enemies, but you're also going to incur the maximum number of your own unit losses in the process. And that's not usually an intelligent formula for beating good players.

      The post was edited 6 times, last by MontanaBB ().