Sure, but one tile in a Civ game is what, a hundred miles on a side? You can fit a lot of troops in a space that big.
The “Gods & Kings” expansion was released on Steam last night.
I like to one unit per hex more than the stack of doom of the old versions, but I agree that a limited stack is probably best. I think I’ve seen similar things in computer games. I know I’ve seen this in board games, such as Twilight Imperium and one other . . . what was that one . . . ? I know! Civilization! As in “uses the same graphics because it was developed at the same time and is licensed from the video game” Civilization.
You can’t really ascribe a particular unit size in Civ. A mechanized infantry division deployed by the United States today in full battle array would number some 20,000 troops, occupying a frontage of many kilometers and exercising destructive inflence and control for many kilometres of depth in front of it. That still represents a small fraction of American peacetime military might. By the end of a big game you’ve got dozens of those things running around, and if you are assuming they represent anything logically equivalent in the real world, a “modern tank” is not just a whole bunch of tanks, it’s an armored division, which also features infantry, rotary aviation assets, divisional artillery, anti-air assets, an engineer company, signals and EW, supply and transport assets, armored reconnaissance, special forces units, so on and so forth. It’s a biiiiig unit.
But 20,000 troops would have been a genuinely immense army in classical times, the sort of force only a great empire could field, and even then would occupy a frontage of no more than two thousand yards and influence and control over nothing that could not been seen with the human eye. The units in classical times can’t possibly be equivalent in size to modern units. The modern capability to field enormous armies is just sensationally huge compared to what they could do in the olden days; it’s really only relatively recently, in historical terms, that the matter of actually fitting your available troops into the space provided became an issue in normal warfare.
I like the one-per-hex rule solely because it gives the game the POTENTIAL for far more interesting warfare. As it happens, the computer sucks at it, with robs the single player experience of some of its balance and fun; multiplayer it’s super awesome, though. I think the solution is better AI, not to go back to stacks of doom, which removes all field strategy.
And is on sale for $21.89 at GetGamesGo. It’s a Steamworks game so it doesn’t matter where you buy it from, it still activates on Steam.
I have no idea as to how viable it is in CivV, but mods that try to limit stack size in CivIV causes the AI to to get confused. Several have tried to do it, and it always fails.
As I said, I was nit-picking.
One unit per hex is mechanically fairly silly in what it does to the ability to concentrate forces. There are solutions to the doom stack problem without just throwing out stacking entirely. Alpha Centauri had two mechanics that were fairly effective: a successful attack against the top unit of the stack caused collateral damage to other units in the stack, and an attack by ranged units damaged all units in the stack equally. The real problem is that the Civilization series is extraordinarily resistant to change. Even the tech tree has changed surprisingly little from Civ 1 to Civ 5.
For people that play “vanilla”, yes. But a great number don’t play unmodded.
Sorry if that came off a bit short. Insomnia makes me bitchy.
I wonder how many people are going to shell out twenty or thirty bucks for it now, what with the Steam Summer Sale a week or two away.
There’s about a zero percent chance it’ll be part of the Steam sale for more than 25% off and I wouldn’t expect it on sale at all. The big discounts are on stuff 6-12+ months old where the sales have tapered off.
Just in North America though.
Positive review for the expansion
Less glowing but still positive
Back to glowing
For the $21 it seems worth the shot. Even if it DID hit 30% off on Steam, that’s saving all of a buck. Or the $21 sale could end, it doesn’t go on sale with Steam (as I suspect) and you pay the full $30 if you want it now.
I meant that within a couple of weeks, $30 is going to be able to get you about ten times as much computer game as this one expansion pack. If your game purchases are at all budget-constrained, this is far from the best week to be buying things full-price.
I just checked. It is available here tomorrow- for USD $45. 
Maybe you can have someone in the States buy it for you and send you the key?
Do GetGamesGo and Green Man Gaming apply the “Aussie tax”?
Jophiel, I checked the GetGamesGo site thanks and it is coming up as three zones- USA, UK and Rest of the World. (I’m not sure I’m happy being lumped in with Somalia but there you go). And it is coming up as a pre sale.
From the reports that have been posted about it, it looks pretty good so I’ll probably end up springing the $45 tomorrow. The cat can go hungry- I am sure he will understand.
Might also want to check GamersGate. They don’t have it on sale but they’re based out of Sweden (vs Steam out of the US and GMG/GGG both out of the UK). I really have no idea if there’s a way to circumvent the Australian upcharge.