1. Perhaps it also helps to instigate a army size visibility mechanism: it a stack is big enough, it can be seen even in the fog of war - as rumors of a mighty army abound. No specifics on the army unless you have appropriate spy/tech/magic.

The idea is to be aware of threats before they are 3 turns away.

Additionally, it should help to teach the AI to build defensive stacks not evenly distributed, but have one or more larger stacks preferably locate where they can relatively quickly cover a large area of the kingdom/empire.

2. A different tactic: have a type of "fire tower" or similar land enhancement. Essentially a fort - but when manned it makes an area around it slower to cross and deals damage to enemy stacks. Less or no area damage when the fort is itself under siege.

This allows a form of early damage spread on invading stacks and a way to slow their progress.

Maybe change up the AI scouting so that it leaves scouts at the edge of its influence. Problem solved.  

Or the AI could launch a counter stack and attack a user's lightly defended cities.  Or the AI could abandon a city if the odds look terrible and withdraw to another city where it does have time to gather an appropriate army.  Or the other AIs could hear about the size of said army and somehow determine that this probably is your entire army and decide to try and attack your weakly defended cities.

There are lots of options to deal with army stacking.

My above points are pretty much how Germany lost World War 2.  Germany basically stacked their army and marched into Russia.  Russia kept withdrawing further and further into their territory, and the German stack moved with them leaving German cities lightly defended.  Because the stack had moved too far away, the stack couldn't come back and help defend Germany when it was then attacked by England, USA, etc.

The cold russian winter didn't help either, but that probably isn't relevant to the point

That was a common tactic in Kohan (old RTS that I really wish Stardock would make a spiritual successor to)

You need superfast units for that.  Speed is a force multiplier in TBS, you have to be careful implementing it.

I disagree.  The Russian winter is highly relevant.  As is the scorched earth defense that the Soviets used.  They're relevant because they were defenses the Soviets relied upon to defeat the Nazis.  Poor Nazi planning & timing for their campaign cost them victory on the Eastern Front. Better planning and/or execution and the Nazis possibly defeat the Soviets before the rest of the Allies open the Western Front and likely change the outcome of the war.

There are no mechanics in EFE that we know of that replicate this ability to wear down an overwhelming enemy stack of doom.  Sieges, the ability to prolong battles, defensive outposts/fortifications that are relevant on both the strategic and tactical map, and spells that replicate the effects of the Russian winter are just a few of the possibilities to replicate this.  But without them you're only option to deal with stacks of doom in a scenario like the Eastern Front in WWII is to run away and hope you can mobilize a large enough army to counter them.  Every other considering in war does not come into play (based on the systems we know of).  Correct me if I'm wrong and missing something. 

Stacks of doom should be powerful.  They should not be all powerful.

This could also be from infrastructure upgrades between your cities.  By itself it doesn't solve the stack of doom problem, but it is a start. 

Maybe I'm the weird crazy exception and everyone else loves stacks of doom domination.  I just think that making stacks of doom less all powerful (using the right mechanics) would make for deeper gameplay. 

True.  If we could have a spell that damaged units while they were in your territory, this would produce a nice similar effect and a good defense against stacking using the withdrawal and prepare a counter attack approach.

It is rather unrealistic to assume anything about WWII is comparable to this fantasy game. It would be more useful to talk about Napoleon's attempt. There was little nationhood before the industrial era. To peasants, one King was as good as any other as long as there was gruel and water on the table. Taking over a city should have economic costs initially, but it is both unrealistic and bad for gameplay to have rebellion past the level they have already implemented. Taking too many cities too quickly should incur financial disaster. You can't support a SOD and five new cities without a serious vault of gold. That was the major limiting factor for most Kings of yore. 

There was little nationhood before the industrial era?  Really? So the French and American revolutions were what, exactly?  Peasant uprisings because they had a shortage of gruel?  Rome rose and fell because some plebes were upset about the amount of bread on their table?  The fall of Rome had nothing to do with an over extended nation-state unable to maintain and protect itself?  These (and others) are examples of national movements within nation-states all before the industrial era.  Napoleon provides a good example too, but it is by no means the only one.  

And I disagree that talking about WWII in unrealistic.  Major warfare between nations (Empires, Kingdoms, whatever) requires national level undertakings.  Any game that claims to be a strategy game has to consider these things (and most do).  WWII is one of the most informative historical examples of both good and bad strategy, as well as the effects of production and logistics on a nation's ability to make war.  The overall technological level of the conflict is irrelevant (as to whether or not its lessons are applicable to a fantasy TBS game).  From a pure strategy & tactics standpoint (not at all meaning to sound flippant about the lives involved) WWII is the holy grail of examples.  WWII clearly shows the importance of: drastically different technological levels between competitors, logistics, morale, diplomacy, major tactical & land considerations, multiple front wars, supply lines, national will to make war, resource availability, sources of production, strategic alliances, clear definition of good vs. evil nations, and ultimate end game weapons race (nukes).  I'm sure I missed some things, but all of these at least show up in one way or another in most TBS games. 

*The French and American Revolutions were part of the industrial era.

*Rome fell apart largely due to factionalism, lack of a unified nation, among many other factors. 

It is fine to talk about the abstract concepts that cropped up in WWII, but I am noticing alot of people making comparisons that don't correlate to the era this game takes place in. It is a good notion that magic can in some ways take the place of technology, but some concepts are just beyond even the scope of magic as it applies to the game mechanics in FE. 

Thinking within the scope of the game, rush buying, summoning, logistic restrictions, increased costs with expansion, and city defense bonuses pretty much negate any chance of the SOD being a real problem for me. Sometimes the enemy has a stack of death only relative to your crappy army because the opponent is better than you. That should also be taken into consideration.

What were the clearly defined lines of good and evil in WWII?

If the Nazis don't qualify as a perfect example of human evil, then I don't know what does.

What comparisons are people making in regards to WWII that don't correlate to the era?  The things I mentioned are all standard elements of warfare, regardless of era.  Their significance changes from conflict to conflict, but they're all there.

Would you want to be ruled over by orcs?  It's different species here.

Rebellion stats should be determined heavily by factions- Empires owning humans and vice versa should have problems, though Karavox should be immune to this.

What I proposed before for rebellion I still stand behind.  We are looking for ways to blunt the ability to keep SODs together and moving within an enemy's lands, and I think needing to break it up to provide garrisoning is a good one.  My money's on the possibility that FB was able to steamroll because he left every city he took almost completely undefended, and moved his SOD completely intact from one city to the next.  If he had to leave half of it behind for a number of turns each time he took a city to quell the partisans, it largely handles the mobility and recovery aspects of SOD.  SODs work because they're fast (faster than the enemy's ability to organize an effective defense against them) and they essentially do not lose strength in any encounter, so they can move at full strength on to the next conflict.

However, a good mitigator to the end game is, you can buy the love of your city you just good.  For a stack of gold that would make Midas blush, you can instantly quell the rebellion, flip the city, and be able to move on.  It would be a great late game tactic to speed things up when you want to steamroll to finish up an already defeated enemy. 

The winter was a problem, but the scorched earth defense had nothing to do with Germany's problems with the Eastern Front. Scorched Earth is a viable tactic against enemies that use the land they conquer to resupply themselves. Relevant for Napoleonic invasion. Not (particularly) relevant for 2nd World War.

Also, it's wrong to suggest that the Nazi advance into Russia was ill-planned. It's flaw was that it was executed slightly to slow coupled with an early winter. A similar strategy was used by Germany in the First World War, and they handily defeated Russia back then.

"If the Nazis don't qualify as a perfect example of human evil, then I don't know what does."

<rant>

Is that what we learned from WWII? In my book the evil side is the one that slaughters millions of innocent people. That puts America at the top of the list. Next would be Russia and after that Germany. Dresden and Hiroshima were much greater travesties than anything the Nazis did. Evil is an empire that puts any goal above human life. America is by far the worst. We were the cowards of WWII, waiting till the last possible moment to attack out enemy at their backside. The Holocaust was bad, a terrible thing, but it pales in comparison to the war. We didn't go to war with Germany because they were killing their people. I wonder if we wouldn't have allied with them if Japan hadn't of bombed us at Pearl Harbor. We had more in common with Germany than England or Russia. Most of the eugenic ideals of the Nazis were garnered from Americans. We are the birthplace of scientific racism. 

</rant>

I wonder how scorched earth could work in FE. You could raze your cities as you retreat so that there is a greater distance between their cities and the front line. I am thinking that most of this depends on the size of map you make. I use gargantuan maps, so this may actually work. Horses are probably going to be more useful in FE if the AI can figure out how to use them. A good Mongol rush is the best offense I always say. Talk about stacks of doom. 

Fair point about the winter, but it was still a significant, if not determining, factor.  There is ample evidence to the Nazi soldiers being ill equipped and fed during the advance.  Due to poor supply surely, but also do to a lack of foraging ability. 

As for the invasion being ill-planned notice that I said "Better planning/execution..." specifically because it was it was a combination of the two factors that caused the invasion's failure.  It's pretty obvious that if the invasion had kicked off in March, April, or even early May, as opposed to the end of June, the slow execution would have become a non-factor (or a significantly less important factor). 

To the larger point though, I was commenting that there need to be other factors that are involved in the ability of a faction to wage war besides building the best stack of doom.  This doesn't have to be weather or supply, but either would certainly contribute.  Can we agree on that? 

I'll respond to this once and then if you'd like to continue the discussion we should move it to another thread since this discussion is not overly relevant to this thread, except that you made your comments here. 

Even rounding up to the nearest hundred thousand casualties Hiroshima + Nagasaki is about 300,000 dead.  And even using you're awful morally relativistic metric of "In my book the evil side is the one that slaughters millions of innocent people" that means that the US isn't even in the running for WWII.  The Rape of Nanking by the Japanese killed 300,000 alone (not counting the thousands of women raped and left alive nor counting the rest of the Japanese occupation of China).  Obviously the German "Final Solution" is many multiples of those killed by US atomic bombs.  Stalin's purges began in 1936 and killed more people as well. 

As for your "we had more in common with Germany that England" schtick, the Lend-Lease act went into effect in March of 41.  Further, in December of 1940 in a major speech Roosevelt declared that the US would be the "Arsenal of Democracy" by supporting Canada and Britain with whatever munitions they needed.  Clearly we'd committed to supporting the Allies well before Pearl Harbor. 

And as for "we are the birthplace of scientific racism" the commonly accepted father of eugenics is Francis Dalton, an Englishman from the mid-1800s.  It's true that Woodrow Wilson and Margaret Sanger (along with many other leftist icons) pushed Eugenics policies in the US in the early 1900s, but the concept was certainly not born here and nor was it exclusive to here.  There were disgusting examples of the idea throughout the western world in the 1910s and 1920s for Hitler to draw upon.

And all of this leaves out the very obvious and relevant argument about who instigated the war, which faction was the aggressor, which countries were invaded and defending themselves, and which countries would have been happy to not have any war at all.  You also conveniently ignore casualty projections for the invasion of mainland Japan and any of possible discussion about the wartime effect of continued munitions production in Dresden, which was at the heart of the Nazi war-making machine.

You're argument is really nothing more than loathing of the United States lacking historical basis.  Moral relativism is disgusting and has somehow become accepted despite the fact that its existence is one of the very things that leads to conflicts like WW2 to begin with.  Certainly very few things in this world are black and white, but good and evil exist and anyone with an ounce of sense can see that the Nazis are one of humanity's clearest examples of the latter. 

Now, if you'd like to continue this, make a new general thread and I'll happily continue this conversation.  This topic is about AI and has morphed slightly into war mechanics for FE.  Our sidebar is well off base.

I think the point about garrisons and and rebellion is a good one and in your implementation would help with the SOD problem.  I just thing that there are other ways to go about it that also give the game greater strategic and tactical depth.  Given the choice between no rebellion and nothing, I'd certainly take your rebellion mechanic.  I just thing other concepts go farther and provide more (and that rebellion could be incorporated into those anyway)

True enough. I just wanted to point out the gray. I am getting a little worried about how discontent is handled. If the tax base is the only factor, steamrolling is possible with a good economy. Maybe the 50% of population that is wiped out when you conquer a town represents those that might have revolted. But then will cities lose levels and buildings that are at that level? Kind of a problem if a level 5 city gets to keep all the benefits while losing like 300 people. 

For that matter, how will conquering a different race even work? It was really bothersome in WoM. I usually just razed them and brought in a pioneer.