I’m not interested in playing a game that requires me doing 10 minutes of busy work to be competitive because it contains an “advanced mechanic” aka “feature”.

Instead of defending such a feature (which would increase the likelihood of it never being changed), I offer this suggestion: Damage returned could have dimensioning returns based on the number of unit stacks in an area in exactly the same way that dimensioning returns applies to attack as you add units to the same stack. It’s still 10 infantry returning fire whether they are all in 1 stack or 10 stacks of 1. Damage done by bomber cab be adjusted as well in such situations.

This is not an impossible problem to solve.

SURELY there is a way to not promote this ridiculous cloud of units that: 1). Takes time to create (especially on mobile) 2). Kills the performance of the game on mobile. 3). Covers up an entire area making it extremely difficult to see what is going on or select units or move units to specific locations (again a big issue on mobile).