i think the game would be more realistic if units were drawn from the population... one archer would take one away from the cities population... to help balance this out a little more would be to increase the rate a cities population grows....

the reason for this is that one, its realism, since if a civ produces to many units the population drops and less is being produced at home... also if it will help end wars and limit the amount of units... how can a civ figth if it has no people left to fight? and alsoit prompts civs to build pop growing improvements, and gain technologies that give them, also it helps promote expansion.

just an idea

I think that idea is already covered. It's called "Drafting" :dubious: .

I modded my game so that every unit costs a pop point. I've had some problems with the AI adjusting - especially in less fertile starting positions.

I'm still working out the kinks right now, but I like playing that way.

Just a thought if you'd like to try it out on the current game.

I do like this idea, something I have proposed in an ancient thread here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=79318) (or actually the link is just in my signature, anyway). I do think that it would be an effective balancing mechanism to help builders, with more population, against warmongers, who would only have so much population to expend.

I also agree that the population unit would have to be rescaled for this to work properly; interestingly, this ties in with another ancient thread of mine here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=78876) .

Although I have experimented with modding Civ3 to do this, I have not met with much success, as the AI sometimes fails to take the population cost into consideration. I would rather that Civ4 had this feature, as well as an AI that would build accordingly.

I agree that this would make for a good balance ... I remember talking about powering up growth a while ago ...

this is my idea reiterated:

in ancient times, irrigated squares make +1 food, get domestication or some sort of agririan type tech to be able to build farm (need irrigation first), which gives +1 food. Max food would be 4 plus any bonus tiles

then get in middle ages crop rotation (after fudalism maybe), to give farms +3 food, for a total of 7 food per normal tile (ie no cows etc) - this would mean a city with 6 worked tiles, all making food is going to have 42 food!

then in industrial age, get mechanised farming, which gives another +5, total = 12 food per tile, 6 tiles is 72 food; here you can get lots of units, and lots of replaced citizens and will be experiencing a pop boom

then late industrial get a tech 'pesticide' or agri chemicals or something to get another +5 for a total of 17 food

then modern, get even more etc etc so that cities really are HUGE (with pops of 120, 200 etc) so many specialised labour, just like where you live! (I bet you don't go out and get your own wheat, do you?)

What this will do.

Slower growth and smaller armies in Ancient (remember, each unit costs a pop, and this pop needs to be FED! so there goes a food as well!)

By middle ages, city growth is kicking along, as long as you don't have to field large armies

Then by industrial age, there is a pop boom as most tiles (once improved) will simple blow the population out and you will have huge cities ... just like it happened in history! woohoo

Also, you can add the strategic resource of 'bat poo' or something to make the fertilizer work. :)

Also, you can add the strategic resource of 'bat poo' or something to make the fertilizer work. :)

can you imagine declaring war on a neighboring civ because they're haboring a surplus of bat poo?

:lol:

You idea trying to make military more realistic is NOT realistic at all. It's even less realistic than the current model. How many people is represented by 1 population point?? And how many man goes into 1 military unit??? It's like putting half a million into 1 divison of tank. this idea is not realistic.

I modded my game so that every unit costs a pop point. I've had some problems with the AI adjusting - especially in less fertile starting positions.

I'm still working out the kinks right now, but I like playing that way.

Just a thought if you'd like to try it out on the current game.


interesting concept. Have you adjusted the food consumption for city population and/or food production?

Well, Dida, that is why it's recommended for Civ 4. When the others said it required adjustment, one thing would be a lot more population points. I would say that in Civ 3 it doesn't work extremely well, but it's in a Civ 4 recommendation thread.

I like the idea - if populations can get a bit more realistic. I've been studying the effects of urbanisation and industrialisation, and let me tell you the population increase was HUGE. I know we can't make ultra-accurate populations for cities (e.g Athens: 657,149 population), but maybe if it was made that after a city has built so many military units then its pop will go down by 1? It would be all relative, so it would definately bring in some realism, bringing some sort of balance.

I am worried how many changes that are being proposed concerning tipping the balance in favour of culture/diplomacy. There are some of us who enjoy a good old military game (my Nordic ancestry demand it ;)). I've only just discovered the fun to be had in early era conquests - I wouldn't like to see that becoming highly improbable as it would under some of the stuff being proposed here. I'm all for balance, but equality doesn't mean superiority.

You idea trying to make military more realistic is NOT realistic at all. It's even less realistic than the current model. How many people is represented by 1 population point?? And how many man goes into 1 military unit??? It's like putting half a million into 1 divison of tank. this idea is not realistic.

You missed out that he suggested to adjust how populations are derived to increase population size. If you have cities of 100 or more, then 1 tank div or inf div would represent roughly the correct amount of people it was derived from. It is very realistic, you need troops to fight a war and where do troops come from? YOUR POPULATION. I guess the only problem that you might get here is that a unit can "live" for some 4000+ years...nevertheless this would allow for a military build up, much like Germany's military build up to World War I. I'm not saying they had 100+ year old men serving in WW1, and even though they weren't a united country, their military build up began pretty much right after the end of the Napoleonic Wars... In fact, all of Europe's military build up began then!

I don't think my idea means that ancient era wars are less likely to happen, just that there is a bit more of an investment in units early on.

I also think units should be able to be demobilised, in which case, the pop point goes back 'home' ... so no pop loss unless the unit is killed in the field of battle.

DIDA:

Why is it less realistic? A pop point is 10,000 people - in ancient times, this would represent a proper military force, enough to conquer a city, which is what a unit in Civ can do. Lets not forget the Spartans killed off their population because of war. If everyone dies on the battlefield, you don't have nice strong men to come home and make more pop points, do ya?

Perhaps for Industrial / Modern, this is unrealistic ...so, instead of overpowering food prod, make unit cost disappear with Nationalism ... happier?

darn. bk stole my thunder. ;)

i not aiming for strict reality, dida. using a pop point to represent units or divisions, etc. simply gives the game an added detractor for absolute war. i think when you do militarize, it should have an effect on your civ. i like the idea that a civ - including my own - can drain itself through prolonged war. in some of my games, it you get a real sense of a rise and then fall of civs.

for instance, the zulu and my maya were two of the stronger civs in my last game going into the middle ages. we got into a major conflict over my owning a surplus of saltpeter and spent the next 20 some odd turns waging a war of attrition to maintain control. when the dust finally settled, the &#$! greeks came out of nowhere with the tech lead (they were previously four some odd techs behind) and standing as the top civ on the continent. the time, production and population the zulus and i expended cost both of our civs.

i like that idea of consequence in waging war (which is not to say i don't like war mongering as well).

Units should cost population. Never understood what the logic was behind Settlers costing citizens but not any other unit type.

The only problem is with the early game: what happens if you've just started up a city and thus can't build a unit because you only have one citizen?

Either Civ4 uses a system of multi-citizens (1 = 4 or something so 1 Warrior will cost you 1/4 of a citizen point--kind of lame and complicated for new players IMO) or you have a rule like cities of size 1 can build up to x (defensive) units at no population cost.

Even then, this problem is not a concept-breaker IMO because every other player will be in the same boat at game start so all you have to worry about is barbarians (if it's the Civ3 system, then they can't capture your city anyway).

You see, though, that the whole civ2/3 population model is a MESS, and it took the introduction of conscription/pop-rushing/bombardment of civilians and plague to point this out!!
I confess that, before civ3 came out, I was not at all bothered by the whole 'pop-point/pop-head' model that civ used-but then in civ3 I saw how unbalancing it could be. For starters, someone mentioned that 1 pop-point=10,000 people. Does it? That would be incredibly linear, with even the largest cities in the game having only around 300,000-400,000 people!!!!!!
If its more of a 'log scale' then you have a whole set of NEW problems, like a single bombardment unit killing around 1,000,000 people (even killing 10,000 people in 1 turn seems ridiculous to me!) or conscription from a size 10 city costing more people than from a size 20 city!!!
Lastly this system, when combined with the current happiness/civil disorder system, makes population control ripe for exploitation by micromanagers! After all, if a city has 1 or 2 'unhappy' people, it is very easy to simply convert a citizen or two to entertainers-very tedious, to be sure, but by no means CHALLENGING!!!

So, how do we deal with all of these problems? I have some possible solutions.

1) The first thing to do is establish a definitive progression between the population number and ACTUAL population-possibly using a
pseudo-logarithmic scale (1=100 people, 2=1000 people, 3=10,000 people etc. Alternatively, it could be 1=100 people, 2=500 people, 3=1000 people, 4=5000 people, 5=10,000 people etc.)

2) In addition, perhaps make population in x.yy format, with the yy being from 01 to 10 or 01 to 20 or even 01 to 100. Each yy is an increment of the 'Population Integer' So, for instance, a population of 3.05 could mean a population of around 50,000 people (or 1,250 people using the second set of population integers I mentioned in (1).

3) A third alternative, which still draws on points 1 and 2, would be to have the 'population integer' be age-dependant. So, for instance, 1 might equal 100 in the Ancient and classical ages, 1000 in the middle ages, 10,000 in the industrial age and 100,000 in the modern age (with the integer of existing cities adjusting to compensate) I should point out, though, that I am LEAST fond of this idea!

The main benefit of the X.yy system, though, is that it allows for much finer gradations of population growth and change. This will allow more realistic representations of troop costs, disease effects and bombardment damage to civilians (which reminds me, I DEFINITELY think that bombardment units should be altered to reflect their ability to hit units, improvements OR people, with each unit having a different % hit chance for each category.)

Another point is that city SIZE should be seperated from population. So, for example, you might have a size 6 city, with a population of 4.09 (around 900,000) Size determines the MAXIMUM population that a city can fit AND determines the combat bonus for any unit fighting from that city. This way, you might have a size 6 city which, after a nuclear blast or plague, is a virtual ghost town (having less than 10,000 people in it). An outsider viewing the city would only be able to guage its size NOT its population!! A city's size would increase every time you built certain 'infrastructure' improvements, and if a city's population grows beyond that allowed by the current size, then you would have overpopulation.

Lastly, happiness and specialisation should be disconnected from the actualk population number, with the former being based on a % for the whole city, and the latter being based on the movement of a slider to adjust specialization levels.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Aussie,

As always, some great ideas ... I like the city improvement adding to max city size and effecting info flow.

However, Civ is a game and we want it to be simple as well as in-depth. For this, I think keep the pop heads, but we need to have big differnces between the ages (but not an auto jump like in Call to Power, which was just annoying. Which is why I suggested that different techs add more food production possibility ...

as for how much 1 pop point is, check the game stats when you have only 1 pop point ... I'm not 100% sure, but I think it is 10,000.


Ok, now for your ideas:

1. I don't like too much, because you assume a LOT of wasted labour, if shields remain the same, what this solution means is with one tile being worked (assume 1 shield), 100 people can make a phalanx in 20 turns, but if you have 2 pop (your rec is 1000 people), they still take 10 turns ... what the heck are 800 people doing? Management?

2. I think you need to make this a bit clearer, how would this work for bombardment? Would you lose 1 pop point, which means the first bombardment is really leathal, but subsequent ones less so?

3. NO please no! see above re CTP...

1 and 2 are in fact the part of the same idea. The integer gives the BASE NUMBER of people in your city, with the .yy giving a population FRACTION. So, for example, if your city had a population of 3.07 the .07 might stand for 70% of 100,000 (population 4.00=100,000 people in my model)-or 70,000 people, wheras 4.05 would be 500,000 people (50% of 1,000,000!)
DO you see where I am coming from? A howitxer might have a 'kill factor' of 10,000 people per hit, for example, which means that 1 hit would be neccessary to knock the 3.07 city down to 3.06. But would need 50 hits to do the same to the 4.05 city! The same thing would apply to unit costs AND disease strength!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Why can't we just be friends? ;)

x.yy system is nice but to complicated. That means more bugs because programmers will not be able to foresee all possibilities (they have enough trouble with the present population system).

You need something more streamlined.

Otherwise, present system is fine for the most part. Just add more citizens and more squares (divide city squares into 1/4 for example). And some startup rules like those I was referring to earlier.

Who cares if the population count isn't realistic. The only realism that matters is the that which has a significant effect on gameplay (e.g. limits on unit range).

The current system works well because it is uncomplicated. Settlers/workers cost pop, everything else doesn't. Works well in the game balance.

Haivng units cost pop is an interesting ides, if it can be implemented properly. If so, losing units must make citizens unhappy, to reflect the angry mothers who will not see their sons again. Also, those units have to eat, which brings back the individual city support thing again. If units are genuinely population, than it should cost food to maintain them as well. Armies consume ALOT of supplies, citizens have had to go hungry to support the armies of their kings in times past, even in modern times, don't forget the rationing in WWII.

hmmm... interesting about the x.yy system for disease, as a small plague might only take out the yy factor like .01 or something, while a full blown pandemic will hit the x factor, meaning lots of deaths.

This would be cool re realism also could be linked to nukes, where old nukes damage yy, while big bad icbm takes out x factor. Was this your thinking Aussie?

Thats EXACTLY what I had in mind, Albow. With a much 'finer' gradation of population numbers, you can also have a much finer gradation of population 'loss', be it through unit building, disease, bombardment or nuclear war! Diseases can have a variable 'strength factor' to denote the max. death rate per turn (a rate which could be modified, up or down, by player actions); Units can have decent population costs and bombardment units and nukes can have a 'kill factor' of some sort to denote how many civilians they kill!
In addition, you could give tiles, tile improvements AND city improvements a variable population cost. So, for instance, a forest tile might cost .04 people to work, wheras a plains tile might cost only .02 people-thus forcing you to consider population when deciding which tiles should be worked! It would also give you a MUCH better idea of what proportion of your population are idle or in use. The more which are idle, the more unhappy your city will be-thus bringing some kind of rudimentary 'unemployment' system into the game!
The big point, though, is that I would love to have a much less 'crude' population model, to give players finer 'control' over the utilization costs of various in-game decisions! Whilst, at the same time, making CONTROL of the populations mood and specialisation a little less easy!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I think Ivan's ideas of military units needing food of some sort are an interesting idea as well. Think back to that old military mistake of getting involved in a land war against russia.

This might also be made to account (somehow) for stopping lone warrior units from wandering the great expanses of a continent for the better part of the ancient age. It could also force strategists to keep supply lines in mind.

I think Civ's discrete population units could work properly if the scale were increased. However, army support, like population support, will be significant--which would further reduce the ability of warmongers to avoid having to confront the economic and social effects of constant warfare.

Also, since each population unit is now smaller, I suggest that their ability to harvest resources be limited. For some rich squares, multiple population units, "stacked" on the same square, would be necessary for full exploitation of resources. Therefore, resource production is not dramatically increased just due to rescaling of population. In addition, different population densities would become possible, adding some strategic flavor to urban planning.

Can't say whether or not I am for units having a 'food cost', though the idea definitely seems to have merit. A major point for me, though, is how food is currently linked to population. In my model, I would rather have it that one 'food unit' can support 0.yy population. Thus, the more food you generate, per turn, the more people the city can support. So what happens if you have too many people? Well, for starters, your people will become more unhappy the less food you have for them. Secondly, the excess population will eat into your 'food stores' until it runs out-if this happens, then famine has hit and you will get a 'rectification' in your cities population, sort of how it happens in civ3. Lastly, for every 'degree of difference' between your food and your population, there is an increased % chance of disease breaking out in the city. What if you have excess food compared to your population? Well, the excess helps to determine the rate of population growth-along with happiness, wealth, migration, infrastructure and fertility factors.

For example, lets say that 1 food can support .05 people. If you have 6 food in your city, then it can currently support a maximum population of 3.00 (10,000 people). If you have a population of 2.05, then you have 1 extra food unit per turn, which (a) goes into your food stores to guard against future famine (or sold off for cash ;)!) and (b) goes towards increasing the population growth of that city. If, OTOH, you had a population of 4.00, then you would have a 'food deficit' of 2. This means you consume 2 'food units' per turn from your 'stores' (if you have them)! In addition, the cities chance of contracting disease has increased by, say, 10% (if we assume 5% per food point).

I should note, though, that I have also been thinking that the range of the .yy part of the population number should alter according to the integer. So, for instance, you might only have 1.00 to 1.05, then 2.00 to 2.10, then 3.00 to 3.20, then 4.00 to 4.50, then 5.00 to 5.100. This would help even more towards keeping the population at a more even rate (as each .01 is 200 people at 1.yy, and is 20,000 at 4.yy. If it was .00 to .10 all the way along, then it would be 100 versus 100,000 instead, which is far less even!)

Last of all, I think it should be possible to build units in one of three different sizes, with each size type having different HP's and a different population cost and maintainance cost!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Agree with you, Ivan, but food consum by your armies shouldnt be supported from the city that builds them, as in previous civ versions, but from a common pool of surplus food from all your cities!