[I don't know if anyone has suggested something like this yet. I apologize if it's already been hashed to pieces, and I missed it in my brief search.]

After having a frustrating encounter with Monty's massive stack of doom, which sat in a jungle next to one of my cities for centuries while I unsuccessfully tried to mass enough defenders for the inevitable attack (which came even though he was "pleased" with me), I was thinking how unrealistic the situation was. One of the major problems armies have had throughout history was having enough food to feed all of the troops, but this is completely left out of the game.

There is unit maintenance, but it's a small cost that only increases when a unit moves out of your borders -- it doesn't matter how far, or what kind of terrain is involved. True, armies can "live off the land," in real life, but there are limits to that: Monty's stack could never have survived in that jungle, particularly since it was a long way from home.

How about a system where the number of units allowed in a stack was dependent upon the food production of the tile it's on? One (or a multiple) unit per food, and any units over that number would take damage each turn. This would help spread around the stacks of doom, and it would make fighting in inhospitable places (deserts, mountainous regions, tundra, jungles, etc.) much more difficult. You'd have to have little skirmishes with only a few units, and I think that would be a fun challenge.

If you had a unit like the supply wagon in the Charlemagne senario in BTS, it could increase number of units that a tile could hold, or something. And, you could also get bonuses for defending in your own territory.

Just a thought. What does everyone think?

This has been discussed before. One of the suggestions was that the stack would be dealt a sort of collateral damage - representing diseases that were unavoidable in large camps. Generals and medics in the stack would decrease this. a army would then have a :yuck:rating of say, 2, meaning that 2% of the units HP is lost every turn - this would also counter the SoD effect and force players to divide their troops a bit. terrain could have a starting :health: value of how many troops it could support, and of course certain techs would helpas well, sanitation and medicine being the obviouses.
Cavalry would maybe provide :yuck: for several infantrymen, so that each unit had it's own :yuck:rating aswell. Please hit me with any feedback if you like the idea.

Diamondeye:

Yes, that's essentially what I was thinking. The trick would be making a system that's relatively simple, so you don't have to spend lots of time each turn figuring out how to avoid the damage. I think a system based on the amount of food a tile produces (say 2-3 units per food, with a minimum of 1-2 for tiles with no food; maybe a bonus for a road, and bonus for techs and medics/generals, like you mentioned) would be fairly easy to handle. And if you had a new overlay that showed the number of units that could be supported (or just add it to the current production overlay), it shouldn't be a problem at all.

I really don't like the stacks of doom for a lot of reasons. While I don't think we need to go back to Civ II's method of killing the entire stack when one unit died, I do miss how you were forced to spread your units around a bit. A system like this one would be a nice compromise, allowing limited stacks.

If you could point me in the direction of the previous discussions, I'd appreciate it.

I agree with these ideas. Historically, a siege = rampant disease.

One other thing that has always bothered me was that a ship could sail indefinitely without ever putting into port. A ship and units aboard should suffer similar effects (disease), which increase for every turn they are out there, without stopping in a friendly port or, at minimum, going to neutral territory and resting for a turn or two. This would be stopping at an island, getting fresh water, looking for fruit, etc.

Certain techs such as Medicine should decrease or ameliorate these effects.

Wodan

One other thing that has always bothered me was that a ship could sail indefinitely without ever putting into port. A ship and units aboard should suffer similar effects (disease), which increase for every turn they are out there, without stopping in a friendly port or, at minimum, going to neutral territory and resting for a turn or two. This would be stopping at an island, getting fresh water, looking for fruit, etc.

Certain techs such as Medicine should decrease or ameliorate these effects.

Wodan

I don't know that you'd need to stop at a friendly port -- it's amazing how long those ships could sail without port calls -- but a stop at land would be good, preferably a river. Once you get to coal/oil-based navies it's a bit different, though.

:sarcasm: Don't you know any better than to suggest ideas that would add realism and help make it easier to feel as if you actually managing an empire!? Don't you know that realism is not fun? Looking specifically at this suggestion. Why complicate things to make people have to worry about food?


Okay. Sarcasm over. But that is exactly the type of problem this suggestion runs into. I agree with the basic idea of this proposal but sadly many people complain that realism is not fun. Which is weird. This game is suppose to be about alternative histories yet everyone complains about the realistic challenges that empires will have to face as being "not fun". The sad thing is that the civ team over at Firaxis agrees with them.

However, back to the topic. I like the idea very much. Not only is it realistic but it helps curb an aspect to the game that is not fun. No one likes it when the AI does it. And it is also annoying when players do this on multiplayers as well.

[I don't know if anyone has suggested something like this yet. I apologize if it's already been hashed to pieces, and I missed it in my brief search.]

After having a frustrating encounter with Monty's massive stack of doom, which sat in a jungle next to one of my cities for centuries while I unsuccessfully tried to mass enough defenders for the inevitable attack (which came even though he was "pleased" with me), I was thinking how unrealistic the situation was. One of the major problems armies have had throughout history was having enough food to feed all of the troops, but this is completely left out of the game.


How about a system where the number of units allowed in a stack was dependent upon the food production of the tile it's on? One (or a multiple) unit per food, and any units over that number would take damage each turn. This would help spread around the stacks of doom, and it would make fighting in inhospitable places (deserts, mountainous regions, tundra, jungles, etc.) much more difficult. You'd have to have little skirmishes with only a few units, and I think that would be a fun challenge.



The jungles are tricky things- I met a vet who served in the Phillipines in WWII who told me he gained wait while he was over there because food was growing everyplace you looked, and I recall an interview with a Japanese vet
who said they ate a lot of bamboo shoots which were everywhere.

I think malaria might have been an issue , though.

I remember lossing units to disease in the jungles of CivIII.


I like your solution, because it basically equates rough terrain with supply line difficulty.