Right then chaps, as the mod nears the point where units are going to have to be placed on the map we have to touch upon the sticky issue of how many units to put on the map.
Now, this has to be a comprimise of keeping the turn speed up whilst also representing the numbers of military units realisticaly. As it is I was thinking of different ratios for different unit types.

Now this is my thinking:
My Example is UK Armed forces and by no ways complete:


Infantry now we can do this in my mind by regiments or numbers?
For example:
- the UK has 51 Battalions of Infantry as of 2008 so 51 Infantry units
- the UK has roughly 50,000 Infantryman so 1 civ unit for 1000 men makes 50 Units

For MBT's & AFV's I was thinking of doing it by numbers:
- the UK has 386 Challenger 2 MBT so im thinking a ratio of 1 to 10 so that would give the UK 38 MBT
- the UK has 789 FV510 Warrior so thats 78 in Civ

For Aircraft, both fixed wing and rotary should be fixed at a 1->5 ratio
- 67 Apache in RL means 13 in Civ
- 146 Panavia Tornadoes in real life so 29 in civ

For Naval vessels im thinking of a one to one ratio. A Carrier Battlegroup is a carrier battlegroup whatever you do.

For Nukes, we can do it by warheads or missiles so:
- the UK has 58 Trident missiles so at a ratio of 1->5 we arrive at 11
or
- 200 Warheads at a ratio of 1 ->5 we arrive at 40

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So in short

For Infantry either
- 1000 RL to 1 Civ Unit
or
- 1 Regiment for 1 Civ Unit

For AFV's\MBT's
- 10 RL to 1 Civ Unit

For Naval Vessels
- 1 RL to 1 RL (IMHO they arent huge numbers of naval vessels out there anyway, I am willing to negotiate though :p)

For Nukes:
- 5 RL missiles to 1 Civ Missile
or
- 5 RL Warheads to 1 Civ Warhead

Let the debate begin!

I'd say whichever gives the least amount of units, I want to be able to play with having to wait ten minutes in between each turn!

well thats the thing.

if we turn 380 tanks into 3 then thats not fun im my mind... got to strike a ballanc between play speed\numbers\reality. Not an easy one this is gonna be methinks.

however we do have a BIG problem with the armies with laege numbers of men and tanks. Russia has 14,000 approximately...

Just to add some thoughts.

In the 1940AD scenario, I have chosen to represent 2 Divisions by 1 unit to start with and then add/remove for game balance. In comparison to modern days, the army size in WW2 are probably 10 times more than now, but it is only because we are not in a great war today. Should we make blow up the number of units in 2009AD mod? Or should we keep similar ratio to represent the peaceful environment today (and the potential to draft)?

On the other hand, CIV also has a default number that each unit type represent. For example, Infantry is 16000, Tank is 25000. I didn't end up using them because they were too restrictive. But may be that can offer us some reference.

Just to add some thoughts.

In the 1940AD scenario, I have chosen to represent 2 Divisions by 1 unit to start with and then add/remove for game balance. In comparison to modern days, the army size in WW2 are probably 10 times more than now, but it is only because we are not in a great war today. Should we make blow up the number of units in 2009AD mod? Or should we keep similar ratio to represent the peaceful environment today (and the potential to draft)?

On the other hand, CIV also has a default number that each unit type represent. For example, Infantry is 16000, Tank is 25000. I didn't end up using them because they were too restrictive. But may be that can offer us some reference.

Yeah, I think basing it off of your 1940 scenario's ration for armies is the best way to go. This is mostly because I have attempted to play your scenario once and ultimately quite after two ten minute turns, I just can't take the waiting. And with seeing the size of the armies in the scenario (which I think is what was a major contributor to the very long turns) and that they were 10 times bigger than today's; that means the turns, if we keep the ratio the same, should not be as long as the WWII ones. And providing a realistic amount of units for each army.

A point of thought:

We can't make the number of units represented on the map TOO small, now. I mean...the USA/Russia/etc. have HUGE military advantages and to dwarf them down is not a good thing because:

Many of the cities on the map will have a good amount of production available, so, we don't need a country being able to "quickly" catch up to the USA's military size-etc.

Unless you are planning on making the cost to build military units very, very, very high to keep the ratios down and in line for a good stretch of the game.

If you only give the USA (just using numbers as an example):
75 attack helicopters...well...it won't take many countries a long, long time to build that many...and that is not very realistic. The USA/Russia/etc. are military powerhouses for a reason...and they will be for a long time - For a reason.

@joecoolyo; you're going to have to play on low graphics, few people play giant scenarios on high. Our scenario will probably be slower than 1940.


A point of thought:

We can't make the number of units represented on the map TOO small, now. I mean...the USA/Russia/etc. have HUGE military advantages and to dwarf them down is not a good thing because:

Many of the cities on the map will have a good amount of production available, so, we don't need a country being able to "quickly" catch up to the USA's military size-etc.

Unless you are planning on making the cost to build military units very, very, very high to keep the ratios down and in line for a good stretch of the game.

If you only give the USA (just using numbers as an example):
75 attack helicopters...well...it won't take many countries a long, long time to build that many...and that is not very realistic. The USA/Russia/etc. are military powerhouses for a reason...and they will be for a long time - For a reason.


If we do end up using a low ratio, we will have to increase building costs accordingly.

I'm all on your side in this DVS.

I agree that this mod is going to be KNOWINGLY very, very slow for 99.99% of people. Most people are not running 8 GB of RAM with a quad-processor, etc. And I saw you say that it's just going to be slow, and I accept that.

Just wanted to point out the fact that the downside of making the armies small is that it will be easy to play "catch up" as a smaller/less powerful civ...

mattygeist, thats why im pushing for the ratios i sugessted
Russia 14000 MBT will be accurately representd at the cost of proccessor power and speed.

My suggestion is have a look at the largest army in the world concerning each unit type and think of the ratio from this basis. If we start with UK's army we'll be getting problems at the latest when it comes to nuclear missiles. 5 RL missiles to 1 civ missile would mean about 2800 icbms for Russia...
So I think the first step should be to make a list of the largest armies for each unit branch.

Ok, you got me with the low graphics, but I was thinking, what if we do individual ratios for every type of unit (i.e armored units and gunpowder units will have two different ratios), this will solve the problem with the U.S.A. having 75 attack helicopters and 1000 nuclear missiles.

well we should probably start with the chinease, Nrth Krea & russia. Might be able to do so tonight.

Btw, was just usuing the UK as an example.

i reckon you need to knock a zero off those unit amounts sheep21 , if they start with 5 infantry units it gives more of a chane for gameplay to start an arms race for world war (which is the obvious goal of this mod)

besides the chinese have a army ten times the size of the uk roughly and them having 500 infantry units alone would cripple the game on a shity laptop like mine

why do you think a world war is the obvious goal of this mod? :confused:

why do you think a world war is the obvious goal of this mod? :confused:

sure, maybe we can all just get along and hope and 'change' and all that bull

however , i'll be fully intending on dropping the bomb and rolling tanks rather than any space race carl sagan notions

anyway , as i've said before , 2 units should represent 1 division (for land units), this would give the uk 8 infantry units , 2 mech inf, 2 tanks


British Army statistics[9]
Personnel (Regular Army) 109,000
Personnel (Territorial Army) 34,000
Main Battle Tanks 386 Challenger 2
Light Tanks 325 FV107 Scimitar
Infantry fighting vehicles 789 Warrior. 305 Tempest MPV
APCs and CVR(T)s 3,230–4,000+
Land Rover Wolf 15,000
Pinzgauer 2,000
Utility Trucks 2,300
Artillery pieces and mortar 2,896
Air Defence 337
Aircraft 300+

the chinese by comparrison have roughly 7000 tanks in 11 armour divisions giving them 22 tank units

the russians with their 17 armour divions would have 34 tanks

and the americans with their 5 divisions would have 10 tanks

obviously the wests lack of numbers should be replicated with superior individual tank stats much like the ones in the max riga mod with weapons licences , i'm pretty sure a challenger 2 division would be capable of taking out a few old rusty ex-soviet T-53 divisions before it was swamped

As I said...if it is the intention to build the game with having such a small amount of units - then we better make them EXPENSIVE production-wise to build.

If they UK is going to have 8 infantry units...then it should take 50 turns to build a single infantry unit for the UK. And we'll have to make the expense of the buildings correspond.

The goal should of this mod is to be realistic. If your computer can't handle that many units...then you can always go into world builder yourself and mod it.

If the UK has 8 infantry units and can build infantry units quickly...

then the point of having a military-strength country (USA, Russia, etc.) is going to be moot and thats not very realistic.

These countries are military powerhouses and will be for the foreseeable long-term future. Being able to quickly catch up to being on par with the USA as Korea is not possible for a long-long-long while...and should be shown as so in the mod.

At least...that would be realistic...and from all intentions...DVS is aiming at a realistic mod that showcases today's world.

it's hardly a small amount of units when you have a of aircraft and boats and ICBMs not even mentioning paratroops , helicoptors , marines , and all the civ specific units , but yes , they should be expensive to build or have something in the script about democratic universal sufferige civilisations being unhappy with large armies

if there's going to be 50-ish different civs (which in my opinion there should be), the game doesn't need lumbering down by everyone having a thousand units , the game will be umplayable , even to basement dwellers , spending three hours of the day moving their units round , then waiting another four days for their mega billion ram computer to move everyone elses units round (with a full 24 hour period put aside for the chinese)

the police units from max riga would be a solution , much like militia from games of yore , they're simply there to defend the citys , not attack them

and building a unit over 50 turns is fine as long as one turn represents a week

and also military units should be very expensive to maintain ensuring mini 'whipping boy' nations don't develope armies , only communistic fascist and religiously zealot based governments would be able to produce conscript standard units , easi;y wiped out by more advanced civs weapons a la saddams so called elite republican guard getting toased by depleted uranium missles before the allies superior tanks mopped up the renmants

I disagree on making units so expensive to build, even if that means UK can quickly catch up USA or Russia.

Looking at the percentage of GDP we are spending on Military today, most countries are spending less than 5%. This means there are a lot of room for rapidly growing their military size if a nation somehow decided to spend 80% of GDP on military, just like WW2 does. If UK wants to spend 80% while USA maintains at 5%, I don't think it is unrealistic if UK can catch up with USA quickly.

and also military units should be very expensive to maintain ensuring mini 'whipping boy' nations don't develope armies , only communistic fascist and religiously zealot based governments would be able to produce conscript standard units , easi;y wiped out by more advanced civs weapons a la saddams so called elite republican guard getting toased by depleted uranium missles before the allies superior tanks mopped up the renmants


Thanks, but the way this mod is going to work is already basically mapped out. I don't want to see you spend too much time coming up with that kind of gameplay stuff at this point, because it's likely too late for your ideas to be used. You can see how it works when it is released, and then we can all discuss possible changes and improvements.

I agree, not expensive to build, BUT very expensive to maintain more so than weaker 'conscript/miltia/police' units that could be quickly drummed up by a nation intent on war

Theory behind that being if for example if gordon brown wanted to quadruple his army it should effectively cripple the nation finacially unless he inteded on using it to plunder other nations till he was eventually overstretched and vulnerable to counter offensives

I agree, not expensive to build, BUT very expensive to maintain more so than weaker 'conscript/miltia/police' units that could be quickly drummed up by a nation intent on war

Theory behind that being if for example if gordon brown wanted to quadruple his army it should effectively cripple the nation finacially unless he inteded on using it to plunder other nations till he was eventually overstretched and vulnerable to counter offensives

That I agree :)

But as DVS said, may be we can discuss the game balance after we've got a working scenario.

Another thought on this:
Maybe the idea of expensive units and comparatively low number of starting units isn't so bad after all for a present day mod. After all these day's nations don't use their units so much as cannon fodder as it was the case still in the world wars (and in Vietnam maybe...but they also used conscripts). The trend is toward small but highly expensive and well trained units for battle. (But you can't deny that you need the vast amount of manpower to keep the captured cities. But...when was the last time in history a state attacked another and kept a considerable amount of land area for more than just a couple of years? The only example I can think of is the Six-Day War in 1967.)
If one of these units is completely destroyed it is a serious loss for that state's military.
Maybe we should force the player and the AI to take care of their units.
Longer building times might be realistic since it simply takes time to drill those modern units. It's not so much a matter of resources but of time. It wouldn't be realistic if a big city like New York could pop out a highly advanced and trained infantry unit every month.

So, to sum it up:
Characteristics of modern warfare:
- less, well trained and highly expensive units
- greater amount of unit loss is extremely endangering public war support at home
- impossibility to keep enemy territory after war without serious penalties

--> low number of starting units
--> extended building times for advanced units

Another thought on this:
Maybe the idea of expensive units and comparatively low number of starting units isn't so bad after all for a present day mod. After all these day's nations don't use their units so much as cannon fodder as it was the case still in the world wars (and in Vietnam maybe...but they also used conscripts). The trend is toward small but highly expensive and well trained units for battle. (But you can't deny that you need the vast amount of manpower to keep the captured cities. But...when was the last time in history a state attacked another and kept a considerable amount of land area for more than just a couple of years? The only example I can think of is the Six-Day War in 1967.)
If one of these units is completely destroyed it is a serious loss for that state's military.
Maybe we should force the player and the AI to take care of their units.
Longer building times might be realistic since it simply takes time to drill those modern units. It's not so much a matter of resources but of time. It wouldn't be realistic if a big city like New York could pop out a highly advanced and trained infantry unit every month.

So, to sum it up:
Characteristics of modern warfare:
- less, well trained and highly expensive units
- greater amount of unit loss is extremely endangering public war support at home
- impossibility to keep enemy territory after war without serious penalties

--> low number of starting units
--> extended building times for advanced units

spot on! less is more

when playing the max riga mod i used police units to guard citys rather than military units which i situated in foreign countrys which i had open borders and defence pacts with ensuring the random DOW by russia and their nuclear strikes didn't wipe me out completely

i know DVS'll go 'too late' but i built the police as they were quick and easy to build for defending citys and freed my army up for invading , maybe units like riot police for the west , religious police or terrorist/freedom fighters for muslim countries and some patheticly weak national service militia for more oppressive governments like south america and russia , china etc

kuff-dam, my point is, we are well beyond the point of needing people who are not helping on the mod telling us what to do. If you want to do some work, great, you can influence the mod that way. If not, your posts here are going to waste. The people who are actually making this thing generally have a good idea of what they're doing, so unless you see a specific question (like the one sheep made this thread for), you are not really helping by telling us how you want to see the mod work.

Your police idea for example, was discussed many months ago. That unit will be used in version 2.0 when we focus more on crime, not as city defense.

I don't mind you posting whatever you feel like posting, I just don't want you thinking that what you are suggesting has much chance of making it into our mod.

Edit: Here is a place we need new ideas; U.N. missions. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=7734840)

And FYI, if I say it's too late for something, it's probably because I have already finished that area. ;-)

I don't disagree either way with you Kuff-Dam.

All I was saying...in terms of realism: If we are going to have a small amount of units - then we need to increase the build times to make it more realistic (ala what Ianinsane said about NYC being able to rattle off 10 Infantry units in 1 year). Not exactly very realistic.

To keep the game playable (with smaller amounts of units...just make everything more expensive to build). Seems simple enough...

@Mattygerst; I get exactly what you are saying, and we wouldn't have it any other way. :-)

We will try to make it as hard (impossible) for a small country to catch up as it is in reality. Same with unit maintenance costs, etc. Everything will kept relative to everything else, it's just a matter of deciding how many units we want on our map, and then doing math from there. The more real world soldiers/equipment an in game unit represent, the longer it will take to build. 1 to 1.

As sheep21 and I have been discussing over IM in regards to unit ratios; basically we will have to start by figuring out how many units we have to give our civ that has the smallest military, and then multiply from there.

It would be nice to have a starting limit in mind. Genghis_Kai, do you know offhand how many units 1940 starts with?

As sheep21 and I have been discussing over IM in regards to unit ratios; basically we will have to start by figuring out how many units we have to give our civ that has the smallest military, and then multiply from there.

It would be nice to have a starting limit in mind. Genghis_Kai, do you know offhand how many units 1940 starts with?

Just did a count - 1553 units. That includes all types of units, such as workers.

bugger lol

Just did a count - 1553 units. That includes all types of units, such as workers.

Thanks bro.

bugger lol

You were hoping for more I assume?

Just for reference, I've played that scenario through for almost a decade of total war; everyone is building units through the roof; and it is still running fast.

I will do a count in my latest save and see how many there are now.

was hoping for more yes. 1500 units shared between 50+ civs. Bugger lol

Don't worry, that is not our limit. ;-)

sheep my friend, you may be a little more encouraged by the number of units in the game of 1940 I have been playing (for well, several months)...

7563.

It runs fine on my (average) computer, only a couple minutes between turns max, this is with almost the entire world at war. It takes a while to load up, but we all expected that would be the case.

I'm thinking that this could be a possible starting point for our approximate total.

Of course, keep in mind this game only has 34 civs, several of which are gone. Also, our mod has a lot more additions to it than the standard GEM... we have yet to see how this affects game performance.

Chaps we need this one sorted out, I would be more than happy to enter all the data on units onto the excel table but cant till we agree the ratios.

I would say this, the ratio of 10 RL Destroyers to one Civ destroyer wont work (I saw it on the spreadsheet). This will leave RN with 1 Destroyer & the EU with 2 at most and most countries that do have blue water capability not having it reflected ingame.

This ratio if used for Frigates aswell will leave country like canada with one frigate ingame to cover both the Pacific & Atlantic!

For now buddy, you can enter the raw data (like Genghis suggested Ianinsane do for ideologies). Then, you can just plug in different ratios and see how many units they would give us. ;-)

As you and I discussed, at some point we need the unit data sorted by country.

First, I recognbize this thread is somewhat old, but I couldn't help but to contribute since I had worked on making a modern day scenario for myself quite some time ago.

Of course it wasn't a mod (just a map scenario) and not nearly to the degree or with the sophistication as what is currently being planned. I mostly just did a lot of research using almanac stats and borrowing a few ideas from other games such as superpower and supreme ruler 2010 .

I had done all the ratios and build times for all the army units. In fact what stopped me from completing the scenario was mostly culture (getting the borders right) and realistic simulation of cities' population.

Anyway if anything is needed in the research area (manipulation of numbers are my thing, but not programming) I'd be willing to lend any assistance to whomever is spearheading populating the map with cities,resources,armies,etc and attempting to simulate real life gnp,trade,etc. I've got a lot of info tucked away somewhere on my pc.

In any case I am looking forward to see how this project comes out.

See download link at end of message:

I've gone thru each of the countries listed in that attachment and gone through their militaries, etc (The naval fleets may be off a bit, but I only threw that together here recently and it has yet to be done in depth).

Sheet #1 of excel spreadsheet: Countries w/ land units and air units. The numbers shown are the amounts that will be displayed on the map in the game. It was reduced to a 20:1 ratio. This brought the amount of land/air units to a total of about 8,600 (without being completely 100% done). Once Failed States are added and soldiers overall for each country, it will probably be about 12,000 units for land/air.

After researching each army, I divided the tanks as they exist today: 1st generation, 2nd generation, 3rd generation with the corresponding amount of equipment for each country. For fighters, I used the 2nd thru 5th generations. (If you don't know what this means, wikipedia it). IFV information was slightly harder to put together 100% (will adhere any corrections) - and was split up into Cold War equipment and Modern equipment. SAM, artillery, and Mobile artillery are represented as well. The unit ratio of the soldiers is not broken down yet and will have to be figured out.

Sheet #2 of the spreadsheet:
With the naval fleets - we'll probably have to go with a 1:1 ratio to reflect real blue-water capabilities of the more powerful navies in the world. That will be *roughly* 1500 units.

In the end, unless we change the ratios up more - which will be hard to do because I've gone thru this for a long time - the mod will have approximately 14,000+ units when the scenario begins.

Any thoughts are welcome. I'm not exactly sure where to go with the "strength" of the units, but I simply put out some "guides" and those are labeled at the top of the spreadsheet.


Download link for Spreadsheet:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/5pgb14