[Religion and Revolution]: A new military system

Hi Folks,

Today I would like to present you my thoughts about a new military system in Colonization 2.

I think R & R hasn't established or thought about a new respectively a revised military system until now, right?

I think the military system of TAC is good, but R & R could improve this system and make it a little bit more historical.

I would like to present my thoughts and hopefully start a discussion about an improved military system.

This must not be a short term goal, it should be only the fundament for our discussion. So please feel free to discuss.

The system I think about has four major aspects.

1. I think it should be (relatively) easy to implement (also for the modder, not only for the designer)
2. Most of the graphics are already in the game – good for an implementation on short notice if we would like to do that (but further uniforms can also be created in the future)
3. It is more historical in my opinion.
4. Improvements (buildings) would enhance the gameplay

I have used New England / the British troops for my example of a new system, but it also works with every other nation in the game.

At the moment we have only the „Colonial Militias“ as troops in the New World, fighting for their King and Country (and you ). Ok, we have different types of them (Veteran and unexperienced soldier) but in the end only one type of troops. I think it is correct that the European Empires had a lot of colonial troops in their armies – not at least caused by financial reasons and easy to recruit in the New World. But they used also a lot of regular troops (line infantry, regular artillery, dragoons, mercenaries etc.) fighting for their interests and their colonial empires

It would be great, if R & R could consider this fact.

Ok, here is my system:

In general we will have 4 types of troops.

1. Armed citizen.
They are not a „regular“ unit of the king's army. They only want to defend their homes against natives and other European armies if required.

Graphic:



Since they are not part of the army, they need no uniform. They will only be armed, if an enemy is near their colony. So we can use the standard graphic for armed soldiers in the game.

They will get a high malus fighting outside a colony, since they only want to defend their homes, they only make sence in town. They are very slow and helpless outside a town. They are only lightly armed, so they need only, hm lets say 10 or 20 weapons per unit – so easy to arrange if troops needed.

They are the weakest type of armed soldiers.

2. The colonial milita.
The militia troops are the normal, lets say „regular“ troops of the viceroy or the governor of a colony.

We will have artillery, infantry and cavalry. They are well organized and skilled – real troops. They can be recruited only in the New World, not in Europe (therefore we must negate the possibility to recruit armed citizen in Europe) since they are born in the New World and want to fight for their new colony at first – not for a king far away in Europe.

They are the second type of troops (related to their power). They are fast, since they know the wilderness, they can fight inside and outside of a colony, but they are also in an inferior position against native soldiers.

I'm not sure about the profession „royal soldier“ at the moment. Three possibilities:

1. A European officer (profession) can become a colonial militia soldier. Then the unit will be a veteran unit.
2. A royal soldier can be a colonial militia soldier, the unit will be stronger, but will be a veteran only due to a lot of fights/experience.
2. A royal soldier cannot be a colonial milita soldier.

Here are the graphics (also already in the game):
1. Colonial line infantry (blue uniforms for the unexperienced, maybe a red for the veterans)



2. Colonial dragoons (green for the unexperienced, the blue standard uniform for the veterans)



I made no screenshots of the artillery, but we could use the light artillery for the colonial artillery (with blue uniforms).

3. The Regular troops of the king
The regular troops (line infantry, royal dragoons, royal cuirassiers and royal artillery) are the main part of the kings army in the New World. Very heavy troops – well organized troops, strong and very well skilled. They fight for their king at first!

They have the best values in fight, can fight inside and outside a colony, maybe they are only in a inferior position against native soldiers. They are the „backbone“ of the kings army!

Here we have the graphics:

1. Regulars, unexperienced:


2. Regulars, veterans:


3. Royal dragoons, unexperienced:


4. Royal dragoons, veterans:


5. Royal cuirassiers, unexperienced:


6. Royal cuirassiers, experienced:


7. Royal artillery (sorry, no photo – we could use the heavy artillery ot TAC)

I'm not sure about the possibilities of recruiting at the moment:

1. It is not possible to recruit them in the New World, they can only be recruited in Europe (we could make them cheaper) – since they are not born in the New World and only loyal to the king And maybe the king will send some troops to support the player against other nations or an event like this will trigger some units...
2. It is possible to recruit them in the New World, but only in colonies with a royal military academy or a„royal garrison“ (I like this way and the feature „garrison“ which we would need to implement) – that means at a later point of time in the game. AND maybe the king will send also some troops to support the player against other nations or an event like this will trigger some units...

4. Hessian Soldier
They are also already implemented in the game. I Think they don't have to be revised. They are heavy troops which can only be recruited in Europe....




This are my thoughts about the units.

Maybe it is possible to improve the military system with further improvemens: Just a few thoughts:

Military Academy / Garrison:
They allow the education of officers and the recruitment of troops (both, colonial milita and regulars, not armed citizens – the latter one need no garrison)

Scouts
They can support European troops in the New World (maybe a single unit like the general). If they are combined with the troops around the troops can run faster or will get no malus in the wilderness)

Forts
I saw a mod implementing Forts in the game: click .

Maybe we can use this to built forts to safeguard our colonial empire far away from the colony itself. They could also be used as trading posts with indians if we don't want to built a colony.

Foundry for canons
Maybe we could implement a building (if the city screen will not be overloaded) necessary for the construction of canons.

But I don't know how the AI can use all these last improvements or if it is possible to make them used by the AI.

Ok, that's it for the moment. I hope you like it.

Regards

Schmiddie

Hi Schmiddie,

I was just wondering, if you had read this thread:

[Religion and Revolution]: Swords, Guns, Cannons and Ammunition

There are some ideas about military in there, too.

Also, we had already had a discussion about Forts.
(We realized, that currently they would be pretty useless, because you could simply build a city instead.)

Oh! I red the thread, but it was not in my mind.

But I think the idea of my system is compatible with this thread since the thread goes in more detail regarding the equipment of the units. The idea of gunpowder and swords sounds good.

Ray, you already had some thoughts about a new system I think? What are you thinking about this one?

I have an open mind. But let me raise a few issues:
- Is the primary concern about graphics or function?
- Colonisation already has lots individual variety for its troops via the promotion system. Perhaps we could allow promotions to be obtained by other ways than battle or founding fathers, e.g. by training periods or inventions.
- The big issue around adding any more complexity to the military is whether the AI is able to plan ahead to assemble a competitive force in both defense and offense.

I think the primary issue are the functions.

It is a nice idea to gain/allow promotions by training (garrison or orther military building needed) or inventions

Schmiddie said:

It is a nice idea to gain/allow promotions by training (garrison or other military building needed) or inventions

Click to expand...

Yes you're right. With inventions we will have many more units ...

Wow, a lot of ideas to consider! I will have to keep reading & thinking about it.

I liked the concept Ray mentioned to have several military professions with a "rock paper scissors" type interaction between unit types, so that one type is not always the best in all circumstances.

I agree that once Techs are developed it would be cool to have soldiers able to gain certain Promotions through training/upgrading.

I think one concept Schmiddie is getting at is that it would be good to have a more noticeable difference between basic citizen militia (skilled at productive jobs in the city, but only mediocre when armed for defense) and Veteran Soldiers (professional standing army that is much more trained/effective in combat, but somewhat of a drag on the economy). The vanilla game promotion for Veteran Soldiers is not very unique. Perhaps Veteran Soldier units could have a unique promotion, that allows them access to some good specialized military promotions that unlock with techs. I like Ray's concept of having several military professions including cavalry, artillery, infantry types.

As agaro said, I think the big issue is whether the AI can be able to plan ahead effectively, both for the military and the economy in general. When there are several military professions good in different circumstances, and multiple yield requirements for each, the AI could have quite a hard time planning, and even if a lot of extra AI rules were coded, observant humans could likely find exploits when it can't plan well. This could also be true in general with it having a hard time managing economy and multiple transport needs after adding more yields. But on the other hand, we don't want to avoid adding features and yield types to the game which are very interesting for players. Well, I've been thinking about some ideas to possibly help the AI deal with complex planning needs considering multiple yields, I will consider it some more and make a post later.

For me, it is currently also quite difficult to say a lot about these ideas.

Types of Troops:

1. The concept is totally confusing to me, because I don't clearly understand, where we are talking about units and where we are talking about professions ...
Also I believe that we already have some of these things (maybe in a slightly different way).

2. I don't see the benefits (fun / gameplay) in that.
A lot of it we already have with combinations of veterans / not veteran and professions.
What I understand, the rest is about new units for King ?

3. It is not unproblematic.
(However, my other concept "[Religion and Revolution]: Swords, Guns, Cannons and Ammunition" isn't either.)

It is not simply done by doing some xml and graphics.
AI / UnitAI is a big topic here !

Military Academy:

This is a basic idea for now but no concept yet.
Hard to imagine how this should work or even be implemented in a good way.
But I will think about it.

Forts

We already discussed and objected to that idea.
There are no benefits compared to building cities.
Extremely difficult topic for AI.

Scouts

This could be handled by a promotion.
Everything else, AI would hardly understand properly.

Foundry for Cannons

This is totally conflicting with our accepted idea to change cannons to a profession (using Yield Cannons).
So I think this idea can be considered cancelled.

Summary:

I am not sure about the part "Types of Troops".
Probably I simply do not understand everything.

I will further think about "Military Academy" and eventually present a concept for that.

The other parts ("Forts", "Foundry for Cannons", "Scouts") I would personally not like to follow any more.

Yes, I basically support Ray's existing concept of having several standard military professions (e.g. infantry, artillery, and cavalry professions) that any unit can adopt.

I also like Schmiddies idea of having a more significant difference between colonial militia and Veteran Soldiers. This could be accomplished by having only two unique military UNITCLASSes Veteran Soldier and European Regulars (King's troops). Also having a few military professions (eg Cuirassiers, Dragoons, Artillery, Musketmen etc), where any unit is able to adopt these professions if having the right equipment. The graphics for unit-profession combination can be made to appear however you like using XML (for example a colonial unit with artillery regiment profession would appear different from European Regulars in an artillery regiment) so you wouldn't need to create new unittypes for every combination.

Having some more interesting Promotions could be a good and reasonably simple system which can be more easily used by the existing AI. Instead of having just a boring Combat I promotion, Veteran Soldiers and European Regulars could have a unique promotion Veteran, which allows access to a series of specialized promotions that can make them significantly better than colonial troops. For example Cavalry Charge (increased attack bonus when cavalry), Siege Engineer (increased bonus when bombarding), or Ring Bayonets (bonus when attacked by cavalry). The non-veteran colonial units would not be able to take all these promotions, but could get some Guerilla type promotions that let them do well defending in forests/hills etc. So, this system would enable interesting differences between Veteran and normal militia troops while not requiring a lot of different unittypes. Maybe can take some inspiration from Empire:Total War to find good military promotions / specializations / military techs from the period.

If there's a Military Academy, perhaps it could help by gradually adding good promotions to military units. For example maybe there could be a training action which Veteran Soldiers can take, which costs some gold and yields and inactivates them for 10 turns, then adds a new promotion. Or, it could enable a random Event which allows an option to spend gold to do the same thing.

Yes, thats what I mean. Sounds already very good...

Ok, now I start to understand, too.

As I said, I was totally confused because it wasn't clear where we were talking about units and where about professions ...

I will also try to summarize things later on.

Ok, this was my fault. I was not aware of the problem between units and professions (as I said in my introduction, I'm a designer, but I don't understand much about programming...maybe I have a wrong understanding of what are units and what are professions...maybe this caused the confusion...for me all was totally clear...sorry again!)

Ok guys, I will try to summarize a few things.

1. We will have new Special Units but this is not part of this discussion.
(For example Rangers.)

2. As explained in [Religion and Revolution]: Swords, Guns, Cannons and Ammunition we will do a Rebuild of Military:

A) Cannons will be changed from units to professions
B) Several profession using different goods (Swords, Gunds, Cannons, ..) and giving new strategies --> One of these professions is called "Regulars", another one "Miltia"
C) All Colonial Settlers (Units like Colonist, Farmers, Fisher, Statesmen, ... or Veterans) can take these professions.
C) Same accounts for troops of King (Unit Royal Soldier)

3. Some of you remember, that I built in a small piece of code:

At game start you have contact to all european kings.
Reason is, that these kings (except your own) are supposed to occasionally sell you Royal Soldiers through DLL-Diplo-Events.

So you will get a few Royal Soldiers in game.

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1., 2. and 3. are planned.

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4. Schmiddie is talking about the following:

It would be historically correct if a bigger part of the army of the colonies would be Royal Soldiers.
(Meaning the player would control many of these strong units.)

From a historical aspect that is true of course.

However there are 2 problems with that:

A. Strong troops should be special / rare.
Otherwise it is not fun getting them.

B. What about "Declaration of Independence" ?

Should they all stay loyal to the player ?
-> Many people will complain about that being historical non-sense.

Should they all switch sides to the king ?
-> Many people will be very frustrated because they will be forced to "delete" these units before DOI or otherwise create enemy troops.

Currently I suggest:

Let us consider this (Point 4.) as cancelled.
If somebody comes up with a good concept and a solution for the "Declaration of Independence Problem", we might talk about it again.

5. Military Academy

I am still thinking about it and might suggest a concept in the next days.

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Other Comments:

Something like "Unexperienced Royal Soldiers" and "Unexperienced Royal Soldiers" (as different Units) will not exist.
They are simply "Royal Soldiers".

Profession Colonial Militia (normal Settlers or Veterans) we already have.
Armed Citizen is basically a normal Settler with Profession Colonial Militia.

raystuttgart said:

4. Schmiddie is talking about the following:

It would be historically correct if a bigger part of the army of the colonies would be Royal Soldiers.
(Meaning the player would control many of these strong units.)

From a historical aspect that is true of course.

However there are 2 problems with that:

A. Strong troops should be special / rare.
Otherwise it is not fun getting them.

B. What about "Declaration of Independence" ?

Should they all stay loyal to the player ?
-> Many people will complain about that being historical non-sense.

Should they all switch sides to the king ?
-> Many people will be very frustrated because they will be forced to "delete" these units before DOI or otherwise create enemy troops.

Currently I suggest:

Let us consider this (Point 4.) as cancelled.
If somebody comes up with a good concept and a solution for the "Declaration of Independence Problem", we might talk about it again. :

Click to expand...

This does pose a particular problem. Royal troops would not have changed sides, and it seems like cheating to have to delete them before the DOI. Historically after the seige of Boston the Royal troops were removed to the loyalist base at Halifax in Nova Scotia, until they were rearmed and resupplied and along with fresh regiments sailed for New York. Unless some colonies remain loyal to the king after DOI, (which we have already discussed and rejected) I have no idea where the troops could go, for no player is going to leave hoardes of the Kings men roaming around the countryside unchecked.

raystuttgart said:

5. Military Academy

I am still thinking about it and might suggest a concept in the next days.

Click to expand...

I've got to say I'm not in favor of a military academy. I can see its benefits, but the first military academy in the US, West Point, was not founded until 1802.

colonialfan said:

I've got to say I'm not in favor of a military academy. I can see its benefits, but the first military academy in the US, West Point, was not founded until 1802.

Click to expand...

Building wise yes.

But the real first US military 'academy' was at Valley Forge under Baron von Steuben.

As a player I have only rarely used schooling to produce veterans, and this was more by accident rather than design (I just happened to be using a veteran in the settlement at that time because he was the only person available).

However, I support moving forward to being able to train soldiers somehow, and Washington certainly trained his Virginian troops pre WOI. Perhaps we should be using the term "training camp" rather than "military academy". But, given the game software structure, it makes sense for this camp to be a notional "building" attached to settlement(s). And perhaps you can only get one training camp for every 4 government palaces like other special buildings.

Training makes more sense to me than miraculously getting promotions via FFs or GGs. But that said I think we still will have an issue motivating AI to see the benefits of training. However the AI will accept any FF or GG it is offered.

How would "training" work? Would it give a promotion to units that adopted a military profession while in that settlement?

Androrc the Orc said:

How would "training" work? Would it give a promotion to units that adopted a military profession while in that settlement?

Click to expand...

Yes, it could work this way. You have a designated training settlement. An armed soldier travels there and stays for 6 continuous moves - stays in the garrison not doing anything else. When he leaves he has the "formation" promotion.

Alternatively you could create a camp similar to the coding for a native village where it is set up on its own and the soldier goes there (like learning from natives) and re-emerges trained several moves later.

But I am not a coder, I don't know if this is even possible.

agaro said:

But the real first US military 'academy' was at Valley Forge under Baron von Steuben.

Click to expand...

True, Von Stueben did give the Continental Army some training on the principals of 18th century warfare, but it was a far cry from the training European officers would have received at their military acedemies.

agaro said:

However, I support moving forward to being able to train soldiers somehow, and Washington certainly trained his Virginian troops pre WOI. Perhaps we should be using the term "training camp" rather than "military academy". But, given the game software structure, it makes sense for this camp to be a notional "building" attached to settlement(s). And perhaps you can only get one training camp for every 4 government palaces like other special buildings.

Click to expand...

True again. Washington trained militia before the WOI, but they were still woefully poor. I do like the idea of a training camp, but I think it should turn out a lower class soldier to reflect the poorer trained continental army.

agaro said:

Training makes more sense to me than miraculously getting promotions via FFs or GGs. But that said I think we still will have an issue motivating AI to see the benefits of training. However the AI will accept any FF or GG it is offered.

Click to expand...

Training does make more sense than promotions via, FF. As for great generals, using that principal in the game is like using a Von Stueben (although there is no evidence to suggest Von Stueben ever rose above the rank of captain in the Prussian army), but I digress. Personally I favor Ray's idea of promotions coming through battle experience, but I'm open to discussing and brainstorming other ideas.

Guys, I have been thinking about something like "Military Academy".
I think we should forget that idea.

1. It would be an incredible effort to implement and high risks of bugs.
(Especially when talking about AI.)

2. All solutions I can imagine would feel very artificial.

3. For me personally this would not add any fun at all.

colonialfan said:

Personally I favor Ray's idea of promotions coming through battle experience ...

Click to expand...

This is easy to implement.
Also I feel that it is realistic.

About Armed citizen:

Some of the citizen like the Hunter and Trapper could need more protection agains enemies, they are usally armed and know to shoot.