Logistics

Armatures study tactics.
Professionals study logistics.

Russian defeated two invasions because invaders failed in logistics. D-day succeeded because Eisenhower is trained in logistics.

How to add logistics to civ 4 war is beyond me, but attempts should be made.

Unlimited oil, food, water are good for a while, but now, my jet is looking for oil truck to hit.

Supply lines are abstracted into "Unit Supply" expense (that you pay for units outside your cultural borders).
General resource logistics within the empire is abstracted into cities having access to resources connected either directly to city or to any city they're connected to.

Both of the above mentioned cases show that the abstraction is taken to a very high level, allowing us to develop our empires at the grand scale, assuming all the small stuff is handled by governors, supply officers, and so on. Often enough someone wants to micromanage a thing currently abstracted away. But if the abstraction was broken and new mechanics added (eg. units having "supply points" replenished by "supply units" that again are built in cities, taken to armies, and transformed to supply points for the units there - and that'd still be a high level abstraction) you detract from the grand scale in favour of the small scale.

I favour running a grand empire on the grand scale. I hope the generals handle their supply well enough provided with the gold needed ("Unit Supply" expense), as I hope most other parts of the empire would work. If it was possible to micromanage some smaller scale aspect, then either I would have to spend yet more time doing something the supply officers should (IMO) have done, which is either away from the time I spend looking at the diplomatic web, or it's time I need to spend in addition. If the micromanagement can be automated in a way where I don't need to worry about it (I lose that last 1-2% of efficiency for not taking 20% of my turn time to micro, someone else spends more time and thus gets the last drop squeezed out of the empire) then I'm mostly fine with things.

I actually thought about this a while ago, and came up with an idea. I don't know if it's do-able, but what if you were to supply your units units with food if they were outside your cultural borders.
For instance: 1 unit eats one food. Food can be found on the tiles of the enemy. There can be found as much food in a tile for soldiers as there can be in the city square (e.g. grassland: 2 food, corn +1 food, farm +2 food; this square could hold as much as five units)
There would also be a penalty system for people who stack their units on one tile without considering the fact that their soldiers become hungry (e.g. 10 units on a plain-tile). Their soldiers lose a certain amount of hitpoints/turn, thus becoming weaker.

Supply lines wouldnt be too difficult to impliment in a future civ game.

Here's one idea I have for a supply line system. If you invade an enemies territory the land that you invade should automatically be claimed by your units. You know when you see a geographical battle map, for example of WW2 of Germany invading Poland and you see the pointed arrows of the Axis army going into Poland? Thats what it should be like. The rival territory your army invades should automatically become your own and provide you with a "supply" line to your nation/or friendly territory. If your enemy cuts off your supply line, then your units supply line is cut off and your unit becomes weaker with every turn.

Then other things would come into play like sea and air supply lines. Wouldnt be too hard to impliment and would i think, actually provide for some interesting and realistic strategy.

Spoiler :

Suspiria: Supply lines wouldnt be too difficult to impliment in a future civ game.
Here's one idea I have for a supply line system. If you invade an enemies territory the land that you invade should automatically be claimed by your units. You know when you see a geographical battle map, for example of WW2 of Germany invading Poland and you see the pointed arrows of the Axis army going into Poland? Thats what it should be like. The rival territory your army invades should automatically become your own and provide you with a "supply" line to your nation/or friendly territory. If your enemy cuts off your supply line, then your units supply line is cut off and your unit becomes weaker with every turn.

Click to expand...

Spoiler :

Fuzzz: I actually thought about this a while ago, and came up with an idea. I don't know if it's do-able, but what if you were to supply your units units with food if they were outside your cultural borders.
For instance: 1 unit eats one food. Food can be found on the tiles of the enemy. There can be found as much food in a tile for soldiers as there can be in the city square (e.g. grassland: 2 food, corn +1 food, farm +2 food; this square could hold as much as five units)
There would also be a penalty system for people who stack their units on one tile without considering the fact that their soldiers become hungry (e.g. 10 units on a plain-tile). Their soldiers lose a certain amount of hitpoints/turn, thus becoming weaker.

Click to expand...

First of read both qoutes (or the 2 posts before this one) , otherwise you won't understand what I'm saying here. Since I didn't really give my idea (see 2 posts before this one) much thought, combining mine as well as Suspiria's would be perfectly do-able.

First of, there ought to be a distinct difference between military supply lines (msl), culture and trade-routes. The msl are represented by tiles and can be captured if you are at war and take a military unit inside enemy territory. the tile you enter immediately becomes a msl. You only need a msl when in enemy territory, if you are in friendly territory (your own cultural borders,vassal state, civ with which you are at peace) or in neutral territory ("what about scouts/warriors in the exploring phase?", I hear you say -> well remember: a unit eats one food and food can be found on the ground (the tiles)).
New ideas represent new tactics. The attacker would always be obliged to make sure he's got defenses on a couple of tiles when fighting in deep rival territory, on the other hand the defender can cut off msl just by taking and holding one tile the attacker uses as msl.
This will make cities with a lot of culture more difficult to attack (it takes longer to get there, because there are more tiles around them). The invader will be forced to spread his army, unless he has supply lines towards a city.
I'm willing to hear what all of you civfanatics have got to say about this idea.

Actually yes Fuzzz I love the idea of your invading military units being able to consume your rivals farms for food to sustain themselves (if their supply lines are cut off or too long( i think for long distances that a unit invades a rivals territory it should take a number of turns for a supply line to replenish the unit). This is also very much like real life for example when Alaxander the Great and his army couldnt rely on supply lines and would pretty much live off the land they invaded. This in turn should give you or the AI the option to burn their crops (or even their forests) to destroy any food resources invaders might consume.

Also it works both ways, they can cut off your supply line and destroy their food that your units might use. But you can also do the same to their trade routes and supply lines, potentially cutting off thier supply and distribution of food and resources (kind of like pillage now but i would have a more advanced system). Also when laying a city to siege you automatically cut that city off from its supply line and its nearby food sources. The result being if the city goes through its food stores it will weaken the population and potentially the strength and morale of the military units inside. Hence a new strategy of warfare.

Thank you Suspiria, for the extra input. I'm glad you like the fact I transformed your ideas.
New tactics would include the fact that farmland and flood plains (one of the tiles that give the least defense) are now the best tiles if you are on the offense, because they provide the most food. Tiles such as forests, hills, give less food, but more defense. If this idea is added, it will definately change gameplay.

I love this idea, it will definately add something to the way we play civ in a positive way.

hmm, nice ideas in fact, yet I have a suggestion how to keep it even simpler.

if you keep thinking about it, what is a supply line? effectively it is a (hopefully) fast route on which your army would send you supplies such as ammunition, food, clothing and the like. well then, why not make a route? what I am saying is: as long as your army or your units are standing on a road / railtrack which is directly linked to your territory, you have supply, the further away you move, the less supply you have, which would start affecting your units' strengh rating.

AND, this gives the enemy player a handy device for cutting you off supply lines: just pillage the roads. the invading army might consequently fashion bringing one or two workers (and if you think of workers as technicians which they essentially are it would not even be unrealistic) by to ensure permament supply.

you know, that brings me to another nice idea. how about an improvement 'barbed wire'? say, it slowes down your movement by half. hmm, wouldn't mae much of a difference with large stacks as one could move ahead an pillage it, but maybe there is a way for figuring this out.

I like Suspiria's idea - military units claim territory, and territory is the basis of supply. It's a nice replacement for cultural borders too. As you explore you claim territory, and you can only claim someone else's territory by declaring war, or perhaps overwhelming culture could cause single tiles (and eventually cities) to flip. Units would be supplied if they are in their owner's territory that has a direct link to a friendly city and if they are out of supply for 3 turns (or so) then they have a combat penalty. Pillaging a farm would reset the 3 turns (ie act as temporary supply).

It's always bugged me that a caravel, trireme, galleon, etc can be at sea indefinitely without stopping in port. Not only does their food never run out, but dysentery apparently isn't a problem either. Furthermore, sailors getting shore leave in foreign ports is a time-honored tradition.

Wodan