How many men in a unit?

I am trying to write a civ story and I am not sure how units should be represented, as far as numbers of men and equipment. The story takes place in the Napoleonic Era.

I understand this is a game and all of this is theoretical. However, a scale for unit sizes would help me out a lot.

In my scenario I used the rifleman as the standard musket unit. I just thought it fit better based on the techtree.

Anyway, any opinions you have on how I should scale the size of units on a standard map, again, would be of great help.

Rifleman? Should they represent a corps, a division or something smaller, such as a battalion or regiment? The same for lancers, and cavalry.

Artillery? How many guns would a unit represent.

Let me know what you think and thanks.

Funny that you brought this up. I have always privately thought of these units as divisions - self-supporting all arms sections of your military. They fulfill napoleon's idea (yes I know he stole it, but he made the division system famous) of distinct fighting forces that can march separately and engage the enemy (preferably together with other divisions). I would argue that an artillery unit also represents a division (maybe a brigade) since it cannot be captured and can defend itself to a limited degree.

The scale may be a bit of a problem in that I will typically build fifteen land units in a game (5 arty, 10 melee is my rule of thumb). Arguing that a nineteenth century army only fielded fifteen divisions may be a bit tricky. However, the alternate is to argue that the units represent a corps, and I don't think that would fly. There's no mixed-unit representation or the feeling that the units are well-rounded (having cav, rifles, and arty in one shebang).

Just my little take.

I generally consider that each melee, gunpowder, and ranged unit in the game is a regiment under the command of one not-so-great general, and I use regiment due to the elasticity of size.

I imagine my warriors may be groups of no more than 50 men, while late era, my infantry unit may consist of upwards of 1000 or 2000 people (and the general leading them would have others under him, as opposed to having direct control of and contact with each soldier). The era you're looking for, well, that falls in between.

I also imagine damaged unit meaning that people are hurt, but also killed, and, as a unit heals, it's getting the injured people healthy again and recruiting locals that live in an area to join their cause. A 1 health musketman may have only a handful of individuals alive, all hurt.

Air units, I imagine being a handful of fighters in any era. Great war bombers I also imagine a few airplanes. Bombers, stealth bombers, and nukes, however, are probably only 1 in my mind.

Siege, I imagine just a few. I imagine civ wars as being fairly fast paced in the units you actually control (there would be a lot going on that you don't directly command, you just handle the big stuff), and, as such, Artillery may only be a few guns. Cannons, likely more, since they're easier to use (in fact, I'd say the number of cannons in a unit would be the largest of any siege unit due to their comparative simplicity), but your artillery units are able to set up and fire in a turn, or, having already set up, take everything with them without leaving anything behind. They also have enough firepower to tear down city defenses (that is, blow holes in walls, target specific structures), but not enough to actually destroy a city. That suggests to me that siege isn't a huge wall of artillery that will leave a pile of rubble in its wake, but a small strike force tasked with attacking high value enemy targets.

Primacide said:

The scale may be a bit of a problem in that I will typically build fifteen land units in a game (5 arty, 10 melee is my rule of thumb). Arguing that a nineteenth century army only fielded fifteen divisions may be a bit tricky. However, the alternate is to argue that the units represent a corps, and I don't think that would fly. There's no mixed-unit representation or the feeling that the units are well-rounded (having cav, rifles, and arty in one shebang).

Just my little take.

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I agree with divisions. What I have been doing is having like 4 riflemen be part of a corps. Along with units of artillery and cavalry, which like you said, make up the combined arms factor.

Another thought I did have was to think of each unit as two divisions. However, I feel one division is sufficient. The interesting thing is that divisions can be of varying size. So, I can use my imagination a bit as to how many troops are fighting each other.

After doing a little research this is what I came up with...

Infantry

1 regiment = 1000 men

1 division has 5 regiments = 5000 men

Cavalry

1 regiment = 400 sabers

1 division has 5 regiments = 2000 sabers

Artillery

1 battery = 6 guns

1 brigade has 5 batteries = 30 guns

I think that the biggest logic leap is that you can fortify to heal and not only are your units getting more healthy, but they also recruit more men at no cost to you, even when they're out in the field 1,000 miles away from the home base.

You are ignoring the maintenance cost that you incur every turn. Unit maintenance costs rise as the game goes on, reflecting increased recruitment costs (after all, with turns lasting 10+ years, you are constantly recruiting fresh troops, as existing ones retire or die from disease, training accidents, etc.). And until you get March (or its equivalent), you must idle your troops for a generation or two to heal/recruit and train replacement troops, while still paying maintenance. Having to idle your troops is an opportunity cost that you should not discount.

Browd said:

You are ignoring the maintenance cost that you incur every turn. Unit maintenance costs rise as the game goes on, reflecting increased recruitment costs (after all, with turns lasting 10+ years, you are constantly recruiting fresh troops, as existing ones retire or die from disease, training accidents, etc.). And until you get March (or its equivalent), you must idle your troops for a generation or two to heal/recruit and train replacement troops, while still paying maintenance. Having to idle your troops is an opportunity cost that you should not discount.

Click to expand...

In my scenario I am recruiting fresh troops every month.

What I need is a basic system to go by for my story. I don't think I need to go into the economics of it all for that. On second thought, maybe it could come in to play. I realize that governments always go through problems with fitting out a proper army. Logistics plays a huge role in the decision making process. Mentioning attrition and supply to make things more interesting in order to make the story more realistic will be a priority for me. I want to thank of you for your thoughts. If there are any other thoughts, I would much appreciate them.