Simple attrition mechanics

The mechanics is simple. Any time a unit ends its turn in enemy territory, the unit suffers a small percentage damage. The unit loses 1% health on grassland tiles, 2% on plain and tundra tiles, 3% on desert and ice tiles each turn.

Why: Add a small degree of realism and new strategies in combats.

Great idea, but I think there should be ways to avoid any attrition at all on grassland an plains, and it should be way more on desert and ice.

I always thought that city bombard did a somewhat decent job reflecting attrition, which is why pillaging improvements to heal was a decent idea.

At equal forces and without surprise attacks, attackers are still disavantadged, so no. Maybe an attrition for all units in a city if they are besieged. (with stacking units)

Why would an attacker attack where the AI/enemy is expecting? Any losses suffered in that case would be deserved.

Because he has no other solution ?

Naokaukodem said:

Because he has no other solution ?

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Then he deserves to have his army's back broken.

I don't see why. Sometimes you are trapped in a small area by another civilization, and your only mean to expand is to grab this civ territory. And if on the top of that you don't have iron... and this is only an eloquent example that comes to my mind.

Naokaukodem said:

I don't see why. Sometimes you are trapped in a small area by another civilization, and your only mean to expand is to grab this civ territory. And if on the top of that you don't have iron... and this is only an eloquent example that comes to my mind.

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Reroll.

In multiplayer ?

Surrender.

Uh oh.

No to combat modifiers. These should be as equal as possible to allow for fair fights where strategy matters.

One could introduce economic "attrition", make units outside your own borders cost more giving an advantage towards storming a city vs. besieging it for a long time. But all under the premise that the AI understands it

PS: I'd say always note the gameplay benefit a new system should achieve That's better than just "realism".

I like the attrition idea...

... if there is a possibiity to counter the attrition. By a very basic supply-system, for example.

Of course you have full supply when inside your own cultural borders.
Then, there could be a new supply-unit with a supply-range of, say, 3 tiles. All units in this range don't suffer attrition; leaving it, they do.
This could be be expanded, too: Limited (50% of normal) regeneration when outside any supply-range might be possible and - when using the "healing-promotion", a loss of the turn instead of the usual "instant-heal".

mitsho said:

PS: I'd say always note the gameplay benefit a new system should achieve That's better than just "realism".

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I aggree 100%! Therefore:
In my imagination, a system like this would force the attacker to plan ahead his invasion and protect his supply units carefully.
The defender, in contrast, would want to take out the supply units to weaken the attacker and slow down his advance.
I think, this could be challenging and quite fun!

Naokaukodem said:

At equal forces and without surprise attacks, attackers are still disavantadged...

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And this is, how it should be! After all, the defender fights in well known terrain and with short supply lines. When besieging a fortified city/casle, a 3:1 supremacy was needed, as I did read somewhere (IIRC).

Deggial said:

I like the attrition idea...

... if there is a possibiity to counter the attrition. By a very basic supply-system, for example.

You have full supply when inside your cultural borders, of course. Then, there could be a new supply-unit with a supply-range of, say, 3 tiles. All units in this range don't suffer attrition; leaving it, they do.
This could be be expanded, too: Limited (50% of normal) regeneration when outside any supply-range might be possible and - when using the "healing-promotion", a loss of the turn instead of the usual "instant-heal".

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I think this is too complicated. No need for a unit. Rather, how about this:

Within your borders, no attrition, regular unit maintenance cost.

Outside your borders, attrition begins, and this can be in the form of either gold or health. Basically, the farther away your unit is from your borders, the higher the cost, and you can actually choose whether you want this cost to be taken in terms of gold payment (i.e. the cost of supplying them) or health (don't supply them, they just lose health); maybe you can unlock the ability to pay for attrition through gold by getting a certain technology or social policy.

The amount of the attrition is then calculated based on how many moves it would take your unit to get back to the closest border to it. This would both penalize you from having your army stray too far from a border, and also incentive you to 'trap' your opponents to make it harder for them to get home. By blocking their direct path home, you increase their attrition rates since they have to take a longer route home. And if you completely block them off (i.e. trap them like the Germany Army at Stalingrad), attrition skyrockets.

This would also open up whole new game mechanics for buildings, promotions or social policies that would reduce your attrition and raise attrition of enemies in your lands. I think this could work without being too complicated.

Hm, something like this might work, too.

But honestly, I don't feel that this is less complicated. It could be quite hard to estimate the actual attrition due to the distance to your own borders. Especialy if terrain is taken into account. (Rough terrain slows you down and increases your way back.)

A new unit is very simple, in my regards: unit nearby: no attrition. Unit destroyed: attrition active.
Additionally, as I did write, a seperate unit would make a great prey to hunt for and create an interresting extra tactical layer.

Deggial said:

Hm, something like this might work, too.

But honestly, I don't feel that this is less complicated. It could be quite hard to estimate the actual attrition due to the distance to your own borders. Especialy if terrain is taken into account. (Rough terrain slows you down and increases your way back.)

A new unit is very simple, in my regards: unit nearby: no attrition. Unit destroyed: attrition active.
Additionally, as I did write, a seperate unit would make a great prey to hunt for and create an interresting extra tactical layer.

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I agree that both methods have their positive and benefits. Just speaking personally though, I hate micromanaging tons of units, and I'd be annoyed at having to have a medic unit which is all about positioning it, and nothing else. I'd be much more annoyed at that than a possible opaque 'distance' metric.

I will say though, that I think the distance thing wouldn't be that difficult, as when you move your cursor to the location you want to move the unit to, it would be pretty easy to have a simply number pop up which tells you current attrition and what the new attrition would be if you moved the unit to where your cursor was.

damnyankees said:

Just speaking personally though, I hate micromanaging tons of units, and I'd be annoyed at having to have a medic unit which is all about positioning it, and nothing else...

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I think that's the main difference. I love units. If you ask me, I would have prefered a way more unit-based spy system, too. All this is probably just a matter of taste.