Armies, Supply lines and Forts, oh my! -My modest proposal for a new combat system.-

The goal of this project is to bring about change in the combat system of Civilization 4 to effect the following:
-Introduce issues of supply and logistics into warfare. This will be my first priority.
-Render fortification improvements useful, and in fact necessary.
-Turning away from a "to the death" combat system, to a "mutually damaging" one.
-Cause the warring of large armies to be spread across the terrain, resulting in genuine front lines.
-To do all of this in as simple a manner as possible.

Be sure to read later posts as well, since these ideas will evolve.
As this occurs, this post will be updated and edited as needed by me to reflect the latest version of the plan.

Supply Lines:
Supply lines keep troops supplied. They begin at your cities and extend along your trade network. All areas that your trade network can legally extend into can carry your supply lines. Forts, supply units, and friendly cities will provide supplies to your units within a radius. Combat units outside of supply will slowly lose health and be unable to heal themselves, with some exceptions.

How supply may be transmitted to otherwise inaccessable regions:
-Roads can be built through wilderness.
-Some sort of supply unit can help to transmit supply through enemy territory.
-Fortresses can be chained together to form networks in hostile or otherwise undeveloped territory. The forts must be garrisoned by a friendly army and be themselves within supply limits.
-For amphibious invasions, a beach-head may be established and maintained by a friendly navy, through which supplies may be directed to the shore, and then conducted in the other manners described here. These beach-heads must be themselves connected to your trade-network.
-Pillage enemy (non-road) improvements to provide temporary supply to your forces.

How to mess up an opponent's supply lines:
-Pillage roads that feed your enemy.
-Target and kill enemy supply units.
-Attack and capture/destroy fortresses
-Block sea trade-routes, or destroy the beach-head.
-Be careful with your improvement placement, and maybe practice scorched-earth (pillage self) to deny your opponent supplies.

If you can cut off the supplies to an enemy army, you should be able to cause the withdrawl or defeat of a much larger foe than yourself.

Non-Lethal Combat:
Just like non-lethal weapons still kill people, non-lethal combat does not prevent killing, it just does not make that the guaranteed outcome of the match.

Instead of two units fighting to the death, combat will only take place for a fixed number of rounds, each unit dealing damage to the other as per normal,
but ending after that. Both units will (probably) end up damaged, the stronger of the two having ended up the better.

This system will have two major effects on warfare:
-Outnumbering your opponent will provide a much greater advantage, as you will be able to pick on a progressively weakening opponent without worrying about chance losses.
-The number of wounded units appearing and fighting on the battlefield will be drasticly increased. Many wounded will arise and need to be retreated and healed.

Dispersed Combat:
Obviously such combat as I proposed would cause the only teneble fighting technique to be ridiculous "Stacks of Doom". So let's just get rid of stacks then shall we?

There shall be a limit on the number of units which can occupy a tile. For most tiles, this limit shall be 1, but for Cities and Fortresses, 2 shall be allowed. The seas will have a larger limit (else early coastal warfare would become rather a traffic jam...), as will tiles containing Generals (I'll talk about them later).

With such a system, concentrating your forces and surrounding your enemy will become the prime tactics (as they should be). Large armies will require room to maneuver, and will spread out on front-lines. Having a contiguous front will help protect your units from being surrounded and destroyed, and provide protection for retreating wounded units, as well as vulnerable supporting units. Fast units like cavalry will be able to pursue vulnerable units, and retreat when wounded. Superior mobility will allow you to concentrate your forces and choose your battles. Just be careful of spears.

Other Necessary (or cool) Changes:
Messing with some of the basic fundamentals of CIV warfare will undoubtedly require some changes elsewhere.

-We'll need at least one new unit; the General.
Movement 2, non-combat unit. Increases the number of units that can be on a tile by 2 (this includes himself). Cumulative with forts and cities. When supplied, extends supply to all units within his radius. When out of supply, provides support to the 4 nearest combat units within his radius.
He shouldn't be like a great person I don't think...perhaps can be built, but expensive? Maybe you get a free General when you build the Heroic Epic? Perhaps there is a restriction on the number you can maintain, like based on the number of cities, or number of barracks? They need to be sorta special

-Medics who can only heal those in the same square would be rather useless dont'cha think? The medic promotions will have to be tweaked a bit (possibly just creating a seperate Medic unit instead).

-Artillery's (relatively) unique collateral damage ability ain't quite the stack-killer it used to be is it? Best we change this to "freeby attacks" like those of Civ3. Might have to increase their range too.

-Given the restrictions on maneuverability and mobility of an army caused by supply lines, and the large maneuverability requirements created by the spread-out armies, generally increasing the movement of units might be in order. This is a maybe, as it could get a bit hard to balance with other aspects. At least units should be able to attack even after having exhausted their movement (otherwise wounded units could infinitely retreat) (perhaps wounded units should have movement penalties?).

-Given the emphasis on large numbers of units, perhaps there should be a general lowering of cost for combat units. Cost of maintainance for the larger number of units should be adjusted accordingly as well.

-A lot of healing of units will be happening, and not as much dieing. In order to make warfare hit you where it hurts a little more, how about a cost of 1 gold per turn for every unit, ever turn that it is healing? Now damaging units actually means something, and medics are even more your friend, since they reduce healing time and thus costs.

-Since landing forces will only be very useful in large numbers, and to facilitate the transport of large numbers of troops, I propose that a new class of transport vessels be created. Relatively cheap, non-combat (or very weak) ships that will carry one or two units. These ships will need to be escorted by a navy in order to actually reach their intended destination. It would suck if they got sunk en route wouldn't it? These should probably upgrade to new and better forms with technology I think. They should probably also replace the current (relatively armed) transport-type vessels.

-Given the importance of Forts as an improvement now, there should probably be a better way to build them than with a valuable, expensive, pricey worker. Maybe some military units could, or maybe that would be one of the general's abilities. Not sure on this yet.

In Conclusion:
I think this would have an interesting transformative effect on combat and warfare in Civilization 4, making it more tactical and challenging.

There are several difficulties though:
-I do not myself know how to program this into a mod.
-The AI sure as heck won't know what to do with this.
-There are probably many problems and imbalances that I have not yet come up with.

Help and support in any of these areas will be appreciated, but not required. I want to iron out the wrinkles in this plan before I'm going to worry about putting it into action.

Critiques, criticisms and creativity are welcome and appreciated. Enthusiasm too. I need feedback, and advice is free!

Yay! first reply! (j/k)

*Post reserved for future use.*

(Will I really need all that much more room? Who knows!)

Sounds very promising.

Have you had any thoughts so far on how to trick the AI into playing by these rules?

The AI seems to me the most significant problem. It acts cumbersome already, even without more complicated rules of warfare.

Keep it up though - it would be great if sth like this could be done.

Archduke Otto said:

Sounds very promising.

Have you had any thoughts so far on how to trick the AI into playing by these rules?

The AI seems to me the most significant problem. It acts cumbersome already, even without more complicated rules of warfare.

Keep it up though - it would be great if sth like this could be done.

Click to expand...

The AI is the last of my worries, since I can't really test it out until I've actually, you know, made the mod.

1. A Concrete system of ideas.
2. Such a system programmed into something operable.
3. Getting the AI to do better than a drunk monkey impression.

I just had these ideas coming home on the bus today. Well, actually, I had had the non-lethal combat idea before, but I was just thinking of it in terms of all units having a 100% retreat chance. Trying to think of ways to remove random chance from CIV combat. That and I've played a lot of Advance Wars...

I'd love to see non-lethal combat implemented.

And the point that wounded units are a drain on the civs economy is very valid. That would be a nice feature as well.

Hans Lemurson said:

Dispersed Combat:
Obviously such combat as I proposed would cause the only teneble fighting technique to be ridiculous "Stacks of Doom". So let's just get rid of stacks then shall we?

There shall be a limit on the number of units which can occupy a tile. For most tiles, this limit shall be 1, but for Cities and Fortresses, 2 shall be allowed. The seas will have a larger limit (else early coastal warfare would become rather a traffic jam...), as will tiles containing Generals (I'll talk about them later).

With such a system, concentrating your forces and surrounding your enemy will become the prime tactics (as they should be). Large armies will require room to maneuver, and will spread out on front-lines. Having a contiguous front will help protect your units from being surrounded and destroyed, and provide protection for retreating wounded units, as well as vulnerable supporting units. Fast units like cavalry will be able to pursue vulnerable units, and retreat when wounded. Superior mobility will allow you to concentrate your forces and choose your battles. Just be careful of spears.

Click to expand...

I like your ideas in general, but I don't like this one. Better imo to make counter strategies than simply forbid those that are too good.

I think that artillery units should be made so that they can deal with SODs very well, but be almost useless against anything else. Perhaps increasing the number of units they can damage but reduce the amount of damage that they do. Also making them able to fire on attacking units, doing collateral damage if succesful. And making them really easy to kill if you can get to them. The result (once properly balanced ) would be artillery > SODs > spread out > artillery.
Then there's aircraft. I think that aircraft should be able to hurt SODs very well and artillery fairly well, but not good at all at anything else spread out. In modern times it should become more spread out than before. Aircraft, better artillery or both can make sure of that.

snarko said:

I like your ideas in general, but I don't like this one. Better imo to make counter strategies than simply forbid those that are too good.

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I didn't actually create dispersed combat specificly because I dislike stacks, that was just an artisticly convenient way to justify it. I had actually thought of this independantly, then realized that it worked a lot better in conjunction with non-lethal combat.

I really wanted to create a combat system that would require the creation of front lines for armies. Forts and cities are stronger points, yes, since they can hold a greater concentration of units, but they are not the "cram an entire army into one spot for an indefinate siege" things that the AI seems so fond of using them for. If your armies over-run a section of territory, they should be able to fairly handily (though artillery might be required) isolate and destroy the resistance.

snarko said:

I think that artillery units should be made so that they can deal with SODs very well, but be almost useless against anything else. Perhaps increasing the number of units they can damage but reduce the amount of damage that they do. Also making them able to fire on attacking units, doing collateral damage if succesful. And making them really easy to kill if you can get to them. The result (once properly balanced ) would be artillery > SODs > spread out > artillery.

Click to expand...

I wanted the combat here to focus on the concentration of firepower, not so much "oh shoot we concentrated too much". Artillery represents the ability to concentrate firepower on an area without fear of retribution. Artillery attacks will weaken units without a counter-attack, and can do so from behind the front lines. The presence of artillery on the battlefield will allow one side a greater advantage, since they will be able to get more attacks in on one square, and so the rest of the units will be able to attack a weaker unit, taking fewer casualties. Artillery will be more useful in situations where large armies come up against each other, since there will be more need for it, and it can be better protected. This is as it should be. Artillery will deal collateral damage, so the small stacks allowed will be a bit more vulnerable. Also, of course, artillery will be able to reduce defensive bonuses of fortifications. This will include cities as well as forts.

snarko said:

Then there's aircraft. I think that aircraft should be able to hurt SODs very well and artillery fairly well, but not good at all at anything else spread out. In modern times it should become more spread out than before. Aircraft, better artillery or both can make sure of that.

Click to expand...

Aircraft are basicly artillery. They are longer range and can target better, but at the end of the day, they both are just trying to deliver an explosive payload into the lap of the enemy. If your artillery outranges your opponent's, you have an advantage. Aircraft can be fended off with air superiority of course, and can't deliver quite the payload of an equivalent amount of artillery, but they have the advantage of mobility and initiative. Bombers, I just plan on having be like artillery. Fighters will be protection from bombers, and will themselves posess an attack capability.

I should probably create a "Redefinition of Roles:" section where I can put all this.

I would help, but I have like a bagillion other projects. For now I'll simply stay in the background and watch.

The supply lines sound very very good. I really like the idea and it should not be too hard to implement. But the units-per-tile limit seems a bit clumsy. It reminds me Civ I when separate moves with every single unit were necessary. Moving your units one by one to the battlefield would last forever then.

I have no problem with SODs, I think it has been implemented really well in Civ IV. You can still cripple them with artillery/bomber units, though your idea with artillery staying behind the front is cool.

Yeah, I guess this plan is really a conglomeration of 3 ideas. The supply lines one is what I had worked out best, and I think it's what I should focus on first, since it will have more general application.

I had looked through various posts and proposals dealing with supply lines, and it seemed to be a fairly popular idea, though often suggested with inefficient methods.

I think that one of the main problems with your idea of limiting how many units can go on a tile is that it would only really simulate modern warfare accurately. Ancient and Middle age warfare for the most part did not feature major fronts of enemies facing eachother.

I love the idea of representing supply. It would really open up a lot of strategic situations and ideas.

Gunner said:

I think that one of the main problems with your idea of limiting how many units can go on a tile is that it would only really simulate modern warfare accurately. Ancient and Middle age warfare for the most part did not feature major fronts of enemies facing eachother.

Click to expand...

I was thinking about that, but I decided it was probably ok, since early era warfare tends to involve fewer units anyhow, so it wouldn't become a full-border war. But you are right, ancient armies were not nearly so spread out as modern ones, even when equal numbers of troops are used. This may require some creativity to address, or it may not even be an issue. I won't know until I test it and that requires making it first. And I want to work on my supply model first too.

gunner said:

I love the idea of representing supply. It would really open up a lot of strategic situations and ideas.

Click to expand...

Thanks, that's what it's for! Now all I have to do is learn how to mod.

Hans, first off, I would like to applaud you on the presentation of your idea. Very clear and easy to read, free of misspellings and it looks clear that you have a plan. You have some pretty interesting ideas here (I'm not sold on all of them though), and I'm glad you're open to discussion on them.

That being said, I'll present my views on your content and concept ideas first, then what I think of the implementation of this as a mod. For forum readers unwilling to sift through my numerous comments and observances, the gist of my post can be gathered from the conclusion at the bottom of the post.

Content and Concept:
-Supply Lines and Logistics:
I definitely like the idea of putting some infrastructure in place to support troops and wars.

• I agree with troops not being able to heal, and losing health gradually when out of supply lines.
• Your cities, trade network, forts, and any special supply units are great methods for transmitting supply. I also think your troops should be supplied by an ally's supply network. I think this should require some agreement between the civilizations, such as coming along with the defense pact agreement, and definitely the permanent alliance agreement. This would make for much more interesting politics.
• Roads should always extend the trade network. This makes it interesting to keep units in place to protect your roads from getting cut off, and makes combat a little more strategic.
• Forts definitely should extend the supply network. I envision a fort providing supply to an area much like the city culture radius. Instead of growing over time, however, I propose that it begin with a modest 1 square radius, and be improved over time through advances in technology that make sense. I agree that forts need to be occupied to offer supply, and must ultimately connect back to a friendly city through the supply chain.
• Generals providing supply to troops does not really make sense to me. I'm not opposed to the idea of a supply truck, baggage train, or other units extending supply, but a General unit providing this support seems inappropriate.
• Creating a Beach-head for extending supply lines across the sea is a very cool idea. I think that there needs to be some kind of limitation on when a Beach-head could provide supply, in terms of connecting it back to your supply network. I don't have a great idea yet, but perhaps a distance limit measured from the nearest friendly Harbor?
• Pillaging enemy improvements to generate temporary supply is interesting.
• What happens when two the supply chains of two opposing civilizations meet? How is this resolved?

-Useful Fortifications:
I fully support making Forts worthwhile to build. I never have a reason to build them, since it's easier to just set yourself up in a forest.

• Forts should extend the supply chain. They can provide a 1 square radius for supply initially, and this radius can extend as your civilization develops appropriate logistics technology. They should be occupied in order to extend the supply chain.
• Forts should still provide some defensive bonus.
• Forts could possibly settle supply chain conflicts by dominating the landscape they control, cutting off enemy supply chains. This would make them much more important.

-Damaging Combat vs. Lethal Combat:
I'm relatively neutral on this idea.

• It would make healing units significantly more important to consider.
• It would make maintaining the supply chain a serious consideration in war.

-Large Armies and Genuine Front Lines:
I think this would be an interesting change, but I'm not convinced that it would make the game any 'better'.

• I don't like the idea of only one unit per tile. I think it would make moving troops around more of a hastle than anything.
• Generals and Forts should improve the stack limit, whatever it is.

-As Simple As Possible:
I'm a huge proponent of this one. There's no need to make this complex for just the sake of complexity.

Implementation:

• Some of this would be a significant undertaking, and probably require using the SDK to play around under the hood.
• These are not minor changes, and each one could really mess up the gameplay. Significant testing would really be necessary to balance changes.
• Development of the mod would have to be done in parts, both to balance gameplay and to make it manageable.
• This really is a lot of work to do.
• I have a funny feeling that doing the processing for things like supply chains, plus the extra units the mod seems to be leaning towards making the norm, this mod is going to seriously need to consider the performance hit that all this will bring along with it.
• I'm not going anywhere near the fact that the AI would need serious and heavy modification to use supply chains and to fight anywhere near as effectively with these changes. This isn't a problem if you only play multiplayer games, but for everyone else, this is a serious concern.

In Conclusion:
-I'm personally interested in where this ends up.
-Supply chains and logistics are pretty neat ideas.
-Forts should be more useful.
-Spreading out forces with less stacking and bigger armes may be more realistic, but realistic doesn't always make the game more fun.
-This is gonna be a lot of work.
-Good luck!

FatherDagon said:

Hans, first off, I would like to applaud you on the presentation of your idea. Very clear and easy to read, free of misspellings and it looks clear that you have a plan. You have some pretty interesting ideas here (I'm not sold on all of them though), and I'm glad you're open to discussion on them.

Click to expand...

Sorry for the late reply, and thank you. It seems that my most solid idea was the supply lines, and I will pursue that first. Revising the other aspects of the combat system run afoul of the maxim "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". There already exists an operable combat system, and in order to put upon it my own system, I would have to prove that mine is better. Until it is tested, I won't know whether it even matches the current one.

Later I'll give you an in-depth reply for your post.

I think the best way to do this would be to make small changes, test and repeat.

I was thinking (prompted by a thread in the parent forum) of putting a limit on units in a city. Something like 3 + city size. This means that you can reduce the number of units in a city by pillaging around it to starve the population, thereby decreasing the number of units allowed in the city, which gives a quite strong supply-line representation. Whether the unit is then simply kicked out of the city or destroyed is something to think about, but this is just a simple idea of a small change.

Coding this would be easy, it's easy to test and extend, which is what I see large gameplay modifications needing to do. It's better to build in small increments than dump down a large unmaintainable mass of code at once.

Good ideas Porges. It would be interesting to see a Civ grinding a city down in a siege only to have their supply lines cut behind them.

As to the OP - I think the balancing act of not reintroducing the SOD and having mutually damaging war is a good idea in principle, but perhaps could cause more problems with gameplay than it is worth.

It would be interesting to see if the AI could be coded to understand supply lines in the same way it understands a functioning trade network.

This mod components sounds really interesting!!!!
And with the SDK, AI programming is actually possible, not saying that it's quick and easy, but possible for sure!

Wow, quite a project you have lined up for yourself.

Concerning the 1 unit/tile concept: I really like what you are trying to do here. The thing is, it will be very hard to get it to feel "right". This is because you are trying to do the opposite of what the game was based on. The game as it was created by Firaxis was ment to take into account the strategical aspects of warfare. That is, the player controls the armies/units (made up of thousands of individuals and the generals who command each unit) and tells them were to move, when to stay on the defensive/fortify, and things like that. If you were to move your army to an area occupied by another army, the battle would commense and the player completely loses control at this point. The player allows the general to work out the fine details of the battle; where each individual should go and who he will fight. This is where the "randomness" of cIV battles comes from, since you have no control over the battle itself, the generals do.

What you are trying to do, Hans, is give the player control of the tactical part of warfare. Things like surrounding an enemy, flanking, and the way you describe artillary are all more tactical aspects. I am a bit of a war enthusiast, and I like the tactical implications more than the strategical ones, so I like it.

Concerning forts: I didn't like the way forts were done in cIV either. Bhruic made a RealFort mod, which made forts have some purpose, but still not great (no offense, Bhruic). In his thread, I posted this:

GeneralMikeIII said:

This kinda reminds me of a rather unpleasant arguement I was in before Civ IV was released about ZoC. Anyway, in said arguement I recommended giving a fort a culture bonus, so it is kinda ZoCish kinda colonyish (the loss of colonies in Civ IV is one of the things that I lament the most). Anyway, is there anyway to make it so forts have culture around them, like a city? They would start at 15 culture (so they cast a culture area 1 tile in each direction, on epic game speed), and have no way of producing more culture.

Better idea:
Keep forts like you had them for this mod. Add new unit: the Military Engineer. Acts like settler, but founds "Military Base." Bases are a cross between cities and colonies, and aren't as expensive or time consuming to manage. It would work like this: The engineer would move to the tile you want the base on, like one would with a settler. The founding of the base consumes the engineer. The base is a "city" that has a max culture level of one (for reasons I listed above). It would have no science, culture, or great person production. It would have no population. It would have hammer production that is either 1/2 the production of the highest city in your empire or the average of all (I can't decide which), but only military units and military buildings can be produced.

This idea seems to make sense to me, both historically and strategically, but I am afraid it would be too hard to write in to the game. I'm not good with codes and DOS-like programming (I need my GUI!!), but it was hard enough to explain it in this post; I imagine it would be infinately worse trying to explain it to the computer. I don't know, what does everybody else think?

EDIT: Wow, I never realized how old this thread is. Well, I still might get a response :crosses fingers:.

Click to expand...

The response I got (back in Dec '05) was that Bhruic said it was probably not posible until the SDK comes out, but now it is out. Also, he said he would revisit the issue of forts once it came out, but there have been no new posts in his thread. I could tell Bhruic about this project, Hans, and see if he is interested. He seems like a very talanted modder, and the skill would probably be greatly appreciated in this project.

In the above quote I refer to a thread about ZoC; there were some real good suggestions in that thread too, but too much for me to quote here. This is a link to the ZoC thread (look for the pictures and read their descriptions if you don't have enough time to read the whole thread): http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=131358.

Concerning supply routes & partial damage to units: Bravo, excellent ideas as are :repeats praise said by other people:.

All in all, I really like your ideas here, and there seems to be a lot of other people (like the ones I referenced from other threads). Therefore, it shouldn't be too hard to get this to work out, and I think it will be pretty cool when it does. I am not an expert at this modding thing, but I have some experience and I am a lot better than I said I was back in Dec., so I will offer whatever help I can.

Hey Hans, I really like your Ideas on combat.

One little random thought I have...What do you think of a percentage-based infrastructure level for each tile? A little like Hearts of Iron (if you've played).
With this you could introduce the concept of supply levels(based on the percentages along the supply routes. This could maybe ,say, allow more units on a square, introduce new levels of roads (like path, road, highway), and some other new features.

Anyway, I hope some of that made sense to you, and gives you some more food for thought.

Sincerely,
Patricius

As I said earlier, I intend to focus on supply lines first, since it fills a gap.

I would respectfully ask that discussion be focused on supplies at this point. When the time comes, the other aspects will come up for discussion, but first things first.

Here are some current issues i am working out with the design of the supply system:

1. How do supply lines interact with each other?

• One can hardly imagine that supply trains of two opposing forces could simply pass through each other, fighting would surely break out among the escorts and reinforcements, and all sorts of trouble like that. Consequently, I think that the presence of military forces in an area should create a de-facto zone of influence through which the supply lines of belligerent nations would be unable to propagate. Whoever had military dominance in the area would win out in terms of supply transfer.

2. Ok, so how is this military dominance determined?

• Well...I think it would be like some sort of zone of influence radiated by units, and a contiguous zone would be required for supply transfers, but I'm not sure. Needs Work.

3. "Trade Networks" are obviously cut off in enemy territory, yet troops still need to be supplied there, otherwise war would surely grind to a halt!

• Yes, I can see it now, the "World Peace" mod. But seriously though, a method is needed to supply troops in enemy territory. I can think of 2 possibilities for this:
  -Some unit is created which posesses the function of delivering supplies to nearby troops. This was already proposed with the General, but I think that might be an innapropriate unit.
  -Through military presence or fixed installations(forts, supply camps), a path of control is carved through enemy territory, allowing supplies to come through.
  -Some combination of the two, where supplying units require access to a controlled corridor, but can supply other troops not directly within it.

4. Is there a limit to supplies, and/or what can be supplied? Will nations only be able to provide a limited amount of supply to troops? Will there be some limit on the capacity supplied? Will tanks stop working if you lose access to oil?

• As much as I would love to include all of these, this would be a gross betrayal of the ideal of simplicity. I want supply to be very abstracted; either a unit has supply, or it does not. Having supply capacities for nations would be a difficult mechanism to work out, and add another level of possibly un-necessary complexity. Likewise, there should be no limit to what can be transported through certain corridors and such. Whine all you want, but it's too complex and really won't add that much (lazy? never!). These factors will not be ignored however, maintainance costs for your troops will rise with the number of troops you have (as is already the case), and it will increase with the distance which supplies must be ferried. (Invading the other side of the world is very expensive, don'tcha know? Wouldn't it be easier if you had a friendly port through which you could send the supplies?). I will also disconnect this from access to strategic resources. In reality, the loss of oil would seriously cripple a mechanized army, but to incorporate something like that into the game would require the division of strategic resources into "consumables" and "non-consumables". A lack of iron won't stop a knight dead in it's tracks (unless it's anemia). I think the consequence of not being able to construct new units of that type is a good enough consequence, lest wars degenrate into nothing more than rampant sabatoge-fests. Large distant armies will cost more to maintain, and that is as far as I will go with that (whew, long one).

5.You said that supplies will loosely follow trade networks, but what happens in regions where there are none? And what about in the beginning of the game, when there is nothing. Is my Axe-man rush going to starve to death en-route? Heck, what about early exploration?!

• Ok, this is where I'm going to have to start mucking about with the standard rules some. Certain ancient units like warriors and scouts, and maybe some others will need to be given a new promotion called "Scrounging" or something. Basicly, they will be able to get their supplies from the land around them as they travel, and not have to worry too much about supply lines. This will be mostly restricted to recon units, and maybe some special forces (trained to operate behind enemy lines). Perhaps some sort of military engineer could be brought along to build roads as they go. Maybe there could be two different foraging categories: "Commandos" who can go behind enemy lines, and those who can "Forage" in friendly/neutral territory, or enemy territory with a control corridor.
  Hmm... Needs Work.

6.Gosh, all of these rules and limitations on armies functioning in enemy territory will sure make invading somebody difficult. With such a disadvantage on the attacker, how will you keep wars from becoming too defensive?

• Well, there are really just 4 ways to do it: I can go about this by (1) reducing the hardships of the attacker, (2) increasing their abilities, (3) reducing the abilities of the defenders, or (4) increasing their hardships.
  1: I have toyed with the idea of enemy roads being useable by invading armies. It will certainly spice things up a bit, but I fear it may have poor results in more modern eras (Enemy Cavalry SODs doing 6 tiles per turn in your territory?!!). Perhaps enemy roads could be used, but at double movement-cost.
  2: Sieges!!! An army can lay siege to a city, cutting it off from the rest of the empire, and isolating it from supply*. The city will have a certain number of turns of supplies, and after that their units start suffering. Bombardment by artillery will reduce the duration of their supplies, as well as lowering defenses. If your enemy can no longer dislodge your army from their territory, seems like you should be able to take their cities eventually. Nearby enemy forces can challenge the siege of the city by standing next to it...if they survive. While a siege is challenged, the timer on supply shortages is stopped, but won't be reset unless the siege is in fact broken. Surrounding a city might be necessary to siege it effectively.
  3&4: The defender doesn't get free supply in just any spot in their territory, they too are subject to supply network restrictions. Nearby (non-besieged) cities will provide supply, but in more remote regions of your territory, roads and forst will be needed.
  
  I think that siges will take care of most of these problems (assuming they don't create still more). If you have the time (and money), you should be able to siege and capture cities without the massive losses currently required. If you don't want to, or don't have time to siege, then: "The general, unable to control his impatience, will order his troops to swarm up the wall like ants, with the result that one-third of them will be killed without taking the city. Such is the calamity of attacking cities."- Sun Tzu

7.Where exactly does this supply originate from? Does the posession of just a single city on another continent instantly bring a direct-source of supply to the region? *How can a city be cut off from supply?

• Supply will come from every city you own. If a unit can trace a supply-network back to one of your cities, then it has supply. As for the issue of foot-holds on continents, you will gain a steady source of supply for your armies there, but it will still be expensive. Expense will be judged by the distance from the nearest administrative center, and will be gauged by long it would take to reach that point. Harbors however will reduce this cost, perhaps by half, and so will be needed in your toe-holds. Airports too. Naval blockades and the destruction of transport infrastructure can greatly drive up the cost of supply, and a siege will cause the city to stop supplying altogether. Caostal cities, especially those with harbors, will be resistant to the effects of sieging, and may require a blockade to bring it into submission.

Whew, I hope I have clarified some issues, whether people actually asked about them or not. The definition of valid supply networks looks like it's going to take some work, especially for the ancient era. I may have to even define a new model independant of trade-networks. Sieges and blockades and distance-costs will also need some work...and feedback! I am a bit nervous about introducing sieges, since this will be yet another new game element.