Revamping units so they last longer

Something I've noticed in Civ: most units end up being killed in the end. In one Civ war, I'll estimate that around 70-80% of all units that fight in that war are killed before the war ends. That's horrible. If real wars were like that, every war would be like the apocalypse and only sucidal people would become soldiers. Obviously, Civ is only a game, but it would still be nice if some units had a chance go survive. So, a few suggestions for changing that:

1. Units should not be automatically killed when they are defeated. There should be other possibilities, such as the defeated units becoming slaves or POW, as well as being slaughtered. But, what their exact fate would be would depend on the combatting civs, and their eras. An ancient civ would probably enslave who they've defeated, an aggressive civ would kill them, and a modern civ would take them prisoners, etc. That doesn't mean that units would never be killed, but there would be more or less of a chance.
2.There should be a limit to how many units could be recruited from each particular city. Meaning that you wouldn't be able to just keeep sending and sending units out to be butchered. In a city of 100,000, for example, you would only be able to recruit 10,000 people (lets say one unit would be equal to around 100 people). So, this way, players would have to be more 'strategic', and wouldn't just keep recruiting and recruiting until they won.
3.There should be revolts if too many units have been killed. This wouldn't really be on a national level, but for each city. If, for example, 55% of a particular city's units have been killed during the war, the city would revolt. This would -again- force players to save as many units as possilbe, and it would also make it harder to run centuries-long wars.
**NEW SUGGESTION I JUST THOUGHT OF, THOUGH VERY, VERY, OBVIOUS**
4.There should be more of a chance to retreat. Because that's usually a real-life possibility, unless a army is surrounded. Maybe the player would be given the chance to retreat whenever the health bar's colour changes. But that would probably get annoying-maybe it could be disabled.

Suggestions, comments, all welcome, as usual.

You can achieve this goal to a certain degree already, via a mod, by simply giving every unit the ability to withdraw from combat (thus fewer units dying). That should boost the number of units that make it through a war.

Also, your #3 is handled already with war weariness (though not exactly as you want it) - the concept is there - is it not?

#1 - I like the notion that defeated units becomes POWs. their fate depends to the civ who have controlled them.
#2 - I hate it. Instead, this can kill a Civ. Because the number of units is limited, the player will build more cities, hence exaggerately increasing the city maintenace, and eating all gold the Civ has, and seeing units suddenly removed because they launched a "strike".
#3 This is already handled with war we3ariness, with limitations.

#1: In the game, you see the units get killed, but maybe they just scattered to the wilderness or flee back to their homes. I get your point, I dislike the idea that if a unit dies, then all the soldiers die, while if it has some insignicant health left, it can return to full life. It is hard to get a balance here. POW may be a solution, but not a good one.

#2: This put small civilization at a huge disadvantage, although I do agree that this should be implemented.

#3: Maybe. In the ancient times, if you are an uneducated peasant soldier and you disobey your superior, then you'll be sentenced to death. Not all people will risk their necks over others' deaths. Even war weariness is kind of a bit unrealistic in the game (at least till renaissance).

raigainousa said:

#2 - I hate it. Instead, this can kill a Civ. Because the number of units is limited, the player will build more cities, hence exaggerately increasing the city maintenace, and eating all gold the Civ has, and seeing units suddenly removed because they launched a "strike".

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The fix here is to scrap "city maintenance" and go back to costs per building. the city maintenance mechanic only exists to slow down expansion. This is not an unambiguously good thing.

Units costing one or two shields per turn, and possibly food per turn as well, from a home city, worked to an extent in Civ 1/2. There should be a way of combining that with Civ3-type army maintenance costs.

Units costing one or two shields per turn, and possibly food per turn as well, from a home city, worked to an extent in Civ 1/2. There should be a way of combining that with Civ3-type army maintenance costs.

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Probably we can add Military civcs here to alleviate for the maintenance costs.

Yes the fix is always scrapping how CIV4 does something and going back to a previous version. When yer done gutting CIV will there be anything left?

Balderstrom said:

Yes the fix is always scrapping how CIV4 does something and going back to a previous version. When yer done gutting CIV will there be anything left?

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Of the things that are new in Civ IV ?

Religion. Corporations. Terrain improvements to water squares, though done with workers rather than workboats. maybe some of the new wonders. that's it. Civ IV is a travesty of many of the things that have been good since Civ 1.

And if there was an application of only allowing a limited amount of units per city, then there should be civics that make it possible to recruit a larger percentage of the population, and some of the more peaceful civics might decrease the number.

And I do like the idea of units not dying so easily, something should be done about it, though POWs still kind of leave you with no unit anyway.

I don't know what kind of war you're fighting, but I don't lose 70% of my troops.

If I'm losing up to 80% of my troops; either I'm rushing a city with outdated units and no seige, or I'm seriously in the crap and my civ is spiralling down the tube. Either way, the troops are merely fodder and deserved to earn their keep.......back to front boy!

I don't want them to be held as prisoners or slaves; if they fail the mission, I'd rather they died a glorious death than be used by the enemy for hard labour (adding to their hammer output!?).
Killed, enslaved, prisoner etc, the unit is still broken up and lost.....

OK, maybe not 70%-80%, but definetely more than in a real war. What I've noticed is, whenever the computer fights a war, it just keeps on recruiting units and sending them to enemy units until one side wins. Same goes for me, too, though I can't speak for other players.
The problem with that is, that's not how real wars work. Yeah, a lot of people get killed, and they're very deadly and all, but some survive. In real battles (at least until a few centuries ago), the losing army lost a few soldiers(in proportion to the total army), and retreated for a while. In civ wars, battles end when the opposing army is annihilated. In real wars, if entire armies get slaughtered, it's called a massacre and everyone is horrified. But, in a civ war, if a unit(representing an army of hundreds, Im assuming) gets killed, it's not that big of a deal, because there's another unit right behind it to take it's place. Human lives are really, really, cheap in Civilization*. That's what I think the problem is.

*Yes, it's a computer game and all, none of this real, units are just graphics and words. But it's a computer game that that's supposed to be a simulation of real civilizations. Where's the human factor?