Forts and Firebases

As originally posted by Trias:

Trias said:

I think we can make it easier still (while retaining the same effect). Simply make the unit maintenance cost dependent on the number of movement points needed to reach the nearest friendly city.

To get the idea of managing supply lines this needs to be combined with an occupation mechanic, where units can occupy a tile as an action to give you access to the tile improvements such as roads. You could then occupy roads to reduce the numbe of movement points needed to reach your cities. This however requires you to spread out your forces to occupy the route. Reducing the size of stacks.

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An absolutely excellent idea for getting rid of Stacks of Doom and making warfare a bit more strategic. So with this in mind, I propose new and enhanced utility to Forts and Firebases (please note that Firebases are merely modern names for Forts, and not as some think bases filled with fire, though that would be oddly awesome).

I'd love to see the maps in civ get a greater depth, so that each tile represents less ground than currently in order to give units realistic zones of control and bring deeper utility to siege and archery units (bombard options). Well to be honest I'd like to see a tile-less system but thats not what this is about so please don't post that here, you can instead post your tile-less ideas and groans here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=347674

This post is written with just such an enhanced depth to maps feature implemented.

Anyways, Trias mechanic of securing enemy roads is very realistic and much needed in my opinion. Though the importance of doing so in the present scale of civ is not great (move 3 turns and get to an enemy city) imagine a greater depth map where you gain full use of roads you control and without them it takes you 6 or 9 turns to get from city to city. Ofcourse his post is more then about movement though it's actually about the logistics of keeping an army moving forward, and making stacks at least a little more realistic and manageable.

So in keeping with his original idea I propose that Forts and Firebases be buildable in enemy terrain and exert a zone of control for X amount of squares (upgradeable thru tech ofcourse). Enemy roads (not occupied by enemies and outside of enemy fort's zone of controls) would be useable by your army. This makes it important to defend forts and to take out enemy forts. Furthermore all enemy improvements within your fort's ZoC would be unworkable again making it important for the enemy to liberate these areas by knocking out your forts.

Logistics and Forts:

An army marches on it's stomach, therefore without proper supply lines an army will starve. I propose a logistical limit on units in-game. Now to avoid over-complication and extreme micromanagement this will only be a statistic that takes effect while in enemy territory (so explore away!). Basically a unit's logistic ability will determine it's battle strength while in enemy territory. If you penetrate too deep, too fast, then your logistics will decrease and your units will begin to weaken over time doing reduced damage on defense and offense. Eventually a spearman will indeed beat a tank if you neglect your supply chains.

So how to prevent 'logistics debuff'? As you enter enemy territory combat engineer unit (or a worker, whatever is decided on) that accompanies your troops will establish forts along the advance of your army. The forts will have to be manned by troops (duh) in order for their bonuses to take effect. Each fort will project a ZoC that keeps your troops fully supplied, obviously the range will increase as you tech.

The fort's ZoC will ensure uninterrupted supplies to your troops even if enemies are between your troops and the fort on a road, I know this digresses from reality a bit but this is still a game... I don't wish to completely micromanage every aspect of an invasion and I don't think others do either (feel free to create customized scenarios though). However a Fort will be able to be 'suppressed' by having enemy units move next to it and blockade it (just like in ocean) or by air attacks (giving new functionality and importance to aircraft) or by naval units (if ur fort is supplying troops on a nearby island).

Forts and Logistics pt.2 What value does this actually bring?!

Improved SoD mechanics for starters. It'll be impossible to just penetrate your enemy's empire with an unstoppable stack with complete disregard to rear security. It will also make war a tad more realistic and give more objectives than just taking/killing cities and pillaging improvements. Your mighty SoD will have to split itself amongst route security and front line offensive. By allowing forts to 'liberate' enemy roads then you'll actually be able to respond to a counterattack or someone laying siege to your fort.

Forts and Combat Support:

Forts will take on a new role besides just logistical hubs. Having a forward base inside enemy territory will not only give your units a safe place to heal but provide other passive bonuses as well.

Fire Support
Modern firebases are able to provide units in the field with wide-ranging support options from surveillance to fire support to medical support. With the proper technology an artillery unit will be able to base itself in a fort and provide fire support for units within the fort's ZoC. This could come in a variety of forms: passive bombardment of enemy units within the ZoC, ordered attacks or automatic offensive/defensive assists. Obviously the range which artillery could provide support will increase with tech, modern rocket artillery is capable of incredible range.

Why base arty in a fort and not attach it to your SoD? In the real world artillery with preset fields of fire, preset optimal firing positions and known (not estimated) ranges are exponentially more effective than arty forced to 'quickfire'. The realism blurs a little here since I realize that each turn in civ is a large amount of time, but for the sake of a game concept, and to increase the effectiveness/usefulness of forts the power of fortified artillery would be slightly increased. Also because it IS a fort after-all it would be safe from attack. Again please note that all these concepts are with an increased depth in maps in mind.

Medical Support
Forts can give a passive bonus to health regen in their ZoC, representing troop reinforcements and re-supply. With the advent of Advanced Flight, a feature to allow X amount of units to be airlifted to the safety of a fort could be something to consider. In the real world only Infantry is capable of being picked up by transport helis, but again this is a game.

Combat Support
To represent the dominion of territory part of a Fort's projected power could include passive bonuses to units in it's ZoC. This could take the form of a general passive combat bonus or specific bonuses. Imagine a modern age firebase giving X amount of bonuses to your units per turn, against SPECIFIC units. This could be representative of modern UAVs, UCAVs and sattelite reconnaissance without having to add a new unit or mechanic to the game. The amount of bonuses projected by a fort could be quantified by the amount of support units dedicated to the fort (i'm still pushing for a combat engineer unit here), techs and the size of ZoC. Example:

A modern firebase with 5 combat engineer (or w/e support unit we go with) dedicated to it and a ZoC of 10 tiles can provide 10 offensive or defensive bonuses to 10 different units every turn (2 per support unit). Though you can set the priority, defense over offense, default will be offensive. Your modern armor inside of the firebase's ZoC attacks an enemy mechanized infantry and gains a +25% temporary attack bonus for that specific combat. The bonus is provided by UAV support to that unit's battlespace. End example.

The bonuses, amount of bonuses and all of that can be completely re-worked. This is just to give an idea of what they would do. One possibility is to simply have forts give a blanket bonus to all units in it's ZoC and blanket debuff to enemy units.

Opposing Forts!

When two forts are within each other's ZoC they partly nullify each other's bonuses the closer units are to the opposing fort until eventually reaching a no man's land where no fort has control. The fort's ZoC will clash much like current cultural borders, with the Fort who's tech level is higher and who has the most dedicated support units overpowering the other.

This makes it important to build and man defensive military bases, even during peacetime in your own territory.

Suppressed Forts

A fort can be suppressed by artillery, naval or aircraft bombardment; enemy units blockading; or spy units. A suppressed fort will suffer many of the penalties associated with an opposing fort in it's ZoC and can be completely shut down. Though a fortified position may be too strong to take, you can instead opt to suppress it and nullify any advantage it gives.



There you have it. All aspects are open to discussion and can be changed/replaced as need be. Some things I posted may work, some may not. Some things might even need to be added. So community thoughts now...

Cities could have the same benefits as forts.

I want healers as unit on the battlefield (e.g. StarCraft) instead of being represented as part of the fort. Is that feasible?

ADDED: I forgot... FIRST POAST!

You can already promote units to have medic ability with pretty impressive healing per turn. I don't think a dedicated medic corps would be big enough to really be represented as an individual unit in-game. If it were then you would need several pogue units to represent all the rear-area people that makes an army work lol Just don't let the enemy attack your desk jockeys or you get negative morale due to delayed promotions and awards paperwork!

Also I think that the amount of healing units do regularly is supposed to be representative of healers attached to that unit. Full-blown military hospitals don't do well on the front lines, that big red cross doesn't stop stray shells

A city defenatively would have some of the effects of a fort, however to make forts important and stand-out a city's capabilities would be limited to hosting air units, linking together the logistic's chain and the normal things they currently do. In the end a city isn't nearly as good as a dedicated military staging area for fighting wars (as anyone that's been to Baghdad could tell you) and specially not a newly taken and hostile city (again anyone that's been to Baghdad... ).

I'd actually like to see less over-all importance to cities in Civ 5, and some of their utilities being dispersed to the surrounding country therefore making it important not just to defend a city but to defend your territory!

Actuall Takhisis one exception I would consider is a combat salvage and repair vessel. Since ship units in Civ are generally accepted as being representative of a single unit (unlike ground units) I think the damage they suffer should affect them mechanically as well, slowing down their movement, limiting sight range, limiting air unit capacity (for carriers), etc.

With an enhanced utility to ships a CSR vessel could be a valuable addition. I've been planning on posting my thoughts on enhanced naval mechanics for a while now so stay tuned for that.

Repair vessels... yeap. but that same flag should be available for land units, once again, for modders, then you can simulate healers, druids, wizards, and so forth.

TUNE IN TO trickofthehand's show on Civ FM! Any day, at any hour, HE will be there.

lol

Doesn't Fall from Heaven have that? It's been ages but I swear there's a herbalist unit that lets you heal other units.

trickofthehand, again I like this idea.
I think in medieval times, forts should be capable of being (de)constructed by any infantry unit, or indeed any land unit (except seige). (This should probably hold true throughout the game; though I do like the idea of a military engineer being able to do it quicker).

I'm glad you like my thoughts, it's encouraging. Always thought how fun it would be to actually create videogames (but i'm terrible at coding, just writing and theorycrafting).

Anyways, I've always leaned towards an engineer unit just because with an expanded map they could bring a lot of value to the game. Also I just hate the thought of sending civilian workers in with an invasion force lol (though ironically that's an accurate portrayal of iraq). Military Engineers have won and lost many fights in history, and having been on the receiving end of their support in combat I know that modern wars would be much harder fought without them.

So my thought to add functionality to an engineer unit would be to add them as support elements to forts and firebases which would increase that fort's capabilities and unlock it's full potential. Coupled with some other functions (such as the contentious minefields issue, battle fortifications and reducing enemy fortifications) it would round them out as a functional and necessary unit.

Besides just 'assigning' them to forts to increase their potential I believe this should be the unit responsible for 'unlocking' enemy roads for use by your troops and to allow the flow of supplies. This is realistic (go seabees!) and adds a unique functionality that only 1 unit can accomplish, thus increasing the strategic aspect of war in civ (much much needed). So escort security units would protect the engineer while he 'worked' the road to unlock it for your troops (simulate repairing roads, bridges and clearing debris and battlefield damage).

There's no reason why engineers couldn't be present in all ages besides the Modern Age, a lot of ancient militaries had dedicated engineer corps (the Pesians bridging the Bosporus). Though they may not have been fully indoctrinated members of their respective militaries, they were still responsible for overcoming the physical challenges encountered by their force. So even in ancient times your engineer corps would still be responsible for repairing roads and bridges and making roads accesible for your troops.

With a more detailed and larger scale map engineers could do all kinds of fun things on the defense as well. Rivers would be much bigger challenges in a bigger scale map, limiting how many units per turn can cross (and making bridges strategic goals, war won't be so dumb anymore) and forcing the enemy to either capture your bridges (paratrooper utility, finally!) or build their own (yup, engineer). Defensive engineers could destroy bridges quicker (infantry does not carry enough firepower to do this very fast on their own) and perhaps sabotage roads to increase movement cost until an opposing engineer clears it. Again this is with a bigger scale map in mind, possibly at a scale of current tiles 3-1 (3 tiles for every 1 currently).

More in line with what you said though Civ, infantry certainly could build forts, but an engineer would hasten it.

The problem with all this (and here I agree with Camikaze, who, strangely enough, hasn't posted yet) is that you're getting too close to Civilization: Total War.
Forts and tileless maps are already implemented in the TW games, as well as starvation in besieged cities, etc.

Just because Civ is starting to look like something else doesn't mean that it's a negative thing. Keep in mind it's still Civilization at it's heart and offers much that other titles don't. Borrowing things that work from other titles that works doesn't make it a bad thing. In the end all games borrow heavily from previous titles.

Hopefully this is in line with improvements in other aspects of the game. Yes there is an over-focus on warfare already in civilization, however does this mean that we 'fix' it by completely ignoring it? To tell you the truth I'm kind of sick of the constant "the game is already too war focused!" that plagues these forums. It's all about a constant evolution of the series, in ALL aspects.

trickofthehand said:

To tell you the truth I'm kind of sick of the constant "the game is already too war focused!" that plagues these forums. It's all about a constant evolution of the series, in ALL aspects.

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Yes, and just because 1 suggestion focuses on war (and potentially even makes it more in depth) doesn't mean that other ideas (which broaden more than war) can't be used to balance it.

Giving forts and firebases so much power will lead to forts' and firebases' spam.

do you intend to prevent it?
if, yes, then how?

Just a couple of suggestions to address Hails' concerns. Take some/leave some:

• Forts could cost an upkeep
• Forts have to be manned, if you leave them for more than 1 turn (early-mid game) or 3 turns (later game) they disappear. So unless you are going to have a LOT of thinly spread units, there is no point in spamming.
• Of course the disadvantage with forts is that once the enemy takes them, they get the defensive bonus - so you have to consider that too
• Perhaps the number of forts you could have is included into the military strength calculation; which could make other civs' nervous.

CivMyWay said:

Just a couple of suggestions to address Hails' concerns. Take some/leave some:

• Forts could cost an upkeep
• Forts have to be manned, if you leave them for more than 1 turn (early-mid game) or 3 turns (later game) they disappear. So unless you are going to have a LOT of thinly spread units, there is no point in spamming.
• Of course the disadvantage with forts is that once the enemy takes them, they get the defensive bonus - so you have to consider that too
• Perhaps the number of forts you could have is included into the military strength calculation; which could make other civs' nervous.

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1) + 2) are good ideas to prevent a domestic fort spam, however they may not stop spamming forts in enemy territory. why?
1* if the war front is at a standstill, spammed forts will be need to heal and provide bonuses
2* if the war front is advancing, the previously spammed forts might as well disappear, since they may no longer cover the war front and sending units to heal there is simply wasting turns [with notable exception of, if the player does not have air superiority, enemy bombers may(will?) target healing units in forts to kill them off (yes, i am thinking beyond the civ4 jail cell here!)].

4) would be misleading, mainly because in civ4 the "military strength" is a measure of your military's offensive capabilities(yes, "defensive" units are also not counted AFAIK) and forts are [if aggressive spamming is ignored] defensive structures.

P.S. i am singular: e.g. it should be Hail's concerns. Hails' concerns sounds strange, if not mystifying

I'm too tired to read the whole thread, or the whole OP, for that matter, ATM, but I have to disagree with the original quote from Trias'. I think that, if anything, occupying roads to allow you to use them would only strengthen stacks. You would only have to use a few units to secure a small route (as opposed to many units to secure a wider route that could be used by multiple, smaller stacks), and then you could simply move your whole entire stack along that fast route, doing disastrous damage to the enemy.

So I don't think that that is really the way to go. Allowing for the use of enemy roads only increases the power of the attacker (which is not good given the state of warfare at the moment; very attacker dominant), and increases the power of stacks.

As for this idea, it seems to me to be making too many unnecessary alterations to the combat system to implement a supply system, that could more easily, and perhaps more effectively, be implemented through simply adding it into the current mix.

Takhisis said:

The problem with all this (and here I agree with Camikaze, who, strangely enough, hasn't posted yet) is that you're getting too close to Civilization: Total War.

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This.

As for not replying to this thread earlier; I've been a little busy over the last couple of days. Haven't had enough time to get past the exit from OT.

Yup, they're proposing that the essential mehanics of forts in the Total War games to be added to Civ. Yuck! With one general, you can spam single-unit forts (even hiring mercenaries on the spot) and use their Zones of Control to block the passage of enemy armies, who have to besiege every fort individually.