Supply wagon

Currently in Civ 4, units heal at a much faster rate when inside their empire boarder, and heal at much slower rate when inside enemy territory. This feature should be kept, along with another feature of increasing maintenance cost for units inside enemy territory.

I like to suggest a new unit called "supply wagon" (or whatever else you want to call it). This supply wagon will be able to restore 3 units to full health immediately. Once the supply wagon has restored 3 units to full health, it is disbanded automatically. Furthermore, like spies, and missionaries, there can be no more than 3 supply wagons at a time.

I suggest this idea because there are much talk about the need to implement supply line feature into the game. If there can be no more that 3 supply wagon existing at any time, we are required to constantly produce new supply wagon, and send them into enemy territories. Upon entering enemy territories, these wagons face the possibility of being eliminated by enemy units, unless they are successfully protected by our own units. This, I believe, is a pretty decent simulation of supply/logistic issues that had troubled military planners throughout history.

Well, they key to having supply wagons is not to make them tedious. Less units in Civ 5 should mean less tedium in using supply wagons as compared to what it would be like to use them in Civ 4. However, this still doesn't seem to represent a continuous stream of supply, such as a supply line system would offer.

No thanks, there was enough stupid micro with wagons in Civ4:Col

Nah, if you want to do supply you should just do it the standard way. You must be able to trace a line back to a supply point (in this case, a city or fort you own) without passing through any tiles occupied by enemy units, or be "out of supply", meaning no movement and some combat penalties.

The problem with that is that you can trace some pretty unrealistic lines, going around the entire world to get to one or two tiles in the opposite direction, conceivably. Which would be okay but for the fact that such a system doesn't take into account varying costs of supply lines of varying lengths. Now if it does, then there's your idea, but otherwise...

double post!

Camikaze said:

The problem with that is that you can trace some pretty unrealistic lines, going around the entire world to get to one or two tiles in the opposite direction, conceivably.

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Theoretically ... but it would practically never happen, and lots of good rules are going to have some conceivably odd possibilities that might happen in rare circumstances. You probably should not be able to trace through neutral territory with which you do not have right of passage agreement, nor through unexplored lands. The first would prevent the situation in the middle or late game, the second would prevent it in the early game. It should also have to be traced through a port when going overseas.

A maintenance fee is untenable, because it would penalize exploration.

Not that I really think supply should be in civ at all. I'd like it, but I think it would make the game intimidating and confusing to some. There is an ideal level of complexity for civ, and adding a feature like this would mean dropping some other feature. It would make a good mod ... but not good for vanilla, I think.

Why wouldn't it happen? I assume the point of having a supply system would be that the opposition can somehow break the supply lines. Otherwise the system is only there for the sake of the system. So if your opponent does try and break your supply line, then you are going to have to have it go on a more obscure path. Of course, it may not happen if your opponent realises that it's pointless trying to block your supply because you will always be able to find a path, but then the point is moot anyway.

As for a maintenance fee penalising exploration; I see absolutely no problem with this, given that it is completely realistic, and wouldn't adversely effect gameplay in any major way.

And as for supply being in the game at all, well, IMO it is a necessary improvement for the warfare system of civ. It seems odd to have a game that is apparently largely based on war, without any adequate representation of logistics.

Camikaze said:

Why wouldn't it happen? I assume the point of having a supply system would be that the opposition can somehow break the supply lines. Otherwise the system is only there for the sake of the system. So if your opponent does try and break your supply line, then you are going to have to have it go on a more obscure path.

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So what? Units should not easily be isolated from supply. The attacker should have to completely surround a unit or pocket of units.

IMO, it's more realistic for the onus to be on you to maintain your own supplies, rather than on the opposition to somehow miraculously disrupt them.

Look st this thread where the merits of supply lines, supply wagons, moveable supply depots and supply zocs are discussed http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=341728

As for a maintenance fee penalising exploration; I see absolutely no problem with this, given that it is completely realistic, and wouldn't adversely effect gameplay in any major way.

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The problem is; exploration provides no direct benefits, but its something that we observe happening. So providing penalties for it just makes it something the player isn't going to bother doing.

And as for supply being in the game at all, well, IMO it is a necessary improvement for the warfare system of civ.

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I think that including an explicit supply/logistics model is about the single worst thing they could do to Civ. Its a level of hassle to deal with that just isn't fun, and doesn't appeal to casual players. In war, I want to be focused on invading and conquering and fighting enemy units, not on making sure that my army has enough food and fuel. Similarly attrition or disease; we want to lose our soldiers by fighting the enemy, not from having dysentery strike our camp and kill 1/4 of our army.
Abstracting supply into just having maintenance costs (that are higher when in enemy territory) is absolutely the right way to go. Clean, simple, uncluttered, easy for the AI to cope with.

I have also never seen a game with supply implemented in a way that mattered where the AI was not seriously messed up by it. It is *always* easier for the human player to deal with supply and logistics for the AI. I'm thinking for example of Hearts of Iron, where it ended up being pretty easy to cut enemy supplies and thus make destroying their army in big chunks.
We don't want that.

[Another thing from hearts of iron; the tedious hassle of having to cart resources around, running supply chains from your colonies back to England, or setting up fuel dumps to keep your ships going through the Pacific. Ugh! Its one thing in an actual wargame, but its another entirely for something designed much more for casual players.]