Tantor`s simple system for upkeep and supply

[Tantor]

Starting in the exploration thread a made suggestion wich will both restrict exploration and be a simple supplysystem; my suggestion is as follows.

Units outside of your borders demands a higher upkeep the further away from your border it moves. Upkeep should require both food and gold.

This means that for every X (10?)- hex radius it moves away from your border it will cost you more to sustain your army or to explore the world. Thus it will be quite expensive to send a fishing vessel around the globe early on or to send your army far away from your source of supply.

Different techs (medicine, refrigeration, compass etc) should reduce this upkeep cost by increasing the supply radius, and some units such as scouts, explorers and caravels negate upkeep altogether. A "scout" promotion may also negate cumulative upkeep.

Allies and forts may also be sources of supply, as long as the fort is no more than
X -(10?) hexes away from you border or another supplied fort. This way you may form a line of supply for fort to fort, wich must be protected or your unit upkeep may increase substantially if you`re army is suddenly out of supply.

With this system:
- a civ may invest in exploration by choosing to pay the costs or develop techs that make it cheaper
- we have an abstracted supply chain which can be attacked and must be protected
- Forts get a new meaning
- It will be important to have cities all over the world as a source of supply for armies and your navy, such as Great Britain had during the 1800`s.
- The map won`t be explored after 100 turns

Perhaps I`m waaay off with this but please give me some feedback....

[Shurdus]

Two things: the more specific you get about the system - like saying 'for every 10 hexes this and this - the more iffy it gets. The notion that some system for upkeep should be there is fine imo, getting into the exact details is pushing it because of the limited insight we have in the game at this point.

Also the goals you have states in the end of the post are goals where I can hardly see where the need for those goals are coming from. In other words I do not understand why you would want to satisfy those needs. Do we need to limit exploration? Why so? Do we need supply lines? Why? Would we want a system where one has cities all over the globe?

I can see that you may want more realism or what have you, but I fail to see why this is a step in the right direction. It seems like a hassle where I think there was nothing wrong with the original system. So what if I can explore the map of the known world by turn 100? In most games a lot of the map is revealed by trading maps rather than having all sorts of people walk all over the place. This is mimiced in Civ IV, and I will be a happy player to see that back in Civ V.

[Suho1004]

Sounds interesting, and it seems like a reasonable idea. I wonder how it would work with the rest of the mechanics of the game, though. For example, in Civ4, having far-flung cities is not all that realistic. I don't know if it works the same way in Civ5, but essentially you would have to choose between paying city upkeep for far-flung cities or maintenance for far-flung units. We will have fewer units, but still.

I do like the idea of having a supply chain, and it sounds like it will fit with the more tactical approach to combat of Civ5, but it's hard to say at this point how it would jive with the game overall. If there is no system like this in vanilla Civ5, I imagine someone could mod it.

(I've heard counter-arguments to the whole supply line business, though, saying that it would make things too complicated, but I don't think I would be able to pass judgment until I got to play with such a system.)

That was a bit jumbled. Bottom line: sounds like a nifty idea, but I don't know how it will work in reality.

[And Shurdus was a little quicker on the draw. He mentioned something that I was thinking about but forgot to write: for as unrealistic as it might be, I've always liked sending out my lone warrior/scout to explore the great unknown. I would be a bit sad if that went away.]

[Thyrwyn]

I like it - except the food part. Food from where?

[Shurdus]

From the city that trained a unit? Seems farfetched to think that anyone would ever go through a great deal of trouble to bring food to some people doing exploring work... And since with this system units eat up food when far away from home but not when they are close to home, it makes even less sense. Add to that the fact that ancient cities clearly did next to nothing to support explorers because the cities could not possible bring them any resources in that day and age and then the notion of cities supporting units that are hundreds of miles out seems even more rediculous.

[Ahriman]

I don't think that food as an upkeep cost works well. Upkeep costs that are localized resources mess up the city that has to pay the upkeep, we saw that in early versions of civ where units cost shields to upkeep. I'd also argue that the food required to support an army is relatively small proportion of the total food produced by a country.

A campaigning army (for most of human history) is usually a relatively small number of people relative to the total population of the country that sent it off.
Think of say the English expeditionary force in France during the 100 years war, army size 15,000 relative to an England + wales population of 2-4 million (depends pre- or post-black death). So we're talking less than 1% of the population for the entire army.

Higher upkeep for units outside your borders (as opposed to in enemy territory, which we already have in Civ4) seems feasible, my main concern is an AI one. The AI spends a lot of time with its armies en route to wars it never ends up fighting in much, and with units out exploring around somewhat aimlessly.
Care would have be taken to ensure that the AI didn't wreck its economy by moving units outside its borders unnecessarily.

[Tantor]

Shurdus: Systems for supply, limitataions of early exploration and importance of empire building like Victorian Britain has been raised numerous times in several threads and by several members of this forum. This my suggestion to cover them all in a very abstracted way.

Suho: you can still send out a lone ranger, but it may cost you more and it may be a strategic decision to do it or not.

Thyrwyn: Perhaps food from the nearest city or perhaps you`ll need food resources like wheat to cover X unit upkeep. Or maybe food was an alltogether bad idea?

My suggestion may be twisted an adjusted so it works in the game, but believe it may introduce something many people hav asked for without making the game too complicated.

[ETa]

The way it worked at least to the 18th century was that army ate local food. This is already happening in Civ as cities can't get any output from hexes with hostile troops.

[Tantor]

Originally Posted by ETa

The way it worked at least to the 18th century was that army ate local food. This is already happening in Civ as cities can't get any output from hexes with hostile troops.

This is not a system that is realistic, but it may work within the framework of a game. Even though armies etc foraged in the field, the country invested a lot to put them there, hence the abstracted upkeep.....

[Shurdus]

Originally Posted by Tantor

This is not a system that is realistic, but it may work within the framework of a game. Even though armies etc foraged in the field, the country invested a lot to put them there, hence the abstracted upkeep.....

They maybe invested a lot after Roman times when the idea of a provesional army was implemented...

Before that maybe the provided you with a reward for your family if you fell, or ith land if you made it back. All this is reflected in the game already with unit upkeep...

[Ahriman]

Even though armies etc foraged in the field, the country invested a lot to put them there, hence the abstracted upkeep.....

Abstracted upkeep is fine, but *food* upkeep limits the population size and growth of your cities. I don't think this is a desirable abstraction.

[Shurdus]

Originally Posted by Ahriman

Abstracted upkeep is fine, but *food* upkeep limits the population size and growth of your cities. I don't think this is a desirable abstraction.

INdeed, even moreso since for this to make any sense one would have to assume that the city feeds the unit by shipping food - which of course is complete nonsense.

Upkeep in terms of commerce sacrificed is fine imo, since basically that is what maintaining an army does - it drains the economy so that money spend on armies cannot be spend otherwise.

In general I like the ideas of supply lines and everything, I think it is a solid idea. What I dislike however is putting this kind of complexity in Civ. There are games that are no doubt more suited for this kind of complexity that Civ is. If this would be in Civ there would be no telling what would happen if you moved your unit one more tile to the south... WIll that cost you more food? WIll it cause your economy to dip into the red numbers? This is not something I want to worry about in detail. There are other games more suited for this kind of complexity.

[Impaler[WrG]]

I think a simpler 'level' based supply cost might work. Inside your territory you have 'normal' upkeep cost. Within your 'supply' area which radiates from your territory and forts you incur double upkeep and outside of that triple cost (or worse, like being unable to heal or even attrition). This would be simple enough to allow the supply to be displayed on the map with some kind of crosshatched team color. Some kind of supply wagon or Duce and a half unit could generate some supply or late game cargo planes stationed in an airbase could generate supply over a larger radius. Lots of other interesting effects could be attached as well.

Keeping supply an area based effect is really the best way to go, I wouldn't try to consume basic resources like food and hammers. That's an idea who's time is long past, the paying of maintenance in gold is a much better system and should be built upon.

[Ahriman]

I think inside/outside/enemy is likely to work better than a distance/radius-based system.

Distance-based would have all kinds of weird implications, like being easier to supply a "close" but inaccessible area on the other side of an impassible mountain range, but harder to supply something a moderate distance away on the coast that could easily be reached by coastal shipping.

[Crazy George]

I would refine the system to Friendly/Neutral/Enemy.

[Ahriman]

What's the difference?

How is friendly defined? Open borders? Or more than that?

Open borders is probably sufficient, more than that gets complex.

[V. Soma]

Lots of ideas may come up here

For example:

There is a pathfinding routine, isn't it?
There could be a calculation - from the unit to the nearest own city:

Find the path that is the best/cheapest for supply, factors are (mindstorming here):

- terrain (like mountain cost a LOT, also ocean is "different", plains are cheapest)
- own/friendly/enemy area

EDIT: maybe you couldn't even pass through mountains, not even with supply...

I don't take roads into account as those would not be in civ5 as movement enhancing factor

it would be calculated for each unit and could be seen for each too
(when you mouse over or right click or whatever )

It could work as there is one military unit per tile anyways

[Shurdus]

WHat I see as a major flaw with the distance as the base factor for maintenance is that once units are on a ship, it matters little where they peddle to. WHat do you care if your huge flagship lies in front of your own coast, or that it is stationed in enemy waters? In both cases it has been supplied, the men are getting a steady paycheck, everything is the same.

Sure resupplying may be an issue, but most marine ships leave the harbors with a solid equipment and they need not resupply for months.

[V. Soma]

Originally Posted by Shurdus

once units are on a ship, it matters little where they peddle to.

didn't I say ocean is "different"?
it could be cheap tile as for supply count...
(but maybe there would be a time limit for supply then?
So you couldn't just sail for eternity...)

[Shurdus]

That would bring a whole new host of problems, like it being no fun to bring your ships home because the crew ran out of fresh veggies. What will happen, will the digital men get digital vitamin deprivation?