Military realism

D

Dieterbos

Chieftain
Joined
Sep 19, 2003
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19
Location
The Netherlands
Two ideas:

1- Instead of only economical mobilisation as in CivIII, I would like to see a system of putting your military units on various stages of readiness. The idea is a bit as in Civ CTP, with units costing more upkeep when they are in a higher state of readyness. When in a higher state of readiness they have more hit-points and thus they are stronger. It would be great if you can select the readiness state per unit.

2- The combat system could have some improvement in the fact that some unit types fight well against other in certain terrain. Infantry vs Armour in the open field would have a very hard time, but Infantry vs Armour when dug in in a city, or jungle would be a totaly different story. Such a system would force players to have a true combined arms army. No unit will be unbeatable in all situations, which can be the case in the current system.
 
I agree on the different terrain bonuses. my archer poised on the mountain should get an attack bonus, not just a defense bonus, because he can just chill safely up top letting the arrows rain down.
 
@redstang :goodjob: Your archers certainly have a better bow pull than mine. My archers can not fire much beyond 300m (longbowmen maybe 600m). Yours are firing over 100 miles!

On a serious note, there is another thread dealing with this (see Ybbor's sticky). As for terrain bonuses being given for certain units from attack, this will be addressed in the Civ Consolidation Project that some of us are doing.

For economic mobilisation effects: what, precisely, do you propose? One of the major, big-time, hugish, enormous problems that CTP had was then units had a delay time for increasing mobilization, except if they were just created. Thus, units that had been training all their lives (albeit with fewer bullet to use) were less well trained than raw recruits who just happened to have their organization created after an increase in the mobilization level was declared!

I am looking to include this in the CCP, but have yet to see a good fix.

Edit: According to one source that I found, the maximum distance for flight arrows from an English longbow is about 400m.
 
The whole idea of a delay in getting your forces up to full strength adds the extra in my opinion. That way, you'll need to keep an eye out for sneak attacks, and you will realy need to consider which units to be "demobilised" and which units will be on full strenght. You could have certain quick reaction troops as alert units ready to deploy rapidly to buy time for your main forces to mobilise and get to the front. This is something NATO planners have been looking at for over forty years, and mobilisation timetables where one of the underlying reasons the crisis in the summer of 1914 got out of hand. I think it would add immense depth and realism to the game to add such a mechanic. The option for mobilisation of your army would off course become available with the advent of conscription.
 
i like the idea of military mobilaztion, altough, not with the delay. and maybe not xtra hitpoints, but definatly defense, and probably attack.
 
Your archers can fire 600m! Blimey. The epitome of the longbowman (the English Longbowman that massacred the French at Agincourt) could fire 250 yards (around 230m).

But more seriously, some kind of mobilisation cost should be done. You should be able to keep units in reserve at a fraction of the cost but unusable until they are needed in war, at which time you could pay to mobilise them.

Also it would be nice to have some form of logistical requirement. The Navy needing to return to Port every now and then instead of exploring the globe for 100+ years! Would make combat a little more realistic.
 
Actually, longbowmen could fire nearly 600 m given the right conditions. Not only that but the rock singer, Ted Nugent, once pegged a squirrel at about 220m.

Edit: According to one internet source, the English Longbow could fire about 400m (on a level surface).

I am thinking of suggesting (in the Civ4 Consolidation Project) that two mobilization levels should exist. These levels would be Peace and War. The costs would be double for wartime mobilization. The effect of peacetime mobilization would be that each unit would have half its hp (rounded up). Thus, the delay would depend upon where your unit was. If it is in a city with a barracks, then it would take only one turn to fully mobilize. If it was out in the open, then it might take two turns to fully mobilize.

Given that moving a unit means that it will not 'heal' hp, I think that this system would work out.

I will also suggest different mobilization levels for sea & air (together) vs ground units.

Please give me your comments.
 
rcoutme said:
I am thinking of suggesting (in the Civ4 Consolidation Project) that two mobilization levels should exist. These levels would be Peace and War. The costs would be double for wartime mobilization. The effect of peacetime mobilization would be that each unit would have half its hp (rounded up). Thus, the delay would depend upon where your unit was. If it is in a city with a barracks, then it would take only one turn to fully mobilize. If it was out in the open, then it might take two turns to fully mobilize.
Click to expand...

Seems kinda skimpy to me. Now, don't get me wrong. I like the idea of two levels of mobilization. But I think it needs to be more fleshed out that this. How long in a city without barracks?

Or even when going into war mobliziation, having the unit upkeep cost twice as much (or an extra gold, whatever) but give the unit an A/D bonus. After all, they're at a higher stage of readiness. keep the peacetime as 'normal', with no bonus'. Perhaps even an option to go into a 'standdown' readiness, where unit support is half of normal, but the a/d penalty is equal to the wartime bonus.
 
@Turner 727: Yes a more detailed system would be better. :goodjob: I was suggesting what would be a quick fix that could be added right on to the existing Civ3 system. Thus: how long in a barracks, etc. Well, since an elite unit would normally have 5 hp, in a lesser mobilization it would have 3 hp (with two shown as damage). Resting in any city (actually even a barracks is extraneous) would give it back its 2 hp due to mobilization loss. This would not occur until the turn after mobilization, so you would basically lose one turn if you chose to heal all of your units.

The reason that I chose it this way was to prevent the dichotomy that I mentioned earlier in this thread, the possibility of creating a new "raw recruits" veteran unit that was better than an elite unit that had been training all its life, albeit with fewer bullets. In CTP there was something like a 10 turn delay for units to get up to full strength, but new units started that way! I was trying to come up with a way of avoiding this.

In my system if there is only a 1 turn delay then no new unit would come in 'More Mobilized' than a previously existing unit that spent the turn in a city.
 
c-mattio said:
Your archers can fire 600m! Blimey. The epitome of the longbowman (the English Longbowman that massacred the French at Agincourt) could fire 250 yards (around 230m).
Click to expand...

Some people actually did an experiment regarding this and they found that the longbow arrow cannot pierce the armor the French knights wore but that in fact the French lost because their steel boots got stuck in the mud and they all fell down while the agile, unarmored bowmen finished them off with daggers.
 
According to a program I watched (which experimented) a longbow had considerable penetrance and could easily piece plate armour. On a flat surface, range was 250 yards, but with the advantage of a hill it could increase to around 400 yards. I'm sure this is a somewhat academic debate anyway!

I think that two states of mobilistaion should exist, like rcoutme but these should be Ready and Reserve. A Ready unit can move and fight as normal, but has a logistical requirement for support. A Reserve unit cannot fight (I suppose it could defend at a reduced ability), cannot move and cost little or nothing in support. It represents fully trained military personel who have returned to civilian jobs maybe and thus activating them incurs a mobilisation cost.
 
@c-mattio: That would work for me too. Anything to get the modern mobilization system into the game would be welcome.
 
It wasn't necessarily the piercing power of the arrows that mattered against the French knights. They wore armor in excess of 100 lbs, and the kinetic energy of the arrows (longbow arrows aren't those cute little ones like regular bows', they're 3 feet long) would knock the knights off their horses, where the infantry could slaughter them.
 
Dieterbos said:
but Infantry vs Armour when dug in in a city, or jungle would be a totaly different story. Such a system would force players to have a true combined arms army. No unit will be unbeatable in all situations, which can be the case in the current system.
Click to expand...

I have said this before and I say it again: Civ forces you to attack cities. It's the only way to ultimately drive your enemy back, unless he's the one on the offensive. The only way to work around this is introducing supply into the game, read my thoughts on it at http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=85496

Nevertheless I really liked your ideas! :goodjob:
 
NO!!!! Dear God, NO!

Ok, sorry, just wanted to go on record as strongly opposed to anything resembling that readiness system from Call to Power. Think of the time scale of the game...what nation has ever taken 20 years to mobilize for war? Hell, few wars last that long. Yet with turns often representing several years, that's what that readiness system leads to.

Hated it, hated it, and don't want to see the real Civ sullied by the likes of it.
 
Why don't you folks that want a complex military game go and play wargames instead of trying to convert civ into one?

We are dealing with six thousnad years here. Even in the modern era with one year per turn, a conflict like WWII would be six turns from start to end.

Conflicts in Civ are not meant to represent battles or wars in a realistic way. They are meant to represent the conflict of cultures and (especially) technologies over long time frames. It just so happens that the easiest model to implement in game terms looks a bit like conventional warfare, but the time frame makes it obvious that this is a convenience rather than an integral requirement for the game.
 
Mobilization and readiness do not take into account the span of time in years, decades, and centuries that pass in Civilization. I would rather have true "army" icons, with several different units being part of that army. On the map you see one unit, like always; and when you meet there might be a score of soldiers there. Of course scouts and other recon units become really useful to forewarn of such possibilities. I just think that mobilization and readiness, where the computer has to negotiate how long each unit has been training, with or without a barracks, or whether they have had shore leave or not, is a terrible waste of computer resources, considering that it will have to do that for every player. I would rather use those resources to support 16+ players in multi-player, rather than eight.
 
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