Unit Support

I looked through the summary of topics thread, but I didn't really see this topic addressed. I believe this issue is simple to implement and can have great impact on the military aspect of the game.

The idea is simple: different types of military units incur different costs in maintenance.

For the life of me, I don't understand why this very simple thing was not incorporated in Civ III, but that just makes it that much more important that it be incorporated into Civ IV.

A country may like to have a hoard of Knights, but God only knows that it simply could not support such an enormous standing army made up of such powerful, expensive units.

The ability to adjust the costs of maintaining units can really have a very interesting historical effect: up until the military rennaissance, it was very difficult for nations to pay for the upkeep of a standing, professional army. Not only the cost to the King's treasury must be reflected, but also the human cost of not having the men around to farm and engage in other such economic endeavors. There should be a direct, impacting cost to maintaining such large militaries --not just "1 gpt/turn"!

In addition, this system could reflect the difference of maintaining a B-2 Bomber force versus a conventional air force, etc. Different military systems have hugely varying associated costs.

One of the huge changes in militaries in the Middle Ages, was the development of firearms. They were cheap to produce, easy to train on, and killed regardless of social class. It was a transformation of the military, including a country's ability to afford and maintain more of this type of "military system".

I believe it is imperative that varying unit support and build costs be reflected in Civ IV, including the human cost of recruiting soldiers away from the economy.

--CK

Actually, #18 in the Civ IV consolidation thread addresses this point.

rcoutme said:

Actually, #18 in the Civ IV consolidation thread addresses this point.

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Oops. Well, that would explain it. I only looked in "Current Topics". Apparently that was has been missed.

Yeah, a warrior would not cost as much to maintain as a battleship...

But then I guess it would still make sense. Whereas a warrior is 1 gold every 50 years, a battleship is one gold every 10 years or less...

Oh well. Please ignore me.

rcoutme said:

Actually, #18 in the Civ IV consolidation thread addresses this point.

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I just read your point #18. I'm glad I added a little more "meat" to that point.

So am I, actually. The consolidation thread was only to consolidate the ideas. The actual ideas were in the thread somewhere. Only when details were necessary were they included.

A reasonable suggestion, Colonel Kraken. The argument often used against this type of feature, however, is that micromanagement would increase, especially on the already tedious military feature of the game.

The UET partially addresses this by requiring population cost, food, and gold for unit support (and please read the summary to see that this array of costs is not as excessive as it first appears), thereby reflecting much more accurately the economic effects of building/maintaining a military. Variable unit costs probably could be implementable quite easily with, say, a system that might have units of a later era cost more than units of an earlier era in terms of maintenance. For slightly more accuracy, have maintenance vary depending upon whether a unit is a land, sea, or air unit. With the UET, variations in the food and population cost depending upon type and era could also allow further differentiation! Whatever the case, the system ought to be streamlined and intuitive as much as possible.

MSTK said:

But then I guess it would still make sense. Whereas a warrior is 1 gold every 50 years, a battleship is one gold every 10 years or less...

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It still doesn't make sense because when you are building warriors you make 10g per 50 years and when you build battleships you are making maybe 100-1000g per 10 years.

Trade-peror said:

A reasonable suggestion, Colonel Kraken. The argument often used against this type of feature, however, is that micromanagement would increase, especially on the already tedious military feature of the game.

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I don't understand why there would be any input from the player. Even in the current iteration of the game, it would be a simple matter to have a radial dial selector in the editor for each unit: Maintenance Cost per Turn. The computer soaks your treasury accordingly every turn. In fact, it already variable unit costs, but only on a per government basis, not per unit.

This, in my opinion, is a VERY easy item to implement with NO extra input from the player (except for them to note that x unit costs more than y unit to maintain. )

Unfortunately, Colonel Kraken, having to note that x unit costs more than y unit is interpreted by some as warranting extra micromanagement simply because they now have to "plan" some combination of units that would be most effective both in the field and for the economy--compared when they simply needed to worry about military efficiency. As much as intertwined socio-politico-economic decisions seem to be the strategic essence of playing Civ for me, I have heard others comment negatively in other threads before.

I would feel bad for the poor Ai, they'd be broke and depopulated.

Trade-peror said:

Unfortunately, Colonel Kraken, having to note that x unit costs more than y unit is interpreted by some as warranting extra micromanagement simply because they now have to "plan" some combination of units that would be most effective both in the field and for the economy--compared when they simply needed to worry about military efficiency. As much as intertwined socio-politico-economic decisions seem to be the strategic essence of playing Civ for me, I have heard others comment negatively in other threads before.

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Poor babies. Oh, no. Not more realism!

This issue only really bothers me in the end of the game, when the cost of maintaining an ICBM or even cruise missile is the same as a destroyer or mechanised infantry unit. The US and USSR had tens of thousands of nuclear warheads in the Cold War, not tens of thousands of battleships.

True. But what could be an easy way to remember all the different costs? I would suggest perhaps assigning costs by broad "classes" of units (infantry, tank, missile, aircraft, etc.) and also by age (modern units cost more to maintain than ancient units).

As a side note, this does not contribute to spearman vs. tank, because I want the probability of the spearman beating the tank to be 0 (though the chance of damaging the tank is not). But that's another discussion...