[Vote] (6-68) Increase Unit Maintenance (Particularly for Large Armies)

[axatin]

Proposal: Change the defines used to control unit maintenance costs as follows:
UNIT_MAINTENANCE_GAME_MULTIPLIER = 8 (from 7)
UNIT_MAINTENANCE_GAME_EXPONENT_DIVISOR = 5 (from 6)

Rationale/Explanation: For a warmonger that fields a large and advanced army, unit costs should be one of the constraints that need to be dealt with. With the current unit maintenance cost calculation, this is often not the case. Both changes proposed here will increase unit maintenance costs in the late game. The first change will increase costs based on the tech progress of the player. The second change will increase costs based on the army size, large armies will be considerably more expensive to maintain. This will also partially address the issue of having tedious late-game combat and a lot of micro-management due to the extremely large late-game armies.

Note that the first value (UNIT_MAINTENANCE_GAME_MULTIPLIER) was reduced last congress from 8 to 7 as part of the rework how unit scaling over time is calculated. The reduction was done to make sure unit costs wouldn't become too high, but that fear seems to be unwarranted as there are several reports that it's easily possible to maintain large armies late in the game (link). An increase of unit maintenance based on tech progress serves a similar purpose as the idea to increase the costs needed to upgrade units that was suggested in the that thread.

If you want to see how these changes affect unit maintenance in your current game, you can replace the file "(2) Vox Populi/Database Change/DefineChanges.sql" with the attached file (4+ versions only).

Spoiler Previous Version of the Proposal :

The first version also included a change to AI maintenance costs:
"AIInflationPercent changed from 100 to 90 on all difficulties (that means the AI will have to pay only 90% of a humans unit maintenance costs)"
Rationale: "Unit costs are reduced for the AI compared to the human players because the AI are already struggling with domination victories so those shouldn't be made even more difficult for them."

But as maintenance costs are already lower for the AI, this won't be necessary

Database Changes

 

[Stalker0]

I commonly find gold drops like a stone in industrial, and I will often go negative GPT. not in every game, but in several.

at this point I think supply reductions are better tools to reduce late game armies the more maintenance.

 

[Amask]

Couldn't disagree more about the supply system being a better tool.
This change is what should've been done in the first place before that system was ever created.
If that wasn't enough, progressive smooth scaling of unit production costs based on how many you have already.
If someone wants to keep investing into more army, it should be their choice, instead of having their production grind to a halt by having 10 units too many, regardless of whether that's 30 with 20 supply, or 210 with 200 supply.

 

[Recursive]

AIInflationPercent changed from 100 to 90 on all difficulties (that means the AI will have to pay only 90% of a humans unit maintenance costs)

Do not like because it means Warlord isn't actually fair play. Would be fine if it was applied to difficulties above Warlord only.

Also, they already get a discount on the total maintenance cost. AIInflationPercent specifically reduces the amount of inflation created by those two defines + game progress (to x% of normal), but the base cost isn't affected. Why not just buff their maintenance reduction?

 

[adan_eslavo]

You should change the proposal number because there's already one 6-94, earlier one.

 

[axatin]

Also, they already get a discount on the total maintenance cost. AIInflationPercent specifically reduces the amount of inflation created by those two defines + game progress (to x% of normal), but the base cost isn't affected. Why not just buff their maintenance reduction?

Wasn't aware that they already have reduced maintenance. Then it won't be necessary to reduce it further. Proposal amended.

 

[azum4roll]

I sponsor this easy proposal.

 

[Tekamthi]

proposed mechanisms are counter-intuitive to me -- on the basis of size alone, large army should enjoy economies of scale if anything, and become cheaper on a per unit basis -- new tech should make it easier/cheaper to do old things

to address the OP concern in thematic way, I'd make unit maintenance more expensive if they have more promos, and/or based on how far from home territory they are currently deployed.

 

[Rekk]

I don't think economies of scale actually exist for the military, even just assuming equipment.

The cost of logistics alone balloons as the scope of the organization increases.

 

[Tekamthi]

The cost of logistics alone balloons as the scope of the organization increases.

as the scope increases, possibly -- ie the tasks the military is assigned to address... But just on its size alone, having more identical units rather than less; unless your force is so large that it shifts the demand curve of the entire economy, it shouldn't cost marginally more per unit. And the supply system already captures the larger impacts on economy sufficiently.

imo there are more appropriate factors upon which to hook maintenance costs, and possibly achieve same gameplay result

 

[adan_eslavo]

Then is there any point of having high Military Supply Cap?

 

[Tekamthi]

Then is there any point of having high Military Supply Cap?

this is what i don't understand. maybe I'm missing the subtleties here about how these multipliers are working, but we have supply cap to represent point at which army becomes too large, and then we have this invisible multiplier doing the same job? would prefer to have this all managed via supply cap

the discussion linked in OP makes some suggestions about dynamically changing characteristics of some units vs others -- there's an 'ExtraMaintenanceCost' in the 'Units' table, for example... not many, if any, make use of this afaik

 

[AndreyK]

Then is there any point of having high Military Supply Cap?

Definitely yes, if you have prolonged war or capture more than 2 cities, then unhappiness and war weariness hit your supply hard. It's always good to have more supply or you get your production/food hit much qiucker and harder.

 

[Rekk]

this is what i don't understand. maybe I'm missing the subtleties here about how these multipliers are working, but we have supply cap to represent point at which army becomes too large, and then we have this invisible multiplier doing the same job? would prefer to have this all managed via supply cap

the discussion linked in OP makes some suggestions about dynamically changing characteristics of some units vs others -- there's an 'ExtraMaintenanceCost' in the 'Units' table, for example... not many, if any, make use of this afaik

Why even have unit maintenance at all, then?

 

[dostillevi]

I'm inclined to support, but recent AI games indicate warmongers are in a bad place currently. Adding additional supply costs won't help them any, so I expect we'll need to do something about warmongers in the next congress.

 

[CppMaster]

Why even have unit maintenance at all, then?

For the same reason buildings have maintenance. So you can't just ignore gold (except poverty)

 

[Rekk]

For the same reason buildings have maintenance. So you can't just ignore gold (except poverty)

All of the gold burden could be on building maintenance. Gold maintenance on units means that there's an upper limit to your army size based on your gold income.

 

[CppMaster]

Gold maintenance on units means that there's an upper limit to your army size based on your gold income.

Yes, that's exactly the point. You can increase this "limit" by generating more gold.

 

[Rekk]

Yes, that's exactly the point. You can increase this "limit" by generating more gold.

Which is a mechanic in contradiction to the post I originally quoted. I didn't ask the question of the OP.

 

[CppMaster]

Which is a mechanic in contradiction to the post I originally quoted. I didn't ask the question of the OP.

Do you mean to only have a "limit" based on your gold without this artificial supply? Yeah, that makes sense. I like it.