Bring back the draft

[aluelkdf]

In previous versions of civ (either 3 or 4 I can't remember), there was an option to conscript soldiers at the expense of a city losing population. I think this feature should be brought back. Conscription has been going on for thousands of years and still happens.

If a civ has a bunch of cities with a small army and is about to be conquered, why would they just sit there with all that population, just waiting to produce a unit or get enough gold to buy one? The logical and realistic thing that would happen is that units would be conscripted in an effort to save the empire.

 

[SamBC]

The population defends the city and fires the city bombard, I presume.

 

[aluelkdf]

The population defends the city and fires the city bombard, I presume.

That makes sense. In previous versions of civ cities were defenseless. Now they can defend themselves and that ability goes up the larger the population is. But its still a more indirect way of the population defending the empire, as supposed to having acual units on the battle field.

 

[Heerlo]

I've never played Civ3, but this feature was in Civ4.

 

[otaman1]

I've never played Civ3, but this feature was in Civ4.

Really? I never knew it was in CIV IV

 

[AriochIV]

Conscription was more viable when there were large stacks of units, but the relative scarcity and increased importance of individual units in Civ V could make it problematic. As was mentioned, cities are already pretty good at defending themselves, both resisting direct attack and actively bombarding opponents.

Really? I never knew it was in CIV IV

If memory serves, it required a particular civic.

 

[Heerlo]

If memory serves, it required a particular civic.

Yes, it requires nationhood, if I recall correctly.

I remember one time I was in a war with Rome. I drafted the daylights out of my capital city, and the people got so upset that I think some of them starved!

 

[Optional]

The only other Civ game I played was Civ III, and it was certainly in there. I think the ability came available with the tech Nationalism, early Industrial Age.
Although pop-rushing was available from the start of the game, but this you lost with certain governments. There was an unhappiness effect to doing it.

I hardly did any pop-rushing or drafting in Civ III, so I don't miss it. I can think of quite a few features from Civ III that were more interesting than this (trade routes, war weariness, reputation, contact trading, map trading, optional techs, transport ships, having sea inbetween coastal and ocean water, etc.)
Not that I would mind drafting coming back, but it wouldn't excite me. It was a game element (both pop-rushing and drafting) with a huge element of historical realism, but for gameplay it didn't do an awful lot.

 

[Callonia]

lol, now I miss draft.

It indeed is in civ 3 and civ 4.

This thread just made me remember it.

Drafting was alot more powerful in civ 3 compared to civ 4 I think, even when they're all conscripts if you're careful enough with your conscripts they'll get promoted to regular and veterans super fast. Although the use of draftees tend to occur for me when another front of war open up unexpectedly.

My conscripts tend to be accompanied by decent amount of veterans in order to soften up the attacking army with veterans first and conscripts deliver the killing blow. As in, finishing off any surviving but wounded veterans/elites in opposing army.

If conscripts is to be in civ 5, they might have to only have 50 hitpoints instead of 100 and get 100 hitpoints if they survive a specific number of battles because at that point, they are now experienced members of your army. Make it 10 battles?

GAH I MISS IT!

 

[glaivemaster]

How would you suggest balancing draft between tall civs and wide civs? In practice, a wide civ could get a huge army out of drafting because it has more cities to draft in, unless the limit on drafting is extremely harsh, but even then the growth of population would be easier in a smaller city. While it would be nice to say that "well that's because they have more population, of course it works better", that's really not true either, according to the demographics screen.

I'm all for drafting, but I don't know if it would just be too good for a wide civ, unless you think that's ok?

 

[awesome]

I think they limited it to so many times per turn in civ 4. They could easily do that again, maybe with the half starting hp idea up there.

 

[Callonia]

How would you suggest balancing draft between tall civs and wide civs? In practice, a wide civ could get a huge army out of drafting because it has more cities to draft in, unless the limit on drafting is extremely harsh, but even then the growth of population would be easier in a smaller city. While it would be nice to say that "well that's because they have more population, of course it works better", that's really not true either, according to the demographics screen.

I'm all for drafting, but I don't know if it would just be too good for a wide civ, unless you think that's ok?

Well, its called advantages and disadvantages. Its not like that those 100 conscripts can attack your tall civ in a single turn due to 1upt while in civ 3/4 it can happen.

Annnddddd.... there's unit upkeep costs. xD it costs gpt to maintain all those tons of weak conscripts. And it takes time to grow the city back up again. And if conscripts die a early death, well ouch.

 

[Furycrab]

The biggest issues I find balance wise is the AI. The AI more or less ignores happiness right now because of how monumentally near impossible it would be to program an AI that can understand the nuances in the growth system especially when given growth bonuses at higher difficulties.

The best way to balance drafting in tall/wide/whatever is if you take a happiness hit... It also has to be harsh enough that you only use it as a desperation measure... Now go and program an AI that can't be exploited but can properly understand desperation and doesn't just nuke it's happiness because you moved a big army near it's borders.