I'd very much like to see Civ do Armies properly.. they are NOT three of the same unit CIv!
Below would be my suggestion on how they could be implemented, Allowing for combined arms, giving the player some choice and keeping combat interesting (i.e. not reducing it to the tedium of religious combat).. hopefully
So...
Instead of having large carpets of military units the player would group them together into an Army. Depending on the era, civics and empire size the player would be able to build a number of Armies. The number of armies a player could build would be relatively small, so as not to flood the map or make things too easy. Armies would consist of two parts a "field army" which contains the military units (including some field artillery) and a "siege train" which would contain units that were only required when besieging a city.
When created an Army would start out empty and the player would be required to build the individual units that made up the army. The composition of the army is entirely the players choice - this still provides the potential for unique units. The size of an army would be controlled by a stat called Supply - certain units would require more Supply than others - this would be era/civic/great general dependent and there would be a separate supply count for the "field army" and the "siege train".
When individual military units are produced they must be assigned to either a Garrison (city they will defend - garrisons have smaller Supply limits than armies) or an Army, the unit will then travel across the map to meet up with the Army.
Units (and the Army) would have an additional "Moral" stat - more on how this would work later.
Field Combat:
Field combat would be any time two armies meet each other in the "field". When an army is moving around the map they would do so in "column formation", an Army is "column formation" is more vulnerable to attack and therefore - up until the Modern Era - must "deploy" before they can perform any combat action (much like the need to "setup" siege equipment in Civ V). Once deployed an Army would be considered fixed (cannot move) and would require a specific order to be able to move...
Combat is done via issuing Orders to the army, having units of a specific type in the Army would provide it with additional Orders. There would be a limit of 2-3 orders that could be issued every turn.
Potential orders could be:
All units would have a Moral score that would be determined by a variety of factors, experience, odds, damage, etc. When a units Moral reaches 0 that unit would attempt to retreat form combat, if an entire armies Moral drops too low it would be a route and the entire army would fall into a disorganised retreat and would move away from the battlefield for a turn or two uncontrollable by the player.
Sieges:
Armies cannot enter enemy city tiles however they can take them using the Siege order - (Siege and Deploy being the two commands an Army in column formation can execute).
When order to besiege a city the army will be considered to be occupying all land tiles around the city (in the case of a navy this would be the sea tiles) any city that is completely surrounded (all tiles are occupied by an army and/or a navy) looses food and eventually health as the turns progress.
There are two ways for an army to take a city, either starve it into submission (this would happen when it reaches 0 health) - this would take a long time but the infrastructure would be unharmed - or use siege equipment to create a breech in the walls and then assault the city. (One thought is that breeches come in three sizes small, medium, large - moving up a size as the city is attacked, but certain units like the Battering Ram could create bigger breeches)
Like an Army fighting in the field an Army besieging a city is considered fixed but has a number of orders it can be given (the order list for a besieging Army is based on the contents of it's "siege train"), potential siege orders are:
Garrisons:
Units can be assigned to cities (in a similar manner to assigning them to armies) in which case they form part of its Garrison. Although only some units would be of benefit to a Garrison (Ranged, Ranged Siege, Melee and Anti-Air). Whilst under siege a cities Garrison can be issued various orders:
So there it is.
Opinions?
Below would be my suggestion on how they could be implemented, Allowing for combined arms, giving the player some choice and keeping combat interesting (i.e. not reducing it to the tedium of religious combat).. hopefully
So...
Instead of having large carpets of military units the player would group them together into an Army. Depending on the era, civics and empire size the player would be able to build a number of Armies. The number of armies a player could build would be relatively small, so as not to flood the map or make things too easy. Armies would consist of two parts a "field army" which contains the military units (including some field artillery) and a "siege train" which would contain units that were only required when besieging a city.
When created an Army would start out empty and the player would be required to build the individual units that made up the army. The composition of the army is entirely the players choice - this still provides the potential for unique units. The size of an army would be controlled by a stat called Supply - certain units would require more Supply than others - this would be era/civic/great general dependent and there would be a separate supply count for the "field army" and the "siege train".
When individual military units are produced they must be assigned to either a Garrison (city they will defend - garrisons have smaller Supply limits than armies) or an Army, the unit will then travel across the map to meet up with the Army.
Units (and the Army) would have an additional "Moral" stat - more on how this would work later.
Field Combat:
Field combat would be any time two armies meet each other in the "field". When an army is moving around the map they would do so in "column formation", an Army is "column formation" is more vulnerable to attack and therefore - up until the Modern Era - must "deploy" before they can perform any combat action (much like the need to "setup" siege equipment in Civ V). Once deployed an Army would be considered fixed (cannot move) and would require a specific order to be able to move...
Combat is done via issuing Orders to the army, having units of a specific type in the Army would provide it with additional Orders. There would be a limit of 2-3 orders that could be issued every turn.
Potential orders could be:
- Deploy - deploy the army ready to fight
- Retreat - Order the army to perform an organised retreat (Armies performing an organised retreat take less damage from harassing attacks)
- Move - return to column formation.
- Advance/Fallback - Require foot unit - range 1 - move any foot unit one tile in any direction (maximum two tiles from the Army), melee units (swordsmen, spearmen, etc) will attack any enemy unit in this tile (if they're moved into the opposing army then they will attack it, however they cannot be moved into the opposing army if they currently occupy a tile containing that armies foot). Note: units will stay in the tile they have been assigned to until ordered otherwise - if both sides have units in the same square they will duke it out until one of them dies). A tile can contain multiple melee units
- Arrow Storm - Requires Archer/Crossbowman - range 2 - fire a volley of arrows at any tile dealing damage to all units in that tile.
- Charge - Requires Heavy Cavalry - range 2 - charge a specific infantry unit in the specific tile, has a chance to Break Through dealing extra damage and preventing that unit from acting for a turn whilst it reforms.
- Harass - Requires Light Cavalry - range 3 - charge a specific ranged, artillery or retreating unit dealing damage.
All units would have a Moral score that would be determined by a variety of factors, experience, odds, damage, etc. When a units Moral reaches 0 that unit would attempt to retreat form combat, if an entire armies Moral drops too low it would be a route and the entire army would fall into a disorganised retreat and would move away from the battlefield for a turn or two uncontrollable by the player.
Sieges:
Armies cannot enter enemy city tiles however they can take them using the Siege order - (Siege and Deploy being the two commands an Army in column formation can execute).
When order to besiege a city the army will be considered to be occupying all land tiles around the city (in the case of a navy this would be the sea tiles) any city that is completely surrounded (all tiles are occupied by an army and/or a navy) looses food and eventually health as the turns progress.
There are two ways for an army to take a city, either starve it into submission (this would happen when it reaches 0 health) - this would take a long time but the infrastructure would be unharmed - or use siege equipment to create a breech in the walls and then assault the city. (One thought is that breeches come in three sizes small, medium, large - moving up a size as the city is attacked, but certain units like the Battering Ram could create bigger breeches)
Like an Army fighting in the field an Army besieging a city is considered fixed but has a number of orders it can be given (the order list for a besieging Army is based on the contents of it's "siege train"), potential siege orders are:
- Demolish Walls - Requires any ranged Siege weapon (e.g. Catapult, Cannon, etc) - Attack the walls attempting to create a breech.
- Assault Gate - Requires Battering Ram - Attack the city with a Battering Ram deals more damage than Demolish Walls but takes more damage from defenders. (like melee units fighting in field combat once started this would need to be stopped)
- Assault - Requires Siege Tower or a breech in the walls - Order melee units to attack the city and attempt to take it.
Garrisons:
Units can be assigned to cities (in a similar manner to assigning them to armies) in which case they form part of its Garrison. Although only some units would be of benefit to a Garrison (Ranged, Ranged Siege, Melee and Anti-Air). Whilst under siege a cities Garrison can be issued various orders:
- Shoot - Requires any ranged unit - Shoot at the attackers dealing damage to units
- Sally - Requires any foot melee unit - Send a melee unit out to attack a specific piece of Artillery.
- Break0out - Requires an Army/Navy in the city - Attempt to break the Siege and initiate a Field Combat with the besieging army
So there it is.
Opinions?
