Should military Units should cost population in Civ 7?

[BossEwe24]

I honestly am very much for this change. At times war can feel disconnected from the rest of your nation, and declaring it should be a bigger risk. In my ideal civ 7, most military units are cheaper to raise, but any substantial army would need to be disbanded eventually in order to not cripple the rest of your nation.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

A 'popcap' system. yes. there should be limit to how many units a civ can have at a given time based on total city size, population count, industrial output, and 'caste'.
This also associates to 'Standing Army VS Auxilliary' concepts as @Boris Gudenuf proposed in several threads earlier. Auxilliary (Boris called it 'Amateurs') earns no experience. and can be recruited from working citizens, subtracting citizen count. Standign Army earns experience, but strictly subjected to population cap. this also represent 'Warrior castes' as well (Ksatriya, Knights, Samurais, or Wuxia... you name it).

 

[civac]

Are army numbers really a relevant part of a societies total populaton? It seems that is more a very early and 20th century thing. Would be interested what the historians here think about it. The real limit to army size is logistics and supply especially when fighting abroad.

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

yes

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Are army numbers really a relevant part of a societies total populaton? It seems that is more a very early and 20th century thing. Would be interested what the historians here think about it. The real limit to army size is logistics and supply especially when fighting abroad.

Obviously it's much harder to get statistics from pre-statistical societies, but there are some 'data points' going back to the Classical Era.

Imperial Rome maintained a standing army of 20 - 25 year veterans of about 500,000 men. This amounted to roughly 1% of an Empire population estimated (early 2nd century) at 60,000,000. This is less than 1/10 of what a modern state with 'universal' conscription can realize. BUT Rome's tax system was so inefficient that an army that size put immense stress on her resources, and after two massive (up to 30% deaths) plagues within 100 years her population couldn't support that sized army either - the mobile part of the Legions went from 5000 to about 1500 men, with the rest static militia manning forts along the border - and increasing amounts of the army were recruited from Non-Romans, including the German tribes the army was supposed to be fighting!

Tang China regularly sent armies of 70 - 80,000 men on campaign, but 90% or more of these were quickly-conscripted 'civilians in uniform' or porters carrying supplies. The principle assault force for one army of 80,000 was a 1000 man unit of mounted armored lancers. Those troops were so difficult to raise and maintain that the numbers simply could not be increased, while the losses among the conscripted peasants were so massive they spawned revolts. Given that the total population of the Chinese Empire at the time was at least 20 - 25,000,000, this negative result was caused by an even smaller percentage of the population than the Imperial Roman problems!

The War of the Spanish Succession (1702 - 1714) saw, basically, France against Europe - Britain, Netherlands, Austria, most of the smaller German states. France also had the major disadvantage that their opponents for most of the war had the best generals of the Era: John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough, and Prinz Eugen - Eugene of Savoy. France mobilized up to 400,000 men in over 200 infantry regiments and close to 100 cavalry or dragoon regiments, by far the largest military force in Europe. This from a population of about 20,000,000 (Data Point: 19,700,000 in 1700), so still only about 20% of what France mobilized for, say, World War One in the Modern Conscript/Draft Army era. BUT by the last 3 - 4 years of the war, French infantry regiments were reduced to 1 - 2 battalions each instead of the normal 2 - 4, and French Cavalry Regiments, authorized 4 squadrons, rarely had more than 2. No amount of effort could raise more men out of the population which was largely sick and tired of the war. And by the end of the war, the French government was virtually bankrupt and unable to form any new military units or maintain the ones they had. Even Louis XIV, faced with this situation, admitted that "- Perhaps I have been too fond of War." - And this was a war that France is supposed to have won, in that they maintained a French candidate on the Spanish throne despite Europe's opposition.

What size military a state can support depends on much more than total population numbers. A big factor is what percentage of the population is required to maintain the food and production - pre-industrial agriculture sucked up at least 2/3 to 3/4 of the total population, leaving a much smaller percentage to carry weapons if you are also going to keep everyone fed - and alive: famine and plague regularly accompanied long wars up to the 18th century.
Another major factor is the efficiency with which the central government can get its hands on population, production, and gold resources. Rome's system of non-government 'tax farmers' meant the government spent very little on collecting taxes, but also received a tiny percentage of the taxes collected and so in the end could not support the military required to keep the Empire safe. Until states developed efficient bureaucracies, a large proportion of its Resources were simply not available to use for anything, military or civilian.

 

[civac]

Thanks for the comprehensive answer. Still, 1-2% of total population is more than I had assumed.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Thanks for the comprehensive answer. Still, 1-2% of total population is more than I had assumed.

The cost of a Professional force that large, though (as in Rome) staggered the state's resources, and when a demographic disaster hit (like the Antonine Plague) the whole army and state proved unsustainable.

On the other hand, a temporary Paid For By The Members force like the Greek hoplites could be easily over 5% of the total population: Athens deployed up to 10,000 Hoplites out of a population for all of Attica of 150,000. BUT they could only be kept in arms for part of the year and brought their own weapons, equipment and servants - and the State economy was supported by an additional 50,000 'aliens' (Non-Athenians) and 100,000 (estimated) Slaves. When Athens switched to being a primarily naval power, she supported over 40,000 crewmen/rowers from the same population, but those men didn't have to provide any weapons or equipment, so could be drawn from virtually the entire adult male segment of the population (not just the Upper Middle Class) and, in an emergency, the 'aliens' and slaves. They also benefitted from the fact that as a naval/trading power, Athens' Food was not being produced by the 'native' population, but imported by traders - which took a much smaller portion of the population to sustain, so freed up more for military tasks.

The civic/social composition and economy makes another Big Difference. The steppe nomads, in which every adult male and many of the females were mounted herders, produced an entire adult population that were experienced mounted archers - all had very effective combat skills, because they were required daily to protect their herds from predators both 4 and 2-legged, and all had their own weapons and horses and equipment - they were part of their daily livelihood. That meant a huge portion of their population could be fielded as military units if necessary.
BUT only temporarily. If the entire state was migrating - as with the Huns or Goths - then they could be a terrifyingly large force. But usually, only a fraction of them could be spared from the herds and protecting the tents to raid - note that the Scythians and Sarmatian nomads, as effective as they were as military groups, never actually invaded their settled neighbors, just raided them and generally messed with their borders. It was Persia, and later Alexander, Pontus and Rome, that invaded the nomads' territories, not the other way around.

 

[Evie]

Idle thought: rather than sacrificing population directly to build units, I'm thinking specialists may be the better answer.

Call it officers, who work at barracks, and who give you force limit to build professional units (as opposed to militia units). Possibly with ramping effects so it takes a little while to create an officer culture.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Idle thought: rather than sacrificing population directly to build units, I'm thinking specialists may be the better answer.

Call it officers, who work at barracks, and who give you force limit to build professional units (as opposed to militia units). Possibly with ramping effects so it takes a little while to create an officer culture.

This could tie in neatly with the 'classes' talked about, specifically a 'warrior caste' or class which would be a specific type of Specialist, suitable to fill slots in Walls (Garrisons), Barracks, Armories, Stables, and other Military Buildings.

Adopting certain Civics/Social Policies creating a Warrior Class would generate more such Specialists.

Simply, Number of Military Specialists = Number of (Professional) Military Units.

That could be modified by an expanded mechanic for 'hiring' Mercenaries from City States, Barbarian Camps (or their equivalent) or even Internally, providing 'free' Units that don't require more of your own generated Military Specialists. Internal special generation of Specialists could be of several types: for two examples:
1. The Romans famously recruited Centurions, or junior military Professional Leaders, from Gladiatorial Schools. In game terms, turning Entertainment Specialists into Military Specialists.
2. Much later, the USA recruited officers from civilian Universities and trained them in the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC), in game terms turning Science Specialists into Military Specialists.

There are numerous other historical examples to use. In fact, though, the general recruitment of University graduates as Officer material in modern armies since the Industrial Era might make the conversion of Science Specialists into Military Specialists a general mechanic for all Civs. It has the added 'advantage' that the cost is immediately apparent: convert too many Science Specialists into Military, and your Science output and development of better weapons and units takes a nose dive.

 

[ShadowWarrior]

Another way to go about it is to increase the cost of military units once the size of overall military reaches beyond a certain number of units. Put another way, the per unit maintenance cost increases as the number of units already in existence increases.

Also, as military units increases, the discontent population also increases.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Obviously it's much harder to get statistics from pre-statistical societies, but there are some 'data points' going back to the Classical Era.

Imperial Rome maintained a standing army of 20 - 25 year veterans of about 500,000 men. This amounted to roughly 1% of an Empire population estimated (early 2nd century) at 60,000,000. This is less than 1/10 of what a modern state with 'universal' conscription can realize. BUT Rome's tax system was so inefficient that an army that size put immense stress on her resources, and after two massive (up to 30% deaths) plagues within 100 years her population couldn't support that sized army either - the mobile part of the Legions went from 5000 to about 1500 men, with the rest static militia manning forts along the border - and increasing amounts of the army were recruited from Non-Romans, including the German tribes the army was supposed to be fighting!

Tang China regularly sent armies of 70 - 80,000 men on campaign, but 90% or more of these were quickly-conscripted 'civilians in uniform' or porters carrying supplies. The principle assault force for one army of 80,000 was a 1000 man unit of mounted armored lancers. Those troops were so difficult to raise and maintain that the numbers simply could not be increased, while the losses among the conscripted peasants were so massive they spawned revolts. Given that the total population of the Chinese Empire at the time was at least 20 - 25,000,000, this negative result was caused by an even smaller percentage of the population than the Imperial Roman problems!

The War of the Spanish Succession (1702 - 1714) saw, basically, France against Europe - Britain, Netherlands, Austria, most of the smaller German states. France also had the major disadvantage that their opponents for most of the war had the best generals of the Era: John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough, and Prinz Eugen - Eugene of Savoy. France mobilized up to 400,000 men in over 200 infantry regiments and close to 100 cavalry or dragoon regiments, by far the largest military force in Europe. This from a population of about 20,000,000 (Data Point: 19,700,000 in 1700), so still only about 20% of what France mobilized for, say, World War One in the Modern Conscript/Draft Army era. BUT by the last 3 - 4 years of the war, French infantry regiments were reduced to 1 - 2 battalions each instead of the normal 2 - 4, and French Cavalry Regiments, authorized 4 squadrons, rarely had more than 2. No amount of effort could raise more men out of the population which was largely sick and tired of the war. And by the end of the war, the French government was virtually bankrupt and unable to form any new military units or maintain the ones they had. Even Louis XIV, faced with this situation, admitted that "- Perhaps I have been too fond of War." - And this was a war that France is supposed to have won, in that they maintained a French candidate on the Spanish throne despite Europe's opposition.

What size military a state can support depends on much more than total population numbers. A big factor is what percentage of the population is required to maintain the food and production - pre-industrial agriculture sucked up at least 2/3 to 3/4 of the total population, leaving a much smaller percentage to carry weapons if you are also going to keep everyone fed - and alive: famine and plague regularly accompanied long wars up to the 18th century.
Another major factor is the efficiency with which the central government can get its hands on population, production, and gold resources. Rome's system of non-government 'tax farmers' meant the government spent very little on collecting taxes, but also received a tiny percentage of the taxes collected and so in the end could not support the military required to keep the Empire safe. Until states developed efficient bureaucracies, a large proportion of its Resources were simply not available to use for anything, military or civilian.

1. Is that a reason why Roman Legion remain 'Swordsmen Legion' only for 200 years? and has to revert to Armored Spearmen by 3rd Century?
- Civ6 Unit. if there's a unit in a same lineage (Anticavalry Infantry) between 'Bronze age Spearmen' and 'Late Medieval Pikemen'. what should be the name of this unit?
A. Heavy Spearman
B. Heavy Infantry
C. Armored Spearman.
2. At this point did the French Army uses Dragoons as chargers cavalry too? Didn't Brits really like Cuirassiers? so their heavyweight cavalry is called simply 'Heavy Horse' (or relegated to Heavy Dragoons in peacetime)? or did French still use Dragoons as mobile infantry and scouts/foragers?
3. Eugene de Savoia is french. Why King Louis XIV rejected him when he offered himself a service to France? in the end he joined Austrian Imperial Army and earned fame as a general who stopped Ottoman invasion.
4. France situations of 1702-1714 eventually required the government to make a deal with Ottomans? Is this too put Louis XIV further at odds with every other monarches and British Prime Ministers?
5. What was Prussia (or Brandenburg) stances on this war? which side does it takes?
6. Did French Cavalry of WW4 suffered severe undermanned problems to the point of only have actual strenghts per regiment of ONE FIFTH the nominal strenght?
7. Who? and When did effeicient bureaucracies came in use for the first time?
- Should there be a civic in Civ6 to represent this and which era?
Does it associate with bureaucrat HR managements that civil servant recriutment examination came to use in place of 'Recommendations/Caste' system? the system that first developed in Imperial China long long time ago.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

1. By the 3rd century CE the Roman Legion was much less armored - most infantry having just a helmet and large, heavy shield rather than metal body armor - but they carried both a long spear and the spatha - the long sword, and were trained to use both. This is one of the first places that Civ VI's rigid Classes of military units breaks down, because the late Imperial Legion could be either Melee or Anti-Cav based on who they were facing.
2. French Dragoons were still 'real' dragoons, expected to move fast on horseback but dismount to fight. They didn't start staying on their horses until after 1740, and by the last half of the 18th century were indistinguishable in their tactics and combat use from unarmored Cuirassiers.
3. Prinz Eugen von Savoi to use his Austrian/German title. He was physically very slight of build and had several chronic health problems, so wasn't considered 'strong' enough for French service. After he beat the stuffing out of them in northern Italy in the War of the Spanish Succession, they probably regretted that decision.
4. France was dealing with the Ottomans before 1702, because the Ottomans were an obvious counterweight to the Holy Roman Empire, which had become France's main opponent in Europe after Spain and her Empire began to decline. Note that when 'all Europe' rallied to Vienna's defense in 1683, France and French troops were conspicuously absent.
5. During the Great Northern and Spanish Succession Wars 1702 to 1718 Prussia was neutral, but she hired out virtually her entire army to the 'Sea Powers' - Netherlands and England, who had the gold to pay for lots of mercenary foreign troops. The Prince of Anhalt-Dessau was the commander of the Prussian force, which were used as assault troops by Eugene in Italy and by Marlborough at Blenheim.
6. By 1709 many French cavalry regiments could only field 1 squadron instead of the 4 they were authorized, because of lack of both men and horses. I have studied numerous French orders of battle from this period, and have yet to find a French cavalry unit fielding more than 3 squadrons, though, so they appear to have been chronically understrength from the beginning of the war - the hidden cost of trying to recruit and field more cavalry than they had horses and riders to support.
7. Bureaucratic record-keeping may precede Writing. The earliest records in Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece are simple lists of stuff stored in granaries, storehouses and palaces, with verbs and sentence structure coming much later. The Babylonian, Sumerian, Akkadian and other Mesopotamian states had regular classrooms (1 teacher, 30 - 35 students) to teach basic literacy (a huge portion of the cuneiform tablets found are 'worksheets' of students' errors thrown out and then baked by the sun) for the church and state. Regularly organized bureaucracies, though, seem to belong earliest to New Kingdom and Ptolemaic Egypt, Confucian China, and Byzantium, all of whom fielded virtual armies of clerks and administrators. The Roman Empire also had a pretty well-organized bureaucratic base, but since the empire started out by administering each new province/conquered state by whatever Equestrian or Senatorial Thief had the most support in Rome, the purpose of their record-keeping was to hide what was being stolen, not collect it for civic use, and that rampant corruption seems to have persisted despite the few good Emperor's attempts to curtail it.

 

[Naokaukodem]

It could be ok I suppose, BUT rather irrational considering further a population increases, more numerous the people are. For example, a 1 pop city must represent a tribe, maybe 30-50 persons ? However, a 15 pop size city starts to represent a vast city in Antiquity, of a million or several millions of persons. So that it would be illogical to delete 1 full pop from the 15 ones in order to produce only 1 military unit.
That's why I would suggest, for a Civ that keeps being conservative (not the idea in my signature for example), to remove some amount of food in the food increment ("2 turns before pop growth") instead of full pop points. The result could be the same (if the food pool is low), but much more rarely.
As to my idea, it implies that each pop point is independant, and can be promoted to soldiers, but the thing is that the pool of fulfil of each population point to create another doesn't increase with time, theoretically. (have to be tested to see if the map doesn't get overwhelemed buy the number of units : what should prevent that is greater necessecity of specialists and the absence of city center yields)

 

[Evie]

That’s a problem for every form of specialists. I don’t think there is anything to be gained game wise by overly agonizing over how much population every citizen represent. It’s a pop, an abstract unit of capacity calculated for game balance.

Besides which the size of military units likely also increase with the game.

 

[Patine]

Besides which the size of military units likely also increase with the game.

Well, actually, to be honest, that number tends to drop after the WW2 era. I had read somewhere that, in 1943, each of the armed forces of Germany, Japan, the USSR, the British Empire, and the U.S., had more men under arms than the total under arms in regular service of all sovereign nations today, or even at the height of Cold War, combined. Mind, this statisitc didn't include reserves, paramilitary, non-state actor militias and insurgents, or tangential cases (such as relabelled modern, "mercenaries," liike the Wagner Group or Blackpool/Xe/Academi, etc.),but still.

 

[dagriggstar]

From a gameplay perspective, I'd be interested to see how each military unit taking up 1 food per turn would go. I do think that food should be made more important in game AND this would also help limit everyones army size.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Well, actually, to be honest, that number tends to drop after the WW2 era. I had read somewhere that, in 1943, each of the armed forces of Germany, Japan, the USSR, the British Empire, and the U.S., had more men under arms than the total under arms in regular service of all sovereign nations today, or even at the height of Cold War, combined. Mind, this statisitc didn't include reserves, paramilitary, non-state actor militias and insurgents, or tangential cases (such as relabelled modern, "mercenaries," liike the Wagner Group or Blackpool/Xe/Academi, etc.),but still.

That arises from two factors.

First, the difference between even the most bellicose peace (or "Cold War") and a Total War in which the stated aim of both sides is the complete annihilation of either the political entity or physical entity of the opponent. Everybody conducted the Cold War, but they only very rarely actually 'fought' it.

Second, the fact that the economic cost of arming and equipping the most effective forces - armor, air power, missiles, modern infantry with all the UAVs, missiles, body armor, etc - has gone up astronomically. Russia today is stretched to equip a force of 200,000 in Ukraine, and keep them supplied with even the dumbest of small arms and artillery ammunition. In 1943 the Soviet Union (which at the time did not control Belorussia or Ukraine, so compares with modern Russia) armed, equipped, and kept in uniform a force of 11,500,000 men and women. Russia today cannot even arm and equip her current force of (estimated) 3,000,000 reservists, which is one very good reason they have not been mobilized for service in Ukraine.

Dupuy and his associates, in their statistical study of military history, discovered in detailed study of over 80 historical battles from ancient to modern (WWII) times, that the majority of those battles were won by the side that was outnumbered. From that they concluded that mere numbers was no indicator of actual combat strength, and the current trends in cost and complexity of military equipment are turning that assumption into Gospel Truth because nobody can afford the numbers any more.

 

[Evie]

True, but still in general there's still a significant evolution in unit size from early games to late game, even if it reverses in thenlater game.

 

[Naokaukodem]

That’s a problem for every form of specialists. I don’t think there is anything to be gained game wise by overly agonizing over how much population every citizen represent. It’s a pop, an abstract unit of capacity calculated for game balance.

Besides which the size of military units likely also increase with the game.

Maybe the point is requestionning how pop works. Now, each population point requires more food accumulation in order to appear. So, the more you advance in the game, the slower, took into account from one turn to another (and not years), your population growth might be, unless maybe you dedicate all your population to food work, which isn't very 'productive'. This, is to refrain a potential exponential population growth, because computers could not handle it and because the number of tiles a city can work is limited and tiles are unshared. But if we increase the 80's-90's computer power and make it so that we can stack citizens on tiles, or get rid of tiles, we might get, by tweaking how population growth works, population more look like '200' mid game in a single city, this being limited by gameplay requirements and human player limits. (if we want to keep the boardgame aspect of Civ, with some automation tweaks still)
Not talking about the misrepresentation of agricultural revolution, in Civ6 particularly. (you can litterally have not a single farm and still growing nicely) You should have, I don't know, maybe 90% of your pop working in farms, and your territory should look like modern France, unless you import grain from Egypt or something, which is still your territory. (or not) Of course that doesn't take into account modernization, that could still be represented in the game. (same 1 pop works far more 'tiles')

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

1. By the 3rd century CE the Roman Legion was much less armored - most infantry having just a helmet and large, heavy shield rather than metal body armor - but they carried both a long spear and the spatha - the long sword, and were trained to use both. This is one of the first places that Civ VI's rigid Classes of military units breaks down, because the late Imperial Legion could be either Melee or Anti-Cav based on who they were facing.
......
7. Bureaucratic record-keeping may precede Writing. The earliest records in Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece are simple lists of stuff stored in granaries, storehouses and palaces, with verbs and sentence structure coming much later. The Babylonian, Sumerian, Akkadian and other Mesopotamian states had regular classrooms (1 teacher, 30 - 35 students) to teach basic literacy (a huge portion of the cuneiform tablets found are 'worksheets' of students' errors thrown out and then baked by the sun) for the church and state. Regularly organized bureaucracies, though, seem to belong earliest to New Kingdom and Ptolemaic Egypt, Confucian China, and Byzantium, all of whom fielded virtual armies of clerks and administrators. The Roman Empire also had a pretty well-organized bureaucratic base, but since the empire started out by administering each new province/conquered state by whatever Equestrian or Senatorial Thief had the most support in Rome, the purpose of their record-keeping was to hide what was being stolen, not collect it for civic use, and that rampant corruption seems to have persisted despite the few good Emperor's attempts to curtail it.

1. Eeeeeek! 3rd Century Legion Spearmen (Lancers ) has the same stat as Bronze Age Spearmen and not as Greek Hoplite (who are better armed and armoed?) Are these the same wargear loadout also for Medieval era spearmen? (Before Late Middle Ages Pikemen.
If there's a unit between Spearmen and Pikemen in the classical era. what should the name be? and should it be spearmen wearing iron armor of some kind?
2. And when did truly efficient bureaucracy system shows up actually? one that capable of running an institution of armed forces as serious organization subject to central administration and not mafia style armed men subjected to local bosses?