Should units cost population/food?

[Sal]

I have often thought that in all Civ games it has been odd that no connection is drawn between military units and population (save for a very high limit on number of units before production is cut a bit).

In reality military units must be recruited from the population. When wars are fought populations of nations suffer in the short term and production at home is made more difficult due to the number of able bodied citizens who are away fighting.

Some strategy games deplete a city's population a little when it produces a unit. I think this would make sense in Civ. Just because you have a lot of money doesn't mean you can churn out an infinite supply of troops - you need the people too. Obviously 1 pop cost like a settler would be excessive, but there are plenty of ways it could be implemented enough to make you stop and think about it. It would also require you to factor the manpower cost against upkeep and build times (a tank unit would not cost as many men, but obviously cost more money to run. Conversely if you could make a trade off for certain units to just recruit them quickly at the cost of more population, like conscription in Civ IV). Does anyone else think a mechanic like this would add more thought to building up vast standing armies that just sit around for centuries?

 

[ldvhl]

I think that would add a lot of needless complexity to building and maintaining militaries. Civ 2 did have a maintenance cost of food and production for units, but that's been abandoned since.

 

[Sal]

I was thinking a one time cost at creation of the unit, which is not really complex. It is an army size limiting factor - something that is particularly important with 1UPT. It is also about realism - where are all these soldiers coming from?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I was thinking a one time cost at creation of the unit, which is not really complex. It is an army size limiting factor - something that is particularly important with 1UPT. It is also about realism - where are all these soldiers coming from?

The same place hammers come from in a mine, or gold comes from in a palace.

 

[m15a]

In terms of realism, one could think that the military is fed out of the same pool of food as the citizens in the cities, i.e., the two food per population unit that does not go into growth. A certain population can only support a military of a certain size - it just so happens that that size is so big that you never confront that issue after the early game. Maybe that limit is too high in Civ V, and would be more realistic if reduced.

 

[AriochIV]

I enjoyed the paradigm in Colonization in which the military units were essentially armed population points, but the population scales were different than in Civilization. One pop per unit (or one food per unit) in Civ is too much, and it's very messy to deal in fractions, so I don't see how it would work.

 

[SilverKnight06]

That would really constrain your playthrough, so I don't think it would be a great idea.

 

[m15a]

I enjoyed the paradigm in Colonization in which the military units were essentially armed population points, but the population scales were different than in Civilization. One pop per unit (or one food per unit) in Civ is too much, and it's very messy to deal in fractions, so I don't see how it would work.

It could work just by rounding down so, say, 0-3 units belonging to one city is free, 4-7 units cost 1 food, etc. But the more annoying aspect of that, IMO, is that you have to deal with assigning units to particular home cities - that doesn't even feel realistic since you can move units wherever anyway.

Maybe a more realistic (or realistic feeling) situation would be to have units cause a food penalty to the tile where they are sitting. So, a tile with any military unit on it would get -1 food. But that would make citizen micromanagement super annoying.

 

[ftl]

That seems like a reasonable idea, but it would basically require a huge rebalancing of the entire game. Not to say that's a bad thing, just that it isn't something you tack on.

Basically, it would mean that a military unit has some cost in food as well as some cost in hammers. So there's no longer as much of a difference between high-production tiles and high-food tiles - the high-food ones are also good for producing military units. (But not buildings!)

Presumably to make armies playable at all the map would, on the whole, have to simply produce more food - otherwise, your initial city with its +2 food simply could not both grow AND produce an early warrior to hold off barbarians. That would make it possible for cities to grow really fast if they're not producing military at all, so that would have to be balanced.

An alternate way of achieving a related effect is if having population explicitly let you support a certain number of units at no cost, and additional ones past that could have a cost. Like maybe a city of population X can produce X (or some multiple of X) units at no food cost, and additional ones past that would require some food, to represent the fact that some fraction of your population is assumed to be of conscriptable age and able to join the military. This could potentially make it easier to balance, because then it's effectively only a penalty on large armies.

In terms of game effects, the first approach requires a massive rebalancing and rethinking of how units work at all. Would be a very different game, I don't know whether it would be a better or worse game.

The second approach is basically a growth penalty for large armies. Easy to balance and stick on to a game, but might not really have any effect. With 1UPT human players don't really make huge carpets of doom anyway, that's an AI thing, it would probably mostly affect the AI and not the human players. So why put it in at all, then?

 

[Genesis_26317]

I have often thought that in all Civ games it has been odd that no connection is drawn between military units and population (save for a very high limit on number of units before production is cut a bit).

In reality military units must be recruited from the population. When wars are fought populations of nations suffer in the short term and production at home is made more difficult due to the number of able bodied citizens who are away fighting.

Some strategy games deplete a city's population a little when it produces a unit. I think this would make sense in Civ. Just because you have a lot of money doesn't mean you can churn out an infinite supply of troops - you need the people too. Obviously 1 pop cost like a settler would be excessive, but there are plenty of ways it could be implemented enough to make you stop and think about it. It would also require you to factor the manpower cost against upkeep and build times (a tank unit would not cost as many men, but obviously cost more money to run. Conversely if you could make a trade off for certain units to just recruit them quickly at the cost of more population, like conscription in Civ IV). Does anyone else think a mechanic like this would add more thought to building up vast standing armies that just sit around for centuries?

No that is why you have production.

In the real world all those military dudes are still alive in their cities too.

If you go around drafting like in previous games, it cost population, and no production time.

An army with 1 million people in it is a drop in the bucket compared to the actual population of the civilization. Especially since most of the jobs are logistical and not combat related.

 

[stealth_nsk]

In early Civ version there were some features to represent this, like units being attached to cities. It worked bad. I believe gold-based maintenance is the most flexible way to implement restrictions on military as it allows adjusting limits to the desired level.

Of course, if some of Civ games later have global food system, it's totally possible to implement mechanism where too large military starts consuming food from the pool. This could work.

 

[JtW]

Maybe there should be a "military capacity" number in some form but in that case, you would have to weaken the defensive capacity of cities (or maybe make it inversely related to your number of units?)

What I would like to see instead is getting rid of promotions and unit healing. It would help the AI, reduce the carpets of doom, and give us a simple and symbolic representation of supply chains (what you would have to keep supplying here would be new units.)

 

[stealth_nsk]

Maybe there should be a "military capacity" number in some form but in that case, you would have to weaken the defensive capacity of cities (or maybe make it inversely related to your number of units?)

What I would like to see instead is getting rid of promotions and unit healing. It would help the AI, reduce the carpets of doom, and give us a simple and symbolic representation of supply chains (what you would have to keep supplying here would be new units.)

There is military capacity in Civ5 - once you're over it, the military support cost increases greatly. The system could be improved by making the military capacity more clear (i.e. flat number per city, plus a number from some buildings), but it's already one of the best approaches.

 

[JtW]

There is military capacity in Civ5 - once you're over it, the military support cost increases greatly. The system could be improved by making the military capacity more clear (i.e. flat number per city, plus a number from some buildings), but it's already one of the best approaches.

Really? Then I guess it's set way too high because in my 1000 hours with Civ5, I never once reached that threshold.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Really? Then I guess it's set way too high because in my 1000 hours with Civ5, I never once reached that threshold.

I've just checked and it's even more. Once you reach the cap, you get production hit in all cities. Probably you just didn't paid attention to it But yes, it's high.

 

[True_Candyman]

Realistically this is what unit maintenance in gold represents. You're paying farmers for there food, etc to maintain your units.

Including a food cost has some interesting implications for famine mechanics an pillaging could actually mean something finally though, so I'd e interested in seeing some proper rainstorm if and modding for this!

 

[Lord Tirian]

In early Civ version there were some features to represent this, like units being attached to cities. It worked bad. I believe gold-based maintenance is the most flexible way to implement restrictions on military as it allows adjusting limits to the desired level.

Oh god, I remember the micro-managing, attaching units to different home cities to take advantage of the free maintenance for initial units.

Yeah, it's a finicky mechanic that just makes ICS the optimal strategy and doesn't actually add anything apart from pointless micro-management (these are not exactly interesting decisions).

Global implementation is much more sensible. Civ5's unit supply system works well, the only problem is that the cap is too generous (not in CivBE, though, so somebody must have had the same thought).

Personally, I hope we get something like Civ5's system with more balanced caps - but maybe have the penalty vary with your policy cards (e.g. democratic systems have happiness/gold penalties, while autocratic system have production penalties etc.).

 

[Mustakrakish]

No need for anything complicated IMO. Just put a more strict cap that works with population (just overall population, not city count), with initial default number allowed, say 3 military units on start (not including civilian units). After pop 3 you start getting more, like 4 pop = 4 units etc. Certain military oriented civics could increase the cap. Makes for more interesting gameplay and makes military oriented civics more worthwhile.

Penalty for overreaching, I dunno, maybe all troops cost double, triple if overeached more than by 1-2 units etc. But no food consuming at any point. No.

Also units should cost different amounts of maintenance IMO. Not sure if they do already, but at least it should be clearly stated in build menus, what costs what.

EDIT: AI could be programmed to follow the cap strictly unless crap hits the fan, as in invaded, foreign troops on its land.

 

[stealth_nsk]

No need for anything complicated IMO. Just put a more strict cap that works with population (just overall population, not city count), with initial default number allowed, say 3 military units on start (not including civilian units). After pop 3 you start getting more, like 4 pop = 4 units etc. Certain military oriented civics could increase the cap. Makes for more interesting gameplay and makes military oriented civics more worthwhile.

I'm not sure I see interesting gameplay here. The reasons for cap could be:
- Making conquest harder as attacking force requires more maintenance.
- Prevent unit clutter with 1UPT.
Depending on population only will not do it. Actually basing on the number of cities is better for the second goal, considering ICS is out of questions due to other features.

 

[caiman0815]

A good solution would be imo a "strategic ressource" manpower, based on your total population

i.e. for each population point in your empire (friendly, non occuppied and non resisting of course) you get 1 manpower

Units to buy or produce now consumes manpower, in a way like other strategic ressources do (Edit: perhaps some buildings cost mp to?)

i.e a swordsman now costs 1 iron and 3 manpower, a cavalry (less manpower consuming) costs 1 horse and 2 manpower, an artillery costs 1 iron and 1 manpower.

When your manpower goes into negative, you cannot produce ore buy new units, and all your units stop healing until your manpower ist zero or positive

Some civics may affect those formulas, an autocracy for example can get more manpower per pop, or a military civics card "total war" would allow healing of some kind when in negative manpower