ghengiskhan
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2007
- Messages
- 7
+1... less unites, same amount of wars... including it in the next patch sounds good.
Yeah, I should have checked to see who wrote the OP before replying. My bad.
As to the rest, having not played Intersel Empire I can't comment on those aspects. But the AIs in any game are always going to build as many units as they can.
As for "standing armies seems ahistoric", well, the US tries to have enough to fight two wars. I keep units I call 'guard' in low-threat cities (no experience, old technology), 'reserve' in high-threat cities (little/no experience, but new tech) and my front-line guys with decent experience ('army') sit somewhere where I can move them easily between potential fronts. I consider that pretty realistic. Against that I have to balance the upkeep costs, which are much worse than Civ3's.
You're defining large standing armies as ahistorical and I don't see that in CivIV terms. With NATO, the 7th Fleet, etc all the way back to the Mongols, the Crusades, the Roman army, etc, large armies have been very common. It comes with building an empire, and that is largely the point of Civ.
I would also point out that if you change happiness, then the AIs that prefer the warlike civics are still going to be able to build stacks. Going after the cost structure, either the hammers or the gold, is probably the way to go. CivIV already changed upkeep since Civ3, so that should be a safe route. But if an aggressive AI still has more money than you, you're going to have to be VERY diplomatic or lose the game.
3. It is completely unrealistic and ahistorical that in a standard world-wide setting that nations afford and maintain standing armies capable of easily conquering the world without experiencing at least USSR if not North Korean like collapse. It should be properly balanced with the more realistic drawbacks. There are currently none.
I agree with most of your points, except that one.
Many large armies did exist and conquer most of the known world, sometimes overpower or outnumber their ennemies. I.e. : Romans, Greeks, Napoleon. Even Nazis came close to hold their share over most of the Europe, if it wouldn't be for some strategical errors.
Amidst the never ending wars (from the beginning of the Republic up to the Principate, the doors of the temple of Janus were closed only twice - when they were open it meant that Rome was at war),
Again I'm not saying SoD should not exist or are unrealistic!
But what I am saying though that they should be costly to maintain over the long run and fully mobilized for imminent war then demobilized to more normal levels when the major war is over.
Can you name a nation who built up world war sized fully mobilized armies and maintained them for centuries and prospered?
War weariness- there's another option that can be looked at to discourage stacking, though I really think that the AI wouldn't handle it.
The military support specialist- I can see that encouraging wars- have too many units, just go beat up Asoka. Take a city, then sue for peace.
An unhealth penalty might work as well- as units take food. Give +2 health all cities, but units/(cities*(tech and civic choices)) ratio gives unhealth rounded up. That would slow growth, eventually stop growth. AI couldn't handle that.
Increasing damage artillery can do to units might help as well, but then you'd get the trebs of doom again. (I really wish the game had a bombard, it's desperately needed)
My biggest concern with any system is that it doesn't cripple the AI. That's why I suggested unhappiness. The AI can deal with unhappiness, it would slow its research rate, and maybe stop making troops.
One other option, take away the AI's 50% upgrade boost- then the stacks of doom would be of inferior quality. A SoD of longbowmen when you have rifles is just annoying. I think a lot of the problem is due to that.
If simply increasing gold costs works then I'm all for it. But I think it probably wouldn't be as balanced and work as well as the "military support specialist" idea.
I often think ther eis too little military. u can't strategically deploy. everything has to go in the SOD, especially early. no defending resources, or ur backdoor, I've even used ponzy schemes of removing garrisons from my cities while replacing the garrison 3-5 turns later w/ fresh units from farther back just to get more units forward.
perhaps by modern era u can have scouts, and multiple fronts and other such things that make me feel more strategic.
AI upgrade discount has been deemed necessary to keep the AI competitive. However, this has been nerfed in the higher levels to become a flat 50% discount instead of, IIRC, 95% on either Immortal or Deity. Ironically, though, to make up for this the AI has been programmed to build mroe units. So this solves the issue of attacking the AI and then suddenly finding all its units upgraded within one turn, but introduces the issue of unit spam. Basically, now, instead of just having to press a tech advantage quickly, you have to have a little competition with the AI to see who can outnumber who. Even if you don't want to take the offensive, you still have to spam units in case the now 'competitive' AI sees you as a low-hanging fruit, whether the AI is your friend or not.
Civ4 has become a world of paranoia that has only one reliable solution.
AI upgrade discount has been deemed necessary to keep the AI competitive. However, this has been nerfed in the higher levels to become a flat 50% discount instead of, IIRC, 95% on either Immortal or Deity. Ironically, though, to make up for this the AI has been programmed to build mroe units. So this solves the issue of attacking the AI and then suddenly finding all its units upgraded within one turn, but introduces the issue of unit spam. Basically, now, instead of just having to press a tech advantage quickly, you have to have a little competition with the AI to see who can outnumber who. Even if you don't want to take the offensive, you still have to spam units in case the now 'competitive' AI sees you as a low-hanging fruit, whether the AI is your friend or not.
Civ4 has become a world of paranoia that has only one reliable solution.
This is evident even at settler level where the AI now spams the same number of units as it did at Noble in WL/Vanilla. In fact Noble WL is easier to beat at war than Settler BTS ( which I think is ridiculous).