A Unit Production Change Idea (that has no chance of being implemented)

[smorgasborgas]

I had this idea to change how units are produced. It's a big change to implement and certain to be unpopular. But I had the idea and I just wanted to get it out there. Call it brainstorming?

This would address the 'too many troops', 'tech moves too fast', 'constant war', and 'endless waves of missionaries' issues.

Change: Units come from the population.

• Workers, military, missionaries, all units that represent a large number of people (a musketman doesn't mean one guy with a musket) all subtract 1 from the population of a city when created. Exceptions are great people (they represent individuals), archeologists, diplomatic units, maybe scouts (?=grey area), siege (?), and others I'm not thinking of right now. Just to jump ahead, the growth rate of cities would have to be at least doubled to accommodate this. Minimum city population requirements and/or building requirements will need to be created. For example a temple is necessary to create missionaries, a granary or Palace necessary to create workers, etc.

• Military units and workers shouldn't take time to 'train.' A city with a barracks, or armory, or the Palace, etc. should just provide the option of a free unit every X turns and it's your choice to actually create it instantly just like a purchase (at the expense of 1 unit of population).

• I think the barracks, armory, etc should give one promotion each. Maybe more. Or maybe more buildings should grant more XP. There's a huge promotion tree and we never get to see a lot of it unless you exploit the AI's tactical disadvantage and 'farm' their units for kill bonuses.

• To add to the effect of each troop representing 'more people', and seeing more promotions, we could decrease the attack/HP ratio of units, so there are far fewer one-shot/two-shot kills. Each attack would represent a battle, not a single ambush.

• It would represent the actual loss in population from war

In my opinion this could improve several things,
Pros:

• Starting in the mid game, when viable land is running out, most civs are abutting others, and large standing armies are necessary to prevent DOWs against you, scout around through other civs. There is a military unit in almost every single tile. It is crazy that peaceful civs like Thailand and India along with Germany and Mongolia have to have MAXIMUM troop density. So many troops that there aren't places to put them! This change could alleviate that with fewer troops.

• If I settle a new city in the Modern Era, it can take 45 turns to create one Gatling Gun. By the time the unit completes with a consumption of a great scientist or some science bonuses I might be in the next Era. I think this creates the feeling that tech moves too fast.

• Side note: I started playing in Marathon speed lately because I had that feeling that tech moved so fast. But even in Marathon, even though techs take 45 turns to research, it still felt too fast! I think it's caused by the fact that it takes as long to build a building or unit to research the prerequisite tech. I think instant unit production would help with that. But besides all this, I think building production should be sped up as well. Imagine if the bottleneck for buildings in cities was higher gold maintenance, not production time. That way, in-between projects things, the city raised gold/science/culture using the production processes. I think that would be neat since cities would have more specialized roles. Although the removal of the need to produce units might free up enough production as is; after all, production should be good for something.

• This would give some mid-game use to the production processes that I usually don't use until VERY late game. Now if you want more units, maybe you choose the food production process...

• This would be balanced with the need for population and specialists. You need military and workers, but you also need citizens in your city, it creates a choice. And I think the unhappiness from specialists needs to go. The entire benefit of real life society is to support specialization (of course, my opinion).

• Far fewer (but stronger?) missionaries.

But it's also my opinion that this could cause a lot of problems,
Cons:

• The AI would have fewer units. Fewer units require more tactics, and as mentioned above, they have a big disadvantage in that area. Maybe this could be balanced by having more XP granted to newly created AI units?

• The fastest growing cities would produce the most military units. I don't mean the cities with the highest population, but the fastest growing. Therefore I don't think is a big problem, since even small cities grow quickly at first, especially if they choose the food process. Build a barracks in a small town and crank out a unit every 8-10 turns. The city could separately build whatever else it needs concurrently.

Balance:
Growth rates have to be increased as I mentioned earlier.

Unit attack/HP ratio would have to be decreased.

Civ UAs have to be changed of course, but that is one of the last things that need to be implemented. For example, India went from being one of the strongest religions to one of the weakest for at least a year. America is a pretty unappealing civ for it's Uniques. There are several civs that regularly end up on the bottom of the pile. Those imbalances haven't broken the game, so I don't think that this is a valid objection.

Random Additional Ideas:
Great Engineers could be used to speed up workers. If a great engineer is placed (not consumed) on top of a worker, it's build rate is tripled.
Great Artists/Musicians/Merchangs could be stationed in Towns to increase culture/tourism/gold output.
Similar for Prophets and Holy Sites, etc.

AIs shouldn't just automatically declare war because another civ is weak. There should be huge diplomatic penalties for that. Maybe much larger warmonger penalties, but they decay much much faster. Every single game, if a civ has been greatly weakened by another, ALL the remaining civs attack the weaker civ! Just because they are weak, and regardless of the attacking civ's personality and diplomacy history. If a civ has been attacked, there should be some incentive to come to their aid and liberate their cities. Even after liberating their cities I've had AI's vote for my sanction and denounce me.