Amounts of soldiers

[Brutha2]

I reckon you should know how many soldiers you have, rather than having units. then you can have that number taken away from the population when they are built, because I think it's stupid that units take away nothing from the city.

 

[Pook]

I'm not following you. Even in ancient times, the number of soldiers is going to be quite small compared to your civilization's population. I don't see standing up a new unit as having much effect on population. Just my opinion.

 

[Brutha2]

Well, yes, but I'd like to know how many soldiers conquered the city. I find the unit system a bit boring. It would also be good if you could send all the soldiers into battle at the same time so you can overwhelm the enemy, rather tha one small battle one after the other.

 

[carlching]

but the unit system leaves us some space for imagination, for those who would like to see a unit as a division, it is a division; for those who see it as a brigade, it's a brigade. Your idea's not bad, but I would prefer the current system

 

[CiverDan]

as a rough estimate, a unit is between 1000-5000 field troops. It really varies for ships, though, as 1 battleship really does equal 1 battleship, though a galley really is equal to 50 or so (can't put 2000 ppl in a rowboat..heh). Planes are a ratio of 1:10-50.

 

[SilverKnight]

Although I would LOVE to see individual unit files. Nothing big, just a little window brought up by right-clicking on the unit with some basic information: time and place of formation; upgrades undergone; (theoritcal) number of troops/ ships/ planes; battles won; etc. This may slow game times down, but the added depth seems worth it!

 

[sampedestal]

actually, troop numbers instead of hp could work. when they heal in a city, they're looking for new recruits. barracks, of course, makes them heal faster. there would have to be a unit cap which would raise by... the troops' morale, perhaps?

 

[Brutha2]

Yeah. It would also be good if there were captain units inside the armies- then if he dies, the unit would fall, and only then. Also, if you were attempting to heal outside cities, the soldiers you get would obviously be less than in a normal city.

 

[sampedestal]

the closer to a city, the faster it heals. all units should be able to retreat. u could watch the battle, and when u've decided that u've lost too much men, u attempt a retreat. if the retreat fails or the captain dies, the unit surrenders.

 

[Brutha2]

Yeah. Captains should have special abilities in battle too. I'm not sure what though. The ability to kill everyone? There out to be a sort of flanking option if you have a lot of soldiers- split up your soldiers and surround the enemy, giving them a defensive loss, perhaps of 25% on each flank? If you get bonuses you ought to get losses too. Cavalry are good at flanking, so maybe they give the enemies a loss of 33%? :

 

[Khift]

One problem I have with switching unit health to the amount of troops in a unit is that even in the worst of situations, you rarely if ever lose half your troops in a single battle. Look at Pickett's charge. In that horribly failed assault, Pickett lost about half his men. Retreat is your best friend in battles - once the tide of battle changes against you significantly you will end up being wiped out, so you run away, to try again another day instead of wasting thousands of soldiers fighting a losing battle. Sadly, Civ doesn't have that feature in it as much as it should.

 

[Brutha2]

Hmm. I'm not familiar with picketts charge but you're right. If you retreat, the bombardment units should get a free blast at the retreating soldiers, and the enemy may choose to charge after them. Also, if you have to get more soldiers into your armies, as you probably will do, you could possibly invest money into speeding up the creation of soldiers, and if the city lacks a barracks, the number of soldiers hired each turn may come from a few different things- productivity, resources and the happiness of the city concerned.

 

[sampedestal]

just make unit costs waaay more expensive. that will force players to preserve w/e units they can

 

[Brutha2]

I think you should actually have to have a building to make the weapons for the soldiers, perhaps a different one each age- like an armory or an arms factory. That could also speed up unit production, or even allow it.

 

[Punkymonkey]

I think you should nbe allowed to make as many units as you have a population for. This would require figuring out a system of how many troops per unit and open a whole mess of questions as to how to fix it. However, there should be a logical cap besides money unless you can hire mercenary units that according to how much you pay them will retreat more likely with less money. If you are a civ of four cities you shouldn't be able to build more units than one with 10 cities. This may drag the game down immensely and needs a lot of of consideration, but i'm just throwing it out there to discuss

 

[~Corsair#01~]

I quite like the system as it is, since there is still a lot of skill in war, only it's more realistic, because war has always depended more on your production and $ than skill in battle, sad but true.
As for mercenaries, yes this would be very nice- maybe if you have allies, when are a square away from an allied city, or one of yours, you could have a "recruit mercenaries" button, which, depending on how much you pay for them, their skill and unit type would change. (maybe you could have a special mercenary unit, which would automatically change [although any in your care would still need to be paid for upgrading] whenever you research key techs. For instance- say you are about to buy mercenaries, if you do it this turn you'd get Merc. Mk1, but if you waited til you unlocked, say the Pub-brawling advance, you'd get Merc. Mk2s, which would of course be more expensive. Any Mercsalready deployed would have to be upgraded in the normal way of course.)