Bring back food upkeep for units

[Siptah]

I think it would balance the peaceful and aggressive paths a bit more if units would cost food upkeep again (the early civ games had that). I don't think it would be wise to exchange gold upkeep with food upkeep, but to have this additionally. It would not scale when you advance - just 1 food per unit base cost when your troops are inside your borders at any time. However, this would scale with the distance from your nearest city. Better technology leads to a better food upkeep per distance ratio. When population loss is imminent, you are prompted with a decision to either lose 1 population in city X or lose unit Y.

This would make the ancient and classical conquering a bit harder to pull off, since your capital or second city won't grow much or may even lose population at some point if you overdo it. Also, it would make landing on another continent with a big army more costly. Maybe military engineers could build something like a supply depot to reduce upkeep. If the food is taken from the nearest city, it might be worthwhile to send internal trade routes to this city and change production focus to food if many units drain food from the same city. It would also make food more important as a resource.

Unnecessary micromanagement and too complicated rules or would it make the game more interesting and balanced?

 

[AmazonQueen]

I think it would balance the peaceful and aggressive paths a bit more if units would cost food upkeep again (the early civ games had that). I don't think it would be wise to exchange gold upkeep with food upkeep, but to have this additionally. It would not scale when you advance - just 1 food per unit base cost when your troops are inside your borders at any time. However, this would scale with the distance from your nearest city. Better technology leads to a better food upkeep per distance ratio. When population loss is imminent, you are prompted with a decision to either lose 1 population in city X or lose unit Y.

This would make the ancient and classical conquering a bit harder to pull off, since your capital or second city won't grow much or may even lose population at some point if you overdo it. Also, it would make landing on another continent with a big army more costly. Maybe military engineers could build something like a supply depot to reduce upkeep. If the food is taken from the nearest city, it might be worthwhile to send internal trade routes to this city and change production focus to food if many units drain food from the same city. It would also make food more important as a resource.

Unnecessary micromanagement and too complicated rules or would it make the game more interesting and balanced?

I certainly think the game needs something beyond what it has now.
What I'd suggest (and did in the Unit Upgrade thread in GD) is that you have a force limit based on total pop, government type and number of encampments, barracks etc and if you exceed that take penalties to growth and production.

 

[Siptah]

I like that general idea limiting units
A basic unit cap shouldn't be too small though, since 3 or 4 units are very helpful against barbarians in the beginning. And you often don't have the chance to build an encampment before the first barbarian wave hits. Sure, technically one slinger is enough to hold off barbarians, but that's not too much fun... Sadly, 3 or 4 units are also enough to steamroll an opponent early on.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I like that general idea limiting units
A basic unit cap shouldn't be too small though, since 3 or 4 units are very helpful against barbarians in the beginning. And you often don't have the chance to build an encampment before the first barbarian wave hits. Sure, technically one slinger is enough to hold off barbarians, but that's not too much fun... Sadly, 3 or 4 units are also enough to steamroll an opponent early on.

Over in the Unit Upgrade thread the discussion has veered off into Unit Upkeep/Maintenance as well as Unit Cap, so similar ideas to yours are being considered at some length already.

Regards to Food as a Maintenance Cost, the problem is that Food is a very special category of 'supply' that the game doesn't handle at all realistically now. For Food to make a difference in the game scale, we are talking about tons of the stuff: a daily bread ration for a city of 2000, or a military unit of the same size (which would be a pretty large army in most of the world from the Ancient to the Medieval Eras!) would be 2 tons per day. To transport that over land would require 20 - 30 pack animals or 2 - 4 carts, traveling at best 15 - 20 miles per day if you have a road of some kind. Rations for a few weeks would result in a 'tail' of carts and animals numbered in the hundreds, with drivers and drovers, guards, fodder for the animals... Nobody ever tried that very often. Mostly, armies moved within their own territory between supply depots or magazines (in the Roman Empire, for example, permanent Castramenta), and in enemy or 'neutral' territory they Pillaged - stole everything edible. That, of course, results in no army being able to stay in one place very long before starvation sets in for everyone, soldiers included.

To do it all 'accurately', frankly, makes a really dull, micromanaged game: tiles that are pillaged as an arm moves through them, some tiles like deserts, jungles and tundra that damage military units moving through them for the first half of the game because there is nothing to eat there, Supply Columns that have to be maintained - it is not very good game design, nor is it very much fun to play (Disclosure: I've tried to play that kind of game, and God Willing will never try it again!)

All that said, I agree that the game should have a lot more 'detail' in the interaction between armies/units and the terrain they are trying to move through or fight in, and the methods they are using to survive there. As I said earlier, we've sort of veered into that area in the Unit Upgrade Thread: I invite you to take a look there.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Food as maintenance is an interesting route, but the problem with that is it won't work with the current set up. There aren't enough food generating resources and buildings and gold is simply easier to come by. A lot of the base hardwiring of the game would need ot change in order for this become possible.

The military support limit Idea, I really like and support! This is something you can implement easily (tie it to the encampment and palace, and make it so cavalry require more support than infantry- Cavs are kinda op in this game rn) and it's also something you can improve through technology (similar to how advancing through the culture tree adds more governor titles, so could the techtree add more military support). You can also introduce some wonders that increase support and policy cards that play around with it. Overall, a good contender for a future XPac mechanic.