dunkleosteus
Roman Pleb
I've been getting into EU4 quite a lot recently. It's a totally different take on a historical game than Civ 6 and a lot of fun. I've been thinking that EU4 has a much more interesting combat system than Civ 6 and there are aspects of it that would tie in nicely with Civ 6's gameplay.
I won't go into detail as to how EU4 (Europa Universalis 4) handles military combat, instead I'll outline what Civ 6 could do to make combat more interesting.
1. Combat units aren't "built" as much as "recruited". In Civ, your military might has been largely controlled by how much production you allocate to military units rather than buildings and now districts or public projects. EU4 has a different take on this; units are instead recruited (with a period set aside for training, but not on the scale of unit production times in Civ)
2. Obviously, this sort of leaves the size of your army open-ended, limited by the number of units you can afford. EU4 also comes to our aid; it uses a manpower system to regulate army sizes. Manpower represents the number of men that are available to be drafted or recruited into your military. Manpower is also incredibly important as a resource however; units heal by siphoning out of the pool of manpower, as new troops are recruited to replace fallen ones. Manpower can and should be affected by the size of your cities (larger population = more manpower per turn) but also military buildings can be used to artificially increase the manpower limit and growth per turn, such as the barracks.
3. Civ 5 made a sharp change with limiting units to one per tile, and Civ 6 has slightly backpedaled a bit with the introduction of corps and armies. This needs to change though, we need many more units per tile, however with strict limitations. EU4 implements a system of attrition where having too many men in one tile or area automatically inflicts damage each turn to the army. This is important, and will affect how and where you fight battles. For Civ 6, I think the basics need to be that your own territory has a higher supply cap than enemy territory, improved tiles (like farms) have a higher cap than unimproved tiles or pillaged tiles. Additionally, the base food yield of the tile affects the supply limit, so deserts and tundra have a lower supply limit than grasslands and floodplains.
4. As I mentioned above, EU4 specifically draws from your nation's manpower to replenish the health of your units. This is important and I think adds a lot of opportunity for strategy in Civ 6: in order to heal, you units must be in unobstructed range of your territory. If you are deep in the wilderness, your units are overextended and cannot recover health (your reinforcements can't reach them!). This also draws up a question while at war: how to handle unit healing in enemy territory? A great system for this and one that greatly improves the strategy in gameplay is to make forts much more important- forts need to have defenses just as encampments and cities do, as well as a bombard ability. However, they are quite a bit weaker than encampments or cities, but do exert zone of control. This means that if you are sieging a city, you must take out any of the forts between your troops and your territory or your units won't have an unobstructed path for reinforcements to come. It also makes cities much, much more defensible, which is important.
5. Unit stacking, explained further: each unit you produce is made of 1000 men. Units can be combined into larger and larger armies or split apart into smaller armies (although not less than 1000 men). As armies grow, they increase in strength, but not linearly. When two armies initiate combat with each other, the victory is determined by the relative sizes and strengths of the armies, which are different and important details. 10 000 spear men are not as effective against 1000 musketmen, for obvious reasons. Additionally, as armies grow, they start accruing negative combat modifiers relating to disorder- organizing 20 000 men is much more difficult than 1000. This combat penalty can be lessened by having a great general accompany them.
Summary: Overall, this will a have a large impact on the game. War will be conducted differently: it will be important to maintain a relatively high manpower level, as it represents your ability to quickly raise troops or replenish your existing armies when they begin to take damage. For this reason, it will be important to build encampments as well as related buildings such as barracks and armories in cities that aren't at a strategically important location- their existence increases the manpower production and limit that that city contributes to your empire. Armies will be much more limited to your own territory- in a way I think this will aid the progress of the game, as exploration will be a lot more limited in the ancient era- scouts are much more vulnerable to barbarians, only having superior movement speed on their side. This may sound like a negative aspect but really it shifts exploration to a more historically reasonable middle era without heavily hurting gameplay. The beginning of the game will likely consist of exploration of a small area around your territory, introduction to your immediate neighbours, but without introducing yourself to the entire world.
Each of the mechanics I've talked about here can be impacted and affected by various policies and civics throughout the game: when forts are unlocked, they will become a very important strategic structure: they protect your lands from invasion by barbarians or enemy armies as a first line of defense. China's great walls will act as a lesser version of a fort- lower defense and possibly no ranged combat strength, but are impassable to enemy units before the wall is broken with a battering ram.
Policies can be adopted to increase the unit supply in various tiles, or to create military supply trains (increased unit maintenance for faster unit healing, +higher supply cap before you get attrition). There are many ways that policies can provide new and interesting ways to interact with and overcome these mechanics, and ways that you can use the mechanics to your own advantage. For example, you could pillage your own tiles (currently impossible) to lower the supply limit on those tiles if enemy troops come through. This would force the enemy to split their units into smaller armies and make them weaker to your own attacks.
I'd like to hear what you think or any more ideas as to how the mechanics I've discussed could be used and worked with to make military combat more interesting.
I won't go into detail as to how EU4 (Europa Universalis 4) handles military combat, instead I'll outline what Civ 6 could do to make combat more interesting.
1. Combat units aren't "built" as much as "recruited". In Civ, your military might has been largely controlled by how much production you allocate to military units rather than buildings and now districts or public projects. EU4 has a different take on this; units are instead recruited (with a period set aside for training, but not on the scale of unit production times in Civ)
2. Obviously, this sort of leaves the size of your army open-ended, limited by the number of units you can afford. EU4 also comes to our aid; it uses a manpower system to regulate army sizes. Manpower represents the number of men that are available to be drafted or recruited into your military. Manpower is also incredibly important as a resource however; units heal by siphoning out of the pool of manpower, as new troops are recruited to replace fallen ones. Manpower can and should be affected by the size of your cities (larger population = more manpower per turn) but also military buildings can be used to artificially increase the manpower limit and growth per turn, such as the barracks.
3. Civ 5 made a sharp change with limiting units to one per tile, and Civ 6 has slightly backpedaled a bit with the introduction of corps and armies. This needs to change though, we need many more units per tile, however with strict limitations. EU4 implements a system of attrition where having too many men in one tile or area automatically inflicts damage each turn to the army. This is important, and will affect how and where you fight battles. For Civ 6, I think the basics need to be that your own territory has a higher supply cap than enemy territory, improved tiles (like farms) have a higher cap than unimproved tiles or pillaged tiles. Additionally, the base food yield of the tile affects the supply limit, so deserts and tundra have a lower supply limit than grasslands and floodplains.
4. As I mentioned above, EU4 specifically draws from your nation's manpower to replenish the health of your units. This is important and I think adds a lot of opportunity for strategy in Civ 6: in order to heal, you units must be in unobstructed range of your territory. If you are deep in the wilderness, your units are overextended and cannot recover health (your reinforcements can't reach them!). This also draws up a question while at war: how to handle unit healing in enemy territory? A great system for this and one that greatly improves the strategy in gameplay is to make forts much more important- forts need to have defenses just as encampments and cities do, as well as a bombard ability. However, they are quite a bit weaker than encampments or cities, but do exert zone of control. This means that if you are sieging a city, you must take out any of the forts between your troops and your territory or your units won't have an unobstructed path for reinforcements to come. It also makes cities much, much more defensible, which is important.
5. Unit stacking, explained further: each unit you produce is made of 1000 men. Units can be combined into larger and larger armies or split apart into smaller armies (although not less than 1000 men). As armies grow, they increase in strength, but not linearly. When two armies initiate combat with each other, the victory is determined by the relative sizes and strengths of the armies, which are different and important details. 10 000 spear men are not as effective against 1000 musketmen, for obvious reasons. Additionally, as armies grow, they start accruing negative combat modifiers relating to disorder- organizing 20 000 men is much more difficult than 1000. This combat penalty can be lessened by having a great general accompany them.
Summary: Overall, this will a have a large impact on the game. War will be conducted differently: it will be important to maintain a relatively high manpower level, as it represents your ability to quickly raise troops or replenish your existing armies when they begin to take damage. For this reason, it will be important to build encampments as well as related buildings such as barracks and armories in cities that aren't at a strategically important location- their existence increases the manpower production and limit that that city contributes to your empire. Armies will be much more limited to your own territory- in a way I think this will aid the progress of the game, as exploration will be a lot more limited in the ancient era- scouts are much more vulnerable to barbarians, only having superior movement speed on their side. This may sound like a negative aspect but really it shifts exploration to a more historically reasonable middle era without heavily hurting gameplay. The beginning of the game will likely consist of exploration of a small area around your territory, introduction to your immediate neighbours, but without introducing yourself to the entire world.
Each of the mechanics I've talked about here can be impacted and affected by various policies and civics throughout the game: when forts are unlocked, they will become a very important strategic structure: they protect your lands from invasion by barbarians or enemy armies as a first line of defense. China's great walls will act as a lesser version of a fort- lower defense and possibly no ranged combat strength, but are impassable to enemy units before the wall is broken with a battering ram.
Policies can be adopted to increase the unit supply in various tiles, or to create military supply trains (increased unit maintenance for faster unit healing, +higher supply cap before you get attrition). There are many ways that policies can provide new and interesting ways to interact with and overcome these mechanics, and ways that you can use the mechanics to your own advantage. For example, you could pillage your own tiles (currently impossible) to lower the supply limit on those tiles if enemy troops come through. This would force the enemy to split their units into smaller armies and make them weaker to your own attacks.
I'd like to hear what you think or any more ideas as to how the mechanics I've discussed could be used and worked with to make military combat more interesting.
