http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanchester's_laws
The basic idea is that long-range combat modern and close-range ancient combat are very different things.
In modern combat, each person can target a potential huge number of targets: the limit is based on the density of enemy targets.
In ancient combat, a melee combatant could only fight one person (or at most a handful of people) at a time.
Assuming equal quality on both sides, in a fight of massed-melee vs massed-melee, you would expect the larger side to come out with roughly as many fatalities as the defending side has men.
The power of the force is roughly purportinal to the number of troops.
But if you give everyone guns, this isn't what happens. The larger force kills the smaller force faster than the smaller force kills the larger force.
With guns, the power of the force is roughly purportional to the number of troops squared.
...
Now, quality is another factor entirely. It is claimed that increasing the cost/quality of a unit in modern warfare by a factor of 4 makes up for a factor of 2 increase in numbers.
That means that quality, in modern warfare, boosts power linearly.
Could it be that "back in the day" quality was also linear? Or, possibly, more than linear?
This means that modern warfare techniques reward using massive numbers of low-quality troops and weapons. Meanwhile, in ancient warfare, a handful of high-quality troops could stand up and defeat massves of low-quality troops.
Todays armies are large, standing armies. The USA, as an example, does spend a huge amount on troop quality -- but still, about 2% to 5% of their population is "under arms" (depending on how broadly you define it). And when a modern state engages in all out war, they mobalize a huge percentage of their population.
I wonder if we could tweak that into Civ somehow.
As the game progresses, massed warfare becomes more and more advantageous, while in the ancient era small elite forces are more effective.
Of course, one could argue that is simply described by the unit stats.
...
Note that currently stacks of troops in Civ4 add linearly to power, while the strength of a unit behaves roughly quadradically (ie, strength^2 is roughly power).
To make sure massed troops don't make the stack-of-doom become too good, you'd have to introduce "real" flanking rules that make guarding your flanks important, and ZoC rules that make areas near a hostile unit "not in your territory" for the purpose of roads/railroads.
Then your stacks of doom would have to guard their flanks -- instead of stacks of doom, you'd have wedges of doom!
The basic idea is that long-range combat modern and close-range ancient combat are very different things.
In modern combat, each person can target a potential huge number of targets: the limit is based on the density of enemy targets.
In ancient combat, a melee combatant could only fight one person (or at most a handful of people) at a time.
Assuming equal quality on both sides, in a fight of massed-melee vs massed-melee, you would expect the larger side to come out with roughly as many fatalities as the defending side has men.
The power of the force is roughly purportinal to the number of troops.
But if you give everyone guns, this isn't what happens. The larger force kills the smaller force faster than the smaller force kills the larger force.
With guns, the power of the force is roughly purportional to the number of troops squared.
...
Now, quality is another factor entirely. It is claimed that increasing the cost/quality of a unit in modern warfare by a factor of 4 makes up for a factor of 2 increase in numbers.
That means that quality, in modern warfare, boosts power linearly.
Could it be that "back in the day" quality was also linear? Or, possibly, more than linear?
This means that modern warfare techniques reward using massive numbers of low-quality troops and weapons. Meanwhile, in ancient warfare, a handful of high-quality troops could stand up and defeat massves of low-quality troops.
Todays armies are large, standing armies. The USA, as an example, does spend a huge amount on troop quality -- but still, about 2% to 5% of their population is "under arms" (depending on how broadly you define it). And when a modern state engages in all out war, they mobalize a huge percentage of their population.
I wonder if we could tweak that into Civ somehow.
As the game progresses, massed warfare becomes more and more advantageous, while in the ancient era small elite forces are more effective.
Of course, one could argue that is simply described by the unit stats.
...
Note that currently stacks of troops in Civ4 add linearly to power, while the strength of a unit behaves roughly quadradically (ie, strength^2 is roughly power).
To make sure massed troops don't make the stack-of-doom become too good, you'd have to introduce "real" flanking rules that make guarding your flanks important, and ZoC rules that make areas near a hostile unit "not in your territory" for the purpose of roads/railroads.
Then your stacks of doom would have to guard their flanks -- instead of stacks of doom, you'd have wedges of doom!
