Let's rethink single units in terms of armies...

[Naokaukodem]

Let's assume that even early on, our warrior unit is supposed to represent an armed force and fight other humans, thus an army.

Armies are usually composed of heteroclite types of units, who have different purposes.

Alright. So let's say my first warrior is an army and that all I know of is melee strenght and ranged attack. (slingers)

So, my warrior should have the ability to shoot in range, within its aptitude to do melee.

If you consider that hunt is principally a question of range even early, it does not sound strange at all, even for very early "random" forces, it's the other way around that sounds strange. If any, our main starting unit should be a slinger in terms of Civ6, not a melee warrior. Melee should even be a powerful acquired ability in order to fight other humans, not animals. (promotions ?)

So my point is to assume that everything that looks like an army, like warriors, should have some sort of ranged attack too, and anything, when the technology is available, too, like mounted units. All these packed in a single unit.

[Digression]
Now, let's think in terms of specialization... for example, the slinger skills are not to be wasted against strong warriors ; that would be a massive loss for the tribe if they get killed. On the other hand, bows and even more crossbows need less training to be used, like not necessarily the work of a whole life (pro slingers : around 15 years of formation, versus say 1 year for pro archers, and a few days/weeks for a pro-crossbow). So they should be cheaper to produce right ? And more willing to fight against other humans, too. Now, bows and especially crossbows are more difficult to make than slings.

So, there is two types of specialization here : the one of the one who uses the weapon, and the one of the one who fabricates it. The Civilization games used to correlate intrically the ease of use (increased strenght, no specialization here) and the hardness of making. (more costy to produce, not much specialization here either)

I propose to include specialization in the way of building and using units.

Fistable, strongest units (I mean due to "better" equipment, and I will assume here that "better" is "easier to use", while I assume too that the "efficiency" of the weapon can be a little bit better too, but the curve of "efficiency" has a lot to do with ease of use), should maybe have a little bit better strenght, however not all the time : the major difference would be in the training required time : the "better" is the weapon, the shortest the training/building time.

Second, the specialization required in order to make the weapon : even in stone age, it required some good lump of training in order to make stone axes, spears or knives. This is especially true for melee weapons. As presented in Civ6, the ease of make was equal to the hardness of use for ranged weapons. (a sling is easy to make, a bow a lot less, and a crossbow yet another step in the difficulty, while those weapons went through a threshold in ease of use)
Basically, a sling would require no specialization to build, a bow a lot more and a crossbow would need a whole fabrik.
So either we go "building specialization is acquired" not matter what, and in that case the curve is a constant line affecting no building times, either we want to give the player to manage it, for additionnal challenge and realism, as to know "can his industry match the terrain needs", to see him fail or struggle some times.

Obviously, Civilization got some interest in taking it into account, other way the units would be cheaper and cheaper to build, while the production capacity constantly increasing... but wait, wouldn't it be preferable ? At the only condition that the production overflow takes into account a great amount of upcoming products, unlike it is in previous Civs, or at least Civ6. That way, one could build several units in the same city and in the same turn. How to balance it ? Easy : maintenance. Gold would be more of a decisive factor. Don't get me wrong, it is already the case in Civ6 if you paid attention, especially early and with civs like Scythia. (and especially in multiplayer) But it could become I don't know... more visible. After all, more than 50% of the revenues of most countries goes into army. So I suggest that the difference between having no trade routes and having just one to be more visible. Internal trade routes might be just tax collectors. You might need additionnal gold in order to "mount expeditions", whether they are scouting (exploration), settling or wars.

Now, we could also mitigate "ease of use" with "population loss". I mean, if you don't have to build equipment [acquire specialization] from scratch every single time, you certainly have to pick your warriors in the population, or its equivalent more or less (food). One could easily convert population points or food stocks into units. For example : you produce a modern infantry, it needs 10 food from your stock. If you have 10 food or more, you don't lose population but this city growth will take longer. If you have less than 10 food or build several modern infantries, you would lose one population or more. Note that due to how works population growth in Civ, the biggest the city, the less population you might lose. (for the same amount of units produced)

[Back to topic]

Now we see that a "military unit" would be in fact an "army", and that there would be only one type available at a given time, except for scouts maybe. (unless you want to make deliberately outdated units) Fact is, that it would be longer to train the more specializations you add to it. I would like specializations to be actual promotions, experience in battle not necessarily giving any. A military unit would have as many promotion slots as there is different types of units in previous Civs, +1 maybe for the logistic part (blacksmiths, mecanicians, cookers, etc., another layer of specialization, but the "makers" part of specialized people) Those specializations/promotions would give special abilities in the battlefield, like one or two ranged strikes before melee for ranged abilities, the ability to finish off another army if its health goes to red if you have light cavalry, better overall strenght if you have heavy cavalry, and so on.

I'm now a little bit torn about wether to give the player the ability to choose the specializations of his armies in a submenu a la Alpha Centauri, or if all his armies/military units should be given automatically what he has knowledge of, and, obviously, raw materials for. You to tell me. I would prefer the second, but it would prevent for epic battles like Napoleon ones when the main force is caught back by a cavalry force in the middle of a fight for example... but that's not like previous Civs was giving us this sort of feelings you know... but why not : I prefer the first now all of a sudden. Don't get me wrong, any army should have its logistics slot... might it even be deleted (killed or captured) by enemies ?

There, I think I got around pretty much. Considering the building specialization is acquired no matter what once the technology unlocked. Just keep in mind that every specialization slot would require money. I just want to inflate the numbers for a better sense of gold. (in expanses AND gains : there would be a major difference if you do the right things, like building a trade route, or not)

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

The problem that why 1UPT like Panzer General series and Commander: The Great War is ill suited for a 4X game that spans the entire course of human history from prehistoric beginnings to the Drone Era is that.. exactly the same thing as @Boris Gudenuf kun cited before.
1. It grossly off-scale
2. no battles, not even a single war could fight more than a generation consecutively. Yes there was something like so called Hundread-Years War where France and England fought for nearly a century TWICE. First in the late Middle Ages. and later by the so called 'Enlightenment Era' beginning with King Louis XIV's ambitions to rule Europe to Napoleon's Last Gambit at Waterloo. or even shorter war like the 'Thirty-Years War' between the two. none of these are continious conflicts between the same counterparties with the same casus beli. there were 'peace breaks' in those three 'Great Wars'. At best mankind could only fight wars for ten or twenty years before perpetators were either died or out of office. Before the Modern Era (1900) a battle, or even war would end within JUST ONE TURN.
a biggest challenge which could mean stacking suits better, but map designs and recruitment models had to be reworked. the recruitment rules of Heroes of Might and Magic series suit this style of 4x better, where local production (and transport disance factor) accumulate each tern by a city divided by population number creates recruitment points generated, which are no cumulative and also subject to popcap (think of 'Farms' system in Warcraft and Starcraft series but no maximum popcap (200 unit conts in term of the two Blizzard game series).
And about stacking. it should be limited stackings and one stack should represent an 'army' which moves in cohesion at once. though it is possible to make All mounted army and capable of move faster. there is no such things like 'light foots army' that could sprint all day in the same coherent order. not even Zulus in 1870s. And this affects class and grade system as well.
Which I will talk about it later. or Boris will do it first.

 

[Evie]

I'd argue that the third (Lancastrian) phase of the (first) HYW lasted nearly 40 years (1415-53) - the nominal peace of the Treaty of Troyes was barely worth the paper it took to write it) and that the Thirty Years War was, in fact, very much a single war (we don't count World War II as separate wars because the two biggest anti-Nazi players, thr Soviet Union and US only joined late, and the same should be true of the Thirty Years War where it's one Habsburg war to subjugate the Imperial princes despite the fact that two of the Habsburg's biggest rivals (Sweden and France) only entered the fray later.

Also, what you said about turn length cuts both ways. If we use turn length, even the alleged (but not real) nine year peace from the treaty of Troyes wouldn't be a peace in the game - the war would "resume" on the same turn it ended.

 

[Snowygerry]

We have the 80-years war here - admittedly with a "12-years truce" in the middle...

If you regard just the Southern Netherlands - the entire period from 1566 to 1815 or so, was one long war...

 

[Naokaukodem]

The problem that why 1UPT like Panzer General series and Commander: The Great War is ill suited for a 4X game that spans the entire course of human history from prehistoric beginnings to the Drone Era is that.. exactly the same thing as @Boris Gudenuf kun cited before.
1. It grossly off-scale
2. no battles, not even a single war could fight more than a generation consecutively. Yes there was something like so called Hundread-Years War where France and England fought for nearly a century TWICE. First in the late Middle Ages. and later by the so called 'Enlightenment Era' beginning with King Louis XIV's ambitions to rule Europe to Napoleon's Last Gambit at Waterloo. or even shorter war like the 'Thirty-Years War' between the two. none of these are continious conflicts between the same counterparties with the same casus beli. there were 'peace breaks' in those three 'Great Wars'. At best mankind could only fight wars for ten or twenty years before perpetators were either died or out of office. Before the Modern Era (1900) a battle, or even war would end within JUST ONE TURN.
a biggest challenge which could mean stacking suits better, but map designs and recruitment models had to be reworked. the recruitment rules of Heroes of Might and Magic series suit this style of 4x better, where local production (and transport disance factor) accumulate each tern by a city divided by population number creates recruitment points generated, which are no cumulative and also subject to popcap (think of 'Farms' system in Warcraft and Starcraft series but no maximum popcap (200 unit conts in term of the two Blizzard game series).
And about stacking. it should be limited stackings and one stack should represent an 'army' which moves in cohesion at once. though it is possible to make All mounted army and capable of move faster. there is no such things like 'light foots army' that could sprint all day in the same coherent order. not even Zulus in 1870s. And this affects class and grade system as well.
Which I will talk about it later. or Boris will do it first.

Seems that your main problem is the game clock, not the battles. OK, so turn 1 you settle your capital, and at turn 2 you are 100 years later. What happened in the middle ? Your warrior moved one tile and your population didn't grow eventhough you're supposed to have agriculture. Nothing is realistic in that way, not just battles. Oh sure, we can try to adapt EVERYTHING to the game clock , but I would bet that devs would prefer to remove it completely than doing this. But we have to be aware that the game clock is just an indication, just for fun (comparing our evolution to the reality for example, although I admit that it lost spice when you don't roleplay with CLSL*). We don't have to take it literally.

* = Culturally Linked Starting Locations.

 

[mitsho]

Wars - not battles - should be thought on a separate tactical screen. That way, they - wars, not battles - could be resolved in a single turn. Or up to five turns. Would also mean it's way more important to be prepared for them as you can't buy units. Except of course to raise the potential you have set aside in the preparation before the fighting begins.

There's a gameplay reasoning for this as well. I can fit around 10 "peaceful" turns into a single turn of war in a game usually. That grinds the game to a halt - the wars take up much more time of my playing time than the development in between. This imbalance impacts fun and can get very tedious due to the necessary micromanagement.

But in the end, it's a game mechanic decision. Both ways are doable.

 

[Naokaukodem]

wars, not battles

tactical

Does not compute. And as far as I know you're still obsessed here with the ingame clock mainly.

As to your gameplay reasoning, I would rather call it quality of life (or "playability"), eventhough I'm personnally not annoyed to have more time to decide things in time of war, because I tend to hit the "next turn" button too quickly otherwise. (feeling I miss a lot of opportunities, yet I've beat Deity just a few times)

 

[localdisk51]

This is all stuff I've thought of before, and I've experimented with making units cost food and/or population. I found that many other parts of the game needed rebalancing to make it work, and eventually gave up on the whole mod for now. Then later I thought of a way that avoided many of those issues, and that is to allow units to disband and return their population to cities when war is over. However, since we don't have the DLL, I can't make the AI do that.

I've also thought a lot about making armies instead in the way you describe, at least for melee and ranged. I use gedemons combat and Stacking Overhaul mod to roughly simulate that. I'm ify about including cavalry in that though. At the very least it should be possible to have a separate purely cavalry unit, as pure cavalry did have many purposes in history. The Marathon battle between Athens and Persia comes to mind. Persia separated their cavalry and tried to circle them around to Athens to sack the city while their infintry kept the Athenians distracted on the beach. So cavalry should be able to be separate for the purpose of pillaging, and minor flank and retreat attacks.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Thx for your answer.

About Cavalry, there's also the fact that when coupled with other units, they form an army, so that in non-battle form of moving they would be limited by the people on foot. Like it would and should be with any form of travel. Now, I'm not an expert in battles, but something tells me that Cavalry was used for its abilities (speed and charge for Civ6 Light/Heavy) but only on the battle field. Granted, there might be "short reunions" in the middle of a battle (or several), and/or reinforcements, and/or surprise effects, but either way I think that the abilities of Cavalry are used principally as a Sprinter's ones. Because you can't take benefit from gallop for a long travel, or you have to change the horses frequently, make halts yourself (i.e wait for slower charriots), etc. Don't get me wrong, even in travel Cavalry must have its advantages, like more movement points, that one is pretty obvious, but not as much as one could think, especially if it travels within an army with or even without foot men. Now, there could be special detachments, and I didn't close the door to them, but they should be more used as "blitz" attacks (like other Civs flight models ? You now, with an operationnal base or something) than forever wandering in enemy territory with full move each turn like it is in Civ6. (eventhough other mechanics prevented them to go too far, like city bombardment, well "averagely" I would say)

 

[localdisk51]

Thx for your answer.

About Cavalry, there's also the fact that when coupled with other units, they form an army, so that in non-battle form of moving they would be limited by the people on foot. Like it would and should be with any form of travel. Now, I'm not an expert in battles, but something tells me that Cavalry was used for its abilities (speed and charge for Civ6 Light/Heavy) but only on the battle field. Granted, there might be "short reunions" in the middle of a battle (or several), and/or reinforcements, and/or surprise effects, but either way I think that the abilities of Cavalry are used principally as a Sprinter's ones. Because you can't take benefit from gallop for a long travel, or you have to change the horses frequently, make halts yourself (i.e wait for slower charriots), etc. Don't get me wrong, even in travel Cavalry must have its advantages, like more movement points, that one is pretty obvious, but not as much as one could think, especially if it travels within an army with or even without foot men. Now, there could be special detachments, and I didn't close the door to them, but they should be more used as "blitz" attacks (like other Civs flight models ? You now, with an operationnal base or something) than forever wandering in enemy territory with full move each turn like it is in Civ6. (eventhough other mechanics prevented them to go too far, like city bombardment, well "averagely" I would say)

Sure, cavalry the majority of the time was used in battle. But I think it should be able to detach and reattach freely from an army unit, because sometimes cavalry is more of a liability than benefit. Cavalry is best for flanking, so they are usually good when you have a bigger army and/or the battle takes place on open plains. But if you're a smaller army with cavalry, or in woods, then you really don't want cavalry attached to your unit. You'll lose your cavalry very quickly. They do a great job of representing the benefits of cavalry in EU4, and allow you to remove your cavalry from your army when conditions are not favorable for their use.

That said, I disagree about separate cavalry units going long distances without support being unrealistic. When cavalry were sent alone into enemy territory to pillage, they were looting supplies and food from civilians to bring back and feed their army. Enemy infantry units could rarely ever stop their looting due to their speed. So things like pillaging farms to restore health are fairly close to realistic. The only thing I might want to add is the ability for that cavalry unit to bring back the food to an infantry unit so that it can restore its health as well.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Hmmm... so according to you it should not be "stacked abilities" but stacked units ? Like 1CUPT ? (One Class Unit Per Tile, or 1UPCPT, One Unit Per Class Per Tile) In term of production, it wouldn't change anything, so I guess it could be it.
On the other hand, I have heard tales of mighty mounted people pillaging (if I'm correct) Rome so what you say about mounted units could be true... although ingame that may be tricky. (cities and encampments bombardments)

Well, I just think that each unit class should give a bonus to the army, like I said : light cavalry for killing red health armies, heavy cavalry to improve the general strenght, ranged to fire once or twice before the beginning of the battle, melee foot units to... well, didn't think about this too much (eventhough I guess melee was invented in warfare to counter ranged, especially in rough terrains such as woods, eventhough I guess cavalry could be a good replcement for them especially in open field), but some pikes could disminish the cavalry (light and heavy) advantages, siege to well, break walls (even if this last could be built near the siege location provided there is some wood nearby, otherwise the army would be very slow), and... did I miss something (except for sea base and air based units) ?