Military Manpower Draining for Civ 4

[Trade-peror]

WOW! I am surprised that this ancient thread has been revived!

Anyway, I would encourage everyone here to go to my summarizing post of my UET thread (link in my signature) and read the section there concerning military unit maintenance. That is my most current opinion on this matter.

In addition, I would not mind if posts relating to this topic are posted in the UET thread, because the military does play a very significant role in the UET economy.

@microbe:

Actually there is no reason to think that large armies are no longer buildable, since this idea has also led me to redefine the number of people represented by one population point to a number as low as perhaps 1,000. In my UET summary, I state that each population point consumes only 1 food per turn, so the city population scale will be increased, and the actual limiting power of this feature may not be as restrictive as it may seem at first.

@Garbarsardar.jr:

I understand the need for an innovative and streamlined interface to be able to handle the in-depth demands of the UET; I have actually envisioned and hinted at this new interface in various posts at CFC. Although I have not yet designed an interface that would encompass all of the UET's options, I have established a general idea and direction in my old Integrated Interface thread (link in signature). As the UET summary progresses, I will probably add an interface section at the end. Until then, see if my ideas in that old thread are of any interest! Any suggestions are welcome to be posted in the UET (or if you prefer, the Integrated Interface) thread.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Maybe the best way to solve the whole 'population debate' is to state population in a completely NON-ABSTRACT way! i.e. in your city screen, it will tell you how MANY PEOPLE are actually in that city-not population points, not food units-but actual people. For instance, if your city has 250,000 people in it, then that will be made apparent in both the city screen AND the city's population indicator in the Main Screen. However, this population will be known ONLY to the owning player! The numbers currently used to represent population could still be retained, but would instead refer to CITY SIZE-i.e., the number of people that a city can COMFORTABLY house. For instance, a Size 1 city could probably house NO MORE than 100 people, wheras a size 2 city could fit as many as 1000 people-and so on!
For city size to increase, you would have to build relevent 'infrastructure' improvements and, later in the game, improve existing ones. For instance granaries might be needed for a city to grow from size 1 to size 2, wheras aqueducts might be needed to reach a size 3 city. Later in the game, you might need to 'upgrade' your granaries and aqueducts to more modern equivalents, in order for later city size increases to occur! If your actual population goes ABOVE the size-limit, then crime, unhappiness and pollution would be the result.
When another civ sees another city, they will ONLY see its city size and NOT its actual population!
With this population and city size model, you could then have non-abstract population costs for the working of tiles AND the 'manning' of terrain and city improvements, as well as real-world costs for city bombardment, plagues and military units.
Lastly, with this system in place, happiness would probably need to be changed to a '1-100%' system, with an adjective to describe the various happiness states (like rebellious, riotous, defiant, angry, unhappy etc). I would envisage that you would ONLY ever see the 'happiness adjective'-not the actual % that comprises it!
In addition to this, a city's specialisation would be based on the % of the total population which are 'used up' manning certain types of terrain/city improvements.
For example, lets say that you have a city of 100,000 people, with 4 operational mines-at a cost of 1000 people each and 6 'industrial' improvements-each with an average minimum population cost of, say, 2000 people each. This would mean that your population would comprise of 16% 'labourers'. You could up this % to, say, 25%-and this would give you a boost to your production-but that population would have to COME from somewhere! The Maximum amount that you could boost specialisation would depend on the 'Maximum Population Cost' for the relevent improvements! e.g., you could only boost your labouring population to 25% IF the maximum population cost of the aforementioned industrial improvements was around 4500.
Anyway, as you can probably imagine, the numbers I provide in my examples are largely arbitrary-as a means of making a point. If this model WERE adopted, then the numbers involved would be related to gamplay balance!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Turner]

Moderator Action: Baseballfan45 - please refrain from multiple posts like that. You can edit your responses into the same post.

 

[primeminister99]

I think it would be intresting (if it can altered to make it workable) but I agree with those who worry about the AI ending up with cities at the size of one. Mabye a whole new population model based on actual population instead of numbers beside a city should be instituted?

P.S on edit after reading Aussie_Lurker's post more closely I agree with what Aussie_Lurker had to say re: population growth.

 

[Commander Bello]

My last attempts of making units pop-based were under PTW and it worked quite well, even for the AI.
The artificial city limits (6/12/whatever) seem to enable the AI to make decisions whether a certain improvement has to be built at a given city. That way, the AI is able to do both: building large cities as well as building quite a large military.
I am currently even planning to mod unit costs in that way that industrial age units will consume 2 pop, instead of 1 for ancient and medieval ages (except for airplanes and naval units)

Anyway, the ideas of Aussie_Lurker and the proposal of having some kind of recruitement pool sound very good and should be taken into consideration for Civ4.

 

[eromrab]

I like the idea of a real population... and also of factors other than food going into the city growth... look at america... we didn't grow cause of food... we grew because of freedom... and the food maintained it...

i would love to see a real population thing take effect... and then the numbers shown on the map could just be a rounded off figure... if you have 24,318 people then you city could say "24"... and when you build a military unit it could have a "population cost" depending on the actual unit built.

for example, you build a phalanx. let's just say it will cost 100 people for this example. you have a city with a population of 11,854... after the city builds the unit, you then have a population of 11,754... in this case it didn't affect the "11" shown on the map... but if the city had only 11,075 people... it would knock it down to 10,975... therefore making the city a "10"...

each unit could have a different population cost associated to it... for example, an airplane unit could have a smaller cost due to a smaller amount of people needed to fly and support it...

but then again, would they be able to make an AI smart enough to handle something like this?