More realistic military support

[MeatWad]

It seems strange to me that you can stack as many units (remember in CIV, each one represents a legion, brigade, etc.) in a city with no supply problems. It takes more than gpt to support an army, and I feel this should be addressed somehow. Maybe limiting the number of units to a city's size. That sounds fair, and perfectly natural as far as the flow of the game goes. By the time you actually NEED to stack units, most of your cities should be at least size 4 or 6. Too many units could be represented by starving - 1 food for every unit over the city's limit. I mean, in the AA we are talking about units made up of thousands of men. Even today with modern transport, supplying soldiers on the lines is an ongoing battle unto itself. Nothing cheeses me off more than trying to take a size 2 city that has a ba-jillion defenders (and I get creamed). I know they can't all fit in that Barracks!

 

[Fundamentality]

I know they can't all fit in that Barracks!

Yeah,I remember in civ 2 the germans were down to their last city and had tons of partisans in one city but NO!Civ IV should be realistic not to realistic or there's no fun in that .

 

[Jawz II]

i dont like the "fopod for the troops idea", let them eat their fallen enemys for all i care

sounds like it would make things too complicated, personally im happy that troops belong to the city that made them, and only those would act as MP if stationed and so on, that was pain the zeh azz

but i think i shouldnt have to pay gpt for certain types of troops, like for example cruise missiles

 

[MeatWad]

I disagree re. upkeep for units like Cruise Missles. You're not just paying for a missle, but the support system for that missle (silo, crew, fuel, warhead, etc,). If you want to make wars in Civ more strategic (is this what you mean by "more complicated"?), and not just "let's see how many units I can possibly cram down my enemies throats", well, it just shouldn't happen that way. No empire in the history of the world has ever been able to bring 100% of it's military power to any given battle, why? Because of supply and space restrictions. I don't know just 'how big' a size 2 or 3 town is, but it is called a TOWN. Where the heck are 50,000-100,000 troops going to put up, and what are they going to eat? And the longer they stay, the worse it should get. Plan your wars well, my children....Or wind up like Napoleon, or Hitler when they went after Russia.

"What? Dead Mongol AGAIN?!"

 

[Jawz II]

yeah but cruise missiles dont have silos,and they dont have crews and the fuel you buy typically once(included when you make it hopefully), war haead is half of the missile if i pay support for fuel and warhead, then what i exactly build? the motor?

however i do belive the fuel have to be changed every few years, a cruise missile is usually like 2-3 meters long, i think you are thinking about ICBMs

a b-52 can take i think 4 tomahawks, maybe more

and even forICBMs i dont think i should as much as say i pay for an infantry unit, sure silo and crew cost, but not nearly as what a divison of infantry cost in salary, material etc

like 1/1000th or something

 

[Exel]

Cruise missiles aren't maintenance free...

I'd like to see the combat/supply system changed so that players would "have to" spread their troops during war; ie. form fronts and not just stack all your military into one tile and then roll over everything. The units in enemy territory should be dependant of a supply line tracking to a friendly city. If the line would be disrupted (enemy units between the unit and the supply base) the unit's effectiveness would suffer, it movement would be limited, etc. This applies mostly to modern units, as ancient troops often supplied themselves with plunder. More advanced units should be more dependant of supply.

 

[Jawz II]

didnt say they were maintence free, read finn read!

 

[Exel]

didnt say they were maintence free, read finn read!

Well you said they shouldn't have an upkeep cost...

As for ICBMs, they don't just lay around in their silos until they are launched. They are being constantly maintenanced, their rather large crews need constant training, the silos need to be guarded at all times, etc. It aint free. And the infantry units in Civ3 most probably don't represent a division sized force, brigades at most.

 

[Jawz II]

Well you said they shouldn't have an upkeep cost...

in real life cruise missile do have maintence cost, very very little

in the game, i dont think they should have

clear now chachi?

 

[Exel]

in real life cruise missile do have maintence cost, very very little

Yes, per missile, very little. But again, the cruise missile unit in Civ3 most certainly does not represent a single cruise missile, but rather a pack of them.

 

[Jake5555555]

You should have supply lines going to your troops from the rest of your territory. If these are cut off the the troops will be unable to heal and will fight at half power.

 

[NP300]

Maybe the upkeep cost ought to be exponential.

For example, let's say you have 10 tanks and they cost 1 gold each. That's a total of 10 gold. But if you double the number of tanks, the cost per tank doubles. So now you have 20 tanks but they cost you 2 gold each, for a total of 40 gold. 40 tanks would cost you 4 gold each, for a total of 160 gold. And 80 tanks would cost 8 gold each for a total of 640 gold!

This should be per unit type and should be regardless of empire size. So if you double your empire size, corruption aside, you can expect to have twice the gold and thus twice the tanks. But because to double the number of tanks you need more than twice the gold, this would put a break on military expansion. This would represent the greater marginal cost of maintaining a huge military. In other words, when the US has a 1 million man army it may cost 1 billion of dollars, but the real cost of a 10 million man army would be far more than 10 billion dollars due to the economic disruptions.

 

[NP300]

It just occurred to me to make most units have a population cost. This would simulate the population cost of real armies. This could be done as a mod in the existing civIII. Has anyone trid such a mod?

 

[Mr. Blonde]

I think the way unit supply as handeled in civ3 works good. One minor change I could think of is increasing the supply costs if you have more modern units. That means for instance that a moder armour needs maybe 3-4 times the supply of lets say musketmen (based on shields). Of course the free supply of cities/towns/metropolises would have to be adjusted. This way the army size does not increase linear with your commerce/population and if you are behind in military technology you could make a stand with a mass of cheap but backwards units.

 

[tmarcl]

It just occurred to me to make most units have a population cost. This would simulate the population cost of real armies. This could be done as a mod in the existing civIII. Has anyone trid such a mod?

That really wouldn't affect matters much, I don't think. Not in the later game, anyways. Possibly in the Ancient Age, though. Once you got a good infrastructure going, you'd gain back any pop points lost relatively quickly.

 

[Pook]

Supply lines for Civ 4 are discussed at length in
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=85496 and
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=85408

Operational range is discussed at length in
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=87853 and
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=85662

For population impact, I agree with tmarcl- maybe an effect in the ancient era, but not today. As an example, currently US population is about 300 million, military is less than .5% of that. Since US spends more on defense than next 9 nations combined, it would be hard to make the case for military units impacting population in modern times.

 

[menwia]

Its true, one has got to show some kind of cost to the nation other then just gold pieces - now that is one way of controlling your troop size - if you can't afford them - then you can't have them.

But maybe we need more - I din't know - maybe and then again maybe not - but a good alternative would be - instead of food - how about shields. For each unit that is build in a city - like it was befroe - a shield is taken away. The more powerful or modern a unit, the more shields - so it gets to a point, that a city just can't build unlimited amounts of units. That way i think it would be much simpler to implement, also not effect game play in such a way and make it too complicated - but give some realstic restraint mechnasim to the game wtih the combined duo of Gold and Shield costs/maintaince for each unit created. Certain govenment systems will make the maintaince cost of gold and shields for each unit vary depending on each government's characteristics.

That's my two pence - or two cents - or what ever unit of exchange you wish to apply.

I really think that era's in the game should last a lot longer - the Roman Empire as many other Empire's carried on for centuries. I'll be honest, I"m a bit bias - I'm a huge roman fan - especially the legions - I would like to conquor the world in civ with just my legions - if possible. Off the Topic I know, but what can I say . . .

 

[Red Ant]

It just occurred to me to make most units have a population cost. This would simulate the population cost of real armies. This could be done as a mod in the existing civIII. Has anyone trid such a mod?

Very good idea! The way it is now you can build army after army and carelessly piss away the lives of several hundred thousand legionairies yet your population doesn't take a hit from this. Sure, if you actually DRAFT a unit you lose a citizen, but I think __all__ units should reduce the number of available citizens in one way or another. I'm just not sure how this would best be implemented.

 

[Red Ant]

Supply lines for Civ 4 are discussed at length in
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=85496 and
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=85408

Operational range is discussed at length in
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=87853 and
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=85662

For population impact, I agree with tmarcl- maybe an effect in the ancient era, but not today.

I disagree. Imagine the US fighting a bloody (and by bloody I mean REAL bloody .... think WWII soviet style) war losing millions of young men. I believe that would have a very noticeable effect for at least a generation.

 

[Pook]

I still say we're too far into the weeds for such a strategic level game as Civ III.
By the way, when you lose a pop point from drafting a unit, is that because
1) you used that many people to make a military unit; or
2) that many people disappear/run away because they don't want to get drafted?