Multiple unit/building build que

[KrikkitTwo]

Actually, there is the case where you don't want those units until turn 10, in order to save maintenance costs (say you're preparing for war, and want to wait for other cities to finish their builds as well). With a system like this, you're even safe against hammer decay.

Which is why units (and things in general) should be Maintained by the same resource that builds them.

(population, built and maintained by food)
Units should be built and maintained by gold (ie bought instantly)

 

[Thyrwyn]

I think military units should halt growth by requiring food (like workers and settlers in Civ IV). Maintaining a large military is a drain on the population. This would also draw a clear line between the advantages of building infrastructure (cities can grow while building buildings) vs building up a war machine (cities cannot grow while building military).

 

[Ahriman]

Which is why units (and things in general) should be Maintained by the same resource that builds them.

(population, built and maintained by food)
Units should be built and maintained by gold (ie bought instantly)

We had this before, it failed as a mechanic. We want to allow for specialization in production - eg city X is a unit factory, city Y is a scientific center. But this gets removed when we make military upkeep linked to a local resource (food, or hammers) rather than a non-local resource (gold).

Moving military maintenance to just gold was a great move.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

We had this before, it failed as a mechanic. We want to allow for specialization in production - eg city X is a unit factory, city Y is a scientific center. But this gets removed when we make military upkeep linked to a local resource (food, or hammers) rather than a non-local resource (gold).

Moving military maintenance to just gold was a great move.

And moving unit Production to just gold will be an even better move (it works very well with a number of things)

1. 1 upt, a city cannot produce a unit when a unit is present in the city, this creates problems if units are slowly built (what do you do if a unit is building, and a unit moves into the city)? Well if you Buy units in the city and they instantly appear. Then city must be empty, then I buy the unit and it instantly appears (probably with no movement left)

2. No "Overflow Worries".. instead of worrying about what to do with a city that is mass producing units that are cheaper than its production, units don't involve any production/overflow. Indeed any Overflow from Cheap Buildings can go into the gold pile.



Possible objection to the idea... well then any town can become a source of an amazingly powerful unit.
Not necessarily, if Buildings still need Local production, and units need Buildings as prerequisites (You need a Factory to build a Tank) or Buildings make units Viable (Barracks are Very expensive, but they provide units starting there with very necessary experience) Then You can't as easily spam defenders

Also, that means you never have to worry about building a unit when you can't maintain the units you have... because the reason you can't maintain it is because you lack gold.

You would need someway to generate gold early on, and have it separate from science+culture, but that would get something that was in both Civ 4 and CivRev, a production relationship to gold.

 

[Craxymaxy]

Units need to take time to build otherwise spamming defenders is just to easy.
I think he was talking about more of a galciv 2 style duel production where one production line is domestic and the other is military it would be nice if i could divide between the two (never two military productions though that is just stupid)

 

[Ahriman]

Units need to take time to build otherwise spamming defenders is just t easy.

Precisely. Moving units to instant-purchase with gold instead of production with hammers would break the game, and would massively devalue industrial buildings.

 

[Earthling]

Gold-heavy military mechanics are cool and work quite well in various mods (and other non-civ games). But keep in mind higher dependence on gold tends to kill the AI and mutilate it's dead body over and over again. The devs would be left with once again having to implement ridiculous and annoying free costs and bonuses to the AI or watch it flounder hopelessly; there's little likelihood of coming out with an AI that could handle such a system well otherwise.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Precisely. Moving units to instant-purchase with gold instead of production with hammers would break the game, and would massively devalue industrial buildings.

No it wouldn't....

If Production could get Turned Into Gold,
Industrial buildings would still be necessary.

Essentially production-> Gold is the same as
production->military units
if gold is primarily used as a military resource
exception is that you wouldn't have committed to a Particular unit.

A way around that,
Units are Basically Free, but they are produced with 1 hp, and you need to maintain them long enough to heal them up
So Building a Warrior is instant, but you need to put the gold and Time into 'reinforcing' that Warrior

Spamming isn't a problem (at least not in a city because it is 1 upt, you don't need to attack each unit in the stack to kill the stack)

Spamming also isn't as much of a problem (and Industrial buildings are important) if Cities need buildings to build units.

What if building a unit in a city with a Barracks makes it come out with a +50% Strength modifier... What if building anything besides a basic Warrior required a building.

You might still "Spam" units (except units are supposed to be Expensive this time around, how many Warriors would you spam in Civ 4 if you could buy them for 30 Gold, and they cost 3 gpt to maintain... and your Palace didn't provide commerce?)

But the "Emergency defender" would still probably be a waste, since all your cities are already defended.... do you want to spend a bunch of your military resources on a city you will either Lose anyways or keep anyways?



I'm not sure why an AI would have problems...
whenever the AI decides it needs more units it buys units
If its gold reserves are low, it increases its production->gold
If it has plenty of gold reserves, then it cuts down on production->gold

 

[chongli]

Civ4 solved this already. Excess hammers spill over to the next construction project.

Yeah, but the problem with this is that it starts to become absurd when you are building units that cost 40 and your overspill has reached up into the 100s and continues to grow.

IMO if you can produce enough to get 2 units, you should get 2 units the next turn.

 

[Ahriman]

If Production could get Turned Into Gold,
Industrial buildings would still be necessary.

Why?
I don't really understand what you're saying here.

What is the advantage from building a forge or factory if my units just come from gold?

Or are you reliant on your assumed model of reinforcing units having some kind of resource cost?

Yeah, but the problem with this is that it starts to become absurd when you are building units that cost 40 and your overspill has reached up into the 100s and continues to grow.

With fewer/more expensive units, this isn't going to happen.

 

[frekk]

1 upt, a city cannot produce a unit when a unit is present in the city, this creates problems if units are slowly built (what do you do if a unit is building, and a unit moves into the city)?

Units can be absorbed by a city to add to its hp. I'm not sure if units can even be stationed in the city at all otherwise. But it wouldn't be a big problem even in the situation you describe; the unit might just appear on a random empty tile outside the city (or the unit in the city might be forced out onto the nearest empty tile)

 

[Ahriman]

Alternatively, force only 1 unit to be built in a city per turn. That seems like a reasonable restriction to me.

Frekk's suggestions work too though.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Why?
I don't really understand what you're saying here.

What is the advantage from building a forge or factory if my units just come from gold?

If Gold <-> Production
rather than
Gold<-> Science (which was indicated, that science wouldn't be produced through gold)

Then, the Forge or Factory would still be necessary to generate the Production/Gold to build things (either buildings or Units)

The reason for that is that if units are very survivable and cost a lot to maintain, then you need a way to allow your economy to be transitioned to 'support a bigger army' (rather than telling your economy to build a bigger army)

If Units Survive a lot, and cost a lot (of gold presumably) to maintain... then what good are factories/forges if you don't build new units, if instead most of your cities need to be on gold to maintain the ones you have.

The only way that works is if Factories/Forges can contribute to Gold.



Imagine starting the game with the Currency tech, Units costing gold to build and maintain

That being the primary use for gold (city/civic maintenance handled by something else)

 

[Ahriman]

I'm confused.

If gold builds units, and factories provide hammers, how do factories help you build units?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I'm confused.

If gold builds units, and factories provide hammers, how do factories help you build units?

Hammers->Gold

A City supporting a wartime empire has all of its Hammers being changed into gold...

That gold is used to support the large army, and possibly build more of that army (occasionally)

If units are very survivable and high maintenance, you won't be building that many, but you will be maintaining them a lot.

So if you can't do Hammers->Gold, then Factories/Forges would be near useless militiarily.


The alternative is some sort of "Imperial production pool" which acts the same as gold (seemingly annoyingly redundant)

 

[Ahriman]

A City supporting a wartime empire has all of its Hammers being changed into gold...

So then a factory is the same as a Bank? That doesn't sound right.

"Build gold" in Civ terms operates at very low efficiency, its almost never worth doing under normal circumstances.

I fail to see any design goal being achieved here. Much simpler to have units built with hammers.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

So then a factory is the same as a Bank? That doesn't sound right.

"Build gold" in Civ terms operates at very low efficiency, its almost never worth doing under normal circumstances.

I fail to see any design goal being achieved here. Much simpler to have units built with hammers.

So a Bank is a bigger military investment than a factory?

The Design goal is that unit Production is secondary to unit Maintenance.

If factories are going to be militarily important they need to be able to Maintain units, not just build them.

 

[Ahriman]

So a Bank is a bigger military investment than a factory?

It is if you use gold to buy units, not hammers. This does not seem desirable to me.

The Design goal is that unit Production is secondary to unit Maintenance.

How is that fun? Its fun to build stuff. That's how we're wired. Effort->reward. Its not fun for most of the game to be about maintenance. There's no "ooh, I built a factory, that will help me maintain my units now!".

If factories are going to be militarily important they need to be able to Maintain units, not just build them.

Why?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

It is if you use gold to buy units, not hammers. This does not seem desirable to me.


How is that fun? Its fun to build stuff. That's how we're wired. Effort->reward. Its not fun for most of the game to be about maintenance. There's no "ooh, I built a factory, that will help me maintain my units now!".


Why?

They specifically said they are moving the military Away from the production race.

Units will be
1. more expensive
2. more survivable
3. cost more to maintain
4. Will upgrade
5. Will be very valuable due to experience, etc.

Which suggests that you might not Build any units at all after the ancient age, instead just upgrade them.

(or perhaps you build a few new units everytime your empire expands)


In this case the Effort->Reward is
I Positioned my units well, I can do more damage to them
or on the economic side
I built a factory: I have some excess gold, I can either save it up to get Another unit, or I can keep it in reserve for when my units need to go into high maintenance territory, or to help them upgrade.
Or I can Turn a City off of gold and help it build wonders/other important buildings faster.

I'm primarily suggesting Gold since we are presuming that is what units are maintained by.
It might be Better if
Hammers-> "Imperial Military Production Units" and "IMPU" acts like 'Gold' for unit maintenance. (stockpilable, nonlocal, etc.)

 

[Ahriman]

They specifically said they are moving the military Away from the production race.

Not quite, they said 1-5 below (not sure if I've seen 3., but it wouldn't surprise me, and its a reasonable induction from 1.). Thats not the same as saying that production ability isn't the main binding constraint on your military size. Which they didn't say.

Units will be
1. more expensive
2. more survivable
3. cost more to maintain
4. Will upgrade
5. Will be very valuable due to experience, etc.

Which suggests that you might not Build any units at all after the ancient age, instead just upgrade them.

No it doesn't.

They've never implied that your units won't spend the same portion of time building units as in previous games. All they did is say that this will generate fewer total units.

I built a factory: I have some excess gold

What does building a factory (which produces hammers) have to do with excess gold?