[GS] Shall we add Logistic Issues to Troops?

[Lily_Lancer]

A very weird thing in Civ6 is that units everywhere are always fully supported-- even if a unit is very far away from your own territory, its ability is never reduced and always fight at the same strength.

This is weird.

A realistic setting may be adding logistic issues to troops.

For example:

Inside own full-loyalty cities: maintenance cost -50%.
Inside territory of full-loyalty cities of yourself or allianced civilizations: regular maintenance cost
Inside neural territory/ territory without full loyalty: maintenance cost +50%
Inside enemy territory: maintenance cost +100%, roads become ineffective,

Being 4 or more tiles away from the nearest tile of friendly or neutral territory: maintenance cost +200% , automatically loses 5 HP per turn, strength -5 when attacking.

For AI:
AI does receive the maintenance reduction bonus of garrison, but does not suffer from maluses in other situations.

 

[acluewithout]

There’s a bit of this idea in the existing mechanics, but only to the extent that units have different healing rates outside home territory (except with certain support units) and only benefit from the Logistics card within their own territory, which I realise falls far short of what you’re looking for.

I think there’s a similar shortcoming being that production and maintenance of units has no connection to population and the actual “manpower” and Empire has available to it.

The trick would be having a mechanic that covers logistics and manpower, but isn’t too micro or complicated, isn’t anti fun, and that isn’t too hard for the AI to cope with.

Just my view, but I think having something like a Force Limit would be a good start, that is based primarily on Manpower. It would just be a soft cap, above which you start getting additional Maintenance costs and or unhappiness. You could then have units cost more Force Limit if they’re outside your territory or on foreign continents, and perhaps reduce Force Limit more generally if you have disloyal cities, with perhaps Encampments, Harbours and Aerodromes (maybe Alliances too) increasing Force Limit or reducing the cost when units are abroad. You could then give the AI extra Force Limit at higher difficulties, to help the AI stay competitive with this sort of Mechanic.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Yea I think units should cost more to maintain both in terms of resources and gold if they are far away territory.

We could then apply a bonus to some crappy government that reduces it.

 

[kaspergm]

From reading the title, my first thought was that it would be too cumbersome, but I could actually see it work ok the way outlined here.

 

[Tabarnak]

Or play with heal. More healing when in friendly territory and less when outside scaling with distance.

In multi i think that could make games even more into Simcity mode.

 

[Mahi]

You can't add that penalty to the AI though. They would fail even harder in long range campaigning.

 

[acluewithout]

It’s weird that currently the only thing is the game with a fluctuating maintenance cost is sea walls...

Anyway. To things bug me.

First is just the lack of economic management required in Civ generally, particularly late the game. It’s not a game like EUIV or Stellaris, so there’s really a limit on how much economic management there can be particularly when the game is pitched somewhat as a giant board game. And I certainly don’t want sliders or other fiddly mechanics. But there could be a bit more meat on economic management, particularly the under utilised happiness and maintenance systems. Some sort of increased and varying maintenance for units would be a step in the right direction.

Second, it’s just weird you can build an army and project power across the entire world with little to no effort (except maybe reduced healing). Or that you can just keep pumping out units, even if your empire is just once City. There needs to be some sort of concept of effective range with units and some sort of balancing how many units you can have.

I like the idea of a force limit. I’m sure there’s other solutions too. But I also suspect this is quite tricky to get right, so it’s not overly punishing and or restrictive, not super micro, and the AI can still cope.

FYI, I think @Gedemon is working on a Mod that has a concept of supply lines. You know, if you want to see someone else’s take on this sort of stuff.

 

[Sostratus]

I wouldn’t mind something like a “supply” statistic that essentially just represents how much of a military you can actually sustain effectively.
Rough sketch: every city you own gives you some Supply, and each encampment + encampment building also gives some. This represents having the infrastructure, resource depots, supply trains, etc, to field forces. You are welcome to exceed this number but it will apply an escalating combat penalty (perhaps, inverse of how much you’re over the cap- steps up from 1 to 10 at 50% over supply.)
Then certain unit lines, like anti cav, use little supply. Units like heavy cav and naval ranged use A LOT. Give the Supply an icon and just put it up on the top bar- supply used / supply available.
The only reason to have a scheme like this is to say “well, you can afford a military, but you don’t have the facilities in place to actually make it run.” This is really just to prevent doing something like rushing science and then quickly trying to crank out some advanced units.

I agree with OP that playing with the idea of paying more maintenance for units in enemy turf would make sense. If gold were balanced to be a little more scarce so you really didn’t want to pay more than you had to- like civ5- this would be a cool way to deter excessive early warmongering (you wouldn’t be able to afford having an army in enemy territory very long, so you better win fast!)

I also think they could apply the “Besieged” mechanic cities have to units- if your dude gets surrounded by enemy ZOC he cannot heal. This would be a way to deal with pesky units in fortified positions, which maybe we don’t see much of now, but that doesn’t mean things couldn’t change.

 

[Vandlys]

A very weird thing in Civ6 is that units everywhere are always fully supported-- even if a unit is very far away from your own territory,

I've thought about this too, especially in the early game with scouts. I think it's strange that they can roam around the entire world and you still get to see the map. I would love it if they need to stay within 6 tiles of your city or lose HP per turn. This way you can scout around your cities but world explorations will be left for the later eras when it's suitable.

 

[Disgustipated]

need to stay within 6 tiles of your city

I was going to suggest something similar. Though you have to include friends and allies. I know in the Navy we'd get some goods from allies over seas. Like coka cola and mt. Dew from Bahrain or Saudi Arabia (though things like fresh milk still came from the U.S.). Basically what I'm saying is modern armies shouldn't even be able to operate in areas without either allies or friends. Ancient armies are a little different since they obtained food from farms in the country side.

 

[tedhebert]

A very weird thing in Civ6 is that units everywhere are always fully supported-- even if a unit is very far away from your own territory, its ability is never reduced and always fight at the same strength.

This is weird.

A realistic setting may be adding logistic issues to troops.

For example:

Inside own full-loyalty cities: maintenance cost -50%.
Inside territory of full-loyalty cities of yourself or allianced civilizations: regular maintenance cost
Inside neural territory/ territory without full loyalty: maintenance cost +50%
Inside enemy territory: maintenance cost +100%, roads become ineffective,

Being 4 or more tiles away from the nearest tile of friendly or neutral territory: maintenance cost +200% , automatically loses 5 HP per turn, strength -5 when attacking.

For AI:
AI does receive the maintenance reduction bonus of garrison, but does not suffer from maluses in other situations.

This is a very interesting suggestion. I like it because it doesn't involve a complex new mechanism that is never going to be inserted in the game. It plays on actual parameters
of the current game.

I like al the examples except for the -5 HP loss each turn...Yes troops far out into enemy territory should not have support, but I fail to see why they should lose health if not in actual battle

I've thought about this too, especially in the early game with scouts. I think it's strange that they can roam around the entire world and you still get to see the map. I would love it if they need to stay within 6 tiles of your city or lose HP per turn. This way you can scout around your cities but world explorations will be left for the later eras when it's suitable.

See here I disagree. Scouts are Scouts. They are experts (theorically) in seeing without being seen. In blending in. I fail to see why there should be a limitations to their range. plus they are not as strong as all other military units. That's NOT their goal. Surviving to tell the tale is their goal. And gamewise, let's face it... how would we Explore the map adequately without scouts ? always rely on religious units and/or builders ? that's just too cheesy for me

 

[Leucarum]

Stellaris has a similar mechanic and it works well. It would pribably add an additional layer of strategic depth in civ ehich is always welcome.

sketch: every city you own gives you some Supply, and each encampment + encampment building also gives some. T

I also like the idea of working encampments into a supply mechanic somehow. Something to increase their value at least...

 

[Vincent_lacruz]

Stellaris has a similar mechanic and it works well. It would pribably add an additional layer of strategic depth in civ ehich is always welcome.



I also like the idea of working encampments into a supply mechanic somehow. Something to increase their value at least...

You could see 2 way to implement supply with encampments: supply capacity (a kind of new strategic ressource, which encampment would anable to stock more efficiently) and I would see several project to transform iron/oil/etc.. into supply when you need them rapidly.

But you would have a base supply capacity, and base supply production rate (passively dependant to your prod/population??), as well as support units which would reduce the supply consumption of nearby units (and that would make comando meaningfull, with their ability to snippe I never ever used so far...). "Rise of Nations" had such support unit, that would negate the constant damage received when in ennemy territory.

As for the supply ressources, it would be consummed by unit outside of borders (or outside allies), with an increase when in ennemy territory. When ressource it zero, decrease in unit efficiency, that could transfert in lower CS, or even lower movement. Pillaging would produce supplies, with most of the on farms and encampments, and a few on other tiles.

 

[Kaan Boztepe]

a new function to attach supply units to allow healing when not in a city or encampment could be done , not a penalty to health unless in battle , scouts should not need this, ships should be extra costly.

 

[King of Prussia]

idk about a complex upkeep system for troops. it would have to be explained and be intuitive so people can understand what is going on. With some of your proposals, you wouldn't experience a lot of those stuff anyways once the borders are filled in.

with that said, there is a lot of potential between units, policies, governments, and techs to influence it. depending on what you do, you could make certain districts more appealing.


on a somewhat related note, did they ever fix the issue that you would only heal 5 per turn inside a neutral civs borders, but 10 in no mans land? might of even been in allied lands. either way, i recall it happening a while back, thinking that was dumb, and since then i just avoid trying to heal in any other civs borders. i get why you heal less in hostile borders.

 

[Minou]

Love the idea of roads not working but I think the -5hp per turn would make me sad trying to pillage with lounged units. Maybe they could make GG Sherman who lets all nearby troops have no maintenance as they live off the enemy land.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Yes and there's a great mod project dealing with attrition rules

 

[UWHabs]

I feel land units should heal like ships, as in, nothing unless if you're in friendly territory. And would agree that having increased cost for being away from home would do a better job at least of simulating paying for a war effort. Having cheaper domestic maintenance and larger foreign would help make it easier to keep a standing army, while making war more costly.

 

[ghost88]

I've thought about this too, especially in the early game with scouts. I think it's strange that they can roam around the entire world and you still get to see the map. I would love it if they need to stay within 6 tiles of your city or lose HP per turn. This way you can scout around your cities but world explorations will be left for the later eras when it's suitable.

Scouts/Explorers traditionally lived off the land so supply was not an issue. This idea would work on small " War Game" maps but on Real 4X maps (larger than 20x20) it would make the game even worse than it is.

 

[Señor]

How about supply lines working like amenities but for movement speed? +1 supplies = +1 movement point.