Some thoughts about Units, Armies and... Civ5?

[Civ4Mike]

HI everyone.

This is my first post to these forums, although I've read all the articles in the war academy and have been playing CIV since CIV1 for the past 10 years or so. Maybe I just didn't have much to say..

Now, after playing CIV4 since it's been out, hating it terribly at first and loving it now, I have something to say about armies. No, I don't mean the old armies of CIV3 or the warlords version of CIV4. It's something else, and here it is. Maybe, like a naive child, I think Firaxis will think about it for CIV5. hey, you can dream, can't you?

Now, here's the thing. Military units in all the CIV games are not realistic. maybe in the stone age, you had a warrior or two archers moving around (I mean what a single unit entails) but after that you had military UNITS: squads, companies, platoons, battalions and brigades, not to mention divisions. Being an avid reader of military history (which always gets me in the mood to play CIV ) I simply can't imagine a phrase like Berlin was captured by two tanks and an artillery unit, being escorted by a fighter plane. I mean, come on! so, here's what I've come up with:

When you build a unit, it has a basic strength / movement / cost, and cost translates into the time it takes to build the unit. so far - plain old CIV. what I want to do is this: you can fool around with the time (cost) you want to invest in the unit. Then, what you have is this: if you spend less time (there will be a minimum, of course), you get a recon-type unit. less powerfull, moves around faster. and less expensive. call it a single archer / warrior for the stone age, and call it a squad or a platoon for later ages. if you spend the normal cost, you get the regular unit. a company or a battalion (or a squadron for aircraft). you can, however, also spend MORE. and then you get a more powerfull unit. it's a brigade, right? or a division or even an army. and it'll move slower and have other penalties like needing more XP for promotions: there are more guys (and girls) with guns in this outfit, right? Naturally, it'll cost more to maintain. I also think that it should cost food to produce (like the settlers and workers in CIV4)

You can also say that a warlord (and this will give these guys some real value in my humble opinion) will negate some of these penalties. and yes, you'll have a monster unit then, but you'll have to spend a lot to build it. maybe you can build one only if you have a warlord (general) to command it. because generals and admirals do contribute to the way the units they commend act. you can have the same division with Patton in charge kicking ass, and the same division with myself in charge (never having been inside a tank) being shredded by a bunch of guys with sticks and stones. you know what I mean.

Well, it's the beginning of an idea. Personally, I'd like to be able to send the 5th armored brigade into combat, or the 32nd longbowmen regiment, or the 1st bomber squadron, and have them feel like a unit and not a single tank / catapult / swordman. I think it'll be great.

well, I'll be happy to see what other people think. thanks for your opinions!

 

[Mewtarthio]

Well, units themselves are mostly abstractions, and a "stack of doom" represents larger units.

However, I think this is a great idea. I'm curious as to what the specifics would be, and I don't think that scouts are strictly necessary (just use a different class of units), but it looks like a good start.

 

[Civ4Mike]

Well, the stack of doom is usually what, 10-20 cavalry and 10 cannon/catapults? that's not how wars are fought...

My idea was to get combat in CIV to be more realistic. It has many things you can do - imagine combining two understrength battalions (injured in combat) to one heavy brigade! you'll have more strength, but not like an "original" brigade because these guys didn't train together from the start.

About the recon-type units, I thought they bring good balance to the idea. even today, in an armored division, you have recon companies and sometimes recon battalions, employing some sort of mechanized infantry and in the US army - choppers. so, yes, you could use another unit, but you could also go for an understrength battlaion and do your scouting with a tank...

I think this will open up tactical combat in CIV in a way we never imagined. I've seen a thread in this forum talking about sending merged units into combat - 8,000 swordmen and 4,000 archers (now THAT'S war!) and this can be developed into the combined arms strategy (like it did in our civilization over WW2). and I think that if tactical combat evolves this way in CIV, the strategy of war will AUTOMATICALLY change as well and become much more complex. I've seen many threads talking about a smarter AI for combat, and I definitelly agree. the AI usually lets you get your stack of doom near the city and bombard it to oblivion. then, you can have a swordmen come into, kill the last 0.X strength marine / infantry, and presto! that's just dumb. a human player realizes that such a stack usually does not have many defensive-bonues capable units. so, yes, you do a suicide rush and get them, and then the cavalry and cannons are easier to get.

CIV4 is much more military-oriented than CIV3. and that's OK - but you need the AI to be smarter. I think that if my suggestion was accepted, combat will become much more complex just from the sheer number of possibilities - and then the AI will become smarter even without the code being upgraded, if you know what I mean - the one thing AI is better than a human at is weighing all the options, like in chess....

what do you guys think?

 

[NYHunter]

Ugh... I am tired of hearing all these expansions to the military aspect. The warmongers have been spoiled. Which is why I am happy that Beyond the Swords adds on to the UN, Espionage, Space Race and other aspects and adds new features like corporations. Although the corporation feature can easily be turned into an extenstion to the military aspect, with armies having to defend corporate interest... err, sorry for going off topic, back to your points. This level of military complexation / micro management is not necessary in my opinion. There does need to be improvement in the military aspect, such as improving/expanding on naval and air operations, but this is just, let me put it this way, Civilization is suppose to be a general empire management game. A strong military is necessary, and that'is the way it should be, but they have been so focused on expanding the military aspect that it's time to give it a rest.

 

[Civ4Mike]

NYHunter, thanks for your reply! I've never thought of it this way, I must admit. I guess I'm a warmonger and I want my armies to be more realistic, and I guess that kind of makes me a one-dimensional player. Maybe I should try a game or two without wars.

I agree wholeheartedly about navies and airforces needing an upgrade. If you want to play out a naval conflict (say WW2 pacific arena) you can't do it realistically. there should be some sort of naval domination over ocean territories where the same penalties apply like units going through enemy territory, there should be more punch to an aircraft carrier, naval bombardment, and landing craft and beaching operations. And, there should be a SOSUS world wonder that lets you discover all subs (say with 80% probability?). Convoys should be convoys, not two transports (man, am I rambling or what?! )

I like military history. shoot me. but I'll give the peacemonger scene a chance. any recommended civ for that?

 

[NYHunter]

Well, It's almost impossible to play a game without a war. And I agree with that. While I may not be a warmonger I am also not a peacemonger, I perfer a balance.

But if you want to experiment with a "more" peaceful approach to the game I would recommend India because the Fast Workers accomplish a lot more in less time you can quickly have cities growing with them producing more food, productions and money earlier in the game then you usually would have. This in turn allows you to build buildings, wonders, research technology more quick
than you usually wood be able to because your workers have improved the terrain faster. This way, you can become quite a poweful diplomatic figure as you have money, technology and resources. Great thing is as long as you keep an up to date defensive military, even if you don't have a massive amount of units, if someone dares invade you, you can still combat effectively against them, and you can call in some help from all the civs that like you.

Heck Fast Workers are also great for Warmongers, for the same reason. They allow to improve the terrain more quickly in the early part of the game allowing you to have more hammers, food and gold earlier than you usually would have with regular workers. And quickly connecting cities and building railroads over roads is definetly something a warmonger can appreciate.

I see my Fast Worker bias is begining to show so I will stop.