rcoutme
Emperor
Here is a problem I have noticed. This has occurred especially since I am playing a PBEM Conquests WWII Pacific game. Later units are too strong against civilians and earlier units are too weak. In the game I am playing, Honolulu is down to a 3 Population (from 12). This is due to the bombing of the place by Japanese ships and air (or so I assume).
This is probably not very realistic. The Allies bombed the hell out of Berlin and still it had millions (yes millions) of residents before the Red army invaded it.
When I mentioned this in another thread, someone suggested refugees.
I thought about this for some time and came up the the following idea:
When a city is supposed to take a population hit (from bombardment) it would, instead, create a refugee. The refugee unit would comprise exactly 1/2 of the food needed to increase the size of any city. The refugee unit would not be under complete control of any player. Instead, each turn, a player with a refugee unit within its borders would be asked, "Would you like to assimilate this unit into this city?"
In order to represent the disorder that refugees can create, a stack limit should be made for the number of units in a given square (maybe double it for a city square). The refugees would count as 2 units (thus lowering the stack limit for the square they are in).
Here's where this becomes kind of neat: Refugees would wander toward the nearest friendly city other than the one they came from. Refugees would be of the nationality of the people who left the city (so a city that was just captured from the Romans, by say the Egyptians, would produce Roman refugees) the same as workers and settlers. Each turn the refugees could be assimilated into the city whose radius they are in. Otherwise, the computer will move them to the nearest city controlled by the civ that they represent. If that civ is disbanded, then they will go to the nearest city (other than that originated from).
Although refugees could be assimilated back into the city from which they originated, the city would have lost population and would still be subject to whatever bombing created the refugees in the first place. This would partially alleviate the elimination (in game turns) of 10's of thousands, or even 100's of thousands of people in the guise of 1 bombardment.
Stacking: have a limit on stacking (probably 10 to 15 combat units/workers-settlers) with artillery, planes and ships being free. Units would be unable to enter a square that was at its limit, but, due to the randomness of where the refugees would show up upon the bombardment of a city, there would otherwise be no penalty for overstacking (other than that you could not add more units to the square). Perhaps the one penalty for an overstack is that no bombardment units (artillery) would be able to enter the square even though the unit is usually a free stack (simulating the roads, etc. being clogged to the breaking point).
In order to prevent an obvious bug, no more than the stack limit of units could be ordered to move together and the stack could not violate the stacking rules when moving.
This would make refugees a major pain for a player trying to defend a city under attack (at least through bombardment) but not cripple his city's population unrealistically. Although the city population would show a net decrease in this system (1/2 the food to pop to the next level), the loss would represent those citizens who were killed or injured to the point of not being very productive, and also those that decide that city living is not all it's cracked up to be.
In additon to the above, there could be all sorts of other neat additions to the refugee units. For instance, an enemy civ could attempt to enslave the refugees or even outright kill them. Either of these acts would, of course, cause a serious rep hit and possibly unhappiness from any citizens of similar nationality that the perpetrator had in his own cities. This unhappiness would last for up to 50 turns or so, to reflect the serious damage caused to relations by committing such a heinous act.
This is probably not very realistic. The Allies bombed the hell out of Berlin and still it had millions (yes millions) of residents before the Red army invaded it.
When I mentioned this in another thread, someone suggested refugees.
I thought about this for some time and came up the the following idea:When a city is supposed to take a population hit (from bombardment) it would, instead, create a refugee. The refugee unit would comprise exactly 1/2 of the food needed to increase the size of any city. The refugee unit would not be under complete control of any player. Instead, each turn, a player with a refugee unit within its borders would be asked, "Would you like to assimilate this unit into this city?"
In order to represent the disorder that refugees can create, a stack limit should be made for the number of units in a given square (maybe double it for a city square). The refugees would count as 2 units (thus lowering the stack limit for the square they are in).
Here's where this becomes kind of neat: Refugees would wander toward the nearest friendly city other than the one they came from. Refugees would be of the nationality of the people who left the city (so a city that was just captured from the Romans, by say the Egyptians, would produce Roman refugees) the same as workers and settlers. Each turn the refugees could be assimilated into the city whose radius they are in. Otherwise, the computer will move them to the nearest city controlled by the civ that they represent. If that civ is disbanded, then they will go to the nearest city (other than that originated from).
Although refugees could be assimilated back into the city from which they originated, the city would have lost population and would still be subject to whatever bombing created the refugees in the first place. This would partially alleviate the elimination (in game turns) of 10's of thousands, or even 100's of thousands of people in the guise of 1 bombardment.
Stacking: have a limit on stacking (probably 10 to 15 combat units/workers-settlers) with artillery, planes and ships being free. Units would be unable to enter a square that was at its limit, but, due to the randomness of where the refugees would show up upon the bombardment of a city, there would otherwise be no penalty for overstacking (other than that you could not add more units to the square). Perhaps the one penalty for an overstack is that no bombardment units (artillery) would be able to enter the square even though the unit is usually a free stack (simulating the roads, etc. being clogged to the breaking point).
In order to prevent an obvious bug, no more than the stack limit of units could be ordered to move together and the stack could not violate the stacking rules when moving.
This would make refugees a major pain for a player trying to defend a city under attack (at least through bombardment) but not cripple his city's population unrealistically. Although the city population would show a net decrease in this system (1/2 the food to pop to the next level), the loss would represent those citizens who were killed or injured to the point of not being very productive, and also those that decide that city living is not all it's cracked up to be.
In additon to the above, there could be all sorts of other neat additions to the refugee units. For instance, an enemy civ could attempt to enslave the refugees or even outright kill them. Either of these acts would, of course, cause a serious rep hit and possibly unhappiness from any citizens of similar nationality that the perpetrator had in his own cities. This unhappiness would last for up to 50 turns or so, to reflect the serious damage caused to relations by committing such a heinous act.
