An Idea I'd like to offer for consideration, I looked, and didn't see this mentioned anywhere(i really did). Id like to see Conscription offered earlier in the game, Really from the start. And see the use of standing armies reduced.
Historically, Most nations have not maintained a large standing army, at the very least, with one exception being the cold war, nations have not maintained an army that was large enough to do much of anything for any real length of time.
Generally speaking, whenever a nation wanted to go to war, or saw one coming their way, they conscripted local populations, they had a few verteran units from their standing armies, the rest were either green irregular soldiers, or mercenaries. Forces that were almost always disbanded as soon as the conflict ended.
The reason for this, standing professional armies are expensive, really expensive. You keep a standing army large enough to quell rebels and keep local populations in line, as well as watch your borders to deter enemies thats it.
Civilization is nothing like this in my oppinion. In my experience, from nearly the begining of time the world is practically covered with armies. The problem I have with this is that generally one nation arises to be the most powerful, builds a huge vast army, and slowly wipes the rest out with little chance of being dethroned as the world power.
Conscription or the draft, as they call it, isn't even available till late in game despite it being a vital part of national defense throughout history.
In my experinece, war rages relentlessly from start to finish, despite what should be crippling economic strain. There is no restraint on the game to waging unending war, so it does it freely, i've found treaties aren't worth the virtual paper they are written on, and it gets silly.
If armies were made more expensive to maintain and conscription made available from the start, then I think you could actually make the game more interesting as large superpowers now actually become their own worst enemy And you actually create an oppertunity to dethrone them
-A large empire will have far more unrest than smaller empires, and need more troops to maintain control. This means a greater economic strain on funds needed for research, growth and developement.
-A large empire will have more borders to protect and more enemies and people coveting their lands. It will also have more interests to protect, allies, trade routes and colonies. Meaning more soldiers and more economic strain.
-Now when one of these smaller empires attacks a larger empire, that empire will likely be forced to conscript soldiers to repel the incursion, while they obviously have more resources to draw on, there would be a catch
Conscription should cause unrest amoungst the population. For large empires already under strain, this could be devastating, for smaller empires, which have less internal strife, the impact is more easily absorbed.
-Because there is a real cost in waging war now, it would also force the computer to do it with a little more intellegence and reasoning than i have ever seen it use.
-It creates the real life situation where war ends, peace is sought, not so much because one side lost, but because the strain has grown too great for either to maintain the fighting. It also creates the situation where the victor does not neccessarily sieze all the territory he can from an enemy, but siezes what they need or want, and no more, because the strain on their military to control it and the local population would be too severe. They may sieze nothing.
-It forces large nations to rely on espionage. They'll need solid intellegence on their enemies to know when they need to conscript and build up a defense, or how to circumvent an attack to minimize the damage
Ofcourse Conscripted units should be weaker, less skilled than regular troops but costing the same, and should draw from the population, with the current (read Civ3) city growth model this could be a population point, or something less severe, you could remove food from the granary as a symbolic population reduction, since a full point in the early stage of the game is really severe.
Hopefully, it would extend the length of the game, require more strategic thinking on part of the players, and prevent the all powerful undefeatable super nation from happening.
Comments, arguements appreciated.
Historically, Most nations have not maintained a large standing army, at the very least, with one exception being the cold war, nations have not maintained an army that was large enough to do much of anything for any real length of time.
Generally speaking, whenever a nation wanted to go to war, or saw one coming their way, they conscripted local populations, they had a few verteran units from their standing armies, the rest were either green irregular soldiers, or mercenaries. Forces that were almost always disbanded as soon as the conflict ended.
The reason for this, standing professional armies are expensive, really expensive. You keep a standing army large enough to quell rebels and keep local populations in line, as well as watch your borders to deter enemies thats it.
Civilization is nothing like this in my oppinion. In my experience, from nearly the begining of time the world is practically covered with armies. The problem I have with this is that generally one nation arises to be the most powerful, builds a huge vast army, and slowly wipes the rest out with little chance of being dethroned as the world power.
Conscription or the draft, as they call it, isn't even available till late in game despite it being a vital part of national defense throughout history.
In my experinece, war rages relentlessly from start to finish, despite what should be crippling economic strain. There is no restraint on the game to waging unending war, so it does it freely, i've found treaties aren't worth the virtual paper they are written on, and it gets silly.
If armies were made more expensive to maintain and conscription made available from the start, then I think you could actually make the game more interesting as large superpowers now actually become their own worst enemy And you actually create an oppertunity to dethrone them
-A large empire will have far more unrest than smaller empires, and need more troops to maintain control. This means a greater economic strain on funds needed for research, growth and developement.
-A large empire will have more borders to protect and more enemies and people coveting their lands. It will also have more interests to protect, allies, trade routes and colonies. Meaning more soldiers and more economic strain.
-Now when one of these smaller empires attacks a larger empire, that empire will likely be forced to conscript soldiers to repel the incursion, while they obviously have more resources to draw on, there would be a catch
Conscription should cause unrest amoungst the population. For large empires already under strain, this could be devastating, for smaller empires, which have less internal strife, the impact is more easily absorbed.
-Because there is a real cost in waging war now, it would also force the computer to do it with a little more intellegence and reasoning than i have ever seen it use.
-It creates the real life situation where war ends, peace is sought, not so much because one side lost, but because the strain has grown too great for either to maintain the fighting. It also creates the situation where the victor does not neccessarily sieze all the territory he can from an enemy, but siezes what they need or want, and no more, because the strain on their military to control it and the local population would be too severe. They may sieze nothing.
-It forces large nations to rely on espionage. They'll need solid intellegence on their enemies to know when they need to conscript and build up a defense, or how to circumvent an attack to minimize the damage
Ofcourse Conscripted units should be weaker, less skilled than regular troops but costing the same, and should draw from the population, with the current (read Civ3) city growth model this could be a population point, or something less severe, you could remove food from the granary as a symbolic population reduction, since a full point in the early stage of the game is really severe.
Hopefully, it would extend the length of the game, require more strategic thinking on part of the players, and prevent the all powerful undefeatable super nation from happening.
Comments, arguements appreciated.
!
