gettingfat
Emperor
- Joined
- Nov 7, 2003
- Messages
- 1,417
I agree. That's why I hate modern wars.
Too Many Military Units (Back to Civ III)
- Thread starter polypheus
- Start date
The problem is that while many of us don't build these uber huge armies, it is possible to do so even if it is unrealistic to support such armies based on the total civ population and economy. This allows the HUMAN to build such uber-stacks. The BTS solution is give such human players a challenge by having the AI build such uber-stacks. The better solution would have been to model military sizes and costs more realistically so no nation could build them without becoming North Korea like real fast!
Not if building such a huge army yourself would mean that you lag behind in tech and have to build weaker units.
But ofcourse, it often doesnt, so you have a point.
But it should be this way not just often but always. Rome collapse partly because it conquer too much territory and did not have the economy and infrastructure in the classical era to have such a huge empire. It had to paid exhorbitant costs to hire mercenary solidiers thus futher bankrupting the empire with these same mercenaries even turning on the empire!
Actually that would be a great idea! I've found the perfect and realistic solution!!!
1. Have population/civics limit free/low cost of initial units. These citizen soldiers can be of course built and disbanded at will with reasonable cost.
2. If you want to exceed it you hire mercenaries at a premium cost which means probably having science go to near zero.
3. If you fail to pay said mercenaries, they become rebels and turn against you!
4. If you want to not pay them, you can't disband them but can only turn them into barbarians/rebels who fight against you!
5. You cannot "let-go" mercenaries one-at-a time to kill them off one at time, it must be release them all at once to rebel against you. (Otherwise people would just release them to kill the rebels piecemeal obviously)
Let's see an axe-rush work now if you have to hire exhorbitant mercenaries which you can't disband (thus rendering your Civ to North Korean status) or you have a civil war on your hands which leaves you quite vulnerable from neigbors (not to mention your mercenary turned rebels could probably conquer you itself)
Dom Pedro II
Modder For Life
I got hit with a 60-unit stack of Russian medieval units a couple hours ago... Eventhough they were mostly obsolete, their shear numbers made mincemeat of my force about half that size. I managed to hold the city they went after (and btw, they went RIGHT after it... they didn't stop to pillage or wander like usual) with just one Grenadier at 1.9 health after the first attack... the stack was so big that the tooltip didn't even display how many units there were on the tile, so I was under the impression I was dealing with 20 units when I was actually dealing with three times that many.
In short... that's a bit excessive
It also took forever to play each turn too.
In short... that's a bit excessive
It also took forever to play each turn too.The more I think about it the more I really love this mercenary idea!
1. If you go on a rushing expedition with armies vastly out of proportion to your
economy and population it becomes hugely costly as you have to hire mercenaries that you can't just disband that easily. So rather than being an always win strategy you have to counterbalance the negatives. If you choose to keep the large "mercenary" force forever, you should suffer North Korea style.
2. The huge mercenary armies can be actually defeated with a simple counter, one pillager!
Imagine this: You are facing Roman praetorians full of mercenaries. Their barely supporting it with science at zero. What you can do is through pillaging you can make their economy in the red. Then all of a sudden, all the mercenaries rebel against Rome and Rome had to fight its own SoD in a civil war!
1. If you go on a rushing expedition with armies vastly out of proportion to your
economy and population it becomes hugely costly as you have to hire mercenaries that you can't just disband that easily. So rather than being an always win strategy you have to counterbalance the negatives. If you choose to keep the large "mercenary" force forever, you should suffer North Korea style.
2. The huge mercenary armies can be actually defeated with a simple counter, one pillager!
Imagine this: You are facing Roman praetorians full of mercenaries. Their barely supporting it with science at zero. What you can do is through pillaging you can make their economy in the red. Then all of a sudden, all the mercenaries rebel against Rome and Rome had to fight its own SoD in a civil war!
Another few suggestions I threw out in the other thread to help limit huge stacks to a degree:
1) Make resources finite. So the first axe might be 10 hammers. The next might be 11. Then 13. The next 17 and so on. Not sure of the actual numbers, but some sort of scaling system that would make each unit more expensive to build to limit how many can be spammed. So at some point you have to decide if it is worth it to build one more axe or an archer or walls or something else. There could be a way to make it (with the right number system) important to find extra sources of resources. SO you cannot just pump out unlimited axes with one solitary copper mine. I also think the same can be done for happiness and health resources. It would make city placement and limited wars much more tactical and strategic.
2) During the late game, make military units more of a team based build. So cities group production together if they have the production capacity. Say you want to build a bomber. If you three cities can work on it together to build it in fewer turns, but the costs would have to be higher. And then those cities would not be able to build separate units or wealth/research/culture. Some way to simulate oppurtunity costs.
I think that in the early game, one gold mine (or any happy resource) should not be able to produce happiness in all your cities. Maybe just in the capital and whichever city has it, then as technology progresses so do the benefits of the resource. It would make warring or trading for happiness resources much more important in the early years. I think this would also help to slow down production, because cities other than the capital would have lower happy caps.
But I would love to see the military resources be finite and eventually run dry after too many units have been produced. There should be a set number of troops any one military resource can produce.
1) Make resources finite. So the first axe might be 10 hammers. The next might be 11. Then 13. The next 17 and so on. Not sure of the actual numbers, but some sort of scaling system that would make each unit more expensive to build to limit how many can be spammed. So at some point you have to decide if it is worth it to build one more axe or an archer or walls or something else. There could be a way to make it (with the right number system) important to find extra sources of resources. SO you cannot just pump out unlimited axes with one solitary copper mine. I also think the same can be done for happiness and health resources. It would make city placement and limited wars much more tactical and strategic.
2) During the late game, make military units more of a team based build. So cities group production together if they have the production capacity. Say you want to build a bomber. If you three cities can work on it together to build it in fewer turns, but the costs would have to be higher. And then those cities would not be able to build separate units or wealth/research/culture. Some way to simulate oppurtunity costs.
I think that in the early game, one gold mine (or any happy resource) should not be able to produce happiness in all your cities. Maybe just in the capital and whichever city has it, then as technology progresses so do the benefits of the resource. It would make warring or trading for happiness resources much more important in the early years. I think this would also help to slow down production, because cities other than the capital would have lower happy caps.
But I would love to see the military resources be finite and eventually run dry after too many units have been produced. There should be a set number of troops any one military resource can produce.
I know that total realism had a mercenary component in the mod. But due to the long game length, units were spammed all over the globe. That is what turned me off from it.
BTW, this citizen-soldier/mercenary system is working right now in Iraq.
Do a quick google search on the number of actual U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Then do a search on the number of "private military contractors". It is VERY INTERESTING statistic.
Do a quick google search on the number of actual U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Then do a search on the number of "private military contractors". It is VERY INTERESTING statistic.
I saw a show on the "private military contractors". I do not remember it too well, but it was odd to see them training in the US and offering their services to the government with out the same benefits that a soldier might get. I cannot remember the details though, so I could have it wrong.
I heard of but never played Total Realism. They key to a mercenary system would be:
1. Make citizen-solidiers low/free cost relative to economy and population and civics.
2. Beyond those caps, you must hire mercenaries at high premium cost.
3. If your economy is in the red, all mercenaries rebel.
4. You cannot disband mercenaries but you can choose to release them all and they ALL rebel.
With this system, it would be REAL costly and hard to spam units all over the globe. Their cost would be exhorbitant and you couldn't just disband them. Civs who chose to go the huge SoD route could still do it but it would set science way back and you'd be stuck with the costs or have to get rid of them only through civil war.
I like the idea of the mercenary mod, but if your goal is to have less units I think there are other easier methods. The first is making the resources have a finite number of units it can support. And each unit built off the resource becomes more expensive than the last, especially in the early years.
Then in the late years happiness can be tied to this because at some point the populace will be come upset at all their resources being diverted to military units while they are left to ration out their resources.
So you can keep building a huge army, expanding your empire and trying to maintain control, but it will cost you. Or you can have a small empire, that is still well defended, and be able to tech faster or push your culture.
Jet
No, no, please. Please.
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2006
- Messages
- 2,431
I have an academic point that is tangential to the good discussion about game design here.
Regarding the "unrealistic to have 12 Axemen when you only have 2 pop 2 cities". From a realism point of view that is a good point and quite interesting. However it's not clear how you should compare population: is an Axemen supposed to represent the same number of people as a city pop point?
One way to compare it is the numbers they use for the demographics screen, which associate an actual number of people with pop and units. Those numbers are a little complicated and you have to dig for them. Another way to compare population (just a different way to look at it) is to compare the city+civic maintenance you pay for 1 city pop point to the military maintenance you pay for 1 unit.
Regarding the "unrealistic to have 12 Axemen when you only have 2 pop 2 cities". From a realism point of view that is a good point and quite interesting. However it's not clear how you should compare population: is an Axemen supposed to represent the same number of people as a city pop point?
One way to compare it is the numbers they use for the demographics screen, which associate an actual number of people with pop and units. Those numbers are a little complicated and you have to dig for them. Another way to compare population (just a different way to look at it) is to compare the city+civic maintenance you pay for 1 city pop point to the military maintenance you pay for 1 unit.
MisterBarca
Prince
- Joined
- May 22, 2006
- Messages
- 536
I got hit with a 60-unit stack of Russian medieval units a couple hours ago... Eventhough they were mostly obsolete, their shear numbers made mincemeat of my force about half that size. I managed to hold the city they went after (and btw, they went RIGHT after it... they didn't stop to pillage or wander like usual) with just one Grenadier at 1.9 health after the first attack... the stack was so big that the tooltip didn't even display how many units there were on the tile, so I was under the impression I was dealing with 20 units when I was actually dealing with three times that many.
In short... that's a bit excessive
The sheer size of the battles is what I loved about BtS, until I got sick of the spy bugs at Marathon and uninstalled--until the next patch.
Please keep the AI unit production tendency as is!
There's no pleasing everyone.
Some people love to be able to build hundreds of units and have the AIs also be able to build hundreds of units. But when military units become an overwhelming part of the game, it really makes it a wargame. Civ is not supposed to be a wargame but a civilization building game where war is one aspect.
If the humans can build huge stacks then of course the AIs need to be able to do the same to compete. But it would be much better if ALL armies were kept at manageable and reasonable sizes due to high costs and relation to total population.
It's more challenging and more difficult when units are few and every unit loss hurts and you can't have dozens of units in every core city defending everywhere. Its much more mindless and dumb when you can build so many units that deployment and individual unit losses matter little. That's not to mention the tedium of it all.
darkchampion
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jul 24, 2007
- Messages
- 12
If you keep sending frontal attacks with your SoDs vs their SoDs of course it's going to turn into a long drawn out battle. Just cut their resources out from under them and it goes a lot faster. Sure the initial conflict will be huge, but afterwards it shouldnt turn into a stalemate once their economy is crippled and important resources pillaged (oil, aluminum mostly)
interesting concept although i'd rather see manpower as a derived resource from city size. implimented as such city size*10%+sum of all previous city sizes.
size 10 city = 1+.9+.8+.7+.6...*10 =
55 manpower points, and a warrior unit might cost 10 where as a modern armor might cost 50 (and as such you could have 1 modern armor produced in the city). in a city with 20 you could have 4 modern armors, city of 30 almost 9.
The nice thing about having large armies is that it reduces the luck factor. If you're attacking 1 spearman with one tank, you get a lot of losses due to 
. But if you're attacking 50 spearmen with 50 tanks, it really doesn't matter if you get unlucky with the RNG.
Plus, there's a lot of tactics that just don't work with smaller armies. With a big army, you can send your main force in at the front line, split across 10 squares, pillaging everything, forcing them to draw out their forces, while your secondary force sneaks around to the back and razes their capital. With smaller armies, your pretty much limited to just one SoD.
. But if you're attacking 50 spearmen with 50 tanks, it really doesn't matter if you get unlucky with the RNG.Plus, there's a lot of tactics that just don't work with smaller armies. With a big army, you can send your main force in at the front line, split across 10 squares, pillaging everything, forcing them to draw out their forces, while your secondary force sneaks around to the back and razes their capital. With smaller armies, your pretty much limited to just one SoD.
I think Fall from Heaven has done a great job of limiting large armies in the end game by making the top tier units national units like missionaries or corporate execs. Theres no point in building 100 macemen when 3 spartiatoi could cut straight through them.
It makes for quite a radical change of tactics and approach to end game wars though.
It makes for quite a radical change of tactics and approach to end game wars though.
aronnax
Let your spirit be free
I remenber someone had a sig that went
To kill stuff you need 2 things
1) More stuff
2) Better stuff
Which in Civ is sort of true. Forget about collatorate damage, you usually either need twice as much units or be more advance. This is why I like Medieval Total War 2 quite alot. A small army with the the same weopens can defeat a much larger one if the army is commaded properly
To kill stuff you need 2 things
1) More stuff
2) Better stuff
Which in Civ is sort of true. Forget about collatorate damage, you usually either need twice as much units or be more advance. This is why I like Medieval Total War 2 quite alot. A small army with the the same weopens can defeat a much larger one if the army is commaded properly
