Too Many Military Units (Back to Civ III)

[onedreamer]

The problem is not whether to turn off aggressive AIs or not. The problem is that armies sizes are unrealistically large. As long as humans can build unrealisically large armies starting in the ancient era with axe rushes, there are two solutions:

1. Have an aggressive AI option that lets the computer AI spams tons of units too to counter human IMS. In order words concede IMS.
2. How about we fix IMS to begin with by making military costs much more expensive and tying them to population or civics? (Like Civ4 did with ICS and finally fixed ICS?)

Nah I don't think the problem is that the human can build too many units and I don't think that the AI doesn't, it does, but the problem is that it is not capable to handle them as well as the human does.
The main problem is that the AI builds units in this fashion:
-city garrison
-regular army

When at war the AI will throw at you its regular army, all you have to do is sit back and drink a coffie while fortifying your positions and let the AI suicide its entire regular army. After that it's just a matter of sieging one city after another, because the AI will NOT recover from the loss of its regular army. At best it will hurry garrisons in sieged cities. It was like this in Civ3 already btw, the AI would send its famous huge SoDs toward your mountain fortified spearmen and lose its wars like this (while you were generating Generals to make your retaliation even easier).
Now, in BtS there have been some improvements, namely 2 that I have seen:
- siege units have been toned down a bit (but not enough yet), and lowering city defenses takes longer, with the result that the AI has more time to build garrison units. The only notable effect of this tactic is that the prolongued sieges can lead the human player to sign a peace treaty earlier than planned because normally a war spoils economy, especially if it's prolongued and there aren't immediate results. I'm speaking of the human player's economy vs the AI's economy of other empires, not the one(s) at war with the human.
- the AI now actually values its units more and does retreat when its stacks have been badly beaten and the survivors have no really chance of obtaining anything.

In short the problem is not to let the AI build more units than the player, but to make it understand better the concept of reserves and defensive wars. The AI sucks badly at defensive wars, either after losing its regular army because of poor tactics, or when it is the human player to declare first because at an advantage.

 

[gunter]

Dear thread mate,it depends on each player preferences,f.i if it was in me I would release Civ V with 500 ( hundreds, yes ) different type of units.

Several dozens of naval ones,12 type of submarines etc..very close to Larry Bond Harpoon approach. Of course the total numbers in a game should be limited by groups/stacks to avoid tedious micromanagement.

If you don't agree please buy Daisy Collector 2, a game that can suites your needings.

In real life I'm a pacifist

gunter

 

[aelf]

If you don't agree please buy Daisy Collector 2, a game that can suites your needings.

May I suggest, then, that you get Starcraft to suit your 'needings'?

I happen to like Starcraft. But Civ4 had a different concept.

 

[pi-r8]

May I suggest, then, that you get Starcraft to suit your 'needings'?

I happen to like Starcraft. But Civ4 had a different concept.

Unfortunately, most people aren't able to play starcraft well enough to really get a feel for the game.

 

[gunter]

Don't believe the hype more units less tactic. Of course buildings are a part of the picture but you have to keep in mind ( if you are old enough ) another aspect of the game that made the success of the series, inside Civ 1 ...the atmosphere......of fighting,of discovering etc....

 

[mrt144]

The amazing and terrible thing is the Unit Spammers now declare that it is the true way to play Civ and ask for more.

There is no true way with Civ.

 

[Bast]

Higher unit maintenance costs please. So both the human and AI cannot have too many military units.

 

[largedarryl]

Higher unit maintenance costs please. So both the human and AI cannot have too many military units.

Agreed.

I'm thinking double or triple the current costs.

 

[aelf]

Unfortunately, most people aren't able to play starcraft well enough to really get a feel for the game.

You can't deny that unit spammers had a field day with Starcraft. It seems that Civ4 is falling into the same fate.

There is no true way with Civ.

Indeed. Unfortunately, some people insist their way is better. And it has had an effect on the game.

 

[porkdiesel]

I think its nice to see people getting a taste of their own medicine (only applies to people who use huge stacks). Stalin goes NUTS with stacks of death.

 

[martin031]

they should make a civ mod that removes military units! And then we can all sit around a campfire and sing coombya!

I don't know i've never seen it as a problem that enemies had too large of an army. Nothing I cant usually deal with even if I do lose a few cities i can create a good defensive and take them out.

The problem is if you lower the number of maximum units AI makes without hampering the Player you will just spam TONS of units and wipe the whole world out without breaking a sweat. Too few units also means that a well upgraded unit is ALOT more powerful than he normally would be as he cant be taken out by a large force in a well defended position, and the fact that cities are alot harder to siege in the early game means that fewer units would make it near impossible to take a well defended city.

The first comment is just trying to incite a flame war, and is not needed.

As far as the second point, I think that is a valid concern. But I never advocated putting hard caps on the number of units. I would like to see units built by a resource be finite, because that would make it more strategic. It may even lead ot more strategic wars for valuable resources.

My thought are not completely fleshed out, but they are ideas to make the game more interesting.

 

[martin031]

I really do think that this debate just comes down to your choice of style in how you want to play the game. Obviously the more military units are in the game, the more time you spend dealing with them, so the game becomes more warlike. Conversely, if you have very few units, you'll mostly be managing your cities (micromanaging them), and even if your in a war, It' will still FEEL peaceful.

For me, the war aspect of Civ 4 is the most fun, so I like having large armies to play with. I have a feeling, though, that most of the people arguing against large armies are builders by nature. Nothing wrong with that, I just don't like that people seem to be implying that fewer units somehow makes the game better or more strategic.

The thing is, before CIV 4, I was actually more a builder early game, warmonger late game. But I have learned to use war to have limited goals and make it useful.

My issue with the number of units is to not make the game easier, or more peaceful. I like wars, and I love it when I get to the other continent and Monty has already gone nuts and consolidated the land with vassals and is eyeballing me.

I just think that the same results can be accomplished with a small reduction in units to help keep the game more manangeable and less stress on the computer.

 

[martin031]

Dear thread mate,it depends on each player preferences,f.i if it was in me I would release Civ V with 500 ( hundreds, yes ) different type of units.

Several dozens of naval ones,12 type of submarines etc..very close to Larry Bond Harpoon approach. Of course the total numbers in a game should be limited by groups/stacks to avoid tedious micromanagement.

If you don't agree please buy Daisy Collector 2, a game that can suites your needings.

In real life I'm a pacifist

gunter

Why do you feel the need to throw out insults to make your argument stronger? I know I never said I wanted to not fight wars, since there is an option for this and I have never checked it.

I do agree with the first point, I would also love to see expanded unit types. The more choices the better. It is just the overall ability to spam hundreds of units that drags the game down. (maninly performance)

 

[martin031]

Well I can`t agree, I quite enjoy it. And I`ve had long periods of peace. But good thing there`s a CIV3 for you to go back to.

YAY, four posts in a row. Why do you think that people should go back to a different game because they disagree with you?

 

[Kranden]

The thing is, before CIV 4, I was actually more a builder early game, warmonger late game. But I have learned to use war to have limited goals and make it useful.

My issue with the number of units is to not make the game easier, or more peaceful. I like wars, and I love it when I get to the other continent and Monty has already gone nuts and consolidated the land with vassals and is eyeballing me.

I just think that the same results can be accomplished with a small reduction in units to help keep the game more manangeable and less stress on the computer.

well I'm not meaning to flame only joking =) But Personally I don't Find Tons of units are a huge problem. If you don't want that many units play on a small map. But with too few units if you have one city with quite a few warlords attached spamming units with city defense upgrades its going to be hard for enemies to take him out and they wont stand any chance taking your cities if you have a bottleneck position.

 

[mrhyms]

I personally like the current setup, but here's a couple of ideas.

1) Stack sizes limits :- the logistics of moving armies around always grows in complexity with the size of that army (compare some historic battles with the more recent world wars). One option would be to drastically limit the maxmimum stack size at the start of the game, with increases in this limit coming as you advance through the ages and/or with the discovery of new techs (such as writing, radio etc)

2) Supply costs probably should be made exponential, but there also ought to be ways of reducing them - certain techs and maybe a new "Supply Wagon" unit could be added in so that if you do want to run huge stacks, you're going to need to plan it far better, and unless you protect your supply line they could potential become more of a liability than an asset...

Just my 2 cents

 

[mel-anon]

I personally like the current setup, but here's a couple of ideas.

1) Stack sizes limits :- the logistics of moving armies around always grows in complexity with the size of that army (compare some historic battles with the more recent world wars). One option would be to drastically limit the maxmimum stack size at the start of the game, with increases in this limit coming as you advance through the ages and/or with the discovery of new techs (such as writing, radio etc)

2) Supply costs probably should be made exponential, but there also ought to be ways of reducing them - certain techs and maybe a new "Supply Wagon" unit could be added in so that if you do want to run huge stacks, you're going to need to plan it far better, and unless you protect your supply line they could potential become more of a liability than an asset...

I love love love the idea of having stack size limits, not so much because it would reduce the total number of troops, but because it would make warfare different and more realistic through the ages. In CIV4, Ancient Age wars are basically the same as modern ones, you march a single stack up to a city, shell it with artillery, then assault it. With stack limits, warfare would spread out more through the ages (and this would count on defense, too, though cities and forts could get extra slots, depending on how large they are.)

This wouldn't have to be a hard limit, you could go over, but each unit over the limit fights at an increasingly reduced effectiveness (and it would always be the units on "top", the first units to attack/defend out of the stack.) And having a Great General on the tile or some other promoted unit would increase it, too.

I also like the idea of having manpower related to population, not on a one-to-one basis perhaps, but some correlation (that you could increase with techs, buildings or wonders.) You could go over your manpower, but each extra unit would cost more hammers to build and more gold to maintain. For example, after you discover Nationalism you can enable conscription which would give you a big boost in manpower at the expense of more war weariness and reduced XP for newly-built units for the duration of the conscription period.

 

[gunter]

Why do you feel the need to throw out insults to make your argument stronger? I know I never said I wanted to not fight wars, since there is an option for this and I have never checked it.

I do agree with the first point, I would also love to see expanded unit types. The more choices the better. It is just the overall ability to spam hundreds of units that drags the game down. (maninly performance)

Of course Martin I didn't want to insult anyone and if you got offended I apologize for that.

But come on, we are talking about a game and some " bold " speech I think must be accepted just for the sake of forum's arguments.

Told that I was also referring to some posters who blamed unit lovers,they have all the strategies to apply a no war game if they want,I was only supporting the opposite clan who can have a decent number of unit only with BTS...

...and from my personal point of view I believe that Civ can't survive without the war option and for this reason having a wide array to choose from is a very enjoyable approach

cheers

 

[martin031]

well I'm not meaning to flame only joking =) But Personally I don't Find Tons of units are a huge problem. If you don't want that many units play on a small map. But with too few units if you have one city with quite a few warlords attached spamming units with city defense upgrades its going to be hard for enemies to take him out and they wont stand any chance taking your cities if you have a bottleneck position.

My apologies for taking your joke too seriously.

As far as a small map is concerned, that is not really what I am looking for. I am not trying to make it so there are considerably less units, maybe 10 percent or so. Just a way to make military production scaled back a bit.

One way Total Realism did tried to stop the SOD was to make a "Promotion" that was attached to the stack that gave it a 25% strength decrease after it reached x number of units. But I felt that the computer would still make huge stacks and take the penalty and I was better able to make smaller stacks wihout the penalty.

I would really like to see a system where each unit becomes more expensive in terms of hammers spent to produce. I think it would be best scaled by making it less costly in the early stages when there are less production modifiers and then more costly as the ages progress.

This might help more than my earlier suggestion that resources should run out over time. But if making my next bomber is going to cost twice as much as making my first bomber, then the player may be more inclined to shift production somewhere else. And it would "mimic" the idea that resources are limited.

 

[andrewlt]

I also support increasing the support costs and maintenance costs of military units.

There's really not much of a difference between a war with 500 units on your side and 500 units on the AI side and a war with 50 units on your side and 50 units on the AI side. The latter has enough units for a good tactical war without too much of an emphasis on luck. The former is just a micromanagement nightmare.