Trading military units

[Philips beard]

Selling nukes should give a large damage to your overall diplomatic relations!

If you are selling ordinary arms to a nation with bad reputation, it should also give a hit to your reputation towards the civs hating the buying Civ the most!

If you are giving away units (weapon aid) to Civs in war, it should serious damage your reputation toward the Civ(s) in war with that Civ.

 

[russell white]

I think there are three differnet ideas here, lending other nations units, the use of mercenaries and use of hardware.
I dont think lending other nations units should be allowed. As I understand it most mercenaries in history werent lent by other countries. They were just bands of hired foreign troops and they werent part of someone elses army. I cant think of many occasions when one nation lent another nation its troops. So I think you should be able to hire mercenaries from a pool and troop types should be dependant on region.
Obviously nations have bought weapons from other nations, prehaps you could implement this by buying a number of weapons which would allow you to manufacture a certain amount of units.

 

[a4phantom]

I think there are three differnet ideas here, lending other nations units, the use of mercenaries and use of hardware.
I dont think lending other nations units should be allowed. As I understand it most mercenaries in history werent lent by other countries. They were just bands of hired foreign troops and they werent part of someone elses army. I cant think of many occasions when one nation lent another nation its troops. So I think you should be able to hire mercenaries from a pool and troop types should be dependant on region.
Obviously nations have bought weapons from other nations, prehaps you could implement this by buying a number of weapons which would allow you to manufacture a certain amount of units.

The Hessians were rented out to fight for the British and others. Russian "volunteers" were ordered to fight with Arab and if I'm not mistaken also the Vietnamese armies.

 

[Stid]

it wud work with much greater affect if each civ had their own unique units so they different units would need to be bought of different countries depending on the scenario

 

[sir_schwick]

My Thoughts:
1) Units should be able to be bought and sold like any commodities.
2) It should not cost you extra, you charge what you want for your units(free if you desire).
3) Traded units retain their current experience.
4) Unit trades can be conducted in a 'x unit y's every z turns for a'. This would be really useful for trading for resources.
5) Strategic resources shoudl be required for a lot more than unit production.
6) Techs allow domestic production and repair.
7) Units bought on the market have double maintenance.
8) Selling nukes will make non-allies very unhappy.

 

[a4phantom]

it wud work with much greater affect if each civ had their own unique units so they different units would need to be bought of different countries depending on the scenario

They do. More diversification of units would be nice of course, and maybe it'll happen in Civ4. But even with the standard UU, Greece for example could make a killing selling Hoplites or the Persians Immortals.

 

[Yom]

I think that units should be able to be bought and sold when in the capital. The receiving civ must pay for their maintenance twice-fold (or regular + 1gpt) while the giving civ does not pay any more maintenance. Unit loans are too messy as the unit can get killed, meaning that there would be a rep hit or something. Unit capture is possible and more appealing, but it is just as messy. It could be done like this: whenever a higher level unit in the upgrade path of the winning unit is defeated, there's a 1/3 chance (like for enslaving the enemy) that you get a pop-up, asking you to upgrade for 30 gold * the shield difference of the two units (just like upgrading). That way, it wouldn't happen too often, and you wouldn't be able to turn your tank into flak or your rifleman into a tank.

Also, you could do the same thing and add an extra cost of 50 gold OR double the price if you want to upgrade a unit to something completely unrelated, like a horseman becoming a Swordsman. UU's shouldn't be upgraded though, IMHO.

 

[a4phantom]

UU's shouldn't be upgraded though, IMHO.

I'm told that's how it was originally. It sounds really obnoxious, why should civs be penalized for having their UU at a certain part of the upgrade chain? That would be a huge benefit to the Russians and Ottomans and Americans, but everyone else is disadvantaged.

 

[sir_schwick]

Actually, I thought of a loan system that might work. For loaning troops, you pay a one-time 'security deposit' and a gpt loan fee(which is minus the maintenance). If the loanee gives back the unit, they get their security deposit back. If the unit dies or is capture, the loaner keeps the security deposit.

It would allow an industrial nation to be the main arms component of a multi-lateral alliance. This is roughly how NATO and even the UN portioned troops, the US provided a great majority of the forces.

 

[a4phantom]

That seems awfully complicated for the benefit to gameplay.

How about this.

1. Units can be sold like workers, and become the property of the buyer. Since people seem to like the idea of doubled maintainance, units your civ can't produce (no resources, not the proper tech, or UUs) cost double maintainance because you have to hire foreign experts.

2. This idea is not applicable with the current diplomacy engine, but might be worth thinking about. Units can be "volunteered" like the Abe Lincoln Brigade and the Russians who fought for Syria and Egypt. They take on the colors of the host civ, but are still controlled by their native civ. That they move during the "wrong" turn is a hint to their origin. This might only work in multiplayer games, because the AI handling of treaty and reputation is too rigid. Also I'm told in multiplayer it's harder to determine what techs and resources rival civs have, so you wouldn't know if the civ using cavalry against you has military tradition and access to saltpeter or not. This idea would let you fight proxy wars without giving another civ actual control over your top of the line units.

 

[sir_schwick]

I like your maintenance idea on 1 and no. 2 has interesting implications.

 

[douche_bag]

you should'nt be able to sell EVERY unit but these should be: Uniqe units,artillery,tanks,and 1 special "selling" unit in each era.

 

[sir_schwick]

Why shouldn't you be able to sell whatever units you have? This could even lead to countries whose sole economies rely on selling units. In this case their protection would be all the nations who rely on them for military goods. If the producing nation was attacked, the buyer nations would come in and make sure their provider stayed in business.

 

[russell white]

Hessians were more like paid allies rather than mercenaries, whilst there have been many times in the 20th century that one countries army have been volunteers in other armies, as in Korea and maybe Vietnam, they werent mercenaries in the true sense of the word as the troops werent hired by the lendee but deployed by the lender to further their political aspirations.

 

[shr00mz]

i support the idea of mercenaries.. esspecially for the couse of giving the extra units to weak civ that you support against another stronger iv and you dont really want to go to war.. and sometimes when that conflict is far away overseas even going to war cannot help weaker nation.. concept from civ2 could be used..

 

[Dreadnought]

shr00mz AGAIN you are babbling...anyway...

Before USA entered Vietnam they gave South Viet weapons and artillery and such. You can see alot of examples of this elsewhere

 

[sir_schwick]

In WWI the US arms industry made a killing(no pun intended) by selling weapons to both sides. This would be the perfect way to keep wars that are profitable to you going; you sell the side that needs an extra boost slightly better weapons. Best part is they spend money on war instead of development, furthering your relative power.

 

[Yuri2356]

In WWI the US arms industry made a killing(no pun intended) by selling weapons to both sides. This would be the perfect way to keep wars that are profitable to you going; you sell the side that needs an extra boost slightly better weapons. Best part is they spend money on war instead of development, furthering your relative power.

Now THAT's an Idea!
NOw all we need to do is covertly force to AI nations to fight to the death, leaving the winner ripe for conquering.... <wishing there was an evil&laughing smilie>

 

[sir_schwick]

Its like my pappy always said, "When the dog ***** on the rug, you are not the only one heading for a shovel." Currently in civ you usually have to handle long-distance trouble spots all by your onesies.

 

[Mewtarthio]

To select units to be sellable, all you should have to do is click a toggle in the Military Advisor screen. That way, people don't get free access to your entire army whenever they go to the Diplomacy screen.