Unit Production in Civilisation 5

[Never]

Could the fact that you cannot place more than one unit in the same tile signify that the whole concept of the Civilization unit production is in for an overhaul?

It has been mentioned that you will be limited to how many units you are able to produce in relation to the quantity of relevant resource you have access to.

What might be the case is that instead of utilising 'production' to create a unit, one expends population points? For example, you gain access to Iron, you can now produce 5 Swordsmen. For every one Swordsman you produce you must expend a population point in the selected city.

Furthermore, it has been hinted that a unit does not necessarily get destroyed in battle if it is defeated in battle. What this could mean is that in most cases (unless the attacker is much more advanced than the defending unit) a defender is able to retreat and gain experience from every battle. And for that unit to heal you will have to expend more population points (or fractions thereof) for the unit to heal.

What this could encourage is the tactical use of available military units and viewing them more as an army, or a legion as opposed to a 'unit'. Perhaps as they become more experienced you must expend population for them to increase in size for example. Maybe as you advance technologically one Iron will enable you to produce double the amount of Swordsmen or whatever.

 

[rabidveggie]

Perhaps population and production would now be necessary? Certainly can't imagine seeing as many units as in civ 4 or else every tile would have a unit on it.

 

[Never]

Exactly. That means that to have a strong army the game is forcing you to be focused on the experience of a unit rather than the quantities of units.

I don't think that production will be necessary to create a unit. I think it will be a combination between technological knowledge, population and time. Perhaps to create one unit it will take two population points coupled with two turns. When you gain a new technology you can create another 4 units.

Also there will be no threat of a civilisation effectively 'respawning' units when under attack because to do so would lower a cities defence when a strong city garrison is very necessary. Pincer attacks would be tactically wise now because cities away from the front would be low in population because they had been spending population on units and healing, so a sneak attack would be disastrous to a defender as cities would obviously be less garrisoned if a lot of population had gone to units!

 

[Shurdus]

I think putting units up in a building que is one major aspect of the civ gameplay. This makes it so that you need to time exactly when you will need units and take valuable time away from building workers, settlers and infrastructure. Building units is more than just comitting hammers, it is also committing opportunities for the return of added safety and military power.

Taking that away in the means proposed here will make the game whole new, and it would take away the fun of microing such things as slavery and worked tiles. If units cost food, you will want nothing but farms, which would make it a whole new game and nothing like the game we know.

 

[Ahriman]

Building military units with hammers is a simple economy mechanic that works really well. Why "fix" what isn't broken?

 

[Zhahz]

Building military units with hammers is a simple economy mechanic that works really well. Why "fix" what isn't broken?

Exactly.

It also forces you to balance buildings vs units and make decisions.

 

[Never]

But surely this whole one resources = one unit thing will mean there must be changes in how units are produced?

 

[Ahriman]

But surely this whole one resources = one unit thing will mean there must be changes in how units are produced?

1. They have never said one resource = one unit. They have said that resources will produce enough for a finite number of units. So for example one horse tile on the map might provide enough horses for 5 cavalry units.
2. I see no connection between resource requirements and changing whether or not hammers build units.
You can keep hammers for unit production while making resources finite.

 

[Never]

It was stated in a preview I read last night that one Iron will produce only one Swordsmen. It said it exactly.

To me that, added with the whole one unit per tile thing, signifies there will be some change to how units are produced and used. The whole military aspect of Civ will be changed because of these two new limitations.

In my mind units will now be seen as an army. And instead of building loads of troops, what you are forced to do is train or grow the few armies you control. I just have a feeling that there will now be a link (rightfully) between population and the army. Perhaps you can now strengthen, i.e. increase an army's defence or attack, by expending population.

 

[Ahriman]

It was stated in a preview I read last night that one Iron will produce only one Swordsmen. It said it exactly.

Then the previewer was confused. The developers never said that.

 

[Shurdus]

It was stated in a preview I read last night that one Iron will produce only one Swordsmen. It said it exactly.

To me that, added with the whole one unit per tile thing, signifies there will be some change to how units are produced and used. The whole military aspect of Civ will be changed because of these two new limitations.

In my mind units will now be seen as an army. And instead of building loads of troops, what you are forced to do is train or grow the few armies you control. I just have a feeling that there will now be a link (rightfully) between population and the army. Perhaps you can now strengthen, i.e. increase an army's defence or attack, by expending population.

Oh so now units represent an army? And in BtS a swordman was a man with a sword that could singlehandedly capture a city?

There already was a link between population and army, because a one-city empire could never field more units than a ten-city empire could. It was not a hard cap, but there definitely always has been a relation between population and units even though the relation is indirect.

All this to me means that your post makes little sense and that you are asking for things that are already in the game.

 

[Never]

There was never a link between population and army. You never had to actually spend population when producing military units.

I know a Swordsmen represented more than a single warrior in previous Civs but what I mean is that instead of building loads of swordsmen that are stacked together to represent say, 50,000 units, what they could be introducing is a system whereby you have one visible unit and if you want that unit to grow in size (to say 50,000 strong) you spend population points to do so.

If one iron = one swordsmen as the previewer stated, then to me the above seems like a likely way to represent large numbers of soldiers working together in the form of a single controllable unit.

 

[GoSkins]

It doesnt even really make sense for population to directly correspond to military size. The limit on how large you can grow your army should be the ability to equip it (hammers), not how many men you can throw out there. So the hammers model makes the most sense to me.

 

[Shurdus]

There was never a link between population and army. You never had to actually spend population when producing military units.

I know a Swordsmen represented more than a single warrior in previous Civs but what I mean is that instead of building loads of swordsmen that are stacked together to represent say, 50,000 units, what they could be introducing is a system whereby you have one visible unit and if you want that unit to grow in size (to say 50,000 strong) you spend population points to do so.

If one iron = one swordsmen as the previewer stated, then to me the above seems like a likely way to represent large numbers of soldiers working together in the form of a single controllable unit.

There has always been a link between population and army because a large empire could field more units. If you want to grow a city you can work farms. If you want to train units faster you need to work mines. Now because you worked mines rather than farms you have trained a unit while the city did not grow as fast as it could have. You cenceded food in return for hammers, which means that you conceded growth for units. Building units is not free, it comes at an opportunity cost because faster unit training means less growth.

I do not know how to make it any more clear than that. More emphasis on hammers means less emphasis on food. If you want to produce units fast there will be consessions in terms of food, therefore there is a relation between hammers - which can be turned into units - and population.

Add to that the fact that large cities can produce faster and that more cities means more possibilities to produce units per turn and the relation between units and population is as clear as day to me. Say what you will but it sounds to me like you are asking for something that the game already provides in an abstracted form. Just because the game does not explicitly state that units do not cost population points does not mean there is no relation whatsoever between population and units.

 

[Ahriman]

We should also consider that until mass conscription by Napoleon, the proportion of people who were actually soldiers was usually pretty small.