Unit Support formula

[CaptainPatch]

I've been experiencing a "You have too many units, so your Capital's Production is reduced 10%" phenomena. So I started to look around to see how to calculate just how many units your civ can support. Searches for "Support" and "Unit Support" in the Civilopedia don't reveal anything useful (or even related to unit support).

So, anybody know how unit support capacity is calculated?

 

[Smokeybear]

I've been experiencing a "You have too many units, so your Capital's Production is reduced 10%" phenomena. So I started to look around to see how to calculate just how many units your civ can support. Searches for "Support" and "Unit Support" in the Civilopedia don't reveal anything useful (or even related to unit support).

So, anybody know how unit support capacity is calculated?

I run into that all the time with my one-city challenge games. Between defense units and workers and generals and then throw in religious units and archaeologists popping up... before you know it, you got the dreaded red '!'

I believe it's directly related to the number of citizens in your town (or your civ, if you have more than one town). X number of citizens will support X number of units, and any amount of units above that will begin to degrade your production. Get even more, and your production goes down even more (something tells me the AI probably doesn't get affected by this <grin>). I'm not sure what the 'X's are, but I'm betting if you tally your citizens vs. your units when the red ! pops up, you'll get a pretty good idea of the ratio.

I've had a bunch of missionaries and great people pop all around the same time before and really mess up my cogs until I could get rid of some of them.

 

[Furret]

Change your Info Panel (Probably showing your research progress since I think that's the default) to Unit List, then click on Military Overview.

You get 5 Supply from difficulty (On Emperor, I'd imagine it scales by 1 or 2 in either direction).
You get 2 Supply per city (Based on one data point of 12 supply for 6 cities, it could be a more complicated formula)
You get 1 Supply per 2 population (Based on one data point of 58 supply for 116 citizens. Again, it could be more complicated but that would be pretty coincidental).

I always play really passively, stacking a lot of gold until someone DoW's me so I don't think I've ever actually run out of supply before.

 

[CaptainPatch]

Well, I've noticed that besides Military units (which I can see as reasonable), you also have to pay Support for Workers, which I think is nuts. Workers are city residents, workplace employees, which I would think get paid for as an aspect of commerce. Military units require oodles of specialized equipment (weapons and armor), are quartered by the city/empire, as well as requiring wages.

Charging Support for Great People is just plain insane. ONE person costs as much as an entire Crossbow unit? A Tank unit? A Battleship?

As part of a Military unit's Support must be the cost of lodging, I believe that since you are already paying Maintenance for a Barracks, that should negate at least some of the Support costs. Likewise for similar structures.

 

[Maxym]

Again this is a 1UPT game, military support is there to stop complete carpet of doom scenarios.
So in thus sense workers, GPs, missionaries, etc. All count towards the limit.

What I would like to know is how is this calculated for AI? They seem to have no problem with COD. A similar % reduction like building and tech costs in higher levels ?

 

[Matthew.]

I cannot recall the formula off-hand, but I think it is based upon capital size and number of cities, much like the city connection formula.

One search shows 5 + 2*number of cities, which is from year 2011 so not sure if still valid. A recent Germany game threw me into supply cap off of one city and if I recall correctly, I had about 8 units.

 

[rexman07]

As part of a Military unit's Support must be the cost of lodging, I believe that since you are already paying Maintenance for a Barracks, that should negate at least some of the Support costs. Likewise for similar structures.

Military Base (and maybe Arsenal) reducing unit support costs or increasing your support limit would be an interesting mechanic and help justify those late, super expensive defensive buildings. (I also think Military Base or maybe Arsenal should increase the range of a city's Ranged Attack to 3.)

I've never encountered the support limit, but I've never done a OCC or anything. When I conquer, I puppet most of the cities.

 

[Jaybe]

You go to your F3 and it's explained on the left. Correlate your population support with your F2 number of citizens (it's normally 1/2 cits). Base supply is 5 in all difficulties (perhaps Settler is different).

Caravans, Cargo Ships, guided missiles, and (with Oligarchy SP) garrisoning land units don't cost support.

 

[Smokeybear]

Military Base (and maybe Arsenal) reducing unit support costs or increasing your support limit would be an interesting mechanic and help justify those late, super expensive defensive buildings. (I also think Military Base or maybe Arsenal should increase the range of a city's Ranged Attack to 3.)

I've never encountered the support limit, but I've never done a OCC or anything. When I conquer, I puppet most of the cities.

I've only encountered the limit in one-city games or very early on with just a couple of cities when I was spamming military to go on an early rampage or something. Once you have 3-4 growing cities and a decent population base, I've never ever run into it in 3 years.

 

[CaptainPatch]

What pulled the trigger for me was building the Terracotta Army. Essentially doubles your Military, but it also slams you with Support costs. Seems like a contradiction: "Yay for me! I finished a Wonder ahead of everyone else! Uhm, why has Production just been slowed waaaayyyyyy down?"

 

[NyQuil]

I've actually never built Terracotta Army because I never have much of an army when it's available.

 

[CaptainPatch]

To tell you the truth, I've never seen any other AI-controlled civ build the Terracotta Army. It's always me that builds it. I wonder if the other civs don't build it specifically because they can't afford the lack of Support penalty.

 

[Smokeybear]

To tell you the truth, I've never seen any other AI-controlled civ build the Terracotta Army. It's always me that builds it. I wonder if the other civs don't build it specifically because they can't afford the lack of Support penalty.

On King, I see them build it all the time. Unless I've made a great start with good resources, I probably lose it to the AI 75% of the time. But then, I never depend on it for my military, so it's not a priority either. Terracotta over Hanging Gardens, National College, etc.? Nah, not me.

 

[Matthew.]

C

You get 5 Supply from difficulty (On Emperor, I'd imagine it scales by 1 or 2 in either direction).
You get 2 Supply per city (Based on one data point of 12 supply for 6 cities, it could be a more complicated formula)
You get 1 Supply per 2 population (Based on one data point of 58 supply for 116 citizens. Again, it could be more complicated but that would be pretty coincidental).

Bothered to actually look my last game. This appears to be correct and doubt it is any more complicated, since I had different numbers and the formula still works.

5 base + (#of cities*2) + (total population/2) = supply cap

 

[sendos]

I remember blowing the unit limit when I get heathen conversion. It's very easy to blow the limit when you go barb converting.

As for Terracotta army, I've only managed to get it once in my game in my Portugal Emperor game and I felt it was necessary to double my army of 2 CB's, 1 scout and a spearmen as I was expanding a lot rather early and the neighbouring AI's hated me for it. It's only worth getting if you wish to build up defences early and you wish to rush for early domination. Then again, the unit limit might well be designed to address early zerging anyway.

 

[householder]

Again this is a 1UPT game, military support is there to stop complete carpet of doom scenarios.
So in thus sense workers, GPs, missionaries, etc. All count towards the limit.

I agree that preventing carpet of doom situations is a good reason for the military support rule. However, I don't see why great persons or missionaries should be considered part of the military. Or, for that matter, why workers should be part of military support, either. I suppose it could be justified (workers building a supply line) but wouldn't this make more sense if it applied only to workers who were outside of their territory?

 

[Jaybe]

FYI, while the player gets 2 support/city, the AI gets 3 (unsure of any difference re difficulty levels).

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Just noticed in my current OCC game, i have -2 supply remaining but don't get production penality. Anybody knows when this does trigger?

 

[Browd]

Are you sure you don't have a production penalty? If you are 2 over the limit, you should have a 20% production penalty. Does the red exclamation mark appear on the top bar? When you mouse hover over Production in the City View screen, what does it say?

 

[CaptainPatch]

Are you sure you don't have a production penalty? If you are 2 over the limit, you should have a 20% production penalty. Does the red exclamation mark appear on the top bar? When you mouse hover over Production in the City View screen, what does it say?

I've seen it go to -6 Support with no production penalty. Haven't a clue as to why sometimes I can be at -1 Support and I get hit with a -10% production penalty, while other times it's negative support, but no production penalty. That's why I asked; I can't see the overall rhyme or reason.