Units, Upgrade tree, Combat, Healing and Equipment

[Leyrann]

Speaking of units, I'd like to discuss the unit tree, classes and abilities (including promotions)

Don't limit your thoughts to the scope of civ6, I'm assuming that we'll get DLL access at some point, here are some of my design plan

• limited stacking
  • 1 melee unit + 2 support unit (numbers could changes with eras / policies, not sure if we'll use/need the corps/army mechanism of civ6 then)
  • translated to modern terms, "melee" would be division sized, "support" would be regiment sized
  • "support" include ranged, recon, and other regiment sized unit like heavy tanks, assault guns, etc... (think R.E.D. WWII if you used it)
• most current "support" units will be removed and their effect reintroduced as promotions (keeping anti-air unit as regiments)
  • medic promotion -> field hospital (less dead from wounded, heals wounded faster, applied to all units on the same tile)
  • engineer-like promotions : unit could automatically spawn city-assault units (siege tower, battering ram, if it has enough materiel) when near an enemy city with walls
• techs unlock equipment (bronze equipment, iron equipment, steel equipment, chariot, crossbow, musket, rifle, cannon, ...)
• a city that has access to enough of that equipment (using trade for example) can build the corresponding units, even without the corresponding technology
• each units has an small upgrade path with an equipment type, unlocked using projects, you need the equipment tech to research those project
  • for example bronze equipment allows spearmen, the "base" unit, and a military project unlocked by the same tech as bronze equipment allows phalanx units based on spearmen

Now what I'd like to discuss based on this is the global unit tree, IE what kind of units we should have for each era, and what should be the rock/paper/scissor for the gameplay

Finally a post where I feel like I got something to add, as someone who is interested but neither has modding experience nor wants to play a pre-alpha mod.

(just adding this in here, I didn't really take stacking into account, as I've never played with stacking mods. I'm just writing down what feels logical, and I assume it should be possible to pour it into a stacking mold. I'm also using quite a bit of what I know from Civ 4 as I feel like that game does a super good job on units, even though combat is bland with stack of doom vs stack of doom)

As for the rock/paper/scissors, I feel like there should be made a distinction between pre-gunpowder and post-gunpower, maybe in different unit classes, maybe not. This because pre-gunpowder, there is a clear distinction between melee and ranged, while post-gunpowder everyone is ranged, it's just that the ranges are different. Pre-gunpowder, I think it should look like this:

Anti-cavalry should beat mounted
Mounted should beat ranged/siege.
Ranged should beat anti-cavalry.
Melee should neither counter nor be countered by anything.

The thought process is as follows: Anti-cavalry (obviously) have pikes, which people sitting on horses don't like. Mounted units are fast, and are therefore good at flanking. That makes it only logical for them to be strong against ranged units, who tend to be lightly armored and who just don't have the time to shoot the horsemen down before they reach them. Ranged units should beat anti-cavalry because anti-cavalry, again, have pikes or the like, which means that they have a two-handed weapon, and therefore have no shield.

Now, melee units on the other hand, do have shields. They're not lightly armored, so they're also not easily routed by mounted units, and they're also not weak against pikes as they can relatively easily break pikeman formations. On the other hand, their weapons are shorter, so they can't reach horsemen that easily, they're not as fast as mounted units, so they cannot rout archers, and they do not have ranged weapons so they will need to get in range of the pikes in order to kill the pikemen. This together makes them the jack-of-all-trades of units, where they're not the best at anything but also don't get destroyed by anything, which then also logically means that they will make up the bulk of every army, even moreso if you do not know what you will go up against. This is also historically accurate (I'm not certain wheter the countering is; that's just a gut feeling), as most people in any army were just people with swords, shields, maces, etc.

Note on siege units (which I totally forgot for the most part): They are weak against mounted because they tend to be slow, and are strong against cities, of course.

As for post-gunpowder, it kind of becomes more difficult. Basically, you just want lots of guns. In other words, gunpowder units, musketmen, riflemen, etc. They're pretty strong and really don't have a clear weakness. Additionally, you would of course have the gunpowder mounted units like dragoons and cavalry. Those would later get replaced in their role by armored units like tanks and modern armor. However, there aren't really any other clear distinctions in classes, as the counter to guns is typically "bring your own guns". Mounted units would be faster, but I suppose that non-mounted units would be slightly stronger. Of course, siege units simply continue, and they'll still be weak to mounted in particular. In my opinion, siege units from artillery on should outrange anything else, requiring you to move units out of a city in order to stop them from hitting said city.

I do realize that this doesn't give for much interesting rock/paper/scissors, but I really just can't think of a proper way to handle that. Maybe armored units should beat gunpowder units though, so that you'll have to build AT units. And of course, air units beat anything on the ground if there's no AA.

---

Time to move on to the specific units. I'd personally like to see lines like this. It might interfere with Civ 6 promotions though, so maybe it's just not possible at all.

Melee: Warrior (game start) -> Axeman (late ancient, prob Bronze Working) -> Swordsman (late classical) -> Maceman (medieval) -> Gunpowder line.
Ranged: Slinger (game start) -> Archer (ancient) -> Composite Bowman (classical) -> Crossbowman (medieval) -> Gunpowder line.
Anti-cavalry: Spearman (ancient) -> Phalanx (classical) -> Pikeman (medieval) -> Gunpowder line.
Mounted: Heavy Chariot (ancient) -> Horseman (classical) -> Knight (medieval) -> Mounted gunpowder line.
Siege: Catapult (classical) -> Trebuchet (medieval) -> Cannon (renaissance) -> Artillery (industrial) -> Modern artillery (atomic) -> Rocket artillery (information).
Gunpowder: Musketman (renaissance) -> Rifleman (industrial) -> Infantry (modern) -> Mechanized Infantry (atomic).
Mounted Gunpowder: Dragoon (renaissance) -> Cavalry (industrial) -> Armored line.
Armored: Landship (modern) -> Tank (atomic) -> Modern Armor (information).

I also feel like the game should have machine guns but in my opinion they do not really fit into any category. Additionally, there should of course be anti-tank and anti-air units. And helicopters, which most certainly should not come from upgrading mounted units.

As for other air units I feel like the age-old system of fighters and bombers simply does it's job and does it well. And ships is a mess that I don't think I've ever really understood, so I won't start talking about that.

 

[Gedemon]

Thanks, I'll come back on that.

In the same time I'm still pondering the level of details for equipment.

It could be something generic like:

none : spearmen, warrior, archer
bronze equipment: axemen
iron equipment: swordsmen
steel equipment: pikemen, knight, longswordsmen

or more complex:
wood -> spear, clubs, bow, crossbow
copper -> bronze axe, bronze swords, bronze spear
iron -> iron sword, iron spear
etc...

I'm also considering secondary equipment, like armor types.

Note that names are just for reference with current/previous civilizations game.

thoughts ?

 

[Leyrann]

Thanks, I'll come back on that.

In the same time I'm still pondering the level of details for equipment.

It could be something generic like:

none : spearmen, warrior, archer
bronze equipment: axemen
iron equipment: swordsmen
steel equipment: pikemen, knight, longswordsmen

or more complex:
wood -> spear, clubs, bow, crossbow
copper -> bronze axe, bronze swords, bronze spear
iron -> iron sword, iron spear
etc...

I'm also considering secondary equipment, like armor types.

Note that names are just for reference with current/previous civilizations game.

thoughts ?

I like it. Would you then, for example, need wood to build a clubman, copper to build an axeman, etc, or would you be able to somehow turn wood into clubs and then need clubs to build an axeman, and so on? I kind of like the second one, but it would also mean a game where you'd have to micro-manage every city to produce the right goods, like in Colonization, and that might take too much attention away from the other aspects of the game (contrary to Colonization, which is based around managing all kinds of goods).

 

[Gedemon]

The building/resource production mechanism of the mod can be as complex (or simple) as we want it, the mod's trading mechanism taking care of the transfer of intermediate materials between cities.

But at the end of the supply chain, at this moment, an unit can only require one type of equipment, and when an equipment is required by an unit, you can't build/reinforce/heal that unit without it.

What I'm pondering to code is different types of equipment per unit, some mandatory, some optional.

For example, take a swordsmen unit.

Swords would be a mandatory equipment, but it could be bronze sword, iron sword or steel sword. A swordsmen unit would prefer to be equipped with the steel swords but would use the other types if steel swords are not available. Having a high percentage of better equipment would give a combat bonus. Without any kind of swords available for reinforcement, the unit wouldn't be able to reinforce the frontline (combat ready) troops (representing the "health" of an unit) even if it has access to enough personnel.

Armors could be an optional equipment type, again we could have leather, bronze, iron or steel armor equipping an swordsmen unit. And again a high percentage of equipment would give a bonus (higher for steel), but in that case the unit would be able to "heal" even if it doesn't have access to an armor type.

 

[Gedemon]

ASAP I'll try to expand a bit on the units tree as posted by Leyrann and also using R.E.D Xtended, R.E.D. WWII and Combat & Stacking Overhaul for civ5 as references, and keeping in mind that with limited stacking (when fully coded), the "rock/paper/scissor" idea is to allow a weakness to any stack.

But now, trying to put on paper the concept of multiple equipment, we could have for the basic infantry line:

| Ancient | Classical | Medieval | Discovery | Industrial | Machine | Arms Race | Atomic | Information | Future
Heavy Infantry| wood club + leather armor|swords/axes + armors (bronze and Iron) + shield (wood, leather, bronze, iron)|swords/maces + armors (steel) and Arquebus + armors (steel)|Musket|Rifled musket (Line infantry) upgrading to Rifle (Riflemen)|Repeating rifle + Combat Helmet|Automatic rifle + Combat Helmet|Assault Rifle + Combat Helmet|Assault Rifle + Connected Combat Helmet
Medium Infantry (Anti-cavalry)|spear (wood) + armor (leather) |spear (bronze and iron) + armor (leather)|Pikes (steel) + armor (leather, iron, steel)|( merging with/upgrading to heavy infantry )

 

[Gedemon]

And a small note about ranged units too:

Most land/sea ranged units will have a range of 1 (except late game missile equipped unit), but that doesn't prevent to simulate different ranges with the mod's mechanism (once the DLL source code is available)

For example the ability to return fire or not: a longbowman can attack a slinger from a distance preventing any return fire, while a slinger attacking a longbowman will suffer from return fire.

If possible, some "melee" unit will have the ability to return fire against some ranged unit (to prevent the situation of an archer attacking a riflemen without loss)

Some ranged units will provide only defensive support fire (like machine guns) when the tile they are on is attacked by a melee unit.

Ranged units will have a variable number of fire points reinitialized each turn that will be used when providing various type of fire:
- direct ranged fire (player controlled)
- return fire (against direct fire on the unit from another ranged unit)
- preparation fire (supporting a nearby melee unit attack)
- counter-preparation fire (supporting a nearby unit defense against a melee attack)
- counter-fire (against a ranged unit that has attacked a nearby unit)

 

[Leyrann]

The building/resource production mechanism of the mod can be as complex (or simple) as we want it, the mod's trading mechanism taking care of the transfer of intermediate materials between cities.

But at the end of the supply chain, at this moment, an unit can only require one type of equipment, and when an equipment is required by an unit, you can't build/reinforce/heal that unit without it.

What I'm pondering to code is different types of equipment per unit, some mandatory, some optional.

For example, take a swordsmen unit.

Swords would be a mandatory equipment, but it could be bronze sword, iron sword or steel sword. A swordsmen unit would prefer to be equipped with the steel swords but would use the other types if steel swords are not available. Having a high percentage of better equipment would give a combat bonus. Without any kind of swords available for reinforcement, the unit wouldn't be able to reinforce the frontline (combat ready) troops (representing the "health" of an unit) even if it has access to enough personnel.

Armors could be an optional equipment type, again we could have leather, bronze, iron or steel armor equipping an swordsmen unit. And again a high percentage of equipment would give a bonus (higher for steel), but in that case the unit would be able to "heal" even if it doesn't have access to an armor type.

As for this equipment, there's also armor, for example, that is of the same material (iron, for example), yet different in quality because of advancements made. Will this also be reflected ingame or will you only use different resources?

Also, how will you handle the promotion system? Or is that something you'll work on later?

 

[Gedemon]

As for this equipment, there's also armor, for example, that is of the same material (iron, for example), yet different in quality because of advancements made. Will this also be reflected ingame or will you only use different resources?

Also, how will you handle the promotion system? Or is that something you'll work on later?

If I code the base mechanism, it can then be made simple or complex, again it's just a matter of adding more "resources" .

The promotion system may change, but the types of promotions will have to be adapted to the new mechanisms in the mod anyway.

 

[Gedemon]

The more I think about the possibilities, the more I want the multiple equipment requirement/option with bonuses.

So I'll do it

That means some heavy changes to the actual code, but on the other hand, it's much better to decide that now than after what I was initially planning to code next: gold requirement when producing units/buildings based on the resources/equipment prices and coding the upgrade of units based on the requirements of the new unit (more personnel, more materiel, different or more equipment)

Upgrades will be automated, based on the supplies available to an unit that can be upgraded.

 

[Gedemon]

And now before coding, I need to design the equipment mechanism.

First, a simple possible example with Combat Strength bonus for a swordsmen depending of the type of swords

The swords is mandatory, at 100% health the unit will have 3000 personnel and 3000 swords on its frontline position (remember post #5 for reference).

We could set a max bonus for each type of sword, for example
+0 CS max for Bronze Swords (the basic type)
+2 CS max for Iron Swords
+5 CS max for Steel Swords

Let's suppose the following composition for a swordsmen unit (frontline position) at full health:

3000 personnel
1500 bronze swords (50%)
1200 iron swords (40%)
300 steel swords (10%)

the bonus would be:
(40/100*2) + (10/100*5) = 0.8 + 0.5 = +1.3 CS (I don't think the game accept decimals for combat strength, so that would translate to +1CS)

The bonus would have to scale with the unit health, to prevent having +5 CS because the last component could be the better one (if I decide to handle the level of the component in the damage calculation)

Imagine the same unit at 50% health after a few fights, the worst components being damaged first:

1032 personnel (the function to calculate personnel / health is not linear)
200 bronze swords (~20%)
600 iron swords (58%)
232 steel swords (22%)

the bonus would then be:
((58/100x2) + (22/100x5) ) * 50/100 = (1.16 + 1.1) * 0.5 = +1.13 CS (still + 1CS...)

Now, if you have blacksmith in all your cities and access to iron and the steel tech, the same unit could be composed like that at full health:

3000 personnel
300 bronze swords (10%)
1500 iron swords (50%)
1200 steel swords (40%)

and the bonus would be:
(50/100*2) + (40/100*5) = 1 + 2 = +3 CS

That's a simple usage, but I really think that we could/should push it further.

For example, armors type could affect the fate of your personnel casualties after a combat, less dead, more wounded. When cut from your supply lines, the ability to have more personnel that could eventually heal to join the frontline again (even more if you have enough medicine) is essential.

Another example, actually the mod can manage anti-personnel and anti-vehicle values only, this would have to be expanded in relation to a multiple equipment system.

So we could have equipment classes:

Required:
- Weapons (Swords, Spears, etc...) or Vehicles (Tanks, Fighter, Bomber, ...)

Optional:
- Personnel Protections (Armor, Shields, Helmet)
- Vehicle Protections (Additional armor)
- Special Ammunition (HEAT rounds, Fragmentation Bombs, Torpedoes, AGM...)


Then Vehicle/Weapons/Ammunition would need to be defined by:
- Anti personnel value
- Anti personnel protection value
- Ignore personnel protection value
- Anti vehicle value (Air, Land, Sea)
- Anti armored vehicle value
- Ignore vehicle armor value

The difference between vehicle/weapons and ammunition would be that the vehicle/weapons position would be frontline and reserve, and they will be damaged/destroyed in frontline during combat relatively of the unit damage (the ratio between destroyed/killed and damaged/wounded depending of the opponent and/or the unit's optional protections), while the special ammo position would be mostly in reserve, the type and number used depending of its value against an opponent (so that a bomber unit is not going to launch torpedoes against tanks...)

This may look over complex, but it's the kind of background mechanism that would make the game/mod much more "alive" IMO.

Still, before coding anything (I will take some more time to think about how to implement it anyway), I'd really like to gather some feedback, comments and suggestions.

 

[Leyrann]

As for the game not accepting decimals, you could multiply all combat strengths by 10 to get a more accurate representation. This would require a change to the combat code itself, however, as currently a strength difference of 10 means "twice as strong", which should then of course become a strength difference of 100.

 

[Gedemon]

I was about to answer that we can't change the code, but we do have access to the variables of the combat formula, so yes, that is possible.

Edit : for reference, the formula should be similar to this:

(COMBAT_BASE_DAMAGE + rand(0, COMBAT_MAX_EXTRA_DAMAGE)) * e^(COMBAT_POWER_SCALING * StrengthDifference)

(where e = 2,71828, from https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/hans-lemurson-figures-out-the-combat-formula.606147/ )

in the base game COMBAT_BASE_DAMAGE = 24, COMBAT_MAX_EXTRA_DAMAGE = 12 and COMBAT_POWER_SCALING = 0.04

in the mod ATM COMBAT_BASE_DAMAGE = 12 and COMBAT_MAX_EXTRA_DAMAGE = 6

I can keep those, multiply all the units combat Strength per 10 and use COMBAT_POWER_SCALING = 0.004

 

[Knasp]

ASAP I'll try to expand a bit on the units tree as posted by Leyrann and also using R.E.D Xtended, R.E.D. WWII and Combat & Stacking Overhaul for civ5 as references, and keeping in mind that with limited stacking (when fully coded), the "rock/paper/scissor" idea is to allow a weakness to any stack.

But now, trying to put on paper the concept of multiple equipment, we could have for the basic infantry line:

| Ancient | Classical | Medieval | Discovery | Industrial | Machine | Arms Race | Atomic | Information | Future
Heavy Infantry| wood club + leather armor|swords/axes + armors (bronze and Iron) + shield (wood, leather, bronze, iron)|swords/maces + armors (steel) and Arquebus + armors (steel)|Musket|Rifled musket (Line infantry) upgrading to Rifle (Riflemen)|Repeating rifle + Combat Helmet|Automatic rifle + Combat Helmet|Assault Rifle + Combat Helmet|Assault Rifle + Connected Combat Helmet
Medium Infantry (Anti-cavalry)|spear (wood) + armor (leather) |spear (bronze and iron) + armor (leather)|Pikes (steel) + armor (leather, iron, steel)|( merging with/upgrading to heavy infantry )

As I understand it, leather armour wasn't used in any real or at least broad sense, since it's impractical, restricts movement, and doesn't offer any real protection against cutting/piercing attacks. It doesn't provide much padding, i.e. absorbing force of blows.

Spoiler Explanation :

Remember they had polished, sharp stones even before bronze and iron. And said leather would have been put to much better use in all other kinds of crafting. For example, Leather was used to make shoes, belts and particularly straps - to attach metal armour parts to your body.

In Ancient era it's more accurate to let the simplest (peasant) soldiers have no armour in the beginning. They probably started protecting themselves with shields of wood, animal hide, woven reeds or wicker. An early complement to shields (and/or metal armour) could be "armour" of woven Linen. Preferably it would be padded, to absorb concussive blows and lessen projectile impact. Linen is made from Flax, which was domesticated at latest in 8000 BC and Egypt had already established an industry in 4000 BC.
For example, Hoplites in the hellenistic (greek and macedonian) armies used linen-cloth as a basic armour, or undergarment, about 800 BC:

Spoiler :

The soldiers were free male citizens, especially middle-class, and so they had to provide their own armour.
The average farmer-peasant hoplite typically wore no armour, carrying only a shield, a spear, and perhaps a helmet plus a secondary weapon.The linothorax was the most popular type armour worn by the hoplites, since it was cost-effective and provided decent protection. The richer upper-class hoplites typically had a bronze cuirass of either the bell or muscledvariety, a bronze helmet with cheekplates, as well as greaves and other armour.

My suggestion is therefore to add the resource Flax, to be extracted and woven (refined through Weavery-building), in order to provide basic clothing and some basic form of armour.

Once a Civ aquires Copper, Bronze and later Iron, better armour becomes available for the experienced military units and wealthier middle-class recruits.

Edit: Here I was overexaggurating a bit. Even levied peasants or lower class soldiers could be equipped with some sense of effective armour, shield and weapon. Especially if the ruler had planned ahead and stockpiled the equipment (like in Ancient Egypt). Though, it has been common in history for peasant recruits to bring their own equipment of varying (often sub-par) quality.​

I want to stress the importance of social class, and that you should include the Wealth or Relative power (size) of the Middle-class into the equation. Because in many societies, the Warrior-caste/professional soldiers have been Middle-class. You can't trust slaves with weapons, or expect lower class peasants to learn effective tactics.
Officers and Knights (Charioteers/Cavalry) were more likely Upper-class.

To summarise:
When recruiting a Spearman or Hoplite:
The quality of armour should depend on the availability of Copper/Bronze/Iron, and development of Metallurgy (Furnaces/Forges/Blacksmiths) as well as the production of Linen (Breast plates like the hellenic Linothorax could be an Application the civ has to develop once they've learned Linen-working).
Of course, leather is required or useful, at least in lesser amounts, to craft shoes, belts and straps for metal armours.

So a basic Hoplite will have some kind of spear and wooden shield as minimum equipment. The wealthier the Middle-class is, in your city (or in your case their share of the population size), the better armour they will bring with them upon recruitment. As units become more experienced, they will get better armour, since they will be able to buy better armour with their spoils of war, or if the wealth/industry of the Civ has increased.

 

[Gedemon]

Thanks!

As the latest version may not start at all with the current changes to the equipment system that are partially implemented, I've created a v0.1-preview release on github based on a commit that was "stable", I'd suggest to download this one for testing the mod : https://github.com/Gedemon/Civ6-GCO/releases

I want to start designing a more detailed tech tree for the first era(s) so I can begin to code the proposed design, I'll try to make a post about that ASAP (maybe a separate thread for science as this will be a huge task ?)

For linen, I was planning to make it available as a resource "producted/exctracted" by buildings from the current generic "plants" resource, and part of the "clothes" resources tree.

Could also be part of the "armor" tree, now that the concept is kind of approved, I'd be happy to have suggestions.

The mod will set "equipment classes" that units will refers too when asking for resources.

For example an unit is linked to the equipment class "light_armor", another to the equipment class "armors" and another "heavy_armor"

There should be only one armor class per unit, but different armor classes could share some type of armor.

For the personnel recruitment, policies could affect the % drafted from each population class, the base values will change.

 

[Gedemon]

I'll try to put some more thoughts on the difference between a self equipped army and one with standardized equipment, suggestions on implementation are welcome.

Could be also linked to the difference between "building" an unit (multiple turns) and "buying" one directly with gold.

 

[Knasp]

I want to start designing a more detailed tech tree for the first era(s) so I can begin to code the proposed design, I'll try to make a post about that ASAP (maybe a separate thread for science as this will be a huge task ?)

A separate thread or several sounds good. I'd love to help out.

I'll try to put some more thoughts on the difference between a self equipped army and one with standardized equipment, suggestions on implementation are welcome.

Edit:

Standardized equipment is a relatively modern phenomenom, as I understand it.

Here I was guilty of overstatement. There was definitely a weapons industry which stockpiled weapons and armour, in Ancient Egypt, although the most effective armies seem to have been the Hellenistic and Roman armies, where soldiers had to provide their own equipment. Gonna have to research this further, but I'm guessing that the soldiers could buy their equipment from arsenals, or from a state-sponsored industry).​

Implementation wise I'm not sure. Keeping a standing army is expensive, and you would lose growth by keeping away farmers from their homes. I guess my suggestion is the "Shortage" route. But I'm not sure if the factors below should influence the cost of the unit, or simply the unit's quality of equipment, once recruitment is finished.
The earlier would sound: "Give them the best we've got, as long as we can afford it". The latter would be: "We need more soldiers, even if we can barely equip them".

• The current stock of the resource
• Resource production rate - Number of citizens assigned, improvements, trading the raw/refined resource
• Resource refinement rate - Buildings (i.e: making Bronze from Copper and Tin, etc)
• Current army size (or the army's share of total population)
• Amount of units recruited of the same type

While metalurgy is undeveloped and access to metals are limited, there is a limit to how many well-equipped soldiers you can equip. If you try and recruit more soldiers than your stock of Bronze/Iron is good for, then you recieve recruits with lesser quality-/without armour or quality weapons. Maybe these shortages of equipment could be mended in time, but time is of the essence when it comes to war. A mustered army costs a lot to maintain, and generally you want to end wars quickly. Not only for morale's sake...

Spoiler More thoughts on Professional army vs Strength in numbers :

As a ruler, you need a lot of absolute power/wealth, and a well functioning bureaucracy, to be able to control the details of your civilization. Which includes equipping everyone with the weapons you desire, or training everyone sufficiently, or going to war whenever you want. Industrial societies have greater capacities to achieve standardization.

In the Ancient Era to the Medieval Era at least, you could perhaps contrast a small, professional and well equipped army, with a large force of mustered peasants.

In short: Quantity (lower-class) vs Quality (middle-class)

The professional soldiers/warriors/mercenaries all have incentives to become effective at fighting, stay alive and maintain their position. They also have greater wealth to spend, due to their social status and position. Famers and labourers have less to gain by war (maybe nothing), and less wealth to purchase equipment.

And even if the ruler has wealth and resources to equip poorer soldiers directly, then he risks upsetting the Upper- and Middle-classes, by spending those resources on anyone but them (reducing their loyalty and their willingness to coup).

Note: Whilst equipping everyone was expensive, it might not have been a societal problem. Still, undisciplined levied peasants was not as effective as trained middle class (professional) soldiers.

In consequence: the Ruler may order the mustering of certain units and demand his subordinates to recruit armies of certain compositions (i.e. "I require X cavalry, Y archers, Z spearmen, also siege engines, ships for transport and logistics to sustain them).
But the quality of troops, that the Commanders then recieve, could very well be disastrous.

Could be also linked to the difference between "building" an unit (multiple turns) and "buying" one directly with gold.

Buying with gold could actually net you a better unit, if it is a mercenary. Professional soldiers would surely demand higher wages than peasants, and therefore require higher upkeep costs?

Spoiler Sidenote :

I actually tried making a mod where all military units needed to be purchased, becuse I wanted to try to separate building/construction/city projects from the military aspect of CivVI (and thereby allowing the player(s) and AI to field units and develop their cities simultaneously). However the cost(s) of recruitment needed to be reduced and upkeep needed to be raised. Whenever someone attacked, you could recruit an army quickly, but you were limited to buying 1 unit per turn, per city. I even experimented with having military units costing population when recruited, becuase I reasoned that there would be less people working in the city and farms. The biggest downside was that I didn't know how to add the ability to disband the unit, and return the population. Also the A.I. would have low population in their cities due to constantly spamming out units, to counter Barbarians.

 

[steemroller]

@Knasp -- nice write-up.

As I've posted prior, agree on the need for Copper (abundant) /Tin (rare), and their combination to make bronze, to better reflect antiquity.

Like your thoughts on flax. I'd always taken cotton (much as with stone, etc.) as the generic for weave-able materials. However, if others (such as flax) do not grow in the proper regions, this would cause problems. Points out that weaving should also be required for sailing, too.

Love your thoughts on units being only purchasable and buildings/districts/wonders being only buildable, perhaps with a gold-based accelerator. I do think the pre-Ancient units, before 5K BC, should not require resources, but will require a maintenance cost to allow their "recovery" to the population at large.

Given that early armies were not in any large measure professional, it makes sense to have food and production slowed by army. I don't think this is a 1:1 trade-off as armies were typically seasonal, allowing citizen soldiers to return home to sow/reap crops and, in high latitudes, to take the winter off.

 

[Gedemon]

There is already a link in the mod between your population number/food production and the army you can maintain, city below size 4-5 will suffer (not growing or even declining) if they supply more than 1-2 units with food (and reinforcements if they are fighting)

The supply chain mechanism (supply lines, trade route, resources production, ...) coded in the mod can already lead to situations where a small army can be more effective than a larger one that can't be reinforced because of attrition.

The equipment mechanism will be another layer adding to that.

I also do plan to set a hard limit between your army on the field and the total number of trained personnel in your civilization (or a percentage of your total population), and reduce building time on the other hand.

But I'm still pondering on how to really represent the small (when existing) standing armies of nation at peace and the temporary bigger armies of war time.

The issue is not really on designing a mechanism (I can handle the conscription or the disbanding and return of the conscripted population to civil life in the mod's code, I could track professional/trained units and the ones drafted directly from the population, ...), but adapting it for the AI is (as always) the real challenge.

For example, I'm pretty sure the actual AI will never plan an invasion or declare war if it doesn't already have a (large enough) standing army.

About resources, at the map scale, I don't think we could add too many resources which would lead to some resources unavailable in an area (one of the goal is to have them more accessible but also more important), but I could develop what's already in the mod: stacking multiple resources on tiles, and having the current civ6 resources representing large deposits.

What I'm also pondering (to prevent having dozen of different resources showed on the UI for a tile) is also to show just a generic resource value (for example "metal ores") being collected on the tiles, the resulting resources (type, quantity) being linked to the tech level of the civilization and/or the building (but still keeping the "large deposit" concept above)

 

[Knasp]

@Knasp -- nice write-up.

Thank you!

The supply chain mechanism (supply lines, trade route, resources production, ...) coded in the mod can already lead to situations where a small army can be more effective than a larger one that can't be reinforced because of attrition.

I hope you can excuse my generalized answers so far. I believe I've got to spend more time in your mod to grasp how the current system works, before I comment too much and make a fool of myself.

But I'm still pondering on how to really represent the small (when existing) standing armies of nation at peace and the temporary bigger armies of war time.

I don't know what to suggest in terms of the A.I. because I'm not sure how they work. Do they simply build as many units they can support until they go bankrupt?
If that is the case, then I guess one way to repress the number of units in peacetime, could be to increase upkeep costs or local unrest caused by soldiers. Once war is declared, upkeep costs/local unrest are decreased. This allows fast recruitment of levied units. An explanation for the rebate could be that it's easier in war-time, for soldiers to descend upon the local populace/peasants and to get away with semi-looting and living off the land. The resistance of the remaining local peasants (Lower-class) is weak, since many of their able-bodied men are off to fight in the war.

About resources, at the map scale, I don't think we could add too many resources which would lead to some resources unavailable in an area (one of the goal is to have them more accessible but also more important), but I could develop what's already in the mod: stacking multiple resources on tiles, and having the current civ6 resources representing large deposits.

I actually would suggest maybe getting rid of food "resources" altogether, but hear me out. Or see "My food ideas" below for concrete suggestions, if you're impatient.

Especially in prehistoric times and in the beginning of the agricultural revolution, a variety of plants were domesticated and cultivated in different parts of the world, at different times. But once a plant was successfully domesticated, it's use seems to have spread to neighboring settlements and cultures, and then further off into lands "unknown". An important limitation for this diffusion/spreading was of course the plant's required climate and soil, to which the wild plant initially evolved. But through cultivation and stubborn breeding, even such limitations could sometimes be overcome. Two examples of this diffusion are Soybeans and Bananas. Soy was first cultivated in China, around 7000 BCE. Between 100-1600 CE, Soy was introduced to India and SE Asia. Eventually Soy was introduced through trade in N America by 1765, and to the rest of the world in the late 1800's.

Spoiler Fun fact :

The Hitler Youth supposedly called them "Nazi beans" .

Today soybeans are an excellent source of protein and a vital staple food for populations (and livestock) all over the world. The Banana is another interesting example. It was originally cultivated in SE Asia 8000-5000 BCE and was brought to Madagascar by sailors in 4th century CE. Later Bananas were introduced to Africa and Spain, by the Islamic world in the 6th - 10th centuries. And finally bananas were brought to S America in the 15th-16th centuries by the Portuguese. The domestication of animals have followed a similar pattern.

The point I'm making is that it makes little sense to have food and animal resources evenly distributed across the world. I would rather see that plants and animals were native to certain climates/environments (or continents in a simplistic Civ VI context), and that these could be bred, traded and brought to new places. If a Civilization establishes trade over oceans, or establishes new colonies there, perhaps they can find new, fertile ground for planting and cultivating non-native crops, and add the possibility to introduce new species or breeds of livestock to new continents.

Spoiler My food ideas :

Resource placement, gathering and domestication

• Plant placement (Staple foods) following semi-realistic environmental and terrain requirements
• Wild animals could be represented as units, at least in a Prehistoric Era (before Ancient Era). Civilian, barbarian, animal units, that wanders around, and that you can capture and then domesticate. The actual domestication could be as easy as bringing the Sheep or Horses to a tile within your cultural borders and then use that unit's ability to construct a Pasture.
• Plants could be spawned randomly (within their respective climate/terrain types) and then they could be discovered by your Gatherer- or Scout units. After discovery, they could be brought home in a similar fashion, to be planted like farm improvements. Basically you would have a subtype of Farms. I.e. Farms (wheat), Farms (soybean), Farms (flax), and so on.

Cultivation of domesticated plants and animal husbandry

• Once a plant or animal has been domesticated, you can construct new farms or pastures with the specific species subtype. The Builder would gain access to the newly aquired Farm or Pasture subtype.
• Different plants and animals, can offer different bonuses. So if you want to grow lots of food, then you can plant Wheat and Beans. But if you want to weave Linen for clothes and sails, then you need to plant Flax. If you want to increase your Gold income through trading and/or provide luxuries for your population, then you can plant Cocoa, Coffee or Bananas.
• Domesticated plant and animal species could then be acquired through direct trade, far reaching maritime trade (East India Company), or from neighbor to neighbor, slowly through diffusion.
• Another possible way to gain access to new organic resources would be to send exploratory expiditions all over the world, carrying the desciples of Linneaus, or perhaps a young Charles Darwin ;-)
• You could settle a colony in New Zealand, and fill that entire place with non-preexisting Sheep
• Animals that have been domesticated, can then be bred for a specific purpose. Horses can be bred (Application) for size and strength, to carry heavy cavalry. Elephants can be herded/bred (Application) for the Ivory resource, or for combat purposes (War Elephants).

Additional/alternative ideas:

• Unlike farms, in order to keep livestock you need to have actual units of flock-herders moving the animals between available grasslands and pastures. For example you could have an action by the Herder (Sheep) unit, to let the animals Graze, which could take a few turns, and this action would bring food to the population (or inrease the size of the herd). This idea would basically introduce micromanagement of animal husbandry, and having to optimize the placement of your animals. Because over-grazing a tile would reduce the ability of that tile to sustain the herd. You would need to leave the tile for some time, to allow it to recover. Overgrazing can add to desertification, as seen in Northern Sahara (16,000-0 BCE)
• Wild animals, that can't be domesticated, will spawn and keep moving around and grazing. They could be hunted for food by Hunters or military units. If the hunting is excessive, there is a risk that all animals of that species are extinct. Like horses were in North America, prior to the European colonisation. Other wild herd-animals, that can't be domesticated, like Reindeer or Bison, could be harvested for food, whenever you move a hunter unit onto the same tile. So basically you have to follow the herd wherever it is migrating (Tundra or Plains in a simplistic Civ VI context
• In War, when enemies come attacking or raiding, you could then move the herds of strategic horses, or valuable livestock, to safer grounds. And if you can't escape in time, then the enemies will capture your livestock, granting them food resources. Partly by affecting their supply needs (the soldiers can eat the livestock), or by allowing them to take the herds of livestock home to their own lands as valuable plunder. If you move the livestock to tiles that can't support them, they will also require food from supply lines, like military units, or the herd will diminsh in size.
• The addition of these walking-food-resources, could essentially make for a lot of interesting situations. Perhaps you could take livestock units with you, when going to war, thus providing your troops with a nearby food supply. Or perhaps you could move the livestock when natural disasters flood an area, and so on.

Final thoughts regarding terrain and features:

I'd like to see new terrain types and terrain features introduced. A diversity of terrain types could limit the ability of specific plants and animals to appear, or be utilised all over the world, north and south. I would personally want to see Terrain have properties of Climate, Elevation, Roughness, Soil type. Apart from resource placement, and fertility for farming/grazing, it could also find uses regarding combat. New features could be different Wetlands, River deltas, Estuaries, Mangrove forests on coastal tiles and Archipelagos on water tiles in general. Savannah, Evergreen forests and so on...

The biggest problem with these food related ideas of mine, is that I'm doubtful whether the A.I. could handle it.

On an unrelated note, I'd really like to see early exploration limited, not only by attrition due to supply lines (which is wonderful). But I'd also like you to lose the map information of discovered territories after a certain time (if at all possible).
At least until cartography/navigation and mathematics are discovered, you shouldn't be able to remember all details of a far away land. I really dislike the fact that you can run around with your Scouts or sail with Galleys and explore the entire Old World in Ancient Era, on the earth maps.

 

[Gedemon]

I'd like to be able to set multiple citizen on improved tiles, it would also help to determine a more detailed city social stratification, but I don't think it's possible for improvements, adding citizen to a district for example seems to be hardcoded to buildings, it's not a modifier AFAIK.

I really need to come back on some of the post about designing the research, the unit tree and social stratification BTW, but I'm still coding the background for integrating multiple equipment types/classes for units.

While doing that, I had a possible idea, related to equipment and standing armies (or lack of) for early game.

What about temporary units ?

You could have an (initially) very small standing army limit at the beginning (say 2-3 units)

But you'll have some stocks of equipment and (of course) some population in your cities.

Barbarian (or neutral) units approaching your territory could unlock a one-turn project in a city for conscription.

Next turn, some units (number and type based on equipment and population) spawn around the city for your civilization, with a counter before disbanding.

When the counter is down, the remaining personnel and equipment is sent back to the city.

We could have (longer) projects to plan for an invasion or cleaning that barbarian camp you've scouted, with a bigger counter for units, depending of the project.

thoughts ?