There could also be a minimum cap. Somewhere between 5-10 units (maybe depending on difficulty level) until your civ would exceed that by whatever formula is used.
[R&F] Upgrading units
- Thread starter acluewithout
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There could also be a minimum cap. Somewhere between 5-10 units (maybe depending on difficulty level) until your civ would exceed that by whatever formula is used.
sixty4half
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Well, that's kind of what we already have. Where, once you hit the "cap" all you need to do is build another Harbor or Trade Center to get another Trade Route up so that you can support a few more units. And honestly, Civ6 is so easy to make gold in, hitting the cap never really happens because your empire never goes into the red. It's more like hitting he next Cost Tier, than an actual cap.
I could see two ways of capping upgrades. The first would just be a flat cap on how many units you can upgrade from one era to the next depending on map size and starting civs. The second would be a complete halt to upgrades once Gunpowder becomes involved. So Swords don't upgrade, Pikes don't upgrade to Pike and Shot, Crossbows don't upgrade and no more Knights into Tanks (which makes the least amount of sense in any upgrade path). That wouldn't be my preferred method but it makes the most sense in terms of where to stop upgrades and force the building of new units.
acluewithout
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Yeah, I’d agree with that. In fact, I think we’re circling around the same ideas (eg my comments about maybe Knights shouldn’t upgrade to tanks - they should stop at knights).
It’s amazing how much maintenance isn’t a cap. FXS obviously didn’t want to hamper what players could do based on the trouble global happiness and civics gave them in Civ 5. I think that’s influenced lots of decisions, including maintenance and how ages now work. And yeah, I could see some other back door maintenance mechanic like force limits ending up being just as irrelevant as maintenance and or housing. Tricky, isn’t it?
I was wondering whether another angle is looking at rising unit costs again. See, as others have pointed out, unit costs end up out stripping production by miles come the mid to late game. There’s lots of ideas here about how you might boost production to overcome that.
But what if that’s the wrong answer. Maybe production should drop off, but the real problem is that gold doesn’t become more powerful? Maybe late game you should be gold buying more?
tzu
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This reminds me of how the 'Panzer General' series handled the fondled 'core units', which accompanied you from one scenario to the next (in contrast to the 'auxiliary units', which were replaced and new all the time).
Also later 'Panzer General' versions had available slots (cf. 'force limit') for purchasable units (tanks, fighters, bombers using 3, recon, AT using 2, light artillery, Air defense, Anti Air using 1 slot) just in order to avoid only playing with the "super unit types".
Archon_Wing
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I would hate the idea of a unit cap. I very much like how you can have huge armies in Civ 6 as one of the issues of 1 UPT is the scale felt so small-- Civ 5's system is terrible and confusing in every way. I mean tiles represent vast tracts of land and having only a puny army to cover it makes no sense.
It's a matter of how you get the army rather than the army itself. Currently the issue is you don't build an army in later ages but you just preserve the old army from ancient times.
It's a matter of how you get the army rather than the army itself. Currently the issue is you don't build an army in later ages but you just preserve the old army from ancient times.
Boris Gudenuf
Deity
A lot of very interesting ideas and discussion here.
The limitations of 'Heavy Cavalry' and similar units wasn't population as in a Force Limit, but the fact that the units were so incredibly expensive for the society of the time to produce and maintain. A single 'war horse' or destrier could cost as much to raise, train and feed/maintain as several families of farmers, let alone the cost of armor, weapons, and the other 'knightly' paraphernalia. The rule of thumb in Dark Age Europe was that it took 5 - 10 families to support one part-time spearman-equivalent (shield, spear, no armor).
On the other hand, Pre-Renaissance Armies could be pretty small. The largest permanent 'unit' in ancient Egypt or Sumeria/Mesopotamia seems to have been about 600 - 700 men - barely the size of a single Renaissance Era Pike and Shot Battalion! The 'Great Army' of Vikings that ravaged Saxon England was all of 300 men or so - a couple of companies of modern infantry.
Even larger, professional 'armies', the limitation was not manpower, but cost. The Imperial Roman Army, including auxiliary units that weren't often really 'Roman', peaked at about 500,000 men - in an Empire that had at least 50,000,000 inhabitants (and I've seen estimates as high as 100,000,000). That's less than 1% of the population 'under arms' when the average in the World Wars of the 20th century (Modern-Atomic Eras) was 8 - 10% of the population. But the cost of the Roman Army was one of the major factors that crumbled the Empire, largely because the tax collection was so inefficient that they could not get enough Gold out of the economy to pay for the government and army.
All of which means that perhaps the 'population cap' should be a soft one: in the Ancient Era, you can have 1 military unit per population point, but each unit in excess simply means that a population point cannot work a tile - your economy would be much less efficient, but Recon units would not count against the cap (scout units represent, I think, a much smaller number of men than a 'normal' combat unit). I don't know about other players, but I generally do not have more than 3 - 4 combat units before I get my second city up, so in most cases I'd be losing at most 1 - 2 tiles of working: not optimal, but survivable
Add the possibility of hiring Mercenaries with Gold, which should have been part of the game from the start, and by the time you reach the Classical Era Gold should be the real cap instead of Population..
As I posted earlier, rather than a hard limitation on Upgrading, the Upgrade Cap should be 'soft' - and some Upgrades, like all the naval and air, should be virtually as expensive as building new, because in every one of those cases you are building an entirely new set of equipment/weapons from the hull up and retraining the crews in entirely new tactics and techniques (rowing to sail-handling, close combat and catapult-firing to artillery firing, sailing to steaming, etc.). The reason for Upgrading here is not to Save Money, but to Maintain the Promotions ('Naval Traditions' - to quote a British admiral in WWII: "You can rebuild a fleet in a few years, but it takes centuries to build the tradition of the Royal Navy.") Same thing with many of the land combat Upgrades, but there the cost should reflect the relative cost of 'merely' replacing all the weapons and equipment versus the cost of retraining the men in entirely new techniques.
So, Knights to Tanks is a perfectly viable Upgrade (see the German 1st Cavalry Division becoming the 24th Panzer Division in 1941-42, or the US Army's 1st Cavalry Division becoming a mechanized/armored division in World War Two and then a Helicopter unit in Vietnam), but it's really, really expensive: you not only have to manufacture very expensive equipment and weapons (the original 'heavy metal') but also completely retrain the officers and men in entirely new, technically complicated techniques and tactics. Even Cavalry to Helicopters might be less expensive, because while the equipment is very expensive, the tactics are very similar - you don't have to pound new ideas into the officers' heads, which is expensive and time-consuming.
Some other examples of 'variable Upgrade Costs':
1. Spears to Pikes - dead cheap. The weapons are not that expensive to make, and the tactics are practically identical: Phillip II's Pezhetairoi did it in less than a generation, which is less than a turn in the Classical Era!
2. Bows to Crossbows - assuming we're talking about the metal-prod crossbow, the equipment is actually very expensive: it required the making of very metallurgically sophisticated spring steel bows and metal trigger mechanisms - actually more metallurgically complex than the early muskets! On the other hand, training crossbowmen took a few weeks compared to years for a good bowman, so the initial cost in Gold would be high, but the maintenance cost for Crossbowmen might actually be lower than for Bowmen, or the same.
3. Swordsmen to Musketmen - as mentioned, muskets were actually metallurgically simpler than fine steel armor, weapons, and mechanisms, so the initial Upgrade Cost is really low. BUT gunpowder weapons require manufactured powder and shot in continuous and increasing quantities, so the Maintenance Cost should Skyrocket: 200% at least, representing the 'tail' of carts and wagons trailing behind the unit hauling gunpowder and lead bullets by the ton to keep the unit viable. It is not a coincidence that modern banking and international Loans became common at the same time that gunpowder became a necessary component of European Armies - the need for Gold to keep an army in the field went up astronomically in the late 15th - 16th centuries.
I've said it before but it applies to the Upgrade/Unit Cap problem specifically: if you look at what the actual, historical limitations and conditions were and replicate them in the game, you are much more likely to have a good game than if you try to make factors up - there are always Unintended Consequences that don't become obvious until people try to play the game...
The limitations of 'Heavy Cavalry' and similar units wasn't population as in a Force Limit, but the fact that the units were so incredibly expensive for the society of the time to produce and maintain. A single 'war horse' or destrier could cost as much to raise, train and feed/maintain as several families of farmers, let alone the cost of armor, weapons, and the other 'knightly' paraphernalia. The rule of thumb in Dark Age Europe was that it took 5 - 10 families to support one part-time spearman-equivalent (shield, spear, no armor).
On the other hand, Pre-Renaissance Armies could be pretty small. The largest permanent 'unit' in ancient Egypt or Sumeria/Mesopotamia seems to have been about 600 - 700 men - barely the size of a single Renaissance Era Pike and Shot Battalion! The 'Great Army' of Vikings that ravaged Saxon England was all of 300 men or so - a couple of companies of modern infantry.
Even larger, professional 'armies', the limitation was not manpower, but cost. The Imperial Roman Army, including auxiliary units that weren't often really 'Roman', peaked at about 500,000 men - in an Empire that had at least 50,000,000 inhabitants (and I've seen estimates as high as 100,000,000). That's less than 1% of the population 'under arms' when the average in the World Wars of the 20th century (Modern-Atomic Eras) was 8 - 10% of the population. But the cost of the Roman Army was one of the major factors that crumbled the Empire, largely because the tax collection was so inefficient that they could not get enough Gold out of the economy to pay for the government and army.
All of which means that perhaps the 'population cap' should be a soft one: in the Ancient Era, you can have 1 military unit per population point, but each unit in excess simply means that a population point cannot work a tile - your economy would be much less efficient, but Recon units would not count against the cap (scout units represent, I think, a much smaller number of men than a 'normal' combat unit). I don't know about other players, but I generally do not have more than 3 - 4 combat units before I get my second city up, so in most cases I'd be losing at most 1 - 2 tiles of working: not optimal, but survivable
Add the possibility of hiring Mercenaries with Gold, which should have been part of the game from the start, and by the time you reach the Classical Era Gold should be the real cap instead of Population..
As I posted earlier, rather than a hard limitation on Upgrading, the Upgrade Cap should be 'soft' - and some Upgrades, like all the naval and air, should be virtually as expensive as building new, because in every one of those cases you are building an entirely new set of equipment/weapons from the hull up and retraining the crews in entirely new tactics and techniques (rowing to sail-handling, close combat and catapult-firing to artillery firing, sailing to steaming, etc.). The reason for Upgrading here is not to Save Money, but to Maintain the Promotions ('Naval Traditions' - to quote a British admiral in WWII: "You can rebuild a fleet in a few years, but it takes centuries to build the tradition of the Royal Navy.") Same thing with many of the land combat Upgrades, but there the cost should reflect the relative cost of 'merely' replacing all the weapons and equipment versus the cost of retraining the men in entirely new techniques.
So, Knights to Tanks is a perfectly viable Upgrade (see the German 1st Cavalry Division becoming the 24th Panzer Division in 1941-42, or the US Army's 1st Cavalry Division becoming a mechanized/armored division in World War Two and then a Helicopter unit in Vietnam), but it's really, really expensive: you not only have to manufacture very expensive equipment and weapons (the original 'heavy metal') but also completely retrain the officers and men in entirely new, technically complicated techniques and tactics. Even Cavalry to Helicopters might be less expensive, because while the equipment is very expensive, the tactics are very similar - you don't have to pound new ideas into the officers' heads, which is expensive and time-consuming.
Some other examples of 'variable Upgrade Costs':
1. Spears to Pikes - dead cheap. The weapons are not that expensive to make, and the tactics are practically identical: Phillip II's Pezhetairoi did it in less than a generation, which is less than a turn in the Classical Era!
2. Bows to Crossbows - assuming we're talking about the metal-prod crossbow, the equipment is actually very expensive: it required the making of very metallurgically sophisticated spring steel bows and metal trigger mechanisms - actually more metallurgically complex than the early muskets! On the other hand, training crossbowmen took a few weeks compared to years for a good bowman, so the initial cost in Gold would be high, but the maintenance cost for Crossbowmen might actually be lower than for Bowmen, or the same.
3. Swordsmen to Musketmen - as mentioned, muskets were actually metallurgically simpler than fine steel armor, weapons, and mechanisms, so the initial Upgrade Cost is really low. BUT gunpowder weapons require manufactured powder and shot in continuous and increasing quantities, so the Maintenance Cost should Skyrocket: 200% at least, representing the 'tail' of carts and wagons trailing behind the unit hauling gunpowder and lead bullets by the ton to keep the unit viable. It is not a coincidence that modern banking and international Loans became common at the same time that gunpowder became a necessary component of European Armies - the need for Gold to keep an army in the field went up astronomically in the late 15th - 16th centuries.
I've said it before but it applies to the Upgrade/Unit Cap problem specifically: if you look at what the actual, historical limitations and conditions were and replicate them in the game, you are much more likely to have a good game than if you try to make factors up - there are always Unintended Consequences that don't become obvious until people try to play the game...
Arent11
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Simply make the palace/capital give you 5-10 starting support. That's how master of orion 2 worked. I personally wouldn't give support from cities/pop but only from infrastructure:
(1) Palace: ~6 support
(2) Encampment: +1 support
(3) Barracks: +1 support
acluewithout
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I think keeping upgrades but making them more expensive (and therefore focusing them on keeping promoted units) could be interesting. It might need to be combined with something that makes turning swords to ploughs more appealing - whether it’s saving maintenance cost, freeing up force limit, or perhaps a boost in culture based on current promotion level.
I made a long post a while ago about Civ giving you government but no governance. Units fall into a separate this category. There’s not really any requirement to manage your army. Once you build it, it basically looks after itself and never goes obselete.
One thing in particular that I don’t like is that you can keep old era units around for so long. You get to the medieval era, and you can still have chariots around. I often end up still having warriors around in the middle and late game because I haven’t had reason to upgrade. Really, you should have to upgrade or they get disbanded.
The core of this is that Civ is just not a resource management game. Whenever the developers have tried to introduce resource management mechanics it seems to have gone very wrong. Overall, I can see things could be made better here and there, but there’s a limit to how complex or (quasi) realistic Civ can get.
Boris Gudenuf
Deity
One possibility, since Production is such a problem in the mid-late game, is that disbanding a unit in a city would, by putting men out of 'uniform' and back into the workforce, provide a Production Boost for X turns, or possibly a one-time 'shot' of Production based on the size/type/original cost of the unit. That would give you a real good reason to get rid of obsolete units because there would be a useful result from disbanding them. Of course, this could be 'gamed' just as Chopping is now, but if there was a Minimum Period of X Turns after flooding the city with workers before you could do it again with any effect, that could be minimized.
Right now, the combat/military units in Civ VI are not well thought out at all. On the one hand, there is no relationship between the Military and the rest of the Civ: production, science, culture, religion, population are all utterly unaffected by the size and type of your military force. Once produced, they are apparently untethered from anything else happening in your Civ.
Then, of course, there is the little problem that having produced a truncated Tech Tree that you can burn through in about half the Turns allotted to a normal speed game (250 turns out of 500) they also had to produce Upgrades that take place an average of 2 Eras and up to 4 Eras apart and leave Obsolete Units scattered about the map for most of the game. Coupled with the increased cost of late game units not compensated for by Production Increases, and almost every battle after the Ancient Era involves units from different Eras, sometimes the equivalent of a 1000 years apart. As a military historian, it totally breaks any immersion I might have in the game, and as a Gamer, it makes me boiling angry to have paid good money for such a poorly designed, untested game system.
Temporary units without cap that can't upgrade and are removed of the map after x turns (think mercenaries or conscripts) opposed to permanent units with a cap that can upgrade (think standing army) is the solution I plan to use.
Then for the upgrade, creating (from your available resources) and stockpiling equipment that is used to build/upgrade/heal units is another solution. If you have a big army, you need a big infrastructure to create/stock the equipment needed to build, maintain and upgrade the units, else they will be build slower, heal slower and upgrade slower. And population can also be used to generate a personnel "resource" in that case.
Sostratus
Deity
While my first reaction to this was precisely the encampment based 'support' measure, I will point out that while this was present in Civ5, that entry had a much more practical limit of our militaries- upkeep. Units were not nearly as expensive as they can become now (a missile cruiser didn't cost no 8 gpt, kids) and had a varying cost between 0.5 to ~6-7 gold per unit per turn depending on how long the game has gone and how many units you owned. But gold was much, much more scarce. You simply could not field large armies without either a lot of cities developed with trading posts, or more pointedly in the early game, a lot of international trade routes. Which, if you went to war, you would lose by default or could lose via plunder. I think the upgrade question is tied to both poor balance on the numbers but also a symptom of the gold economy in Civ6.
Gold as a tile yield is about 2:1 for production when it appears. Purchasing is, as pointed out, about 4:1, with upgrades being absurdly cheap around 1.5:1 without the card. But we have a ton more gold than production to begin with, so even these ratios aren't exactly holding firm (if you're generating gold
rod in every game at 5:1, then a 4:1 ratio for purchasing is 'cheap' but 6:1 would be 'expensive.') In Civ5, all 3 gold buildings ended up netting you +6 gold and +75% gold to that city (About 10gpt per city inherently.) Maintenance on buildings was also pretty expensive- the barracks and armory would cost you 1+1, a workshop would eat up another 2, a library and university (supremely important) was yet another 3- you got nickel and dime'd pretty fast. So you had to have luxury tiles, trade routes, road networks, etc, to fund any sort of military. The net of this is that having a reduced gpt means that your gold balance - what you use to actually pay for upgrades- is also much constrained. Plus, civ5 used an upgrade formula roughly 2*(upgraded unit prod - old unit prod) +10, or about 2:1.
Civ6 obviously, as others have pointed out here, inundates any players following the 'get a trade route for every city' strategy with a flood of gold. Which is not inherently bad, but gold costs may need to be inflated to account for it. I actually think they tried to account for it a little in removing the trading post as a basic tile improvement that yields gold. But the fact that approximately no one uses anything but internal routes on harder difficulties, and still has no gold problems, should point to an overabundance.
Now, the economics set aside for a moment- I really think the intention of making unit upgrading so easy was to ensure that the AI could always have a modern military. Many players experience fighting an AI with obsolete units, but this has more to do with a disparity in science than a gold shortfall. I've long thought about making a very in depth quantitative post about why unit upgrading is brokenly strong, and why professional army is absurd, but you fanatics seem to have already beat that dead horse. The big thing around gold upgrading that production hard building doesn't allow is location; you can upgrade on any allied tile, so the unit is where you need it, rather than at an encampment far away. And upgrading is instant, building takes turns. This distinction would matter if gold was scarce. But gold isn't scarce, so upgrading is the default move. The upgrade scheme also confers an advantage of efficiency: you're only paying the base cost of a unit once.
An example: units range in cost by about 10x over the eras. (many unit lines go from about 65 to 650 ancient to information, dig up one of my posts about it.) A heavy chariot costs 65, modern armor runs 680. Let's say you build 10 H Chariots as your defense force for the game. You're in 650 production. Upgrading them to modern armor will eventually require ~10 units*0.75*(680-65) gold, or 4600 gold. Question: is this a lot? (You'll get similar numbers for melee line units.)
Over the course of the game, no. This is a pretty tiny amount.
I actually miss the very strategic gold game play of Civ 5 where managing your gold income was extremely important, maybe as much as your science. I'm not sure it's good that gold is acting like faith: a bonus yield that is in practice only positive, and we spend our ever growing pile of on "boosts" for our empire, like buildings, units, great people, etc. I think it should be more of a knife edge- an empire with strong gold income isn't the default, it's something you have to sacrifice other areas for. In exchange, you can afford to rush buy or upgrade what you want. Besides, ambitious generals among us could always visit some rich, unprotected cities to relieve them of their plunder...
Gold as a tile yield is about 2:1 for production when it appears. Purchasing is, as pointed out, about 4:1, with upgrades being absurdly cheap around 1.5:1 without the card. But we have a ton more gold than production to begin with, so even these ratios aren't exactly holding firm (if you're generating gold
rod in every game at 5:1, then a 4:1 ratio for purchasing is 'cheap' but 6:1 would be 'expensive.') In Civ5, all 3 gold buildings ended up netting you +6 gold and +75% gold to that city (About 10gpt per city inherently.) Maintenance on buildings was also pretty expensive- the barracks and armory would cost you 1+1, a workshop would eat up another 2, a library and university (supremely important) was yet another 3- you got nickel and dime'd pretty fast. So you had to have luxury tiles, trade routes, road networks, etc, to fund any sort of military. The net of this is that having a reduced gpt means that your gold balance - what you use to actually pay for upgrades- is also much constrained. Plus, civ5 used an upgrade formula roughly 2*(upgraded unit prod - old unit prod) +10, or about 2:1. Civ6 obviously, as others have pointed out here, inundates any players following the 'get a trade route for every city' strategy with a flood of gold. Which is not inherently bad, but gold costs may need to be inflated to account for it. I actually think they tried to account for it a little in removing the trading post as a basic tile improvement that yields gold. But the fact that approximately no one uses anything but internal routes on harder difficulties, and still has no gold problems, should point to an overabundance.
Now, the economics set aside for a moment- I really think the intention of making unit upgrading so easy was to ensure that the AI could always have a modern military. Many players experience fighting an AI with obsolete units, but this has more to do with a disparity in science than a gold shortfall. I've long thought about making a very in depth quantitative post about why unit upgrading is brokenly strong, and why professional army is absurd, but you fanatics seem to have already beat that dead horse. The big thing around gold upgrading that production hard building doesn't allow is location; you can upgrade on any allied tile, so the unit is where you need it, rather than at an encampment far away. And upgrading is instant, building takes turns. This distinction would matter if gold was scarce. But gold isn't scarce, so upgrading is the default move. The upgrade scheme also confers an advantage of efficiency: you're only paying the base cost of a unit once.
An example: units range in cost by about 10x over the eras. (many unit lines go from about 65 to 650 ancient to information, dig up one of my posts about it.) A heavy chariot costs 65, modern armor runs 680. Let's say you build 10 H Chariots as your defense force for the game. You're in 650 production. Upgrading them to modern armor will eventually require ~10 units*0.75*(680-65) gold, or 4600 gold. Question: is this a lot? (You'll get similar numbers for melee line units.)
Over the course of the game, no. This is a pretty tiny amount.
I actually miss the very strategic gold game play of Civ 5 where managing your gold income was extremely important, maybe as much as your science. I'm not sure it's good that gold is acting like faith: a bonus yield that is in practice only positive, and we spend our ever growing pile of on "boosts" for our empire, like buildings, units, great people, etc. I think it should be more of a knife edge- an empire with strong gold income isn't the default, it's something you have to sacrifice other areas for. In exchange, you can afford to rush buy or upgrade what you want. Besides, ambitious generals among us could always visit some rich, unprotected cities to relieve them of their plunder...
Trav'ling Canuck
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I see four objectives to be balanced in the military production/upgrade system:
Getting the balance right is a whole other ballgame, but I agree with the suggestion that the Palace provide a certain level of initial cap (approx. 5 units or so) to allow an initial military at the beginning of the game. And other than the current approach to resources, where one resource is sufficient to upgrade while two are needed to build, I wouldn't personally change the upgrade system, as I don't see the issue being the cost of upgrading old units, but rather the cost of building new units.
For those who want to field huge armies, this system would not prevent you from doing so, it would just increase the cost of the next unit once the cap is exceeded. At higher levels, this cap could be increased for the AI to let it field more massive armies; at all levels, this system would benefit the AI and particularly the City States, as it would let them recover from a lost war with less impact on their overall economy, so that their net loss is primarily the lost cities/reparations paid during the peace treaty, rather than the current system where their net loss is primarily the military units they need to replace.
- Avoid unit spam which can cramp 1UPT maps.
- Allow simple conversion of antiquated units to modern ones so that the AI does not regularly field obsolete armies.
- Allow easy "bounce back" for civs that lose a war so that losing one war does not equate to losing the whole game / being unable to defend themselves in the future.
- Reward civs that invest in their military infrastructure (at an opportunity cost of not investing in other areas).
Getting the balance right is a whole other ballgame, but I agree with the suggestion that the Palace provide a certain level of initial cap (approx. 5 units or so) to allow an initial military at the beginning of the game. And other than the current approach to resources, where one resource is sufficient to upgrade while two are needed to build, I wouldn't personally change the upgrade system, as I don't see the issue being the cost of upgrading old units, but rather the cost of building new units.
For those who want to field huge armies, this system would not prevent you from doing so, it would just increase the cost of the next unit once the cap is exceeded. At higher levels, this cap could be increased for the AI to let it field more massive armies; at all levels, this system would benefit the AI and particularly the City States, as it would let them recover from a lost war with less impact on their overall economy, so that their net loss is primarily the lost cities/reparations paid during the peace treaty, rather than the current system where their net loss is primarily the military units they need to replace.
whyidie
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If you could boil this down, I'm not sure anyone has made a good counter. Are we essentially saying "Its Aerodromes, but less" ? Aerodromes are on one end of the continuum classical era the other. Fill in the gaps. Add in your bits about upgrade costs being higher depending on unit type and I think we're mostly there.
Except...
Aerodrome implementation stinks because of fundamental problems with AI. It works for me because the investment is so massive it forces me to finally choose. Am I going dom or not ? AI never seems to choose. Not even military ones. AI unfortunately plays like me @ King. Little bit of everything. Some of them should be all about Domination. They should heavily invest in dom with maybe one other thing (science/faith/culture) but instead they spread their resources around. In the early game its easy to counter Dom AI because the investment isn't large. Pump out archers. Beyond ancient the gap between an AI who invested in DOM (and lets be real, science) should be larger. So make the buildings matter more.
Does it effect ability to upgrade ? More of this
Does it effect ability to build ? More of this
Does it effect total units ? Less keen on this
Regardless of what happens there is a reckoning to be had with AI flavors. They need to be more pronounced. Having military infrastructure pay off needs to be backed up by at least a couple of AI who will invest heavily in military and then go on a rampage on the poor fools like me who ignored it because I used to be able to pump out archers/ranged and be safe. On the human side of things if we want to go domination without investment it better be done by classical otherwise the AI who did invest in military infrastructure will be ready to take their turn.
Boris Gudenuf
Deity
Okay, here goes - adding in some really Good Ideas from a bunch of other posters (you know who you are, Thank You All!!)...
Basic Unit Cap is 1 combat unit per Population Point, BUT only in cities that have a Palace and/or Encampment
In addition, the following allow you to raise that Cap:
Buildings
1. Palace - adds 4 to the Unit Cap (This should be enough to keep you alive early in the game, in my experience: even with just one city you should be able to survive with 4 combat units plus Scouts until you get an Encampment up if needed.
2. Encampment Buildings:
Encampment District - allows you to count all the population points in the city towards the Unit Cap.
Stable or Barracks - add 1 to the Unit Cap
Armory - adds 2 to the Unit Cap
Military Academy - adds 3 to the Unit Cap
So, a completely 'built up' Encampment with all buildings will add 6 to your Unit Cap, in addition to +1 per population point of the city in which it is located. A concentration on Military Infrastructure by building even 2 - 3 complete Encampment sets should make your empire independent of any Unit Cap - unless, of course, all your opponents have done the same thing!
Policies
Each of the following Military Policies adds 1 to the Unit Cap Per City regardless of any other military infrastructure in the city:
Conscription
Defense of the Motherland
Levee en Masse
Patriotic War
Total War
Declaration
Having War declared on you by another Civ adds 1 to the Unit Cap per City regardless of any other military infrastructure.
(OPTIONAL) IF everyone still thinks Barbarians are Too Much Of A Good Thing, then every unit of any kind, including scouts and civilians, killed or captured by a Barbarian unit adds one to your Unit Cap, but that addition is Temporary - it 'expires' after 20 turns. Continuous Barbaian attacks will 'militarize' your society, but a single incursion is only a temporary 'emergency'!
Unit Cap Penalty
For every Unit that you exceed your Unit Cap, you lose one working Specialist in your Empire. In other words, you lose the ability to work one tile or structure.
IF you exceed your Unit Cap by more than the number of cities in your Civ, each of your cities also suffers a - 1 Amenity penalty.
IF you exceed your Unit Cap by more than twice the number of cities in your Civ, each city suffers a -2 total Amenity penalty and a - 1 Production penalty.
Frankly, I suspect that if your number of cities versus units falls below 1:3 you are losing the war and the game and no further penalties need apply, but I am flexible on this: I just don't think I've ever seen an Civ at war with only 1 - 2 cities left and 9 - 10 combat units. If that situation prevailed in peacetime, then that Civ has really, really messed up its priorities!
Remember, for the purposes of Unit Cap, no civilian units or Recon units (Scouts, Rangers, Special Forces) count.
This is subjective, of course, but while I understand your argument and I agree with elements of it, I don't like the idea of playing a game covering 6000 years of history in which every civilization from the start of the game has to concentrate on one aspect of Civilization. For me, that smells much too one dimensional, even strait-jacketed. It means from the first turn I am playing only one 'type; of game, focused on only one thing for the next 500 turns. Frankly, I'd rather play Solitaire: it would be much less boring.
Also, it implies that AI flavor and Gamer Decision is independent of Game Conditions: having decided on a Domination or Science Victory, than finding several great Culture-Producing Natural Wonders to place cities adjacent means nothing? I must forego building anything that is not directed towards my chosen victory?
Absolutely not. Civilizations are much more complex than that. Even Sparta invested in Amenities, and even Athens invested in a strong military (mostly naval). Germany has been successively a Cultural, Commercial, Industrial, and Military powerhouse, and that just over the past 500 years. Over a longer period and wider area, China has been all those several times in succession or several at the same time.
If the game is going to be entirely linear (even more than it is now!) from 4000 BCE to the present/Future Era, then to me it will be a very dull game, and not worth the time it takes to play even one game.
Of course, that returns to what, I think, is your main point: to achieve that in the game, the AI 'strategic thinking' has to be improved considerably, and its ability to take advantage of the game map, conditions, and the Uniques of the AI civ it is 'playing' has to be much, much better than it is now.
BarbarianHunter
SPAMBO
Perhaps go +1 stable/barracks, +3 armory, +9 military academy? Then lower the other values to compensate somewhat.
Boris Gudenuf
Deity
Precise numbers should be tested by gaming with them. My own experience led me to propose the numbers I did, but I do not pretend that my experience is typical or that those would be good 'universal' numbers. In my playing, even in a Domination Game I don't think I've ever had a military force larger than 50 - 60 units total, including scouts/rangers, naval and support units. I've seen screenshots of what appear to be much larger forces, so the numbers have to be based on what's typical in the majority of games. Quite possibly the numbers will have to be adjusted based on map size/number of opponents?
That's why we puts 'em in Forums: need feedback from lots of players!
Disgustipated
Deity
I'm not a big fan of really making units super expensive to maintain or a hard/soft cap. Civ5 was mentioned above, but I really don't want to go back to the days of Civ5 where just getting positive gold per turn in the early game was not easy. That was hardly fun.
The simple fix is Professional Army should be 20% discount, no more. And I still would like to see higher level encampment building give promotions to help give us a choice whether to upgrade or build from scratch.
The simple fix is Professional Army should be 20% discount, no more. And I still would like to see higher level encampment building give promotions to help give us a choice whether to upgrade or build from scratch.
BarbarianHunter
SPAMBO
Couldn't agree more. It’s impossible to get too much into detail without access to actual rule changes that may or may not ever be implemented. But I do think you’re on to something here to counter the general consensus opinion that the game is decided early game. If you limited the number of early game units by some kind of unit cap, then late game (and late game buildings) become much more relevant. They say the next patch will focus on late game, and I wouldn’t mind seeing something like this.
Summary: The +1 stable barrack, +3 armory and +9 military academy is a generalized statement on the theme to try and make the late game more fun & relevant.
Trav'ling Canuck
Deity
- Joined
- Feb 7, 2018
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Alternatively, cap the number of Corps/Armies you can create by the number of Armory/Military Academies you've built? Allow Great Generals/Policy Cards to increase this number? The main limitation on large armies is coordination/command-and-control, so tying these concentrated units to Military Academies/Great Generals makes sense (tying it to Armories less so).
Boris Gudenuf
Deity
Very good points, but I would think Along With not Instead Of a basic Unit Cap: we are trying to find a mechanism to avoid 'unit spam' without limits, but I like the idea that a limit on Higher Military Organization should also be present.
The command and control limitations (historically) are twofold:
Technology to transmit information and decisions
Systems to manage and handle information and make it useful to decision makers. These can be 'hard' technological systems like computers, or 'soft' systems like Staffs and Staff Colleges.
So, we have Technological Limitation on Corps and Armies already: you can't form them until you reach certain points in the Tech and Civics Trees (specifically, in the Civics Tree, but they are in the Industrial and Modern Eras, so imply a certain Technological level as well)
If we concentrate on the 'soft' factors of command and control, I think you are dead on target: Military Academies and number of Great Generals are easy and effective markers or counters for the maximum number of Corps/Armies/Flotillas/Fleets.
We could even divide them, in that Great Admirals and Great Generals only apply, respectively, to Flotillas/Fleets and Corps/Armies, with Military Academies applying to either set, and England's Royal Dockyard perhaps being 'extra special' in that it also adds to Vicky's Flotilla/Fleet quota.
I will also put in my tuppence here for a new Industrial Era Wonder or even (should be added to the game anyway) National Wonder:
General Staff Academy. - think the US Army's War College, the German Kriegsakademie, the Soviet Frunze Academy: the Highest Level military school to train the top people and their staff officers - only one per Civ.
In this context, it would allow you to form an extra Army/Corps for every Military Academy in your Civ plus one Gratis Army or Fleet and would Double the experience gained by all units (as the Survey Policy now does for Recon unit only)
It also has the advantage in the context we are discussing here of adding another Point of Focus for the Civ that is going for Domination Victory
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