Why havn't military civics be introduced?

[TheAmerican]

Organization of the military and methods of recruitment have never really been represented in civilization. It wasn't covered in Warlords, or Vanilla. I was hoping it would be covered in BTS, but it wasn't. There should have been a sixth civic catagory, with these civics, but I guess its too late. I doubt there will be another mod. I did come up with some ideas though.

Militia

+1 Upkeep per military unit.
+2 Upkeep per military unit outside your borders.
50% Great General points.
Available at the start of the game.

Mercenaries

+2 Upkeep per military unit.
Military units outside your borders are free.
+2xp for each unit recruited after switching to Mercenaries.
100% Great General Points.
Available with Monarchy.

Standing Armies

+1 Upkeep per military unit in enemy territory.
200% Great General Points.
Available with Civil Service.

Conscription

200% War weariness.
Two unhappy faces per unit drafted.
Ability to draft units. (Can draft 2x as many units w/ Nationalism)
100% Great General Points.
Available with Military Tradition.

Volunteer Military

50% War weariness.
+1 Upkeep per military unit.
Free promotion for every unit recruited after switching to Selective Service.
100% Great General Points.
150% Great General Points with West Point.
Available with Communism or Fascism.

 

[Celtic21]

Military civics would be great. We don't have many military civics other then nationhood and police state.

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

not to be too critical but in BtS gold costs are already LOTS higher without having unit costs go up as well. And the one civic listed without boosting the costs has 200% war weariness and war weariness is also already LOTS higher in BtS. Maybe if you are pure war monger all the way the benefits out wiegh the penalties but I dont really see any civic there that would do anything but make a non warring player who just wants to keep a decent defense lose even more gold than before.

I kind of think there are already plenty of "military" civics like nationalism, vassalage, theocracy, police state etc. Civics that make your armes easier or better but at cost of losing the benfits of the more "peace" oriented civics. And it works vice versa going for the more peaceful benefits mean losing the "war" benefits. So you can choose to max the peace benefits at cost of the war benefits or max the war at cost of peaceful ones or try to find a little balance at cost of being kind of ok at both and not great at either. And adding a seperate ALL military civic would kinda throw that all out of wack.

Kaytie

 

[Warspite2]

Organization of the military and methods of recruitment have never really been represented in civilization. It wasn't covered in Warlords, or Vanilla. I was hoping it would be covered in BTS, but it wasn't. There should have been a sixth civic catagory, with these civics, but I guess its too late. I doubt there will be another mod. I did come up with some ideas though.

Militia

+1 Upkeep per military unit.
+2 Upkeep per military unit outside your borders.
50% Great General points.
Available at the start of the game.

Mercenaries

+2 Upkeep per military unit.
Military units outside your borders are free.
+2xp for each unit recruited after switching to Mercenaries.
100% Great General Points.
Available with Monarchy.

Standing Armies

+1 Upkeep per military unit in enemy territory.
200% Great General Points.
Available with Civil Service.

Conscription

200% War weariness.
Two unhappy faces per unit drafted.
Ability to draft units. (Can draft 2x as many units w/ Nationalism)
100% Great General Points.
Available with Military Tradition.

Volunteer Military

50% War weariness.
+1 Upkeep per military unit.
Free promotion for every unit recruited after switching to Selective Service.
100% Great General Points.
150% Great General Points with West Point.
Available with Communism or Fascism.

I like it

 

[Celtic21]

True, and I can't imagine what it would be like at 200% WW and the other guy has SoZ. It would be cool to have an entire branch dedicated for military but like Kaytie said, There should also be some that are more peace oriented. Such as if you were using a peace military civic, it could give all your newly created archers/longbows/muskets First strike or City Defense(though that would kinda throw out the point of the protective trait).

 

[LUEser]

I agree with the TC, having upkeep costs on units would greatly reduce the amount of units in game and ending the problem of the AI making millions of units and never really upgrading them (5 tanks vs 2 infantry then 5 riflemen then..20 axemen?) plus I don't think out of the, let's say, 2 million people in my population that 1 million of them should be in the military.

 

[TheAmerican]

Hi

not to be too critical but in BtS gold costs are already LOTS higher without having unit costs go up as well. And the one civic listed without boosting the costs has 200% war weariness and war weariness is also already LOTS higher in BtS. Maybe if you are pure war monger all the way the benefits out wiegh the penalties but I dont really see any civic there that would do anything but make a non warring player who just wants to keep a decent defense lose even more gold than before.

I kind of think there are already plenty of "military" civics like nationalism, vassalage, theocracy, police state etc. Civics that make your armes easier or better but at cost of losing the benfits of the more "peace" oriented civics. And it works vice versa going for the more peaceful benefits mean losing the "war" benefits. So you can choose to max the peace benefits at cost of the war benefits or max the war at cost of peaceful ones or try to find a little balance at cost of being kind of ok at both and not great at either. And adding a seperate ALL military civic would kinda throw that all out of wack.

Kaytie

A peaceful civ would be better off sticking with Militias until Standing Armies is available. The reason being that since the peaceful nation won't be attacking anything with militias w/o spending a lot of money, which was the case in real life, but they won't have to spend as much money to maintain a military at home. An aggresive civilization would want to switch to Mercenaries as soon as possible, for the extra experience and lower upkeep costs when in enemy territory. The idea is that warring civilizations organize their military differently and this should be reflected in the civics.

The 200% war weariness that comes with Conscription is to balance out the ability for a country to mobilize quickly, because I'm assuming that a switch to Nationalism would go hand in hand with a switch to Conscription. Conscription doesn't require extra upkeep costs though, so it'll do less damage to your economy during war time. Later on you can take a more moderate civic if you're peaceful or engage in limited wars, you can switch to Volunter Military and get a free promotion in exchange for extra upkeep costs and no draft.

So to sum it up, until Volunter Military, Standing Armies and Militias are for peaceful civilizations, and Conscription and Mercenaries are for aggresive civilizations. That's what I was thinking when I came up with it anyway. Standing Armies could go both ways though, because of the 200% Great General Points. You could wage an aggresive war for those points, but it'll still cost you money to be inside enemy territory.

 

[Yzman]

I like the general idea but I have a feeling a lot of your ideas are too costly with how the game currently works, for the warmonger and the peaceful builder.

 

[Tanktunker]

Such as if you were using a peace military civic, it could give all your newly created archers/longbows/muskets First strike or City Defense(though that would kinda throw out the point of the protective trait).

Something like this?:

Town Militia
Default
Low Upkeep

City Guard
All Non-cavalry, non-siege weapon military units +10% city defense
Low Upkeep
Requires Archery.

Border Patrol
All Non-cavalry, non-siege weapon military units can fortify to 50%
Medium Upkeep
Requires Nationalism

Preemptive Strikes
All Military Units +10% City Attack
High Upkeep
Requires Military Tradition

Defensive Bombardment
Siege Weapons receive defensive bonuses, deal collateral damage when attacked.
High Upkeep
Requires Military Science

 

[sargasm]

A good idea. Might I suggest that Volunteer Army be available with Democracy or Constitution, rather than Fascism; and Conscription incur an initial experience penalty? I don't know how that would affect game balance, but it would make more sense historically.

 

[King of Town]

Aren't theology, vassalage, police state, and nationalisim all military civics? When do you use them if not for going to war? The alternatives in each of those categories are much better. State property kind of is too because you don't need it(except the sweet production bonus) unless you have a huge empire, usually from war.

 

[kazapp]

Organization of the military and methods of recruitment have never really been represented in civilization. It wasn't covered in Warlords, or Vanilla. I was hoping it would be covered in BTS, but it wasn't. There should have been a sixth civic catagory, with these civics, but I guess its too late. I doubt there will be another mod. I did come up with some ideas though.

Militia

+1 Upkeep per military unit.
+2 Upkeep per military unit outside your borders.
50% Great General points.
Available at the start of the game.

Mercenaries

+2 Upkeep per military unit.
Military units outside your borders are free.
+2xp for each unit recruited after switching to Mercenaries.
100% Great General Points.
Available with Monarchy.

Standing Armies

+1 Upkeep per military unit in enemy territory.
200% Great General Points.
Available with Civil Service.

Conscription

200% War weariness.
Two unhappy faces per unit drafted.
Ability to draft units. (Can draft 2x as many units w/ Nationalism)
100% Great General Points.
Available with Military Tradition.

Volunteer Military

50% War weariness.
+1 Upkeep per military unit.
Free promotion for every unit recruited after switching to Selective Service.
100% Great General Points.
150% Great General Points with West Point.
Available with Communism or Fascism.

Some comments:

I really believe Militia should be (essentially) free, so I dislike the "+1 Upkeep per military unit". The "+2 Upkeep per military unit outside your borders" is fine though.

(Though that statement was made without regard for the unit-spam problem, so if there is a general cost attached to military units in the next mod, that's fine by me. I'm assuming that general cost isn't included in these modifications.)

Standing Army: Do you mean "professional soldiery" here or what?

Mercenaries: "Military units outside your borders are free." Huh? So you can have a stack of doom for free, as long as you keep attacking? I would think the best mechanism representing Mercs is that you can have a relatively inexpensive core army, but anything on top of that gets hugely expensive - but the upside is you should be able to build/buy the units at a moment's notice. Do add something to indicate the unrulyness and unsavioury nature of Mercs though (modern mercs, as the US employs in Iraq, aren't really better than the medieval ones): perhaps by random event along the lines of "one of your mercenary units disobeyed orders and committed an atrocity; take a happiness penalty and, if democratic and having invented the printing press, go into civil disorder."

Conscription: "Two unhappy faces per unit drafted." Whoa - essentially you're giving an added draft capability, but then crippling it. Should conscription be great for running short, successful wars but not for the opposite (which is why added war weariness is great)?

Volunteer Military: Not sure I like the implication this is the best and most advanced type of military structure. (If the US were involved in a real war, against a matched opponent, they'd be sure to go back to mass conscription)

So, I don't have any problems with the modifications given per se, only I would like to add a limitation to make this selection impractical as anything else but a "luxury" choice: meaning you could run it when your civ is the dominant power, but not if you have rivals with a comparable military budget that goes for one of the other options.

I see this choice as something of a Mercenary variant, but with less PR problems... Something along the lines of
"+1 Upkeep for one military unit per city"
"+4 Upkeep for each military unit in excess of one per city"

Interesting post, btw!

 

[Prebral]

Tanktunker: nice, but there are too many thing missing and "preemptive strikes" and "defensive bombardment" seem more just like tactics or unit abilities and not civics to me. What about something like this?

Retinue
Default.
No Upkeep.

Militia
Req. Code of Laws
Low Upkeep
Free unit for each city.
+ 10 percent in cultural borders.

Mercenary army
Req. Guilds.
High upkeep.
Can speed money to finish unit construction.
Units gain +1 XP from pillaging on enemy territory, but you get no money.

Conscription
Req. Nationalism.
Medium Upkeep.
New units gain Combat I, even if drafted.
+50 percent Great General emergence.

Professional army
Req. Military tradition.
High upkeep.
New units gain +5 XP.


Also, an "all-military-civics-wonder" might be handy to allow at least one early civilization to gain access to these civics. I have Romans particullary in mind. Or maybe Organized leaders may be allowed to access all of these in exchange for increased anarchy period when doing so.

 

[PibbZ]

Retinue
Default.
No Upkeep.

Militia
Req. Code of Laws
Low Upkeep
Free unit for each city.
+ 10 percent in cultural borders.

Mercenary army
Req. Guilds.
High upkeep.
Can speed money to finish unit construction.
Units gain +1 XP from pillaging on enemy territory, but you get no money.

Conscription
Req. Nationalism.
Medium Upkeep.
New units gain Combat I, even if drafted.
+50 percent Great General emergence.

Professional army
Req. Military tradition.
High upkeep.
New units gain +5 XP.

These i really liked, too much General Emergence in the OP's post, and this one sounds far more balanced. Could change Conscription to Drill I or something instead maybe, since no aggressive civs will benefit from the promotion here. Would also increase great general emergence to 100% there, and add 50% for Professional Army (youre paying a lot more for unit support there aswell, to make up for it).

But i agree with the OP, there should be some sort of millitary civics aswell

 

[PibbZ]

Double post :<

 

[Ghostofkuji]

Shouldn't the way you run your military dictate your "civic" options and not vice versa?

By this I mean, if you are a peaceful builder then having only a few units defending your cities is your militia option. Pacifism helps you gain a boost in science in exchange for supporting a smaller military.

If you are a warmonger, you will always have at least a couple of sizeable, mixed stacks representing your professional armies. Theocracy, Vassalage, Police State civics will help you support these.

Conscription is already well represented; being able to draft the most modern unit available to you at the time is a much more balanced option than giving free experience. Perhaps you should be able to draft more than 3 units a turn though. 4 or 5 might be better.

I see no need for a separate military civic column, but I do think that Pacifism should give an automatic +2 modifier to each rival civilization: "Your pacifist constitution allays our fears."

Still, I am open to suggestions.

 

[Devil Inside]

I see no need for a separate military civic column, but I do think that Pacifism should give an automatic +2 modifier to each rival civilization: "Your pacifist constitution allays our fears."

i agree wholeheartedly with this...i think there should be a negative modifier for having nuclear weapons, too.

 

[PibbZ]

I see no need for a separate military civic column, but I do think that Pacifism should give an automatic +2 modifier to each rival civilization: "Your pacifist constitution allays our fears."

That one sir, is one of the best suggestions ive ever read.

Would actually make Pacifism a decent alternative vs Aggresive AI's aswell.

 

[DarkFyre99]

Organization of the military and methods of recruitment have never really been represented in civilization. It wasn't covered in Warlords, or Vanilla. I was hoping it would be covered in BTS, but it wasn't. There should have been a sixth civic catagory, with these civics, but I guess its too late. I doubt there will be another mod. I did come up with some ideas though.

We already have plenty of war civics:

Police State
Nationhood
Feudalism
Theology

I'd also argue State Property as well, since it favors large empires and production, which is critical for an empire. Slavery is also arguable, since it can also generate units quickly through slavery.


By mixing the military civics in with the others, it forces the player to make choices between emphasizing the military, and emphasizing other aspects of their empire. Want a better motivated army? Well, your truly devout citizens make the best warriors, but they won't be volunteering their time on building projects back home if they're fighting on foreign soil, or contributing their efforts to science, art, and the economy.

edited to move slavery into the "borderline warlike" category.

 

[DarkFyre99]

I see no need for a separate military civic column, but I do think that Pacifism should give an automatic +2 modifier to each rival civilization: "Your pacifist constitution allays our fears."

Still, I am open to suggestions.

That might make sense if Feudalism, Theology, Nationalism, and Police State gave an automatic -2 modifier "Your war preperations make us uneasy..."

Of course, in my experience, pacifism doesn't equal safe. I won a domination victory running pacifism.