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(1) Units are supported by home city
(2) Terrain is improved by a herd of units
(3) Units queue up to attack
(4) AI is dumb
(5) Firaxis implements "features" (1)-(4) simultaneously.

quote: Originally posted by Mister Pleasant on 02-11-2001 04:24 AM (4) AI is dumb

It can't be more true for the CTP.

units should have maintenance cost in GOLD.

quote: Originally posted by MrFun on 02-11-2001 02:06 PM I really think we should stay with production and not gold for military support nation-wide. Otherwise, you would have to drmatically increase how much gold players can earn each turn. [This message has been edited by MrFun (edited February 11, 2001).]

Just make the gold support small enough like say 1 gold per 5 units or something. But the main advantage that I see in gold support is that it introduces the economy into war making. And this is something that is sorely lacking in civ games up to now. In civ games, Economies are not as important as they should be IMHO. One of the reasons that kings raised taxes was to support an army for an upcoming war. In ancient history, armies sacked and pillaged cities as another way of paying and supporting there armies. So, shield support is important but we should not neglect the economic price in keeping an army. One of the other benefits of this suggestion is that by making economies more important, it makes trade routes more important. Trade would bring in lots of gold that would help raise a larger army that possible from just taxes. Similarly, attacking an enemies' trade routes would hurt their war making abilities!

And as for having individual cities accountable for military costs instead of the entire civilization just to be historically accurate - well, that is about the only aspect where I do NOT support keeping/changing a feature for the sake of historical accuracy.

As for city vs. nation paying for support, I am in favor of nationwide... but allowing cities to specify if they will contribute one, two, three or no shares. I don't want to tax the production of a fledling cities to support my armies, while I have major Industrial cities that can cover a larger portion.

It would be simple to implement, just one button that say "Military Support" that can be adjusted to "none, 1x, 2x or 3x".

In monarch or republic individual cities supported units.

Never mind, answered my own question.

If Regions will be added, Firaxis should shift "shield" support from individual City to Region.

For me the link to original "support" city must be changed into a population reduction (we must use different numbers for showing population level).
That's relevant because one of the main problem during long war was that a great part of workforce was mobilized in army, so food production become difficult.

Can't remember exactly the names, but I red some early wars where suspended because soldiers must go back to home to crop grain.

The large mobilization of men during last World War was one of the main reason female population gained a new place into production lines (factories, offices, etc.), and had the opportunity to show they are good enough to have SAME Human Rights than men.

German Industrialization developed lot of advances to cope with trained workforces reduction, and many weapons where studied to be produced with limited resources (humans also) more than to be the most technical and military effective.

Until a Future Tech will give us Unmanned Armies, Robot soldiers and the like, we must remember Units aren't simply "built" from raw resources.

And yes, I think this isn't a complex thing that add unnecessary micromgmt, as opposite I state that this is exactly the kind of things that is pertinent to the Civ strategic view of wars, more than a lot of combat detail that IMHO are on the tactical wargame zone.

You can grow your Civ in peace or extend it during war by conquest: you can't keep indefinitely a very large army without crushing your empire under its same weight.

On short my proposal:
- Units "cost" a fraction of Original city pop: if disbanded they add back to that pop, if killed they are lost (and city morale can be shattered if it happens often).
- Units Shield support can be Regional if Regions exist, National on the other way
- Units Gold support can be added if "conscription" is not allowed by goverment form: it should be regional or national as above.

I support both nation-wide and individual city support cost for units. But this will depend on the form of government as sleepservice stated. Initial stages of the game only allows individual city support. Later on more advance form of government will allow nation wide support because of increased centralization.

Talking about units I have an interesting concept...

In emergency cases(like in war), each city will be able to their own homeguard units (like militias). These cheap but weak units (compared to regular units) are conscripted citizens to bear arms. They can be built quickly to reinforce city or nearby defense, or even support other units. The cost of these units must only be supported by the city itself (which they were built at). It also draws from the city population to built it.

It's useful when you find a large army marching towards your city and you need to build up a strong defense. The more distance they are away from the city, the more discontent the people will be. So it's not ideally suited for attack. If the unit dies, it will have a negative effect on the happiness as well for a few rounds and the population drafted into the unit is lost.

As for resource to support units, I would prefer
both gold and production, but it depends the unit. Units that are primarily infantry type only requires gold.
Heavy equipment unit types like catapult and tanks require both gold and production because of complex equipments and fuel.

Is above really a problem? I think units (= small armies) should take long to produce - at least as long as any similar age city-improvement. I think the unit/city-improvement ratio was good in civ-2. Dont touch it.

MrFun Quotes: "2) overall military forces are too limited or constrained with individual cities responsible for military costs -- one city could only support so many units."

"3) each city in Civilization II could only support a certain maximum number of units, which is very limited compared to that of a military maintenance system for the whole civilization."

If somebody had pointed out the error to us via email, it would have been fixed before now.

For one thing, I do NOT like it when it takes 35 turns to produce one Musketeer unit, and that it would take so long to produce a Frigate that it is obsolete by the time I have four of them produced.

What's the point in bothering with military units if you don't have time to use them?