Design: Logistics (Abstract)

[Ekmek]

I'm adding a new thread so not to clutter the altered movements thread.

Some suggestions for llogistics have ben
1) Someone implement supply wagon like in RoN (AI prob?)
2) Have unit ranges like aircraft (but AI hasnt handled planes yet)
3) MrBaggins a long time ago suggested adding Gold/PW/food costs per turn for units (generally accepted by forum members)

the ideas I posted below relate to movement points and left over pointsrelations to the altered movement thread...


perhaps left over movement points can be:
added to the strength bar (healing)
OR a slight reduction in logistic (food/gold/PW) cost for that turn
OR add to morale (if implemented) if attacked on the next turn....

I prefer the logistic impact in relation to movement points because it goes the "Empire" view. That way your treasury can calculate how much military you can move a turn as opposed to uits being able to move all the time.
This would mean logistics would be abstracted in two ways:
1) basic upkeep maintenance (food/gold/PW)
2) movement cost (not just move points but possibly PW/food/Gold as well to abstractly represent the supply wagons that are supporting the movement)

So as an example if you try to move a cav unit over a hill with a 1.4 movement cost, that factor is mltiplied to the maintenance cost (or a present unit move cost) that subtracts fod/gold/pw for the movement. Since the Cav can only move two spaces per turn that represents my range concept. On top of that the farther you move on exterior lines of communication the greater the cost of NOT maintenance (like I previously recommended) but of movement so it would a multiplication of:

terrain move cost * tile distance * unit move points * PW/GOld/food cost for movement (or maintenance if people want to make that the standard since supply varies with unit)

My math may be off, but I think the concept can be handled fairly well by the AI since its basically movement. But it make require the "AI" to plan a stack of death attack or prioritize if its resources go to War or Peace. That may have to go into Goals text.

Overall I think it could be a positive implementation to represent logistics abstractly and curtail "excessive" militaristic growth.

*****************
Gilgamesh:
perhaps left over movement points can be:
1. added to the strength bar (healing)
2.OR a slight reduction in logistic (food/gold/PW) cost for that turn
3.OR add to morale (if implemented) if attacked on the next turn....



Actually why not all?

If 1 is full, add to 3 and then decrease 2. Which would be 'logical'.

Adding strength, would just mean getting support and re-inforcement. Due to this the overall moral would increase as well, as the troop can recover. And when those 'tasks' are finished, the logistics can decrease as they don't need the full support anymore.

BUT:
It would be needed to be limited to a certain extend, if outside of a town/fort or similar. My suggestion would be a max. of 30% of the current value, which would mean that a fortified can only recover 30% of it's current health (same for moral and support).



Actually for the maintance cost, me thinks, the calculation shall be as of there was road (normal), but with a slower movement-rate, like 2.5 instead of 3.
BUT: It shall be calculated from the closest existing normal 'road'-system including RR and mag-tube. The only problem I see for this would be the AI implementing it on long distance.

BUT: What about cross-water invasions? As you can't build till REALLY late anything across water

EDIT:
Maybe we shall create for this a new TI? Like support harbour? You would have to build one on your home-place and one across. You could even build it on the same continent. If for example a huge mountain range would be between you and the AI (or visa versa), you could assume that supply would go rather by ship.

Cost for the TI, shall include PW/gold/food. Not sure, if we could program, that this would expire (meaning to calculate every turn how much would be left). Like 1000PW/500gold/1000food: The army would be using 200/100/200 every turn, so after 5 turns you would have to build a new one. (or rather just subtract it directly [again] from the empire)

[Gen.Dragolen]

E,

If you are looking for input, here's what I feel should happen to give the feel of what happens in real life:
1. Units have a 'range' based on turns to live (or their initial provisions)
2. Units will suffer decreased movement and lower combat strength as they use up their supplies.
3. Lines of Supply can only be setup where there are no enemy units, since they are a choice military target.
4. Supply units can bring a unit back up to strength quickly
5. Supply depots can be setup in remote locations


Now to piece this together for usability in the game...

See next post for details.


D.

[Gen.Dragolen]

Con't:

Now to flesh it out to something realistic and workable in CTP2 terms.

The costs of supply

In ancient times, Sun Tzu said it would cost 1000 pieces of silver a day to field an army of 100,000 men. So we already have the unit maintenance costs taking that into account. So that leaves the food needed to feed an army and the repair of battle damage.

'An army travels on it stomach'
Corny but true. Having been in the field, you burn huge numbers of calories in combat. In historical times, the King of France ceded Normandy to the Vikings because the armies that he was sending into the field were causing famines since they would strip the country side of food.

Unit Food Costs
We need a food cost for the unit(s). I think any units in garrison should be allowed to draw off the city they are in, while units in the field would draw off the country side and any nearby supply depots. Another problem is with inflation: if the army is buying up all the food stuffs in an area, the cost goes up as the supply gets used up. The longer the unit is in the area, the greater the cost in gold or silver to keep it there. For the game, I think an increasing unit maintenance cost would be the way to handle it. The longer a unit is around in the field the more it costs. After so many turns, the city starts to loose food each turn.


D.

[Gen.Dragolen]

Fast forwarding to the modern era, the needs increase to include ammunition and petrol. This is where logistics are the most critical feature of combat. Units will run out of fuel and ammo long before food becomes a problem. Even in Iraq, units were forced to wait for the logistics units to resupply them before they could continue the advance.

This is where supply depots in forward areas would allow you to keep units in supply. If they travel too far from it, their movement and combat strength should go down. The loss should be significant too. Patton ran out of fuel in Normandy and it caused significant casualties. We would need supply units to go with an army to keep a supply line open.

This could be done similar to either caravans or more ambitiously as a seperate unit. The unit would be able to supply so many other units within a 1 square radius. This can apply to naval units at sea as well. In most military board games, you need to be able to trace a clear line back to your side of the board to be considered to be 'in supply'

Since I don't think that we would need to write huge amount of code to have the AI check if a unit is near a supply unit or a depot and if not, to adjust the combat values as if the status was set to peacetime or On Alert.

What this should do is make the AI consider taking towns just for the supply values as a serious strategic concern. And it should make for some very significant efforts to make an amphibious invasion. If a unit is allowed to strangle to death, there should be a morale penalty for the civ. Add one unhappy citizen unit for 10 turns or so ? It makes the decision to go to war with out preparing a really bad idea.

And I forgot to mention a special unit ability: living off the land. In many cases, many groups have been very successful at living off the land when going on very long marches. Some of the units that spring to mind are the Tartars and Mongols, North American Natives, and many guerilla movements. They might be made immune to the effects of being out of supply.

Now how to setup all of this. I haven't looked at the SLIC in about 2 years so any suggestions about what to check, and what would we have to do to the source code ?


D.

[J Bytheway]

Now that I think about it some more I think I quite like the idea of variable maintainance based on movement - so a unit who stands still in a city will cost little to maintain, but a unit far from the nearest city or racing quickly across the map will use up more. Certainly the AI for this would be simpler than simpler than for anythin involving supply wagons. Rather than have separate supply depot tile imps, I think it would be easier to simply use fortresses to represent supply depots - they certainly served as such in the past.

[Ekmek]

I think the movement-maintenance cost would work not only for land but for naval as well. Just ships might have a lighter cost and even transporting units could be accounted no different than land travel since you have to supply for the trip. It will also be assumed that the ship will be designed to carry the required supplies (based on load class and capacity)

Also, If we do implement this concept, it would be nice that to add a a diplomatic option for military assistance so the supply cost is reduced if you are supporting an ally or near allied territory. So I guess the game would have to recalculate spaces if an alliance is effect and compare to friendly uninterrupted lines and find the shortest route.

[J Bytheway]

For naval units things like the fact that you can make nuclear-powered versions which need no fuel (at least, only need fuel every few centuries) springs to mind - it could introduce an interesting new ability for carriers and subs. IIRC the nuclear carriers actually do carry lots of fuel to refuel all the other ships in the carrier group - that provides us with a floating analogue of a supply depot.

[Gilgamensch]

sorry if I have to :Rant: again:

Sounds all nice, but me thinks, those are even harder to implement them for the AI.

Me thinks that for us, only an abstract model might work. Abstract isn't such a big deal for the AI (seems at least).

What this should do is make the AI consider taking towns just for the supply values as a serious strategic concern. And it should make for some very significant efforts to make an amphibious invasion.

AFAIR still unresolved.

living off the land

This might have been an option with small armies, but like mentioned in another thread, you can hardly do it with a 200k+ army...........

Also, If we do implement this concept, it would be nice that to add a a diplomatic option for military assistance so the supply cost is reduced if you are supporting an ally or near allied territory. So I guess the game would have to recalculate spaces if an alliance is effect and compare to friendly uninterrupted lines and find the shortest route.

THAT IS A BRILLIANT IDEA, but the AI needs to be improved for it...........If we get it working an the AI is being convienced to change sides, could mean a big problem for those warmongers. That would make allies far more important.

BUT shall this empire pay part of the upkeep cost or just count as a support-point, like your own cities? I would not like to see those sharing the burden, unless again via a separate treaty, which shall be hard to aquire, as you could use it as a way to bring your foe as well as your friends down

[Ekmek]

Is there anyone with experience on SLIC or code that can judge how tough it would be to make movement cost PW/gold/food?

[Gilgamensch]

For completness:

Actually it wouldn't be a bad idea, but then we would have to have it also in the support-cost, BUT only for damaged units. It would be rather a question of balancing. It might be interresting to have it in. It WILL make warmongering far harder.

One thing which went through my head:

The number of people returned from an army could depend on your war-status. If it has been peace for ~10 turns and you are not at war with somebody, you would get 80% back, if at war (any) you would only get 15% back.

[Gen.Dragolen]

Gilgamensch,

I agree that making a pw/food/gold cost would be a good thing. Units already have the pw cost, so it would mean adding the other two parts.

This would make it more of a challenge for the AI to decide which units to build. I'll take a look at the SLC's and see if there is anyway to just add it to the costs.

One thing occured to me that we need to add is the effect on happiness from having large numbers of troops in the field. For all government types, pulling a large number of adults into the military should carry a happiness penalty that depends on the government type. Call it a basic war weariness level, and when units are lost in combat, then the usual war weariness should kick in. CTP had that and it was a real annoyance when you got to the industrial age to see the only cities that could build ironclads going into rioting when the fleet was at sea...

As for the impact of disbanding units, we really need to make units have a population cost so that they add the surviving bodies back to the population. I don't think that it should depend on the military status.

And the idea of military assistance is a beautiful idea. You should be able to send pw/food/gold like you would a trade deal. I wonder if we could go one further and build mercenary units to send to another civ ?


D.

[Gilgamensch]

Originally posted by Gen.Dragolen
Gilgamensch,

I agree that making a pw/food/gold cost would be a good thing. Units already have the pw cost, so it would mean adding the other two parts.

It is actually not PW, but production. So it would be a slight change.

This would make it more of a challenge for the AI to decide which units to build. I'll take a look at the SLC's and see if there is anyway to just add it to the costs.

This is something we have to make sure that the AI can handle.

As for the impact of disbanding units, we really need to make units have a population cost so that they add the surviving bodies back to the population. I don't think that it should depend on the military status.

I know we had another thread about it but can't see anymore??????

And the idea of military assistance is a beautiful idea. You should be able to send pw/food/gold like you would a trade deal. I wonder if we could go one further and build mercenary units to send to another civ ?

The principle of trading units (or better to say giving them away) would be nice to see implemented (again).

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by Gilgamensch
I know we had another thread about it but can't see anymore??????

That was the "Modelling population" thread:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=111554

[Gilgamensch]

Thanks J,

I wanted to post the link as cross-reference, but couldn't find it anymore.........to many threads at the same time and bad memory

[Locutus]

I like the idea of movement costing gold with a dependence on distance from home Gold is pretty useless as it is, it doesn't demand anything from the AI (aside from maintaining a decent gold income, but that's usually not a problem), it's simple and intuitive to use, it will hinder unlimited warmongering and force players to maintain a more balanced economy. It also opens a few interesting diplomatic options.

Gilg,
Working on Saturdays now or did you finally get a connection at home?

[Gilgamensch]

Na being at work..........still haven't got connection at home

I am actually afraid to get a connection at home.........then, me thinks, I will get no sleep at all anymore..............

[Locutus]

Seeing how much time you spend here during working hours, I can only agree to that

[Gen.Dragolen]

J Bytheway,

My apologies, but at the time I was unaware of the population modelling thread. It does provide an interesting problem...


D.

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by Gen.Dragolen
J Bytheway,

My apologies, but at the time I was unaware of the population modelling thread. It does provide an interesting problem...

Don't worry about it - it can be tough to keep track of what's going on, even in a relatively quiet forum like this one.

[Ekmek]

1) Looking at the additions to movement cost. I think a nice touch would be when you use the "go to" function that tells how many moves it takes that a box would come up as well telling you the gold/PW/food cost as well. This way when you plan army moves it would calculate all the costs for the moves. It would be a great war planning tool as you determine how expensive an attack/invasion would be.

2) I'm thinking that ancient units like warriors, should mainly have a move cost in gold since foraging was common in older units. More specialized units would have a more expensive logistics system (legions vs barbarians). i guess that can all be worked out if it possible to implement this.

3) I'm debating how ships logistics should be done, since they donthave a logistics tail like land units. You may have to pay up front for all movements from harbor/cityport to next port. This will make the galley sinking thing different since movements would have to be hopping from port to port with a supply load.

4) linking it to above ships should have a range as well almost like aircraft where they have to travel to ports, have a ship floating far off shore for long periods isnt a good abstraction of naval war. If you plan patrols from port to port, i think its a better abstraction (nuclear power would change this).

more later....

[Gilgamensch]

Originally posted by E
1) Looking at the additions to movement cost. I think a nice touch would be when you use the "go to" function that tells how many moves it takes that a box would come up as well telling you the gold/PW/food cost as well. This way when you plan army moves it would calculate all the costs for the moves. It would be a great war planning tool as you determine how expensive an attack/invasion would be.

I am not sure about it.......This shall come a bit as a surprise. If you feel you have enough resources, make war, but don't be surprise if you haven't To have an overview in the nation manager is OK, but only AFTER moving, me thinks.

2) I'm thinking that ancient units like warriors, should mainly have a move cost in gold since foraging was common in older units. More specialized units would have a more expensive logistics system (legions vs barbarians). i guess that can all be worked out if it possible to implement this.

Ancient units no PW/Food....., if you see it as such a big problem, we can make them 'cheaper'. But having exceptions, this we shall have only for some 'special' units like explorer (which makes real sense) and maybe spy and abolonist (sp?). Even a slaver for me shall pay maintance cost.

3) I'm debating how ships logistics should be done, since they donthave a logistics tail like land units. You may have to pay up front for all movements from harbor/cityport to next port. This will make the galley sinking thing different since movements would have to be hopping from port to port with a supply load.

New unit? But I see problems with the AI. And again in an abstract model, what we want to use, the logistic tail could be seen by invisible transports.

4) linking it to above ships should have a range as well almost like aircraft where they have to travel to ports, have a ship floating far off shore for long periods isnt a good abstraction of naval war. If you plan patrols from port to port, i think its a better abstraction (nuclear power would change this).

only nuclear? WWII submarines were already for extended periods on missions. Main reason why ships had to get into port was repair (including normal maintenance repair).
But I agree: being able to have a bloody sail/trireme out of harbour for centuries doesn't make sense.....The ship shall have already rotten away....

Maybe we could implement a 'fuel'-counter equivilent, which is being refreshed every time you enter a city. With following rules:

Normal city: 34% of max. being refilled
City with harbour: 100% being refilled.

This would make harbour more useful. But again: Can the AI handle it?

more later....

Let's see

[Gen.Dragolen]

Just had another brain fart about the units: we really need to shorten the production times.

Why in heaven's name should it take a century to produce an artillery unit when you have a modern factory in a city wth a decent production level ? The game balance should be in how many units you can actually field with the logistics costs involved which should keep the players and AI from having a raging horde of units that took only a few years to make...

Was playing for a little while last night and it struck me as odd that I was able to produce machine gunners by about 1200AD (went postal on two of my continental neighbours early in the game and had about 25 cities by 1000 BC) yet the first ones weren't in service until almost 1400 AD.

This has always annoyed me because it represents a gross over-simplification of reality. Real life has shown that you need hordes of gold to raise an army in a relatively short time, they cost a lot to keep in the field and are usually disbanded at the end of the war.

This may seem complicated, but if you can only afford to keep a small garrison in each town, and only one or two armies in the field, it certainly makes the job of invading and conquering someone a lot trickier. Especially if the enemy's army shows up on your door step and you have most of your forces commited at the front, or on the other side of the kingdom.

You should be able to crash together some conscripts or levies and put the in the field, with the understanding that the casualties will be severe and you may learn to really hate the people who designed the AI's logic and stategies. Not to mention that it should really bankrupt the Exchequer.

The decision tree shouldn't be that hard to workout either:
- Assign a garrison strength as a default
- Units cost so much per turn to maintain in the field per turn
- Target cities are so many turns away
- Send out the most number of units we can afford in as large a group as possible
- If battle is successful, continue if money holds out
- If battle unsuccessful, retreat to strongest defensive position to await reinforcments
- If no reinforcements, then return to friendly territory and begin cease-fire negotiations

Shouldn't be too bad to code given that they have some decision trees to work with already.


D.

[Gilgamensch]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Gen.Dragolen
Why in heaven's name should it take a century to produce an artillery unit when you have a modern factory in a city wth a decent production level ? The game balance should be in how many units you can actually field with the logistics costs involved which should keep the players and AI from having a raging horde of units that took only a few years to make...
[quote]

Don't really disagree, BUT as Locutus and me discussed in here armies were having fairly huge numbers. I do agree that the AI needs some 'polish' to really improve their handling of the armies, but completly restrict it Yes I think we shall make support more costly, but not too costly, me thinks it would favour again the human.

Was playing for a little while last night and it struck me as odd that I was able to produce machine gunners by about 1200AD (went postal on two of my continental neighbours early in the game and had about 25 cities by 1000 BC) yet the first ones weren't in service until almost 1400 AD.

I'll try to find some links, but in the moment, just quickly out of memory.

Whenever somebody invented/discovered something it took 'ages' to implement. Taking your example of a machine gunner: The first working 'machine-gun' has been invented in America (AFAIR) (Gatling). That was somewhere around 1862. But full usage it only experienced far later in WW1 were you really had platoons equiped with machine guns (no don't remember the names anymore, expect one was called maxime). So thisdelay makes sense. Even other stuff took ages to implement. Think of the steam engine or just the automobile. I could go on for ever So this kind of behaviour I consider normal.

The rest is a bit hard to reply upon, but I try:

This has always annoyed me because it represents a gross over-simplification of reality. Real life has shown that you need hordes of gold to raise an army in a relatively short time, they cost a lot to keep in the field and are usually disbanded at the end of the war.

Let's gather some examples again: I'll try to post them in the above mentioned thread.
So long you are defending your country, the leader hardly ever needed hords of gold. For invasion yes. (to say it short)

When you implement a new idea and people are willing to follow you, the costs are fairly low. (like in selfdefence or crusades) It also depends on the kind of government.

This may seem complicated, but if you can only afford to keep a small garrison in each town, and only one or two armies in the field, it certainly makes the job of invading and conquering someone a lot trickier. Especially if the enemy's army shows up on your door step and you have most of your forces commited at the front, or on the other side of the kingdom.

You should be able to crash together some conscripts or levies and put the in the field, with the understanding that the casualties will be severe and you may learn to really hate the people who designed the AI's logic and stategies. Not to mention that it should really bankrupt the Exchequer.

Yes, now there you come to the point where armies get costly:

Paying somebody to do it, or in other words mercenaries. But conscripts are cheap, even if you have to train them.

This principle has dragged down (as well) the roman empire. The extreme cost to pay for their mercenaries.

Coming to modern times like WW1 and 2: The armies were mainly concisting out of conscripts with a 'small' overhead of trained people. But keeping the cost low. Actually is was cheaper to replace people than equipment. That this has a huge disadvantage is another problem. (serious one).

The decision tree shouldn't be that hard to workout either:
- Assign a garrison strength as a default
- Units cost so much per turn to maintain in the field per turn
- Target cities are so many turns away
- Send out the most number of units we can afford in as large a group as possible
- If battle is successful, continue if money holds out
- If battle unsuccessful, retreat to strongest defensive position to await reinforcments
- If no reinforcements, then return to friendly territory and begin cease-fire negotiations

Shouldn't be too bad to code given that they have some decision trees to work with already.

This decision tree is already assuming too much. The little part called strategy/tactics. Which city to attack? Which units to send? and so on........

Humans could say: No I don't take the big city in front of me, instead I take the city on the mountains with more production and decreasing the AI's production or similar. Or just taking a city in his network to disturb his 'traffic'. Also why shall anyone bother about taking size 1 cities? (including the AI). Those you would normally take while going after the big game.

It is not that it is bad, but too many parts missing before.......

[Gilgamensch]

Actually while responding here, I was thinking of something completly different:

Instead of having cities producing units, why shall we not change this principle completly:

Every city (can) allocates a certain percentage to unit production and there will be just ONE empire queue for which units to produce. Those units will be 'produced' were you have barracks or the capitol. Starting with the capitol to field units. This would be also a bit more reallistic.

[Gen.Dragolen]

Gilgamensch,

I like the last idea about having an empire queue working in conjunction with improvements like barracks. Troops from barracks, ships from shipyards, tanks and aircraft from factories.

But I beg to differ about the expense of keeping conscripts or levied troops in the field. It isn't the cost of paying the people, but the cost of feeding them, and keeping them in arms and armour.

A man marching for 8 hours a day will need at least 1kg of food and 2 litres of potable water. A horse will need about 5+ kg (any horse owners out there ?) of fodder and 4+ lites of water When you start adding it up for an army, and it's a big cost. To put it in perspective, a Roman Legion of 4000 men would then need 4 tonnes of food and 8000 litres of water every day. Even if they were able to carry food in their packs, they could at most carry enough for 3-4 days before it was too heavy to manage with the 30-40 kg of kit they also had to carry. This is why troops to this day will often forage along the way.
Sun Tzu commented that 1 cart load from the enemy was worth 20 carts brought from your own land.

Consider the cost of equipping troops: a good sword smith might turn out 20 swords a month, assuming he had access to enough iron and charcoal, it makes his work worth a lot of gold. Most of the traditional weapons used by the common troops were spears, polearms and wood cutting axes, because weapons like swords were so expensive that only nobility could afford them. The same applies for the armour.

Mercenaries were often used as garrison troops and they were expensive, but so was the cost of maintaining armour and horses.
But they were cheaper than paying to have a large number of your own people under arms since they were no longer working the farms and businesses that made the kingdom wealthy.

Fast forward to WWI, and the cost of keeping the army in the field bankrupted most of the countries who fought in it, with the exception of Canada and the US. The single biggest cost for the British forces was fodder for their horses, and they had more horses than men on the Western Front. It follows that the Great Depression was partly due to the inflation resulting from the debts incurred from WW I.

Now as for the bleeding edge of weapons technology, yes there were many early instances long before they came into general use. The Chinese had things like gunpowder about 1000 years before it came into common use in Europe. But they didn't make massive use of it on the battlefield.

So it may be that we need to have a few more units to represent the different technological advances. Jumping from Pikemen to the British Infantry from the Boer War to Machine Gunners in WW I is a bit of a leap. If we made the units faster to produce, then we could actually get them into play before someone comes out with modern troops like Hover Infantry.

And yes, the decision tree I wrote up is very incomplete. In code form, it would likely be a couple of hundred if { } then { } statements just to decide which city to attack first. And then it would be tied into alot of other decision trees. I have not looked at the source code to see how they did it because I'm not a programmer by trade. Much of the detail in the code they used to build the AI would be lost on me. I have to rely on what passes for logic in my brain to figure how it could work.

I know that the challenge is to make the game balanced and playable, but I think it can be done fairly well with a good level of historical detail. Much of this is simply a matter of deciding on a model and making it work.

D.

[Gilgamensch]

Gen.Dragolen

I'll reply tomorrow, but already to be said now:

I fairly agree with you

[Mihai]

I like the idea of cheaper to produce units, but more costly (in pw/food/good) in maintaining. IRL any country that had a large army, either went banckrupt or make a (profitable) use of that army.

For ancient and medieval age an easy to implement (I hope) idea about food for troops : if in cities/fortifications radius, the units are supported by the empire pool. If between empire's border, but not in cities' radius, they got only half from empire's border, the rest from the tile where they are (foraging). When outside the empire's borders, the troops are only on foraging. All tile will have a value of food that can be foraged by troops, and if that isn't enough for the unit, that unit will lose some HPs (starvation, sicks, desertion etc). That value should be tied in a way to the total HPs of troops. A small unit or half of a bigger unit will be able to sustain itself. In real life seldom we find large army marching in close ranks. Larger armies were in long colums or separate parallel colums that reunite when a battle was expected.

Ships can have a value similar with fuel, but named "food/fresh water provision". A city with harbour will full refresh it in a turn, a city without a harbour, in 2-3 turns, and ending the turn near coast will give a few points (the amount consumed in a turn or - better - less)

We can also have a "supply depot", very cheap that will have the role of extending the area where units are supplied fully from empire pool. There should be a complete chain to a city to function. That and the fact that will not provide any defence bonus (unlike fortifications) will make the supply line vulnerable.

Modern units could cost more production (ammo, fuel, spare parts etc) and for that a supply line will be absolutly necessary.

I don't know how coherent I was, but I hope that you understood me.

[Gen.Dragolen]

Mihai,

You have an excellent bunch of ideas there. And you beat me to the punch with your post: as I was skimming through the previous posts, the many of the same ideas occured to me.

I really like the idea that each terrain type should have a 'forage' value to rate how much food and water it could supply of units in the field. It would be simple to program and would make for a significant strategic concern: no more single warrior units wandering around the world.

It would also make for a more interesting game if your movement had to include keeping your unit health up so they can fight when they get to the battle field.

I would suggest that there is a better way to determine just how much support a unit can get when in garrison. They would have to live off the land the same as if they were in the field, but every improvement to the land or the city or the government increases the capacity to support units. Happy peasants/workers are more productive and therefore food and goods more plentiful.

And it would mesh nicely with the tennants of the different governments: they can be rated for corruption which would increase the costs as you move further away from the Capital. Perhaps a more localized tax rate to make up the short fall would be in order since and empire wide one glosses over the problem. That or some more improvements that would lessen the local corruption other than just 'Court House' ?

And yes, the need for a pair of ports to have a supply line would be a good idea too. It would make the need to capture a city with a port essential for operations just as it has always been in the past. At least until the civ developes 'Amphibious Warfare'.

I think what we need to start doing is deciding on what would be some useful and meaningful tests for the people doing the programming to use. Been introduced to the concepts of extreme programming and that is usually the first step after you establish your requirements.

Any suggestions ?


D.

[Mihai]

When I thought at the tile forage value, I was thinking that Hannibal lost some troops when he crossed the Alps (most of his elephants) and that many armies disapeared in the deserts. Also that would force players (and AI - that could be a problem) to think more about how to move their armies - how to arrange the colums of the armies.

I think that single warriors will be able to wander around the world, as they represent a small army that can live on the field (exept montains, deserts and polar), but if they enter on your land you can attack them with superior forces as you have less problem with supply.

When is a shortage of food civils suffer first, not military. Maybe the food formula should be like that : gathered - corruption - units upkeep = what is left for civilian population. If the result is more that necerary, then the population grow occurs. Starvation should come with a high happiness penalty.

I am very poor at programing. Last program I made was in highschool in Turbo Pascal.