Supply and AI?

[Elok]

Might the two problems be linked? Let me explain. It's possible this has been thought of many times before, in which case by all means throw rocks at me.

The problem with Civ's AI, tactically, stems from the complexity of command; hundreds of units, thousands of squares. Except that those squares aren't realistically usable IRL. No army sits out in the middle of nowhere guarding a fortress miles from home at no cost, and Hannibal had a royal biznatch of a time getting the elephants through the Alps. Supply is an inevitable reality of war. The Persians were a mighty empire but they could never wipe out the Scythians, who as nomads in a harsh environment could simply flee forever, hunting as they went, while the foreign Persians steadily lost supplies and morale while following them in circles. That's an extreme example, but the general rule applies, and it could greatly limit the AI's problems if sending a squad of Swordsmen across two mountain ranges and a forest to attack a city twenty turns later were not, in fact, feasible.

Supply as an integral component would not necessarily be a matter of tedious "supply lines." Nor do I think normal units should have fuel limits like aircraft in Civ2. And a "supply unit" that has to be loaded onto ships fails to address the problem. Rather, I think there should be a "Supply value" for each civ, increased along with technology. A unit can only be supplied within a certain range of a friendly or allied city/colony. Loss of supplies would cause rapid loss of health. Different units might have different supply needs. So a horseman without supplies will be able to fend for himself a while, but a tank without gas is doomed, as the lack of a larger supply number causes a much more rapid loss of HP that foraging cannot realistically compensate for.

Foraging would be possible, but the returns would of course be subject to terrain, limited by the number of units per square, and would not increase in efficiency with the rise of technology and subsequent rise in complexity and supply needs of troops, as mentioned above. But technology can increase the range and efficiency of supply; discover the automobile, and range increases greatly. Discover Refrigeration, and supply becomes a lot less expensive due to efficiency in preservation of foodstuffs. And without setting up "supply lines," which are tedious micromanagement, not strictly realistic, and very AI-unfriendly compared to a simple comparison of numerical values, which also fits the "grand scheme" feel of Civ. In addition, such a system would be easily tweaked and modded to suit the player, allowing innovative scenario stretches.

Now flame away, I have spoken.

[Shogun Gunner]

Why flame? In principal thiis is a good idea. I'm sure you will get the anti-MM response along with the Soren quote about removing unfun elements and streamlining.

I, myself, agree that the concept of supply should be included. Having a "supply capacity" for your military forces necessitates planning, long term objectives and trade-offs to be evaluated. This greatly increases the thrill of the game and makes it more strategic. In the same way, a limitation on unlimited railroad movement would force the player to consider where they locate their military.

It's a good idea. The only argument surrounds the implementation of the idea IMO.

[murielwasser]

SMAC's mindworms has free supply when on fungus, so we know that engine at least could be modded for terrain-dependent supply costs. As for C4, it once again comes down to the "are they telling the truth about nothing being hardcoded" question...

[Elok]

Er, what's "MM?"

The thing about this is, it would also greatly discourage the stupid AI continuously trespassing into your territory for a lark, without the player having to constantly say, "hello, we're at peace, stop nosing through my domain," and discourage certain other junk strategies, like critical masses of weak units who stomp into your territory and smash themselves against city walls, over and over and over again, taking five minutes out of every turn and ever so gradually wearing down your defenses just enough to put you through the annoyance of buying new ones every few turns. I know I'm not the only one who finds that obnoxious.

Actually, I think Civ in general would be even more fun if there were more slight cumulative bonuses like the ones mentioned. Even Civ2 had them, in the form of the ship movement bonus from Nuclear Power, the Mysticism temple bonus, and stuff like that. A lot of human discoveries were valuable not for a sudden revolution that let people reinvent warfare or economics, but for letting them do the same things more efficiently. Like a horse collar-suddenly, peasants have the ability to plow a heckuva lot of land with an animal that was previously only good for transportation. Not that "Horse collar" should be a tech right up there with Gunpowder, but just as an example. Discover new techs and lower upkeep costs of certain buildings, increase spy security, integrate foreign nationals more quickly, whatever.

[Dauphin]

MM = Micromanagement

[Elok]

There would be essentially no micromanagement under this system, assuming that by micromanagement you mean having to click on a city, change some settings, click on another city, change some settings, repeat forty times or until insane. That's the beauty of the system. There would be a certain range, easily depicted on the world map, in which your units could be supplied, and going anywhere outside that range would come at a price to the unit each turn.

[Elias]

Originally posted by Elok
That's the beauty of the system. There would be a certain range, easily depicted on the world map, in which your units could be supplied, and going anywhere outside that range would come at a price to the unit each turn.

Well I realy dislike this system, just having like a wall of death and doom out from your civ that you couldent march troops pat. but in modern times it would be irrevelent because of the massive tech advances. If they just improved the AI it could compinsate for the whole supply thing. to me supplies are not being able to heal upgrade or do anything else in enemy territory. espically if artillary played a larger role then your troops would take a few points of damage here or there and be unable to heal them effectivly without a city. also rember the spanish? they took over most of south america being able to pillage food from others even though they were thousands of miles away from ther home land.

[Elok]

Uh, the Spanish had a great deal of support from their homeland initially, and that initial investment paid off big-time when they began raping the wealth of the Aztec empire. That was only initially, of course; once they actually subjugated the peoples, they simply took "support" from local villages instead of Spain itself.

Support is not just healing and restocking on occasion. Tanks need gasoline, and people and horses need food and water, none of which are provided in such abundance in nature that they can be foraged easily in passing by large armies. Only farmland can provide large amounts of food for easy picking.

IRL, a large desert was a formidable natural defense and to an extent still is, because it drains the hell out of anyone and anything passing through, they have to carry food and LOTS of water with them, and that sort of thing runs out very fast. Even in temperate lands a large army was impractical in the Middle Ages because producing all the food they needed and getting it to them was a logistical nightmare, especially given that a single Knight needed a whole freaking village to pay for him. The advantage of the longbowmen was not just that they could launch off volleys and wipe cavalry out, but that you could support eight of them for the cost of a single Knight, and thus you won out in terms of pure logistics.

Whereas in a civ game, deserts, mountains and tundra are only inhospitable to civilians who try to farm them. Six companies of horsemen can gallop over miles of desert for three years and sustain no ill effects. The mountains slow them down, that's it. And, provided they were all built already, they can all be sustained through a famine whether they're armored knights or bums with spears riding nags. That's nonsense.

Nor is it a "wall of death." If you want to expand further, just build some freaking cities. The range can be adjusted for playability reasons if necessary. The system could also be tweaked in the case of naval units, which can carry a massive amount of stuff, and which BTW accounts for the Spanish Anomaly you mentioned. All this system innately keeps you from doing is sending an army of soldiers halfway around the world at no more cost to yourself than if they were sitting around in your capital.

[The diplomat]

Why not just have an attrition factor similar to in RoN? For example, every x turns that a unit spends in enemy territory, it loses 1 hitpoint.

[Elok]

Because that doesn't simulate difficulties of supply or terrain, it just tacks a de facto advantage onto the defender. Homefield advantage is great for sports, but it shouldn't be Civ.

Which isn't to say that enemy territory shouldn't be considered. Given that early armies could live off the land, foraging in enemy territory, rather than living off supply while passing through, might be considered pillaging and an act of war. And the proximity of enemies might affect supply in some way; I haven't entirely thought this through. But I think attrition is too simple of a system.

[Shogun Gunner]

Elok makes some fine points about the shortcomings in civ 3 to simulate difficult terrain and the effect on military units.

[Trifna]

Originally posted by Shogun Gunner
Elok makes some fine points about the shortcomings in civ 3 to simulate difficult terrain and the effect on military units.

Granted

It seems like this simple addition would solve many issues, and I see few reasons to not use this (and kick "attrition").

To Elok:

[Elok]

Why, thank you both! Pity you're not Soren though.

My best solution thus far for enemy proximity would be to increase the cost of supply and/or reduce supply availability by a certain percent in relation to the number of enemy units adjacent to the unit supplied. For example, if three spearmen or whatever are adjacent to the unit, supply becomes [3 x a given percentage] more expensive, to simulate the danger of hauling wagon trains through contested territory. Or it could simply reduce available supply to the unit by that percentage, which again would account for the differences in supply needs between different units as well as preventing the player from buying his way through a siege. So I guess that would probably be better.

Granted, this doesn't make sense if the nearest city is at the unit's back and the three spearmen are all on the other side facing him (I guess you could argue for confusion on the front lines or something), but accounting for direction feels like a bad idea to me. I don't know why, it just does. Maybe it just complicates things a little much for my tastes, or reminds me of the blasted road-networks you needed for trade in Civ3. I don't like having to scroll all around the map just to see if I can do something.

Since a unit can't have more than eight enemies adjacent to it, the problem could be partially circumvented by having the cost increase kick in after the first x enemies nearby and have a larger increase.

BTW, it occurs to me that this system might finally make helicopters make sense; they don't need a landing pad IRL, but they do need fuel to keep flying, so they would just be a form of air unit that moved like a ground unit rather than having "range," which I assume everyone agrees should be carried over from Civ3 for normal air units.

[Shogun Gunner]

Your example has some hallmarks from the old board wargames. Afrika Korps is probably the simplest example. The supply source (could be a supply unit or city) could suppy a unit to a certain distance. In the wargame, terrain was not a factor -- just a certain number of hexes. The line could even be convulted to avoid enemy units. However, this is just a WW2 model. The medieval warfare has more difficult challenges.

[Elok]

More difficult challenges, such as? Maybe the difficulties of terrain for transporting supplies, but when you start doing that it sounds to me like you're nitpicking.