Unlimited Replacements in Civ IV?

[GePap]

I think Lancer's point is better illustrated by the fact that unless you are forced to go into a massive drafting program, military units and population are unrelated-how many units you have is a function of your industry and resource base, not of your population as a whole. If units were tied directly to population, ie, like workers and settlers it always cost you population points to make military units, then you could in theory bleed a civilization white.

Just look at how colonization worked- you could not have endless units, unless you had endless gold to buy mercenaries and new settlers with, or had some increadably productive town making a new settler every couple of turns.

[Jaybe]

I said long ago that major units in civ should cost population. Some number of people or bread in the bread box, but not whole population POINTS.

[Trifna]

Would a whole part of this be solved if we would say X phalanx = 1 pop point? With a very simple supply system, it looks like as something so simple to solve that it's pointless to discuss every single detail around

[Lancer]

A single unit doesn't cost that many people, but consider how many times that same unit might be knocked down and then heal up. If a unit is a veteran it's got 4 hit points. If it gets knocked down to 1, then we can assume 3/4 of the people were either killed, wounded or deserted in a very pitched battle, yes? Now maybe one hit point of wounded could concievably recover, but the other two hit points, ie 1/2 of the population cost of a new unit would have to come out of the population of the civ. In WW1 few units were actually destroyed outright, but still the Germans managed to lose over 4 million men iirc. Of these 4 million how many were replaced hit points? Most of them. They went over the top and into the machine guns and then had to be replaced from the population base.

In WW2 this and the expansion of the German army were the reason that German industry ended up with French, Jewish and Russian slave labor to fill the gaps left by Germans males of military age leaving production and heading for the front.

There should be a pool of available replacements and once that's used up, units stop healing until there are more available. This should also help slow the conquering of everything in sight, as it did historicly.

[DarkCloud]

DarkCloud, what makes you think there are supply lines in civ4, other than idle (though worthy) speculation from the likes of Aussie-Lurker?

I was under the understanding that it was mentioned in Locutus' "What we know about civ" thread, though apparently it was not. *shrugs* I thought that Civ III already made it harder for units to heal if they were outside of your borders. That's what I meant by supply lines.

[spartak]

@Lancer

Yeah, but the point of the game is to rip the crap out of the opposition and making it harder to maintain armies won't appeal to anyone except hardcore gamers or builders.

[Datajack Franit]

I said long ago that major units in civ should cost population. Some number of people or bread in the bread box, but not whole population POINTS

Oh yes they should! WWI destroyed the economies of the countries involved, and when you lose million of citizens, that´s going to teach something at the players/AI always declaring war just for the sake of it

[Lancer]

Originally posted by spartak
@Lancer

Yeah, but the point of the game is to rip the crap out of the opposition and making it harder to maintain armies won't appeal to anyone except hardcore gamers or builders.

I'm an old wargamer from way back myself, and it would work for me. Consider what such losses could achieve. If getting knocked down a few bars actually meant something besides a minor inconvenience, then other combat results could enter the game. The defender would not always have to be destroyed, but instead knocked down and forced to retreat. A unit might retreat and then be immoble for a turn to represent a dispersed unit. In a situation where the attacker took alot of losses they might be considered to beaten up to advance...

Alot of interesting options for the military player.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Well, I for one hopes that building and healing units will come at some kind of cost-be it cash, hammers or even city health. This way, even though it might not accurately simulate the manpower cost of 're-stocking' units, it would at least make said restocking much more of a difficult decision. Well, here's hoping!!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[spartak]

Yeah but how ref;ective are you of the average gamer?

[GeoModder]

Healing units already cost something precious: turntime.

[Aro]

Originally posted by GeoModder
Healing units already cost something precious: turntime.

Case closed.

Folks, I don't expect realism of any kind. Some internal consistency will be enough to me.

[Datajack Franit]

consistency in civ

[Dis]

Originally posted by Datajack Franit



Oh yes they should! WWI destroyed the economies of the countries involved, and when you lose million of citizens, that´s going to teach something at the players/AI always declaring war just for the sake of it

yeah I would like to see population loss. Or at least building a unit costs half of the food box.

As it is now, people can wage war with impunity. Especially in goverments that have large supports.

Of course sometimes, I like to just go smash things and don't want to be bothered by some things.

So a comprimise would be an option to turn food storage loss for units on or off in the options.

[Aro]

Originally posted by Datajack Franit
consistency in civ

Or in Poly...