Foraging

[Lancer]

If an army crosses a city square that square shouldn't provide food for the city that turn. During the hundred years war foraging by troops was so bad that farmers in Germany started planting potatoes since they're harder to forage and don't get ruined when trampled under foot or hooves. Armies should deplete the countryside, just by moving past, until the industrial revolution.

[LordShiva]

This is sort of taken care of by the fact that you can't work a square when an enemy unit is in it.

[GeoModder]

My guess is that Lancer also means so-called friendly troops...
At least prior to the industrial age.

[ChrisiusMaximus]

Would this see a return to city support of units ?

We lost that as a feature in Civ 3, you could build as many workers and units as your income could afford, all at 1gpt.

[Nikolai]

Originally posted by ChrisiusMaximus
Would this see a return to city support of units ?

We lost that as a feature in Civ 3, you could build as many workers and units as your income could afford, all at 1gpt.

And it was a great change.

[Addled Platypus]

kinda like a toll road

pay to pass without sacraficing food production

questions:
1) is how big of an army does it have to be before it makes an effect on the tile being passed through
2) the amount of gold equals the amount of units

[Dinner]

Originally posted by LordShiva
This is sort of taken care of by the fact that you can't work a square when an enemy unit is in it.

Yeah, that kind of does handle foraging.

[Lancer]

Enemy armies, friendly armies, doesn't matter.

Any news on mercs? Are they in CivIV?

[LordShiva]

Yeah, Dutch-Swiss Mercenaries

[AeonOfTime]

In addition to laying waste to city resources on the square troops stand on, there are a number of additional things to consider:

- foot soldiers produce waste that has to be processed
- foot soldiers also produce litter that has to be processed
- mechanized units produce pollution
- certain roads have weight-limits, mechanized units over that limit should damage roads
- training manoeuvers take an even bigger toll on the terrain
- etc, etc...

Now handling all that would be fun! Imagine unit costs that depend on the type of unit (tanks cost more than infantry, bombers cost more than tanks...).

Nah, honestly - I don't see unit support costs/foraging effects as a feature. The scale of those things does not fit in the grand scheme of the game. The Civ3 model was much better than Civ2's IMHO, in that it allowed to concentrate more on playing.

[Proteus_MST]

Maybe you could designate Parts of the tiles within your city radius as training/maneuvre grounds or encampments for your troops,
with maneuvre grounds giving XP to the troops within your city for every turn they stay there and encampment tiles being necessary to support the troops within the city (radius) [for example 1 encampment tile for every 3 units within the city(radius) or the troops may suffer damage for every turn they stay in a city (radius) with too few encampents].
If the troops are on the march (outside of friendly city radii or even in enemy territory) you then have to either pay higher suppored costs for these units or, if the troops end their turn on an enemy agricultural terrain improvement, up to three units can forage on this tile, which means you don´t have to pay higher support costs for them (meaning logistics) but only standard costs and the agricultural improvement get destroyed by this foraging.


And, as a sidenote, my comment to the change Civ 3 brought to support:
It´s very good that supüport isn´t handled per city but instead nationwide, but IMHO it´s the wrong decision to have the same costs per turn for all kinds of units, even the most high tech ones. That´s something which was handled much better by CtP2 (where different kinds of units had different costs for upkeep )

[Commander Bello]

Re: Foraging

Originally posted by Lancer
If an army crosses a city square that square shouldn't provide food for the city that turn. During the hundred years war foraging by troops was so bad that farmers in Germany started planting potatoes since they're harder to forage and don't get ruined when trampled under foot or hooves. Armies should deplete the countryside, just by moving past, until the industrial revolution.

Sorry to have to correct you, but the hundred years war was somewhen in the 14th to 15th century, to the best of my knowledge and it took place between England and France.

Potatoes were introduced in Germany due to a decree of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, as they had proven to better nourish the people than the crops being used for that before. Especially, potatoes had proven to grow well in the sandy soil of Brandenburg.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST
Maybe you could designate Parts of the tiles within your city radius as training/maneuvre grounds or encampments for your troops,
with maneuvre grounds giving XP to the troops within your city for every turn they stay there and encampment tiles being necessary to support the troops within the city (radius) [for example 1 encampment tile for every 3 units within the city(radius) or the troops may suffer damage for every turn they stay in a city (radius) with too few encampents].
If the troops are on the march (outside of friendly city radii or even in enemy territory) you then have to either pay higher suppored costs for these units or, if the troops end their turn on an enemy agricultural terrain improvement, up to three units can forage on this tile, which means you don´t have to pay higher support costs for them (meaning logistics) but only standard costs and the agricultural improvement get destroyed by this foraging.

Realistic, maybe.

Fun gameplay, not.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by LordShiva




Realistic, maybe.

Fun gameplay, not.

You might be correct there.

What about a system which incorporates realism and playability?

Every unit has costs of commerce(and/or production) but also food.
These costs don´t get deducted from the city which produced them, but from the pooled commerce-/industry- and food-production of the whole empire.
You could also have different costs in food (but also production/commerce) for different unit-types, for example Settlers costing 3 food whereas military units cost less (for example infanterie units costing 2 food / turn but Fighters/Bombers just cost 1 unit [as they need less manpower, but on the downside they would cost more commerce/industry, as they have more technological equipment which has to be maintained).

To add further realism you could have to pay for the food of all the military (and civilian) units which are within your civilization borders (i.e. your units as well as enemy units) to reflect the foraging.
Of course this also means that you won´t have to pay food for your own units which reside in enemy territory (and the enemy player has to pay food for them ).

IMHO this system wouldn´t be too complicated (and would be a further incentive for you, to keep enemy units out of your borders )