What "Realism Watchdogs" Should Really Be Worrying About

[Inverse Icarus]

Originally posted by Jaybe
Uber, your history of avatars continues to amaze (and entertain)!

::sniff sniff::

you're applause means everythign to me

[Grumbold]

War has been the single most destructive force throughout history because of its massive costs. Kings and countires regularly bankrupted themselves raising troops to fight pointless petty wars. Military Science has benefitted occasionally but many enlightened civilisations have been destroyed and their achievements lost for centuries. The US has largely been an exception to this because since their civil war it has always been on foreign soil and has never truly reached the point of testing their natural and human resources to the limit, merely proved a spur to push harder.

Civ III is still far too soft on war costs because it does not allow loans to cover the huge costs of wartime military activity. Great Britain continued to live under rationing and austerity measures for a decade after the end of WWII because the country was technically bankrupt. Every industry that had been converted to military effort had no money to reconfigure back to peacetime uses, let alone buy in the most modern machinery to do it with. Conversely Germany was given funds to rebuild its transport and manufacturing base while forced to put no money into maintaining an armed service. Imagine what the US could do if its defence budget was spent on health, education, crime and welfare issues.....

[spy14]

...it would leave itself more open to attack. And as half the world hates the US for being so successful, it needs that military in place.

[Incan_Warrior]

spy14 - I'm pretty sure grumbold wasn't postulating that the U.S. actually put it's defence budget towards the other issues. It seemed to me to be more of a hypothetical - hence the use of word "imagine".

[Grumbold]

Absolutely.

Many 3rd world countries remain 3rd world because all their wealth goes to feed luxurious lifestyles for their leaders and relatively massive military forces to keep them in power. Its a vicious circle that they then have to appease the generals with more and more money and power or face being ousted in a coup. Meanwhile the vast majority of the population live in poverty with no sign of a better future for their children or grandchildren.

I'm not trying to turn this into some sort of socialist or bleeding heart agenda. Armies cost a fortune and using them to fight a war costs even more. That's all I'm saying.

[The Pioneer]

I agree with Grumbold and the real life exapmles are many, way too many to post here.

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by UberKruX
to quote hitler (and to get called a nazi some more),

"mankind has grown strong in eternal struggle, and shall only perish through eternal peace"

this post brought to you by supreme military commander UberKruX. Glory Comes From Spilt Blood.

Hitler is an instructive example. He started a war and brought his country to ruin, cities wasted, millions dead, his best scientists and engineers refugees. The end of Hitler and the war brought prosperity.

Meanwhile, Hitler's greatest lasting historical legacy is the re-establishment of Israel after 2000 years.

[nato]

Armies cost a fortune and using them to fight a war costs even more. That's all I'm saying.

Maybe give units very high upkeep costs. Then you don't keep units sitting around in peacetime, so when a war breaks out, you go broke rush buying them!

Like a lot of people are saying, nations really do go broke during war. Nations ended wars in huge debt, causing real economic problems. Raising money to pay for armies was one of the major factors in European history. Thats why England and the Netherlands were so very powerful and influential. They gave money to their allies to afford their armies. No one else could go to war without their financial support!

Overinvesting in military is also bad for the economy. It is almost just a black hole that resources disappear into. Put too much in there, and the economy is hurt so much that it destroys your economy's ability to build a military in the future. This is what brought down the Soviets.

[Panag]

hi ,

intresting thread , ...

, only one thing , ...

"peace true power" , ...

have a nice day

[nbarclay]

A good argument can be made that COLD wars are good for technology. When two nations or groups of nations are constantly preparing for possible conflict, they are likely to focus less on pleasure and more on developing new technologies that could give them an edge or take away an opponent's edge. Further, it is not rare that new technologies have viable military applications long before they have viable civilian applications, yet the technologies do eventually develop civilian applications.

Hot, shooting wars are another matter. Much of the technology boost of such conflicts is illusory, coming from the much faster upgrade cycles as older equipment is destroyed and new, state-of-the-art equipment replaces it. War also increases pressure to get new ideas that were already on the drawing boards into production a lot more quickly, so the quality of equipment produced gets a boost even though the science was already there.

Some key military technologies do get a major boost, but others with a longer-term payoff can actually have their priority reduced once the shooting starts. And what happens to research on technologies that have no military application?

Regarding production, Civ 3 does have mobilization to reflect the increase in production if a nation fully dedicates itself to a war. But since Civ 3 does not model complex economic phenomena like recessions or depressions, why should it model situations where a war pulls a nation out of a depression? And would war really help an economy that is already at the top of the cycle instead of near its bottom?

Successful warfare in Civ 3 is already plenty powerful due to the extra cities and production you can get out of it. Isn't that enough?

Nathan

[GeneralTacticus]

*ahem*

In all of history there has never been an example of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare.

-Sun Tzu, The Art of War.

[spy14]

Originally posted by Incan_Warrior
spy14 - I'm pretty sure grumbold wasn't postulating that the U.S. actually put it's defence budget towards the other issues. It seemed to me to be more of a hypothetical - hence the use of word "imagine".

... hence the hypothetical response...

[Dom Pedro II]

I think partly the reason why implementing a beneficial war system in Civ3 is so difficult is because there is never any true explanation of exactly what the player is, i.e. a separation of the State from the country in the game.

For example, if the player's gold represents the coffers of the Government Treasury, then, yes, at the end of a war, they're going to be depleted. On the other hand, if the player's gold is meant to represent the overall spending power of the national economy, it doesn't really fit.

The other trouble is resource management. In real life wars, those who control resources and production benefit from war through government contracts. In Civ3, the Player already controls all of the national resources and production, so how can he, as the leader, be made to benefit from his own contracts? The only thing I can think of would be an industrial bonus, which is already given in a War-Time mobilization.

Lastly, science has an explosion in war because the government chooses to funnel more funding into research... you can already do that in Civ3. You already determine the funding, and I don't know about everyone else, but in war, I usually move the slider up as far as it'll go just to get the newest weapons!

[GePap]

War and reality

I agree with those that have pointed out that real war is higly expensive and that if tis fought on your territory, higly damaging. The difficulties wih Civ3 and war have much more to do with war and happiness. The happiness penalties for representative govs and for drafting are too high, though any player can set them lower. If as dems. one didn't have to spend so much more on luxuries to keep the people happy then you could see a war foguht on foreign soil as a boon to the economy. Just think, mobilize the cities for war, have a lot of extra shields being produced and make your cities create wealth. Then shift tax revenues to science and you could do well.

An interesting point is that the draft limits make little sense to me. The gov should be able to draft as many citizens as possible, though at the cost of them not creating tax revenue and production in their cities. Also, the number of shields gotten from working the population to death in despotic governments should go up with time (or at least get the bonuses from industry). working a thousand people to death in a factory will get me a lot more built than workin the same one thousand to death in old furnaces to equip my legions.

[Panag]

hi ,

"realism" , well where is the point of having a courthouse , to judge the bad guy's , and a police station to get them , but there is no jail to lock them in to , ....no wonder there is so much corruption , .....

there could be so much done , but is it all possible , can it be done , ......

have a nice day