Column #153; By MrFun

[DanQ]

MrFun dispenses three reasons as to why military expenses should be absorbed by the empire as a whole and not individual cities in The Column's one-hundred and fifty-third installment entitled "Civilization III and Military Maintenance".

Comments/questiosn welcomed here, or you may opt to contact the author directly via email.

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Dan; Apolyton CS
[This message has been edited by DanQ (edited February 15, 2001).]

[Mister Pleasant]

Civ3 Nigthmare Scenario:

(1) Units are supported by home city
(2) Terrain is improved by a herd of units
(3) Units queue up to attack
(4) AI is dumb
(5) Firaxis implements "features" (1)-(4) simultaneously.

When I think about it, half of the reason I did not like SMAC was that it had flaws (1)-(3). Things which seemed really bad after playing CTP. Right on, MrFun.

[Transcend]

quote: Originally posted by Mister Pleasant on 02-11-2001 04:24 AM (4) AI is dumb

It can't be more true for the CTP.

[Henrik]

Or it should atleast be an option to pay maintance in gold (atleast as for scenario makers)

[MrFun]

Thanks for putting my article on the site, Dan. One problem though - my article argues FOR nation-wide support of military, NOT for each city.

I really think we should stay with production and not gold for military support nation-wide. Otherwise, you would have to drmatically increase how much gold players can earn each turn.
[This message has been edited by MrFun (edited February 11, 2001).]

[Henrik]

yes but in a scenario you should be able to change the support into gold.

[net55]

For most of our history individual cities, areas did support raise and support its own armies. In fact the king relied heavily on local lords for support, many of the Lords having a mighty army than even the king. This was the case around the world right up to the 16th and 17th century.
So I don’t think a national military maintenance system before 16th century is called for or desirable.

[Henrik]

That changed in the thirty years war mind you. Armies started to plead aligience to the king and the state instead of the nobles (it didn't happen everywhere in europe true, but the countries that still did it the old way like Poland cucikly got turned into slaughterhouses.)

[The diplomat]

quote: Originally posted by MrFun on 02-11-2001 02:06 PM I really think we should stay with production and not gold for military support nation-wide. Otherwise, you would have to drmatically increase how much gold players can earn each turn. [This message has been edited by MrFun (edited February 11, 2001).]

Just make the gold support small enough like say 1 gold per 5 units or something. But the main advantage that I see in gold support is that it introduces the economy into war making. And this is something that is sorely lacking in civ games up to now. In civ games, Economies are not as important as they should be IMHO. One of the reasons that kings raised taxes was to support an army for an upcoming war. In ancient history, armies sacked and pillaged cities as another way of paying and supporting there armies. So, shield support is important but we should not neglect the economic price in keeping an army. One of the other benefits of this suggestion is that by making economies more important, it makes trade routes more important. Trade would bring in lots of gold that would help raise a larger army that possible from just taxes. Similarly, attacking an enemies' trade routes would hurt their war making abilities!



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No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.

[MrFun]

You do make some very convincing points, Diplomat.

And as for having individual cities accountable for military costs instead of the entire civilization just to be historically accurate - well, that is about the only aspect where I do NOT support keeping/changing a feature for the sake of historical accuracy.

Civilization-wide military cost system greatly increased the fun factor for me in Call to Power (not Call to Power II). Civilization II was far too restrictive in that each city could only support so many units.

[Trachmir]

Actually I think upkeep should both be in gold and shields, for instance a phalanx might have an upkeep of 1 gold... but a tank have 1 shield AND 1 gold... I agree economy should be important, but as armies rely more and more upon equipment, then shields should be required too.

As for city vs. nation paying for support, I am in favor of nationwide... but allowing cities to specify if they will contribute one, two, three or no shares. I don't want to tax the production of a fledling cities to support my armies, while I have major Industrial cities that can cover a larger portion.

It would be simple to implement, just one button that say "Military Support" that can be adjusted to "none, 1x, 2x or 3x".

What do you think?

[sleeperservice]

It should depend on form of goverment really.

In monarch or republic individual cities supported units.

But in democracy and fasism and any later democracy the units should be payed by the whole civ.

[Father Beast]

I also support your motion, mrfun. I liked how the maintenance costs came from te general fund in Master Of Orion.

[jdlessl]

[Deleted Post]

Never mind, answered my own question.

--
Jared Lessl
[This message has been edited by jdlessl (edited February 12, 2001).]

[The diplomat]

I agree that units should be suported by empire. I also have another request:

units should have maintenance cost in GOLD.

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No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.