Infinite Unit Syndrome (IUS)

[polymths]

I think one of the problems which cause uninteresting/boring/unchallenging endgames is that most human players (HP) simply build as many cities as possible using Infinite City Sprawl (ICS), ramp up the production of these massive number of cities' production using improvements/wonders, and then simply mass build massive amounts of units and flood the enemy.

In my own civgames, once I have Howitzers, I need to do nothing but simply build tons of howitzers, flood enemy cities with howitzers and take over many cities very quickly.

Doesn't require a lot of effort or thinking and is very effective but not very satisfying. Since with a large enough production capacity, no effort or thinking is required in terms of force deployment you just produce units ad infinitum like rounds of ammunition.

Basically, using ICS and IUS, Civ endgames are nothing but "produce and flood" endgames devoid of strategy and thinking. If you make a mistake or suffer some defeat because your attack failed, you'll produce more "rounds of ammunition" anyway and so no big deal!

There have a couple of suggestions to combat IUS.
1. Tie max production of military units to total population so prevent IUS. (also prevents the issue I have of building a military which would seem to be far far larger than the existing population should be able to support)
2. Reduce population (a la settlers) when building military units.
3. Allow aircraft to bomb factories, power plants etc and have AI actually do so effectively to really slow down production.
4. Disallow instant buying of improvements/units.

Does anyone know what is already planned, or hinted at that will prevent IUS?

[This message has been edited by polymths (edited May 11, 2001).]
[This message has been edited by polymths (edited May 11, 2001).]
[This message has been edited by polymths (edited May 11, 2001).]

[Your.Master]

I don't know what the plan is, but your first solution is what I hope it is.

[Ralf]

quote: Originally posted by polymths on 05-11-2001 04:05 PM I think one of the problems which cause uninteresting/boring/unchallenging endgames is that most human players (HP) simply build as many cities as possible using Infinite City Sprawl (ICS), ramp up the production of these massive number of cities' production using improvements/wonders, and then simply mass build massive amounts of units and flood the enemy.

Some civers seems to like this quantity-before-quality approach though. I certainly dont understand why. But some protests vigorously against any attempts on making it harder to build/maintain/conquer ridiculously and unproportionally big 50+, 100+ or even 150+ city empires. About IUS? Well, check out this thread as an horrific example: How many tanks can stay on one tile?

How anyone can actually enjoy playing Civ-games this way, is for me something of a complete mystery.

quote: In my own civgames, once I have Howitzers, I need to do nothing but simply build tons of howitzers, flood enemy cities with howitzers and take over many cities very quickly. Doesn't require a lot of effort or thinking and is very effective but not very satisfying. Since with a large enough production capacity, no effort or thinking is required in terms of force deployment you just produce units ad infinitum like rounds of ammunition.

Exactly! The core problem with Civ-2 is basically that "Bigger is always better" - and ONLY better. It shoudnt be. The only empire-/army-size deterring factor here, has ironically much more to do with the dry game-technical micro-management side of it, then with juggling bloodfull hard-to-swallow benefit/trade-off desicion-makings; increasing domestic and economic problems; limited army support; declining pro-war sentiment and so on.

I have some ideas what to do about it - but the hour is late (over here in Stockholm anyway). I return later...
[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited May 11, 2001).]

[polymths]

For me, the biggest flaw is that with IUS, no special care is needed for attacking the enemy and no hard decisions about force deployment is required.

It is as if Hitler could attack USSR with the full force and might of Germany but not worry about a two front war because he could magically produce lots more divisions to easily defeat both USSR and Western Allies.

It is also as if Hitler, once he conquered many USSR cities could instantly have these newly conquered cities produce divisions FOR HIM. (Although I heard that Civ3 "culture" might prevent this problem.)

This might be the fundamental reason why it is so easy to conquer the world in Civ. With the ability to build, in effect, infinite numbers of units and the ability to build these units so quickly without any regard to the actual size of your population (and without regard to the fact that you can't IRL just take over a foreign city and just mass produce units from that city) then what thinking and strategy is needed other than build, build, build and build, and flood, flood, flood, and flood!

If only the real Hitler had IUS capability!

[Ralf]

quote: Originally posted by polymths on 05-11-2001 05:35 PM If only the real Hitler had IUS capability!

Well, it wouldnt helped that much, in the long run. Then it comes to extreme totalitarian states theres basically only two type of possible endings:
[*] The totalitarian mega-machine (Hitlers nazi-Germany) gets overrun by an even bigger mega-machine (the western allies + Soviet).[*] The totalitarian mega-machine (Stalins Soviet-state) wins momentarily, only to find out that they are running out of both oil (= old myths) and gasoline (= future dreams).

Even if nazi-germany had manage to get some stale-mate "peace", they could never hope to win over US - especially after the arrival of A-bombs. Either they would have been A-bombed into submission, or they would have followed the same faith of running out of "oil" and "gas" as the Lenins & Stalins Soviet-state did.

The built-in disadvantage with ultra-ideologic totalitarian dictatorships, is that behind its thin surface of "effectivness" and "believes on modern mass-production", they also are pestered with almost unavoidable internal paranoiac backstabbings combined with surprisingly rigid and sterile views on science and economy.
Squarish ideologic viewpoints always seems to weighs much heavier then economical common sense, or scientific free-minded objectivity. This pretty much ensures that such states are bound to collapse, sooner or later - with or without any surrounding threats.

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited May 11, 2001).]

[Mathphysto]

This is from a post of mine on the Battles thread...

[Another thing about combat - I hate how the size of one's army is only directly dependent upon production, not population. If I have a small civ that happens to own mineral-rich land, then I can build a huge army - but where did all the soldiers come from? It's much easier for China to field an army of 10 million than for France to. People are just as critical a resource for war as the metal used to fashion the guns.]

I think that there should be a conscription rate, which helps determine the number of units a civ can build, determined by
1) the civ's population
2) some sort of "threat factor" (determined by how much other civs dislike you, and how powerful those civs are)
3) cultural points (if this is my motherland, I'm going to defend it!).

Maybe one could also factor in propaganda, or religious fanaticism. This, along with the production limitations of a civ, would determine how large an army the civ could field.

To factor in propaganda, one could introduce the notion of a budget. One would get X gold in a turn, with A% going to fund scientific research, B% going to national defense, C% to propaganda, etc. Religion would require adding a whole new dimension to the game, which would exist and evolve separately from the govm't and economy. It could be done, but would be difficult.

Units would cost some gold, some amount of certain materials, and some number of available conscripts. A tank division (unit), for example, might cost 100 gold, 10 units (kilotons) of iron, 2 units of copper (for the shell casings and electrical wiring), and 5000 conscripts. The problem here is that a conscript is a "real" person, while the populations in Civ are not firmly tied to "real" population levels. So one would first need to clarify the connection between a size 20 city and a city with 2 million inhabitants.

[polymths]

Well based on the latest Firaxis update, a couple of hopeful signs are emerging for mitigating Infinite Unit Syndrome (IUS)

1. Culture
With culture, it would seem that you can't just conquer a large foreign city and suddenly make that city produce military units for you. This should definitely slow down IUS.

2. Resource Model
Seems that to build units, you need access to resources. For example, access to an iron mine is needed to produce Roman Legions. Of course this would only defeat IUS if access to iron mines is not easily achievable or if total self-sufficiency in resources is not easily achievable. It does seem though that an enemy could cut off supplies of resources by destroying roads to the resources.

The only thing that is missing though is the connection between population level and the limit on how many units can be built.

[Comrade Tribune]

Two more solutions for IUS:

1) A Manpower Pool. Manpower points accumulate similar to science bulbs, and are spent in building new units. When You are out of manpower, You can´t build units.

2) National Morale. With Your losses going up, National Morale goes down, influencing all parameters negatively, right across the board (the Vietnam Syndrome). Would make everybody think twice about being reckless.

[Krypter]

I don't agree with the premise that captured cities should not produce for you. Hitler conquered France and she produced at peak capacity, despite being under occupation. Of course the rate of 'collaboration' varies. Soviets didn't produce much under their (brief) occupation, but that's also because the Germans employed scorched earth tactics.

I think civ2 did a good job in addressing this issue. By the time you captured a city, it was often a ruin anyway, hardly able to produce enough for itself. Furthermore, the concept of 'nationalism' has only emerged recently. Under historical empires, peasants (and most people were peasants) hardly cared whether they farmed for King A or King B.

Firaxis shouldn't take this 'culture' concept too far, otherwise it will make building an empire nearly impossible. Sure, cities resisted their occupiers for a little while, but after the fighting stopped, they always got back to work. We shouldn't be using 19th/20th century examples to describe all of human history.

[Sirotnikov]

Very good ideas everyone. I think having an army bigger than your population can only be done with mercenaries.

I thought this thread would adress the AI strategy of building tons of units and sending each to wander off around his empire which is both stupid and annoying. Especially if you see AI terrain.
[This message has been edited by Sirotnikov (edited May 12, 2001).]