UNOFFICIAL: Defensive force planning: Mapfipolis poll

[MrBaggins]

In an attempt to get some idea of our building requirements and options, an important requirement is an understanding of our defensive needs. The intended time scale we are discussing is 20 turns.

To achieve this end, I am posting a number of polls, to get a general idea on a concensus of how many troops we believe it is appropriate to have as defensive forces/garrisons.

An assumption that I am making is that peope will wish to have balanced troop displacements, that is 1 front line defensive unit and 1 ranged unit. In most situations, this is the preferrable situation. If you wish to suggest a differing combination, vote for the closest number of troops, but post in the thread to discuss your idea of troop combination.

The poll expires in 3 days

[child of Thor]

I'd rather see a strong defence in all our cities, one that will enable us to move 1 or 2 units around if we need to prop up an underthreat city or scout and destroy barbarians/enemy armies. So i'll vote for 8 in all cities.

[mapfi]

I'd say garrison only a minimum defence force - Pedrunnia and H-Town 4, all others 2 and use the remaining units for freefloating defence or offence troops.

[HuangShang]

we need the martial law, so i voted 8

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

martial law maximum is 4

[Locutus]

We need as troops on the Austrian front, not in the east. I voted 2, but I meant 2-4. In the next ~20 turns 2 or 3 will do.

[child of Thor]

Yes Locutus, the western front is the most important place to defend. So the emphasis on our austrian border should be taken into account first, still we have to watch those germans to the west! If we stick to 20 turns then i guess we can only have 2-3 extra units per city anyway.

[MrBaggins]

Try again:

our cities produce between 50 and 90 production/turn

(except the artificially low production in Mapfipolis, due to farming concentration, which will be negated in 3 turns)

Thus a minimum of 5 extra troops could be produced over the next 20 turns in even the least productive city. Our top producers could produce around 10. City growth will mean that these numbers increase.

MrBaggins.

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

you also should have an eye upon, how much we spent on unit maintenance mr baggins

[child of Thor]

Thanks MrBaggins, well if we can produce the troops then i'm all for building as much as we can untill the threat is over. So i'll stick with my 8 vote oh but as ZB says we need to watch our unit costs, still the more cities we get through bashing the austrians the less it will hurt our upkeep.

[MrBaggins]

Given conistant unit building given the current situation, we will build 5/3rds of a unit per turn with a support cost of 2. Therefore we add 5/3 *2 = 3 ish support cost per turn. That support cost is spread over 5 cities, and amounts to only .6 less production per city per turn that we consistently build units.

We are also growing and thus adding additional support capacity to our empire. We can thus sustain this military growth without seriously impairing our productive ability for at least the forseeable future.

I wouldn't encourage a military support ratio of greater than 25%, although that theoretically might be necessary should multiple wars be taking place.

MrBaggins