Economic Model II

[Mark_Everson]

-72 Economic consequences of battle -- The two armies share the square, fighting evcery turn. But there seem to be no economic consequences to this raging battle.

This is from the bug/feature list. Anyone have an idea how much I should screw up the economy due to a fight? Unfortunately with the near-subsistence that we have now, and appreciable penalty will starve people. But I guess that's historically accurate...

A proposal for the near future (thru d6):

Size the penalty by the size of side with less troops.

25% hit for a big battle 10 units or more, linearly down to a battle with 0 units having 0 penalty. 25% would be the max penalty unless intentional pillaging etc took place.

Anyone have opinions?

[LDiCesare]

The penalties sound reasonable. Maybe the size of enemy troops could be used instead of smallest troops? Also, you should base the computation on elements number, since a seriously damaged unit has less people to screw production around them.

[Simon Loverix]

Just the presence and foraging of the armies will be the most harmful I think. The actual battle damages the armies but not much of the land. Base penalties on the army's presence rather than battles (place to camp, foraging) unless explosives are used, trenches are dug etc. And then still it is mainly farmland that is affected, industry is usually only intentionally pillaged/bombed. But the number is ok (or maybe 20% max).

[Simon Loverix]

I saw the 'nomadic civs' post at the top of this thread when posting and I remembered that such mayor migrations only took place only directly after when the EG in question became centralized (in game terms: went from passive to active civ).

So moving the whole civ can only be allowed before settling (so no going back). Some residu of the population always remains when large migrations happen after that. And it would carry mayor penalties such as no RP generation for most techs, no income (except plunder and tribute) etc. This wouldn't make it unbalancing, would it?

[Mark_Everson]

Laurent:
Sure, we can try using size of enemy units for econ effects of combat. How about some average between size of enemy and size of total forces? I will set up something in econ that you can send battle info to.

Simon:
I think your points are reasonable. On whether being a nomad is a disadvantage, it clearly is unless you can turn to conquest of large civilized areas later on. All I can say is we'll take a first shot at something fairly realistic and see if its fun and balanced.

Relevant post from another thread:

Originally posted by Mikael
How is province size variability determined? How can the player modify province boundaries? How do they change without any player intervention?

This is mostly TBD. My thoughts right now are to let the player set provinces for land they control only limited by tranportation capability from the province capital to a province square, with a few squares allowed to exceed this limit by a limited amount so that a few odd squares off in a corner don't need to be their own province. This is one of the areas where we will rely on playtesting a lot to fix the balance between reality and fun.

[Gary Thomas]

Perhaps the most immediate and significant duty of an ancient army was to destroy the economic basis of any enemy area they happened to occupy. So I would claim that the presence of an unopposed enemy force should have a pretty strong effect of the local economy. There were exceptions - in ancient Greece it was pretty difficult to devastate the land. Try cutting down 200 olive trees.

An actual battle in a 100 km² area would have, I believe, no effect on the economy.

The presence of an army, friendly or otherwise, would, depending on the size of the army, have a severe effect. This would be reduced by a depot system.

Cheers

[Yoav Sissman]

The effects of foraging on the economy could IMO be proportional to the size of the army (in men) and to the part of its supply requirements not supplied by SOs. I don't find it necessary to differentiate between friendly and hostile armies for that matter. Production will suffer, but not existing infrastructure.

The effects of combat can be proportional to the size of the smallest army (in elements?) and to the combined firepower of all combat units. The linear dependency on the smaller side is based on the assumption that when a large army fights a smaller one the battle might be shorter, and the bigger army might save some of its firepower or otherwise concentrate it on a small area. Firepower could be, for the sake of simplicity, the effective attack strength. Modern artillery should have vastly greater firepower then ancient club wielders.

When an army is ordered to inflict punishment on the economy (as was the case in the ancient world) then the effects should be severe, cutting production deeply. The amounts of infrastructure destroyed should probably be calculated in the infrastructure model, while the rest of this discussion should probably go in the military model...

[LDiCesare]

Yoav implies that we could have a "pillage/rampage" order for an army. That would be cool (e.g. that is what the Russians did to their own land when retreating in front of Napoleon, effectively screwing him and his lack of intendency). That would be more damage as what is dealt by a fight.

An actual battle in a 100 km2 area would have, I believe, no effect on the economy

That is about the size of Lorraine + Ardennes which were quite devastated by WWI (we still have people dying of unexploded shells or grenades, and recently discovered a cache of chemical weapons in a lake), the Ardennes woods are quite difficult to use because of all the bullets and other derelicts that are buried in the trunks...), so a long modern battle can have deep impact on the economy, beyond the supplies stuff.

The effects of foraging on the economy could IMO be proportional to the size of the army (in men) and to the part of its supply requirements not supplied by SOs

Seems good to me.

[Gary Thomas]

An actual battle in a 100 km² area would have, I believe, no effect on the economy.

I was speaking of the ancient era here.

Cheers

[Mark_Everson]

I will borrow here from others to make this fairly self-contained

Summary on Troop Movement/Battle effects upon economy:

1. Direct damage that occurs to econ due to a battle being fought
a. negligible during ancient battles so no effect in D6
b. for later ages (TBD, see suggestion below)

2. Damage to the economy due to provisioning of troops
Proportional to amount of food needed by troops not supplied by civ logistics capability. Loss is primarily goods such as food and mfg. goods. Perhaps add other effects such as people's ability to resist/hide foodstuffs. There could be incidental infrastructure damage. We could potentially include this in D5.1 or .2

3. Damage due to Pillaging by troops
a. that ordered by military -- depends on troop strength, firepower, and other factors. Depending upon specific orders, either goods, infrastructure or both could be destroyed.
b. happens without explicit orders due to undisciplined troops. Similar to (a) but could be triggered by specific events, and depend upon social connection if any between troops and people.

I think we shoud put in pillage orders fairly soon, and also an auto-pillage order, where an army would just rip up whatever belongs to the enemy that is nearby.

Implementing Damage to the economy due to provisioning of troops would be fairly trivial to implement right now. Troops would try to take from economy what they need to get to 100% supplies, I will try to work out a spec soon. Or someone else should feel free to suggest one.


1b details from Yoav:
The effects of combat can be proportional to the size of the smallest army (in elements?) and to the combined firepower of all combat units. The linear dependency on the smaller side is based on the assumption that when a large army fights a smaller one the battle might be shorter, and the bigger army might save some of its firepower or otherwise concentrate it on a small area. Firepower could be, for the sake of simplicity, the effective attack strength.

[Gary Thomas]

In the ancient era there would typically be around 4-20 kingdoms in a square (outside of the great empires, that is). It was not uncommon for the entire population of a losing kingdom to be transplanted to some other area - usually an area that had been depopulated by some other battle, or to a fragile frontier area. There isn't much evidence to show that the tranplanted people resented the fact much or effectively.

So, at some point this should be allowed for.

The devastation caused by modern battles was not caused by a single battle (that is, combat in a single turn). It was caused by continued battle, which essentially made the area uninhabitable for a civilian population. So I would suggest that the damage should be a cumulative effect, as the battle is extended to more than one turn.

In the ancient era, true devastation was achieved by the same area being worked over each year for sometimes up to a hundred years.

Italy itself was nearly depopulated by this means at the end of the Roman era. In particular, Lombardy and the Balkans really took a pounding.

Cheers

[Yoav Sissman]

I'll try and suggest some further specification according to Mark's indexing.

1. Direct damage that occurs to econ due to a battle being fought

Gary:

The devastation caused by modern battles was not caused by a single battle (that is, combat in a single turn). It was caused by continued battle, which essentially made the area uninhabitable for a civilian population. So I would suggest that the damage should be a cumulative effect, as the battle is extended to more than one turn.

The best solution I see is to calculate losses from combat independently for each turn, so more and more infrastructure will be destroyed as the battle rages on.

Since we are talking about collateral damage it can be proportional to the amount of infrastructure that exists in the map square (or in the segment fought on, which may or may not be a city/town).

We can consider lowering the damages being dealt from every round of combat after the first one (and until the area is pacified for a while), assuming that the experienced people take measures to protect their property.

Mark:

2. Damage to the economy due to provisioning of troops
Proportional to amount of food needed by troops not supplied by civ logistics capability. Loss is primarily goods such as food and mfg. goods. Perhaps add other effects such as people's ability to resist/hide foodstuffs. There could be incidental infrastructure damage. We could potentially include this in D5.1 or .2

Implementing Damage to the economy due to provisioning of troops would be fairly trivial to implement right now. Troops would try to take from economy what they need to get to 100% supplies, I will try to work out a spec soon. Or someone else should feel free to suggest one.

I agree that the army should try and take whatever it is that they need and can be found in its surroundings. Specifically those could be food, consumed goods, housing, transportation, and military infrastructure (all taken from the infrastructure model). Any unit of infrastructure under army control will have no maintenance cost (beside the efforts being put into it by the army, which reduce its effectiveness) but will have its decay rate increased (quadrupled?).

Only AGs or units at port can forage. Other TFs won't inflict economic penalties from foraging but will be more severely handicapped or damaged without supplies.

If we want to make the supply system realistic then the need for supply types will depend on various factors. FE the amount of food and housing required should be greater for man based and mounted units then it is for GCV, and the housing requirements would vary with the climate.

3. Damage due to Pillaging by troops

Besides regular pillaging the army could be ordered to ethnically cleanse one or more EGs from a region or to genocide them unless they flee on time, and that will have some effect on the economy as well.

[Yoav Sissman]

Me:

The effects of combat can be proportional to the size of the smallest army (in elements?) and to the combined firepower of all combat units. The linear dependency on the smaller side is based on the assumption that when a large army fights a smaller one the battle might be shorter, and the bigger army might save some of its firepower or otherwise concentrate it on a small area. Firepower could be, for the sake of simplicity, the effective attack strength.

Maybe it's obvious, but I have a correction. The effects are of course proportional to the RELATIVE SIZE of the the smaller army, not its absolute size.

As in: destruction = constant * #_elements_in_small_army / #_elements_in_large_army * comulative_firerpower

[Gary Thomas]

To change the subject to something equally off-topic.

Where do you build roads?

Mark is busy (I hope) writing the code to enable road-building.

I am about to write the code to actually plan and build the roads.

So, I use the pathfinding algorithm to establish the route. Unfortunately the pathfinding algorithm requires a unit whose movement abilities are used to establish the quickest route. So, what unit do I use for planning a road? I am expecting to use a foot unit - things that are difficult for infantry will also be difficult for road- builders. So hills are hard, but forests are easy. mountains are awful.

Does that sound reasonable?

Cheers

[Mark_Everson]

Yoav:

I admit I wasn't worried about your specific mathematical expression as much as your comment having the right factors in it. Since this part isn't relevant to ancient warfare, I wasn't going to say much about it until the conding gets into the modern world

Gary:

The road building stuff is not polished but its usable right now. If you put in orders for "Road Building" they are executed and automatically sent to the CivEconomy. I just found out I didn't put in a getter for road building points available. I have put that in, and will send you the new source shortly.

Your approach to building roads sounds good to me.