Design: Logistics (Abstract)

[Ekmek]

I'm adding a new thread so not to clutter the altered movements thread.

Some suggestions for llogistics have ben
1) Someone implement supply wagon like in RoN (AI prob?)
2) Have unit ranges like aircraft (but AI hasnt handled planes yet)
3) MrBaggins a long time ago suggested adding Gold/PW/food costs per turn for units (generally accepted by forum members)

the ideas I posted below relate to movement points and left over pointsrelations to the altered movement thread...


perhaps left over movement points can be:
added to the strength bar (healing)
OR a slight reduction in logistic (food/gold/PW) cost for that turn
OR add to morale (if implemented) if attacked on the next turn....

I prefer the logistic impact in relation to movement points because it goes the "Empire" view. That way your treasury can calculate how much military you can move a turn as opposed to uits being able to move all the time.
This would mean logistics would be abstracted in two ways:
1) basic upkeep maintenance (food/gold/PW)
2) movement cost (not just move points but possibly PW/food/Gold as well to abstractly represent the supply wagons that are supporting the movement)

So as an example if you try to move a cav unit over a hill with a 1.4 movement cost, that factor is mltiplied to the maintenance cost (or a present unit move cost) that subtracts fod/gold/pw for the movement. Since the Cav can only move two spaces per turn that represents my range concept. On top of that the farther you move on exterior lines of communication the greater the cost of NOT maintenance (like I previously recommended) but of movement so it would a multiplication of:

terrain move cost * tile distance * unit move points * PW/GOld/food cost for movement (or maintenance if people want to make that the standard since supply varies with unit)

My math may be off, but I think the concept can be handled fairly well by the AI since its basically movement. But it make require the "AI" to plan a stack of death attack or prioritize if its resources go to War or Peace. That may have to go into Goals text.

Overall I think it could be a positive implementation to represent logistics abstractly and curtail "excessive" militaristic growth.

*****************
Gilgamesh:
perhaps left over movement points can be:
1. added to the strength bar (healing)
2.OR a slight reduction in logistic (food/gold/PW) cost for that turn
3.OR add to morale (if implemented) if attacked on the next turn....



Actually why not all?

If 1 is full, add to 3 and then decrease 2. Which would be 'logical'.

Adding strength, would just mean getting support and re-inforcement. Due to this the overall moral would increase as well, as the troop can recover. And when those 'tasks' are finished, the logistics can decrease as they don't need the full support anymore.

BUT:
It would be needed to be limited to a certain extend, if outside of a town/fort or similar. My suggestion would be a max. of 30% of the current value, which would mean that a fortified can only recover 30% of it's current health (same for moral and support).



Actually for the maintance cost, me thinks, the calculation shall be as of there was road (normal), but with a slower movement-rate, like 2.5 instead of 3.
BUT: It shall be calculated from the closest existing normal 'road'-system including RR and mag-tube. The only problem I see for this would be the AI implementing it on long distance.

BUT: What about cross-water invasions? As you can't build till REALLY late anything across water

EDIT:
Maybe we shall create for this a new TI? Like support harbour? You would have to build one on your home-place and one across. You could even build it on the same continent. If for example a huge mountain range would be between you and the AI (or visa versa), you could assume that supply would go rather by ship.

Cost for the TI, shall include PW/gold/food. Not sure, if we could program, that this would expire (meaning to calculate every turn how much would be left). Like 1000PW/500gold/1000food: The army would be using 200/100/200 every turn, so after 5 turns you would have to build a new one. (or rather just subtract it directly [again] from the empire)

[Gen.Dragolen]

E,

If you are looking for input, here's what I feel should happen to give the feel of what happens in real life:
1. Units have a 'range' based on turns to live (or their initial provisions)
2. Units will suffer decreased movement and lower combat strength as they use up their supplies.
3. Lines of Supply can only be setup where there are no enemy units, since they are a choice military target.
4. Supply units can bring a unit back up to strength quickly
5. Supply depots can be setup in remote locations


Now to piece this together for usability in the game...

See next post for details.


D.

[Gen.Dragolen]

Con't:

Now to flesh it out to something realistic and workable in CTP2 terms.

The costs of supply

In ancient times, Sun Tzu said it would cost 1000 pieces of silver a day to field an army of 100,000 men. So we already have the unit maintenance costs taking that into account. So that leaves the food needed to feed an army and the repair of battle damage.

'An army travels on it stomach'
Corny but true. Having been in the field, you burn huge numbers of calories in combat. In historical times, the King of France ceded Normandy to the Vikings because the armies that he was sending into the field were causing famines since they would strip the country side of food.

Unit Food Costs
We need a food cost for the unit(s). I think any units in garrison should be allowed to draw off the city they are in, while units in the field would draw off the country side and any nearby supply depots. Another problem is with inflation: if the army is buying up all the food stuffs in an area, the cost goes up as the supply gets used up. The longer the unit is in the area, the greater the cost in gold or silver to keep it there. For the game, I think an increasing unit maintenance cost would be the way to handle it. The longer a unit is around in the field the more it costs. After so many turns, the city starts to loose food each turn.


D.

[Gen.Dragolen]

Fast forwarding to the modern era, the needs increase to include ammunition and petrol. This is where logistics are the most critical feature of combat. Units will run out of fuel and ammo long before food becomes a problem. Even in Iraq, units were forced to wait for the logistics units to resupply them before they could continue the advance.

This is where supply depots in forward areas would allow you to keep units in supply. If they travel too far from it, their movement and combat strength should go down. The loss should be significant too. Patton ran out of fuel in Normandy and it caused significant casualties. We would need supply units to go with an army to keep a supply line open.

This could be done similar to either caravans or more ambitiously as a seperate unit. The unit would be able to supply so many other units within a 1 square radius. This can apply to naval units at sea as well. In most military board games, you need to be able to trace a clear line back to your side of the board to be considered to be 'in supply'

Since I don't think that we would need to write huge amount of code to have the AI check if a unit is near a supply unit or a depot and if not, to adjust the combat values as if the status was set to peacetime or On Alert.

What this should do is make the AI consider taking towns just for the supply values as a serious strategic concern. And it should make for some very significant efforts to make an amphibious invasion. If a unit is allowed to strangle to death, there should be a morale penalty for the civ. Add one unhappy citizen unit for 10 turns or so ? It makes the decision to go to war with out preparing a really bad idea.

And I forgot to mention a special unit ability: living off the land. In many cases, many groups have been very successful at living off the land when going on very long marches. Some of the units that spring to mind are the Tartars and Mongols, North American Natives, and many guerilla movements. They might be made immune to the effects of being out of supply.

Now how to setup all of this. I haven't looked at the SLIC in about 2 years so any suggestions about what to check, and what would we have to do to the source code ?


D.

[J Bytheway]

Now that I think about it some more I think I quite like the idea of variable maintainance based on movement - so a unit who stands still in a city will cost little to maintain, but a unit far from the nearest city or racing quickly across the map will use up more. Certainly the AI for this would be simpler than simpler than for anythin involving supply wagons. Rather than have separate supply depot tile imps, I think it would be easier to simply use fortresses to represent supply depots - they certainly served as such in the past.

[Ekmek]

I think the movement-maintenance cost would work not only for land but for naval as well. Just ships might have a lighter cost and even transporting units could be accounted no different than land travel since you have to supply for the trip. It will also be assumed that the ship will be designed to carry the required supplies (based on load class and capacity)

Also, If we do implement this concept, it would be nice that to add a a diplomatic option for military assistance so the supply cost is reduced if you are supporting an ally or near allied territory. So I guess the game would have to recalculate spaces if an alliance is effect and compare to friendly uninterrupted lines and find the shortest route.

[J Bytheway]

For naval units things like the fact that you can make nuclear-powered versions which need no fuel (at least, only need fuel every few centuries) springs to mind - it could introduce an interesting new ability for carriers and subs. IIRC the nuclear carriers actually do carry lots of fuel to refuel all the other ships in the carrier group - that provides us with a floating analogue of a supply depot.

[Gilgamensch]

sorry if I have to :Rant: again:

Sounds all nice, but me thinks, those are even harder to implement them for the AI.

Me thinks that for us, only an abstract model might work. Abstract isn't such a big deal for the AI (seems at least).

What this should do is make the AI consider taking towns just for the supply values as a serious strategic concern. And it should make for some very significant efforts to make an amphibious invasion.

AFAIR still unresolved.

living off the land

This might have been an option with small armies, but like mentioned in another thread, you can hardly do it with a 200k+ army...........

Also, If we do implement this concept, it would be nice that to add a a diplomatic option for military assistance so the supply cost is reduced if you are supporting an ally or near allied territory. So I guess the game would have to recalculate spaces if an alliance is effect and compare to friendly uninterrupted lines and find the shortest route.

THAT IS A BRILLIANT IDEA, but the AI needs to be improved for it...........If we get it working an the AI is being convienced to change sides, could mean a big problem for those warmongers. That would make allies far more important.

BUT shall this empire pay part of the upkeep cost or just count as a support-point, like your own cities? I would not like to see those sharing the burden, unless again via a separate treaty, which shall be hard to aquire, as you could use it as a way to bring your foe as well as your friends down

[Ekmek]

Is there anyone with experience on SLIC or code that can judge how tough it would be to make movement cost PW/gold/food?

[Gilgamensch]

For completness:

Actually it wouldn't be a bad idea, but then we would have to have it also in the support-cost, BUT only for damaged units. It would be rather a question of balancing. It might be interresting to have it in. It WILL make warmongering far harder.

One thing which went through my head:

The number of people returned from an army could depend on your war-status. If it has been peace for ~10 turns and you are not at war with somebody, you would get 80% back, if at war (any) you would only get 15% back.

[Gen.Dragolen]

Gilgamensch,

I agree that making a pw/food/gold cost would be a good thing. Units already have the pw cost, so it would mean adding the other two parts.

This would make it more of a challenge for the AI to decide which units to build. I'll take a look at the SLC's and see if there is anyway to just add it to the costs.

One thing occured to me that we need to add is the effect on happiness from having large numbers of troops in the field. For all government types, pulling a large number of adults into the military should carry a happiness penalty that depends on the government type. Call it a basic war weariness level, and when units are lost in combat, then the usual war weariness should kick in. CTP had that and it was a real annoyance when you got to the industrial age to see the only cities that could build ironclads going into rioting when the fleet was at sea...

As for the impact of disbanding units, we really need to make units have a population cost so that they add the surviving bodies back to the population. I don't think that it should depend on the military status.

And the idea of military assistance is a beautiful idea. You should be able to send pw/food/gold like you would a trade deal. I wonder if we could go one further and build mercenary units to send to another civ ?


D.

[Gilgamensch]

Originally posted by Gen.Dragolen
Gilgamensch,

I agree that making a pw/food/gold cost would be a good thing. Units already have the pw cost, so it would mean adding the other two parts.

It is actually not PW, but production. So it would be a slight change.

This would make it more of a challenge for the AI to decide which units to build. I'll take a look at the SLC's and see if there is anyway to just add it to the costs.

This is something we have to make sure that the AI can handle.

As for the impact of disbanding units, we really need to make units have a population cost so that they add the surviving bodies back to the population. I don't think that it should depend on the military status.

I know we had another thread about it but can't see anymore??????

And the idea of military assistance is a beautiful idea. You should be able to send pw/food/gold like you would a trade deal. I wonder if we could go one further and build mercenary units to send to another civ ?

The principle of trading units (or better to say giving them away) would be nice to see implemented (again).

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by Gilgamensch
I know we had another thread about it but can't see anymore??????

That was the "Modelling population" thread:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=111554

[Gilgamensch]

Thanks J,

I wanted to post the link as cross-reference, but couldn't find it anymore.........to many threads at the same time and bad memory

[Locutus]

I like the idea of movement costing gold with a dependence on distance from home Gold is pretty useless as it is, it doesn't demand anything from the AI (aside from maintaining a decent gold income, but that's usually not a problem), it's simple and intuitive to use, it will hinder unlimited warmongering and force players to maintain a more balanced economy. It also opens a few interesting diplomatic options.

Gilg,
Working on Saturdays now or did you finally get a connection at home?