Using Military Units Like Rounds of Ammunition

polypheus · June 29, 2001, 23:00

In the Civ1/Civ2, each military unit was supported by surplus shields from a particular city. This idea of support was stupid anyway but it did have the rather bizarre effect of actually sometimes wanting to kill off units in order to free up shields!

Now so far we know that Civ3's military will be supported by the national treasury. But I can imagine that similar suicide raids might be performed to free up money which is also kind of stupid.

Sometime should be done so that people can't get away from using military units like rounds of ammunition and having them slaughtered knowing that you can keep on producing more and more.

Several suggestions have been made in this regard.
1. Morale/War Sentiment - In this model, high casualty rates cause loss of morale and/or happiness so some care is taken to minimize casualties.

2. Population Loss when Military Unit is Built - Of course it can't be just one pop point per unit, but it a "tally" could be kept so that, say, every four units cost one pop point in a city maybe casualties rates start to matter.

Anyway, whatever feature is implemented, sometime ought to be done so that players can't treat the military units like rounds of ammunition. I can't recall that any nation was able to do this for too long, yet in Civ one could do these for 6000 years continuously!

Sabre2th · June 29, 2001, 23:37

I think you're making a big deal out of nothing. Civ 3 is a GAME. The realism has to stop somewhere......

Rasputin · June 30, 2001, 01:49

hmm troops used as ammo seems to me to have a lot of realsim, look at how in the past the troops were sent in mindlessly by the generals with out reagard for losses of personnel, all they cared about was winnnig or losin g the war, not lives...

only seems in modern warfare that we care about the boys coming back home enough ...

Sabre2th · June 30, 2001, 02:51

I think poly means that you seem to have an unlimited supply of units in civ.

Ralf · June 30, 2001, 02:52

Quote:

Originally posted by polypheus
Now so far we know that Civ3's military will be supported by the national treasury. But I can imagine that similar suicide raids might be performed to free up money which is also kind of stupid.

In our real world the military actually cost money, and if you downsize the military-budget, money is going to be free up. And since units doesnt detract any pop-points, you can easily look at these "suicide raids" as peaceful disarmements instead.

Quote:

Sometime should be done so that people can't get away from using military units like rounds of ammunition and having them slaughtered knowing that you can keep on producing more and more.

Well, you have a point here - especially the AI in Civ-2 was way too wasteful then it came to fruitless non-moveable trench-style warfare. Easy to control border-quarrels (repetitve one AI-unit potshot-attempts) and mindless coastal city-bashing with AI-wessels (which always costed the AI-civ in question much more, then it ever costed me). The AI must be much more "strong punch blitz-krieg" aware in Civ-3.

Quote:

Several suggestions have been made in this regard.
1. Morale/War Sentiment - In this model, high casualty rates cause loss of morale and/or happiness so some care is taken to minimize casualties.

Yes, something like that could be implemented - but only affecting you at long protracted wars with lots of losses. I want it as an high-to-ceiling upper limit, in order to deter obvious misuse - not something that affects you immediately from your very first killed combat-unit.

Quote:

2. Population Loss when Military Unit is Built - Of course it can't be just one pop point per unit, but it a "tally" could be kept so that, say, every four units cost one pop point in a city maybe casualties rates start to matter.

I prefer the "war-sentiment" model. No city-pop detraction for combat-units.

Urban Ranger · June 30, 2001, 08:44

Ehhh, no. When you disband units in a city you get production points back, which is a good thing.

Quartz Dragon · June 30, 2001, 11:05

Unit losses due to combat should cause unhappiness. But if deliberatly disbanded, unhappiness should not occure (in fact it could help the happiness rating)

A good example of empire wide military support is in MOO2.

Sabre2th · June 30, 2001, 11:19

Large happiness penalties should only occur if there are heavy losses, or if your civ is constantly at war. A few scattered losses should not have too significant a penalty

Ralf · June 30, 2001, 11:38

Quote:

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Ehhh, no. When you disband units in a city you get production points back, which is a good thing.

Good point! That slipped my mind. If I remember it correctly, you only got half the amount of shields back, but nevertheless...

TechWins · June 30, 2001, 16:30

Quote:

Anyway, whatever feature is implemented, sometime ought to be done so that players can't treat the military units like rounds of ammunition

I guess suicide bombers are just fictional. That's news to me.

June 30, 2001, 19:44

Quote:

Originally posted by Sabre2th
I think you're making a big deal out of nothing. Civ 3 is a GAME. The realism has to stop somewhere......

A very good post. My thought to.

KrazyHorse · June 30, 2001, 19:59

I've agreed with this in other threads, and I'll agree again. The loss of a military unit should affect the happiness of your civ. Fighting a suicidal war should be punished. I know that this is unpopular with the wargamer crowd out there, but Civ is not meant to be played as a wargame.

Quartz Dragon · July 2, 2001, 14:17

Quote:

Originally posted by TechWins
I guess suicide bombers are just fictional. That's news to me.

Good point.

Suicide units could be a cultrual trait (certain cultures not penalized for unit loss).

SerapisIV · July 2, 2001, 15:16

[sarcasm] Yaay...more racist unique civ attributes that have nothing to do with how your game and the civs within it develop[/sarcasm]

- Groucho - · July 2, 2001, 21:12

Quote:

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
I've agreed with this in other threads, and I'll agree again. The loss of a military unit should affect the happiness of your civ. Fighting a suicidal war should be punished. I know that this is unpopular with the wargamer crowd out there, but Civ is not meant to be played as a wargame.

Don't you think you're being a little ethnocentric? There are plenty of civilizations, historically and currently who had/have no problems with death for the cause. Dulce et decorum este pro patria mori! Kamikaze! Allah Akkbar!

Civ is not meant to be reflective of only one culture, either.

Rasputin · July 2, 2001, 21:18

Those civilisatons that are ok with suicide missions usually have a non demoratic form of government, so the appropaite way to deal with this is via the government choices in civ 3... Make it harder to control the populace in democracy if you are using your military in suicide missions.. Under fundamentalism , you can send kamikaze missions as much as you wish

eNo · July 3, 2001, 08:13

Well the Kamekaze were more of a last ditch effort to turn the tide of a war right? I don't think they were that willing to give up their lives for their emperor.

Urban Ranger has a point, there is incentive to bring the units back to disband for production. Probably a more effective use of you're units since you would only be getting rid of you're units if they were outdated (in which case their attacks would do squat) or you're at peace (in which case attacking would pull you back into war).

Kropotkin · July 3, 2001, 08:31

Some historical cultures do not take death as such as a defeat as stated above.

Nevertheless, getting a division slaughtered in a godforsaken moutain range on the other side of the continent for no other real reason than that the great leader feels they are causing a logistic problem won't exactly raise moral in the units homecity even if they are all very religious.

That is, If the troops are not mercenaries...

colossus · July 4, 2001, 04:53

Somebody suggested that peacefully discharged soldiers don't cause unhappiness, uhmm...interesting view.

Discharging soldiers, especially veterans, are always hazardous tasks. Augustus had to empty his treasury and provide ample land to settle for his civil war veterans. Russian soldiers was agitating for reform after the Napoleonic War. And soldiers discharged from Vietnam War had been causing social troubles in the US.

The truth is, soldiers cause unhappiness when they are in being, more unhappiness when discharged, dangerous when victorious(politically overpowerful), and even more unhappiness if defeated.

Urban Ranger · July 6, 2001, 06:12

What Lao Tzu said

Quote:

Armies are dangerous and pernicious. A gentleman will only resort to them if presented with no other reasonable recourses.

Krop,

While it is indeed true that some cultures didn't treat death as defeat, I don't think there's one of them included in the game.

Kropotkin · July 6, 2001, 12:16

I didn't mean that it is/will be so in the game. Just commenting some ideas in the thread about kamikaze-missions, Jihad etc

Quartz Dragon · July 10, 2001, 13:55

Quote:

Originally posted by Rasputin
Those civilisatons that are ok with suicide missions usually have a non demoratic form of government, so the appropaite way to deal with this is via the government choices in civ 3... Make it harder to control the populace in democracy if you are using your military in suicide missions.. Under fundamentalism , you can send kamikaze missions as much as you wish

This is what I meant, not civ specific.

korn469 · July 10, 2001, 14:18

two things in civ can cut down on using military units like rounds of ammo...

multiple levels of morale like in SMAC

the other thing is special resources, most military units will need special resources, and all modern military units will need a variety of special resources before you can build them...so if these resources are scare it would make military units more valuable and you'd be less likely to throw them away

SerapisIV · July 10, 2001, 14:54

Quote:

Originally posted by korn469
the other thing is special resources, most military units will need special resources, and all modern military units will need a variety of special resources before you can build them...so if these resources are scare it would make military units more valuable and you'd be less likely to throw them away

I like the idea, but a problem with this is how Firaxis will be handling special resources. How many resource squares are needed for certain production? Do they get used up? That kind of thing. From what I gather of the Firaxis info its only important that your civ has acces to a resource, its quantity is not measured.

Now this is definitely not completely true as the diplomacy screenshot shows 1/3 of a resource available. Not sure yet what each resource quantity represents or effects. Does each legion being produced require one iron resource? Is it limited in this way, or is simple access to the iron enough to allow production? Still a lot of unanswered questions about how resources will effect gameplay.

Admiral PJ · July 10, 2001, 15:17

I think democracy and maybe Repub. should give you penalties for wanton use of cannonfodder troops, the others like Fascism , Monarchy etc shouldn't cause any problems with this.
Penalties could be 1 unhappy person in their home city for 5 turns maybe resultin in the government falling , score penalties, maybe a reduction in reputation, finally a lowering of Civility culture as your heading towards a more barbaric society.

I picture this as like what the japanese really did in WW2 , using kamikaze planes, and not looking after their trroops well, making them expendable.. as their fascist government supressed freedom of speech and protests.

It would be nice to have simulated popular and unpopular wars too.. like the Vietnam war, perhaps my system would work with this, basically if your troops are dying and your losing a war people will get unhappy and revolt.