Possible last minute idea: Casualty totals for wars?

[monkspider]

Perhaps this has been suggested many, many times in the past and more elequently. Heck, maybe this is even already in the game ( ) but it is a little something I have always wanted to see in Civ.
I envision a system (nothing too fancy, mind you) which would simply record the total casualties for each side in a war. I'm talking actual lives, rather than units lost. In anchient times, say the Romans lost 30,000 men and the Japanese lost 20,000. In modern times Germany loses 10 million men and the Russians 20 million, and so forth. It would provide a sobering look at how terrible war really is, and you could sort of keep track of your worst wars ever for future references and so forth (oh, in this one game, I was the Babylonians and I was fighting China and Persia and I lost 100 million guys! It was crazy man!).
This would be a super-simple thing to add, really just an algorithm based on time periods or something like that to calculate how many men are represented by each unit. I say Firaxis ought to go ahead and implement this if they haven't yet.
Are you with me Apolyton?

[Skanky Burns]

More statistics in a game like this could only improve the gameplay experience!! I agree with you, Monkspider

[Simpleton]

Good idea!! That would be really cool. I don't think it would be too difficult. Would it? You would probably have to have the game make modern era wars have more casualties than ancient wars as this would more closely approximate what happened historically.
Just a thought. For realism sake you may have to factor in the loss of population to your civ when you build a unit with this type of a system. This may cause a lot of complaints from civ purists.

[Barshy]

GREAT idea.. definitely another minute element that takes 2 seconds to add but can richly add to the experience.

[Solver]

Yes, a great idea.
Stats make it interesting to play, and look what you had, like the Demography screen in Civ 1, almost the only stats those times.

[DonJoel]

Sounds cool. Nothing that changes gameplay but is only there for fun.

[jdd2007]

sounds good. i think we all give it

[Yog-Sothoth]

I have always liked statistics, so I think this would be a "nice" addition. If it don't mean having to do a total redesign og the demographic screen, it would be great to be able to put in custom statistics. This would be cool in scenario's, not that a have a clue what would be usefull to put there

[Asmodean]

Great idea...I'm with this one too.........

Asmodean

[Aries]

Good idea!
More statistics please!

[Executor]

I guess it could work by keeping track of all the units lost and multiplying each unit by a certain number, such as 1000. Every time a city lost a point of pop because of war it would also be added to the statistic.

[Earthling7]

A wonderful idea. I could back this.

I've always thought casualties should impact the civilian population as the soldiers are just recruited people, but that's another idea and more complicated. We like statistics!

[Kramsib]

I like the idea very much, but I wonder if it could provoque a lack of realism in some scenarios because of the difficulty adjusting it.

(I think it is very difficult to stimate how many people a unit can represents, and more difficult if you want to adjust a known number - the soldiers in the IIWW - with an unknown number - the units in an IIWW scenario -).

Thank you for your replying.

[Eli]

Agreed. Grat idea!

[JellyDonut]

Cool idea! How about this for an algorithm

c=casualties in war
p=population of civ
u=units killed in war
t=total number of units

c=p[0.2(u/t)]

Simple, no?

[Alfonsus72]

Totally agree.
Even I prefer to talk about 1,000 men instead of 10 HP.

[dainbramaged13]

GOod idea. im not sure about the algorithm tho jelly.. why do you hvae to incorporate total units into it? You already hvae population, no need for total units.. think of somehting else

[Inverse Icarus]

only 1,000 men Alf?

what kind of sissy war are you fighting!?

the Uber KruX "global purgings" kill no less than billions.

[Madine]

I would like this.

[Rommel393]

great idea

[Alfonsus72]

Originally posted by UberKruX
only 1,000 men Alf?

what kind of sissy war are you fighting!?

the Uber KruX "global purgings" kill no less than billions.

Allways guessed that civ scales was about 10,000 men per unit, but it´s hard to estimate, cause units are built and not recruited.
Anyway, in the real world, the only military organization that could be composed of only infantry, cavalry, arty or tanks is the REGIMENT (=1,000 men).
Consider that a submarine could have a crew of only 50 men.

[Inverse Icarus]

but cities can have billions, and can be DESTROYED now.

[Asesino_Virtual]

[Daoloth]

This is definitely a great idea. I always like references, and in Civ2 I always spent time trying to figure out how many men were in each unit...Regardless, this feature MUST be in the game

Here that Firaxis?

On a side note- I love that about Europa Universalis, it's so easy to reference how many have perished for your glory

[JellyDonut]

Originally posted by dainbramaged13
GOod idea. im not sure about the algorithm tho jelly.. why do you hvae to incorporate total units into it? You already hvae population, no need for total units.. think of somehting else

Makes sense to me...if you just have a border skirmish with an enemy and most of your units are resting in your cities, few people will be counted as dead in the war. If you overwhelmingly overpower your enemy, only losing four or five units, death tolls will similarly be lower. The total units variable is used to calculate (along with population) just how much a unit 'represents' in people.

[RAF]

[Sarxis]

Would be a nice touch.

[monkspider]

Wow, I'm pleased to see such an overwhelmingly positive response. Come on Firaxis, make it so! I think that seeing actual concrete numbers in front of you (man, I have lost 30,00 of my nation's brave young men already! i better sue for peace) would make diplomacy much more realistic.
Hopefully, if nothing else there will be a way to add something like this with an editor. Jelly Donut seems to have a good formula, even if it isn't 100% accurate and needs to be modified a little bit it shows you that this would be an extremely quick and simple (and extremely rewarding) thing for Firaxis to add at this, the 11th hour of Civ 3.
Thanks to this forum for it's support for my idea.

Firaxis, Make it so!

This goes right along with the whole 'replay' idea.

[monkspider]

(Firaxis must read this )