Thread Tools
Old August 19, 2000, 14:40   #1
Rashid
Settler
 
Local Time: 00:26
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Aug 2000
Location: New York, NY
Posts: 2
Supply for military units
I haven’t been keeping up with all the threads lately, and I haven’t played any of the games that have appeared since Civ II, so I’m sorry if an idea like this has already been suggested, or if something similar has already appeared in another game.

This is the basic idea: At the beginning of each turn, the computer calculates the distance (in movement points) from each unit to that unit’s source of supply (more on that in a minute), including the square occupied by the unit, and then reduces the unit’s strength bar by some function of that distance.

It should be possible for the programmers to use the same algorithm for tracing supply as is used for the GoTo command, except that the line of supply could not pass through or next to an enemy unit, so I don’t imagine it would be too hard to code.

The player doesn’t have to do anything or keep track of anything at all, and he sees the effects immediately before he starts doing anything.

For example, at the lowest level of technology a unit within two movement points of its source of supply might lose no strength at all, while one more than ten movement points away might lose half of its strength. The discovery of certain technologies might be allowed to affect the calculations (e.g. the discovery of the internal combustion engine means that trucks can be used to haul supplies so more distant units will be easier to supply and will lose less strength). Ideally, there would be a random factor included so that there would be no incentive for the players to waste time micromanaging exact distances, and there would also be a global factor for scenario designers to change the scale for different-sized maps.

Lack of supply can kill: if a unit is already at half strength, then losing half its strength for being too far away from a source of supply would kill it.

Each unit would need an extra factor to measure its reliance on sources of supply. Infantry will be weakened at a slower rate than armor, for example, because armor needs all that gasoline to keep going, and maybe partisans will lose strength only very slowly, because they can live off the land. Triremes should weaken very very quickly, sailing ships like frigates very slowly, coal-burning ships much more quickly than frigates, oil-burning ships more slowly than coal-burning ones, and nuclear ships very slowly again. Air units would also lose strength very quickly. Explorers would not need supply. And so on.

Naval units (and land units being transported by naval units) would be handled slightly differently from land units. It doesn’t make much sense to trace a line of supply for them, so each turn that a naval unit starts at sea it would be weakened by a set amount. If it starts the turn in a port then it will not be weakened. If all damage can be repaired in a naval base in a single turn, then naval bases will be the best places to resupply, but ships can still resupply in normal ports through the normal process of repairing themselves.

I haven’t really thought through the issues with air units yet.

I think there are at least two advantages to including supply. First, it would help keep players from expanding too quickly in the early parts of the game especially, and it would make exploration-related technology more meaningful by preventing regular land units from wandering freely all over the map. As things are, it is too easy to send armies wandering halfway across the continent.

Second, it will encourage more realistic strategies. Because distance is calculated in movement points, a unit that is six grasslands squares away from its source of supply would suffer the same strength loss as a unit that is two mountain squares or eighteen road squares away. This will force you to consider your lines of communication while attacking, and also allow you to rely on natural terrain while defending. For example, you couldn’t just send an army marching across the middle of the Himalayas or the Alps anymore without building a road at least for supplying them, and you wouldn’t have to garrison every inch of your borders if part of it was impenetrable swamp or jungle. Also, this would allow some creative tactics, like outflanking an enemy army (or dropping paratroopers behind it to cut a road) to put it out of supply.

As long as the player doesn’t have to keep track of anything, I don’t think there would be any serious disadvantages (but perhaps you all can enlighten me on this!).

Other details:

What counts as a source of supply will depend on what other decisions the designers make about supporting units. If there are home cities, it would be the home city; if it is civilization-level, it might be the nearest friendly city.

Personally, I am in favor of regional-level or civilization-level support for units, but I think you should have to work up to it. Early in the game, at the monarchy or republic level, each unit should have to trace supply to its home city. This would make it more of a challenge to concentrate a large army, which is realistic considering the weakness of central governments in early times. At a certain level of development, roughly around the eighteenth century in historical terms, but in game terms keyed to some appropriate technology, it might become possible to build a new city improvement known as the supply depot. This should be cheap to build but expensive to maintain so that players will choose carefully where to put them; on the other hand, it should be cheaper to support a unit through a supply depot than through a home city (thanks to the added efficiency of centralization and specialization) so that players have an incentive to build at least a few supply depots and stop using home cities. (You might want to keep using home cities for isolated garrisons, though, where it is not worthwhile to build a supply depot.) At this point you could designate a unit’s home city as "civilization" and that unit would trace its supply to the nearest supply depot thereafter. Perhaps each supply depot would only be able to draw upon the resources of the other cities that are within a certain distance of it (in movement points) so that each supply depot represented something similar to one region; this would have the advantage of allowing the player to define the regions in his civilization however he wanted to. There are a number of possibilities that the basic concept could accommodate.

There could also be a new kind of unit, the supply unit, which could come in several different versions: a slow land unit ("wagon"?) for ancient to early modern times, a faster land unit ("truck"?) for modern times, and a ship ("collier"/"oiler"?) also for modern times. If a supply unit is stacked with another unit or units that should lose strength due to a shortage of supply, the supply unit loses the strength instead. The supply unit might lose so much strength that it disappears (gets used up, in other words), or it might survive long enough to get repaired (load up with more supplies, in other words). Supply units would still make it possible to make amphibious landings far from any friendly supply source, for example. Supply units should be expensive and rare so that players don’t feel tempted to keep a lot of them running around; perhaps each one could cost ten times the cost of an average unit and be able to take ten times as much losses in supplies (though not in combat damage! simply divide the strength loss by 10 before applying it to the supply unit if it is taken during the supply check?).

One other possibility that came to mind is that a unit in an irrigated square would "live off the land" instead of losing strength due to lack of supply: the irrigation would disappear and the unit would not lose any strength. This would happen before any movement took place, so it would not be a normal "pillage" event, and the unit could still move normally during its turn.
Rashid is offline  
Old August 21, 2000, 09:49   #2
Adm.Naismith
King
 
Adm.Naismith's Avatar
 
Local Time: 01:26
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: Milano - Italy
Posts: 1,674
Supply chaim has been an hot argument some times ago.
I always had some doubt: I loved Battle Isle 2 (a Blue Bytes'wargame) for its use of supply units, but that was on tactical level.

On a Civ game it will introduce more micromanagement, because as for your model, you can't risk to lose half of your power because of a wrong guess on supply distance.

So, any player must start to compute exact distance before any unit movement, and this will be a nightmare.

I see that some part of your model (to damage units running into unknow, unfriendly territories) resemble one my past proposal, so I agree with that point .

That said, you should perhaps modify your model:
- tuning down damage received every turn out of resupply (50% is really too much)
- adding an option of automatic "go back to nearest resupply line" as actually done with fighters plane (going right to the nearest city or airbase to avoid crash and burn at the end of turn). You can still force to ignore it, taking the damage (e.g. you plan to conquer in a short time a new city, to gain a new resupply point).
- adding a graphic mode to show the supply range limit for every unit, just before any move (no math to do by hand, just take a look, click and go)

I like your "resupply by pillage" idea. I agree it was quite common to use local resources to resupply at least food for troops and horses (may be some other resources too, as woods and stones, or gasoline in modern age).

To negate that supply was the main reason to burn everything during retreat, as in Russia during Napoleonic war.

AFAIK, pillaging small villages or not was also an important leader decision.
If I rememember correctly, someone as Alexander the Great chose not to pillage some people to gain more popular favour (less ready to revolt to you, in a "CIV III rise and fall of empire" model).

I'm not sure about your supply units concept: while it's interesting to see a unit that use itself till disappear, it will be another bunch of units to develop, build, move and mantain.

I vote to discard this, adding long range units via tech discover (i.e.new engines) or maybe using a "long range" in a Unit workshop special slot.

Maybe you can consider to use something different. At the start of a movement ouside a base you can have a default movement, but you can select from a "right click menu" from:
- long range, less weapon (e.g for bomber you gain that mission four more square for a 1 third reduction in attack point - fuel for bombs)
- long range, less cargo (e.g. transport ships can load only four units instead of six, gaining supply range - fuel for payload)
- long range, slow movement (e.g. tanks move only two square instead of three a turn - fuel for speed

Every mission choice define your actual "supply range", starting when you leave a base and last until you go back to any valid resupply point (own or ally city or military base).
During a fight normal movement rules apply.

Reading twice, all my proposed model is probably crap anyway, but I left it here to your opinion and critics: sometime a cheap piece of coal will end to be a diamond under right pressure

------------------
Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant
Adm.Naismith is offline  
Old August 22, 2000, 15:04   #3
Marcel I
Warlord
 
Local Time: 00:26
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Sep 1999
Location: Zaandam, Netherlands
Posts: 112
I think distance should play a role in supporting a unit.
However the way you calculate, it would hardly be possible to fight an offensive war. Attacking troops would always be damaged. Defensive troops always in full health with fortifying bonuses and all.
To counteract this effect, I think, it's better to include a radius around your city in which any of your units could move freely.
That radius would expand in time when technology advances, thus simulating better supply methods.
In that way it wouldn't be impossible to attack even your nearest enemies.
In this concept you could even build outposts / supply depots (settler function) to support your army.
To prevent using a single outpost to support huge armies in faraway countries, I suggest to limit the number of units to be supported by a single nearest city (or outpost) radius.
IMHO the unit shouldn't be supported by the city it was produced, but by the cities it is nearest to.
Just some thoughts I got when reading your posts


------------------
Adopt, Adapt and Improve
Marcel I is offline  
Old August 22, 2000, 15:06   #4
Marcel I
Warlord
 
Local Time: 00:26
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Sep 1999
Location: Zaandam, Netherlands
Posts: 112
oops double post
[This message has been edited by Marcel I (edited August 22, 2000).]
Marcel I is offline  
Old August 23, 2000, 08:22   #5
Sir Shiva
Guest
 
Posts: n/a
I like the idea..

But I agree with Marco in that 50% is too much..
Perhaps the unit could just lose morale in the beginning.. Then movement points.. And then life...

Also, the supply unit idea is a little weird.

In calculating supply, home city, nearby cities, allied cities, aircraft carriers, camps, fortifications and nearby terrain should be taken into account..

------------------
Get paid for every second you spend online at http://referral.jotter.com/join/bulk
Refer people (like what I'm doing) to earn even more. $50 a month is not uncommon.

-Shiva
Email: shiva@shivamail.com
Web: http://www.shivamail.com
ICQ: 17719980
 
Old August 23, 2000, 09:21   #6
Shadowstrike
Emperor
 
Shadowstrike's Avatar
 
Local Time: 19:26
Local Date: October 30, 2010
Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: The Glorious Land of Canada
Posts: 3,234
Maybe you could give a unit a special ability to reflect that it can be self-sufficent.. i.e. the Mongol calvary who rely on horses for nutrition.
Shadowstrike is offline  
Old August 23, 2000, 09:30   #7
Adm.Naismith
King
 
Adm.Naismith's Avatar
 
Local Time: 01:26
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: Milano - Italy
Posts: 1,674
Agreed Sir Shiva, as a supply base we can count on fortress (call it outpost, or base camp - built by settler/engineer or specially trained troops).

Proper unit support (production shields) still can come from home cities (or a national pool), but the fortress can realistically become also supply depots.
Under siege (no free way of supply to nearest friendly city) a fortess can delay the lost of morale/strenght (morale reduction first is a good idea, Sir Shiva).

Just for example: out of supply range unit (computed at the end of turn) will lost a morale/traineed level after one turn, and so on every turn until at veteran level (supposing veteran is just one step before the green or rokie level), then it will loss 20% of strength every turn until left with the last 20% of force (unit can't simply disappear, but become very weak).

Repairing unit if out of supply range is negated, too.

(BTW I don't agree to reduce the unit movement too, because slow units are slow enough )

If in supply range of a sieged fortress (inside of the sieged area, of course), you will have your troop morale down until the commando level (if you have some refuge, your morale will last higher), and after that only lose 10% strength every turn.

Model advantages (some already present in Rashid proposal)

- Fortress/outposts become more useful also in modern age
- Unlimited expansion will be slowed a bit
- Explorer units become more useful (aren't affected by supply range limit)
- road/railroad developement gain more use, while moving on bad terrain is more difficult
- Blitzkrieg tactics (isolate enemy troops by fast advance) can pay more benefit with modern, fast units.
- Alliance can pay more benefit (use ally cities as range extenders)
- Support model can be kept the same (home city based) or changed to regional/national level without problems

Micromanagement on computing range still must be limited, IMO, as by using my previus proposal as suggesting better one .

------------------
Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant
Adm.Naismith is offline  
Old August 24, 2000, 17:36   #8
SWPIGWANG The Second
Chieftain
 
Local Time: 00:26
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Aug 2000
Posts: 89
some one dig up the thread about the use about supply bar please....
SWPIGWANG The Second is offline  
 

Bookmarks

Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is On

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 20:26.


Design by Vjacheslav Trushkin, color scheme by ColorizeIt!.
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.2
Copyright ©2000 - 2010, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Apolyton Civilization Site | Copyright © The Apolyton Team