Improoved veteran status

[airdrik]

There are some critisisms I have about the current idea of 'veteran' status. For one thing a couple of turns a unit gains 'veteran' status, all the people from that unit are dismissed from active duity and replaced by new recruits who don't have the 'veteran' status yet. Another thing is, how do you gain 'veteran' status durring training at a barracks, after all, the barracks is only a training facility (idea: you can only build units in cities w/barracks? or not). What they could do is intoduce a 'trained' status, this would be virtually the same as 'veteran' status is now, except that any unit supported by a city with a barracks, or that is in a city with a barracks automatically gains 'trained' status after two turns (two turns in the city w/barracks, and/or two turns supported by a city w/ barracks, ex: a city supporting a unit in the feild just buildt a barracks, two turns later, the new recruits are out from the new barracks, replacing the old people in that unit, that unit recieves 'trained' status). Units built in a city w/ a barracks would still gain 'trained' status, and units that survived combat automatically recieve 'trained' status. If a unit w/'trained' status is not supported by a city w/barracks for more than two turns, then it looses this status (new recruits not trained in a barracks haven't been trained yet)

You could still have 'veteran' status which gives that unit an added bonus and is gained if a 'trained' unit has survived 2+ battles, but returns to 'trained' status after two turns.

time before or after attaining such status before it automatically changing is dependant on the demograph 'years of service.'

what about the experience levels in SMAC? there were more than only two levels but the model was generally the same as in civ2...

and what about my terrain model thread?

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[airdrik]

The thing here is that you loose 'veteran' status after a time(if you don't get involved in combat for that period of time), and you loose 'trained' status as well if you are not supported by a city w/barracks

[N35t0r]

maybe two kinds of troops, like warriors being able to be produced witout barracks. Knights also(?), not riflemen, etc

[airdrik]

I like that, good idea, though there should always be some unit you can build(though not a very good unit) without a barracks (militia, abilities go up w/new techs)

I doubt that knights can be produced without any military improvements... I mean... a knight unit has the same structural prerequisites as a warrior? sorry, but I think it would make more sense to consider the knight as oneof the most powerful military units of the mid ages

but warriors and peasant armies/light infantry are indeed supposed to require less strucures than more powerful unitsas knightsd or siege engines

that idea has been raised before I think, but it's goodthat you remind me of it!

[Adm.Naismith]

Airdrik, in some wargames, where fighting battle is the core of the game itself (e.g. Battle Isle 2, BI2 for friend ), a unit can gain experience level
a) spending time at training camp
b) winning a battle against enemy

In BI2 you can gain as much as 10 stars (levels) AFAIR

You can loose experience, too.

Because units usually has a strenght of 10, you loose experience every time you repair a damaged unit:
a unit damaged to a strenght of 4 can be repaired to full strenght of ten, but will lose till 6 stars of experience (rookies must lern hard lesson again).

A badly damaged unit can cost too much to repair (resources are needed, as a percentage of building cost), because will loose any experience anyway: better rebuild it from scratch.
Loosing experience by time passing wasn't a problem, because of shorter timescale (months, not years).

If you like this level of details, you can start from some like SMAC model of experience, raising experience easily (e.g. every time you defeat a unit not already less than 50% of your strenght) but adding a way to loose it also:

1) by long time passing without a fight (e.g. ten turns = one experience level lost)
2) by repairing process (e.g. every time your unit is repaired from less than half strength it loss 1 experience level)

Instead of disbanding unit you should merge two equal type stacked on same square, with a resulting experience level mix of the two (e.g. a 6/10 point strength unit experience 2/5 merge with a 5/10 strength unit experience 5/5 resulting in a 10 point strenght (rounded to 10 limit) 2*0.6 + 5*0,5 = experience 4 (rounded up).

Repairing the two units separately must result in
2-(0.5 loss experience*4 repaired points)=0 experience
5-(0.5 loss experience*5 repaired points)=3 experience
(rounded up)

Don't forget to compare this by resource (shield) cost of repairing unit (it must be included, for balancing), as fraction of unit cost of building.

Well, I don't check carefully the math, please correct me if I'm wrong

Disclaimer: I'm not sure all this is needed in a CIV game, but if you really want this level of detail in units management, it can be a good model to use.

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[Tical_2000]

I like these ideas about veteran status. Also, does anyone find it strange that you can produce gargantuan armies with no effect on your population. I mean, where are these soldiers coming from, a soldier tree? You should have to subtract a number of civilians for each military unit you make. This would add reality to war (The Soviet Union lost a horrendous amount of its population in Eastern Front fighting in WW2) and make war more like in real life- an undesireable situation in most cases.

[airdrik]

Good idea. If you wanted to make it even more complicated you could have each unit can gain different types of experience fighting different types of units and gains bonuses when fighting against that specific type of unit(a unit that always fights musketeer units would eventually be unbeatable by musketeer units, but if a dragoon unit comes alone, that unit is toast)
But this idea of gaining different levels of experience is way too complicated so forget I mentioned it .