Column #153; By MrFun

MrFun dispenses three reasons as to why military expenses should be absorbed by the empire as a whole and not individual cities in The Column's one-hundred and fifty-third installment entitled "Civilization III and Military Maintenance".

Comments/questiosn welcomed here, or you may opt to contact the author directly via email.

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Dan; Apolyton CS
[This message has been edited by DanQ (edited February 15, 2001).]

Civ3 Nigthmare Scenario:

(1) Units are supported by home city
(2) Terrain is improved by a herd of units
(3) Units queue up to attack
(4) AI is dumb
(5) Firaxis implements "features" (1)-(4) simultaneously.

When I think about it, half of the reason I did not like SMAC was that it had flaws (1)-(3). Things which seemed really bad after playing CTP. Right on, MrFun.

[Transcend]

quote: Originally posted by Mister Pleasant on 02-11-2001 04:24 AM (4) AI is dumb

It can't be more true for the CTP.

[Henrik]

Or it should atleast be an option to pay maintance in gold (atleast as for scenario makers)

[MrFun]

Thanks for putting my article on the site, Dan. One problem though - my article argues FOR nation-wide support of military, NOT for each city.

I really think we should stay with production and not gold for military support nation-wide. Otherwise, you would have to drmatically increase how much gold players can earn each turn.
[This message has been edited by MrFun (edited February 11, 2001).]

[Henrik]

yes but in a scenario you should be able to change the support into gold.

[net55]

For most of our history individual cities, areas did support raise and support its own armies. In fact the king relied heavily on local lords for support, many of the Lords having a mighty army than even the king. This was the case around the world right up to the 16th and 17th century.
So I don’t think a national military maintenance system before 16th century is called for or desirable.

[Henrik]

That changed in the thirty years war mind you. Armies started to plead aligience to the king and the state instead of the nobles (it didn't happen everywhere in europe true, but the countries that still did it the old way like Poland cucikly got turned into slaughterhouses.)

[The diplomat]

quote: Originally posted by MrFun on 02-11-2001 02:06 PM I really think we should stay with production and not gold for military support nation-wide. Otherwise, you would have to drmatically increase how much gold players can earn each turn. [This message has been edited by MrFun (edited February 11, 2001).]

Just make the gold support small enough like say 1 gold per 5 units or something. But the main advantage that I see in gold support is that it introduces the economy into war making. And this is something that is sorely lacking in civ games up to now. In civ games, Economies are not as important as they should be IMHO. One of the reasons that kings raised taxes was to support an army for an upcoming war. In ancient history, armies sacked and pillaged cities as another way of paying and supporting there armies. So, shield support is important but we should not neglect the economic price in keeping an army. One of the other benefits of this suggestion is that by making economies more important, it makes trade routes more important. Trade would bring in lots of gold that would help raise a larger army that possible from just taxes. Similarly, attacking an enemies' trade routes would hurt their war making abilities!



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No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.

[MrFun]

You do make some very convincing points, Diplomat.

And as for having individual cities accountable for military costs instead of the entire civilization just to be historically accurate - well, that is about the only aspect where I do NOT support keeping/changing a feature for the sake of historical accuracy.

Civilization-wide military cost system greatly increased the fun factor for me in Call to Power (not Call to Power II). Civilization II was far too restrictive in that each city could only support so many units.

Actually I think upkeep should both be in gold and shields, for instance a phalanx might have an upkeep of 1 gold... but a tank have 1 shield AND 1 gold... I agree economy should be important, but as armies rely more and more upon equipment, then shields should be required too.

As for city vs. nation paying for support, I am in favor of nationwide... but allowing cities to specify if they will contribute one, two, three or no shares. I don't want to tax the production of a fledling cities to support my armies, while I have major Industrial cities that can cover a larger portion.

It would be simple to implement, just one button that say "Military Support" that can be adjusted to "none, 1x, 2x or 3x".

What do you think?

[sleeperservice]

It should depend on form of goverment really.

In monarch or republic individual cities supported units.

But in democracy and fasism and any later democracy the units should be payed by the whole civ.

[Father Beast]

I also support your motion, mrfun. I liked how the maintenance costs came from te general fund in Master Of Orion.

[jdlessl]

[Deleted Post]

Never mind, answered my own question.

--
Jared Lessl
[This message has been edited by jdlessl (edited February 12, 2001).]

[The diplomat]

I agree that units should be suported by empire. I also have another request:

units should have maintenance cost in GOLD.

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No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.

[Grumbold]

I'm not convinced that military units were always supported locally prior to the 16th Century. I can think of as many examples where they were not as where they were. It is more a facet of tradition and government style than anything else. Even where it was largely true, taxes and plunder usually flowed to the ruler who then used it to raise/pay more troops when the local contingents were inadequate. The manpower may all have been trained from one region, but the food, leather, metal ore needed all imported from a second region and crafted into weapons and armour at a third. CtP also had a good idea in the military readiness approach but still made it pretty cheap to run a big army. If they can get a system working which makes war extremely expensive to wage but allows countries to go into debt then it could be a real winner.

[Adm.Naismith]

Yes, the cities (by the Noble treasure, i.e. tax, to be exact) supported army (gold was a relevant part of the cost, others resurces are often pillaged) in Middle Age.

If Regions will be added, Firaxis should shift "shield" support from individual City to Region.

For me the link to original "support" city must be changed into a population reduction (we must use different numbers for showing population level).
That's relevant because one of the main problem during long war was that a great part of workforce was mobilized in army, so food production become difficult.

Can't remember exactly the names, but I red some early wars where suspended because soldiers must go back to home to crop grain.

The large mobilization of men during last World War was one of the main reason female population gained a new place into production lines (factories, offices, etc.), and had the opportunity to show they are good enough to have SAME Human Rights than men.

German Industrialization developed lot of advances to cope with trained workforces reduction, and many weapons where studied to be produced with limited resources (humans also) more than to be the most technical and military effective.

Until a Future Tech will give us Unmanned Armies, Robot soldiers and the like, we must remember Units aren't simply "built" from raw resources.

And yes, I think this isn't a complex thing that add unnecessary micromgmt, as opposite I state that this is exactly the kind of things that is pertinent to the Civ strategic view of wars, more than a lot of combat detail that IMHO are on the tactical wargame zone.

You can grow your Civ in peace or extend it during war by conquest: you can't keep indefinitely a very large army without crushing your empire under its same weight.

On short my proposal:
- Units "cost" a fraction of Original city pop: if disbanded they add back to that pop, if killed they are lost (and city morale can be shattered if it happens often).
- Units Shield support can be Regional if Regions exist, National on the other way
- Units Gold support can be added if "conscription" is not allowed by goverment form: it should be regional or national as above.

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[Henrik]

The amount of money (if support will be in money) required for support (for all units (in the worst case) or for every individual unit (in the best case)) should be customizable by scenario desingers.

[Henrik]

quote: Originally posted by Adm.Naismith on 02-12-2001 11:29 AM - Units Gold support can be added if "conscription" is not allowed by goverment form: it should be regional or national as above.

Cosncrption could exist side by side of a proffesionall army, you should be able to use both conscripted units along whit "mercenary" units (becouse thats how armies worked during the 16th-late 19th century).

[xellos]

Good ideas you guys have...made me think some of my own too

I support both nation-wide and individual city support cost for units. But this will depend on the form of government as sleepservice stated. Initial stages of the game only allows individual city support. Later on more advance form of government will allow nation wide support because of increased centralization.

Talking about units I have an interesting concept...

In emergency cases(like in war), each city will be able to their own homeguard units (like militias). These cheap but weak units (compared to regular units) are conscripted citizens to bear arms. They can be built quickly to reinforce city or nearby defense, or even support other units. The cost of these units must only be supported by the city itself (which they were built at). It also draws from the city population to built it.

It's useful when you find a large army marching towards your city and you need to build up a strong defense. The more distance they are away from the city, the more discontent the people will be. So it's not ideally suited for attack. If the unit dies, it will have a negative effect on the happiness as well for a few rounds and the population drafted into the unit is lost.

As for resource to support units, I would prefer
both gold and production, but it depends the unit. Units that are primarily infantry type only requires gold.
Heavy equipment unit types like catapult and tanks require both gold and production because of complex equipments and fuel.

I like Naismith's idea of regional maintanance...so you can decide which cities to contribute the cost and focus faster growth for others.

[Grumbold]

You are right about the seasonal nature of a lot warfare. Standing armies were rare at certain points in history because they did demand a huge amount of stockpiled food and resources to keep in the field. I don't think Civ needs to worry about this though because the levied elements of armies would typically disband and the borders would remain as they were until everyone reformed again for the next campaign season. To keep things simple, paying for all this in cash can represent the exorbitant cost of buying what you need from profiteering merchants. Having separate food, cash and resource elements, but with the food and resource elements swapable for cash (at inflated rates) could be interesting too.

Making population an integral part of the cost of units is difficult. Civ has traditionally changed the size of a point of population as the ages change in order to get modern and ancient cities about the right size without having to handle populations of 200+ points. A requirement of 2 pop points for units would be 20,000 people in an ancient city but 2,000,000 in the modern age. This doesn't work very well. Using only resource costs means you don't have to worry about exactly how many troops make up a particular unit.

[Henrik]

Not only should unit support be in gold, if you disband a unit you would have to pay a penalty of (insert number here) gold. This way the renescianse armies can be simulated (part of the reason why the thirty years war lasted as long as it did was that it would be more expensive to end the war than to continue it, even though both ways strained the royal coffers, this is also the reason why no nation in the world at that time had a balanced budget, they where all up to thier ears in debts.)
[This message has been edited by Henrik (edited February 13, 2001).]

[Grumbold]

I have played a boardgame which had that approach. It cost 2 to buy an army, 1 to support it and 3 to disband it. Because the game was simple people often chose to save up, recruit a big army for a war then attack like mad until they ran out of money and the whole army disbanded "free" because they were bankrupt. In Civ at the very least I would expect the government to collapse into anarchy if that was tried. With the current system it is not really possible to throw together a big army in a couple of turns and without rapid recruitment there shouldn't be a need for massive unit disbandment. The costs are almost reversed because if you need troops urgently then the rush-buy penalties are huge.

[Henrik]

Yourr money should go into negative numbers then, as in Imperialism when you are in debts (this way you would more or less be forced to keep your armies, and the demand for ecomic contributions by the one who winns the war would be more serious, the fact that nations allways had to pay millions of money to the winner if they lost the war is that the winner wants to be able to disband his money eating army).

[Dugrik]

quote: Originally posted by DanQ on 02-11-2001 12:02 AM MrFun dispenses three reasons as to why military expenses should be absorbed by individual cities and not the empire as a whole in... Civilization III and Military Maintenance".

Well I must be confused. It looked to me like MrFun thought military expenses should be absorbed by the empire as a whole and not by the individual cities. I agree with MrFun btw, and not with the Editor's summary.

[MrFun]

Dug, you're right - it was an error on their part, and I would have hoped they would have corrected that error in their summary.

[Tiberius]

quote: Originally posted by Adm.Naismith on 02-12-2001 11:29 AM - Units "cost" a fraction of Original city pop: if disbanded they add back to that pop, if killed they are lost (and city morale can be shattered if it happens often). - Units Shield support can be Regional if Regions exist, National on the other way - Units Gold support can be added if "conscription" is not allowed by goverment form: it should be regional or national as above.

I agree 100%.
Maybe in order to keep the game simple, gold support should be paid only for some special units, like carriers, bombers, battleships, nukes, tanks etc, while others should be free (warrior, phalanx, musketeer, rifleman, guerillas, fanatics, etc.). Just a thought.

[Ralf]

MrFun Quote: "1) with individual cities responsible for their own units costs, it took longer to produce each successive unit, which I believe is ridiculous once I played Call to Power."

Is above really a problem? I think units (= small armies) should take long to produce - at least as long as any similar age city-improvement. I think the unit/city-improvement ratio was good in civ-2. Dont touch it.

MrFun Quotes: "2) overall military forces are too limited or constrained with individual cities responsible for military costs -- one city could only support so many units."

"3) each city in Civilization II could only support a certain maximum number of units, which is very limited compared to that of a military maintenance system for the whole civilization."

Why should building and maintaining an army be "a walk in the park" in Civ-3? Besides; the sore archilles-heel of the AI is unit-pathfinding; why then make it easier for the player to build & maintaine several times more units then in Civ-2?

[Roman]

quote: Originally posted by Ralf on 02-15-2001 02:02 PM I think units (= small armies) should take long to produce - at least as long as any similar age city-improvement. Why should building and maintaining an army be "a walk in the park" in Civ-3?

I completely agree with the above, but unit support still should be nation based. Just make each unit more expensive to produce/maintain, but support them nationally.

Done -- sorry about that.

If somebody had pointed out the error to us via email, it would have been fixed before now.

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Dan; Apolyton CS