Reduce city population when military unit is built!

[polymths]

When you build a military unit the population from the city should be reduced to reflect that. Of course the population loss should depend on the type of unit being built.

Once military units reduce city population, the totally unrealistic tactic of building military units and treating them like rounds of ammunition will be removed. Instead of being able to essentially build a military that is literally more than 100% of the total population, you can only build a military out of the existing population. So when that armor unit is killed, its not seen as the lost of a piece of machine but of actual people that you had to draft from the city to man that tank brigade/division/whatever.

Like settlers, military units can rejoin the cities if you don't need them to wage war or after a war has ended. This simulates the effect of "bringing the boys home" after a war.

[SerapisIV]

This would be a great idea if actual population numbers were used, but being that CivIII appears to be using the same abstract number of heads model, I don't think this is possible or reasonable (assuming the continued model of CivII). This is because when a city is large every population point is something like a hundred thousand people. Using those numbers, the current US military is only 14 units. To me that is unnacceptible as I can no longer create large armies.

Do I like the idea of using population for military, most definitely yes. Does it work in the CivIII model of humanity, no, it doesn't

[Sabre2th]

I agree that it would be tough to do with the current population system, but I like the idea. Maybe if they changed to a more accurate population system......

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"We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything."
-Thomas A. Edison

[Pedrun]

Realistic but impossible to play. There would to few unit. Unless the cities size numbers in civIII are a lot bigger than CivII - That means small cities with size 15 or + and regular cities with size 40.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Hi Guys,
Just a couple of points for your consideration concerning this topic. I'd be interested to know what you think.

1) If you build 6-10 units (depending on unit type), in a single city, then the population should drop by 1 (resulting in a drop in happiness in that city). Every unit built in this city above that will continue to reduce happiness. Conscription should allow you to build 1-2 extra units in the city before happiness and population drop. The main purpose of this would be to force the player to spread his unit construction over a number of cities.
2) Having more than 4 units in a city should cause happiness to drop. Though this should be mitigated somewhat by the construction of barracks. Allies should only be able to store about 2 units in your cities before happiness drops (look at Okinawa!) This is mostly to prevent players producing units ad-infinitum and storing them in a convenient city until they are needed!
3) Armies outside your city should contribute to a drop in regional happiness. Though this would be mostly offset if you are currently at war.
4) When a unit suffers more than about 50% damage. The city the unit originated from should suffer a drop in happiness (as well as causing a drop in regional happiness). If the unit is routed or destroyed, the happiness drop is greater still. Happiness can be partially restored if the unit is brought back to one of your cities and disbanded (as suggested by Polymths). Of course the more units that suffer heavy casualties, the more unhappy cities you get, and the more unhappy your civilization becomes. This would force players to consider their forces as more than just Cannon-Fodder and consider potential casualties before engaging in combat. It might also force a player to negotiate a peace with an enemy simply to avoid a revolution at home (a la Vietnam!)
5) An Advance like "Propaganda" should reduce some of the happiness losses caused by the above factors (particularly war casualties), to reflect the impact of "Positive News Stories from the Front Lines!" Additionally, war victories would increase the happiness of your civilization (and partially offset any of the unhappiness caused by the above factors)
6) Conscription would exacerbate the happiness effects of war casualties and units outside of cities. Lastly, certain government types (Fascist/Military Dictatorship) should be able to almost completely offset many of the causes of unhappiness mentioned above (especially with Propaganda!)
Anyway, that's "my 2 cents worth" again. I hope to hear some comments in the not too distant future.

Yours,

The_Aussie_Lurker

This is an incredibly stupid idea.

[Grumbold]

When you build a unit in a city, are you training the troops or building the weapons, armour and uniforms while conscripting from a wider area? I suggest it is the latter because otherwise the time taken to build the unit would be fixed, not dependant upon your manufacturing capability. Until recently there was only one tank/heavy weapons manufacturing plant in the UK. That doesn't mean all the armoured units recruits were conscripted from its nearest city.

[Roman]

Someone on those forums once posted an idea that just like citizens in cities can be turned into scientists, tax collectors and entertainers, you should also be able to convert them into "soldiers". One such soldier could than provide manpower for lets say 3 millitary units. While the units exist, the "soldier" citizen would be completely unproductive. If the units died - the citizen would dissapear and the city would loose population.

[Roman]

quote: Originally posted by Grumbold on 05-11-2001 03:07 AM When you build a unit in a city, are you training the troops or building the weapons, armour and uniforms while conscripting from a wider area? I suggest it is the latter because otherwise the time taken to build the unit would be fixed, not dependant upon your manufacturing capability. Until recently there was only one tank/heavy weapons manufacturing plant in the UK. That doesn't mean all the armoured units recruits were conscripted from its nearest city.

See Grumbold, the system described above would take care of your objections, as the "soldier" citizen would not have to be in the city where you built the unit and even in Britain regimennts are attached to specific counties, so this would make sense.

[Sava]

This is a good idea, but only if you make the city number contain less people. 1 city number should be equal to a thousand people. Then you could "draft" people to become soldiers, instead of building them. I think the ability to draft people is really what we are discussing. It's basically the allocation of resources. People are a resource. The more people you have working on something, the quicker it gets built. Not so in previous Civ games.

Call To Power was not a favorite among most Civers, but I felt it was more realistic than previous Sid Meier games. In CTP, the allocation table of a town's population is very realistic. In Civ3, a similar concept could be implemented. Having the groups, Laborers, Farmers, Merchants(businessmen after the corporation), Public works, Military, Caravans(shipping and freight later) and Entertainers.

I think the computer should set Farmers based on need, and the remainder would be put in the laborer class. Then the player would allocate whatever he/she wanted.

[Grumbold]

That works if a citizen "head" represents the same number of people throughout history. Currently the population to "head" ratio grows throughout the game so that we can end with multi-million population cities without being swamped in head icons. To do it your way I think we would be looking at reverting to percentage sliders for task allocation. I'm not adverse to that but it doesn't look likely since Firaxis want to appeal to the civ-lite public as much as, if not more than, the grognards among us. The tantalising screenshots we have seen so far have hinted at a unit limit being imposed somehow. Perhaps it is keyed to "military" heads or some similar concept.

Many UK regiments have been keyed to counties in the past and that was certainly an indication of the core recruiting area at one time. These days pretty much anyone can try for any regiment and with all the amalgamations many counties are no longer represented. Scotland as a whole has only one dedicated regiment I believe.

[polymths]

MathPhysto's idea is pretty good.

Although it doesn't actually remove any population from the cities as I would prefer, it does have the benefit that it doesn't require any change to the Civ1/Civ2 "population head" model and it does limit the size of the military to the actually number of people in the empire.

I would settle for this. And it is extremely easy to implement so there are no excuses in that regard.

I certainly hope that some thought goes into connection size of military with size of populaton and also culture and govt.

The number of units (i.e. the size of the military) that one could build is way too unrealistic (unless all those tanks, planes, subs, battleships are supposed to be robotically controlled) in proportion to the population.


[This message has been edited by polymths (edited May 11, 2001).]

[Mathphysto]

Hey all, here's an excerpt from a post of mine on the Battles thread:

[Another thing about combat - I hate how the size of one's army is only directly dependent upon production, not population. If I have a small civ that happens to own mineral-rich land, then I can build a huge army - but where did all the soldiers come from? It's much easier for China to field an army of 10 million than for France to. People are just as critical a resource for war as the metal used to fashion the guns.

I think that there should be a "cap" on the number of units a civ can build, determined by the civ's population, some sort of "threat factor" (determined by how much other civs dislike you, and how powerful those civs are), and cultural points (if this is my motherland, I'm going to defend it!). Maybe one could also factor in propaganda, or religious fanaticism. This, along with the production limitations of a civ, would determine how large an army the civ could field.]

Here, one doesn't really lose population due to war, but the population level does determine the magnitude of that war.

[Sava]

I think its time to get rid of the stupid head icons anyways... we're talking about change here people.

[polymths]

quote: Originally posted by SoulAssassin on 05-12-2001 11:09 AM I think its time to get rid of the stupid head icons anyways... we're talking about change here people.

I too would prefer that a more refined population model would be implemented. The "population head" model does have limitations.

However, even if this model is being kept. some kind of connection between population and number of units allowed to be built is still possible. And even with the Civ1/Civ2 model, you could still lose population realistically if this is done using a running total of losses.

The best model that was mentioned was one in which you had allocated (a la Taxmen, Scientists, etc.) soldiers and that this would determine the limit of your armed forces. This makes sense and forces you to allocate manpower. Even better that would be a "running total" of units lost and every time you exceeded a certain number, a "soldier population head" is lost. (Say every ten units or such). This system (not my original idea) would be extremely realistic, would solve a lot of problem and would require absolutely no change to the "population head" model except that there would now be an extra "soldier" head.

But even a simple, you have this amount of population therefore you can build only so many units is still better than the "infinite units syndrome".

[Theben]

I think that there should be no effect until a unit dies, and then the city pop takes a small hit, as well as a small hit in happiness for x# of turns. As for pop loss w/ population heads, how about:

Every unit has a specific # of "bushels"; or each unit could have the same number for simplicity's sake. When a unit dies, the city it's from suffers the loss of that number of "bushels" in its growth box, representing pop loss. If that number drops the city below zero in the box, it loses a pop point. Additionally, the bushel loss causes some unhappiness.

Damaged units could cause a smaller loss of "bushels".

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Firstly I'd like to say that I can take constructive criticism as well as the next person (if anything, it helps to stimulate new ideas). What I don't like, however, is someone simply telling me that my ideas are CRAP without giving me a justification.
With that in mind, I'd like to say that war is a Grim and Ugly business, not to be entered into lightly-even in ancient times! Just this century alone, several major social upheavals have occured as a result of unpopular or costly wars. These were the Russian revolution during WWI (and Germany almost followed suit!) and the strong anti-Vietnam war movements that sprang up in both Australia and the US, and this is something I feel needs to be reflected in Civ III. The fact is that, if you treat your troops like cannon-fodder and send them to the meat grinder, then you ought to expect to cop some flack at home. The same goes for wars that the people feel are not "Just" (this is why advances like "Ultra-Nationalism" and "Propaganda" are so important, as it allows you to manipulate public opinion on matters of war.)

However, on points 1) and 2) I do stand corrected. Firstly, only troops outside of your borders should cause unhappiness to your population (which would give an instant advantage to fighting a war on home-turf!) As for military units and population, I concede that my idea was not very realistic. So I thought why not borrow an idea from CtP. In their city screen, you could select the proportion of a cities population that would be scientists, merchants and labourers etc. So why not have the same thing for miltary units? Obviously it would NOT be a 1 to 1 ratio, but would give an upward limit to the number of units you could build, as well as giving significant bonuses to populous nations (this number would not just represent actual enlistments, but would also represent ancillary personel-such as weapon makers, ship builders etc.) The maximum number you could set would obviously depend on you level of mobilization, and the advance "Conscription" may even allow you to draw units from your labourer and scientist population, for example.
If you were to move a very large number of units out of your borders, then you should probably have some population drop spread out across some of your cities (but this would really only be for troop movements on the scale of that seen in America, Britain and Australia during WWII)
Also, to avoid boring micro-management. The city screen I mentioned above should be reproduced in a regional interface.
As for all of my remaining ideas, I stand by them fully, and would be glad to hear any contructive comments (good or bad) about them, and the changes I've made in this post.

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

P.S: I'd also like to note that I too would like to see a change from the Population Heads of Civ I and Civ II, to a more accurate reflection of population numbers!

[Theben]

quote: Originally posted by The_Aussie_Lurker on 05-13-2001 07:25 PM Firstly I'd like to say that I can take constructive criticism as well as the next person (if anything, it helps to stimulate new ideas). What I don't like, however, is someone simply telling me that my ideas are CRAP without giving me a justification.

If you're referring to AHorse, don't take it personally. He doesn't like the idea of unit reduction at all, and tends to be more of the strategist player than a realist.

He's also a troll.

[Captain]

Chalk one more up for your idea of using pop for military.
Of course, we'd have to change the heads system, but that was kindof silly anyways. I think a linear model is much better, with the minimum unit size being 10 thousand (a modern division) - only problem is fewer "small" battles. But even in ancient times, many armies were in the hundred thou range - that's ten units, enough for a moderate battle. (The 10 thou army unit could have mixed attributes too so it might count as a 'stacked' unit.)

Yes, it's true that the heads system made things easier to manage in large cities, but guess what, large cities are NOT easy to manage! Overpopulation is a serious problem in modern society, and also in ancient ones. Recall the case of Rome's mobs and also Paris' mobs. So far the largest city-centres/regions are about 30 mil - pretty much the pop of my country in total! That's do-able in a linear scale, but just harder to keep track of everyone - but so what? Micromanage only if you want to. Delegate if you must, but accept the fact of life, if you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself. If you don't want to, delegate and accept a possibly poorer result. Sometimes tweaking every little thing just isn't worth your time.

If you want a tactical game of combat without civilians, play Starcraft. Civ is about all aspects of society and MOST rulers spend the VAST majority of their time taking care of daily business (internally) - not running off to war. If that's what you want to do fine, but you should accept the consequences of war, including loss of pop.

This is the whole idea of opportunity cost, you can do this or that, but you can't have it both ways. Decisions with consequences make the game interesting. Otherwise what's the point, whatever you do you'll succeed.

[polymths]

quote: Originally posted by Theben on 05-13-2001 04:29 AM I think that there should be no effect until a unit dies, and then the city pop takes a small hit, as well as a small hit in happiness for x# of turns. As for pop loss w/ population heads, how about: Every unit has a specific # of "bushels"; or each unit could have the same number for simplicity's sake. When a unit dies, the city it's from suffers the loss of that number of "bushels" in its growth box, representing pop loss. If that number drops the city below zero in the box, it loses a pop point. Additionally, the bushel loss causes some unhappiness. Damaged units could cause a smaller loss of "bushels".

A great idea and extremely simple to implement! I forgot all about bushels!
Bushels are the key to modeling population at a finer level!
Great insight Theben!!!

Okay everyone, how about this!

Everytime you build a unit, a small number of bushels are automatically deducted (based on the unit of course). Thus if you build too many units at once, eventually the bushel number will drop below zero causing a population point loss. (But it would of cause take several units to do this).

Even if you don't build enough units to make the bushel count go to zero, it would still have the same effect as population reduction because now your city's civilian popuation grows much more slowly.

You should be able to disband the unit to add back in the bushels you lost when the unit was created.

Again thanks to Theben for making this breakthrough insight!

This bushel reduction solution should satisfy all the critics who said losing a whole population point for each unit is too harsh!

[This message has been edited by polymths (edited May 14, 2001).]

[polymths]

BTW, the "Reduce Bushels when building military unit" doesn't have to mean that all the bushels are reduced in one city. It could be spread out among all your cities!

So if you a unit costs say 6 bushels, and you have six cities, it could be spread out so that each city only loses a bushel.

I really hope this bushels idea catches on and can be implemented!

It solves every objection that I've seen thus far!
1. Solves loss of too much population due to loss of a whole population point problem. Bushels, in effect, are treated as population point fractions!

2. If bushel loss is spread out, solves the problem that although the equipment may be built in one city, you draft soldiers from all over the country.


[This message has been edited by polymths (edited May 14, 2001).]

quote: Originally posted by The_Aussie_Lurker on 05-13-2001 07:25 PM Firstly I'd like to say that I can take constructive criticism as well as the next person (if anything, it helps to stimulate new ideas). What I don't like, however, is someone simply telling me that my ideas are CRAP without giving me a justification.

This linking reducing pop to military units idea is so crapulous that it defies rebuttal. You would have to be an idiot even to entertain the idea. You can't argue with idiots.



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Founder, Dear Leader and Great Helmsman of PROT -the People's Republic Off Topic www.delphi.com/prot1/

If you're happy and you know it, spam a thread.

[Theben]

quote: Originally posted by Alexander's Horse on 05-14-2001 10:44 PM This linking reducing pop to military units idea is so crapulous that it defies rebuttal. You would have to be an idiot even to entertain the idea. You can't argue with idiots.

Spoken like a true troll, Dear Helmsman.

[Adm.Naismith]

quote: Originally posted by Roman on 05-11-2001 07:27 AM Someone on those forums once posted an idea that just like citizens in cities can be turned into scientists, tax collectors and entertainers, you should also be able to convert them into "soldiers". One such soldier could than provide manpower for lets say 3 millitary units. While the units exist, the "soldier" citizen would be completely unproductive. If the units died - the citizen would dissapear and the city would loose population.

Thanks for remenbering Roman. It was debated (also) in thread A new specialist: soldier I started last March.
It's a quite long thread, with some debate and different proposal from different Apolytoner (of course all worth of attention, Alexander's Horse didn't posted poisoned opinion there ).

Just to quote part of starting post, to warm up:

quote: When a war was lost, lot of valid people was lost too (killed or enslaved); this introduced the need to ransom valid men back from enemy, when possible. When bloody wars ended, often looser civilization lost "ground" (halted the development) for a generation or two. In Civ or SMAC we have the silly opposite effect: if one unit is killed you GAIN productivity , because the support shield become free! One of the opposition to any proposal to relate army to population, was that this will make complex for Firaxis changing population numbers, enough to match 1 point of population reduction with number of soldiers needed to arms a military unit. If Firaxis will radically change the supporting model, my proposal will be meaningless, but if they decide to keep the city-unit 1 to 1 relation I suppose we can debate my idea. I propose a little change in City support of army, introducing a new specialist: soldier. Similary to entertainer use to reduce unhappyness, a soldier specialist simulate the people (and food, money and production) needed to keep up an army. As for entertainer, its effect can cover more than one unit, and change by technology advance (e.g. advanced, more mechanized troops can need less soldiers, to model different needs of modern units vs old units). It must be an automated specialist, i.e. the player can't modify the number of dedicated soldier specialist: they are taken by working population as military units are built (e.g. one soldier specialist support two units). The number of soldier can change only if other advance (or city facility) change the soldier/supported units rate. If units are reassigned or disbanded, soldier specialist must turn back as common workers (people back to home), if units are killed, soldier specialist disappear (population lost).

Once again, please read all the linked posts, because they host interesting questions and answers that fine tuned the original proposal.

It probably isn't been considered by Firaxis (it's a crap ideayou know, as Alexander's Horse underlined ), but because CIV III early screenshoots shows old style population numbers, this is my only hope to have playable relationship between population and army.



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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[polymths]

Admiral:

I have read those old posts. There are many fine ideas that could work and I did like the "soldier specialist" idea as well when Roman brought it up. However any idea is better than the current Civ1/Civ2, "I want my soldiers to die to free up shields" crap!

I still think, though, that Theben's bushel idea is the most straightforward. Whenever you build a unit, there is a "bushel cost". It could be all from one city or spread out amongst cities. Obviously if bushels goes to zero, the population point is lowered and the "bushel debt" paid at a full bushel box at one lower population point.

I am somewhat surprised that there is no support for this idea since I really see nothing wrong with it!

[Grumbold]

I quite like the MOO2 approach of relating the number of units you can support to your number of established colonies with starbases. So each Civ barracks could support 4 units, with more modern barrack upgrades supporting more troops. Military academies could be introduced to actually turn troops from raw recruits to trained troops (not veterans.)

[ajbera]

How about this:

Since the only resource needed to gain population is food, rather than reducing city pop when a unit is created, have the unit creation 'soak up' a portion of the city's food intake.

For instance, your city takes in 3 food per turn. You need to build a Marine unit (representing a platoon of Marines). While those Marines are being built, only 2 of the 3 food will go towards population growth each turn, while 1 will just be eliminated (representing the food needed to nourish the Marines.) So, pop growth has been retarded, simulating the human pop investment in the unit, without screwing with heads and pop points.

This idea obviously needs tweaking. Different units may siphon off different amounts of food. Instead of siphoning food every turn, it may be 1 food every 2 or more turns. And it would be nice to work a way where total food intake is also used to feed units, not just production to support them, but that's another argument.

And for future tech buffs and sci-fi scenario enthusiasts, there could be a technology path leading to robotic units that don't require food for production or maintenance. Nifty.

Hope this is lucid.

[polymths]

quote: Originally posted by ajbera on 05-15-2001 08:51 PM How about this: Since the only resource needed to gain population is food, rather than reducing city pop when a unit is created, have the unit creation 'soak up' a portion of the city's food intake. For instance, your city takes in 3 food per turn. You need to build a Marine unit (representing a platoon of Marines). While those Marines are being built, only 2 of the 3 food will go towards population growth each turn, while 1 will just be eliminated (representing the food needed to nourish the Marines.) So, pop growth has been retarded, simulating the human pop investment in the unit, without screwing with heads and pop points. This idea obviously needs tweaking. Different units may siphon off different amounts of food. Instead of siphoning food every turn, it may be 1 food every 2 or more turns. And it would be nice to work a way where total food intake is also used to feed units, not just production to support them, but that's another argument. And for future tech buffs and sci-fi scenario enthusiasts, there could be a technology path leading to robotic units that don't require food for production or maintenance. Nifty. Hope this is lucid.

Most cities may or may not have surplus food (or bushels). Your idea would be much harsher than Theben's idea of a one time cost in bushels. Your idea would be that as long as the unit was alive, there would be a bushel cost.

In Theben's idea, a unit must have a one time cost of, say 20 bushels. But in your idea, there might a 2 bushel/turn cost. But if your food surplus was exactly 2 before you built the unit, now the city cannot grow. And the longer the unit stands, the greater the bushel cost.

I believe a one-time bushel cost far better models the desired "miltary units means population is drafted for war" effect than the continuous cost model you suggest.

For whatever reason, no one has commented on this model so if there is some deficiency in it, I'd like to know as it seems to be the most realistic and the most simplist to implement!

[ancient]

quote: Originally posted by Alexander's Horse on 05-14-2001 10:44 PM This linking reducing pop to military units idea is so crapulous that it defies rebuttal. You would have to be an idiot even to entertain the idea. You can't argue with idiots.

It satisfies both Reality and fixes a huge gameplay problem from civ 1/2 i dont see why you should have a problem with it.

[ajbera]

quote: Originally posted by polymths on 05-15-2001 09:11 PM Your idea would be that as long as the unit was alive, there would be a bushel cost.

That possibility was actually secondary to my original point, and while more realistic, would be a pain in the arse. The primary concept only costs food when the unit is under construction.