29-02-2004 17:10									#91
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I actually like that idea a lot.

You could even add in your general units for leader types and start them as say captains with a 1 range of influence and supply extension with the combat bonuses for command and control influences and they increase in rank with experience or battles/campaigns won. Then this unit is actually supplied or extends the supply range of the infantry units that act as temporary supply and communication points or hubs. This is a very valid way of modeling the supply lines and the communication lines by stringing together infantry units which would create and then 'guard' or staff the 'ammo dump' and the regional 'HQ' temporary supply points. They could even be two seperate temporary tile improvements and after helicopters and VTOL you could add a third temporary FARP, forward area refueling and rearming point of fire base. I really like this idea because it does not add more units just a few temporary tile improvements that are automatically defended by the creating units 'encamping' around them. This is valid also for ancient roman style RON or remain over night style fortifications as well as modern. Then after the campaign the units can become unanchored and again revert to their pre-tile improvement 'guards' or 'staff' assignments removing the temporary tile improvement and again becoming infantry units. This would be very cool and really not too difficult to add to the current code 'tags' by adding some modular code but then making the temporary supply points be attractive targets to the AIs units. Good idea and the terrain and distance from other more stable permanent supply points effects its effective range i.e. the deeper into enemy territory the shorter the extended supply ranges from the temporary tile improvements making the additional range extension of a regional command unit even more attractive tactically and strategically.

A good system that combines several thoughts of the posters here and is not too unworkable nor too unwieldy to manage.

	29-02-2004 18:14									#92
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quote: Originally posted by Awsric Armitage I actually like that idea a lot. You could even add in your general units for leader types and start them as say captains with a 1 range of influence and supply extension with the combat bonuses for command and control influences and they increase in rank with experience or battles/campaigns won. Then this unit is actually supplied or extends the supply range of the infantry units that act as temporary supply and communication points or hubs.

As I understand it, you are saying that infantry has a supply node radius of 3, and generals would have an enhanced supply node radius. I'm not sure that is a good idea. It would encourage players to spread the army thinner around where the general is, which is the exact opposite of reality.

How about letting the general be a supply source and leadership bonus for units within 1 tile, but not to extend the supply radius. Basically, any unit in position to receive the general's aid is never out of supply, but he does not otherwise affect the supply network.

Do you think that only fortified infantry should be able to act as supply nodes, or should they act as nodes simply by existing? I think the latter is easier to work with.

quote: This is a very valid way of modeling the supply lines and the communication lines by stringing together infantry units which would create and then 'guard' or staff the 'ammo dump' and the regional 'HQ' temporary supply points. They could even be two seperate temporary tile improvements and after helicopters and VTOL you could add a third temporary FARP, forward area refueling and rearming point of fire base.

I'm a bit dubious about the tile improvement to extend the supply. In Civ, you can't generally own a tile improvement inside another nations's borders, which kind of defeats the potential benefit of that tile improvement. I suppose you could build those in neutral territory.

However, the sheer quantity of supplies needed for any serious campain pretty much excludes the possibility of using airlift as the primary supply mode. Drinking water alone for say, 1000 men for a week is about 7 tonnes! Add food, ammo, mail, replacement parts, medevac, and airlift quickly becomes non-trivial. In fact, apart from the Berlin airlift in the old war, I can't think of a single example of supplies being exclusively delivered by air. So I think we should drop the air based resupply networks.

Also, I'm not sure if I made it clear, but this model should require no new units or graphics. The presence of ammo dumps and communication hubs is implied by the string of infantry, and not created as tile improvements or separate units.

quote: ...Good idea and the terrain and distance from other more stable permanent supply points effects its effective range i.e. the deeper into enemy territory the shorter the extended supply ranges from the temporary tile improvements making the additional range extension of a regional command unit even more attractive tactically and strategically.

The one aspect that concerns me is how the supply nodes should interact with terrain. We could say that the supply nodes extend the supply by 3 movement points instead of 3 tiles, but I'm worried this kind of thing might quickly become hard to visualise. Anything that relies on movement points to determine spacing is also very likely to disrupt the visual imagery of infantry guarding a line. Probably better to leave it as 3 tiles, regardless of terrain or improvements.

Regarding ships, they are never out of supply. However, most ships should have a fuel limit, similar to civ 2 bombers. The limit should be quite high, but shisp that run out of supply are assumed lost.

	29-02-2004 19:18									#93
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quote: As I understand it, you are saying that infantry has a supply node radius of 3, and generals would have an enhanced supply node radius. I'm not sure that is a good idea. It would encourage players to spread the army thinner around where the general is, which is the exact opposite of reality.

Actually the infantry units in and of themselves would offer no supply radius only the temporary tile improvements that they create when they ‘fortify’. Actually instead of fortifying they would actually be creating either the supply node or the HQ node or the later FARP node. The later might get folded into airbases but FARPS are only for VTOL and helicopters to use for rearming and refueling. The general units or ‘command’ units would add to the already existing supply or command radius of the infantry created supply or HQ nodes of temporary tile improvements. So in effect without the ‘command’ units presence the supply range of the node is 2 or 3 tiles. However, units stacked within 1 tile of the ‘command’ unit use that ‘command unit’ as their supply source thus effectively extending the supply range from the supply node the ‘command’ unit is using for its supply.

So in actual practice the supply point of the temporary tile improvement created by the infantry and ‘staffed’ or ‘guarded’ by that infantry unit gives you a supply radius of 3. A’command’ unit at the limit of this range or three tiles away from the supply node further increases that supply range by an additional tile giving you a range of 4 tiles with a ‘command’ unit included in that stack in addition to its leadership combat bonuses of 1 or 2 tiles depending on the ‘command’ units experience levels. The supply range bonus could also be increase to 2 for general level ‘command units’.

I do not think having unlimited supply ranges for ‘command’ units is such a good idea as realistically even the best military leadership can only accomplish so much with out having a link to the supply chain in some way. This also presents the situation were capturing enemy supply temporary tile improvements will strand the enemies advance as they overextend their supply lines even if the ‘command’ unit is leading the advance. This adds tactical importance to protecting your lines of supply to your forward units or risking the stalling or stopping of an advance and placing your valueable ‘command’ units in danger. With the additional supply range extension this places the ‘command’ units just behind the front lines but not on the front lines, unless the player wants to risk them, acting to extend the supply range to the front lines and adding their command influene to the units not only on the front lines but also immediately surrounding them and the valuable supply lines. To cut these supply lines one would have to actually get 4 tiles deep at least behind enemy lines to effectively cut the supply lines to a ‘command’ unit. This presents another tactical modeling that can be added to the supply nodes or temporary tile improvements.

The temporary tile improvements acting as supply nodes would be in-range and vulnerable to enemy airstrikes by fighter-bombers based from cities on the front lines or from bombers based deeper in enemy territory. Such bombing of the supply nodes could be effectively modeled by reducing their hitpoints and this would be linked to their effective supply radius reducing their supply ranges when bombed. This would make it also important to protect your forward supply nodes or temporary tile improvements with forward airbases or air units based from cities with-in range of the supply node. This adds more strategic and tactical layers to having to protect your forward supply nodes or temporary tile improvements with the FARPs helicopters and VTOL aircraft or even with SAM batteries.

Now we are talking about some tactical and strategic level combat decisions that will engross the players into planning an effective campaign that will cost more than just the single stack of units running unimpeded deep into enemy controlled territory. It will have to include several factors that play together to form a well defined front if both players layer their forces and supporting temporary tile improvements wisely. Also factor in the high maintenace costs of the temporary supply nodes or tile improvements and you will limit the players from placing too many of them further increasing their strategic values.

Regarding owning tile improvements in enemy controlled territory brings us back to the point or rather idea brought up earlier in this thread about military control radius of smaller 1 tile radius around fortresses that would trump the cultural borders. This would also apply to the infantry building and staffing the temporary tile improvements to act as supply nodes. After all even if the enemy still controls his cities that are the cultural generators they do not control the occupied lands under the military control of the invading armies. This allows supply nodes or temporary tile improvements to exist in what would otherwise be considered enemy territory. Thus occupation not complete cultural control of the surrounding areas. These supply nodes or temporary tile improvements would operate at reduced effectiveness because of being in unfriendly territory.

	01-03-2004 02:57									#94
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

So what you're saying is that when infantry fortifies, t creates a supply node tile improvement? Wouldn't it be simpler to just assume that any fortified infantry unit is a supply node, without making a separate tile improvement?

Regarding hostile armies taking over land, I think the best way is to have any combat unit exert a zoc that affects city population trying to work the land. Forex, you have the grid below:

ABC
DEF
GHI

There is a city in tile A, and a hostile army in tile B. Tile A is always workable as it is the city itself. Tile B is unworkable due to tehenemy unit being there. Tiles CDEF are also unworkable due to teh zo exerted by the enemy unit.

	01-03-2004 04:10									#95
	Remove this text

quote: So what you're saying is that when infantry fortifies, t creates a supply node tile improvement? Wouldn't it be simpler to just assume that any fortified infantry unit is a supply node, without making a separate tile improvement?

Well that could be the case except I am thinking that the fortifying infantry units will get to choose initially from in between a supply node or ammo dump or whatever the era decides to name it and a field HQ to later including the modern FARP as an option as well. That would be three total options for consideration at this point.

Argueably the HQ and the Supply node could be lumped together but not necessarily so as their functions would be slightly different. Supply nodes we have discussed already but field HQs would give something like what radar towers do in the future eras increasing local fighting abilities but by smaller amounts and not having a sighting radius as well as not being permanent structures.

Also more importantly I was thinking of making the temporary tile improvements actually cost the player a certain amount of time as the Infantry actually constructs the temporary tile improvement similar to workers . That way their are not the situations were supply lines and nodes can be constructed and deconstructed very quickly. It should take at least 3 turns to construct and maybe 2 turns to deconstruct back into an infantry unit again; were as, infantry fortifying would only take a single turn. This models the need to build actual structures and logistic and communications lines as well to get the additional benefits of the supply node, HQ, or FARP rather than just infantry digging in.

quote: Regarding hostile armies taking over land, I think the best way is to have any combat unit exert a zoc that affects city population trying to work the land. Forex, you have the grid below: ABC DEF GHI There is a city in tile A, and a hostile army in tile B. Tile A is always workable as it is the city itself. Tile B is unworkable due to the enemy unit being there. Tiles CDEF are also unworkable due to the zoc exerted by the enemy unit.

I do like that idea for restricting the access of a city to resource extraction when an occupying army is encampped and extending a ZOC. In addition I think larger armies moving through territories would automatically reduce improvements one level for each turn that they actually mill around a tile. If actually encamping well there goes all the improvements. This would also be considered the beginning of laying siege to a fortified city. In addition we could have the armies option of encamping taking several turns after which the city is considered sieged and no supply lines can be traced to it by the enemy and additionally the army so encampped would be considered to be in supply as they are taking the cities noraml resources. Of course at this point the army is no longer mobile and can only remain in a siege encampment posture and would require 2 to 3 turns to disembark or break camp at which time normal supply rules would again apply. The ZOC for controling the resource extraction of the city layed siege would happen after the army encamps next to it and lays siege to the city. This also would create situations were armies might go a few turns without supply deeper into enemy territory in order to actually reach a target city to siege.

Sure would be fun to actually mod in and test some of these ideas in actual game-play rather than just theory.

	01-03-2004 15:17									#96
	Remove this text

I hope this is the correct thread, I haven't see the link to this thread in the general Civ 4 list .

FROM THE SPANISH COMMUNITY LIST

quote: UNITS 8. A more realistic combat system which includes hit points and supported damage. 9. Include an option in the editor to create air units in a Civilization II style. 10. Allow barbarians to take cities. Allow negotiations with barbarians to avoid an attack or pay them to attack other civ. At least, make this an editable option in the editor.

	02-03-2004 03:08									#97
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8 - We have that, and have had that, in all versions and spin-offs since the original Civ.
9 - Definitely. I thik each terrain should have a default move cost, and units should have "move cost [n] in [terrain]" as a special ability. This would also allow hovertnks able to move over land and sea.
10 - Yes. Civ 2 had the right idea here.

	02-03-2004 03:54									#98
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Going back to teh supply model being discussed...

So what you are saying is that by default units get the fortify ability. With certain techs, infantry units gain a few extra abilities, such as the "make supply node" option. This would give the defensive bonus of fortifying, but take longer, and act as a supply node.

That sounds cool. I still say certain units should always be in supply, possibly limited by terrain. Early melee units should always be in supply just about anywhere they can find food.

	02-03-2004 04:19									#99
	Increase the size of your Attachments

quote: So what you are saying is that by default units get the fortify ability. With certain techs, infantry units gain a few extra abilities, such as the "make supply node" option. This would give the defensive bonus of fortifying, but take longer, and act as a supply node.

Yes thats exactly it. Linked with the tech trees would be certain advances or groups of advances that would enable the infantry units to build the temporary tile improvements. Say certain trade, construction, or military organizational techs for the supply node, HQs, and later FARPs. Other ideas for some of these might come up in the alpha testing but I think those 'types' of temporary tile improvements are along the right lines. As long as each are limited in what, when, and where they can do it and also are only temporary.

quote: That sounds cool. I still say certain units should always be in supply, possibly limited by terrain. Early melee units should always be in supply just about anywhere they can find food.

I absolutely agree. Certain ancient era units and single units should be able to fend for themselves. Only if they remain by themselves and not part of a larger organization such as a formation or an army. Both formations of 3 to 4 units and Armies of 3 to 4 formations would require the support functions to be able to effectively operate.

This is also opening up another discussion area for stacked single units vs combined arms. I am for both actually with combat and coordination bonuses for formations and larger Armies which are actually groups of formations. Formations require support and Armies require even more support if that is possible to model. Maybe just with their inherent maintenace costs should be OK as they would be composed of several individual units but would move and operate as a single unit with large bonuses and possibly additional abilities.

	02-03-2004 04:55									#100
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Although I'm still not sure exactly WHAT model should be used to reflect unit supply-lines (after all, I really LIKE my idea , but I like the ideas that Lazjar and Awsric have posted too) I definitely feel it SHOULD be in Civ4! It would help to eliminate what I feel is the worst element of the civ game-the 'Stack of Death'!! Basically, a player can simply overwhelm an opponent by sending massive stacks of offensive units, without any thought about strategy! Supply lines, of any sort, would force a player to consider short term goals, as a means of securing supply lines. For instance that pissy little city, on your border, is suddenly worth taking as it gives you a great place to set up a 'supply point', 'supply node' or whatever you'd like to call it! In addition, hills, forests and other terrain features will feature in your attack plans-either as secure locations on which to base your supply points, or as restrictions to your units 'Operational Range', as in the case of mountains, hills and jungles! Also, it might allow pillaging another use in the game-to reflect units 'living off the land' and thus reducing the chance of hp loss for one turn!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

	02-03-2004 13:10									#101
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I think the best way to avoid the stack of death is simple. It was implemented in Civ 1 (badly) and in SMAC (quite well).

Basically, if the defending unit loses, all units in the same stack take collateral damage.

I'd modify that so that the amount of collateral is proportional to the technology of the attacker, and that terrain improvements (on the tile itself), city population (if the tile is being worked), and city improvements (if the defender was in a city) are also subject to collateral damage.

	02-03-2004 20:40									#102
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My 2 cents and probably more later.

I think stacked units should recieve collateral damage if stacked and the defender loses as well as being retreated from the tile that was attacked. Reason being this creates incentive to group units into formations for better fighting effectiveness of combined arms. Single units defend singlely even if stacked by the best defender in the stack were as units placed into a formation act collectively to defend against attackers adding mutual support for combined arms and raw numbers.

If modeled this way there is much more incentive to place stacks of 3 to 4 units into formations that fight, move, and act as if an independant single unit. These formations have much greater flexability in attack and defense strengths; however, have the additional cost of requireing supply to be fully effective. They will be more effective than a single unit even when out of supply and at reduced effectiveness just because of their size.

So in effect stacks of single units could roam deeper into enemy territory as each unit foraged for its own supply. I propose that in such a system a system of quantifying how many single units are stacked together must be devised. More than a single unit or maybe three units per tile would require that the tile be pillaged to support more than one unit for free.

This also opens up another area not discussed before in the supply lines models above and that is each and every tile having a supply or support value corresponding to its base terrain and then this is increased by tile improvements. If units are present above the number of units the tile can support then some tile improvements will be automatically pillaged by the units occupying the tile in question in improved tiles. A fortress tile improvement could support an unlimited or very high number of stacked individual units or formations or a few armies and a city could support an unlimited number of units. Where as an empty mountain tile could only support a single unit at a time and other foraging units would take hp damage because they could not supply themselves as the tile cannot support anymore free unit support. This integrates the basic tiles terrain type into the supply model as a base line before introducing any other supply nodes or other temporary tile enhancements to improve this basic support number.

Its a rudamentary idea at present but it would provide a method for integrateing the tiles base terrain type as a supply and max. unit support before tile improvements. Under such a system all units whether single, formation, or army sized would require support from the base tiles support capacity. More units in a tile than the support value of that tile and either the player would have to choose to either pillage an improvement if any exists or to take hp damage of one hp for each unit not able to supply itself. Temporary supply nodes and other temporary tile improvements of course as decribed above would increase this number over a certain number of tiles. So in order to move larger groups of stacked units, formations, or armies beyond the range of the improved tiles of civilized areas it would be first necessary to either place a supply node or other supply enhanceing tile improvement there first. This eliminates the roaming stack of death as any such stack would be slowly wittled away each turn that more units than the base tiles supply support could afford to support took damage. Killing a large stack of units that are well beyond their supply would be much easier this way as the majority of the stack would be damaged units. However this would also require adding a supply update check routine to the game loop to be processed every turn.

	02-03-2004 21:22									#103
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Just some comments about this idea of using Infantry as supply. First off, it requires more micromanagement to have the Infantry unit build a node than to simply have a movable unit that radiates "supply".

Also, one of your stated reasons for not using a separate unit is that you don't want to necessitate extra units. The problem is that if you give infantry an extra ability it changes the "value" of the unit which means you need to give it a higher shield cost to maintain the balance versus other units. But then you're left with a hole in the unit matrix for lower cost infantry units, which, if you filled it, would lead back to the original situation with an extra unit...

My $0.02 is that the simplest solution is to introduce a separate supply unit that radiates supply. You don't need to build anything with it, just keep it near your army. No need to rebalance the costs of infantry. And you achieve the same game play results of players trying to sneak behind enemy lines and cut off the supply lines.

And as for what "supply" is, that can be argued. Maybe its an increase in combat effectiveness. Maybe its increased healing rate. Maybe its an increase on the synergy bonus of combined arms. Maybe its a combination of all of those.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Issue 2 - The stack of death.

I think that the addition of supply will do a lot to mitigate the stack of death issue, since it's easier to sneak past one stack than a spread out front.

That said, if you are going to encourage players to spread out their units, you need to provide tools to mitigate the micromanagement associated with moving units not in a stack. Most of the reason stacks are in there (Civ3) is that they provide an easy way to cut down on the tedium of moving individual units.

One way might be to implement a warcraft-like drag box that selects multiple units in multiple tiles. When selected you could issue a group go-to, or simply pressing one of the arrow keys might make each unit move that direction.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Lastly, but not least, in order for the "cutting the supply lines" dynamic to work there needs to be 3 things.
a)A more robust air superiority system. You need to be able to defend units in the field from bombing otherwise it would be too easy to kill supply units from the air.
b)A more robust visibility/invisibility system. If its plain to see someone trying to attack your supply lines, then defending them becomes too easy.
c)A system for non-destructive combat. There needs to be a way to "pin-down" the main force so that you can get at the supply lines. Historical stalemates and pins were pretty common, but not modelled at all in civ...

	03-03-2004 03:28									#104
	Inflate your Upload Space

On infantry radiating supply: I agree that having infantry have to build a separate supply node creates MM. That's why I originally said it is automatic and continuous. I later modified that to only fortified infantry, but these require no special kind of fortifying.

As for the hole for the cheap unit slot, I don't think that problem exists.

First, melee units are always in supply in hospitable terrain (ie not mountain/glacier/desert etc). This also goes for missile units where the troops can make their ammo from local materials (archers can make quite a few arrows from a single tree. Sufficient trees exist in most 'open' terrain types). Certain units (camels in desert) are considered in supply in their home terrain. So supply only begins to become an issue from gunpowder onwards. And only for gunpowder riders (dragoons, cavalry). By this age, historically, musketeers became dominant on the battlefield, outnumbering riders by quite a bit. But how many musketeers / riflemen accopany your cvalry strike force in your games? Not many I'll wager. The same goes for modern infantry / armour formations. When rolling over the comp in the conquer phase of the game, I just never build infantry, s they are too slow. But that does not reflect the historical ratio of infantry : armour in any army since the late medieval knight.

So making infantry the supply unit has no effect on the early game when almost all units are in supply anyway, and in the late game enforces through a natural mechanism the historical build ratios.

quote: Issue 2 - The stack of death.

Having collateral damage for losing in a defending stacks will do a huge amount to prevent the stack of death.

One little change I'd like to see is that the best defender isn't automatically chosen. It should be sei-random. For example, suppose you have a stack of 1 catapult (6-1-1) and 1 pikeman (1-3-1), you have the following:

catapult - 1
pikeman - 3

A random number is then generated, and the odds of each unit being chosen as the defender depends on the defence factor. So in that example, the pikeman has a 75% chance of being the defender if the stack is attakced. Throw in a second catapult, and the pikeman has only a 60% chance of being the defender. This avoids the ridiculous tactic of 2-3 pikemen defending a stack of 50 catapults.

In non-stacked combat, this prevents the ridiculous example above, and gives a new reason to build sufficient quantities of defence units, rather than the bare minimum to ensure the attacker can't break through. The current game design does not encourage players to build units in the ratios that happened historically.

This could even work for stacked combat. Just keep repeated this weighted selection process until defending units have been chosen up to your command limit. In a stacked combat system, this would also encourage players to balance stacks to form well-rounded armies and limit them to their command limits.

quote: c)A system for non-destructive combat. There needs to be a way to "pin-down" the main force so that you can get at the supply lines. Historical stalemates and pins were pretty common, but not modelled at all in civ...

Actually, the civ2 zoc described this mechanism very well. It could do with some refining however. Each unit should be assigned a class (melee, missile, gun, etc), and a list of classes over which it can enforce a zoc. So under this system, cavalry enforces a zoc against riflemen, but not against armour.

	03-03-2004 04:44									#105
	Increase Your PM Length

OK, in response to the notion of tiles having a support or supply value. I think that my idea for making it work in much the same way as movement costs might be a better way to go! e.g. grassland and forests might increase a units operational range by up to 50-75% (so a unit with range of 8 might go up as high as 12-14!) On plains, hills, coast and floodplains the range would be as written. On terrains such as jungles and marshes the OR might drop by 50%, wheras tundra, mountain and desert terrain could reduce it by as much as 75% (so the above units range might drop to as little as 3-4!)
Supply nodes, such as occupied cities, outposts, airbases, colonies and forts would double Operational range (as I've mentioned before) and tiles containing roads, rail or irrigation improvements would increase OR by 50%! To avoid overcomplicating the game, only the best and worst terrains would be taken into account in order to get the final Op Range. To explain, by example-lets say the unit above was travelling outside of friendly territory, intent on capturing a city 8 tiles/hexes away. Its path consists of 2 marsh and 1 mountain terrain, but also contains a road! Based on this, the final Op Range would now be 6 (50% increase-75% decrease=-25%) So, either the unit has to take its chances and try and take the city before it starts to suffer damage from being 'out of supply', or it can find an alternate route to its target which will leave its normal Op Range intact OR the player can build a fort/outpost etc. in order to double the Op Range to 12!! Of course, if the last option is taken, and this tile improvement is siezed by the enemy before the unit can aquire its target, then the unit might find itself in a WHOLE world of trouble!
Of course, I accept all of Wrylachans 'caveats' for accepting a suppy line system with the following, additional one-unit movement allowances would have to be increased, accross the board, and all roads-enemy and friendly alike (but not rail)-would have to grant the same movement bonus. I know this last point might sound like a step backward, but I accept that enemy roads not granting a movement bonus is meant to simulate (albiet poorly) the idea of supply lines. If real supply lines were incorporated into the game, then this currently neccessary distinction could be removed!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

	03-03-2004 21:39									#106
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If infantry are supply what is to stop a stack from fortifying and recieving supply from the infantry in the stack? What causes the "supply unit" to hang back out of the front line? If an infantry unit is the source of supply doesn't that totally defeat the sneaking past the front line to get at the supply dynamic?

I also think that giving different amounts of supply for different terrains is hopelessly micro-intensive.

	04-03-2004 02:47									#107
	Increase the size of your Attachments

quote: Originally posted by wrylachlan If infantry are supply what is to stop a stack from fortifying and recieving supply from the infantry in the stack? What causes the "supply unit" to hang back out of the front line? If an infantry unit is the source of supply doesn't that totally defeat the sneaking past the front line to get at the supply dynamic?

But infantry are NOT the supply source. They are merely a supply node. Let's say you have the tiles below:

ABCDEFGHI

Tile A is a city. As the standard supply radius is 3, any unit in tiles BCD are in supply. If there is a infantry unit in tile E, that unit is not in supply. However, if that same unit is in tile D, then it is in supply, and its status as a supply node means that the suppl radius gets extended a further 3 tiles from itself, to tiles EFG. So assuming you have infantry in tiles D and G, it makes sense to attack D, sidestepping G, and effectively putting G out of supply.

quote: I also think that giving different amounts of supply for different terrains is hopelessly micro-intensive.

Agreed. Keep it flat. At most, I'd say keep ancient units always in supply in hospitable terrain. This reflects the fact that they can forage for just about all their needs in hospitable terrain. Even archers can find enough trees to keep them in ammo. Supply only becomes an issue when you need non-foragable resources, which means gunpowder units onwards. Arguably also platemail armoured troops (ie medieval infantry), but I'd let that one get the hospitable terrain forage benefit too.

	04-03-2004 03:34									#108
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quote: I also think that giving different amounts of supply for different terrains is hopelessly micro-intensive.

I think you are confusing the game mechanics that are private parts of the inner workings of the program and its complexity of dealing with supply and what is public to the user.

All the player will have to know about supply is that certain tiles with bad terrain can not support any more than a certain number of units with free terrain supply points. After that units suffer hp damage. All the calculations and other details that we have discussed while complicated is not seen by the user but is rather a part of the code. It is easy to say this will cause intensive micro-management and dismiss the idea but ineffect it will only create more restrictive rules that the player and AI must abide by that create a more realistic model of supply. Restricting players behaviours also enables better AIs abilities as the possabilties of the human players actions are narrowed.

This sytem also defeats the 'killer stack' and introduces a terrain specific supply system. Any new additions to the game mechanics comes with a minimum of micro-management. Planning any successful military campaign should involve a minimum of micro-managment not just they are in that direction go get them.

If its simplicity you crave then moving the game forward is going to be nigh but impossible. Some micro-managment models reality but it is and should be balanced for playability.

Too many people are using the 'micro-management' tag to dismiss good game mechanics and systems because they know most players run away in terror when they hear the word.

I would hope that publishers can discern the difference.

	04-03-2004 03:41									#109
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You know, the killer stack thing only becomes an issue in the late game, when modern units are roaming around. I don't think anyone has proposed that they should ever get the ability to live off the land.

I still think collateral damage is a better mechanism for defeating the killer stack than terrain-specific supply limits.

Besides, so what if you have a stack of 500, and 490 are out of supply? It is still the unit with the best defence factor that defends, and he will be in supply if you you that terrain-limited supply model.

	04-03-2004 03:52									#110
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Not necessarily so because units at one hp that cannot be supported are automatically disbanded starting with the furthest from a supply point.

This means all units unable to be supplied will be disbanded in from 2 to 7 turns depending on their experience levels if moving in a large stack beyond your supply range and terrain limits. Conscripts get disbanded first then on to the more experienced units. After 4 to 5 turns your example stack of 400 to 500 units becomes more like probably 50 to 100 who also are about to disband and seek food and shelter away from the large army who cannot feed them.

	04-03-2004 03:54									#111
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OK, my view on terrains and combat are as follows (sorry about being repetitive!)

1)Terrain should influence a units 'operational range' stat-much as it reduces movement rates in the current game! Certain units might be able to ignore this penalty for certain terrain types-like arab troops in desert terrain for instance!

2) Terrain should effect the number of units which can be in a tile at any one time. Mountains, for instance, should have a lower stack number than plains. For each unit you have above a terrains stack number, the greater chance/turn that the units in your stack will suffer some kind of physical degradation (whether hp loss, or lost attack/defense strength if attacked!)

3) Terrain should give units attack penalties/bonuses. In addition, certain units should gain benefits if attacking into/out of a particular type of terrain tile (for instance: alpine troops, a great civ2 staple, would have 'Ignore Movement costs' for mountain terrain, would ignore the Op Range costs of mountains and would recieve a bonus for attacking into/out of mountain tiles (but would get a serious penalty in all other terrain types!) This would give a player or AI an excellent incentive to build what has long been a useless unit!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

	04-03-2004 04:01									#112
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I am in complete agreement with what The_Aussie_Lurker has outlined.

I think we are talking about the same system just calling it something different. One is terrain support/supply points the other is Operational Range. In effect they are almost identical as I understand them.

	04-03-2004 07:39									#113
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OK, just to be safe, I'd like to make sure that I am on the same page as Awsric on this one.

Lets say, for example, you have an infantry unit with an Operational Range of 6. Within friendly territory, this range won't matter, 'cause all such units are considered 'In Supply'. If the unit moves beyond his borders, however, then he can only move 6 hexes out before he risks suffering damage from being 'out of supply'. If he designates a point within his borders as a 'Supply Point', then his range increases to 12. Now, for my part, I would like to see some kind of 'graphic' indicating the 'line of supply' connecting a unit to it's supply point-as it gives the enemy something to attack, so to speak, by sitting on it for a whole turn!

Anyway, back to my example. Using Lazjars method:

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQ.

Let's say that A is a friendly city, and B is your border-the farthest the infantry unit can go is H. If he travels beyond this, then he runs the risk of suffering damage (perhaps 10% per square-so if he went to M, it would be a 50% chance/turn of suffering damage) If he assigns city A as a 'Supply Point', then he can now travel out to M without difficulty-which he might need to if the nearest enemy city lies that far out. Alternatively, he could build a fort at E, assign it as a supply point, and then could travel well beyond M (as far as Q!) Of course, if he is at Q, and then that fort gets captured (or his supply-line is severed), then the infantry unit will start to automatically suffer damage every turn, until he gets back to H! Also, if a desert lay at F, for example, then the Operational Range of the infantry will drop to 3, or 5 if he has assigned a supply point! This is where having a specialized Desert unit would come in handy, as it would ignore the Op Range cost of harsh terrain. As Wrychlan said in his earlier post, though, the supply-line graphic I mentioned would probably be invisible to an enemy unless they were within about 2-4 hexes of it (depending on the 'viewing range' of the unit). This would make scouts VERY important for detecting the supply lines of an enemy invader. This system would also make paratroopers VERY important, as they would probably have a starting Op Range of about 10 (compared to the 6 I mentioned for infantry!)
Anyway, is that how you envisaged the system working, Awsric?

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

	04-03-2004 19:30									#114
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Yes, I think they are similar enough to merge them together.

This is the supply system as presented by several posters ideas merged together, if I understand them correctly.

Given:

1. Each unit has a statistic called Operational Range or OR.
   
2. OR is a measure of the base supply range in contiguous tiles that the unit can travel safely without becoming ‘out of supply’.
   
3. The effective OR is modified by the terrain types and tile improvements of the tiles in between the units current location and either the nearest city or the player designated supply point. (which ever is closer with auto-detection for optimization enabled???).
   
4. Units with-in cultural boundaries are immune from supply checks.
   
5. Valid supply points are Cities, Fortresses, and ‘Supply Nodes’ OR Valid supply points are Cities only and Fortresses and ‘Supply Nodes’ are considered tile improvements that have OR bonuses for that tile the same as other tile improvements like roads.
   
6. Tiles have a maximum number of units that can be stacked in them and considered to be in supply.
   

Last edited by Awsric Armitage on 04-03-2004 at 19:35

	04-03-2004 19:43									#115
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I'd like to bring up a few points:
1)How do you deal with naval invasion in your supply model? Are transport vessels considered a supply node?
2)Are cities the only "original node" with fortified infantry only extending their range, not generating their own? If so, can you daisy chain infantry to extend the range even further? or is there a limit to the range? Do you think it will become tedious stringing out daisy chains of supply if you push into enemy territory and he has pop-rushed down to size 1 cities that you destroy???
3)As for changing supply for different terrain. What play decisions does it create that aren't created by other systems? I mean if you avoid mountains because of their slow movement, it isn't necessary to also make the player avoid them because of difficult supply. In terms of decision-making its kind of redundant.

Also MM doesn't just refer to the keyboard input. You can have a decision between 2 different tiles which you can input with 1 keystroke, but if it requires taking out a calculator and a bunch of charts to figure out which keystroke is the most advantageous, then I would consider that micro-intensive.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
A suggestion for if they go with a daisy-chain mechanism for supply:

Why not use the borders system? When you're in your borders you are under supply. So simply have the infantry units radiate borders and borders tend to bend to military units:

ABCDEF
GHIJKL
MNOPQ

If the original border is at AGM, and a military unit in wartime moves to tile I, the border fills in. If he were to move one more tile, to J, the border would snap back to its original position and the unit would be out of supply.

ABCDEF
GHIJKL
MNOPQ

If an infantry unit fortifies at I, other units can move to L and P, and still be within the borders = in supply. If an enemy takes out the Infantry at I, OR interdicts tile H, the border snaps back to its original position and all units are out of supply.

Last edited by wrylachlan on 04-03-2004 at 20:02

	04-03-2004 20:01									#116
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quote: Originally posted by wrylachlan I'd like to bring up a few points: 1)How do you deal with naval invasion in your supply model? Are transport vessels considered a supply node?

Ships are never considered out of supply. However, like civ2 bombers, they have a fuel statistic. For galleys and non-ocean going sail, this is effectively unlimited. Standard is say, 30 turns for ocean sailships, 15 for steam, 30 for oil, and 50 for modern. The effect of using up this fuel is similar to the effect for civ2 bombers.

quote: 2)Are cities the only "original node" with fortified infantry only extending their range, not generating their own? If so, can you daisy chain infantry to extend the range even further? or is there a limit to the range? Do you think it will become tedious stringing out daisy chains of supply if you push into enemy territory and he has pop-rushed down to size 1 cities that you destroy???

In my supply model (not sure how much it agrees with teh others)...

Yes, cities are teh only original supply source. Fortified infantry are "supply nodes". A node extends teh supply range, but if a supply node unit is out of supply, it does not generate or extend any supply anywhere. You can daisy chain fortified infantry to extend the supply lines across the entire map if you desire.

Yes, I suppose it would be tedious if he manages to strip bare that many cities that then get destroyed by your attack. On the other hand, there's now all that uninhabited land just itching for you to plonk a settler unit in there. And you have all those infantry units all ready to defend your new city (and supply source).

quote: 3)As for changing supply for different terrain. What play decisions does it create that aren't created by other systems? I mean if you avoid mountains because of their slow movement, it isn't necessary to also make the player avoid them because of difficult supply. In terms of decision-making its kind of redundant. Also MM doesn't just refer to the keyboard input. You can have a decision between 2 different tiles which you can input with 1 keystroke, but if it requires taking out a calculator and a bunch of charts to figure out which keystroke is the most advantageous, then I would consider that micro-intensive.

And that's one reason why I don't want to worry about terrain for supply.

	04-03-2004 21:40									#117
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OK

1). Naval vessels should have a different supply model similar to what ljazar has outlined above representing fuel and food stores as well as crew morale all abstracted into a fuel stat. You can remain at sea for this long wthout suffering from supply penalties but must resupply at a port or suffer out of supply penalties just like land units and if supply is not replenished by returning to port the unit may eventually be lost.

Amphibious Invasions must gain a beach-head and then from that beach-head capture a city or other source of supply quickly in order to remain effective before out of supply issues begin to eat away at the units hps. This models reality in that your invasion will quickly fail if not supported by a land based supply point. We might consider giving certain amphibious units a number of free turns of supply before out-of-supply penalties begin. Current game amphibious units could be a starting point here with marines and Vikings Berserkirs as the earliest examples.

In this situation it might be wise to actually bring along a settler unit to build a new city if you plan on razing the captured coastal cities. Otherwise sustained invasions must capture a city to act as a supply point and if not then the attack was more just a raid than an invasion. Coastal cities would probably be preferrable because your invasion fleet could now be based from the newly conquered cities port.

2). I believe this point is still somewhat debated at this point. I feel as though fortresses and ‘supply nodes’ could radiate their own supply radiuses but this is also reflected with the same fortresses and ‘supply nodes’ bonuses to the OR and seems redundant to include them as original supply points. The fortresses and ‘supply nodes’ themselves must be in supply to be able to radiate supply themselves so the systems seem very similar to me. Both situations require interdicting the supply line somewhere by claiming a tile to cut the supply or controlling the ‘supply node’ or capturing the fortresses which are the larger extenders of the OR system.

Daisy-chaining supply or OR by fortifying Infantry which then becomes a ‘supply node’ is the method of extending supply or OR into enemy territory without capturing an enemy city. If a player wants to slow an invaders advance into his territory he very well could employ the tactics of stripping his cities to pop 1 and pillaging his own terrain improvements thus using a scorched earth policy. Building new cities or fortresses to base from would be the method of further extending your supply or OR into enemy territory.

3). Terrain supply or OR bonuses and penalties are not as much about movement restrictions as it is about supply ranges across them. For instance you have a mountain range in between two civilizations. One moves to invade the other and must now trace his supply lines over or around the mountains. Without the supply penalties of the mountains terrain he could draw an unimpeded supply line directly across the mountains rather than having to skirt his supply lines around the mountains to a thinner point and cross the supply lines over the mountains at that point. This realistically models using mountain passes rather than going over the peaks for the supply lines and has tactical as well as strategic gameplay implications. The same is true for units tracing supply lines through deserts and jungles and other inhospitable terrains. The supply lines are better maintained at a shorter crossing point. Also units deep inside mountainous terrain or others such as deserts or jungles would find it very difficult if not impossible to maintain supply.

quote: Also MM doesn't just refer to the keyboard input. You can have a decision between 2 different tiles which you can input with 1 keystroke, but if it requires taking out a calculator and a bunch of charts to figure out which keystroke is the most advantageous, then I would consider that micro-intensive.

I agree. This is why I propose a method be introduced for having the computer automatically trace the supply lines through the best available or shortest path available.

I would like to use the borders system as well but bear in mind the current borders system only reflects the cultural borders not the military influence borders proposed. I talked a little about this a while ago but will reiterate here for brevity of searching that post out again.

Military influence would radiate from Fortresses similar to what culture does from Cities. This military influence would trump cultural influence for control of bordering areas with a possible 2:1 or 3:1 determining ratio for which influence military vs culture would dominate ultimately. This creates three situations for border areas.

1. Military influence is greater than cultural influence.
   
   The area is considered owned by the stronger military influence and cultural borders reflect this.
   
   
2. Cultural influence is greater than military influence but less than military to culture determining ratio.
   
   The area is considered occupied by the stronger military influence and resource extraction goes first to that civs cities if they overlap each other. If not then the other civs cities can extract resources from those tiles at reduced rates as they are considered in occupied territory.
   
   
3. Culural influence is greater than military influence and is also greater than the military to culture determining ratio.
   
   The area is considered owned by the stronger cultural influence.
   

	04-03-2004 21:58									#118
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quote: Originally posted by Awsric Armitage I do see the merits of the other above posted system but it does not include the difference in between cultural and military influences over who actually controls the lands.

I think that depends on how you visualize the border system. To me, everything in your borders does have a military presence. A token military presence enough to handle basic duties, but not enough to even make a dent in a enemy that enters in force (except perhaps to slow him down as modelled by the movement penalty crossing borders.)

And the system I outlined does take into account the difference between military and cultural borders, in that borders created by military control only exist as long as the military unit stays put. As soon as the military unit gets too far into enemy territory, the border snaps back to the original cultural border line.

	15-03-2004 23:06									#119
	Solutions to the CIV combat model Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

I have enjoyed reading this spirited and creative discussion. Wrylachlan, lajzar, Aussie_Lurker and Awsric have both made excellent points on how C4 could have a realistic and playable combat system.

Now to toss in my 2 cents worth.

The pieces of the puzzle that I feel are missing are:
1. Supply lines and supply status
2. Initiative to decide who attacks and who defends
3. Leadership
4. Stacking Limits
5. Technology
6. Tactics
7. Morale vs HP
8. Terrain effects

I do like the ideas floated for a supply system for units in the field. The one thing that I think units should have a forage rate for living off the land. Ancient units would be better able to survive off of what ever was available than a modern infantry unit. What is missing is the impact of troops on the local economy. A unit should consume food that otherwise would go to the populous. In smaller cities with a large cultural area, this isn't a problem. But in a metropolis, an invading army living off the land would lead to starvation.

Units do need supply lines and something that qualifies as a baggage train with supply depots. This should correspond to a movement range since an army would try to carry as much food with it as possible. Any unit that uses up its supplies is essentially stuck, and if it's stuck for more than a turn without sufficient forage, it should start to loose HPs. This would nicely reflect what happens in seige situations as well. So if you have a stack of units in a square drawing off one food per turn per unit from the surrounding squares, it makes going into a desert a good way to kill off a lot of your units if you don't have enough supplies in your baggage train to make up the difference.

The lack of anything to do with initiative is another sore spot. This also touches on how stacks of units should work, and how combined arms should work. I liked the idea in games like Squad Leader where you could get leader units that would have a given Morale effect, Initiative rating and leadership rating. This ties in to how the battle should work out. I would like to see a turn based battle resolution system where each turn, you get to determine who has the initiative based on the leader's initiative, the unit morale, and the outcome of the last turn. Once that is decided, then the units with the highest initiatives (like mounted or missle weapons) get to attack first, and their effect is resolved against the defending units. This would also affect the defending unit status since troops on the march are more vulnerable than those that are arrayed for battle.

The next missing component is a stacking limit for each square. If you want to prevent the Stack o' Death syndrome, then make a limit of 9-12 division sized units in a given square, with lesser limits on coast squares. I keep thinking how ridiculous it was to see a stack of 200 MA's in one game, all in the same square. Just to keep the gas tanks filled up would have been improbable. That makes the need for a good combined arms force essential if you are going to make a stand in one square.

This brings me to the role of technology. Iron is better than bronze, Rifles better than muskets, and cannons better than catapults. There is a lack of realism for the effects of the technological improvements in armour and weapons. What made the Hittites such a terror was that they had weapons made of Iron that would cut a bronze sword in two. What we need is a greater differentiation between the different units possible with a given technological era. What I have tried to mod into my units is a first generation, second generation evolution: an F-18 will murder an Me-262 in a dog fight. This should lead to the need to keep units current. Again, a longbow will outrange a simple bow and a composite bow will have a greater damage with a shorter range. The tech race is somewhat present in the game, but not enough to make it a valuable part of the overall game. This leads to another problem and that is one of tactics.

Tactics are how you organize your troops and how you use them on the battlefield. Spearmen line up in rows with overlapping shields to form a single face to the enemy. Attack them with a tank, and you have HE shells and MG's which could decimate a formation of spearmen in a few minutes. Spearmen attacking a formation of tanks should still allow for a miracle like in Ethiopia vs. the Italians. But against modern armour, corrctly employed, its going to be a slaughter. Again, this is where a good leader unit would make all the difference since a low morale unit would be more succeptible to having 'Miracles' happen to them.

And what of Morale? I hated the idea of units having Hit Points. What they should have done is to have a damage rating and a morale rating to reflect what happens to the human psyche. When a unit is left in battle for too long, the morale suffers first. Battle damage may heal if left in the field, but morale may suffer for the prolonged campaigning. Alexander the Great was forced back to Persia when his troops refused to go any further. They were still able to fight, but after marching so far, they had had enough. This leads to the need for a good government that is capable of producing as high morale recruit. So governments like Despotism will produce a lower morale unit than a Democracy.

My last point is the need for more varied terrain types. While the game engine may not allow for River movement, there should be a way of having fords, mountain passes and other paths across the terrain that restricts movement and has an impact on combat. For those that have served and done field exercises, you can attest to how big a challenge it is to move large numbers of people across the land when its fairly level and you have good visibility. Now add it a forest, or hilly terrain, where your Line of Sight are reduced, and you become vulnerable to ambushes, and being our manuevered. While going to a CTP combat model is an idea, I don't feel it is a very good one. What I figure would be a better solution would be to have a more granular terrain model, to reflect how hard it is to move, how hard it would be to form up an army, and how easy it would be to place an ambush. This would mean adding some more stats to the units and the terrain, but it would make life much more interesting if you could have a unit prepare an ambush instead of setting up for a set piece battle. A unit in ambush would be more vulnerable to attack if the ambush was detected, but if it wasn't detected, then there should be an attack bonus for the surprise factor.

Well, that's a good deal for only 2 cents, but there it is. Any comments as to how workable you think all of this is ?


D.

	16-03-2004 05:59									#120
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First I have to agree that removing the absraction of Morale into hitpoints needs to be done for an effective command and initiative system to operate effectively. We need both Morale and Hitpoints stats along with Attack, Ranged Attack, Defense, and Movement. Foraging would also be nice as well as Operational Range for the supply model everyone contibuted to above but these two may combine in some way.

quote: My last point is the need for more varied terrain types. While the game engine may not allow for River movement, there should be a way of having fords, mountain passes and other paths across the terrain that restricts movement and has an impact on combat. For those that have served and done field exercises, you can attest to how big a challenge it is to move large numbers of people across the land when its fairly level and you have good visibility. Now add it a forest, or hilly terrain, where your Line of Sight are reduced, and you become vulnerable to ambushes, and being our manuevered. While going to a CTP combat model is an idea, I don't feel it is a very good one. What I figure would be a better solution would be to have a more granular terrain model, to reflect how hard it is to move, how hard it would be to form up an army, and how easy it would be to place an ambush. This would mean adding some more stats to the units and the terrain, but it would make life much more interesting if you could have a unit prepare an ambush instead of setting up for a set piece battle. A unit in ambush would be more vulnerable to attack if the ambush was detected, but if it wasn't detected, then there should be an attack bonus for the surprise factor.

I couldn't agree more about maintaining unit cohesion of larger formations in challenging terrain. Some terrain types would only allow for a maximum size of formation to effectively support each other. For example in dense forests and jungles or hilly mountain passes and gourges just to name a few army sized formations are very difficult to wield effectively breaking down into smaller command and control formational levels.

A pop-up battle map of a grid would be nice where the player could position his units if more than one existed in a stack. This battle map would be representative of the terrain types prominent of the tile engaged in and if necessary for extremely large stacks the surrounding tiles. Say a 10x10 grid for each stack of 10 units for both the attacker and defender to manuever on thus taking the battles into a tactical mode.

I know, I know, its only Civ but its Civ4 and with the more historically accurate scenarios coming out and C3C themes this might actually occur.

Think of a series of stacks say 8 to 10 stacks of 10 units each engaged in a pitched battle. I am talking Brave Heart or Gladiator style epic battle cut-scene stuff here playing out after the commanders from both sides issue orders to their troops. Then a few minutes or longer depending upon command ratings and communication technology and a new orders phase is initiated.

Talk about compelling battles compared to the move my unit into your square play a sound bite and live or die. I know which one I would pick-up off the store shelves.