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Diodorus Sicilus
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Steilacoom, WA, USA
May 1999
time: 05:14
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Technophile:
Magnificent Summary! Well organized and presented - you almost make sense out of the ramblings of the rest of us. I want to add here and now that if the Thread Masters aren't on the Short List for Beta Test/First Look at CivIII then there ain’t no justice: Firaxis could look a long way to find more positive evidence of dedication to the game - and guaranteed capacity for hard work and the feedback they need from a Beta Test.
I apologize (a little) for posting at length. On the other hand, the original Diodorus Siculus took 40 books for his “Library of History”, and that only covered the mediterranean World up to 60 BC. Covering 6000+ years takes a few minutes, now and then.
So, for a final addition/expansion to 5.3.2 Experience.
Morale is much too ephemeral for the game. Morale changes from minute to minute in a battle, while the experience level and the traditions from it lasts for months and years. In a game in which the smallest time increment is one year, let’s go with the long term on this.
Number of Levels. The current level of 2 (regular and Veteran) in CivII, it seems to be generally agreed, is too few. At the other extreme, one set of miniatures rules for Napoleonic battles some years ago had about 20 morale/efficiency levels, which is ridiculous. To compromise between CivII and SMAC, I propose a system as follows:
4 levels of Experience: (pick the title for each, or allow variable titles)
Raw/Green/Untrained
The lowest level, civilians given a weapon and generally pointed at the enemy.
Trained/Drilled
The basic weapons-skilled troops. The lowest for warlike civs like Barbarians, Nomads, or militarists like Spartans. Also the minimum required for units that require some training: Phalanxes, Legions (requires drill) or effective Musketeers (training in volley firing), or modern combined arms (extensive weapons and tactical training). Raw units with these types of equipment would get a 50% reduction in Attack and Defense factors in their first battle. If they survive that, of course, they should be well on their way to Trained status!
Veteran/Experienced
Troops who’ve been in combat or extensively (expensively) trained with very good (Military Academy trained?) leaders.
Elite/Guards
The best. Both successful combat experience and expensive, continuous training. Very, very hard to maintain at this level, and should represent only about 10% of the army at most. Examples: Caesar’s 10th Legion, Napoleon’s Old Guard, Alexander’s Agema, Germany’s Gross Deutschland in WWII, modern 82nd Airborne, French Legion Etranger or British Paras.
In addition to certain levels being required to form certain units effectively, someone else posted and I’m grabbing the idea that Hit Points should be modified by Experience Level. Since Hit Points now are a digit (1,2,3, or 4) multiplied by 10, the Experience Level would be an additional multiplier:
Raw .6 or .7
Trained 1.0
Veteran 1.5
Elite 2.0
Moving up from one level to the other can be done by combat experience or training, with combat counting for more and Elite requiring both. The exact algorithm involved will depend on the Combat System adopted, but in general it should get much harder the higher you go, so that the multiplier for points required to advance should be something like:
Raw to Trained 1
Trained to Veteran 2
Veteran to Elite 3 or 4
Miscellaneous Notes:
If you change weapons/equipment, the Experience drops one level.
Training is done in Improvements built for the purpose, like the current Barracks improvement but with some more variation by period. Examples:
Ancient: Field of Mars or Gymnasium
Medieval: Tourney
Early Modern: Barracks
Modern: Maneuver Area
Instead of becoming obsolete, you can (expensively) Upgrade training establishments. Using a non-upgraded Training facility after its period would reduce training effectiveness by 50% for each level between. In other words, a medieval Tourney is completely ineffective at training a modern unit.
The speed of training/gaining experience is based on the efficiency of the cadre. Cadre is the highest experience level gained by any unit in your military at any given time. One algorithm for training time, used in an old, old Monster Game (1960s era, I’m seriously bacdating myself here...) was the square root of the cadre’s numerical factor times the time spent in training = numerical addition to the level of the trained unit. Numerical values should not be linear: a Veteran is much, much better compared to a Trained unit than the Trained unit is from a Raw one, and Elites even farther above Veteran, relatively, than any of the others. Exact algorithms used will probably have to be set from Play Testing. One Bad, Bad Example is the BoF system, in which training times are so long as to be practically worthless compared to upgrading through successful combat.
If you don’t have any Training Improvements built, experience is gained strictly from Combat, which, as stated, is still pretty good but won’t get you all the way to Elite.
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31-08-1999 02:21
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