Military Centres

Similar to SCs for the regular population, Military Centres are a collection of people and TOs grouped together to reduce micromanagement. Obviously, Military Centres are for military units and management. MCs will keep troops fed and equipped if provided with resources through trade routes. In this way it will be possible to have attrition affect soldiers that are outside of the care of an SC or MC without having to micromanage cargo TOs full of food and weaponry to your current battlefield. Obviously MCs will not often be needed in the early game, with battles being a small amount of men. However, once a real war begins (I would class the first real recorded war here on Earth as the Greeks vs the Trojans) the player may find himself having to set up MCs to keep his troops easily replenished while the battles rage. MCs will be a lot less complex than SCs, as they will not produce research and will only have Military, Medical, Worker and Entertainer Specialists. They will be able to construct TOs, but their production output will likely be lesser than SCs because of their inability to hold citizens. When selected, an MC will display an overview panel along the bottom of the screen. Of course, MCs are not strictly for war efforts. In modern times, most countries have Army Bases that function just like MCs will. Having a ready supply of troops is always a good idea.

Military Centre Overview:
In the Overview panel, the player can view how many of each kind of specialist is present in the MC. There will be an option to quickly eject all Military Specialists as units in an emergency, but the result will not be instant because they will have to wake up, get armed, etc. The other specialists are there simply to have an effect on the Military Specialists' health and happiness, and in the case of workers, to construct more buildings for the Military Centre. There will be a small "build panel" for the MC, identical to SCs. In a MC, there will be a larger panel for viewing TOs and resources currently in the MC, to allow the player to better know what is immediately available in their war efforts.

So, as you can see, MCs are a lot simpler than SCs. But i feel they are necessary for the military side of the game and will lead to many interesting military tactics such as cutting off supply routes and attacking MCs instead of SCs to gain frighten a nation into surrender. What does everyone think?

Also, i think that "Military Training" would be a good research for unlocking designation of MCs.

Good idea!

Alright, you should be able to set up fortifications, and build certain TOs (Ex: Seige weaponry, minus anything that has to be cast).

That's obvious. You sorta said the same thing.

Also, any military unit stationed in an MC should automatically begin to return to a full morale value, but will require entertainer specialists to get beyond, say, 80%.

A small number of scientific specialists should be allowed, so as to boost study of any military researches.

Tenebrarum wrote:

Good idea!

Alright, you should be able to set up fortifications, and build certain TOs (Ex: Seige weaponry, minus anything that has to be cast).

That's obvious. You sorta said the same thing.

Also, any military unit stationed in an MC should automatically begin to return to a full morale value, but will require entertainer specialists to get beyond, say, 80%.

A small number of scientific specialists should be allowed, so as to boost study of any military researches.

Yes, MCs have the ability to produce TOs.

I don't think we'll have a morale value for each individual unit. A hunger value would suffice, surely? That can be slowly refilled when they enter the MC. Deal?

I did think about this when i was writing the concept. I eventually decided against it because i wanted MCs to retain some degree of simplicity.

i wouldn't mind having 3 meters for every unit (health, hunger, morale), but i would vote morale in place of hunger.

i personally think hunger is more boring than morale, and also more spory.

toxiciron wrote:

i wouldn't mind having 3 meters for every unit (health, hunger, morale), but i would vote morale in place of hunger.

i personally think hunger is more boring than morale, and also more spory.

So would health and moral meters.

I like the idea and everything, but what will actually make the player make these rather than SCs which can do this and more?

Hunger or moral... Hunger is my primary choice, but if moral is more popular then go ahead.

I think hunger is a must. I don't mind having moral with it but I really don't want my soldiers have unexausteble resources (food).

Alaska said that the soldiers will have their hunger meter go back up when they go back to the MCs. But would t be possible to use TOs to bring food with and they head back to the MC once the food is exausted? If they can get back of course.

Albalrogue wrote:

I think hunger is a must. I don't mind having moral with it but I really don't want my soldiers have unexausteble resources (food).

Alaska said that the soldiers will have their hunger meter go back up when they go back to the MCs. But would t be possible to use TOs to bring food with and they head back to the MC once the food is exausted? If they can get back of course.

That could be a 'supplies' research that delays the time before the hunger meter goes down. Of course, this will affect globally, not just military.

The Uteen wrote:

Albalrogue wrote:

I think hunger is a must. I don't mind having moral with it but I really don't want my soldiers have unexausteble resources (food).

Alaska said that the soldiers will have their hunger meter go back up when they go back to the MCs. But would t be possible to use TOs to bring food with and they head back to the MC once the food is exausted? If they can get back of course.

That could be a 'supplies' research that delays the time before the hunger meter goes down. Of course, this will affect globally, not just military.

Of course.

Quote :

what will actually make the player make these rather than SCs which can do this and more?

MC is smaller (thus better defendable), is less affected by some factors (happiness, politics) and is cheaper to run (less specialists, other than military).



I also have some more ideas on military, but these may deserve their own thread.

I really would hate to lose morale as a factor for military. We wouldn't be able to count for certain things being frightening, but terror would easily transcend all cultural boundries. I don't care whether you're a giant green shoggoth with tenticles coming out your nose or a hyper-intelligent gerble, if you're not a career soldier and the all people you'd known for the last six months heads' exploded, you'd run, and even the strongest career soldier would be shaken.

Terror tactics and weapons are so important throughout history, taking them away is like taking away evolution from our gameplay.

P.S. You could easily replace "Morale" with "Hapiness"

Okay, well i guess as long as the game can handle it, the three bars can be health, happiness and hunger. All easy to represent with icons.

and they all start with H!

EDIT: to make this post not a waste of time, i will give some suggestions.

has anyone here played a total war game? in that game, you notice that soldiers tend to run away VERY easily. if half of a squad dies, that squad runs away. any squad seeing that squad run away will run away quicker than normal, and only the veteran soldiers stay behind. i think this line is actually just some food for thought.

on to real things to use, we could have the morale bar take into account many different things

health of unit (not squad)
hunger of unit (" from here on)
training of unit
equipment of unit
ratio of units between both sides
average rank of units ratio between both sides
rank of nearby squads
morale of nearby squads
distance to commander

etc

toxiciron wrote:

and they all start with H!

EDIT: to make this post not a waste of time, i will give some suggestions.

has anyone here played a total war game? in that game, you notice that soldiers tend to run away VERY easily. if half of a squad dies, that squad runs away. any squad seeing that squad run away will run away quicker than normal, and only the veteran soldiers stay behind. i think this line is actually just some food for thought.

on to real things to use, we could have the morale bar take into account many different things

health of unit (not squad)
hunger of unit (" from here on)
training of unit
equipment of unit
ratio of units between both sides
average rank of units ratio between both sides
rank of nearby squads
morale of nearby squads
distance to commander

etc

Mmm... I see this getting very complicated very quickly. Especially once we take into account things like loud noises scaring people.

I think the three factors should be named "Health, Supplies and Morale", if used for military. Not many people are happy when they have to fight, yet they do have strong will to fight.

But really, that deserves it's own topic. I don't have time now, but I will have in about 3 hours (read: if there will not be any new topic regarding military in three hours, I'm going to make it).

Morale is a bit tricky, but can be boiled down to a few elements.

1. Training/Experience. This not only reflects the overall AI skill of the unit, but also is essential in Morale. It's simple, the more/better training/experience the harder it is to deplete it.

2. Familiarity. When fighting, soldiers will look for certain things. If they encounter something they did not expect, morale drops. Unfamiliar things could include...

Organisms/TOs they've never seen before.
An oddity of the opposing force, such as being totally silent or singing/playing music while fighting

3. Chances. When chances are good, morale goes up. When chances are bad, it goes down. Chances are determined by numbers of their force vs. the enemy force, as well as the history of the units their facing. Unit history is also simple. When the player creates a unit, it starts with no history, but as that unit is used than multiple wins in it's history will negatively affect the opposing forces morale, while multiple losses will positively affect the opposing force's morale.

4. Health/Hunger. I'd hope this is self explanitory.

Is that good?

Sounds a good concept, the only thing might be storing history for every single unit (until it dies). I suppose each would be assigned a number/code, the game would make a text file, then displayed like: Af25_history=20. The file could easily get swamped, easily in space, you'll have millions of men, robots, zombies (possible if you get a tech to return people to life ). Maybe this would need some sort of protection, though, as a plain text file it's just asking for someone to find it and cheat. ("Yay! All me doodes are invincible legend!! Me is da scary rooler of da planeet! OMG ROFL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!")

Afterthought: Higher history should mean you don't run from others with similarly high history. Otherwise a high enough history and everyone runs from you.

The Uteen wrote:

Sounds a good concept, the only thing might be storing history for every single unit (until it dies). I suppose each would be assigned a number/code, the game would make a text file, then displayed like: Af25_history=20. The file could easily get swamped, easily in space, you'll have millions of men, robots, zombies (possible if you get a tech to return people to life ). Maybe this would need some sort of protection, though, as a plain text file it's just asking for someone to find it and cheat. ("Yay! All me doodes are invincible legend!! Me is da scary rooler of da planeet! OMG ROFL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!")

Afterthought: Higher history should mean you don't run from others with similarly high history. Otherwise a high enough history and everyone runs from you.

History for unit type, not induvidual units. Sorry I was unclear.

Tenebrarum wrote:

The Uteen wrote:

Sounds a good concept, the only thing might be storing history for every single unit (until it dies). I suppose each would be assigned a number/code, the game would make a text file, then displayed like: Af25_history=20. The file could easily get swamped, easily in space, you'll have millions of men, robots, zombies (possible if you get a tech to return people to life ). Maybe this would need some sort of protection, though, as a plain text file it's just asking for someone to find it and cheat. ("Yay! All me doodes are invincible legend!! Me is da scary rooler of da planeet! OMG ROFL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!")

Afterthought: Higher history should mean you don't run from others with similarly high history. Otherwise a high enough history and everyone runs from you.

History for unit type, not induvidual units. Sorry I was unclear.

Unit type, you say? That's actually a lot better.

does history of unit type mean this:

assassins - played a very key role in every battle, and any battle without them is lost, therefore all assassins have a good morale boost via history

or does it means this:

this specific group of assassins have won many battles, so it has a higher morale rating.

toxiciron wrote:

does history of unit type mean this:

assassins - played a very key role in every battle, and any battle without them is lost, therefore all assassins have a good morale boost via history

or does it means this:

this specific group of assassins have won many battles, so it has a higher morale rating.

Option A, i believe.