Discussion of the Garrison System

Talk about on-going development of Supreme Ruler 2020 here. What would you like to see in updates or in a future Supreme Ruler title?

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Hullu Hevonen
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Re: Discussion of the Garrison System

Post by Hullu Hevonen »

dust off wrote:
That's actually quite an easy one - limit garrisons by population. Sure, a 10 million metropolis could have 10 garrison units, but a town of 10.000 people should get a maximum of one. Maybe even none at all actually, one could come after 50.000. Then, tie in the exposed garrisons into the normal military AI and they won't stay in one huge stack.

Keep the build time longish (6 weeks) and they won't accumulate so quickly.
That would be an improvement. Also I'd limit them to cities, not facilities.
I would only limit them to the hexfrom which they came and instead of a pop limit i would limit them to max 7 per hex
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Re: Discussion of the Garrison System

Post by tkobo »

Any hex that has a core or city.Empty hexes should NOT be able to spawn garrisons.Max of 5 per hex.
They need to remain speed bumps,but lose the zombie spread effect.

Up defense,lower offense.They should be hard (enough to cost a day or so on an advance)to dig out, but not very dangerous to real infantry units.
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Re: Discussion of the Garrison System

Post by Porcupine1981 »

Maybe I have too little experience with this game still, but I don't really see the problem with garrisons. They are annoying in huge urban areas (Silesia, Paris, the Ruhr, the Randstaad, Moscow), but that's entirely plausible. If garrisons spread out into the open (which I have seen, recently, in Angola), even a full stack of them does not last long against one decent combat unit.
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Re: Discussion of the Garrison System

Post by Graygan »

Porcupine1981 wrote:Maybe I have too little experience with this game still, but I don't really see the problem with garrisons. They are annoying in huge urban areas (Silesia, Paris, the Ruhr, the Randstaad, Moscow), but that's entirely plausible. If garrisons spread out into the open (which I have seen, recently, in Angola), even a full stack of them does not last long against one decent combat unit.
There are a several problems with them for me. Others have other issues, but these are the ones that bother me.

1)There are so many, it's not particularly realistic. Take China for instance. Literally hundreds of them representing hundreds of thousands(millions later in the game) of personnel. How realistic is it that the Chinese are going to let that many of their citizens run around with guns in an organized fashion? Or any nation for that matter.

2)Game Balance. So many personnel get tied up in the garrisons that after a lengthy war, many nations cannot field an army due to manpower issues. The AI doesn't reduce the number of garrisons in order to fill out better combat units.

3) On top of the above, there's also the problem with how strong/weak they are. Sure, individually, they are weak. How often do you actually meet up with just one? In large stacks they will slaughter battle-hardened veterans. Their offensive power is fairly high, especially in close combat which is where you find most of them.
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Re: Discussion of the Garrison System

Post by Porcupine1981 »

Graygan wrote:1)There are so many, it's not particularly realistic. Take China for instance. Literally hundreds of them representing hundreds of thousands(millions later in the game) of personnel. How realistic is it that the Chinese are going to let that many of their citizens run around with guns in an organized fashion? Or any nation for that matter.
But the Chinese do exactly that. All university students absovle a few weeks of military training, carrying a backpack and an AK-47 (and some lucky ones actually get to shoot it). In the Soviet Union, military drill and stripping AKs was a regular school course, in fact they started when they were 12-14. In East Germany (and presumably other communist countries too) there were "worker and peasant guards" which were organised armed units located in factories and collective farms, a bit like instant reservists. There are the Iranian Basij. In a seriously destabilized world, you could expect many of these old models to be refurbished and put back in place. Heck, half of Germany was using such a system just 20 years ago. China is still using something like it today.
Graygan wrote:2)Game Balance. So many personnel get tied up in the garrisons that after a lengthy war, many nations cannot field an army due to manpower issues. The AI doesn't reduce the number of garrisons in order to fill out better combat units.
I have not yet seen this happen (the AI run out of manpower), but it is an issue, you are correct there.
Graygan wrote:3) On top of the above, there's also the problem with how strong/weak they are. Sure, individually, they are weak. How often do you actually meet up with just one? In large stacks they will slaughter battle-hardened veterans. Their offensive power is fairly high, especially in close combat which is where you find most of them.
Here I disagree. In my experience, the garrison units do cause losses, but not completely out of proportion. It is true that they may be a little "too tough" defensively and a bit too strong offensively and that their stats could be reduced a bit, but if you take some historical examples - like the resistance of the Volkssturm in World War Two or the insurgents in Iraq, you see that there are some close parallels with the garrisons from SR2020. All "weak" troops operated nearly exclusively in cities and caused casualties although they were eventually defeated quite quickly by regular armed forces. If I view the battles in that light, they do take about the right amount of time. Cities like Paris and Moscow fall too fast, if anything, as it is. If the garrisons were reduced too much, urban combat would become a walkover, which it decidedly is not (compare again with the deadly battles on the Eastern Front in WW2 - it would be like that only worse).
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Re: Discussion of the Garrison System

Post by Hundane »

The thing this game doesnt reflect very well is urban combat supply. In this game, the defenders and the population of these cities will never run out of supply. You can completely isolate any urban center for years and the defenders will always be fed, have full supplies of ammo and fuel and can even recruit more defenders. They also find a way to re-build thier towns and facilities. They even get raw materials to those cities to produce goods if they have the facilites.

Given that the garrisons are always in supply and can refill thier losses of manpower quickly makes the garrison stats a little too powerful IMO. A dedicated assualt shouldnt be repelled over and over and over again, eventually the lack of resources to adequately defend the city will be depleted.
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Re: Discussion of the Garrison System

Post by Porcupine1981 »

That's perfectly true, I didn't consider that. Any way of modifying this for sieges?
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Re: Discussion of the Garrison System

Post by George Geczy »

The "Garrisons issue" has been on my mind for a while, and I think I'm getting ready to do something about it :)

One item on our wishlist is a lobby option to adjust the max # of Garrisons buildable in a hex, from 0 to 7. But I also want to address some of the other elements.

One suggestion made in this thread has been to reduce their offensive attack value, and I generally agree with that.

Another problem is what to do with "wandering Garrisons" (those that get pushed to retreat off their hex). Once they wander, they are not (by definition) a "garrison" any longer. My first thought on this was to force all "homeless" garrisons to re-path to a city. But more recently I have another idea: To give Garrison units a zero movement speed. That way, they can't run away any longer, nor can they be 'moved away' by players that want to create a garrison zombie army. This also prevents the "too many garrisons" issue (when Garrisons are moved onto a hex that already has 7, they can't "re-integrate" and so stay as a unit).

There was a suggestion on this thread about allowing Garrisons for cities only (not for facilities), but I don't think I lean this way - Military bases are reasonable to expect to have Garrisons, leaving only Industrial facils as the odd one out. I'm not sure there is enough of a reason for this.

There was a suggestion for longer 'build times' for Garrisons. If we reduce their offensive strength, I'm not sure this is needed.

There was a comment about disbanding all Garrisons when a region is eliminated - this sounds like a good idea, let them all go home and get real jobs.

Finally, there were some comments about not being able to cut garrisons in cities off from supply - this is an interesting point. There are actually two things worth considering here: 1) if a hex is completely surrounded (all six sides), then cut its supply to zero, regardless of what is on that hex. This makes single-hex sieges possible, and the player would only be able to resupply by air - this seems to add an interesting and realistic new strategy for dealing with isolated strong points. 2) Reduce supply levels of all front-line (border) hexes; similar to #1 (though could also be used together with #1), and it will also have some interesting game strategy effects.

So, that's my Garrison changes discussion list.

-- George.
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Re: Discussion of the Garrison System

Post by tkobo »

George Geczy wrote:
One item on our wishlist is a lobby option to adjust the max # of Garrisons buildable in a hex, from 0 to 7. But I also want to address some of the other elements.
Excellent

One suggestion made in this thread has been to reduce their offensive attack value, and I generally agree with that.
Excellent

Another problem is what to do with "wandering Garrisons" (those that get pushed to retreat off their hex). Once they wander, they are not (by definition) a "garrison" any longer. My first thought on this was to force all "homeless" garrisons to re-path to a city. But more recently I have another idea: To give Garrison units a zero movement speed. That way, they can't run away any longer, nor can they be 'moved away' by players that want to create a garrison zombie army. This also prevents the "too many garrisons" issue (when Garrisons are moved onto a hex that already has 7, they can't "re-integrate" and so stay as a unit).

Not sold on this, unless the new garrison limiting option will somehow prevent the AI from putting in new garrison build orders when its slots are "empty" due to its garrisons being deployed.....

There was a comment about disbanding all Garrisons when a region is eliminated - this sounds like a good idea, let them all go home and get real jobs.
Excellent,BUT keep in mind currently garrisons in the build process are NOT removed when the eliminate units upon surrender option is picked.


Finally, there were some comments about not being able to cut garrisons in cities off from supply - this is an interesting point. There are actually two things worth considering here: 1) if a hex is completely surrounded (all six sides), then cut its supply to zero, regardless of what is on that hex. This makes single-hex sieges possible, and the player would only be able to resupply by air - this seems to add an interesting and realistic new strategy for dealing with isolated strong points. 2) Reduce supply levels of all front-line (border) hexes; similar to #1 (though could also be used together with #1), and it will also have some interesting game strategy effects.

Sold on #1,not sure on #2.

-- George.
Lastly with this,are you talking about in a possible update to the game,or for the next one ?
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Re: Discussion of the Garrison System

Post by George Geczy »

The spec tweak options (changing attack values and the movement rate), as well as the elimination and possibly the 'siege' idea, I'd like to try to get into the next update.
unless the new garrison limiting option will somehow prevent the AI from putting in new garrison build orders when its slots are "empty" due to its garrisons being deployed.....
Yes, I would also add something that would force elimination of 'over garrisoned' situations such as this (ie, send them back to reserve soldiers).

-- George.
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Re: Discussion of the Garrison System

Post by killerflood »

George Geczy wrote: -- George.
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Re: Discussion of the Garrison System

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George Geczy wrote: One item on our wishlist is a lobby option to adjust the max # of Garrisons buildable in a hex, from 0 to 7. But I also want to address some of the other elements.
EXCELLENT! If I never see another garrison then I will be a happy player.

I'm surpised that no one has mentioned this yet - make the "Reduce Garrisons" priority for the DM actually work.

IMHO, the concept of adding "speed bumps" to the game was a mistake from the start. The next time, you might want to give more consideration to your new players (customers) who are already so shocked at the game's complexity that they would welcome an easier military aspect, instead of the "generals" who keep insisting that you make the military game harder.

But the garrison problem is compounded by other questionable elements in the game:

1. Over-population of units.
2. Short-range units allowed to attack outside of their hex.
3. Close combat penelties.
4. No-miss attacks.
5. Overly-strong garrison units.

Each of these factors makes a bad idea worse. I'm not sure if the factors are additive or multiplicative but together they make a speed-bump into a very big pot-hole.

1. No village is ever going to have 540 garrison troops (one garrison) guarding it unless the Defense Minister is visiting.
2. Garrisons can attack at a max range of 31 km instead of just 1 km. Pretty good for a bunch of students with AKs.
3. Garrisons can make close combat-value attacks into the surrounding open country-side.
4. They never miss.
5. Attack and defense values of Foreign Legion troops vs Garrisons:

14,11,0,10,0,0,1,0,19,17,17,12,17,1,1,1,0
14,10,0, 6,0,0,1,0,16,14,12,13,14,1,1,1,0

Oh, and garrisons can attack high-speed, fixed-wing aircraft - LOL.

I was going to mention the supply issue, but that is a "home field" advantage that is enjoyed by any unit that fights from a supply-generating hex, isn't it?

How about halving the number of units on the map i.e. no garrisons? Then all of that computing power that you have freed up could be used to make the legitimate fighting units smarter, i.e. way-points, ranged attacks, realistic ranges. Most of the AI's units on the map just sit around at their base un-used. Therefore the percentage of units actually in combat is relatively small and the computational load should be manageable.
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Re: Discussion of the Garrison System

Post by Balthagor »

catatonic wrote:...Oh, and garrisons can attack high-speed, fixed-wing aircraft...
Only when those aircraft are strafing slowly at less than 2000ft. Don't let them direct attack land units and garrison's can't touch them.
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Re: Discussion of the Garrison System

Post by Hundane »

Yeah, you can keep your aircraft from getting down to the garrisons "level" but those garrisons are even extremely more effective at sinking fleets of ships in quick order.
I'm surpised that no one has mentioned this yet - make the "Reduce Garrisons" priority for the DM actually work.
I think this does work in a way, it seems to only reduce to certain limit and that limit looks to be different for some city hexes.
Locking out the DM from garrison control at the start of the game is still the easiest method I have found to keep the AI from making any.
One item on our wishlist is a lobby option to adjust the max # of Garrisons buildable in a hex, from 0 to 7. But I also want to address some of the other elements.
I like this idea the best, seems like less work on your part and allows the player some flexibility on the type of game they want to play. Plus, it adds 8 new ways to replay your games. Although I would be happy to see any or all of those ideas you listed.
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Re: Discussion of the Garrison System

Post by dust off »

Sounds like interesting tweaks to Garrisons. I'm unsure whether I'll choose to have them set to zero; probably go for 1 or 2.

Fixing the supply for a 6 hex surround is great. And I am very curious to see how the reduced border hex supply will affect the game.

Cheers for the feed back.
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