sugg: Limiting unit production!

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amynase
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Re: sugg: Limiting unit production!

Post by amynase »

YoMomma wrote:Oh wait this is about SRGW, i dont care about that game. Sorry ignore my posts.

Dont know why so hard tho. Units calculated by manpower, how hard do you want to make it. Also dont worry about speed in SRGW, since there are basicly no planes, lots of foot infantry taking less resources calculating the speed.

If you buy those marketing tricks like start in 1914 play far into the future, dont know if you played a SR game since SRCW, but you should be happy if world economy runs 5 years.
I have 430 hours in Ultimate ;) I know how broken the economy is, but usually my games end after about 10 years because one day ingame takes about a minute irl at that point. Improvements to the economy would be great, and I have started a suggestion thread here about the topic, but if I could choose one new feature for Great War, it would be unit limits for better game speed, because that is what really stops my games usually. I have stated in my post above why I think manpower is a bad parameter, and I very much worry about speed because WW1 saw absolutely massive numbers of foot infantry, so if we cant limit them the game might become unplayable even faster than ultimate on my mid tier pc.
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Zuikaku
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Re: sugg: Limiting unit production!

Post by Zuikaku »

amynase wrote:but usually my games end after about 10 years because one day ingame takes about a minute irl at that point.
They are becoming slower and slower due to insane unit building.
Anyway even teaching AI to hold most of the units in reserve and not moving them all around the map all the time would increase game speed considerably - even without limiting unit production.
But limiting unit production woul'd be ideal.
Please teach AI everything!
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Balthagor
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Re: sugg: Limiting unit production!

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Zuikaku wrote:That seems not to be working well. In long term games most of the regions are packed with units, map is just covered with endless stacks of units.
Add GDP, population and govt. type into the count.
Okay, at what ratios? How many units should a region have at a GDP of 850 and population of 50M? 100M? 750M?
You're suggesting values to look at but not how to use those values.
amynase wrote:...Give us the option before we start the game to decide how many total units are allowed ingame...
That's an interesting suggestion for ongoing production, but adding code to divide up starting inventories would be a lot of work and out of scope for this project. Though it is more than just a lobby option as it would need some UI in game to tell players how much of the set limit is being used. That would need to be put somewhere, tested, and making sure the new code doesn't break something else when the value gets updated.
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amynase
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Re: sugg: Limiting unit production!

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Balthagor wrote: That's an interesting suggestion for ongoing production, but adding code to divide up starting inventories would be a lot of work and out of scope for this project. Though it is more than just a lobby option as it would need some UI in game to tell players how much of the set limit is being used. That would need to be put somewhere, tested, and making sure the new code doesn't break something else when the value gets updated.
Thats great to hear! Add it for ongoing production and not for starting inventories, then. Just disable any further unit production in case a country is above its limit, that way it shouldnt be a problem if a country starts with more units than its limit. Alternately, you could only allow the option to limit units if "start game without units" is ticked, make it a suboption of that one, so theres no problem with starting inventories.
Add it in whatever way is most practical and implementable, it would make this game sooooo much more enjoyable for me (and most people with weak PCs presumably). :D
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Balthagor
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Re: sugg: Limiting unit production!

Post by Balthagor »

Well it's interesting. Still no guarantees it'll make it into the pipeline. The suggestion has been noted.
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amynase
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Re: sugg: Limiting unit production!

Post by amynase »

Balthagor wrote:Well it's interesting. Still no guarantees it'll make it into the pipeline. The suggestion has been noted.
Image

I am a happy man now :D

*Waits for game full of hope this feature will make it in*
Last edited by amynase on Mar 21 2017, edited 1 time in total.
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Zuikaku
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Re: sugg: Limiting unit production!

Post by Zuikaku »

Balthagor wrote: Okay, at what ratios? How many units should a region have at a GDP of 850 and population of 50M? 100M? 750M?
You're suggesting values to look at but not how to use those values.
For land units... something like: GDP/100 x population x govt type x AI stance (1 defense 2 offensive).

for region with 50 mil population, democracy and defensive stance that should be 850/100 x 50 x 1 x 1 or 8,5 x 50 equaling in maximum of 450 ground units (which I think is adequate number).
This number doubles if on offensive stance and raises with higher BDP.

Govt type modifiers can be something like:
Democracy 1
Dictatorship 1,2
Communism 1,4
Monarchy 0,8
Theocracy 0,7
Please teach AI everything!
amynase
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Re: sugg: Limiting unit production!

Post by amynase »

Zuikaku wrote:
Balthagor wrote: Okay, at what ratios? How many units should a region have at a GDP of 850 and population of 50M? 100M? 750M?
You're suggesting values to look at but not how to use those values.
For land units... something like: GDP/100 x population x govt type x AI stance (1 defense 2 offensive).

for region with 50 mil population, democracy and defensive stance that should be 850/100 x 50 x 1 x 1 or 8,5 x 50 equaling in maximum of 450 ground units (which I think is adequate number).
This number doubles if on offensive stance and raises with higher BDP.

Govt type modifiers can be something like:
Democracy 1
Dictatorship 1,2
Communism 1,4
Monarchy 0,8
Theocracy 0,7
I see a couple of problems with your formula of unit limit distribution
1. Economies grow a lot
2. Populations grow a lot
3. China has tons of people but shouldnt be too strong in WW1 era
4. With a forumula like this its hard for the player to understand how his unit limit came to be, a "I have x% of the worlds gdp and thus can support x% of the worlds units" forumula is easy to understand.

The world GDP in 1913 was 1/20th of todays
The population was about 1/4th of todays
That would mean that if the game progresses all the way to the modern era, there would be 80x as many units in the world compared to the start of the game, which would completely ruin the games speed again, making the whole limit useless in this aspect.

China has roughly 7 times more people than Germany, but shouldnt field a stronger army than germany in this timeframe.
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Re: sugg: Limiting unit production!

Post by Nerei »

Said equation is going to give 2020 US a peacetime cap of around 121500 and 36 ROC a cap of about 350 despite the ROC having a population of nearly half a billion and being the archetypical "spam infantry to kill the enemy" nation.
If you want to use GDP you probably want to take the root of the it, possible 3rd of 4th root even. Also if you consider GDP you also need to consider maintenance growth in some way as not considering this would allow the AI to produce an ever increasing number of ever increasingly more expensive units.

Yes I want to consider 2020 as one of the listed features is taking the game into the 21st century and another argument is sharing engine updates with SRU.

Not saying this is a bad idea as such just that it is going to break spectacularly with time. Making an equation that works through time with a variety of different nations is probably going to be extremely difficult and at the very least quite complex.

For the record Great War China would be decentralised to the point where one of the best ways to represent it would probably be to make a central nationalist state with a host of colonies (or more correctly puppet states with some autonomy). Yuan Shikai definitely did not have much control outside of the Beiyang clique and if the game fails to represent this as spectacularly as SRU fails to represent 1930's China then I pretty much just give up.
amynase
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Re: sugg: Limiting unit production!

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Nerei wrote:Said equation is going to give 2020 US a peacetime cap of around 121500 and 36 ROC a cap of about 350 despite the ROC having a population of nearly half a billion and being the archetypical "spam infantry to kill the enemy" nation.
If you want to use GDP you probably want to take the root of the it, possible 3rd of 4th root even. Also if you consider GDP you also need to consider maintenance growth in some way as not considering this would allow the AI to produce an ever increasing number of ever increasingly more expensive units.

Yes I want to consider 2020 as one of the listed features is taking the game into the 21st century and another argument is sharing engine updates with SRU.

Not saying this is a bad idea as such just that it is going to break spectacularly with time. Making an equation that works through time with a variety of different nations is probably going to be extremely difficult and at the very least quite complex.
Thank you for this example :D

If you just take countries gdp as % share of worlds gdp its really not that complex, and stays the same number over the entire course of the game. And at least in 1914, it gives you a good approximation of the actual distribution of armies throughout the world.
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Zuikaku
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Re: sugg: Limiting unit production!

Post by Zuikaku »

Guys, I was just giving an example how formula coul'd be used, not the right and polished formula in any way. Ofcourse, it can be changed and tweaked or be entirely different, but I think that taking GDP, population, govt type and AI stance into account is a right way to go. :-)
amynase wrote:
China has roughly 7 times more people than Germany, but shouldnt field a stronger army than germany in this timeframe.
It can not. It lacks techs, industry or land producing facilities.
Please teach AI everything!
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Re: sugg: Limiting unit production!

Post by Nerei »

I know that was an example what I want to stress is you really need to consider edge cases (2020 US and 36 ROC is probably the most extreme) as 36 ROC would have a hard time surviving and 2020 would basically be basically be unaltered unit spam.



Personally I would probably look at the nations total GDP (the game should have this already) as well as the total maintenance cost of all units owned (again the game should hopefully have this) and at least during peacetime have a spending limit so say the AI is limited to say using X% of the GDP for military spending where X is dependent on government.

For say a one party socialist state (e.g. the DPRK) the percentage far higher than a socialist democracy (e.g. Norway or Iceland).

Most nations in peacetime should pretty much be at this limit already at the start of the game and only go nuts producing units when at war (adding a modifier for when the AI feels threatened would be nice to have arms races but would probably be hard to implement).


GDP/capita compared to world average (again I assume the game already have this or finding it would be fairly easy) would make a good army composition modifier so basically a higher GDP/capital would increase the ratio of warships, aircraft and armoured vehicles.
You can also add a government modifier so say national socialist governments put higher priority on armour vehicles and aircraft.

Yes I would also add additional governments if for no other reason that flavour. Putting Norway in the same box as say Syria is just wrong. We can naturally argue about what is democratic but for practically sake I will just go with the democracy index that puts Norway at the very top while Syria is 166 out of 167 only beating the DPRK.
amynase
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Re: sugg: Limiting unit production!

Post by amynase »

Zuikaku wrote:
It can not. It lacks techs, industry or land producing facilities.
China will have the tech to build some unit and land production can be built fairly fast.

Gdp alone cant be influenced very much from one week to the next, it only undergoes long term change.

Ultimately though, I am happy with any distribution of units as long as it is easy enough to understand, somewhat accurately represents countries' relative strength and gives an absolute cap for the number of units in the wolrd for game speed.
I just personally think that gdp alone is the best modifier to base unit limits on, since it comes fairly close to an accurate distribution of units throughout the world.

If you compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... _GDP_(PPP) for 1913 with http://spartacus-educational.com/FWWarmies1914.htm for total mobilized forces, you can see a somewhat accurate relation.
Last edited by amynase on Mar 21 2017, edited 1 time in total.
amynase
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Re: sugg: Limiting unit production!

Post by amynase »

Nerei wrote:I know that was an example what I want to stress is you really need to consider edge cases (2020 US and 36 ROC is probably the most extreme) as 36 ROC would have a hard time surviving and 2020 would basically be basically be unaltered unit spam.



Personally I would probably look at the nations total GDP (the game should have this already) as well as the total maintenance cost of all units owned (again the game should hopefully have this) and at least during peacetime have a spending limit so say the AI is limited to say using X% of the GDP for military spending where X is dependent on government.

For say a one party socialist state (e.g. the DPRK) the percentage far higher than a socialist democracy (e.g. Norway or Iceland).

Most nations in peacetime should pretty much be at this limit already at the start of the game and only go nuts producing units when at war (adding a modifier for when the AI feels threatened would be nice to have arms races but would probably be hard to implement).


GDP/capita compared to world average (again I assume the game already have this or finding it would be fairly easy) would make a good army composition modifier so basically a higher GDP/capital would increase the ratio of warships, aircraft and armoured vehicles.
You can also add a government modifier so say national socialist governments put higher priority on armour vehicles and aircraft.

Yes I would also add additional governments if for no other reason that flavour. Putting Norway in the same box as say Syria is just wrong. We can naturally argue about what is democratic but for practically sake I will just go with the democracy index that puts Norway at the very top while Syria is 166 out of 167 only beating the DPRK.
While I fully agree that a more in depth approach could produce better results, I would still argue that with the limited development time and resources for SR:GW, a simpler approach is probably more likely to make it into the game, aswell as more understandable for the player. And there pretty much is no simpler formula than "Your share of the worlds gdp is your share of the worlds unit cap"
Also, if you think about it, the economic might of a nation really is the main indicator how many soldiers that nation can support in the field, even democracies used all their economic might in World Wars, like USA in WW2.
If we want a realistic approach to unit caps, no cap is the only realistic one, since real countries can have as many units as they want (Like north korea)
But if we want to limit unit numbers for gameplay reasons, a understandable way that still comes close to modelling real strength distribution like basing it on gdp is best imo.
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Re: sugg: Limiting unit production!

Post by dax1 »

I dont' think this is the right way...
I think will be good to limit the units deployed in peacetime.
It's not nice to have hundreds of units on the map when there is peace.
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