How about THIS idea?

[Flash Gordon]

Probably better suited for SC2 but here goes.

Have everything cost MMP's AND TIME to make. As industrial technology level goes UP, all it does is decrease the amount of time it takes to make something. The number of MMP's it costs stay the same. I rationalize this by thinking of MMP as being raw resources, i.e. iron, coal, etc. and no matter how much better your industry becomes, it's still going to take X amount of iron to make a tank...however, the length of time it would take to build a unit would decrease since industrial technology would be translated as how efficiently your workforce is puttering away in the factories.

As an example, at industrial technology level 0, a tank unit would cost:

400 MMP - 6 turns

but at industrial technology level 4, a tank unit would cost

400 MP - 2 turns.

How's that?

Or did someone already suggest this?

[JerseyJohn]

Very good in my opinion. The general idea was gone over in at least one past forum but didn't get anywhere. What your suggesting sounds similar to the system used in Clash of Steel and it was one of the things I liked about that game.

[ November 26, 2002, 04:57 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[ev]

I agree time should be a production factor.

But I think time has more to do with trainniing soldiers... and, not so much with manufacturing weapons.

[Flash Gordon]

Originally posted by ev:

I agree time should be a production factor.

But I think time has more to do with trainniing soldiers... and, not so much with manufacturing weapons.

Uhhh...how much time would it take a fully industrialized nation to build a battleship as compared to a nation where a lot of stuff was still manufactured by individuals and guilds, etc.? I believe the time difference would be outstanding.

[Flash Gordon]

Anyway - more examples of how this could work.

Let's take the production of an army - well, an army needs to have a bunch of guys, have them trained, provide them w/ weapons, etc. Much of the "time cost" will probably just be the training required.

So a level 0 army unit could cost:

250 MMP - 4 turns

However, say we have a level 5 army unit. Much of that level 5 badass behaviour of this army unit would be due to technological advances in the weapons it has, i.e. automatic rifles (BARs and Sturmgewehrs) as opposed to semi-automatic rifles (M1 Garands) as opposed to bolt-action rifles (Enfield). But training is still probably going to take the same amount of time.

So a level 5 army unit might cost 300 MMP (due to increased cost in terms of resources for the better weapons the army gets) but STILL cost 4 turns. Basically, an Army unit would be something that just wouldn't benefit that much from advances in industrial technology since the rate-limiting step would be the training time as opposed to time to manufacture enough weapons to equip them.

NOTE: When providing examples, I just numbers that just came to me off the top of my head so they are not necessarily consistent with the numbers I provided in my previous example.

ev brings up the good example of "time cost" of units not only being dependent on time needed to manufacture certain weapons but also time needed to train the men. The thing to do is to determine for each unit what the rate limiting step is - if the rate limiting step is the time required to train the men, no advances in industrial technology will lower the "time cost" of building a certain unit as advances in industrial technology will only reduce the amount of time it takes to manufacture THINGS as opposed to training people.

How this MMP cost/time cost thing will work in the context of shuffling replacements to a depleted unit is another question altogether.

[Rouge]

I like that idea! I made a post ageeeees ago about the weapons that armies are equiped with should have an effect on the opposing force. It was deemed 'Insucnificant on such a large scale"

[JerseyJohn]

Agreed with the concept. One of the German weaknesses was Hitler's habit of creating new divisions and giving them upgraded weapons instead of sending them to veterans still in the field. Although I like it, I think it's too sophisticated for this approach; as the man says -- on second thought, why get aggravated!

There was a DOS game around ten years ago that used a similar idea; armies were dated and as they became older they're level of weapon obsolescence rose. Maybe something like that combined with a behind the lines refit option would have a similar effect to what you're proposing.

[ November 27, 2002, 01:27 AM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[jyri88]

I think that it would be good to have in SC2 real tanks like Panzer IV, Shermans, Tigers and T-34 with their strength and weaknesses.And you could have different tanks in your tank division.Like if you had whole division with Panzer IV and you want some Tigers in that division it would cost some extra...

[Flash Gordon]

Whoa...that could possibly over-complicate SC. The beauty of SC right now is its simplicity. Do we really need to know how many King Tigers, Tigers, Pathers, Pz. Mk. IV's, etc. are in each Panzer Armee?

[JerseyJohn]

No -- but a generalization as in the equipment obsolescence rating seems practical enough. That's similar to the upgrading mode in Clash of Steel, except I think it would be better as an individual unit option instead of an across the board upgrade.