I think the beauty of the Civ games is the simplicity in which the complex world is presented. Adding too much for the sake of realism will surely kill gameplay.

I think the only thing that needs to be modified is the ballte system and possibly that building military units will require populatuion as well as recourses.

This idea is not only "for the sake of realism". My thought with it was mostly to avoid some problems that really irritates me in civ2. These problems are:

- Having so many units that u cant keep track of all of them.
- Have so many units that u keep forget the specific units role in your military strategy. "Was this unit supposed to be in the attack of Berlin or was it supposed to defend the fortress outside Moscow?"
- Ai-units just moving around with no purpose and just use alot of computerpower.
- Not being able to coordinate battleplans (well u can in smac but it's still not good enough)
- No window where u can control all your military operations.
- Not being able to spy on other civs military plans and operation.
- No realism in units moving 100 km in 20 years. (Sure u could make increase units movements rate ten times but that would only lead to too much micromanegement)
- A unit entering a city will always attack it.

There are also some advantages that I see in my idea:

- It's easy to link military operation with your economy. Every operation will cost u money and resources.
- U can control all your empires military operations from one window, not having to scroll around on the entire map.
- If you are a peaceloving player you don't have to spend half of your time building units or moving units.

I'll try to explain it even though my english isn't very good.

First:
- We have men
- We have equippment
- We have money
- We have training facilities (maybe, not necessarily but training will take longer time without it)

Step two: We pay money
equipp the men and train them...voila: They are now ready to beacome a part of your army.

Step three: Once a military operation is needed u grab a bunch of soldiers and form them into a unit. Different kinds of soldiers cannot be formed into one unit. For example riflemen and archers cannot exist in the same unit. several units can be a part of same military operations. If u don't like the military operation window there is a feature that make your unit alive on the screen being able to control that way.

When an unit on the 'field' has lost men u can always grab some new men to replace those that have disappeared. This "reinforce" option is always presented whenever needed (after battles).

Since people always die (if not beacouse of war then beacouse of old age) i suggest that your army will always decrease which means that in order to upkeep an standing army you have to make new recruitment all the time.

Ok, here's an example. I want to take an enemy city with a variety of units (or armies or whatever). I want to gather them from a bunch of different cities, railroad them to a central point where I can gather my forces. I want a main force to head straight to the enemy city via the fastest terrain possible, with a couple of more mobile units flanking on either side, to make sure enemy units from other cities can't get in to help defend the enemy city. I want these mobile units to kill any settlers on sight, but otherwise they should fortify to cut off enemy units using their ZOCs. The main force should bombard until the city is able to be taken with infantry.

That's a rather long example, but not all that uncommon for a game of Civ. How would you go about doing this with missions? How many missions would you use in that example? How much would you be relying on the units to do what you want? I want to be able to move my armies in that sort of detail (and much more). Are missions going to make this easier or harder?

quote: First: - We have men - We have equippment - We have money - We have training facilities (maybe, not necessarily but training will take longer time without it)

This is exactly what I wanted for a long time!

"Men" will be provided by extracting some portion of your population I guess.

Equipments? are they just weapons or whole bunch of other things like ammunitions or other equipments like trucks for motorised infantry or horses for cavalry?

For "training facilities", I reckon these should be vital for producing bulk of modern army.(especially for air force and navy. army too!)

Army mobilisation should be dealt with on national level and all the conscripted soldiers should be fed and paid by the national government not a individual parent city.

quote: Equipments? are they just weapons or whole bunch of other things like ammunitions or other equipments like trucks for motorised infantry or horses for cavalry?

equipments is everything that is needed for making the soldier a soldier. Weapons, shielding eqipment, horses, trucks etc.

quote: "military operation window" I don't understand this. what have you in mind?

The military operation window is a window where all your ongoing military operations are listed.

quote: There's some good idea in there, but I'm more stuck on what these "missions" are. To date you haven't gone into much detail there.

This is true. With missions i mean where u send a unit and in which purpose. The purpose can be:

- Attack
- Defend
- Destroy xxx
- Piracy
- Police
- Guarding border
- Blockade

I can't think of any more right now but there should be some more options. During this missions u also have some other options that tell how the unit will respond to situations. These situations are regarding civilians, rebellions, surrending armys (POW).

They are:
- Kill
- Torture
- Humiliate
- Take as slave
- Imprison
- Punish
- Disarm
- Ignore

Also you have an option on how much pillage.

What information do you get in the military operation window?

I'll give an example:

The military operation:
- Attack Berlin until army is dead (or Berlin captured)

- Ignore civilans
- Kill rebellions
- Take surrendering armys as slaves
- Pillage: Don't bother

The status of the status of the units:
- wellfed
- well equipped
- good health
- 4000 riflemen of 4200 riflemen (200 are dead without being replaced)
- 25% trained
- 10% experienced