UNITS (ver1.0): Hosted by JT

JT · May 19, 1999, 11:03

New units section, I will come and put what's happened so far in a minute.

JT · May 19, 1999, 11:32

posted May 18, 1999 17:09

General summary of the last thread:

UNITS
Spy Planes-multiple turns of feul, long range, no armor or weapon. Used for scouting.

Patriots-draftees from cities

Sea Engineers-terraform the sea

Supply Trucks-supply one nutrient/mineral/gold(whichever is chosen) from home city to city truck is assigned to.

Assassin-Like spy, except kills prominent researchers or builders to set enemy back.

Anti-sub Helicopter-Maybe with a sonar beacon that extends a square in every direction so you can pick up the subs?

Merchant Fleet-Caravans on the sea. I like this one _a lot_.

Air Transport-Airplane that transports units

AWAC-Like spy plane, but shorter range. Gives support to any attacked air units within 4 squares.

Spy Sattelites-Keep constant watch over a certain area.

Refugee-If city is captured, this unit appears. Can add its population to another city. No offense or defense.

Intelligance(sp?) Unit - Anti-spy protection

CONCEPTS

Long-range attacking units-catpults and other long-range units can attack from a few squares away

Raising armies-instead of building armies, you raise them through your cities

Support-Nation supports unit instead of city.

Tech upgrades-Option to upgrade units with whatever you discover once you discover it. Example: You have an archers unit defending a town. You discover Bronze Working.You can now add bronze armor to your archer unit if you wish.

Seperate armies and weapons-The people are drafted from a city while their weapons are built in another.

Training Grounds-Not letting certain units that have to be trained, like an archer or a knight, be built until barracks are built.

If I missed anything, let me know!

meowser · May 19, 1999, 11:48

Better improved unconventional units(i.e. corporate branch can only affect enemy nations that have democratic/republican government type.)

Spy units can only be seen by spy units or with the right city/terrain improvement

JT · May 19, 1999, 13:01

Yeah, I agree that Corperate Branches, Lawyers, Televangelists, Abolonishionists(sp?), and most of the uncoventionals from CTP should go. They're idiotic. I, personally, have never been taken to another religion by some guy with a TV on his head.

Utrecht · May 19, 1999, 13:15

A couple of things:
1) I think that the scope of Civilization makes a "unit workshop" a little unusable. It was OK in SMAC because the time was substantially more compressed. However the ability to "enhance a unit" should be possible. (i.e. give nerve gas +X % attack or nuclear engines +2 move)

2) It should be absolutely allowed to upgrade units without any stinking wonders. (subject to a cost like SMAC)

3) The costs of maintaining "obsolete" units should grow over time. I.e. It will cost a heck of alot more to maintain a pikemen in 1980 than it did 1200 (i.e. the behind the scenes infrastructure)

4) Units should "improve" over time. After all weapon/unit/tactic design is a combination of iterative/evolutionary. Civ has done a good job of emulating the evolutionary aspect. catapult-cannon-artillery. However, the iterative is not so good. So I recommend that for each unit of unit type that is built, its strength is improved by say 5% (up to some sort of cap)

5) Units I would like to see that have not been in any of the previos civ games

Longbowman (early reinissance)

Cannonades (step between catapult and cannons) (late renissance)

Arqbues (sp) (Step between longbowmen and musketeers) (late renissance)

Biplane

I am sure I will think of others

EnochF · May 19, 1999, 13:32

I'll speak up for the special units. I won't mourn the loss of televangelists and slavers, mind you, but I think lawyers, clerics and corporate branches (toned down if you're really so concerned) or something like them should be included in Civ III along with spies and diplomats. These special units keep me interested in a game that might otherwise present nothing but a military challenge (boring... zzz... tank kills rifleman, tank kills rifleman... rifleman kills tank...)

Jon Miller · May 19, 1999, 13:42

hey JT

you didn't include any of my ideas

they can be found in the list thread at smac forum and the thread units 2

there are some good ideas, read them

------------------
Jon Miller

JT · May 19, 1999, 14:35

Sorry, Jon, but you have to realize that I _do_ have over 75 posts to read through. These were just topics talked about for a while. If you want people to see what you say, by all means, post it!

JT · May 19, 1999, 14:39

Yeah, special units do add flavor to the game, but _please_ get rid of Televangelists. If there's only one unit that you're going to get rid of, that one should be it.

I think they should come up with some new special units. Slavers were okay, spies definatly needed, same with diplomats. But, seriously, a _LAWYER_?!?! I mean, you're in the middle of a war in 2500 AD, and _noone_ happens to shoot the guy before he gets to them? And he _SUES_?! He's from another country! I don't think it's even possible unless you're in a really good peace treaty! And even if you _do_ do it during a peace treaty, doesn't the government drop all court problems if you join the military?

I think they really had some sad units.

Gallagher · May 19, 1999, 15:06

No one ever mentions guerilla units. They would
1 Be invisible
2 Ignore zones of control
3 Not have any zone of control themselves
4 Be very weak offensively (because they're mostly good for blowing up improvements "pillaging")and not too strong defensively
5 Can join an enemy city as very unhappy citizen, in an attempt to put that city into revolt. This ability should replace the spy's ability to bribe a city into defecting.

JT · May 19, 1999, 15:13

You mean the spies ability to decrease the happiness in the city, right?

Yeah, guerrilla units would be cool. Except, I wouldn't use them, since I want land that's going to be mine soon to have the improvements to be intact. But, a lot of other people pillage, so this isn't a bad idea.

crusher · May 19, 1999, 15:21

1.Maybe a mobile jamming unit! stops enemy from seeing plane attacks. Best used in stacks of corse!

2.some sort of crop plauge carrier

------------------
"War does not determine who is right,It determines who is left."
-Crusher-

EnochF · May 19, 1999, 15:23

Yeah, and a jammer unit could counteract any radar or sonar posts in the area...

EnochF · May 19, 1999, 15:23

Wait, wait, wait. I changed my mind. Why don't we just give Spies and Spy Planes the ability to (J)am radar instead.

[This message has been edited by EnochF (edited May 19, 1999).]

EdCase · May 19, 1999, 15:37

As I have stated before..Overhaul the nuclear missile and effects in a LARGE way...maybe as follows.

1.Decimates all military units in city (nuclear missiles would be specials and possibly exempt see point 5)radius,or set area if not used on city.
2 depletes civilian population by between 50 and 90%
(these are pretty similar to exsisting game nukes)
3 When a city/area has been "nuked" NO unit may enter the affected area for a set number of game turns.(In a city this eliminates paratroops dropping into a radioactive hellhole).
4.In the case of cities owning civ may build NOTHING,within that city, for same number of turns as units are excluded
5 And for me this is the clincher to simulate the "balance of terror"..Any city that is nuked(providing that one or more missiles are sited there) is given the oppotunity,provided the nescessary tech (computers perhaps) has been researched,to launch a reflex(sometimes called spasm) strike at the aggressor civ.

Personally I would enjoy the nuclear chessgame a lot more with this implemented

Zorloc · May 19, 1999, 15:40

If radar jamming is implemented, to be realistic it should not just hide your activities, but it should re-engage the Fog of War. Since jamming is quite noticeable, the person being jammed should get a que that it is happening.

JT · May 19, 1999, 16:04

RADAR JAMMERS! That is such a great idea.... I can't believe noone thought of it before.... WOW..... great idea!

EnochF · May 19, 1999, 16:08

Zorloc: In Call to Power terms, yeah, that's what I'm saying. Disabling the radar posts would simply bring back the fog of war. The player would know the radar post was out of commission and would be on guard.

There's no guarantee that "fog of war" will be in Civ III, but I think it's worth having.

JT · May 19, 1999, 16:17

I'm thinking more like this(this is in Civ2 terms):

A radar jammer will block the view of the player for one square on every side of it. In other words, even if you have already explored that part of the map, it will turn black. If one of your units or cities has vision range into the cloud, however, whatever squares its range is in the player can still see.

That would make for very intresting sneak attacks, no?

Ming · May 19, 1999, 16:20

I think you missed one of the old ones JT.

MOBILE SDI

Again, against the AI, it doesn't matter since they only strike cities... But in MP, it would make nukes more fun.

Transcend · May 19, 1999, 16:24

Suggestions on nuclear weapons:
1) Introduce missle silos as terrain improvements. Missle silos have a 50% chance to survive a fission weapon attack, and 25% chance to survive a fusion weapon attack. They are needed to reduce the vulnerability to First Strikes.
2) Given spy satellite and radar station improvements, target city of a nuclear attack will autolaunch any available nuclear missles. Players will be prompted to give the destination for the counterattack.
3) Allow building of nuclear bombs. They are cheaper than missles, but have to carried by bombers.
4) Increase the range of nuclear missles. Their range should cover half of the map in the single turn. Russia's SS-18 could fly 14000 miles, about half of the earth's circumference.

JT · May 19, 1999, 17:02

Oops, thanks for reminding me. I liked that one.

I think your improvements on nukes are good, but either too strong or unneeded. Your saying if a country has fifty nukes and a spy sattelite, all 50 go to a single city?

Also, Nukes should stay at 16. I could be a tiny island nation that conquers the world with that long-range thing.

In short, tone it down a little bit.

Mo · May 19, 1999, 17:21

1. Gurrilla units should have a fairly good attack, but should be lacking if they try and attack forts or cities.
2. I would like the option that you can take your military unit off of alert and make them terraform or let them gather minerals(like a supply crawler). This would be very useful when you are at peace but don't want to disband your army. The minerals gotten would mainly go to pay support and when that is paid it would go to the nearest city.

JT · May 19, 1999, 17:26

Yeah, I'd at least like to have them not need support if they're off alert. Then you can have a democracy going with a good standing army. Or at least it would be a lot easier to have one.

Transcend · May 19, 1999, 18:26

JT,

My suggestions may not be completely balanced. But I think something similar is going on in the real world. US has built hundreds of radar towers along the artic circle and dozens of spy satellites to detect a surprise attack by USSR. Usually a Russian ICBM will take 30 minutes to reach continental United States. If everything works smoothly in the command chain, the US President can order the retaliatory attack within 10 minutes. It would take another 10 or so to send missles into the air. Thus only 20 minutes passed from initial detection to allout nuclear attack. During most of the Cold War US adopted the policy of Massive Retaliation, implying any Soviet attack, including conventional one, against US or its allies would be met by a full scaled nuclear attack. So it's not absurd to fire all of your missles againt the enemy even he sents only one against you.

In Civ3, you can place many radar towers behind the border. Assume radar towers have a detection range up to 10 squares. If your towers detect a nuclear attack against you, all your nuclear missles within 16 squares of any enemy city will autolaunch. As a human player, you should be able to select targets for those missles individually. You also have the option of not firing your missles.

I hope the above explanation clears things a little bit.

Zorloc · May 19, 1999, 18:34

I actually think nukes should be very long range (with the appropriate tech advances). A combined ICBM and submarine assault should be very devistating.

Additionally if a small nation is stockpiling enough nukes to conquer the world quickly, there should be a severe negative reaction agaist that nation, including breaking of alliances and trade agreements and possibly a pre-emptive strike.

JT · May 19, 1999, 18:42

Ah, Trancend, I see now. Thanks for clearing things up. I actually think that's not a bad idea.

Ecce Homo · May 19, 1999, 18:43

Airships!

They could be used for bombarding, scouting or passenger transportation.

meowser · May 19, 1999, 20:05

I would like units to be supported on a civilization wide basis like it is in CTP. HOWEVER unlike CTP, the city screen of each individual city will keep track of which units it created and it will let you know where those units are. That way you can zoom in on units easier.

JT · May 19, 1999, 20:28

Good idea, meowser.