UNITS (ver1.1): Hosted by JT

[the Octopus]

Let me say that I wasn't too crazy about the SMAC unit system. With the modular units that all looked more or less the same, I could never reall feel a sense of "connection" with my units. They were just "infantry", "speeder", and "needlejet". They just all seemed so bland and uniform that they really detracted from the game for me. In Civ II all of the units were very different, both graphically and in function, and I felt that I could "relate" to them better. I wish I could explain what I mean more clearly (because I'm sure this post isn't very helpful in a concrete way...) but SMAC just lacked a certain something in the units. I don't want Firaxis to do the same thing again with Civ III. I don't know if the unit workshop is a bad idea altogether, or if it just needs to be changed somehow (how?) or what, but I didn't like the way SMAC handled it.

[willko]

the units workshop:

in smac the tech tree and unit modularization into chassis, weapons, armor, and doodads made the units workshop essential (heck i started turning off the default unit prototypes after my third game when the stupid computer kept upgrading after every single tech gain).
but i think this is also a question of how firaxis is going to implement the graphical look of the units. if they go with the 3d-ish rotating units of smac, then the workshop as a modular replacement of weapons and armor types wouldn't jibe well with modifications attempted by the internet community (just like smac). the technology they used to animate the units in smac was proprietary and hence nonreplaceable in mods. civ3 should be totally modifiable as an end product as far as unit graphics are concerned. other than this sticking point i agree that it would be very useful to be able to upgrade a phalanx i built way back when into an archer or even cavalryman at a later date.

as far as topic glossing: i think you should include a short synopsis of all the ideas as long as that is feasible. if this topic gets too heavy, which is very well possible at the rate we are going, then you should hit the "main" points that most people seem to chime in on and stuff that's different and potentially interesting to brian. if an idea is repeatedly shot down, than maybe it should be put up as a topic of debate before being "eliminated" from the summary list, but i think most ideas put on these forums should find themselves on a summary list going to firaxis. it's only fair.

but thanks for volunteering to do this, i know i wouldn't like to cull all this stuff together on a regular basis. big thumbs up.


/willko.

JT, just want to say that I think you're doing a good job on this thread, especially considering that the units thread is by far the largest one and that you are also handling the 'other' thread.

I think it might be an idea, if you already haven't done it, to create a Units summary thread where all of the good ideas will be filtered to rather than post it at the beginning of each units thread.

I wouldn't worry to much about bringing every idea forward from past threads, I posted a couple of threads with some ideas for discussion and no discussion happened. No problem, but I could have restated them or brought them forward if I wanted to.

[Trachmyr]

Octopus,

I agree that SMAC units were lacking and were very cheesy, that's why I would like to see that the choices of Chassis, (size) and Locomotion give DIFFERENT base graphics, not simply add parts. When it comes to Armour, power plant, weapons and some special abilities, then you could "add" parts to the basic unit graphics.

Example:

Light Land + Wheel = Cycle (they were used in WWII
Medium Land + Wheel = Jeep
Heavy Land + Wheel = Truck
Medium Land + Track = Medium Tank
Heavy Land + Walker = AT-AT style mecha
Light Sea + Propeller = Speedboat
Heavy Submersabile + Aquajet = Stealth Sub
Heavy Air + Wing = Bomber (power plant decide prop/jet)
Light Air + Rotary = Light Chopper

This way you can have custom units without the blandness of SMAC units

P.S. Ancient Units

Infantry + None = Infantry soldier
Infantry + Horse = Calvary
Chariot + Horse = Chariot
Infantry + Elephant = Elephant calvary
Siege + Wheel = Frame for catapult, ballista, ect.

[Utrecht]

The reason that I like to see more units is that in my experience, the late ancient/reniesannce seems to go by much to quickly.

The introduction of several new technologies and units will go to great lenghts of slowing this down.

The Unit Workshop as implemented in SMAC I don't believe will work for Civ III. The scope of time is simply to large to effectively cover ancient to post-modern units.

However, I like the ability to add special abilities to standard units. I.e. Add Nerve Gas to a Machine Gunner. +50% attack

Add airmobile transport to a rifleman + 2 movement etc.

[JT]

Thx, people.

I think I'll give Vader's idea a try, it would make it easier for me and for people who are trying to see what we've talked about so far.

Yeah, willko, I wouldn't want the workshop if the graphics are like SMAC's, but upgrading is a must. I still would like to see some way of "combining" units. Like, combine Phalanx with Horseman, you get Armored Horse or something. Of course, the graphics have to get better before this happens.

[JT]

Not really. Select the "conventional payload" weapon with air units and it turns into a missle. The payload wouldn't be available to other types of chassis.

------------------
-Civ3 Thread Master of OTHER and UNITS.
"We get the paperwork, you get the game!"

[NotLikeTea]

Little idea for a non-combat unit.

Missionary/Propagandist - Could be used by any government type, though more succesful with some than others. COuld be sent into other cities to make them support your government type. Not a spy, capturing cities, but inciting public pressure to get another civ to change thier government type (assuming public pressure, civil wars, etc is ever implemented). Would be able to select what you want them to work on (Encourage democracy? Capitalism? etc.. only your own choices are possible). On the home front, they could act to keep your people in line, agreeing with your policies, and decreasing fallout from revolution. Would be especially suited to Capitalism, Fundamentalism, and Communism. Could lead to fun cold war!

[Depp]

Please, no unit workshop. In MSAC all units were the same, and all were based on new techological advances. But here on earth, in the real history, tactics has played as big a part as new weapons.

Phalanxes + horses= Useless, if you havn´t developed the tactics to use them (and i don´t really think they can be combined either)

Tanks were initially just artellery support until the germans brilliantly shocked the world with the blitzkrieg, a all panzer thrust with supporting infantery.

[SnowFire]

Hmm... oh yeah, refugees. I remember suggesting them waaaaay back in July for SMAC, but they missed the cut. Refugee-popping will be much more fun than Partisan popping, even though it might count as an atrocity.

On radiers: Call 'em radiers instead of guirellas, and the most important thing is that they don't lose a turn when they pillage. Lawrence of Arabia did not sit around after he blew up the Turkish rail tracks, he made tracks into the desert. So stats of 4-1-2 (ignores ZOC, treats all squares as road, loses 1/3 movement point for pillaging instead of turn) would be perfect.

Btw, biplanes won't be dropping any paratroopers, they're too weak. Best just to keep the actual dropping planes of the paratroopers invisible, IMHO.

And oh yes, especially heroic units who've reached the "elite" skill level should get special names, like the Railroad Tycoon I speed record trains (I'm taking a ride on the SnowFire Bullet). Not all of them, but say every fourth unit that reachs elite.

I also like the "You need special buildings to build x" idea. A stables for cavalry should also temporarily increase movement from a city by one- even normal land units get an extra move (for that turn) when they start their turn or enter a city. The stables should change its name to "Railroad depot" or something in the modern age, though.

[Diodorus Sicilus]

- You folks will have to forgive me for late replies - I can usually only get back to the forums once a day at most - this "life" stuff keeps getting in the way...
RE Chassis:
You can have fixed or semi-fixed chassis, because if you go wandering off into all the possible variations on a theme of "powered wheeled vehicle" the game will be virtually unplayable and unprogrammable. Also, some Chassis have very distinct liabilities and limitations in design. Examples:
You can't design your own horse. Yeh, yeh, you can breed bigger and faster ones, but in fact there were horses big enough to carry an armored man (head to foot) and wear horse armor at Gaugamela in 322 BC, so you can essentially have any size horse you'd resonably want very early - let's not go crazy: if you got horse, you can put a man and any man-size armor and shield on the horse.
Elephants come in different sizes (3 distinct breeds, before one of them got wiped out by everybody in the Mediterranean area using them in battles and circuses) BUT who cares? Any elephant is bigger than anything else on the ancient battlefield, so relative size only matters if it meets another elephant: again, let's not go crazy here.
Let's keep it simple on the sea (fine alliterative motto, that). Hulls come in two flavors: built for speed, built for cargo. Warships before gunpowder were almost always in the Built for Speed category, with little or no cargo capacity. Everything else was Built for Cargo. Add types of sails, oars or sweeps (difference between Penteconter, Trireme, and Galley) and just about every ship up to gunpwder can be accomodated.
Iron, Steam, and Guns:
Frigate is Built for Speed Hull big enough to Mount Cannon. Essentially, you get an Advance that allows you to put together enough sail power for a bigger Built For Speed Hull, add Cannon (another Advance) and Presto= Frigate (or Ship of the Line, which is Built for Cargo Hull, Advanced Sails, and lots and lots of Cannon).
Steam Frigate is our wooden cannoned friend upgraded with Steam Engine - didn't last long, because the Iron Hull allows armor and the Explosive Shell made wooden hulls death traps - anybody making notes on these Advances I'm throwing out here? Steam frigate is a slightly faster transition ship, but an easy graphic - add a black smoke stack to a Frigate icon, trailing smoke...
Modern Hulls, aside from submarines that are a separate Bucket of Fish, come in three types: Detsroyer Hulls (built for extreme speed and maneuverablity) Cruiser Hulls (compromise) and BattleShip (wide) hulls - variations on our old Built for Speed, Built for Cargo options. The destroyer hull is ONLY useful for destroyers - the carrying capacity is so low they are practically out of date today, when the smallest warships are Frigates or 'Destroyers' that are as big as WWII light Cruisers.
The Cruiser Hull is in many ways the most useful - modern Frigates, WWII Cruisers, most Aircraft Carriers - also Fast transports (Amphibious Attack Ships)
Battleship Hull (Built for Cargo with Armor) are the slowest - it takes a lot of engine capacity to drive that sucker through the water - BUT it has the potential for the most proection - room for compartmentization, armor, redundant systems, etc.
A modern advance if deemed necessary, might be some kind of extreme Engine that allows you to drive a Very Large Battleship Hull through the water - this would be the modern 200,000 ton+ tankers, which are bigger than any warship simply because no one puts that many military eggs in one basket any more - but it Could be Done If Someone (Joe Joystick the Gamer, furinstance) Wanted To...
Aircraft 'chassis' are limited by metallurgic, aerodynamic, and engine power advances. The limiting factor could be that the computer uses a sliding factor in calculations - the more engines you hang on an airframe, the less advantage you get out of each one: there were prop aircraft built with 6, 8, 10+ engines, but they were lumbering targets - too big for the technology, so to speak. Thus, aircraft devolve into Built for Speed (fighters, interceptors), Built for Cargo (transports, bombers), and Special (helicopters). Hang the right engine on it, and you got Pursuit (fighter with prop engine), Interceptor (jet fighter), Bomber (prop multiengine cargo chassis) or Strategic Bomber (need better name, but for now...) (jet engine, cargo chassis)
Each Chassis has a Capacity. Horse, Elephant, Chariot are pretty fixed: 1 man per horse, up to several men per elephant of chariot, but the Weapons System wouldn't differ in effect appreciably (kill one elephant and the whole system crashes, so to speak). Late Chassis (hulls, airframes) would have capacities that could be upgraded (bigger hulls, more powerful truck/tank chassis) but what you hang on it would have limits: Try to put over, say, 50% of the capacity (weight) into engines for speed, and the return falls off dramatically - that last tile-per-turn will be very, very expensive...
(Almost forgot) On the ground, keep the modern 'chassis' simple: Motorized or Mechanized. Motorized is all the wheeled vehicles. You can get Advances that make 'em bigger, but they are basically penalized severely when they move into rough country - but get a BIG road bonus: this is how you get your Artillery (towed) and infantry to move fast. Motorized Chassis in which you put all the allowable capacity into Speed with no Armor (protection) and little capacity to carry any weapons - you have the effect of a Motorcycle or Light Motorized unit - which you should use, as they were, for reconnaissance.
Scout units, by the way, in modern terms, ould be those with Special Attributes piled onto the chassis that give them 2+ tile range of vision.
Finally, I thoroughly agree with the previous Post that there should be a lot more Special Interactions between different types of units. Cavalry/Mounted Units should be very hard for early Cannon to hit, because the guns were practically immobile and hard to "train" to track moving targets. To use an ancient example, a Phalanx with iron Armor and weapons versus a Legion in open terrain had virtually the same factors. The Legion's advantage came in that on any kind of rough ground, it still had the same factors while the Phalanx would be seriously penalized. Phalanx is death to Mounted units from the front, but gets cut to bits if hit in flank or rear. Legion has no special defense against Mounted, but can react well to flank or rear attacks. If we have a special Battle Screen or other 'detailed' battle system, it has to reflect this stuff...

[Ralph]

New special unit: The “Red Cross-unit”.

No defence/attack capability, speedy move-rate. Destroying an enemy R.C-unit gives atrocity-penalties in your relation to all other Civ´s.

Special ability: Can restore the health-bar in one wounded unit from red to full green (and by doing so; give that one unit a new second move/attack-ability WITHIN the old turn) before returning to nearest city for “refuelling”.

To avoid unbalanced game-problems: Any drawbacks needed?

[Depp]

You should be unable to control the red cross units, they go on their own towards nearest battle and begin healing units on random.

[mindlace]

MUSKETEERS/GUNPOWDER:

I more or less agree with the discussion RE: aincient and modern units, but we must keep in mind that gunpowder as a unit weapon was *not* adopted for it's ability to pierce armor.

A soft lead ball fired from a musket often did not pierce the flesh, much less armor.
Furthermore, bows and crossbows were/could be much more accurate than the first gunpowder weapons: Firearms did not supercede arrow weapons in accuracy until the development of rifling.

It was the crosssbow and, I believe, the compound bow, coupled with steel tipped arrows, that did in Mideval style armor.

(cannons, did, of course, limit the effectiveness of _city_ armor, but that's another topic)

The foremost reason for the adoption of gunpowder was that the training required to use firearms was much less than that of arrows. It could take years to get someone to the point where they could use arrows effectively, consistently, and quickly- 3 months of training, and you've got your rookie stuffing, locking, pointing and shooting.

Therefore you could field much larger armies faster as long as you could produce firearms fast enough.

So I say, that at least for the initial gunpowder units, that while they _don't_ mitigate older armor, they're much cheaper than their counterparts with arrows/swords/what have you.

[Diodorus Sicilus]

You touch on a VERY important point: that the 'cost' of a unit is far more influenced by the cost of training (and keeping the men trained-upkeep) than the cost of the weapons themselves. Personally, I'd like to see the initial cost of units lowered relative to general Shield/Gold amounts produced and available, but the Upkeep cost of the units vary depending on the real 'costs'. As mentioned, longbowmen trained to operate in an ordered mass (the real secret of the English system - longbows themselves date back to the Kaduchi in the Middle East in Xenophon's time), or musketeers trained and kept up to Veteran (or Elite, or Commando - whatever the top grade is) would be expensive to keep, because they have to be kept trained: and even a couple of days a week out of the workforce (the training of the English Yeomen) is appreciable time from production.
Putting the major cost in the Upkeep would also allow a distinction between Standing Mass Armies (relatively rare) and Militia or Conscript forces, which are equipped and trained and then sent back into the workforce until they are needed: once men and weapons are put together or produced, you could raise (with the proper Government-Social Organization) a massive army of Green Troops of, say, Musketeers, really quickly. Veterans, specialized artillerymen (cannoneers) and cavalrymen would take longer, because they all take longer to train and it's more expensive to maintain their training.
Valid points concerning the death of armor, but the fact is that when individual gunpowder weapons became general in Europe, armor became increasingly scarce, whereas during the High Middle Ages, the long bow and crossbow simply caused the armor to get thicker- steel plate and specially shaped armor was the result. The final note on soft lead balls and armor was said at Waterloo: after the battle British soldiers complained that French cuirasses (chest armor for cavalry) made great soup kettles, but they couln't find one without a bullet hole through it!
In any event, for Game Design purposes, it's elegant to have Armor effects keep getting better and better, and have the Singularity Event of individual gunpowder weapons drop or remove the Armor effect: for all the talk by theorists, no army has ever given up gunpowder and gone back to other missile or personal weapons voluntarily- in 1690 after a won battle, one French general noted French pikemen had all thrown away their pikes and picked up enemy muskets - the soldiers, at least, knew which weapon they prefered!

[Isle]

I was going to descripe how I envision custom designed units, but so many others have already presentet so many incompatible ideas, that adding one more wouldnt add anything but more confusion, there is though a couple of details that could be used in most models.

Train-artillery: Awailable well before tanks, since prereq is only steamengine, and can carry much larger weapons. Was widely used in WW1, before tanks became effecient enough.

Jeeps and trucks: Modern infantry is moterized to keep up with the tanks, its really stupid having to wait for to your infantry to catch up in SMAC/CIV2/CTP.

If a unit design screen should be implemented, it should definitly not look anything like the one in SMAC. One: because the units of history vary much more than those in SMAC, and two: because it wasnt even good to design SMAC-units with.
A better solution would be, first to have a screen were you choose the base-unit/chassis, and then a screen were you only have to deal with details relevent to that base-unit/chassis.(e.g. no 2 feet steel armor for infantry, no leather armor for tanks and NO swords for jet-fighters.)
You would neither have to worry so much with having to many diffent base-unit/chassis, since you would have an entire screen to order them nicely and intuitively in.

[This message has been edited by Isle (edited May 24, 1999).]

[Kropotkin]

ON GUERILLA/PARTISANS AND REFUGEES

Refugees If a city is caputed by the enemy i think that if a Refugee unit is to be used in the game, it wouldn't be under player control.

The refugee would move a couple of tiles and then set up a refugee camp. This camp would work as a city in the sence that it would take up space and use the tile that it's situated on thus stopping any civ to use that tile for production (if two refugees in the same tile then they would use two) and just be generally irritating.

After a couple of turns the refugees would give up its chances to move back to their home city (these refugees wouldn't be allowed by the new ruler for some reason) and would then start to move towards friendly teritorry. If the home city is liberated then the refugees would return.

When attacking a refugee you would be able to chose to kill 'em (bad for your rep.) or force them to move.

Partisan

I would like to see any partisan unit (if used) to have some special abilities.

* Some spy abilities, that is, terrorattacks or to start uprisings.

* Double terrainbonus when defending

* The ablity to, when attacked, to chose to move away and thus avoiding combat

* In Civ2 the partisans one got when a city was captured by enemies didn't need any support (no productionshields cost). I would like to take this one step futher; The support for the partisan would be paid by the city now controlled by the enemy. Other persons in the city that supports the partisans would help them with equipment and the partisans would also steel from the new ruler, attacking supplytrains etc.

[Utrecht]

One thing to keep in minf with all of this chassis discussion is the ability to customize.

So far all of your discussions have been great for an out of the box game, but run into some difficulty when I attempt to create a scenario.

IMO that is one advantage that the standard units have of the chassis/weopon model.

Consequently, I still have to vote against the workshop model. I think that it introduces to great of a level of complexity without adding anyting of substantial value. There are other areas in Civ where the complexity should be increased. We have to remember that the average gamer does not want combersome gameplay.

[Diodorus Sicilus]

SMAC had "default" standard units, and I use them about half the time. The CivIII model should be something like that, in that most units are not that varied unless you want to play Trivial Military History Pursuit: every variation of sword and shield alone would give hundreds of combinations. The game model will have to be a lot simpler.
Example: I foresee, for ground units, the following basic "chassis":
Foot
Mounted - Horse
Mounted - Elephant
Chariot
Railroad
Motorized
Mechanized
Ground Effect

Possible additions/changes might be to add Mounted-Camel for some very specialized units for a desert Civ, and Wagon for Supply or Trade units (road bound). Ground Effect borders on the Dual: Sea-Land units. Future Chassis are up for grabs.
Motorized and Mechanized are general/generic terms for All Wheeled Vehicles and All Tracked Vehicles. Light Motorized would be jeeps and motorcycles with low carrying capacity but high speed, Heavy Motorized would be trucks to speed up your Foot/Artillery weapons. Light Mechanized would be self-propelled artillery, air-droppable tanks, etc, while Heavy Mech would be your basic Tank Chassis.
Some units would require not only purely Technical weapons Upgrades, but also 'soft' Upgrades. Best examples that come to mind are the Phalanx and Legion in ancient times: not everyone with Bronze weapons formed phalanxes, and no one with Iron/Steel weapons formed Legions except Romans. Why?
Because the Phalanx also required the concept of the Citizen or other large group of infantry soldiers, organized and trained and expensively equipped. The Peasant-Noble model of Social organization wouldn't support this: the nobles were too few to form phalanxes alone, and the peasants too close to subsistance existance to afford the time for training - or the expense of the weapons and armor. The Legion required a concept of extensive discipline and drill - time consuming occupations that required in turn a large class of people to support it - again, a Citizen group.
One addition to the game would be the Diplomatic possibility of selling or trading the Training required to form a Legion or Phalanx - Carthage hired a Spartan general and drill masters to whip part of her army into shape during one of the Punic Wars, and the Romans incorporated numerous non-Roman states' forces (the Italian city states before they became part of the Empire/Republic, furinstance) into the Legions.
The Standard units for a simplified Unit/Combat system would, like SMAC, reflect the standard historical models: Spearmen, Light Chariots, Heavy (scythe) Chariots, Phalanx, Bowmen, Legion, Pike Phalanx, Armored Lancer (with Fuedal Social = Knight), Musketeer, Riflemen, Infantry (machineguns), Tanks, Motorized Infantry, Cannon, Artillery, etc. The "build your own" option would give you those Patterns as Advances allowed them, and allow you to use them "out of the box" or modify them - trade armor or armament for speed in your tanks, for example, or provide Steel Plate (personal) Armor for your bowmen (not precisely historical, but possible).
There's no reason why a modified SMAC system of standard (historical) models plus restricted variations won't work.
The earlier post is dead on: your Armory screen will have to restrict possible Upgrades to the Possible, not the Fantastic. If you get Iron Weapons, you can build Iron (stabbing) Swords, Iron Pikes, or Iron Lances. Lances go to Mounted to form Mounted Lancers (unarmored Knights, if you will), Swords go to Mounted or Foot, Pikes to Foot, but neither Mounted nor Foot can carry both Swords and Lance/Pike as their main armament, and neither Mounted nor Foot can have Cannon as an armament and also have Armor of any kind or any other weapon - for that you need a Motorized, Mechanized, Railroad (armored trains, railroad guns - another good idea from Previous Post!), or Ground Effect Chassis. The limitations aren't hard to work out.

I think it's better to stick with the civ2 system of fixed unit types with special properties flagged in the rules.

I don't think we need ambulances on a strategic scale battle.

Diodorus: Yes, the English soldiers found punctured armor on the fallen French cuirassiers. However, the heavy cavalry had charged the crack English infantry squares 12 times that day. Witnesses reported that the battle sounded like a hailstorm on a metal roof. The cuirass was 75 pounds, covering the torso front, thighs, and knees, and was generally proof against musket shot. I'd bet every surviving cuirassier had a handful of dents in his armor, and appreciated it mightily. I'd bet a few Civil War cavalrymen would've liked that kind of protection. The cuirass was really expensive, and no army wanted to pay for outfitting a whole regiment with them. They'd rather have two unarmored regiments.

[Harel]

I would like to discuss something. The SMAC workshop.
People said it was a "nice" idea, could make it easy to build special units.
People, civ is about history! And according to history, we MUST have a SMAC like-workshop.
Along history, every nation made different kind of units. Same technoloy, different aspects.
Warriors used a combantion of hellbirds, swords, short bows, lances, spears...
Archers used cross-bows, longbows, shortbow, sometimes with swords, without swords, with big shield, small shields...
Chest-mail, ring-mail, leather armor...
So many options!
Every country had a different espect.
And every weapon had it's use.
I suggest several things.
A. Add the workshop.
B. Add accuracy and reload attributes to units.
C. Have a specific advantge to every weapon:
Longbows would be more accurate and cause more damage, but will fire slowly.
Short bows would be just the opposite.
This customing ability becomes even more important in the modern era, with infantry and planes designed to a specific purpose.

[EnochF]

Harel: And would you also like Helicopters and Submarines with Chain Mail?

SMAC Customizable Units sounds like a good idea as long as you're stuck in the Middle Ages, but then along comes the Modern Age.

Honestly, people, let's think about this!

[Trachmyr]

A unit workshop can be created with out to much difficulty by simply not allowing absurd combinations... in fact many componets should become obsolete as time passes (not just units). This will add much more micromanagement to those who WANT to use the workshop... if you don't want to use it, then just use the default units (but I'll bet that you'll use the workshop at least a few times per game). As long as the workshop is optional (and can be turned off in by scenario editors) then what are you complaing about?

[Fugi the Great]

I was throwing around in my head, the idea of an expanded unit designer something like they did in SMAC. This would then satify me about getting to use the units I really wanted to add to Civ2. You would need a lot more types of chassis, capable of more options than SMAC, but you could then get exactly what you want. Example: Start with tracked tank chassis, armor is steel grade 3, add reactive armor, turret gets two main guns both are 135mm standard with automatic loader - good punch twice as fast with less people, add M93 machine gun - for ground troops, add QPW23 missile launcher - for air defence, add AGC123 rocket launcher - long range artillery, add laser range finder - for better accuracy, diesel engine mod 2 - more range and more speed, add AG-63 mine sweeper, and hazard environment module mod 3 - chemical and radiation protection. Total price: 3692 credits each. If you purchase 10 or more, the price is only 3521 credits.

Types of chassis:
man, horse, elephant, jeep, tank, chariot, planes, ships, subs, cannon, missiles, helicopter, ...

Another thought is, if you would use a toned down version of the unit creater, do you use this above in the game, or outside the game as a unit creater to make the units you will use in the next game/scenario. If you did it out side the game, units could then be designed and play tested by other people, stuffed into scenarios, and placed in a download area here at Apolyton or where ever. The trouble with that is, it ends up being the same thing as Civ2 is now, its just in 3D.

Upgrading units:
Should not be totally automatic. Must at least move unit back to city/fort/base/port to receive new weapons/armor..., unless the use of supply is used, in which case, if a unit is surrounded or behind enemy lines it can be not upgraded unless in the modern era you use supply planes to give them what they need to upgrade. Maybe would have a supply wagon/truck sent to military unit to receive upgrades for units in the field.

The only thing I see wrong with the constant upgrading of the same unit is that once your phalanx ends up being an Elite unit it will always be an elite unit even when you end up upgrading it to a Storm Marine or Swarm or whatever in the far future assuming it lives that long. Once it upgrades it should take a small/medium morale hit since it may be very good at throwing spears, it does not know how to use a gun or any other new weapon it gets and have to learn new tactics with this new weapon. It would also have to learn how to fight in the newer armor, it might be heavier or bulkier, not see as well, not move as well. Morale would then increase over time because of training, but not reach the highest unless it was tested in combat. Maybe several morale levels for combat veterns.

Then do you do anything different with repairing a unit? In the real world, a military unit goes to war, get several people killed, and gets new people added to the unit. Now a certain percentage of the unit has been tested in war, and another part is still untried in combat. Adding green troops to a combat vetern elite III should not keep it there. Some of the experience of the vets will slowly rub off on the greens, but the unit is still not as good as it was before because some of the troops have never experienced the horror/glory of war. Now if you could maybe make one combat unit out of two badly damaged ones, like a vetern and a green, the morale should end up maybe alittle above the average of the two, the vets boosting the morale of the greens because of experience.

[EnochF]

Okay, so let's grant, for the sake of argument, that the chassis you just listed cover the gamut of land units, from half-tracks to horses. (This is only for the sake of argument now; I'm not ready to say a catapult is the same basic chassis as a cannon or howitzer.) Okay. Now you've got the air and sea to deal with. Even if, as some have naïvely suggested, you accept that somehow destroyers, cruisers and battleships are all made from the same chassis, then you've got to have separate chassis for carriers, transports and submarines. (And anyway, you go aboard a battleship sometime and tell me it's no different from a cruiser.) Then there's propeller fighters, jet fighters, stealth fighters, jet bombers, stealth bombers and helicopters, and each of those chassis has effectively only one relevant unit to affect. What, you thought you could upgrade your prop fighter by sticking a jet engine on it? I suppose you were going to modify the Wright Brothers glider to make it invisible to radar, too? While your idea would certainly cut down on graphics (what with phalanxes, legions, fanatics, marines and everybody all based on the same model), it just doesn't hold up. Looking at it from the standpoint of realism, it's woefully inadequate, and from the standpoint of gameplay, there isn't enough to be gained from the system we already have in place to make such a grandiose change. Okay, so you can design a mounted soldier with a crossbow, or a cavalry spy. Is that so spectacular?

[rainer]

MESSENGERS / DIPLOMATS / SPIES

As dips and spies are the strongest units in Civ2, they should be more balanced. A third diplomatic unit (messenger) could be added.

Messenger: available with Writing; like the old diplo, but cannot bribe cities; chance of failing when attempting to bribe units.

Diplomat: availabe with Diplomacy (Renaissance tech); replaces the messenger; can bribe cities but at huge cost and with significant chance of failure; some chance of failure when attempting to bribe units.

Spy: available with Espionage; does replace the diplomat; chances of failure for bribing tasks further reduced but still present; viz range 2.

Whenever diplomatic units move/act/do not reside in a city, they cost maintenance that turn (the maintenance of good intelligence does not come as a free lunch).

This transcends the unit thread a bit, but it is part of the topic I have raised here, so I'll add it anyway: the quantity and quality of information you get from embassies should increase stepwise. For instance, in the messenger era, an embassy does not provide the complete list of the other civ's techs, only a rough estimate of their treasury and imprecise information on the tech they are researching right now (military, applied etc). In the diplo era, you get more and better info, but only when spies are available will embassies provide the full range as in Civ2.

[BigBopper]

First post on Thread

Unit Ideas,

1. MERV Warheads: stronger nukes, tone down the original nukes so they are more like early or tactical warheads (one square affect and a much less diplomatic negatives) and kick up MERV Missles to be true city busters. (perhaps destroys most or all population, units, and buildings in and around a city).

2. Gas Warfare: a missile? damages all units in stack/square, but is most devastating against cities. unless the proper city improvement (bomb shelters?) is built in a city each population has a 25%? chance of being killed. But the gas attack does no damage to improvements.

[CormacMacArt]

I like the multiple chassie idea, even for modern units, if its done right. In short, avoiding any unlikely scenereos.
Note for Diodorus Sicilus: During WWII, the Battleship was the FASTEST ship (not counting PT boats) on the water.

What about SLAVE units? Give all units (until ENGINEER) the ability to do civil-service jobs (roads, etc). SLAVES would be 3x, half support (money or shields), would increase production when inside of a city, but would be liable to revolt civ-wide after EMANCIPATION.

[Harel]

EnochF, are YOU thinking along?
How said you will have the option to combine subs with chain mail?
Did I say that? How said that it has to be JUST LIKE smac workshops?
The chassis you select dictates what options you will have. This IS quite obivous.
And, like Trachmyr said, it IS optional.
Just like you can't select torpedoes with infantry, only available with subs.
Quite elegant.
If you would have think straight, you would have known that in the modern era, custom-made and mission-specific units are more frequent then ever.
You re-design subs, planes, helicopters and more, to be good for a certian task:
Stealth helicopters, anti-infantry, anti-tanks, scout, transport... Lot's of options. We DO need the workshop.

[Jason Beaudoin]

The only thing that I ask is this: Make sure that there is enough time between time periods to actually do things. Sometimes I feel that there isn't enough time between the periods to really enjoy the era.