COMBAT (ver 1.1) hosted by Redleg

[redleg]

Summary for Combat as of 11JUN99

Use some combat modifiers, such as morale and giving special abilities to certin units (giving a besieged city the pleauge by launching dead beasts into the city walls). -Pythagoras / NotLikeTea

Use an optional battle plan phase where you choose formations and order of battle, then watch the fight. - Flavor Dave / Ove

Give the ability to destroy buildings and infrastructre to the land and air forces, rather than only being able to destroy units.

Automate the siege process. Perhaps cause unhappiness in the victim city per unit involved in the siege. (controversy on the unhappiness factor)

Give the ability to destroy a city completely, rather than captureing it. This would cause refugees and/or slaves.

Automate the manouvere of military forces though "stacks" (CTPesqe) or armies (collections of units, like a stack, but representing a hard number of men and equipment rather than abstract "units") - Eggman


Use more levels of difference between units. Such as 1st Generation Armor, 2nd Generation Armor, etc... - Chowlett


Do not have units absolutely fight to the death, but rather give the attacker a chance to withdraw by moving combat in stages or phases or turns.

Increase the probability of "bombardment" attacks hitting thier intended target (a unit, building, or infrasructure) as the technology increases. - Ember

Spies are too powerfull, tone them down. - Eggman (others)



This is only a summary and very distilled collection of your ideas. If I left out an important part of an idea, or have misinterperted your idea - let me know. I will be on military training for 2 weeks and hope to see the great ideas still rolling when I get back!




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Redleg

Small minds talk about people, Average minds talk about events, Great minds talk about ideas.

[Mo]

I think that democracy shouldn't get a huge unhappiness penalty for units within its own territory.

[Jimmy]

I'd like to see the concept of military readiness levels, Defcon 5 (peacetime)to Defcon 1 (full war readiness). At the maximum levels, the units would fight at the maximum strength but there would be a greater economic and industrial support costs. At the lowest levels, it would be the reverse: little economic and industrial support but the units would not fight at their maximum strength while they still at the low readiness level. Additionally, democracies could get a public opinion boost for low military readiness in times of peace.
I like this idea because I think it could add to the atmosphere of the game especially when you reach the nuclear age. You could have true "Cuba missile crisis" type situations. Think about if your military advisor pops up and says " Our enemies the Zulus have moved troops near our borders. I recommend we go to Defcon 2." You would get the choices: "I concur, order our forces to Defcon 2" or "No, remain at Defcon 3."

[Diodorus Sicilus]

A few comments RE seiges and seiging.
To reflect the fact that a "beseiging" army is deployed completely differently from a field or marching army, Lay Seige should be a Special Order for a unit or group of units. Move them next to a city, toggle the command, and a ring appears around the city. the ring could start as a faint pink and become a stronger and stronger red as the seige '"tightens". The effect would be to cut off the city from the outside, lower morale inside, and steadily raise the chance of someone inside betraying the city: Aeneas Tacitus the ancient Greek military writer devoted most of his book into ways to sneak into a city, usually with help from a traitor inside. That, BTW, is the "excuse" for a Spy or Diplomat being able to 'buy' a city - paying off the folks to revolt, betray, or the leaders to sell them out.
The size of the army required to beseige a city should be related to the size of the city. As I understand it, the actual cities in the game occupy only part of the city hex/tile, and so the numerical size would be a good indicator of how big an area the beseigers have to cover.
Seiges were expensive. An army that sat in one place for any length of time before this century lost a lot of men to disease, in addition to the losses due to guys on top of the wall throwing heavy things down on them. There should be an Attrition Factor every turn of the seige, both for the city and the army. If the city has no Warehouses (Granaries?), then the attrition inside will be a Lot worse than for the army, BUT armies that sat in place were very hard to supply before railroads. I keep making that point in a lot of these threads but it's really applicable here, because a seige was the worst possible supply situation: the army can't forage very far because it's sitting around the city, and all the concentration of food distribution for the area is inside the city where they can't get at it!
Unless the city formally "surrenders on terms" (which should be a Special City Order), that is, if it is finally attacked and stormed or bought out (which means you got troops inside suddenly) there should be a very high probability that the troops get out of hand and sack the whole place. In an assault that takes a walled city after a seige this chance is practically 100% - certainly no lower than 90%. Any time a city makes an army sit outside taking casualties for a while, there's a chance the troops will take it out on the city when they get the chance. A sack results in a large part of the city infrastructure going up in smoke and loss of population, and most of the cash from the place going directly to the troops, and not to the treasury.
This, by the way, is also where most of the ancient world slaves came from: troops sold their captives to dealers who followed the army - dealers did not go out catching folks on their own.
There are a lot of Advances that could relate to Seiges. The Assyrians invented seige engines long before the catapult, which would give an army an advantage both in storming the city and in blocking it up faster. After gunpowder the city walls became much more elaborate earthworks and covered wider areas, so the effective size of the beseiging army should go up BUT the development of Vauban's "Parallels" method of seige makes the fall of the city almost a mathematical certainty.
Engineers of some kind are a requirement for seiges, but they could be grouped with catapults and seige machines into a sort of Seige Train unit - very, very slow, but adds some kind of Anti Wall factor to the army, and speeds up the entire blockade process.

[Jimmy]

Dioderus: I like the siege idea a a lot.

[Captain Action]

*grabs a can labled worms and a can opener*

I for once would like to see morale done differently. Human beings are usually interested in staying alive not dieing in armed conflicts. Perhaps this morale system should be looked at...

Morale should govern when a unit "breaks" in combat. The game cheaks morale when a unit is at a certain percentage of damage. If the unit doesn't break then when the unit takes more damage the unit makes additional morale cheaks unit either the unit is healed above it's "damage limit" or it breaks. A broken unit either retreats or surrenders if there is no neighbooring squares that it can flee into. Broken units stay broken until they at maxiumn health.

The highest morale rate is fanatical. At this level the unit will NEVER break. Only certain goverenments and tech can produce this morale. Elites break at 90% of damage, veterans at 50%, and raw recruits at 10%.

[Jimmy]

Wouldn't it be the other way around: elite troops break at 10% not 90%, raw recruits break at 90% ?

[Eggman]

If I remember correctly, I believe that air units in Civ2 received bonuses for terrain, fortresses and city walls. This may make sense for helicopters that generally stay close to the ground but I cannot come up with a plausible explanation for airplanes that are thousands of feet above the ground. Some units just shouldn't be able to avail themselves of certain defensive modifiers.

[Picker]

Officers are a must. Good tactics can defeat brute force(tech being similar, of course). So add an officers corps with various strategy ratings. You could even put in famous generals from around the world, to be hired and used by the civs(ie. napoleon, genghis khan, zhuge liang, william wallace, you get the picture).

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The Notorious P.I.K.
"Read my clit, not gonna do it."

[Picker]

Going along with that idea, you could have rebellions in your cities or rebellions by your officers, and if they succeed they start a new civ.

[Flavor Dave]

spies are too powerful, in large part b/c they are too weak. By that I mean, counterespionage is too weak. The 1st thing that the folks at Firaxis should try is to increase the percentage that counterespionage works.

Also, (I think I also said this under units thread) cities should be more expensive, but units cheaper.

Last, I'd like to see the overall happiness of a city affect the price. From what I've read of MP, bribing is too powerful. But what if you could put luxury at 10%, and get a light blueface and no reds, making the city more expensive.

We all know cities in revolt cost half as much. I'd rather see a sliding scale.

[ember]

What if in stead of having sieging units placed around a city, you move them on to the same square the city occupies and set them to siege.

For each city there is a certain cumulative combat rating required to siege it depending on size and defenders. Less than that can be used, it is a blockade.

If the exact siege amount is used to food accumulates, and no units may be deployed / produced to the city. Repairs still can be conducted. If less is used it reduces the food accumulation and production proportianal to the fraction used. If more than this amount is used, there is a net food loss, depending on how much more than the required number (no food at all is 2 - 3 times the minimum siege combat rating)

Certain units, like catapults, artillery, etc count as double the combat rating.

Units with bombard can still bombard the city, but bambard units in the city can hit back. Either side can disside to launch a direct offensive. Small blockades will only be effective agains a city with no offensive units inside.

When all stored food runs out, population loss occurs. There is also a % chance per turn that a besieged city surreders.

Bombards on a city do collateral hits to other units / structures / population than the target.

------------------
"Any technology, sufficiently advanced,
is indistinguishable from magic"
-Arthur C. Clark

[NotLikeTea]

Rebeling officers (or millatary units in general) is an intersting idea. A drafted army would be less willing to commit atrocities than one comprised of more patriotic gun folks.

Millitary Coup d'Etat, anyone?

Probably covered elsewhere but who has time to read all the threads....

When a city is surrounded (via zones of control) it should not be able to draw sustenance from the surrounding countryside. In other words, all it should have is what is in the food box. Once that's gone the city should surrender. Historically, I can't think of any examples of cities actually completely starving to death whilst besieged. No food, no water usually means no more fighting or th defenders having to try and fight to break the siege.

If implemented I see three effects:

. A more dynamic game

. Emphasis on fighting in the countryside rather than around cities because once a city is besieged it will usually be all over red rover (though there will still be time for sieges whilst the food box drains down).
. Forces you or your opponents to fight to save cities rather than sitting passively behind city walls.

Current city defences are far too strong and unrealistic. Ports would need to blockaded by sea as well as besieged by land.

[Ove]

In order for all the neat things we are discussing here to be even remotely realistic in the game, the timescale for combat (and unit movement) has to change.

How about having military sub-phases in each turn. Variable number depending on how long a main turn is and maybe on the command structure and technological capabilities of each civilization.

That way we can have sieges and great wars in less span than (for instance) 20 years.

I do not mean that the military phases will be active all the time (although there will probably be a war going on somewhere in the world).
OK, let me flesh this out with an example:
(current turn advancement is 5 years)
MAIN PHASE: Diplomacy, production, research
optional military phase 1: Calls up 5 armies from reserve status, deploys them in strategic mode (unable to use this phase).
omp 2: Sends 8 armies over the border to attack a neighbouring country, 3 of these armies besiege 3 cities and the other 5 screens those from attack. Combat resolution.
omp 3: Enemy reacts, you both move armies and fight.
omp 4: (wishing to save money/manpower/resources) you order victorious besieging armies to fortify in the cities, and the other armies to stay in place. However the enemy continues to attack you.

New turn:
MAIN PHASE: diplomacy/production/research
omp 1: redeployment of 2 armies to reinforce the combat front. Enemy attacking.
omp 2: No combat or deployment from any side.
military phase ends.

New turn:
MAIN PHASE: diplomacy/production/research, peaceagreement
omp 1: withdrawal and demobilising of 4 armies. no further military activity.

Next turn:
MAIN PHASE: ...
no military activity

Next next turn: ...
and so on.

<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by Ove (edited June 15, 1999).]</font>

<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by Ove (edited June 15, 1999).]</font>

[NotLikeTea]

I think that this is a place where fun should outweigh realism.

If the timescale changes, war becomes a sub game. Since time is slower, building is less important, research is less important, growth is less important...

I'd rather have too long wars than being dropped into another detached game for war. Realistic? No.. but more enjoyable, more epic in nature, and in the end, more exciting.

Besides, wars can take a long time. I can be in a constant state of war for hundreds of years.. how would it decide when to go to slooooow time?

[korn469]

here are my thoughts on combat.

first i think the present civ2/SMAC combat system needs to be changed my ideas are along the lines of other posters in this thread

1. combat is divided into rounds

2. some sort of stack/multiple units in combat at once

3. all units have these factors

attack: the amount of damage your unit does when a hit is landed

defense: the amount of damage cancled out when a hit is landed (could only lower damage to one point)

hit points: the amount of damage a unit can withstand before it dies

rate of fire: the number of attacks a unit can make in a round of combat

range: each unit has a range number...if there is a difference in range the unit with greater range gets to have as many unopposed rounds of combat as the difference in range...unless it is ambushed

accuracy: the chance an attack will actually land

evade: the chance a defender has of evading an attack, also the chance that a unit will succsessfully retreat

disipline: the chance of a unit to surrender or to keep on fighting...additional purpose of disipline could be for the possibilty of your units turning into renegade, and bandits, has anyone seen fortunes of war?

3. giving units rate of fire could make some older weapons be able to have certain advantages over newer ones and it could make certain weapons better for killing certain units.

two examples of this are

native americans warriors of the great plains had an advantage in using bows when faced against spanish and early american settlers and soldiers who used non repeating rifles and muskets, not because arrows did more damage but because they could fire arrows at a much high rate...not until repeating rifles arrive did the native americans really start losing ground

and as for a unit better at killing one thing than another imagine a machine gunner unit and an anti-tank unit...the machine gunner would have a high rate of fire and do less damage than the anti-tank unit becuase infantry units should have less armor and hit points yet there should be larger numbers of them

here's an example of combat a machine gunner unit built with technology of the late 20th centurty comes into battle against three legions built with technology from the time of ceasar their stats are

machine gunner:
attack: 5
defense: 3
hit points: 15
rate of fire: 6
range: 5
accuracy: 75%
evade: 25%
disipline: good

legionsx3
attack: 3
defense: 2
hit points: 20
rate of fire: 1
range: 1
accuracy: 95%
evade: 10%
disipline: excellent

ok lets say the machine gunner wasn't ambushed so it gets four free rounds of combat before the the legions get into attack range and at 6 attacks per round that is 24 free attacks before the legions can attack

out of those "free" 24 attacks the machine gunners will hit with 18 attacks (number of attacks times machine gunner's accuracy) and the legions will evade two attacks (number of attacks times legions evade) leaving 16 attacks that hit the legions

the legions armor will cancle out 2 of the five damage points of each one of the attacks (machine gunners attack minus the legions defense) so that means the three legions will take 48 damage during those first four rounds so two of the legions will be dead and starting the round and the last one will be at 12 hit points even if the legion does hit it wont be enough to kill the machine gunner this round (1 attack at 3 attack damage) and the machine gunner will have enough to kill the legion

of course their should be modifiers according to terrain and moral level and maybe when a unit gets to a certain level of damage (depending upon its disipline level) it might either retreat or surrender

Seige Warfare

my thoughts on seige warfare is this...if the seige force has an unbroken zone of control that completely surrounds a city then that city is considered "under seige" it recieves no trade, and your civilization only recieves half of the income from that city it normally would

a city cannon work sqaues beyond the zone of control circle that the seige forces have around the city. all squares that contain enemy units cannot be worked and if a square is in an enemy zone of control it doesn't produce anything with the exception being if a friendly unit is in that square the tile is still productive and if a both a friendly and an enemy zoc are in a square that square produces half of it's normal value. also once a city under seige runs out of food it will have an ever increasing chance of surrendering to the enemy

korn469

<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by korn469 (edited June 15, 1999).]</font>

[korn469]

even though the machine gunner unit and legion unit were just example unit i do belive that modern weaponry and organization is the only thing that makes our armies better than warroirs from the past...in fact the roman legions were probably better disiplined and better trained than most of the soldiers in uniform today, however give a kid in iraq an Ak-47 a just a little bit of training and not only is he part of their army but he has many times the range and fire power even an excellenty trained and disiplined battle field veteran of a roman legion armed with a gladius
looking at the example the roman legion wins in area of training and organization (a legion is much larger than a machine gunner support team and that's why i gave them more hit points) yet it's tactics (the sheild wall for example) lowers it evade and without guns they cannot hope to compete against modern day soldiers under most circumstances

[Eggman]

Personally, I am open to any combat system that they want to use in Civ3 as long as (1) I can understand it without having to study it for several days and (2) it doesn't involve me moving each unit individually and instead lets me move and use them in groups. However, I like the concepts of unit "range" (I can hit you but you can hit me) and "bombardment" (especially artillery duels). However, if they want a ranged attack value ala CTP, make sure that they separate ranged attack value from the bombardment value. Being good at hitting other units in the thick of battle from far away does not necessarily equate to being good at pounding stationary defenses from far away. See catapult.

And if you want to make war more "realistic," give war some real drawbacks. In Civ2, the only real negatives to waging war (besides losing a war) is the happiness penalty under democracy and republic and the loss/diversion of some shield production as it is required to support the military. These penalties were minor compared to the gain of capturing a couple (or a dozen) cities. I suggest that war (especially offensive war) have additional penalties. Some possible penalties (choose your own favorites and feel free to add to the suggestions):
- Loss of trade routes (this can especially hurt if you are trading a key material with the enemy under a new economic model)
- Gold income drops
- City attacks cost a set amount of money
- Military units cost money maintenance (or even population units) as well as production making large armies expensive
- Happiness penalties and drops in military morale kick in after the war drags on for a certain number of turns
- If your people like your enemy or you have ethnic populations of that country, revolts can happen
- UN sanctions
- etc.

[Flavor Dave]

1. Attaching units--warmongering can be dull, in the railroad age, when one turn takes an ETERNITY!! So, the guys at Firaxis should adapt the Gettysburg system, and allow you to "attach" one unit to another. Then move the whole bunch of them to the front. They still fight separately, tho.

2. I would like for siege warfare to be SLIGHTLY more effective, since conquest in the mid game is too difficult. But if you make it aLOT more effective, then you hurt game balance--offensive warfare becomes too powerful. I don't care about realism--if you want realism, you play two turns and die of old age.

3. Maybe I'm wrong, but Korn469's idea of stacked combat would make the game waaay too easy. What is the AI's biggest weakness in war? Its inability to think on a large scale. If you have stacked combat, I'll just form a superhorde of like 20 units, and go into the enemy's territory and lay waste to it. Once I've destroyed every single mine, road, irrigated tile, killed every stray unit, and taken every small city, I'll just move on, leaving behind a hopelessly wrecked empire. The AI can't do that to me, b/c Civ is too complicated. Then a few turns later, I'll use dips to buy everything, since the cities will be cheap. See, without roads, the AI civ won't have the arrows/income to support its city improvements. They'll have deficit spending. (Or perhaps, a tax rate of 20% science and 80% tax. In that case, I come back 50 turns later with my cavalry/alpines against their phalanxes and archers.)

I *think.* Maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, long ago I was in a discussion on stacked warfare. Everyone thought it was cool and "realistic," until I pointed out how much this change would favor offensive warfare.

[FinnishGuy]

I was thinking how to improve the air combat model in the CIV games and came up with this:

- Air units (icons) are only allowed to exist in base squares (specifically built airbases or cities). They create an "effect zone" (EZ) around them, which includes all squares within the unit's operational radius. Player can move air units from base to base by selecting the unit, clicking on the new base and watching a nice little animation of planes taking off, flying and landing.

- Automatic Recon Flights: If an enemy land/sea unit is inside friendly EZ, there is a chance per turn that it will be spotted. This chance increases the closer the enemy unit is to the base square. The spotting would be re-evaluated every turn.

- Bombing Runs: Player selects a bomber air unit, clicks on the target enemy unit (can also be air unit) and again watches a neat animation of bombers doing an attack run and returning to base. If the bombers fly through an enemy fighter EZ, there is a check whether they are spotted by the enemy. If spotted, enemy fighter interception is very likely. There can be multiple interceptions if flying through multiple/overlapping enemy EZs. If the bombers take too much damage, the mission is aborted and they (try to) return to base.

- Automatic Fighter Escort: If a moving/attacking bomber unit is within friendly fighter EZ, it has fighter escort. Possible enemy interception then first engages the fighters, and if sufficient strength remains then the bombers.

- Automatic Air Superiority: If friendly and enemy fighter EZs overlap, there is a chance of air superiority combat between the fighter units (much like artillery duel in SMAC). The chance increases the more EZs overlap. Enemy bombers entering friendly fighter EZ are intercepted, if spotted.


This sacrifices some player control, BUT reduces combat micromanagement with air units. IMO, it's also more realistic as all air combat is concluded within game turn.

Yeah it's maybe not perfect but what is... all ideas need refining...


Oh, I'd also like to see strategic bombers in CIV III (bombers that damage/destroy city improvements or production). Tactical bombers should act like artillery in SMAC against land units (cause damage but don't actually kill). However, sea or air units could be destroyed by tactical bombers.

[korn469]

flavor dave: well the A.I. losing under the stacked combat system wouldn't much different from A.I. losing under the current single unit system except it'd take less micromanagement on my part...but of course there would have to be limits...like maybe you could only stack five units togther and they'd move as fast as the slowest unit in the stack

have you ever played Space Empires 3? something like that system

and what i was talking about when i said range is that the units wouldn't attack six squares out they would still attack as they usually do but units with higher range would get free attacks rounds under my combat suggestion, but there could still be artillary units that shot more than one square

korn469
if i wanted realism i'd demand a real-time strategy game

[Flavor Dave]

korn, let me ask you this--a stack of 10 knights--does it have 40 attack and 20 defense? That's what has to be avoided.

[Eggman]

Flavor Dave: I am sure that there are ways to have stacks or armies without having to combine all their values into one. CTP managed to do it and the only complaint I have heard about their system is that the units are poorly balanced, which is a flaw in the unit ratings and not the system. The units move in a stack. They are brought into combat in a stack. But the separate units themselves fight individually. CTP stacked combat is almost exactly like Civ2 combat - all the battles are still 1-on-1 - its just that their are multiple confrontations going on at the same time (or a queue forming up to face off against the lone unit, as the case may be). Plus CTP has stack size limits (no more than 9 units per square) that prevents the infamous uberstack.

I believe there is also a plus in stacking for the AI. There are less "units" to move around as they are combined into stacks (basically out of necessity - combined arms are generally more powerful than homogeneous stacks or *gasp* the lone unit). Less decisions makes for a smarter computer player. Or at least I can hope.

However, I think they should consider giving a bonus of some sort to the stack with the numbers advantage. Mass attacks with mediocre units can be very successful, though generally costly.

FinnishGuy - I REALLY, REALLY LIKE THAT IDEA! It keeps the ego boosting value of sending your planes to go kick the crap out of someone while simplifying the work greatly. Plus, we get rid of the phenomenon of bombers taking two turns to make a complete bombing run and hanging out blocking all ground traffic for no good reason whatsoever.

A couple of comments though:
1) You have to assign which fighters are escorts and which ones are patrol. No fair having the same fighters escort the bombers and then intercepting incoming bombers or dogfighting on patrol the same turn.
2) There are some issues to consider with aircraft carriers (would you please teach the AI to use them this time?) Maybe carriers should have 1 or 2 "free" interceptors built into the unit to make it stronger.
3) How do we handle helicopters and missiles? I think choppers would be considered ground units (which they basically are) and missiles are a special case but nonetheless.

And bombardment units MUST have the ability to destroy city improvements. This goes for both INTENTIONAL (sending bombers to just smash the city) and UNINTENTIONAL (sending bombers to hit the military units and accidentally hitting the hospital next door). And make civilian bombing casulties to be a minor atrocity.

[ember]

FinnishGuy;
I have proposed a similiar system for air combat in an earlier thread. I can't find it so I'll repost the main air combat bit here:

AIR COMBAT
due to the extreeme speed, yet huge dependance of air craft on fixed bases, they cannot be acuratly represented under the current model

All aircraft bombard. Air craft do not tend to get into one unit shall die situations as easily as ground or naval forces, there is a strong chance of both sides being damaged to some degree, but still efective as a unit.

air craft can only be moved by deployment (see my economics thread post) they can be deployed to owned and allied cities, air-bases and carriers. In the case of nuclear weapons and cruise missiles, to subs and cruisers instead of carriers.

Air units have four options for each turn; to attack, to go into active defend mode (sentry), go inactive (fortify) and to redeploy.

Redeploy is done by sending them back to the deploy list to be re-deployed the next turn.

ATTACK
The movment of the air unit gives its attack range. When it attacks it bombards the target.
figters and bombers can just choose to bomb units or structures. one of these is then picked at random. Stealth fighters/ bombers can choose induvidual targets. The unit with the best agains air defense rating always defends

Modifiers to air attacks
city walls / fortress: no effect on air combat
SAM: +100% defense
Airport / airbase: +50% defense for defending aircraft
hills, forest, river...: -25% attack
mountains: -50% attack
ships in port: +50% attack
normal moral modifiers apply
For air combat, a unit in the forest does not have an easier time hitting the planes, but the planes have a harder time hitting them.
Ancient units: -100% defense.
renaissance units, helicopters: -50% defense
modern units, bombers: normal
SAM, AGIES, (stealth) fighter: +100% defense

Ranges
figter: 6
stealth fighter: 8
helicopter: 6
bomber: 12
stealth bomber: 16
cruise missile unit: 8
nuclear weapon: 16

Assumes ~100-200 km per square

Recon plane: range 32, when used does not attack, and rarely draws active defense, acts as a vision range of 6 at that point unitl the beggining of your next turn.

airplanes have a vision and active defense range of 0.5x their attack range

ACTIVE DEFENSE only can be used if the plane did not deploy or move in the preceeding turn
for fighters: When an enemy plane targets somthing of yours or an allies in the defense range, they get a pre-emtive air attack on the attacker. It functions as if the active defender had initiated the bombard. If the attacker survives, it bombards the target normally. a unit can only active defend once per turn, and only one unit can defend agains each attacker. Stealth bombers have a 50% chance of the active defense failing to notice them. Figters on carriers active defend agains naval units as well as air units.
For bombers: Enemy naval and ground units are targeted, when they enter range. can be set to only target certain unit types if available, like carriers and transports or settlers.
helicopters: are the only air unit that can attack submarines, target like bombers, but target subs preferentailly. They have a % chance of detecting submarines in vision range.

FORTIFIED air units only defend if they are in the tager square. A carrier attacked by a sub will automatically scarmble helicopters to pre-emptivly strike (% chance before, % chance simultaneously in this case). They do not have to have movment left to defend agains a direct attack, only a distant one.

A good staratagy for bombing is to send in adavanced fighters (target terrain improvments even) to use up the defenders counter attacks, and damage them, then to bring in the bombers. This simulates escorting the bombers with long range fighters.

SAM units activly defend in a 1 square radius. AGIES cruisers have a range of 2 or 3

When air units attack terrain improvments they have a % chance of hitting based on the type of air craft (50% fighters, 90% stealth bombers...)

Helicpters can be used to attack with a marine unit. The helicpter bombards, then the marine attacks in the target square unit it clears all the defenders or dies trying - like an amphibous attack.

------------------
"Any technology, sufficiently advanced,
is indistinguishable from magic"
-Arthur C. Clark

[yin26]

-=*MOVING THREAD UP*=-

[FinnishGuy]

ember:

OK. I'm a latecomer in this discussion, I just found this board.

Good points there, especially that air units do not die so easily although they can take
heavy damage. Hmmm, perhaps healing should then actually consume production (replacement aircraft being produced). One more good point is that helicopters can attack with a marine unit.

I don't think that we need a separate recon air unit. Recon flights can be abstracted with other air units.


Eggman:

About your comments:

1) Yes I thought about this too. But, there is a danger that air combat will become a clickfest if player needs to constantly change fighter assignments by hand. Some kind of an automatic assignment scheme is almost a must to maintain ease of use. The simplest solution would be to just allow the fighters do double or triple duty (i.e., no assignments). Because air superiority and interception doesn't occur automatically every time (the proposed opportunity checks), some fighters would only fly one mission per turn while others might then do triple duty. Anyway, if assignments are implemented, here's what I thought:

- Fighter units could have four modes of operation: Air Superiority, Interception, Escort and Rest.

- Fighters in Air Superiority mode can attack ONE randomly selected enemy fighter
unit (of any mode). This selection can be made by putting all candidates (those that have overlapping EZ ("effect zone")) in random order and then making engagement checks one by one until the check is succesful or no more candidates remain. The engagement check is based on how much EZs overlap. The more they overlap, the greater chance. The chance maxes out when the enemy BASE square is within EZ. If the candidate enemy is also in Air Superiority mode, the chance is increased (both trying to find enemy fighters). If the candidate is Resting, the chance is decreased (Resting unit is trying to avoid combat). Air Superiority combat should be resolved in the beginning of turn before any other air combat. If the fighter unit doesn't find a target (all candidate checks fail or no overlapping enemy EZs), it assumes Interception mode for that turn.

- Fighter unit in Interception mode can intercept ONE spotted enemy bomber (or escorts first) entering its' EZ.

- Fighter unit in Escort mode can escort ONE bomber unit per turn. It can respond to several enemy interception attempts on the same bomber. If it takes too much damage, another (healthier) Escort fighter can take its' place, provided EZ restrictions apply.

- Fighter unit in Rest mode doesn't participate in combat (unless forced by enemy Air Superiority fighters) and heals more quickly.

- Any fighter unit in Interception or Escort modes can also be used like bombers. If they are used in fighter-bomber role however, they can't do double duty as fighters that turn (or vice versa). Fighter-bombers do not use fighter escorts.


2) Basically, carriers would be handled like ground airbases with the exception that they can move. If a carrier is sunk, all air units it was accommodating have a chance (maybe depending on experience) of evacuating to any friendly carrier (provided there's room), airbase or city within operational radius. I don't think there's any need for "indigenous" fighter units. If a carrier can take 8 air units, there will be enough room for interceptor fighters and still have 2-3 bombers with escorts. Also, on occasion you might want to risk an "all-or-nothing" style air assault, sending all air units to bombing mission.


3) Both could be special cases of bomber units. A (cruise) missile is just a "bomber" that has a very low chance of being intercepted, doesn't use fighter escort and is itself destroyed while attacking. Helicopters could be modelled by bomber units with short operational radius. Chopper units (icons) could also be allowed to exist outside city or airbase squares. They could establish temporary "airbases" for themselves WITHIN their movement radius from a city or normal airbase square. To repair damage, chopper units must return to normal airbase or city (but they suffer damage only from combat, not automatically at end of turn like now in CIV II). Choppers act like bombers, but don't use fighter escort. Because choppers naturally try to avoid combat against fixed-wing aircraft, enemy fighters would have strongly reduced chances to intercept them. Also, they would have a chance to escape enemy fixed-wing bomber attacks (survive with no or minimal damage). The best weapon against choppers would be another chopper or land/sea units with strong anti-air capabilities.


Some more points on air combat:

- If radar technology has been developed, chances to spot enemy units (especially bombers) inside friendly EZ are increased substantially.

- If an airbase is under direct enemy bomber attack, there could be a chance (based on experience) that all fighters in that base can do double duty as interceptors.

- Perhaps there could be a target selection possibility for Air Superiority fighters also. Player can select an enemy base and then the fighter will only engage enemy

fighters originating from this base. This would allow concentration of forces in air superiority missions.

- Conventional cruise missiles should be "anti-structure" weapons to be used against city installations (like demonstrated by real world Tomahawks). Inflicted damage to land and air units should be minimal. Perhaps air units could be more vulnerable. Land or air units can't be destroyed by cruise missile attack. Sea units on the other hand could be destroyed.

- About marines with helicopters proposed by ember: Any marine unit in an airbase can participate in one helicopter attack originating from the same airbase. First, the chopper provides support fire in the target square (like artillery attack in SMAC, damages only) and then the marine unit makes a normal land attack. If the marine unit is victorious and no more enemy units remain, the marines occupy the target square. Marine units can also move WITHIN helicopter EZ from any square to any unoccupied or friendly occupied square (helicopter transport). Perhaps some damage is suffered if moving to enemy ZOC. Attacking marines must start in airbase square because of combat preparations.


Whew getting lengthy... must stop for now...

[Robert Plomp]

This thread has been closed down.
You can continue the discussion on COMBAT <a href = "http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum28/HTML/000132.html">HERE</a>

CyberShy
NEW Temp thread head of the Combat Thread

[yin26]

Redleg,

Your position is waiting for you as soon as you come back! Please e-mail me when you arrive home. Cybershy was gracious enough to make the summary for the list, which we want to finish ASAP. You should have received my e-mail by now.