UNITS (ver. 2.0): hosted by JT3

[JT3]

I'll post a summary soon.

[yin26]

-=*MOVING THREAD UP*=-

[CivMike]

Just found this site. I have several ideas for units...and have tried to organize them.

Land
-Mobile Rocket Launcher
-Troop Transport (would have defense of 2)
More organized transport of troops
-Rangers (Marines. paratroopers, and mech. infranty are only troops in Civ. There needs to be something in the middle that isn't priarily amphibious. )
-Trench troops (Would have to dig trench first, etc. Attack/defense woudl be high then only...kind of like fortifying.)


Air
-Modern non-stealth fighter. (In Civ2, you have the old propeller fighter and then jump to stealth. There needs to be something in the middle, and it would be available alongside Stealth planes-as in it wouldn't expire).
-Modern non-stealth bomber. Same concept.
-Tank-killers. (good against ground units, horrid against air units)
-Air transport units. (C-17)
-Spy planes of various types. (has been mentioned alot in discussion)
-Have 2 or 3 types of helicopters, like the Osprey (actually make it effective) and the Apache, etc. Having just one isn't really reality.
-Air Force One. Complicated, but would be used to transport your leader to another nation's capital and would have a low defense by itself--you could opt for fighter escorts to increase it--and would cause major reputation problems if you attacked it.) 1 Marine unit could board it, along with the President.

Sea
Basicallly, need more "modernization" and choices among each type of unit. For example:
-Submarines
U-Boat (earliest, expires with reg. submarine)
Submarine (newer, never expires)
Seawolf..can change name (newest, never expires, higher attack/defense than reg. subs.)
-Carriers
Old and new, increasing carrying capacity
-Battleships
Old and new concept.

Rockets
-Stragetic Nukes.
-Land to air missiles (battlefield use only, ONLY offensive ONLY planes).
-Patriot missiles (battlefield and carrier use only, must fortify to activate, ONLY defensive against ONLY missiles for 5 x 5 area around it)
-Land to land missiles (kind of like a SCUD) that would be launched via trucks--the graphic would indicate that. You would fire it by hitting a key, with a range of 10, and then it would have to "reload" somehow)

Other
President-With a new concept of a global summit (explained), you would need to send your president/leader. In a city, with increased protection in the capital, the defense is HIGH, on the road, its lower, and on air force one, its little, but would have high reputation consequences if attacked. Could board Air Force One only.

Unit Concepts
Naming/organizing. Kind of like "Carrier group JFK). This would help in tracking troops around the globe. Complicated but doable.

Thats about it...long but hopefully helpful.

[FinnishGuy]

My unit wishes:

- Strategic bombers: destroy or disable city improvements. Slows down or even stops production if used in massive numbers.

- ICBM nukes. These would be very expensive to build but can reach any map location without range limitations. Has a chance to counterattack automatically if enemy attempts nuclear first strike. Target cities can be preset by player.

- At least 3 version levels in aircraft and tank units (WWI era, WWII era, modern). Perhaps fourth, future.

[Mo]

Air transports:
I think it should be automated like in civ2 with the airports just increase the capacity and allow units to transport to airbases. A helicopter transport could be used to transport small number of units small distances. They don't have to land or start at airbases or cities.

ICBM nukes:
I think the closer the launch site (city, sub ..) is to the target should decrease their chance of launching retaliation.

[FinnishGuy]

Mo:

Very good point on ICBMs. Shorter reaction time...

[Sieve Too]

Although the Spy is already too powerful, recent events in Kosovo have prompted me to request a new power for Spies: Steal maps. Right now maps can only be exchanged by peacefully agreeing civs. While a stolen map wouldn't show unit positions, terrain improvements and city sizes would be visible.

[FinnishGuy]

Some more thoughts on ICBMs:

The proposed automatic counterattack capability would create true MAD (=Mutual Assured Destruction) balance. As it now is in CIV II and SMAC, nuclear first strike always succeeds because the opponent can't respond until his turn. If you have enough nukes, you can completely wipe out the enemy before they can do a thing (provided no SDI/defence satellites). With the ICBMs nuclear war would become very risky gamble as you never know how strongly the enemy can retaliate. Still you know that he WILL retaliate almost certainly. Consequently, the world would be pacified by the balance of terror, like in the real cold war between USA and USSR. Until someone gets MAD enough to try his chances...

[Darkstar]

Actually, I'd like to see them use the customization of unit design in SMAC. With additions...

Sense Range - Sense Range becomes a stat, like weapon, armor, hit points and chassis. This would be how many tiles away does a unit have the ability to see. When the modern techs get reached, you gain the ability to add an enhancer, granting extended range. For instance, with the advent of optics (telescopes), you can now design units that have +1 sighting range. With the advent Radar, you can add a short range radar to a unit design, and gain a +2. Yadda yadda yadda. Certain chassis gain an automatic sense range bonus due to the element they operate in. Surface ships gain +1, as do Air chassis. High Altitude optioned air chassises would gain another +1 sense range, on top of their normal +1 due to being an Air Chassis. (High altitude air units would cost more to build, but only be vulnerable to High Altitude Air Response units (SAM Missiles, High Altitude Interceptors, yadda yadda yadda).

I'd also like to see a combat system used where defense knocked off damage inflicted, and all units used their Weapon rating to inflict damage. This would mean that when your heavy "Arthurian Knight" model tanks of Weapon 12 Armor 8 Move 2 Early Heavy Tracked Chassis go into the 3rd World countries and fight "Phalanx" model Weapon 2 Armor 2 Move 1 Bronze Age Infantry chassis, the tanks couldn't be HARMED. I mean, lets be honest...

I think any unit in Civ or Civ 2 can be fairly well modeled in the SMAC unit design system. I would just like that system extended with certain enhancements to allow an even greater variety of possible historical fiction/fantasy lines.

And it would be nice to limit being able to build units based on certain chassises to cities that had the prerequisite infrastructure. For instance... to build Horse chassis units (Horse Cavalry, Horse transported Infantry, Knights, Chariots) requires a stables. (Of course, wonders/secret projects could allow for counting as an automatic building type throughout all bases of your nation... i.e. Stygian Stables could act as a stable in all your cities).

-Darkstar

[DarthVeda]

How about a terrain built by engineers called "Missile Silo" that you could store your nuclear missiles in. The Silo would be invulnerable to nuclear attack, but vulnerable to conventional attack.

I still want the concept of mercenaries. You could lease your troops to another nation for X years, then they would be returned. You could also lease them to barbarians as "Pirates", but you would dictate where they would be placed. Pirate units would take longer to be returned.

Any unit sent as a mercenary receives a veteran upgrade. There also need to be a few more types of experience:

Conscript -- Rush Bought
Green -- Produced normally
Experienced -- Some Combat
Veteran -- Hardened War Vet
Elite -- Crack Division

Customization would be nice, but only if it could be modified easily for scenario purposes. Also if it prevented silly mixes. Like a Knight with a nuke.

Also, if a nuke hits a city, the city should be leveled. Especially with repeated nuclear attacks.

[Mo]

spys:
In SMAC when you try and steal technology and they don't have any tech which you don't posses you will steal their world map.

[Flavor Dave]

"-Tank-killers. (good against ground units, horrid against air units"

You mean, like the helicopter?;-)

What would be the purpose of a modern fighter?? How would it fix a flaw in the game??

What would extra helicopters add to the game? As far as realism goes, if you want realism, play 2 turns and die of old age.

[CivMike]

On modern fighters, it just makes sense. You don't jump from propellers to stealths. I know civilization can't mimic everything in the real life military, but that gap is just silly. I think that a modern fighter could be less expensive, and have firepower somewhere between the propeller and stealth. I also think that there is a problem in the game of fighters only being good for attacking bombers--I've had fighters lose to pikemen. C'mon! Fighters, as seen with Kosovo, attack cities regularly, not just bombers. But anytime I try it in Civ 2, I usually lose. Also, bombers should be able to bomb more than one target on a run.

On tank killers, helicopters are only part of tank-killing warfare. Attack planes are also good for it. Just an added weapon, thats all. Adding different types of helicopters I think just makes strategy that much more important.

Maybe its just that i'm in a family full of military people, so I'm a perfectionist! :-)

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

Instead of a fighter between stealth and propellors, how about a modern fighter/bomber that would have a bombard ability (like bombers in CtP) that is slightly less than their attack ability. This way your fighter would not lose to the pikeman, but might not destroy it either, but do damage. This would work if the air combat is more like CtP and not Civ 2.

------------------
"When Mr. Bigglesworth gets upset, people DIE!"
- Dr. Evil

[CivMike]

I definitely like the fighter-bomber idea. I had not thought of that. It would be a workable solution, and should be included when you think about it.

[Flavor Dave]

Fighter-bomber--now THAT'S a worthy idea. Attack of, say, 6, or 8, otherwise exactly like a fighter, except with weaker "intercept" ability. The key would be that it could attack *and* return. If Firaxis doesn't want to make bombers useful by either allowing them to return, or allow fighters to escort them, this would be one way around that. Cost=80 shields.

Of course, if Firaxis DOES fix this problem, the fighter-bomber becomes useless, as it could be replaced by a fighter-bomber combo, which would be better, even at twice the cost.

[Ecce Homo]

I have made a Mod Pack where I have disabled Airbases because they are abused and the computer never builds them. Instead I have got an Air Force Squad unit which acts like a walking airbase. The image is a soldier with a radio and a big searchlight. It has got the aircraft carrier, *2 defense vs air and 2*vision range flags turned on.

I believe this could be a better way to make an airbase system.

<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by Ecce Homo (edited June 18, 1999).]</font>

[Mo]

Bombers:
I think that bombers should only be damaged in combat if they are fighting an antiair unit. Bombers also shouldn't completly destroy units all of the time. This will then also increase the importance of fighters.

[Flavor Dave]

Mo--why should this be? As I see it, if bombers couldn't completely destroy units, that would give a player even LESS reason to build them.

Please explain your idea.

[Mo]

I think they should still be able to destroy units but it might take them 2 turns of bombardment instead of one. But they would also destroy infustructure every time they attacked a city or a square with improvments. Most bombers aren't all that accurate and camoflaged and units in forests are hard to find and harder to bomb and kill.

[Flavor Dave]

Mo--as presently constructed, I don't build many bombers. That's b/c while they are very destructive, they almost always knock out the target, then they sit there and get killed. IOW, bombers are a crappy unit. Too expensive for what they give you.

So, why would you want to make them less effective? Do you play deity? Cuz if you do, then you know that the AI gets fighters pretty damn quick. Your window of using bombers without the AI having fighters is real small. And then throw in that it takes forever to move them to the front...sorry, the air system would have to be overhauled pretty seriously before I would begin to consider your idea a good one.

BTW, bombers almost never lose to ground units, it's the fighters that get them. So, your enhancement of the bomber is pretty weak.

Besides, if you want realism (all together now) play two turns and die of old age.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

First off, i am getting pretty tired of reading "if you want realism play two turns and die" that comes at the end of many posts. I think that realism adds a lot to gameplay and keeps players from developing can't miss strategies, well keeps the number down anyway.

Secondly, the air combat system of CtP is greatly improved from Civ 2, bombers dont always have to fear being caught out in the open, but they do have to fear being shot down before they even reach the target, "due to active air defense." In Civ 2 i never produced bombers, b/c they would just get shot down after one attack anyway, and cruise missiles were stronger and cheaper. Bombers have greater importance in CtP's system, and i hope that the Civ 3 system is modeled after it.

------------------
"When Mr. Bigglesworth gets upset, people DIE!"
- Dr. Evil

[Flavor Dave]

You know, that's a funny coincidence, because I'm tired of seeing suggestions made in the name of realism that have no discernible positive impact on the game, and fairly obvious negative impact. In particular, I think that a large number of the realistic suggestion, probably a majority, restrict rather than enhance strategic choices. Which is the opposite of what you (and I) like.

But, different strokes and all that.

[Atahualpa]

I hope someone already suggested recruiting instead of building!

Recruiting (similar to Colonization) would be more realistic.

Sorry, I cant look through all the threads now, I dont have much time right now.

ATa

[crusher]

Has anyone seen JT3's(the third?) summery?

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

[Mikel]

I have come here to try to tempt you all into a new way of thinking about units. Instead of talking about new types of units (i.e 3 types of battleship in the new game) I would like to see a new way of dealing with units. I'll try to elaborate.
Rather building battleships and pikemen, I would like to see the new game allow us to develop our own types of armies and navies. I'm don't mean a unit design like AC had, more a way of choosing how your armadas for example are composed. Imagine in the beginning all you can make your armies up of is Warriors. So you have units composed of 500 or 1000 warriors whatever you decide. Then you discover Archery. Now you can make up armies of say 300 warriors and 200 bowmen, again its up to you. This new type of soldier (the bowmen ) will add a nem dimension to your units capabilities. I am not going to suggest what that is as it depends on other aspects of the game, but let us say that the game includes a simple battle screen over which you have control. The bowmen now allow this army to make ranged attacks. This is just an example though but if the game eventually does include such a screen then a few large army blocks would be much easier to control but still leave you with tactical decisions to make, without becoming the focus of the agme which might happen if a battle screen involved large numbers of individual units.

The size and composition of your army could also be used to determine other things that some people have suggested such as it's supply needs and perhaps its name. For example a unit of 500 footmen and 500 Men-at-arms built in Plymouth could be called by the computer the Duke of Plymouths House Guard (if he had a very large house) whereas a group of 200 heavy cavalry and 300 light horse built in the capital might be known as the Royal Cavaliers.

I like these ideas but they have lots of room for improvement if people start making suggestions.

Hope this isn't lost on the winds of time.
Mikel

PS Thanks Icedan

[Ekmek]

I long believed that unit strength should be represented by manpower and not some strength bar. Real life army units report strength percentages based on personnel and mission-capable vehicles. Besides this would work with the battle calculations (multiplied by firepower, morale, range, etc.) But if we gothis route we need unit organization possible too. A jumbled mass of 500 infantry is nothing really until they are organized
into battle formations like a phalanx or a legion (which requires weapons technology too). That is something civ needs to represent too.
Current debates on the "revolution in military affairs" may revolve around new technology but organization (command and control and the battle formations) apply that new technology and the US Army is looking
into devising new organization structure and new organization techniques should be advances. But if you organize your troops independently (like if you make an ancient formation that can beat a legion, by using an
organization design window or something) you should be able to save your formation styles and name them (so if you build more troops you can have a list of sorts of organization types like combined arms task force, or
infantry group, airborne unit,etc. that you can choose to organize your units).

[Flavor Dave]

Let me try to synthesize the two ideas above. I'm trying to keep this from being too complicated.

1. A battle group would consist of at least one unit of each type--artillery, fast, infantry. So, from catapult, horsemen, and phalanx, to howie, tanks, MIs. If you have all three elements in the same tile, they create a synergy that strengthens them. Less synergy with 2 types. Also, you might be able to choose from a small number of formations (3?), that emphasize counterattack, hold, or a combination, when attacked, or crush (limits retreat-ability of opponent) hold (emphasizes taking the tile), or a combination, when attacking. And, you can't create a battle group until you get a certain tech, perhaps chivalry, or leadership. If you win the battle and clear the square, you would have the option of moving your units in. Further, this battle could be fought on a screen (option), for you to watch. That would be waaaaay cool.

A battle group would function like a fortress in that you'd only lost one unit at a time. And, as each unit is killed off, each side has the option of retreating. Let's say you have one pikeman, one catapult, and one knight. When attacking, you could choose between 3 formations--knights forward (this would increase your chances of eliminating the opposition, since the knights would be in good position to cut off the retreat, but also increase your chances of being eliminated, since the knights would be less able to support the main battle), knights flank (combination) or knights reserve (opposite effects of knights forward.)

2. Give the option of regular phalanx, or heavy phalanx (twice the cost, twice the power.) Ok, that idea isn't too great, since you could just as easily build two. But along those lines. Perhaps heavy phalanx costs 30 shields, and has 1a/3d. You'd build this in your outpost cities. And, later in the game, you'd have the option of light, regular, or heavy musketeers. 20, 30, and 40 shields, with proportional a/d. Thinking more about this, the heavy, regular and light should be something only available with gunpowder.

Sometimes, you just want the square, like when it's a city. So, you'd choose knights reserve. Sometimes, the key is killing the enemy soldiers, so you'd choose knights forward. But then, you'd have to take terrain into account, and whether or not you have another battle group nearby, and can afford to take a chance.

One advantage of the battle group concept is that it opens up a strategic option. Now, offensive war is blitzkrieg--build lots of vet. elephants/knights/cavalry, accept losses. With the battle group, you would move more slowly, but more surely, winning more often. It would be ideal for taking that one pesky city, or for basic disruption of an enemy civ, or to take a city and force peace when you're not ready to fight.

Putting these two together, the stronger your infantry unit, the more likely that you'll choose knights forward, since the infantry can probably take it. This would make fighting battles less simple. Fighting battles would be more subtle, but the war part of Civ3 wouldn't be more important, relative to the other aspects of Civ.


<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by Flavor Dave (edited June 22, 1999).]</font>

posted May 28, 1999 02:41
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ditch caravans/freight (they're a pain in the arse). I would like to have a leader/emperor unit that:

. Started the game for you (but still have settlers)

. had a defense factor higher than zero (reflects bodyguard)

. Could establish cities (like but not replacing settlers - reflecting the court/nobles and retinue)

. Carried the "crown jewels" (which could be built up over time and captured by other nations - replaces the palace/throne room interface).

. Acted as the capital (like Louis XIV, where the leader is, that is the capital - "palaces" become regional government centres unless the leader is there).

. can directly control some units (i.e. when accompanying them or within capital city radius - so even if your last city is destroyed, all is not lost!)

. Give a combat modifier to controlled units, i.e. when travelling with them or within the city radius of the capital (improve factors).

. had to be killed/captured to destroy a civilisation (but can be reborn/built after a period of civil war/anarchy if killed while your empire still has cities).

. If travelling, can buy cities of other civs like diplomats.

. Has other diplomat/spy qualities (incentive to sometimes put the emperor in the frontline, leading his/her troops).

. Moves at a rate of three across all terrain (easier to flee enemy units).

Why do I want this? Because I think would be fun to flee on the last ship from your last city as it was being destroyed and set up shop elsewhere. Equally make it much easier to establish elsewhere if the computer put you on a poor part of the map at the start of the game. Also would like to hunt down the leaders of other civs and capture their treasures. Assasination of a moving leader also becomes a real possibility. Emporer flees and use treasures to buy some cities from another civ is another. Civil war would generate two leaders and one would have to kill the other to win etc. etc.

Also would like to have generals which modify combat/command armies/navies (but they should be expensive and limited). With regionalisation, every province could have a governor and a general for example.

I posted this elsewhere, but here it is again..

I actually kind of like the idea of upgrading current units to a point where we don't have to change the whole thing like a phalanx to a musketeer, rather a phalanx to a centaurian, not actually changing the whole unit itself, but upgrading it slightly, giving it a new name and slightly better defence and whatever, and maybe give it a golden helmet just to make it look upgraded aswell.