UNITS (ver. 2.0): hosted by JT3 - Page 3

Jon Miller · July 7, 1999, 15:27

hi

topic: generals

If there are generals in this game they should not be like in moo2 (and diffinitely not like in mom) because they would be too powerful

If generals are in the game they should not be bought as in moo2 or mom, did the confederacy pay an arm and a leg for Lee or Jackson? was pay even a factor for them? The answer is of course no and no like it would be for every other famous leader of men. If history provides any telltale of human experience (which we are at some level trying to recreate) mercenaries have rrarely proven to be the greatest generals.

mercenaries themselves matterred numerous times in history (and that should be added in diplomacy as I will add later) but their leaders did not go arround selling their personal services and neither did domestic governors

it is true that military and domestic leaders were bought but most of the payment was for bribe to facilitate the betrayal of that leaders city or army

if generals are in the game there should be a disabling option

generals (or domestic leaders) should come via random events or when your civilization is in trouble

if generals are in the game they should just provide help to the army, not be a seperate powerful unit (maybe they could be a weak diplomat looking type unit and be weak in themselves but help surrounding units) by themselves

generals should age and die after like 20 turns (this would help limit them and keep them from dominating so much)

also generals should not provide as many plus as leaders did in moo2

Jon Miller

The Brain · July 7, 1999, 19:11

This is about my religious units- I know you can bribe units and cities to join your civ, but with priests you can covert them and have them join your civ WITHOUT paying money to bribe them. It is sorta like a diplomat but he preaches religion while he goes along.

EnochF · July 7, 1999, 19:34

Converting a city without paying any gold? So what is it based on, a percentage chance? And have you given any thought to how mind-meltingly annoying it would be if the computer got priests before you did? The balance of the game would be shot to hell. And not only would it ruin game balance, but it's unrealistic as hell. "A wandering mystic entered Chicago today. Soon afterwards, Chicago became an official protectorate of Saudi Arabia..."

Flavor Dave · July 7, 1999, 23:11

Enoch--maybe if terrorists softened up Chicago first, then it would be realistic;-)

Seriously, tho, if you want priests to convert, then just play Age of Empires. It works in AoE b/c the production model is so different from Civ2.

I like soccer. I like basketball. I don't think basketball would be better if the goal was 24 ft by 8 ft.

The Brain · July 8, 1999, 04:16

Yes there would be a chance that it would happen, the witch doctor would have less a chance on doing it the first time than a bishop would. Civs who are more advanced would also be harder to persuade than a primitive one. They wouldn't have a ANY attack but a little itty-bitty defense, the only exception is the "Jesus" (or maybe disciple would be a less offensive name?) would have alot more defense since he has followers that would fight for him. So in a nutshell, they're like Spies who can convert units and cities without giving up some cash, and they make people happy in your city as a bonus!

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Acctually I'm a genetically altered lab mouse plotting to take over the world!

Flavor Dave · July 8, 1999, 10:22

Brain--what weakness in Civ2 are you trying to address? In what way would priests make Civ3 a better game?

I don't see it making the game more challenging, or more realistic, or more balanced between expansion and perfectionism, or more balanced between city management and wonders and civ management and the military.

Jon Miller · July 8, 1999, 15:53

I also would like to vote against having clerics giving you free cities (JT3 put down that many disagreed with this idea), just because I join a religion does not mean I join the state that that religion was started in and this is not only true in todays current seperation of church and state but was also true long ago too, religion did change the political landscape by urging wars or peace but for the most part religions did not even try to make people change earthly overlords, all they would care about is who the people worshipped, maybe a particularly aggressive religion might tell its followers to revolt if the king of that land would not do what they wanted him to but most religious groups that where active politically where active behind the seens and any religion that was as strongly controlled by a particular nation (as Brain's ones would have to be) there would be rules against and information on (that all the other rulers would provide) that would stop any converting of that sort from going on

the idea is extremely unrealistic and if it is included (without in option to turn it off) I would not play the game

move this idea to the religion thread and let them take it on if you want more discussion of it

besides it would be unballancing and add nothing to the game as already stated

Jon Miller

korn469 · July 8, 1999, 18:31

about the debate on whether units should take a population unit to create here's my suggestion

instead of subtracting a population point to create a unit i think the way units are supported should be changed. do away with support costing sheilds. i think that a certain number of units should create a soldier specialist. the soldier specialist would be like all other specialist (scientist, tax collector, entertainer, doctor, engineer, transend)...one population of a city not working the land and this would represent the logistics and people need to keep a military machine running. like specialists in alpha centauri the soldier specialist would modify labs and economy and psych.
the modifier would be -2 economy -2 labs +1 psych

this would require that to have a huge modern military machine you would have to have a large well developed population

some units would require more support than others. have units rated in support points from zero to three support points. a freedom fighter/muja-hadeen(sp?) unit might take zero points. a regular army infantry division might cost one point. a armor division might cost two points. finally a stealth bomber wing might cost three points.

support level

three it takes 4 support points to create the first soldier specialist each soldier specialist provides a total of 6 support points the first soldier specialist doesn't cause a econ/labs penalty

two it takes 4 support points to create the first soldier specialist each soldier specialist provides a total of 6 support points

one it takes 3 support points to create the first soldier specialist each soldier specialist provides a total of 5 support points

zero it takes 3 support points to create the first soldier specialist each soldier specialist provides a total of 4 support points

minus one it takes 2 support points to create the first soldier specialist each soldier specialist provides a total of 3 support points

minus two it takes 2 support points to create the first soldier specialist each soldier specialist provides a total of 2 support points

minus three it takes 1 support points to create the first soldier specialist each soldier specialist provides a total of 2 support points

minus four it takes 1 support points to create the first soldier specialist each soldier specialist provides a total of 2 support points each soldier specialist has a -3 labs/-3 economy modifier +1 psych

naturally when units were disbanded or killed the soldier specialist would turn back into regular workers

if you lost soldier specialist for whatever reason then the units they supported would be disbanded

wesley32 · July 9, 1999, 01:37

I agree with many of you, the nukes should be much more powerful! They should not only level the city they strike, and also pollute
nearby cities also. The radiation affects of
the earliest atomic bombs (that are much more
powerful today) were felt for 100's of miles
throughout Japan and in the Russian desert. I think nukes should kill 80% of a cities population, destory all military units (but not city improvements), and pollute out from
a 4 square radius from where they detonated.
That way they will likely "harm" nearby cities by their pollution. Hey, they are weapons of mass destruction aren't they?

Flavor Dave · July 9, 1999, 08:27

Nukes being more powerful only makes sense if they increase the diplomatic penalty for using them. I mean, if you want to talk about realism, what does the fact that only two nukes have been dropped in 50 years tell you?

It would be more realistic to only allow one nuke to be built, by any civ, anywhere. That's really real.

Of course, if you want realism, play two turns and die of old age.

Rambler2 · July 9, 1999, 18:42

Here's a new unit. Tourist: unofficial spying units. at a minumal cost these units could 'take a vacation' at an opponets city and find out usefull info about it.

wesley32 · July 9, 1999, 22:12

I agree with your above comments. Here is what I would do with the nukes. I don't think
they should totally destroy a city just level" it. Sorry, that's the best way to put it. I'd
make the kill 80% of the population,
all military units within a 4 square radius and pollute all squares in that 4 square radius.
Their definitely needs to be penalties, specifically diplomatic, but should they last forever?
No, we drops 2 bombs on Japan and our diplomatic relations are good. Penalties I would
support are:
every other civilization declares you an enemy for the next 20 turns (although you might be
able to pay some countries off, this would end all foreign alliances, trade and support of
any kind. How and when should the computer nuke? I say keep track of the largest # of
cities each civilization has ever had at anytime, if their current # of cities (cities, not
population) drops by 80%
then they will use their nukes on anyone that is not on good terms with them. The only
other scenario for the computer to use nukes is if they themselves have been nuked. This
would also make the computer nuke another computer civilization sometimes. What do
you think?

Diodorus Sicilus · July 10, 1999, 00:25

Reference Nukes:
Make 'em as powerful as you want, but note that, as stated in the previous post, the effects of even the smallest nukes used spread far beyond the target. In other words, make a more powerful nuke, and a turn later get a message that you've got pollution problems in your own cities downwind of the target - and thousands of miles away!
The prohibition against using nukes is two-fold: first, there's a serious diplomatic penalty for using them - you have no friends left anywhere. Second, and more important to most gamers, I'm afraid, is that you cannot drop a large nuke (megaton city-killer) ANYWHERE ON THE PLANET without affecting your own civ in some way. I used to plot Downwind Messages (radioactive contamination spread from a strike) in the Army, and the spread of pollution from even a tactical nuclear strike can be extensive. Also, as Chernobyl indicates, cleaning up radioactive pollution is practically impossible using current technology.
Given those three additions: extensive pollution from nukes, universal diplomatic negatives, and the impossibility of cleaning up the pollution (altough it does go away in time - parts of Los Alamos/White Sands where the first test was conducted are quite nice today!) - then you can increase the 'size' of game nukes all you want - and the players would have to be idiots to use any of them.

Theben · July 10, 1999, 00:55

wesley32,
It would depend on the power of the nuke. The bombs dropped on Japan killed 60,000-80,000 people each, in cities of several hundred thousands. So you're looking at about 10-20% casualties instantly, with pop decline over the next several turns (radiation). I have no raw data, but I assume today's nukes would cause more damage & deaths. Plus I've heard that some of today's "tactical" nukes are 1/2 the strength of the bombs we dropped...another can o' worms...

Also not everyone in Japan has forgiven & forgotten the bombing. Many in Japan still consider it a war atrocity committed by the U.S. govt. Their leaders are just less vocal about it. All of which ties nicely into my suggestion (on other threads) about how leaders & the people view diplomatic actions differently-genocide rarely affects leaders, so they are quicker to forgive. Obviously it's not to the point where Japan will declare war on us for the slightest provocation, but it does affect some people's decisions.

Ecce Homo · July 10, 1999, 16:27

To limit nuke production more, they should only be buildable in cities with Nuclear Plants.

Talking about nukes, why not include biological/chemical weapons?

They would kill/decimate units and population, but as a less grade than nukes.
City/terrain improvements would not be harmed.

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The best ideas are those that can be improved.
Ecce Homo

wesley32 · July 10, 1999, 17:01

Theben, I agree with everything your saying.
But about Japan, there is another side to the story. Their was no way they could stop our forces yet they still refused to "wave the white flag." We even warned them of the severe penality they would pay with they continued to refuse surrendering. And it's not like the U.S. was invading Japan for power or economic gain. We were trying to stop their manifest. Japan was in the wrong.
Had we not been invading for a just cause and still used nukes, it would have been different.

Theben · July 10, 1999, 17:31

wesley32, I've studied Japanese history quite a bit. The Japanese did surrender, it was just not an "unconditional" surrender. They had one condition, leave the emperor alone. To many Japanese the dropping of 2 bombs, especially the 2nd 2 days after the 1st, was morally wrong.

Tornado7 · July 10, 1999, 20:13

Ok, I was thinking about the concept of the general unit the other day-
For each "era" of a civ, you would get two or three general units, with the option to build more after you got a tactics advance for the tech level. Then you could use it to enhance the attack/defense power of an army or unit.
This brings me to another point: Stacked units should be destroyed one-by one.
While I know everyone loves taking out a dozen computer units with one guy, it's not realistic. Think about it- If the Germans had the entire Western Army group on the Normandy shores when the Allies invaded, do you think the invasion would have succeded? Air attacks could destroy an entire stack, but ground attacks shouldn't. This also makes it a helluva lot easier to move an army group into attack range of a city.

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Truth is stranger than fiction, and people are weirder than both.

Theben · July 10, 1999, 22:52

Tornado7,
This has been covered in the COMBAT thread. If you don't see anything similar to what you suggest, then post your idea.

wesley32 · July 10, 1999, 23:46

Theben,
there is something wrong with this picture.
I respect your opinion. Everyone is entitled to there own opinion. Here is mine:
Hitler invades all of Europe with a plan to
eventually rule the world, massacres millions of Jews, Japan ALLIES with him, destroys China, and massacres 1000's of Chinese, and you're telling me what America did was morally wrong??? That doesn't hold water. The Japanese emperor is who called the shots, and he was responsible for Japan's part in the war. Where I come from, we hold people responsible for their actions. "If you do the crime, you must do the time."

Theben · July 11, 1999, 02:27

wesley,
What I've been telling you is that many JAPANESE think what America did was morally wrong. My opinion isn't in there. After all, did the bombs kill the emperor? The Japanese high command? Or thousands of civilians, which is incidentally what you accuse Japan of doing to China?
If you wish to continue this arguement, please create a post in the off-topic forums, and I'll answer any questions you have. Mean while, back to your original question:

"Their definitely needs to be penalties, specifically diplomatic, but should they last forever?"

Which is a good question, btw; one I've been questioning myself. Obviously my answer is yes, but more importantly should the atrocity penalty remain at the same level? In this case, I'll answer no. The above being a good example. America hated the Japanese for the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, and a very few still hold a grudge, but not enough to really affect diplomacy in any way. The Japanese, however, are just recently starting to question whether or not the 2 nuclear attacks were necessary, and this may have some diplomatic bearing for game purposes. China & Korea also have grudges with Japan, for many reasons. So what are the factors to determine how long a grudge remains? Is it type of govt? Type of economy? Is it proximity to the other nation? Does a long history of mutual antagonism count? Or is it simply the sins of a generation die with it?

wesley32 · July 11, 1999, 13:28

Theben,
I agree, no more about that subject. On to Civ III. The diplomatic penalty probably should be slighty randomized but it should mostly depend on any agreements after the war. If not agreement is reached, hostility should go on forever. If a cease fire is reached, maybe severe hostility remains for 20-30 turns??? Peace treaty - 15-20 turns??? Also, something that should be thrown into the equation is : were nukes used to attack a country or were you attacked first and used for retaliation. Retaliation shouldn't be as severe. Also, it should be less severe if the existence of your civilization was on the line (your only hope of surviving is using nukes for defense.) Just some ideas.

Jon Miller · July 11, 1999, 14:36

I would just like to say that none of the rest of the world treated what we did to Japan as an attrocity, therefore it is not always correct to have global reprucussions. Our allies were still our allies and none of the neutrals declared war on us. I think that the antinuke feeling and the making of nukes as taboo did not occur until after the 50s or 60s when worldwide cultural forces (starting in th US) asked countries to be responsible with them. For gameplay reasons I think that the antinuke thing should be a result of certain social standings. At this point, I think if US government launched a nuke there would be internal strife no matter how just the cause was, the same for many other western nations (and ruusia). These would be the same nations that would react very negatively if someone else used a nuke (if it was not on them). Any nation that a nuke is used on should be mad at the nation that nuked it but it should be a function of civilian loss in addition to the fact of use. The same could go for bio and chem weapons. There should also be a voting thing in the UN to globaly disallow nukes and the like.

It should not work ala smac, A nukes you, B and C (your allies) do nothing, you nuke A, B and C cancel alliance and declare war on you.

Is this the place for this conversation?

Jon Miller

Ekmek · July 11, 1999, 14:36

Nukes - besides eliminating population and military units, city improvements need to be destroyed too (I didn't see it mentioned but it might have). As far as diplomacy it should affect your REPUTATION (of course in civ3 reputation should be modified a bit, the consequences of an atrocious reputation had no real effect, in Civ3 it shoold affect trade and science too!).

Military Units and Population -
Flavor Dave, the US has an army of half a million that is not a huge army. But i see your point in how people can get a huge army with a huge population and beat down the computer, but that's life, even in civ3 science and money go up with a huge population too. I saw get rid of the "we love days" and add some disasters to poulation like epidemics too.

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"All great things must first wear terrifying and monstrous masks in order to inscribe themselves on the hearts of humanity."
- Nietzche

July 12, 1999, 18:04

I have a feeling the units in CivIII will be much like those in Alpha Centauri or CtP, meaning they are 3D animated (even if they're really sprites). I like these animated units, but the one disadvantage is that when making a scenario or something, I can't make my own units, whereas in CivII I could at least attempt to shrink a picture or draw a new unit freehand.

For CivIII, whether Sid decides to use the chassis concept or the stand-alone unit concept, I hope the CD can provide extra 3D units that a player can use to his liking, (extra units not normally found in the game). So even if during the regular game there will still only be Stealth Fighters and a regular helicopter, maybe a 3D unit of other fighters and an Apache can be included on the CD, since if the units are 3D, the user has no hope of ever creating his own chassis or models for use in scenarios, etc.

Diodorus Sicilus · July 13, 1999, 11:15

Here's a summary of how I'd like to see Air Units work in CivIII. The ideas are culled from other posts by various folks on this and other Threads, old board games (especially the Europa series), The Dupuy HERO Institute's studies of Close Air Support, and my own experience (US Army) of 'friendly' close air support. Here goes...
Air units will move within a single turn, flying a Mission and returning before the next turn begins. Parts of your Air Units’ actions may take place during an enemy turn, and all such air units will return to a base in a separate sequence after all other movement has been completed for the turn.
Therefore, air units will not have a speed or movement factor that is separate. Speed is part of the Combat (Attack/Defense) factor for the given aircraft. The range of the aircraft is the distance it can move within the turn, and this can vary even for the same type of aircraft:
At very short ranges, some aircraft can fly multiple missions, multiplying their effective attack factor against ground targets, and the number of attacks they could make against air targets.
At medium and long ranges, multiple-engined bomber or transport aircraft can trade payload for fuel, extending the range at the expense of ground attack factor. At short ranges, these aircraft get extra ground attack factors by loading more bombs/ordinance in place of fuel.
Some, probably most, aircraft units will have multiple missions possible. The possible missions, whch can be displayed in a single ‘pull down’ menu for each air unit, are:
1. Ground Support
Air unit takes part in whatever attack the indicated friendly ground unit(s) take part in. This can be either as attacking or defending units. The effectiveness of the air support depends on development of Communications and Tactical Doctrine as well as aircraft and ordinance. The air attack is treated as a Bombardment preliminary to the computation of the ground combat results.
2. Interdiction
one or more map tiles are indicated, and the air unit attacks any (enemy) unit attempting to move through that tile during the rest of the turn (until the beginning of your next turn). This mission lasts until the air unit is shot down or forced away by enemy action, or until the beginning of the next friendly turn. The most common result of these attacks is to slow down movement through the tile/square, but with sufficiently advanced and powerful air units, damage can also be inflicted on moving ground units.
3. Bombing
Air unit flies to an indicated tile/square and makes a Bombardment attack against an indicated target in that square. The types of Bombing attack are:
Carpet Bombing the air unit attacks ground units in the square. A specific ground unit cannot be selected: if there is more than one, the one attacked is semi-random, in that it depends on which one the air unit is likely to spot. In order of difficulty from hardest to spot to easiest, the ground units would be: Spy/Scout/Diplomat; Settler/Engineer; Infantry; Caravan/Freight; Cavalry/Mounted unit; Mech/Armor unit.
Strategic Bombing the air unit attacks a square with Improvements or a city. Only after certain Advances (Targeting Radar, Photo Reconnaissance?) can specific Improvements or city features be targeted, and the chance of damaging a specific target is very low, of destroying it outright even lower (with conventional weapons: Cruise Missiles/Smart Bombs increase those chances dramatically).
Air Superiority the air unit attacks airfields or airbases in the square to render it temporarily unusable or permanently demolished. If successful, enemy air units flying from that airfield/airbase may also be damaged or destroyed by the attack.
4. Air Superiority Sweep
Air unit flies a ‘patrol range’ equal to a percentage of its total range. This is extended from its airfield/airbase as a radius of action. During the entire period until your next turn, it attacks any enemy air unit that attempts to enter that radius.
A variant of this, for air units with Naval Attack or Anti-Submarine Special Capabilities (see next post) is the Naval Patrol in which the unit will ‘patrol’ a similar area over water, looking for enemy ships or submarines and attacking them as they attempt to move through the area.
5. Air Transport
Air unit moves a ground unit from one airbase/airfield to another, or transports Paratroop-capable unit(s) to their drop zone. The transported ‘unit’ can include Supplies, either transported or air-dropped to keep an otherwise-isolated ground unit(s) in action.
6. Escort
Air unit flies with other air units making Bombing, Interdiction,Transport, or Ground Attack and attacks any enemy air unit attempting to make an attack on them.
Putting It All Together:
In a sample turn, say you have 6 air units: 3 multiple-power plant ‘bomber’ types, and 3 single-powerplant ‘fighters’. During your turn, you’ve moved a stack (‘army’) of ground units to attack an enemy stack. You pull down the menu for two of the bombers, which are stacked (‘based’) on the same airfield, and select Ground Support. When you put your pointer on the air units, a faint blue line appears leading from the airfield to the target tile/square you select. If the airfield was very close to the target, you might have the option of selecting 2 targets for the air units in the same turn, reflecting the fact that they can ‘turn around’ faster and fly multiple missions. You select Interdiction for the other bomber, and select the tile directly behind the enemy unit(s) being attacked - interdiction against retreating units is much, much more effective, like a ground pursuit on the Battle Screen. For the three ‘fighters’, you select Air Superiority Sweep for two of them, and their icons on the map are surrounded by a faint blue halo, indicating that they are ‘on alert’. For the last fighter, you select Escort and place your pointer on the Bomber units to be escorted. A blue halo apears around that fighter as well.
You then move the ground stack into combat. The bombers automatically fly Bombardment against the same stack, the one fighter flies with them, and the last bomber flies to the Interdiction square and remains there, surrounded by the blue halo that indicates that it is ‘in the air’. It will remain there until it is attacked by an enemy air unit, shot down by SAMs, or the beginning of your next turn, when it will return to its airfield/air base. Enemy flying aircraft are not visible until they attack or are attacked by your Air Superiority/Escort fighters.

Diodorus Sicilus · July 13, 1999, 11:26

Air Units and the Design Workshop.
Assuming that CivIII uses a SMAC-type Design or construction workshop for units, air units would have the following components:
Chassis:
Airframe
Size of the airframe would depend on the construction technology and the propulsion technology available. Size in turn would affect the attack and defense factors, transport capability, special mission capabilities, and range.
Airframe types:
Wood & Wire the classic ‘biplane’ configuration. This is limited in capacity, and can mount no more than 2 powerplants.
Metal Monocoque WWII style: this can mount up to 4 powerplants and much more capacity for cargo, bomb load, etc. This requires Light Alloy (Aluminum), which is in turn a product of Hydoelectricity, since aluminum smelting is a high-energy process.
Composite Alloy Modern style: this can make best use of Jet and Rocket propulsion systems and can also be used for primitive Space Launch vehicles. It can mount up to 4 powerplants. This requires Composite Materials processing.
Propulsion
There are only three basic propulsion types for airframes: internal combustion, jet, and rocket. There are lots of ‘add ons’ that could modify them: rotary engines, supercharged engines, afterburners, etc., but I’m not certain that we want to get into that much detail in a strategic game. Instead, change the capacity of the propulsion type based on the airframe it’s mounted in, and we’ll have effectively 7 - 9 propulsion types - that should be enough for everyone.
Internal Combustion - a byproduct of Automobile? This is the earliest air 'powerplant' propulsion, and can be used with all types of airframes.
Jet - This can only be mounted in Metal Monocoque and Composite Alloy airframes. Allows both increased capabilities in attack and defense and range. Has extra defense and attack factor against Internal Combustion aircraft. Unmanned airframe with this propulsion is the Cruise Missile.
Rocket - this can only be mounted in Metal Monocoque and Composite Alloy airframes. As a manned craft, has limited capabilities but as an unmanned unit, becomes the ICBM or*IRBM missile with very long range and high capacity payload.
Armament
The attack and defense factor of air units depends partially on the capability of the airframe-propulsion system combination, which reflect the aircraft’s speed in combat, maneuverability, ceiling, climb and dive and its stability as a bombing or firing platform. Thus, the actual weapons carried are only part of the final ‘number’ in the air or ground attack factor and defense factor against air or ground fire.
Air Weapons:
Machineguns
Machine Cannon
Guided Missiles
Infared Homing
RADAR Homing
Beam Riding
Only Machineguns can be effectively carried by Wood & Wire airframes. Each weapon has a Weight factor attached to it, and the number ‘loaded’ onto the airframe and propulsion combination will affect the other factors of the air unit. A heavily-armed single-engine ‘fighter’ may actually have a lower air attack factor than a more lightly armed, and therefore faster and more maneuverable, fighter unit. Missiles are particularly heavy, and will be effectively impossible for a single internal combustion propulsion system to carry.
Air to Ground Weapons:
Iron Bombs
Guided Bombs
Air to Ground Rockets
Guided Missiles
‘Smart’ Ordinance
Iron Bombs and Air to Ground Rockets can be carried by any airframe/propulsion system combo, although the rockets are heavier (for the amount of damage done). Guided Bombs and Guided Missiles, both as air-ground and air-to-air weapons, require the same set of Tech Advances. ‘Smart’ Ordinance is a development of Guided Ordinance requiring Computers, Miniaturization, or possibily an AI advance.
Special Capabilities:
a. RADAR
Ground Attack
Air Attack
Air Defense
Ground Attack radar allows ground attack during foul weather, increasing the attack factor against all ground targets. Air Attack allows higher attack factors against enemy aircraft when flying Escort or Air Superiority missions. Defense Radar allows better defense factor against missiles (including SAMs) and other aircraft.
b. Naval Attack
It requires special equipment and training to attack ships from the air. This reflects those realities. Air units without this can still attempt to attack ship units, but with a very low probability of success.
c. Anti-Submarine
This is a particularly heavy Special, since it involves RADAR, towed SONAR array, depth charges, etc. It dramatically increases the chance of the air unit spotting a submarine, because it no longer has to rely on ‘chancing’ on it while it's surfaced, and also dramatically increases the chance of destroying it by air attack.
d. Air Drop
This allows the air unit to carry and drop paratroops or to air drop supplies
e. ECM
This gives the air unit a ‘counterattack’ factor against SAMs. It provides the possibility of the air unit destroying the SAM*instead of vice versa.
f. Stealth
This is available only to Composite Alloy airframes. It greatly increases the defense factor of the air unit against all missile attacks and negates the effects of all enemy RADARs.
g. Nuclear Capable
It takes special fittings to carry and use nuclear weapons. This gives the air unit that capability. If they are included, a similar Special Capability would also be required to load and dissiminate Biological or Chemical Weapons from an air unit.

Putting it All Together:
You’ve got Metal Monocoque airframe technology and Internal Combustion propulsion systems. You decide to ‘design’ two basic air units: a single-engine fighter and a heavy bomber.
You select the air frame and a single power plant. The minimum Weight for the air frame to carry that powerplant is displayed. You select a range of 10 and the weight goes up (fuel, tanks, more air frame weight). You select Machine Cannon for armament and 4 for the number. The weight goes ‘way up, the displayed Attack and Defense Factor go down, and you realize you’ve just overloaded your power-airframe combination. Drop the Machine Cannon to 1, add Iron Bomb and a BombLoad (100, 500, 1000, 2000, etc). The resulting compromise looks much better. Reducing the range would give you more armament combinations to play with, while a very short range (Interceptor) would allow heavier armament or a very high defense factor (maneuverability- hard to hit).
For the bomber, you select 4 powerplants, Range 25, 10 Machine Guns, and Iron Bomb with a Load of 4000. The resulting Air Attack Factor is lousy (it’s obviously NOT a fighter!), but the Air Defense Factor is much higher and the Ground Attack factor is also high. Being a +2 powerplant machine, the defense factor is not based on maneuverability, but firepower and airframe weight. The Ground Attack factor will also suffer when flying Interdiction missions, because the aircraft is very vulnerable when flying low to attack enemy units. You add a few points to the airframe weight (armor). If you add too much, you’ll get a red message saying indicating that you’ve overloaded the airframe-propulsion system combination, and either bomb load, armament, or range will have to change.
You don’t have any Special Capabilities for either air unit, but you could sacrifice other factors on either one for them. Since most of the Special Capabilities weigh a lot, they seriously handicap the earlier airframe/propulsion system combinations: better wait until you’ve got Jet engines and Composte Alloys to play with.
Finally, under each final icon of the air unit is a screen to type in the designation (game may provide sample Designations based on the Civ, but not all civs ever got to have air forces, so this will be tricky) for the new air unit: B-10, Fw-200, P-26, Yak-3U, Flying Fortress, Spitfire, Ruptured Duck, etc
Within the parameters of the system, you can ‘trade off’ range, ground attack, air attack, air defense, or special capabilities according to the needs of your civilization.
If your needs change, you can go back to the Workshop and redesign the air unit. This will result in a displayed cost to convert/re-equip each similar air unit already in service, and a time required before the first of the new equipment is ready to issue. After that date, you will get a number of air units that can be converted each turn and the cost. Conversion is automatic when you select the air unit and pay, but the number converted per turn is limited by your production capacity and the number of new air units you also have in the Production Queue at the same time. Re-equipment that involves changes in types of airframe and/or propulsion system will probably require some time to implement, because they will include time required to retrain air and ground crews, set up new support and maintenance systems, etc.
NOTE: Converting directly to Composite Alloy Jets from wood & wire biplanes could take quite a few years, no matter how fast you can build the aircraft themselves!
This system will allow Upgrading, but reflect the real time and cost constraints on re-equipping the entire air force all at once, without requiring you to laboriously ‘build’ new air units to replace those already in service. By ‘hiding’ the retraining and re-equipping all in the same cost & time figure, the advantage of re-equipping existing units instead of building new ones is reflected, while the gamer is still restricted realistically from apparently blowing out thousands of aircraft in a single turn.

Flavor Dave · July 13, 1999, 14:17

"Flavor Dave, the US has an army of half a million that is not a huge army. But i see
your point in how people can get a huge army with a huge population and beat down the computer, but that's life, even in civ3 science and money go up with a huge population too. I saw get rid of the "we love days" and add some disasters to poulation like epidemics too."

Please explain (altho maybe in another thread.) If you're getting rid of "we love" in order to make your idea of the military taking away from the population, that's putting the cart before the horse, not to mention making the Pyramids the sole goal of the game.

If you have some other reason for getting rid of "we love," please explain. Your idea is IMO a bad one, since it takes away one of the 2 key advantages of democracy (the other being immunity to bribery.) Your idea would mean that you'd be forced into warmongering communism or fundy.

Flavor Dave · July 13, 1999, 16:37

"Their definitely needs to be penalties, specifically diplomatic, but should they last
forever? No, we drops 2 bombs on Japan and our diplomatic relations are good. Penalties I would support are: every other civilization declares you an enemy for the next 20 turns"

Who the hell cares about us and Japan. Let's think about how this would work in Civ3--you know, the game we're talking about. I don't know about you, but when I have nukes and I'm in war mode, I'm in one of two situations. Either I'm pretty dominant, so that the AIs are afraid of me and make peace everytime I take a city or kill one of its units. Or, I'm completely dominant, and the AIs are acting as one to try to keep me from winning. In either case, your diplomatic penalty doesn't matter.

And if you're talking about the AI using nukes, why would you want to make the game easier for you?

<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Flavor Dave (edited July 14, 1999).]</font>

Ecce Homo · July 13, 1999, 17:40

Theben and Flavor Dave, I am afraid you have come a bit out of the Units topic. If you want to make your opinions heard, you should better continue the discussion somewhere else, for instance in the Diplomacy thread.

By the way - this thread is getting long and it is about time for a new summary. How far has JT3 come?

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The best ideas are those that can be improved.
Ecce Homo