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Old November 18, 1999, 18:10   #31
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my suggestion
to water:
Cannoon Canoen "oiler ship", Swimmer?, "Titanic".
To Land:
Footbows, Ford-Tank (as look old car but say 7/2/2 maybe) (cheaper of Armor of course) Missile Armor ( +5 a )
Air
Satelite, Unitsmove helikopter, boieng.

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Old December 8, 1999, 03:30   #32
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Question: Who was the Japanese general who masterminded the attack on Pearl Harbor? The one who was "assassinated" by American forces by having his plane shot down?
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Old December 8, 1999, 11:29   #33
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Yamamoto. Shot down over Bougainville (sp?) Island in the Solomons. Why do you need to know?
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Old December 8, 1999, 18:18   #34
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No reason in particular--I was just looking over the summaries again last night, and got to the part where assassinating enemy generals was discussed. Diodorus had said that very few enemy generals were assassinated, and that most went the way of falling in battle or dying of old age. I had responded that it should be an option to specifically target a general unit when attacking a stack--the chances of the general getting killed would increase, but your overall attack strength would decrease something like 25% or 50%, making such an attack a bad idea for the most part. Last night I got to remembering how Yamamoto had died in just such an attack and how his death would be a good example for why a general-specific attack would be a good feature to add, assuming that any sort of Civ III discussion were to begin again. I just couldn't remember Yamamoto's name.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by technophile (edited December 08, 1999).]</font>
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Old December 23, 1999, 05:17   #35
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First impression: too complex, too messy, too many units.

It would be better to limit to a set of orthogonal attributes, such as weapons, armor, movement, etc., that could be used in the unit work shop.

If a certain attribute only works with certain others, it's not a good situation. Of course, exceptions are allowed, but you should find other ways to achieve the same goal.

For example, merchant fleets can be created by putting "convoy" on a ship hull/chasis.

There is no reason why there should be only one weapon slot, say. There could be two. Then 2 weapons could be added, which could be the same or different.

As of Famous *, they seem to be just heroes with various abilities. Just use the hero model from Warlords, MoO, MoM, or Heroes of Might and Magic (or create your own). Heroes could have their own sets of goals and objectives and aversions. So if your SE choices directly conflict with that of a hero, she will leave.

Just some random thoughts.

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Old December 23, 1999, 08:58   #36
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About unit workshop: Armies of today do not use armors. Even if you count flak jacket as one, we still have long period when armors were not used. Therefore, I suggest we hitch armors from Unit Workshop screen, and instead we could give each unit 2-3 weapons. This is realistic - for instance, Legions had Spear and Short Sword. Shields and armors could be also counted to this, and they would only give protection to certain kinds of weapons, namely swords and arrows. Not to bullets. This would also fit into "combat screen" idea, which was presented in List 2: ie when in fight, stacks charge towards each other, using their weapons. Ie. If Dragoon has Musket and Sword as weapons it first rides towards enemy shooting its musket, and when in near fight uses its Sword. Also, with this system, many units could be presented realistically. For instance, Storm Troop unit could have Rifle, Hand Grenades and Flame Thrower. It starts with shooting Rifle, ehen it gets nearer enemy lines it starts throwing Hand Grenades, and finally cleans remains with its Flamethrower, weapon of short range but much effect. If unit charges with mere flamethrower, it gets squashed before it gets to enemy, if it has all these weapons it has propably "beefed up" the enemy long enough to allow it to wipe up the enemy with flamethrowers.
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Old December 23, 1999, 19:58   #37
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Great idea, but I wouldn't place a limit on how many weapons they can take, just that it they take more than 3 or 4 it becomes really expensive. For the moterized and mechanized chasise there should be a standard armor because if you are on the inside of a tank you have metal walls around you.
Also there should be a factor which would slow the movement of a unit depending upon how many weapons and special abilities it has.
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Old December 25, 1999, 01:20   #38
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Well, Stefu, I say NAY to your proposal. I would suggest that the unit only pay for it's most expensive weapon, and if a battle screen is used then the unit uses the best weapon available FOR the range it's at AND is equal in cost or cheaper than the weapon purchased. So you could get swords free with your musket-wielding dragoon, but if it wanted a six-shooter for close range it'd have to pay more (which would likely come with a better rifle- voila! A cavalry unit).

As to the point you made about infantry not being armored, nowhere is it written that the player must blindly adhere to earth history. A study was done of Napoleonic-era armies, and it was determined that if the soldiers had just worn metal helms- not unlike WWI helmets- the casualty rate would have been reduced significantly. Why shouldn't we be able to do that?

Last and most important, a unit's offense affects its defense and vice-versa. If you kill them before they can shoot you, that's excellent defense. If you survive an attack then you have a better chance of using your weapon. You could say that this was included ib civII but it was dropped in SMAC, and I pretty sure there'll be a unit workshop in civ3. Which is why I suggest you read the LASS and CLAS-D systems in COMBAT. Oh and you can read that CITV one too, I guess.

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Old December 26, 1999, 00:11   #39
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The system doesn't prevent you from putting armor on your men. I think there are four ways the extra weapons could help a unit.
1. They just add and extra point to the attack
2. They count as close or ranged(different from the main weapon in the ClAS-D system)
3. They could affect its stats in a different class(air for land units or land for air units ect..)
4. They act as special abilities: Machine gun on a tank increases its attack against infantry, or rockets help infantry against mechanized.
I dislike the first option, but would support a one or more of the last 3.
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Old December 29, 1999, 14:39   #40
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Geez oh Pete, I walk away for a week and all of a sudden people care about units again!

I disagree strongly with Stefu about armor. It is true that wearing plate armor won't protect you from rifle bullets much better than leather armor will, but the fact remains that it WILL add some protection. Likewise, while kevlar will not protect from a mortar, it WILL protect from most bullets. And then, of course, you've got yourself the differences between battleships and destroyers.

One could make a complicated combat system where kevlar doesn't stop swords but stops bullets, plate armor stops swords but not bullets, plate armor restricts movement but kevlar and leather doesn't, blah blah blah. I say, if you want something that complicated then play an RPG or a trading card game. This leaves you with two options--armor with defensive properties that allow for few if any variables (variables being different defense factors against different units), or no armor at all. I for one am in favor of the first.
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Old December 30, 1999, 05:51   #41
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I must agree with Stefu that a unit can at most carry two weapons. Not only it costs money for the equipment, but it also takes time and money to train soldiers using them.

At any rate, my original concept is like this: if you place one weapon in a slot and special equipment in another, you get a unit which can fight (somewhat) and has special abilities. An example would be combat engineers (weapon + engineering equipment). Another example would be commandoes (special forces) with weapon and commandoes package.

If you put two weapons of the same type in the weapon slots, you get a regular fighting unit. For example, putting, two spears in a unit makes it a phalanx.
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Old January 8, 2000, 18:03   #42
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This is a re-post from someware else but I want to know whay you think about it, it's my answer to the revamping of the air power system that is so overdue, why would it take a couple years for a bomber to drop it's bombs?

AIR UNITS

I think you should be able to build an airfield on the ground (or an improvment on the city, which should be required for any landings anything but choppers or harrier-like craft)with some kind of system of supply, one that is built you could move a "bomber unit" to the airbase. There you would have a fixed flying range (depending on the plane and airial refueling) you would then go into a menu and set targets for cities, and what kind of targets your bombers would attack. Depending on how many planes you'd have you could do more or less. Also you could deploy interceptors on cities or airfields that's duty would be to defend city, you could dramaticly increase the odds by building a radar improvement like Britain in WWII. You'd also be able to have air supremesy fighters to patrol for other fighters, break air defences, and enforce treaties. This would make your airforce less stressful to manage, more realistic, and more effective-without making it too realistic. Also without a garrison unit ground units could very easily overrun airfields.

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Old January 9, 2000, 21:06   #43
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ARMOR FOR MODERN UNITS

Lets look at the Musketeer. In Civ2, Musketeers are primarily defensive units, because muskets are powerful, but slow to load, etc. When we look at early gunpowder battles, we see that attacking units were decimated by defending units that had even a little cover. A charging musketeer gets off only one shot, then has to reload or use his bayonet. If you reload you are basically standing there for minute or so (you can't reload a musket lying down). So...if muskets are your weapon, you'll be great on defense, not so good on offense.

BUT, if we use the SMAC weapon=attack strength, armor=defense strength model, then unarmored musketeers like civil war infantry become strictly offensive units like catapults, rather than great defenders but poor attackers.

The way around this is to consider that some weapon types influence DEF. Catapults, bazookas, artillery and other Heavy Weapons should reduce DEF. This is what happens in SMAC where Artillery is much easier to kill than regular infantry/rovers.

Other kinds of weapons should increase DEF. Phalanxes and pikemen don't have to be well armored to be great defenders, because the enemy has to get past the spearpoint before he can damage your tender skin with his sword. So, a hoplite spear would have an attack of 1, but add 1 to your defense. A pike would do the same, but also act like ECM vs mounted chassis. Or you could make some sort of close order spear drill a special ability, like ECM in SMAC.

Ranged weapons should also increase DEF, not just ATT, because you get a chance to shoot from prepared positions at the nasty enemy before he gets a chance to cut you. For consistency, let's say that all ranged infantry weapons like bows, slings, muskets, rifles, and machine guns increase DEF by a certain amount...a tiny bit for bows, some for muskets, medium for rifles, and lots for machine guns. After all, machine guns and barbed wire were what made WWI into such a bloody stalemate. In WWI there were NO offensive units that could take a well prepared defender, despite fearsome artillery and the beginnings of air support...until the tank came along.

Defense in the gunpowder era does not consist of getting shot by the other guy and shrugging it off, but in not allowing yourself to get shot in the first place. Your rifle or musket is not used so much to shoot and kill the enemy, but to force him to take cover and spoil his attack.

My main point: Entrenched unarmored riflemen MUST be defensive units, or else the game will have no relation to historical reality.

Civ2 was realistic this way, with musketeers and riflemen being good defenders. SMAC doesn't work this way...you don't notice as much because it's a science fiction game. But let's imagine this scenario. Two squads. One has hand weapons and plasma steel armor suits. The other has no armor, but impact rifles. Now...on a modern battlefield, the unarmored but heavily armed squad will be much better attackers AND defenders than the armored squad.

Often heavier armor does not neccesarily mean better defense, even on the ancient battlefield...in many ways armor makes for OFFENSIVE units. Heavily and expensively armored knights weren't used to crouch behind city walls, but to smash the enemy. A knight's armor allows him to shrug off a defender's feeble attack or the occasional unaimed arrow or rock and ride down and destroy the enemy.

Likewise, heavily armored tanks aren't used to sit back and take the enemy pounding. They are supposed to rush forward and pound the enemy despite getting pounded themselves. The armor allows the heavy tank to shrug off lightly armed attacks and concentrate on it's objective.

So...heavy armor should allow a bonus not simply to defense strength, but to ATTACK strength, perhaps by adding something akin to a morale bonus.

So, to sum up: The SMAC style weapon=ATT, armor=DEF MUST be abandoned if we are to have anything like historical accuracy.
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Old January 9, 2000, 23:53   #44
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Wait, my example wasn't quite clear. Let's take a more real world example. Let's say we take the SMAC model and apply it to Civ3.

OK...take two squads. Equip one with swords and plate-mail armor. Equip the other with AK-47s and no armor. According to the SMAC model the first group might be 3 ATT, 3 DEF, the AK-47 group might have 7 ATT, 1 DEF...but the exact numbers don't really matter, just that DEF 1 for the soldiers. If you had the riflemen attack the knights according to this model they'd win most of the time, but if you had the knights attack the soldiers they'd win almost all the time.

But of course this is a ridiculous result. The knights should get slaughtered by the soldiers either way. The unarmored riflemen should be vastly superior on the defensive than the armored swordsmen....swordsmen charge the riflemen. Riflemen fire. Swordsmen drop dead. Battle over.

Now, there may be times when a guy with a sword ambushes a guy with a rifle and manages to stick the sword in him by surprise before the rifleman can respond. That's why we still have that random factor, where an inferior unit can still sometimes damage a superior unit. But if you had to bet, I think you'd put your money on the riflemen, right?

And when we deal with modern units vs modern units the model collapses even further. Let's say we imagine that our 7-1-1 riflemen are pitted against each other. With stats like that, victory goes to the first person who can charge the other guy and attack first. But that's not the way *I'D* go about things if I were a general in real life. In real life attacking riflemen need at least a two-to-one advantage over the defenders, more if they are dug in. That's why generals turn to things like tanks, artillery and air support, not mass infantry charges.

Once again: weapon=ATT, armor=DEF is *BAD*! Bad simulation! Bad! No biscuit for you!
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Old January 10, 2000, 22:26   #45
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lemur886, Go over to the COMBAT thread(s) and read up on LASS and CLAS-D, and tell me what you think of those.

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Old January 13, 2000, 04:53   #46
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I totally agree, there should be more complex systems of attack and defence.
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Old January 13, 2000, 04:54   #47
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Or should I say more realistic, not more complex.
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Old January 13, 2000, 15:46   #48
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LOGO: Go to Combat. Theben has that thread pretty well sewn up. (Therein you shall find descriptions of CITV, LASS, CLAD-D...)

lemur: head over to Combat and check out the combat system recommendations that have been posted there. Pick one or two that you like, or make your own (and post it over there, but please--if you make your own, make it significantly different, I don't think that Firaxis can take another new combat system). Many of the new combat systems and other posts in Combat allow and sometimes require that there be new units and new unit abilities. Feel free to come on by Units again and make some suggestions (unfortunately we don't know if there will ever be another list sent to Firaxis, but don't let that stop you. Better safe than sorry). I sincerely doubt (and hope) that Civ III does not use the same combat system as Civ I or II, or SMAC. As you said, it seems far too simplistic.

By the way, welcome to Apolyton (unless, of course, you're a lurker, in which case I mean "welcome to the world of posting at Apolyton...)

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Old January 16, 2000, 10:26   #49
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I don't know if someone else has this in the summary yet, (sorry if it is!) but it was an idea I posted last June in the CTP forum.

'Wonder'ful units. (not called that)
These would be units which are also wonders (i.e they serve a special function and can only be built once)

e.g.

The Enola Gay
The Trojan Horse
The Rocket
The Great Eastern (first steamship)
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by stodlum (edited January 18, 2000).]</font>
 
Old January 26, 2000, 18:25   #50
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Personally, I hope that naval units are more affordable in this game then in the previous.

It's annoying to build a Carrier, because then you have to convert production in several citys to provide for aircraft ( or take planes away from other theaters)

Also, bombers should have a much longer range, and Nuclear missles, in the likely event that there won't be different kinds, should have greater range depending on the map size.

Here is a list of units I think that should be last in line for the tech tree

Land
The pinnacle of infantry units should be the "Land Warrior" system currently being devopled by the US Army.

Navy
The Pinnacle escort naval Vessal should be the DD-21 land attack destroyer, or the ill-fated Arsenal ship.

Air Force
I think it should be the Joint-Strike Fighter for light-medium attack.
The Bomber should be a hypersonic banshee, long range, aremd to the teeth (see this month's "Popular Science")

Missiles/defense
And, of course, we should have cruise missle galore. For SDI we should have either a Theater Ballistic Missile defense based on DD-21 destroyers or Patriot-style mobile SAMs




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Old February 4, 2000, 19:17   #51
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I think there should be some sort of special unit that can be built in Democracy, that would require support but not make people unhappy. Maybe some sort of "invisible", parachuting BlackOps or PychOps super-expenisive unit.. like the CIA.

I don't like the current model where it is all but impossible to wage even a limited war in Democracy.
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Old February 6, 2000, 22:26   #52
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Geez I go to Sapper School for a month and see a lot has gone on in Civ III units section...

stodlum: I like the idea of Wonder Units. It should go well with the variuos leader unit ideas that have come up. It would also add a lot to scenario building (like capturing units or building one to win etc.) And it would add more of an arms race feel than just building the manhattan project.

Speaking of nukes and the various effects I wonder if the programmers can some how link the nuke identifier (attack of 99) with fire power? i.e. an attack # of 99 would make it a nuke but a fp of 1 would only cause a 1 square area of pollution and damage (kill everything in one square and only one square of pollution) so in some scenarios you could simulate Chem or bio wpns (if they don't come up with those weapons anyway) and go from there like a fp of 5 would be a huge nuke of 5x5 area. Just an idea...

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Old February 11, 2000, 17:14   #53
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The player should equip the Air Units, especially the fighters and helicopters. So, if you have the Apache-Helicopter, you could give him some normal rockets for buildings and four or eight (Hellfires) against other helicopters. When it attacks, it has different attack- and defense-strenghts, which is dependent from the unit, with which it is in contact.

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Old February 12, 2000, 18:15   #54
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In reply to JamesKirks idea about communist troops:
Communist "peasant troops" were cannon fodder indeed but they won the war... So no attack penalty but maybe while Democracies should have trade & production bonuses then commies should have unit cost and spying bonuses...
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Old September 15, 2000, 05:06   #55
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Hello there, I'm a completely new poster to these forums. Also, I've spent probably thousands of hours playing CIV 1&2.

However, I'll throw in a suggestion here on this assumption: Stacking Multiple Units into Armies does NOT yield synergies - i.e., the resulting stack is not more powerful than each individual unit fighting separatly.

What I'd LOVE to see in a game, is a system that does exactly that. Each civ should have a Command Rating assigned to it. Through winning combats (and building certain buildings and wonders), your civ gains Command Rating Points. Through improving technologies, your civ LOSES CRP's (putting new techs into your units decreases their actual experience with new weapons).

With more and more CRP's you should be able to increase the number of units stacked in an army, thus increasing your overall military strength by experience and improvements in organization skills.

Result: A low CR allows only a limited number of different units to combine into armies, and yielding no special bonuses. A high CR allows for more complex combinations (more units) of units, creating more powerful armies. As new technology is researched, organizational skills are lost or need to be re-discovered as new weapons and new doctrines of war are invented.
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Old September 25, 2000, 10:33   #56
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<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font><font size=1>Originally posted by emren on 09-15-2000 05:06 AM</font>
Hello there, I'm a completely new poster to these forums. Also, I've spent probably thousands of hours playing CIV 1&2.
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>

Welcome to the forums! I hope you enjoy your stay.

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font>However, I'll throw in a suggestion here on this assumption: Stacking Multiple Units into Armies does NOT yield synergies - i.e., the resulting stack is not more powerful than each individual unit fighting separatly.

What I'd LOVE to see in a game, is a system that does exactly that. Each civ should have a Command Rating assigned to it. Through winning combats (and building certain buildings and wonders), your civ gains Command Rating Points. Through improving technologies, your civ LOSES CRP's (putting new techs into your units decreases their actual experience with new weapons).

With more and more CRP's you should be able to increase the number of units stacked in an army, thus increasing your overall military strength by experience and improvements in organization skills.
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>

There have been suggestions dealing with combined stacks, from allowing small stacks where individual units fight individually, large stacks where units wth "special" abilties add to others combat ratings or nullify their weaknesses (i.e. helicopters &/or infantry in a mechanized armor division), to having the all individual units combine into one: the unit IS the stack. Command & Control has also been suggested. However,

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font>Result: A low CR allows only a limited number of different units to combine into armies, and yielding no special bonuses. A high CR allows for more complex combinations (more units) of units, creating more powerful armies. As new technology is researched, organizational skills are lost or need to be re-discovered as new weapons and new doctrines of war are invented.
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>

Having special bonuses dependent on C&C is new. And having C&C shrink when new tactics and organizational methods are developed is quite radical. Even govt structuring (revealing current bureaucratic structures for that civ) could effect the level of C&C. Too often we forget that history is not a continually progressive straight line; often it reverses course. That is a great suggestion. Thanks!
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Old September 25, 2000, 14:48   #57
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So many units! These would become real micromanagement nightmares! I don't particulary like the 'stacks' idea i think under some ideas they could become too strong, if this feature were to work it would require a limiting system, i do like the idea of having commanders though which run the stacks. If the commanders were limited to haveing a certain number of units. My idea is to possibly even a certain number of 'control' turns which count down from when a stack under thier command leaves a city or better your borders. Depending on the number of units in the stack, and the experience and command potential of the commander this could vary, more skilled commanders like Alexander the Great might be able to keep thier stack together for 30-40 turns, while less quality commanders might find they can't keep thier stack together for more than 15, making them less useful in a hostile invasion. If you make commanders extremely expensive (possibly having them indestructable - plausable since them would normally be returned - for a price if - captured in battle) and gave them no actual attacking abilities (thier only abilities would be commanding the stack) then this would add appropriate limits to the powers and uses of stacks and would not simply create a scenario where the civilisation which can afford to plough loads of units together wins. As i have tried to explain, real large armies (such as Napoleon's when he invaded Russia) lose moral as time goes on, they begin to die slowly and have to attack quickly. If the gradual weakness is modeled then it could allow smaller bands of forces to 'run away' and then attack after a number of units in the opposing stack have died or given up (the regularity of this could be determined by the commanders skill and past campaigns), it would also stop the gratuitous use of stacks to simply overwhem an opponent and would promote more tactical play.

My reasons for have 'normal' commanders immortal is that if they are going to be used simply for holding stacks together it makes it easier to upgrade your troops, because the commanders in my model have to be expensive and if you had to build afresh every advance. . . Of course special commanders as it has already been speculated could have shorter life spans.

How will these be implimented? I would'nt want them controlled as units, rather selectable from a menu and then having a number of units assigned to them who quickly converge and form the stack, this would make it easier to introduce 'historical' commanders, it would also be good for allowing assination attempts. . .

A final point is this, if a commander leaves his stack at any time (you should be able tto call him back) then what remains of the stack should revert back to individual units.
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Old September 27, 2000, 23:31   #58
Theben
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I'm afraid I must disagree. It would be much easier, IMHO, to move a few stacks each turn than to have to move the literally hundreds of individuals units we must now. And stacks should make things easier for the AI. Look to Heroes of Might & Magic II/III for a guide. The AI has the ability to create powerful armies that are capable of defeating human opponents often.
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Old September 29, 2000, 17:23   #59
civbuilder
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I'm not sure you fully understood what it was i was saying. The point i was trying to make was that it could become too simple for a powerfull empire to build stacks of say 10 units, great, but a stack would undoubtebly have an advantage over normal units. My worry is that the only things capable of destroying a powerful stack is another powerfull stack, smaller civilisations would be unlikey to be able to assemble these in the same quantities, this would be disasterous to the balence of gameplay as one nation could quickly become unbeatable in battle and games would become one sided. My idea was to have stacks, which i admit do remove micromangement, which have several inherent disadvantages - that they are expensive due to requiring a general to lead them, that they slowly decrease in power (perhaps a unit is lost every X turns after leaving home territory until the stack is disassembled or runs to the end of its life. X depending on the skill level of the general), and that they have a lifespan which begins counting down after leaving friendly territory. This would, i believe, create several things. 1-the stacks would not be able to simply conquer an entire civilisation due to the weakening and lifespan factors. 2-Stacks could be formed for defensive purposes lasting for a long time due to the lifespan only counting down when outside its civilisations borders, thus allowing defensive strategies to be formed against stacks and making it more difficult for offensive stacks to conquer. Surely this makes the game both more realistic and challenging? And to clear things up this is a form of stacking, but one which i feel would give more balence.
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Old September 29, 2000, 18:47   #60
Mo
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It is realistic that a larger civ can devote more manpower and industry to fighting a war than a small civ. There are two ways that the small civ can compete:
1. That the small civ develops better technology and trades with others so that it can get some better equiped troops to deal with the "super stacks"
2. A small country to survive must make alliances with other countries and these countries together should be able to get enough units to make a large stack to counter the invading army. Also it is easier to defend, because of the various fortifications, which would mean that the small civ wouldn't have to have a stack of equal size.

Another blancer could be unit training, small countries can't afford large armies, but they can train there units better. Large countries who rely on superiority in numbers often lack the training and technology of smaller better equiped nations.
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