UNITS v3.0 (hosted by technophile)

[Theben]

Ah, you're worried about the Uberstack- what we called a large & undefeatable army. There are a few suggestions that deal with this, and not all are under UNITS. Most are in COMBAT, with a few being elsewhere. In COMBAT, it has been suggested to limit stacks by technology, or more specifically, Command & Control. Stacks would be unlimited in size still, but each unit beyond the C&C limit would only add 1/2 of it's strength to the battle (how strengths add together in a battle wasn't really worked out). Exceed the C&C again and the next unit adds only 1/4, then 1/8, 1/16, etc. There were terrain limits to C&C and stacks in general. Supply Lines were suggested to limit the operational range of enemy armies. Also support costs for units could be expanded to include money & food costs per unit (under the x10 rules, I'll explain if you want). This would vary per various suggestions as some just want to keep production "as is", while many others want to incorporate specific resources for unit/city improvement/trade construction. Thus you'd need either 35 gold, 20 minerals, and 5 food (under x10 of course; 3.5, 2, and .5 respectively using current levels) if you wanted to support a battleship "unit", or 35 gold, 5 various foods, and say, 10 oil, 5 iron, & 5 wood with specific resources. Lastly (from what I can recall) some "Army" settings under SOCIAL ENGINEERING would allow for better/worse C&C but more/less support costs.

Of course some people said just limit stack size.

I don't think that I'd like "control turns", but a gradual loss of morale outside home territory, or when at war, might be useful. That would definitely help smaller nations, who tend not to invade their larger neighbors.

But if a nations can afford to field a large, well-equipped army and run quick & successful campaign then the other guy is just USC, IMHO.

[civbuilder]

Yeah i've been over to that thread now and the uber stack is exactly what i'm on about. Further more someone had the idea about simply using commanders/generals as leaders of stacks in radical ideas, though to less of an extent.

Anyway i'd like to say that i've been thinking of the Roman army. Interestingly the Roman army built most roads itself, as it did with forts, surely this sould be added in the game. If military units could build certain improvements (perhaps they could be limited against building farms/mines etc) such as roads and forts the military units could be put to greater use. This would have many advantages; it would allow for a public works style system since you're military units could build the remote enhanchments, it would allow for forts and roads to be built in order to help attack (if you'd tried this in SMAC or civ2 you're former/settler would have been killed, and you don't normally send them into war zones anyway) and it would give you're military units something to do when they're not at war.

This doesn't mean the end of enhanchment units, there is no reason why civil engineer units arn't still needed; for railways or (even though this might fit better in terrain or somewhere else) building 'Ship cannals', al la the Manchester Ship cannal which made Manchester one of the biggest ports in Britain or the Pannama cannal, Suez, et al.

[Theben]

I've thought that myself. Perhaps an option for military unit to be able to build roads only? Or perhaps an "army engineer", can do everything ex. mine & found cities?

[Internationalist]

I like Ecce Homo's idea about multiple payloads for Air units(conventional including up to date "smart" weaponry and missiles\torpedos or, say nuclear).After all fighters and bombers do that all the time.It could be like air unit goes to city/airbase and through specific building changes payload.I find it strange nobody commented it.Perhaps unnoticed?

[Internationalist]

1.Bazookier

2.Flamethrower infantry

3.Ability for units to be used as "unit healers"possible names(in chronological order):Shaman/Witch doctor,healer,herbalist,cheropractor,physician,pra ctical doctor,nurse/red cross nurse,medic.

[Internationalist]

Just an addition to the already made transport idea:I think that possible space units should also have the ability to carry infantry(space transport)

[civbuilder]

Flamethrower infantry sounds like a promising idea - maybe they can create fires in a square which stops any units other than flamethrowers entering it (although this isn't exactly realistic) but there doesn't seem any point in having them unless they do something special (i don't think i recall them ever really being used - except in Command And Conquer. . .)

I'd also like to add that if spy units remain (i'm sure i've seen several calls for them to be replaced with a menu. . .) that someone suggested in the 'Diplomacy' thread internet espianage be possible - perhaps it could be an option for a spy when in a friendly city to conduct this kind of activity after a certain advance - when it is conducted several 'typical' spy facilities are available such as steal tech., but obviously some would not be possible (such as destroy a facility). A new action might be to plant a computer virus imposing a trade limitation in a specificed city (take away any trade bonuses which have been given by wonders facilities etc, for a number of turns?).

With this in mind i'd like to nominate a new unit - 'the hacker'. To justify its existance normal spies would have to have a low success rate when using this kind of espianage, and hackers, while they cannot conduct 'normal' spying activites should have a higher success rate - recognising thier abilities. There must be some kind of way of stoping this becoming too powerful (you could steal all the technology very easily without risk if no limitations were added). This must be a method which is only %50 - possibly less, likely to succede when compared to 'normal' espianage conducted in the normal way. there must be a chance (%25?) that the civilisation you are 'attacking' finds out you're trying to hack thier files - there's not much they could do but it could create diplomatic amnimosity between the two nations. Alturnativly if a regulatory force is set up and a hacker identified they should be able to 'destroy' the hacker unit - representing their imprisionment.

I got the idea of internet espianage from someone elses post on the diplomacy thread (i don't think its been mentioned before that - although if it has then sorry for not acknologing whoever came up with it), and although i've forgotten thier name at the moment, they should share some of the credit, i just thought it was such a natural idea for the game.

[Hexer]

Hi

I think the battle model of civ has to be improved. A similar model like in 'Panzergeneral' but less complex would be great. Every unit has an air, naval and ground attack value, modified by ground attributes and exp. Every unit fires at his enemy with this value no matter while attacking or defnding. Firepower is not needed anymore (but possible) the hitpoints have to be extended and balanced (hitpoints=defense). Every unit needs a battlerange defined. If a phalanx is battling against riflemen the riflemen will win because they can shoot the phalanx at distance. A battle between riflemen an a bomber will cause the same result for the bomber. The influence of ground attributes on infantry or armored vehicles like in 'alpha centauri' is a good idea too. This all has to be balanced - it's an idea only. What do you think about it?

P.S. sorry for my english - i'm still learning it

[Hexer]

my opinion

1. unit stack

Stacked units powers are equal to the sum of powers of the stacked units. Only stacked units of the same power (same number/quality or better tec) can defeat other stacked units. I don't think that they will become too strong. It will allow strategies like ignore slow stacked units (with artillery) and attack the home city with fast units (bombers, paratroopers) instead. The stacked unit will split into pieces if no supply reaches them.

2. number of units per civ

...depends on the number of people. In wartimes 10% of the pop. is the maximum number of soldiers (with conscription only) otherwise it's 1%. The number of units depends on the number of soldiers. Maybe uses one unit more soldiers (infantry) than other units (armored divisions).

general: not too many different units. I think the actual number is enough. It would be better, if every civ has it's own unique units. In example the germans better tanks, the americans better fighters, the britains better ships ...

[Rahvin]

well....stop it....too many units and too difficult to manage...
the only way to handle this is to choose the most effective combos before you play....

i think the civ2 unti scheme is okay...just give us some units and let us deal with what we got...


one more thing that could be incorporated:

Satellites: Spy and communication
well, comm-satellites give your troops some attack and defense advantages (+20-30%)
spy sattelites are just for up to date recon

they have to have something like limited range but in a totally different way than aircraft. This is because sattelites can be brought into an orbit, so they circle around the earth without consuming fuel. BUT they do consume fuel if you change their orders, eg have a spy sattelite hove over a target or have a comm sat moving somewhere else.
so there have to be fuel restrictions of about 8 - 12 turns.the initial deployment of sats can take place over whatever part of the orbit, just like the icbm's.
after having run out of fuel satellites still are able to work, just can't move around any more...

2.: ASAT- antisatellite
currently there are two possiblities in reality to 'kill' a sat:
1. use a killer satellite: ths is a cheap satellite with a high fuel count and some ability to 'attack' a sattelite. since this is happening in space there is a lag natrally, so initally the kill-chance should be around 25%, later on, with better comm-abilities (resarch) the percentage should rise to up to 50%, later to 75%. if a sat misses he can still maneuver and try to hit again
a killer sat should cost around the same as a normal spy sat, maybe a little more r a little less (depends on how important sats are in game) and there should be starting costs added.

2. use an ASAT missile: this launches a missile at the satellite with a 50% hit rate but selfdestructs no matter if it hits or not. The missile is cheaper than the killer sat.

more on sats:
how to get them into orbit:
one possibility is to include a launching cos in the sat's price.
the other is to make carrier craft available, that can carry one, later on more sats at once, into space...this is to be considered

what is needed to use sats:
1. launch ramp (maybe carrier craft)
2. control facility: to obtain data from your sats..

to obtain data from a spy sat on the other side of the world you need a com sat to fill the gap...ever phoned THROUGH planet earth??

thats it...

[Matthew Hayden]

A Renaisance age marine unit, there has been a marine corp in America since the 18th century, and in Britain and Holland since the 17th century.

In the Ancient and Renaisance ages, an assasin.
In the Modern age, a hitman-profesional, hired killer.
This would give an excuse for making the special attack cost a certain amount of gold. Hitmen are usually pricy.

Also, mercenaries. Units defecting wont start their own civ, for God's sake! They would just rent themselves out to whoever paid them most, although they defected for a reason, so they wouldn't help their
origin civ, although they may cause a pop' decrease in their home cities. This would represent families of the soldiers going and joining the units in their new life, possibly migrating to another civ.