ASK The CIV TEAM 8/22/01!

[fluxcapacitor]

nt

[- Groucho -]

Huh? I just checked an the dev update is still the old one about civ specific abilities. Could you post a link to what you're referring to?

[fluxcapacitor]

it's on the homepage: www.civ3.com. It's the 'ask the Civ team' page or whatever. The link is:

http://www.civ3.com/asktheteam_082201.cfm

[fluxcapacitor]

Okay, my bad, on the topic start I didn't realize there's a separate 'developer' and 'ask the civ team' page. Some cool info too. Clarification on colonies, you CAN in fact enter into a trade embargo against another Civ. Damn, every little piece of info I get I want this game SSOOOO bad.

[Steve Clark]

Oh great, more stuff we can let the AI do for us. Why, in a non-MP game, would anyone allow the stupid AI to do anything that we can do better...is beyond me.

But the rest of the questions/answers are very, very good.

[- Groucho -]

Thanks for the link - I didn't think to poke around in the other areas.

I like what I see about the small wonders. It is frustrating in Civ and Smac that the really cool buildings can only be built by one civ.

[MarkG]

summary for the lazy ones

- City Governors are in once more
- City build queues that can be saved and reloaded
- Your diplomacy advisor will give you hints on how good or acceptable your proposed deal is
- Windows 2000 compatibility confirmed once more
- Five music "mixes" (European, North American, Middle Eastern, Greco-Roman, and Asian) that cycle and change through the course of the game. All music is in mp3. Special aggressive and passive tracks for each culture during diplomacy talks
- Unit stacks(armies) can be formed if you have a leader(can appear when an elite unit wins a combat) or the Military Academy (Small Wonder). You can only have one army per 4 cities!
- Pentagon confirmed as a wonder. Allows you to have an extra unit in your armies(normal max of unit in an army not announced though)
- You can do a trade embargo on a civ or ask other civs to do one

[Immortal Wombat]

- City Governors are in once more

CtP2 Mayors

- City build queues that can be saved and reloaded

CtP series...

- Unit stacks(armies) can be formed if you have a leader(can appear when an elite unit wins a combat) or the Military Academy (Small Wonder). You can only have one army per 4 cities!

Stacked combat? What a good idea, wait... see CtP. With leader, thats innovative, except for games like Cossacks...

- Pentagon confirmed as a wonder. Allows you to have an extra unit in your armies(normal max of unit in an army not announced though)

Pentagon, as in WesW's CtP MedMod 4: Age of Wonders?

- You can do a trade embargo on a civ or ask other civs to do one

a la CtP2.

Ooh baby, show me you Call to Power face, yeah yeah.

Seriously, I'm not sure whether to be pleased that Firaxis are using these concepts, or annoyed that their ripping off CtP, and will almost certainly change them to the point where they're reminiscant, but different enough to be annoying.

[MarkG]

in order to be fair my dear IW
- governors first appeared in civ2
- smac had build queues(but could be saved/loaded)


now as for armies, i'm deeply worried about the limits on them. why are armies a bad thing that needs to be limited? will we be moving most of your units one by one just like civ2?

[Colwyn]

Stacking.

I like the idea of some stacking and am pleased that civ3 will limit this with the leader, # of cities options, though they did not mention how many units may be put in one of these stacks or if it can have heaps like the fortress in Civ2.

One of the things that bored me pretty quick in CTP/CTP2 was that the game ended up with small numbers of large stacks(8/12) moving around and no real fronts to speak of and you only needed 1 or 2 8/12 stacks to walk right though another Civ.

Will the stack attack/defend as per in CTP or act like a "mobile fortress" where only one unit gets killed per attack???

This latest update, now really has me waiting in anticipation for its release.

Now only if Fraxis will let us know whether we can remove/hide the capitalization build item for the AI to force it to build units/improvements.

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by MarkG
in order to be fair my dear IW
- governors first appeared in civ2

Oh yeah, I never used them, cos they sucked. And they only managed the building, and there was only two - Domestic, or Military. Ctp2 was the first to exploit their true potential I hope Firaxis use the experiences of CtP2 wisely, and gives a) more than two governers, b) governing more than just what is being built. Though no-one ever used the mayors in CtP2 anyway, because there were such small city limits.

- smac had build queues(but could be saved/loaded)

Never played SMAC, but if they couldn't be saved or loaded...

will we be moving most of your units one by one just like civ2?

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. I think with the # of cities limitation, you will again get the 1 or 2 stacks problem, unless you play huge maps all the time.

[Colwyn]

Re Army size ( We Should have read the Civ3 Q&A in full first)

"To answer your first question, in Civ III we introduced the concept of an army. To build an army, you need either a great leader or the Military Academy (Small Wonder)"

"Great leaders can appear when an elite unit wins combat".( So does this mean if your civ elite unit cannot be built till a later time( ie modern age) getting the wonder is now a players main goal.

Keeping these great leaders alive though the whole game would be critical as each civ has only one goldern age to create their elite units and thus get leaders.

"Once an army is built, you can load THREE units onto the army, and those units will pool their hit points during an attack. If you build the Pentagon (Small Wonder) you can load an additional unit into an army"

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Originally posted by Colwyn
Re Army size ( We Should have read the Civ3 Q&A in full first)

"To answer your first question, in Civ III we introduced the concept of an army. To build an army, you need either a great leader or the Military Academy (Small Wonder)"

"Great leaders can appear when an elite unit wins combat".( So does this mean if your civ elite unit cannot be built till a later time( ie modern age) getting the wonder is now a players main goal.

Keeping these great leaders alive though the whole game would be critical as each civ has only one goldern age to create their elite units and thus get leaders.

"Once an army is built, you can load THREE units onto the army, and those units will pool their hit points during an attack. If you build the Pentagon (Small Wonder) you can load an additional unit into an army"

Elite units are not the same as civ-specific units. Elite units refers to units that have been promoted to elite status (regular->veteran->elite) by winning battles.

Dan

[Eddin]

Dan, will only hitpoints be pooled? (I like that idea btw), or will there be more bonusses (like combined strike if you have an army of artillery/Cavalry/Infantry or Armor/infantry/artillery), or more attack/defense if you stack?

I think I like your idea better than just giving them attack bonusses.

And will you be able to name your leaders? That would be SO cool

[star mouse]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS
Elite units are not the same as civ-specific units. Elite units refers to units that have been promoted to elite status (regular->veteran->elite) by winning battles.
Dan

Three levels of experience, I like this. Fond memories of devastating opponents with Elite-level units in Master of Magic spring to mind....

I wonder, will Barracks still produce Veteran units? Will there be an improvement or wonder that allows you to train Elite-level units? Or are Elite-level units only produced in combat?

My guess is that Barracks will produce veteran units, but nothing makes Elites except combat (and perhaps a wonder). Otherwise you would be infested with Great Leaders....

[Wittlich]

Ok, so the Military Academy and the Pentagon are both SMALL Wonders. That's nice to know.

When I first read MarkG's post I understood his statement as being : Military Academy-Small Wonder, Pentagon-Wonder (or Great Wonder, for lack of a better term). But after revisiting the CIV3 site and checking again, they are BOTH listed as Small Wonders.

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Colwyn
you only needed 1 or 2 8/12 stacks to walk right though another Civ.

not if the opponent had his cities well defended

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

HI Guys,

My biggest concern with armies are as follows:

1) Only 1 army/4 cities. This is way too few, and will be far too great a limitation on people who wish to take a military victory option. At the least, the limit should only apply to non-militaristic civs, and then only when they are not MOBILIZED for war (or at war)!
I agree with Marks assertion that armies aren't bad things that need to be limited!

2) Only 4 units/army?! Again my complaint about this one is the same as that for (1) in that it shouldn't be so limited (except when you are not mobilized for war!)
Basically mobilized or militaristic powers should always have fewer limitations on army sizes than peaceful civs (My personal opinion is 4-5 units/stack for non-mobilized civs and 8-9 units for Mobilized civs!)
At the end of the day the only things which should limit army sizes should be COST and happiness! If you lack the resources you can't pay the support costs of the units neccessary to form an army and, if your culture is not mobilized, already at war or militaristic, then having large numbers of units (stacked or not) are going to cause lots of unhappiness amongst your population (who feel the money could be better spent elsewhere!)
Another more realistic limitation on army numbers might be to have the support costs of the component units be a little higher, to reflect the added costs of infrastructure neccessary to co-ordinate your forces!

As for the pooling of hit-points, this sounds like a move away from the original "Mobile fortress" concept, which is good. They still haven't mentioned whether each unit in an army will have its own individual attack, or whether ranged units will get any bonuses when attacking melee units!

Anyway, just my 2 cents worth.

The_Aussie_Lurker.

[Wittlich]

So the maximum number of units you can have in a given army is three (3), or four (4) if you have built the Pentagon.

Once an army is built, you can load three units onto the army, and those units will pool their hit points during an attack. If you build the Pentagon (Small Wonder) you can load an additional unit into an army.

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Wittlich
So the maximum number of units you can have in a given army is three (3), or four (4) if you have built the Pentagon.

ooops, i have a news item to correct...


only 3?!?!?

[isaac brock]

this would be much easier if you took three minutes to read about the friggin game. the armies will attack starting off with the best attack unit. if that unit dies, the next unit fights. if necessary they fight to the death. same deal with defending armies.

[MarkG]

to whome was your most kind post directed at?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Ctp2 was the first to exploit their true potential

Someone has never played SMAC .

SMAC was the first game with advanced governors and build queues, since IIRC, it came out before CtP!

And pooling hitpoints seems be vastly different that one unit fighting against the other, issac.

[MarkG]

now that i think about it, pooling hitpoints sound nothing like the combined arms combat model of ctp2...

and since all units in an army will be attacking together(if i get it right), 3 sounds like a reasonable limit...

btw, how are leader represented? as a unit with not attack/defence?

[- Groucho -]

Yeah, Mark. Take some time to read about the game, man. Sheesh. Some people just come out of nowhere and act like they've actually dedicated a major portion of their lives to Civ. Who do you think you are anyway, Mark, like, one of the two guys who own Apolyton or somethin'?

[star mouse]

Originally posted by MarkG
now that i think about it, pooling hitpoints sound nothing like the combined arms combat model of ctp2...

and since all units in an army will be attacking together(if i get it right), 3 sounds like a reasonable limit...

Consider an ancient-era army with a catapult (6/1) and two Phalanx (1/2) stacked together. You would get an 8/5 unit before 3000 BC. Now imagine that army wandering the map terrorising cities at will.

Or how about two battleships stacked with an AEGIS cruiser?

[Zanzin]

MY question is does the great leader count as a unit in the Army, so you can have a total of 3 units per army (or 4 with the pentagon), or can you have the great leader + 3/4 units?

And, does the Military Academy allow you to create only one army? Or will it allow you to create as many armies as you like, depending on how many cities you have? (Up until Nationalism, ofcourse).

On top of that, can normal "non-army" units be stacked together and moved together, and fight against another stack of units - highest attack vs hightest defence and so on and so forth - as previously stated?


I like the music aspect, differnt styles for different cultures...again makes you feel as if your civ is actually different to the next one...sense of empire and all that. Good work

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Originally posted by MarkG
now that i think about it, pooling hitpoints sound nothing like the combined arms combat model of ctp2...

and since all units in an army will be attacking together(if i get it right), 3 sounds like a reasonable limit...

btw, how are leader represented? as a unit with not attack/defence?

Yes, IIRC they are like transports that can carry units, but have no inherent attack or defense.

Dan

[MarkG]

Originally posted by star mouse
Consider an ancient-era army with a catapult (6/1) and two Phalanx (1/2) stacked together. You would get an 8/5 unit before 3000 BC. Now imagine that army wandering the map terrorising cities at will.

Or how about two battleships stacked with an AEGIS cruiser?

i think i'll miss ctp1/2's battle screen....

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Zanzin
MY question is does the great leader count as a unit in the Army, so you can have a total of 3 units per army (or 4 with the pentagon), or can you have the great leader + 3/4 units?

as dan posted just now, leaders are like "transports" with attack/defence values

And, does the Military Academy allow you to create only one army? Or will it allow you to create as many armies as you like, depending on how many cities you have? (Up until Nationalism, ofcourse).

as many armies as you can(1/4 cities)

On top of that, can normal "non-army" units be stacked together and moved together, and fight against another stack of units - highest attack vs hightest defence and so on and so forth - as previously stated?

that is a good question, especially for the movement part