We have armies, but what about fleets?

Yog-Sothoth · September 1, 2001, 15:43

Will there be possible to stack sea units into fleets the same way as you can stack land units into armies?

This can be a little weird to do with a great leader, but it could be a possibility with the military academy. It would be really cool if you could put together for example a carrier group.

The diplomat · September 1, 2001, 15:58

I would assume that fleets are possible. After all, a fleet is a stack too, just of naval units instead of ground units. I would guess that there might even be Great leaders just for fleets, like Nelson for the British.

Yog-Sothoth · September 1, 2001, 16:09

I had always understood it as when a great leader unit appears he will spawn as a new unit, but if it's like a unit upgrade it would be no problem to have great leaders for fleets.

Ralf · September 1, 2001, 16:24

I would be very surprised if Firaxis havent chosen admiral Nelson as Englands great leader-unit. And he commanded the fleet, didnt he?

Inverse Icarus · September 1, 2001, 16:32

this has been discussed, and ignored by firaxis.

they're too busy playing civ3.

anyway, i think you should be able to do that, stack naval units.

i also think air squardons should exist, have a stack of fighters scrambe over Berlin, or a stack of bombers pound a city into the ground.

i think it would be stupid if you couldn't. an army of mech infs might be able to kill a bomber then...

new question: can armies defend cities? or are all units in a city considered in the army?

isaac brock · September 1, 2001, 21:07

Quote:

I would be very surprised if Firaxis havent chosen admiral Nelson as Englands great leader-unit. And he commanded the fleet, didnt he?

I think you can have more than one great leader at a time, so Nelson could be included, but along with others, like Wellington. But i also think it's too much to hope for fleets. I just don't think its in the cards

Ribannah · September 2, 2001, 05:35

"You have just created your first great leader: Johnny Weissmuller!"

faded glory · September 2, 2001, 11:01

What will all the naval units be !?
Is the PT-Boat from TOT available?

Admiral PJ · September 2, 2001, 11:28

It would be nice having a Nelson general/leader, but I have my doubts about the uses of fleets - maybe it would be better to have each ship scout the area for the enemy.
Ships are different from land units as they move a lot faster, but I could see a Leader 'fleet'(army) of 3 ships, a large capital flag/battle-ship and an aegis anti air ship and another battleship giving something like a 6firepower with them all combined for attacking (or if its the hitpoints that are added that would be nice too). It wouldn't make much sense having small destroyers in an army stack unless they can wander off freely to do recconaisance searches.
I can see fleets useful for convoys too, perhaps an invasion fleet can have the transporter in the fleet to enhance the transporters defence (and now collateral damage isn't a problem you won't lose your transport and contents if somethings destroyed)

Submarines could be good for smashing open a fleet picking off a specific target(having avoided the destroyers), I guess what you need are ships working together for all the combat possibilities from air,sea,underwater that might occur with a remote fleet.

It would be nice having bomber air escorts with fighters, though this wouldn't make much sense needing a leader perhaps.

gremalkin · September 3, 2001, 11:05

Did I not read somewhere that great leaders are spawned from elite units? Doesn't that mean that Great leaders could be ship-based?

That would be cool I reckon.. Great leaders could be historical figures based on the unit upgraded.. Richard 1st for knights.. Montgomery for tanks etc...

Yog-Sothoth · September 4, 2001, 09:02

Quote:

Originally posted by Admiral PJ

It would be nice having a Nelson general/leader, but I have my doubts about the uses of fleets - maybe it would be better to have each ship scout the area for the enemy.

Ships are different from land units as they move a lot faster, but I could see a Leader 'fleet'(army) of 3 ships, a large capital flag/battle-ship and an aegis anti air ship and another battleship giving something like a 6firepower with them all combined for attacking (or if its the hitpoints that are added that would be nice too). It wouldn't make much sense having small destroyers in an army stack unless they can wander off freely to do recconaisance searches.

I can see fleets useful for convoys too, perhaps an invasion fleet can have the transporter in the fleet to enhance the transporters defence (and now collateral damage isn't a problem you won't lose your transport and contents if somethings destroyed)

As there are limitations on the number of armies/fleets you can have, You will probably just have a few of them. So I agree on that you will probably use fleets for you main ships (battleships, carriers) or convoys, while having the smaller ships around it looking for subs etc.

btw, do anyone know if you can name your units? Would be cool to recreate historic fleets.

Admiral PJ · September 4, 2001, 16:00

Great idea,
I too would love to be able to name my units, this would be good
for scenarios especially,
imagine having your HMS ship Hood being sunk by the German Bismarck battleship like in world war2,
or naming your horsemen the Dark Wolves for example.

It would be simple to program this, I've programmed by own name creation system and its not hard.

PJ

Gramphos · September 4, 2001, 16:08

Naming units could be good, but it would require memory and make bigger savefiles. How many units should you name in one file, and how long should the names be?

Or maybe one name isn't a big part of what the map is

, but I think it is a feature that can make potential bugs, that not necessarily has to be included.

Inverse Icarus · September 4, 2001, 16:34

lol, i'd just run out of unoriginal names.

KruXSub-I through 100

Yog-Sothoth · September 4, 2001, 17:47

My impression of civ3 is that you will not have nearly as many units as in civ2. I think you will get a more "personal relationship"

with your units, and therefore naming them would be great. This would be especially true for ships.

I don't think that it will add that much to the savegame size.

What kind of potensial bugs were you thinking of? Can't think of anyone myself. If they have a fixed lenght name, and make sure there are room to display it everywhere it may appear, it should work great.

And as Admiral PJ pointed out, it would be great for scenarios. Just think of a WW2 scenario with named battleships etc vs a non-named one. At least for me it would make a big difference.

JosefGiven · September 4, 2001, 18:46

Quote:

Originally posted by Admiral PJ
...It would be simple to program this, I've programmed by own name creation system and its not hard.

Superb, Admiral! I think many of us would be really grateful if you could create a mod for Civ III that allows you the choice of either naming your units, or generates random names for them , depending on their nationality.

If you could engineer this mod so that in multiplayer it does not clash with other players who do not have it, so much the better.

Urban Ranger · September 4, 2001, 23:13

Naming arbitrary units can consume considerable amount of storage, though restricting naming to elite units and great leaders solves the problem.

Gramphos,

"How many units should you name in one file, and how long should the names be?"

Since files are arbitrarily long, you can have as many unit names as you want in the same file given there's sufficient storage on the HDD. As for the length of the name, I reckon 64 characters is good enough.

General Ludd · September 4, 2001, 23:50

I don't think naming units would be such a great feature in Civ3, all of the units are exactly the same, not to say that I'd never use it, though. Although, naming armies would be nice.

In a game like MOO2/3 naming individual units is more worthwhile, as they can actually be unique and not just another battleship.

Yog-Sothoth · September 5, 2001, 06:44

Quote:

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

Naming arbitrary units can consume considerable amount of storage, though restricting naming to elite units and great leaders solves the problem.

Hmm, lets say we have 200 units, and a maximum name lenght of 24 characters (I noticed you proposed 64, but I don't think one need that much).

1 char uses 1 byte, so a name will use 24 byte.

24 * 200 = 4800 bytes

4800 bytes / 1024 = approx. 4.7 KB

I can't say I think that's a lot. And you must remember that all the units already has names, so all you actually will do is replace it with another one.

Yog-Sothoth · September 5, 2001, 06:46

Quote:

Originally posted by Osweld

I don't think naming units would be such a great feature in Civ3, all of the units are exactly the same, not to say that I'd never use it, though. Although, naming armies would be nice.

If you name them, then your units wouldn't be exactly the same

TCO · September 5, 2001, 06:57

I think the less units policy of Civ3 is better. I'm just worried we will still end up with masses of howies at the end of the game.

I sure hope they eleiminate the howie ignoring CW function or just give it to the AI's howies.

Skanky Burns · September 5, 2001, 08:03

If what ive read is correct, howies and all other artillery units bombard cities and other units, similar to the bombardment in SMAC... So with infinite howies, you could only get enemies to half-health, and would still need other units (ie tanks) to finish these enemies off

Well, it stops players *just* building howies

faded glory · September 5, 2001, 10:54

Bah I want a 'Expert training' feature. If there is not one, I will add it via mod!

A way to give a unit an extra hit point (costing longer production of course)