10 GAMEPLAY FIXES *please read*

[aznblader]

First off, I LOVE CIV3 and can't stop playing. This is the first time in a LONG while I've gotten so much into a game that I go on the boards to complain. anyways, now i can start ranting:

I haven't really seen this mentioned much, but DAMN that broken air superiority pisses me off. It pretty much negates the usefulness of any and ALL air units for you. the uselessness of the fighters are evident, but since the A.S. isn't broken for the AI, it ruins the usefulness of the bomber.

what needs to be done:

I. FIX THE GOD DAMN AIR SUPERIORITY. It frustrates the HELL out of me when I've built like 8 jets just sitting around on a A.S. mission while bombers come in and kill all my roads.

2. ADD ESCORT MISSIONS FOR BOMBERS so A.S actually MEANS something. (i.e. they won't just be shot down with a stupid biplane and your jets just set there at home and can't do anything about it)

3. ALLOW units to be killed through aerial bombardment. AERIAL bombardment. Bombardment is pretty weak as it is. In modern warfare, the aircraft carrier is supposed to represent a HUGE tactical advantage both navally as well as on the ground, but that is not at all evident here. How can a freaking ironclad just waddle on up and destroy your carrier full of bombers!? Bombers should automatically be used to sink attacking enemy ships!

Which brings me to another point: eliminate the free artillary strike on the defense to tone down artillary units if you must, but GROUND bombardment should be done SMAC style, which damages ALL units in a stack with bombardment (which was GREAT, and i'd expect damage to decrease but that's FINE!) Artillary is VERY weak on the siege, especially since units heal to full in barracks, so they should be toned up to SMAC style to balance.

**The above suggestion has also the benefit of toning up the military portion of the game, which I feel is heavily compromised**

AERIAL bombardment should be ALLOWED to destroy units (which kills two bad birds with one stone, the carrier defense and the usefulness of bombardment.) I understand why ARTILLARY can't kill, and I'm fine with that. AERIAL bombardment should be considered seperately. I justify this by saying, if CRUISE missiles can kill, then so should aerial bombardment.

4. ARMIES shouldn't require leaders to start! MILITARY academies shouldn't require so much crap!! i mean, come on, it doesn't exactly take NAPOLEON to realize that "grouped units are good," does it? military academies should be available in the industrial age at the latest!

5. STACKED movement. The lack of ARMIES wouldn't be that much of a pain in the ass if there was some way (easily implemented with a shift click or something) to move entire STACKS.

6. INCREASE SIGNIFICANTLY the speed of naval units. It doesn't take 10 years for the Enterprise carrier battle group to get to Afghanistan. It takes half a month at worst. I know that the time isn't completely realistic, but come on, this is ridiculous. on the land, the movement time is fixed with the advent of railroads, but there's nothing of the sort for naval units, and the slow movement is yet another blow for the utility of naval units.

7. NUCLEAR WEAPONS need to be actually DEVESTATING. it should destroy AT LEAST half the units of the stack, and preferably ALL. come on, nukes are nukes. Cruise missiles seem more effective than nukes as is, and that's freaking ridiculous.

8. SORTING by unit TYPE when giving orders. eliminates a helluva lot of clicking, nuff said.

9. Unit OBSOLESCENCE (mentioned by someone else) When fighting a unit from any advanced AGE, combat stats should be halved. It's ridiculous to siege a city with 3 calvalry only to have it kill an equal number of mech infantry. 'nuff said.

10. ***Units should ONLY heal ONE bar when it has done nothing in a round, BUT has come under attack the prior round, even if it is in a BARRACKS*** This significantly improves the siege situation.

11. Take some of the othergood suggestions on this board. =)

Thanks for reading this! =)

[Argeye]

My infantry man got waxed by an archer once =/


I'm really really new to the game, but I must agree. It's just too tedious to launch a military campaign against a foe. One unit at a time click click click.. my poor mouse
The leader to make an army thing doesn't make any sense to me either. I can't launch a surprise attack on any civ with an army because I haven't got any leaders, but to have leaders, I'd have had to gain +elite status for a unit, but to have done that, I'd have had to been fighting already..

Balance is a huge issue in this game. While still very fun, having a caveman with a rock put up a fight against a tank is pretty silly.
I think there should be a point where modern military can take out ancient in one shot kills. Annoying having the AI have 15 archers stacked up against 5 marines and me losing.


Oh yeah.. After 2050, is it normal to not be able to launch your spaceship? I kept playing so I can see if I could still beat the AI to the launch, but once I finished my last piece, I couldn't access the SS screen at all

Anyone know of a place where the dev team like, updates what they're working on, if they're working on, fixes and adjustments?
Ah well.. back to playing

[Atahualpa]

6. INCREASE SIGNIFICANTLY the speed of naval units. It doesn't take 10 years for the Enterprise carrier battle group to get to Afghanistan. It takes half a month at worst. I know that the time isn't completely realistic, but come on, this is ridiculous. on the land, the movement time is fixed with the advent of railroads, but there's nothing of the sort for naval units, and the slow movement is yet another blow for the utility of naval units.

So when you can go in one turn from Afghanistan to the States and can unload troops there and capture cities I think the US would be islamic by now.
Or do you think you will have more than probably New York left over when it comes to YOUR turn?

The Problem with TBS is that you must have turns to react to such events. Therefore I think you cant really compare turns to years. This was just done to take away the abstraction of "400 turns till end".


ata

[Grim Legacy]

Hmmm not convinced of the *military* value of armies. In my experience, they are weaker than separate units.

Regarding the battles: there do seem to be a lot of Civ1 outcomes returning.

Strongest I've seen myself so far: 1 catapult bombard + 4*veteran horsemen in an army against a single fortified regular pikeman in a small city. Army gone.

[Peterk]

> Hmmm not convinced of the *military* value of armies. In my
> experience, they are weaker than separate units.

Hey Grim,

I'm glad you mentionned this too. I had the same impression.

With separate units you get to attack 3-4 times, but with an army you can only get one attack which sometimes slows down what would otherwise be a succesful conquest of a city.

Any other opinions about the proper use of armies? I'd be curious if anyone has had good succeses with them - using them in a way that single units could not have done the same job.

[aznblader]

Originally posted by Atahualpa


So when you can go in one turn from Afghanistan to the States and can unload troops there and capture cities I think the US would be islamic by now.
Or do you think you will have more than probably New York left over when it comes to YOUR turn?

The Problem with TBS is that you must have turns to react to such events. Therefore I think you cant really compare turns to years. This was just done to take away the abstraction of "400 turns till end".


ata

No, but you CAN go in one turn from the States to Afghanistan and unload troops there and capture cities, as we're soon about to do.

Besides, I said I realized that the turns are not completely set to real time, and I'm not saying that the movement rate for modern ships should be set to anywhere on the map in one turn. But a reasonable request would be about 12 to 16 moves a turn, wouldn't it? It would still take like a couple of "years" to reach Afghanistan, but it sure beats a decade.

[aznblader]

Originally posted by Peterk
> Hmmm not convinced of the *military* value of armies. In my
> experience, they are weaker than separate units.

Hey Grim,

I'm glad you mentionned this too. I had the same impression.

With separate units you get to attack 3-4 times, but with an army you can only get one attack which sometimes slows down what would otherwise be a succesful conquest of a city.

Any other opinions about the proper use of armies? I'd be curious if anyone has had good succeses with them - using them in a way that single units could not have done the same job.

There's some significant advantages to armies:

1. The enemy either has to kill ALL of your unit stack in the army, or it doesn't kill any of them. A significant advantage.
2. Armies heal faster 3 or 4 times (depending on size) than regular units, I think. (according to the manual)
3. It's a lot easier to kill entrenched units due to #1.

[Jason Beaudoin]

The army should attack as many times as there are units in the army. If you have 3, it attacks three times. If it's 4, it attacks four times, or at least it should have the rate of fire increased to the number of units in the army.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Jason Beaudoin
The army should attack as many times as there are units in the army. If you have 3, it attacks three times. If it's 4, it attacks four times, or at least it should have the rate of fire increased to the number of units in the army.

What's even more frustrating is having three units that can attack multiple times individually, but the whole stack can only attack once when combined. So, for example, if you have an army that is all modern armour, you lose the ability of the individual units (3 or 4) to attack multiple times (2 or 3). That's anywhere from 6 to 12 attacks reduced to ONE.

However, that's my only complaint re: combat. I find for the most part you can blitzkreig almost as much as in Civ2. The tactics are just slightly different.

[DarkMatter]

9. Unit OBSOLESCENCE (mentioned by someone else) When fighting a unit from any advanced AGE, combat stats should be halved. It's ridiculous to siege a city with 3 calvalry only to have it kill an equal number of mech infantry. 'nuff said.

And how bout an option to just plain retire certain unit types? I'm tired of my governers 'recommending' to build a Privateer when I have the Enterprise and Battleships out already. Or even worse, Swordsman when I have Mech Infantry and am about a decade away from winning the space race.

Why would I want Ironclads, much less Privateers, in 2001? Or WWII fighters and bombers when I have F-117s, B-2s, and F-15s? Granted, making them upgradable isn't really realistic, but neither is building them after better planes become available. So how bout this - when a tech comes along that makes units obselete, the lovely governer tells us that we should upgrade our units, or in those cases where you can't, to build current military units and ask to disband the old ones?

And one last thing - when I give the city a queue five tasks long, that means, yes, I want to build the items I selected, and no, I don't want you to ask me every turn if that's really what I want to build.


Ahh...feel much better...

[Döbeln_2001]

Ok, 1 more thing I'd like to see in a patch:

*Stacked movement*

You should be able to hold the SHIFT key while plotting a move, and the whole stack should go off to the target square. The strongest unit goes 'first' - if no enemy is encountered, the rest follow the same path.

/ Döbeln 2001

[Döbeln_2001]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Stuie


What's even more frustrating is having three units that can attack multiple times individually, but the whole stack can only attack once when combined. QUOTE]

That's the price you pay for the superior survivability of the army. The army is not supposed to be the end-all military unit, but a complement to the stand-alone units.

/ Döbeln 2001

[Stuie]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Döbeln_2001

Originally posted by Stuie


What's even more frustrating is having three units that can attack multiple times individually, but the whole stack can only attack once when combined. QUOTE]

That's the price you pay for the superior survivability of the army. The army is not supposed to be the end-all military unit, but a complement to the stand-alone units.

/ Döbeln 2001

I understand that some loss of attack strength/ability needs to occur, but I would think that my modern armour should still get its ability to attack multiple times. Then again, maybe not. Either way, its not ruining the game for me or anything, and even knowing it would happen, I went right ahead and built a second identical army, and a third is on the way.

What was really cool was catching an American army in the open with my army, and then slugging it out. I was down to 2hp in the end, but I won!! And even though two hit points is less than what three units would normally have, your army does not lose an individual unit (I thought it would.....), thus adding an additional strength to offset my loss of attack abilities.

[kruton]

Right on aznblader, on all points--especially the bombardment. I can't believe that bombers can't sink ships.

One other thing about armies--they should be able to heal in one turn (with barracks). Since you already lose 2-3 attacks per turn, and then you multiply that by 2-3 for the extra turns it takes to heal, I really don't think armies are worth it (except perhaps for those fun cases when an individual cavalry / tank can't defeat that really really tough spearman / pikeman).

[Wolfgang76]

SNIP:
4. ARMIES shouldn't require leaders to start! MILITARY academies shouldn't require so much crap!! i mean, come on, it doesn't exactly take NAPOLEON to realize that "grouped units are good," does it? military academies should be available in the industrial age at the latest!
SNIP:

I havent used the leaders for this function since I figured out thier real purpose. To close the frigging gap on Wonder Development with the AI. I normally save the first one I get to make the forbiden palace in one turn. If I get any others they are always saved to finish up really important ones like the Workshop or Theory or Evolution.

2cents..

[fanatic civver]

>12 to 16 moves a turn

I think that would be too unbalanced when attacking and defending against other ships and stopping transports landing on your continent.

You'd have to develop some new rules to implement this eg give ships an operational range of say 2 squares, whenever an enemy unit enters this range then movement cost per square goes from 1 to 2.

[aznblader]

Originally posted by Wolfgang76
SNIP:
4. ARMIES shouldn't require leaders to start! MILITARY academies shouldn't require so much crap!! i mean, come on, it doesn't exactly take NAPOLEON to realize that "grouped units are good," does it? military academies should be available in the industrial age at the latest!
SNIP:

I havent used the leaders for this function since I figured out thier real purpose. To close the frigging gap on Wonder Development with the AI. I normally save the first one I get to make the forbiden palace in one turn. If I get any others they are always saved to finish up really important ones like the Workshop or Theory or Evolution.

2cents..

well... i always thought that complete great wonders function of great leaders was kind of ridiculous.... but anywho...

yeah leaders are alrite but i don't really care about them. i just want my armies =)

[aznblader]

Originally posted by fanatic civver
>12 to 16 moves a turn

I think that would be too unbalanced when attacking and defending against other ships and stopping transports landing on your continent.

You'd have to develop some new rules to implement this eg give ships an operational range of say 2 squares, whenever an enemy unit enters this range then movement cost per square goes from 1 to 2.

that's a great idea!! yeah i'm gonna look into implementing that with the civ editor.

[morb]

9. Unit OBSOLESCENCE (mentioned by someone else) When fighting a unit from any advanced AGE, combat stats should be halved. It's ridiculous to siege a city with 3 calvalry only to have it kill an equal number of mech infantry. 'nuff said.

this was fixed in civ2 throught the use of a "power" type stat. There was a similarly annoying problem in the original civ where a phlanx with a 1/1/1 rating would wade off multitudes of attacking battle ships.

for civ3, Sid's gang decided to break it again. I read somewhere in the manual I think that "the game engine has been tweaked to negate this feature so it was taken out." GREAT CALL. When was the last time an inferior unit could stand a chance against a more advanced/modern unit in civ2/SMAC? Brian's absence on this project is obvious.

[The Unknown]

1) I totally agree.

2) Totally agree.

3) Agree, but I don't want to see artilery toned back to SMAC damage levels. It was mostly worthless in SMAC because the damage it did was so minimal. I would rather have artilery simply have a chance of killing a unit at 1 hit point, even if it's only 10% or so. Especially bombers should be able to kill units, I agree.

4) Disagree, I don't want to see all these armies running around. They're extremely powerful--they should be rare.

5) Would be nice..

6) I don't know about signifiantly increasing the speed of naval units, but one point would be nice.

7) Totally agree, what is the argument for having a nuke -not- destroy all the units in it's blast radius? Underground bunkers??? I just don't get it...

8) Okay.

9) Totally DISAGREE. Units having 10 hit points was a horrible mistake in Civ2 and SMAC. It prevents weaker units from winning battles, period. It makes the game too deterministic, especially for multiplayer. The player with the better tech wins every time, regardless of military tactics, strategy, etc. Although I think that 3 hit points is better than 1, as in Civ1. It's a perfect compromise, Sid's a genius.

10) Slightly agree, but don't have a strong opinion. If artilery could kill units, this wouldn't be an issue.

11) The coastal fortress should be fixed.

12) I would like to see a longer period of time in the game when frigates/
galeons/privateers are the dominant naval unit (i.e. before ironclads). I hardly ever build these units because in a tech or two, I've got ironclads, which are far superior. Either these units should be available earlier, they should be cheaper, or the resources required to build them (iron, saltpeter) should be reduced. Perhaps just iron. Ironclads only require one resource, coal, and are superior in this way as well.

12a) The privateer maybe should be upgraded. Why doesn't it have a 2 attack like it says in the rulebook? Typo or bug?