Updating Armies

This might have appeared in a thread before, but I'm interested in your opinions and don't want to search another thread that deals with this topic
In Civ, when the military units were obsolete, one had to improve the armies for oneself. In Civ2, there is Leonardo's Workshop, which automatically upgrades your units. But this one does only count for one player, the others still have to upgrade their troups "by hand", just like it's repeated in CtP... bad game!
But when I discover new technologies, I first want to construct buildings, settlers, wonders etc. ( ). And so I don't want to interrupt my nice building-queue with creating new units. In my opinion, it would be better to:

Two choices:

1. be abel to construct units and buildings simultaneously, where the production of the city is divided (like trade is divided via tax rate)...

2. Have the possibility to upgrade the units with an amount of gold. When you research the new technology, you can spend a few thousands of gold coins to upgrade your whole army. Unfortunately, this wouldn't represent the realistic time it takes to upgrade the whole army of a country, so perhaps one should only be able to upgrade troups that are in a city not anywhere in the enemy country...interesting with ships that have to return from sea before they can be upgraded.

Think about it and answer!

P.S.: I hope this topic will get some replies b/c my last topic in this forum hasn't been replied as i expected (only 1 reply... )

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"The more I know, the more do I know that I don't know anything" - forgotten who said that...
"Within the peace, enemy attacks us..." - Kaiser Wilhelm II, August 1914
"Hell, yeah!" - James Hetfiels, while singing "Master Of Puppets" on Metallica-S&M-concert in spring 1999 in San Francisco

I agree completely. And infact it has been discused on other threads. Check them out and put some of your ideas in. I like the first idea, I mentioned it in another thread myself. The idea of producing units and improvements (and also Wonders) separately is a good idea that should definitely be used in Civ 3.

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~~~I am who I am, who I am - but who am I?~~~

Thanks for your reply, but I have to tell you about something:

I don't want to insult you but...

The first reply on my topic was made by a "chieftain". Well, you might be registered longer than me but in my last thread in this forum, that dealt with historical scenarios, the first (and only reply) was also given by a "settler" or "chieftain" or something similar.
That you are "chieftain" doesn't mean you're wrong but I recognized that mostly the posts of the ones with higher ranks (at least "prince") are really respected. *sigh* no Apolyton-veteran wants to reply to my topic *sigh*

Anyway, could you tell me about one of those threads that were made before?

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"The more I know, the more do I know that I don't know anything" - forgotten who said that...
"Within the peace, enemy attacks us..." - Kaiser Wilhelm II, August 1914
"Hell, yeah!" - James Hetfield, while singing "Master Of Puppets" on Metallica-S&M-concert in spring 1999 in San Francisco

[BeeBee]

Andz83,

both your ideas are great, certainly the first one indeed. Cities really should be able to produce military units while building a construction !!!

But don't take it to heart that "only" lower ranked people reply.
It is nonsense that they're less respected.


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C'est dur etre bébé

[Steve Clark]

I hadn't seen a reply like that before, prepare to take some heat. I, too, originally felt something along that line in that marketplace thread, thinking that some of those chieftains don't know what they're talking about. BUT you have to be careful in that chieftains like Orange and Gord may not have posted much, they actually may be vets of Civ from way back.

As to your thoughts, they are good ones and I hope this will lead to some discussions.

[WarVoid]

Don't get me wrong buddy but I was writing scenarios way back in civ1. And i'm only a settler. A friend found this forum for me and I signed on. I've written about 250 scenarios. Pretty much spanning the entire history of earth from every perspective. From the Hittite invasion of Phoenicia to the Pacific Islands 2000.
Now as to your idea it's a very good one.
Balance the three between the wonders, improvements and units. We could also allocate certain amounts of resources to each. Such as when you click on a resource in the city view it opens the area and turns one of your people into an entertainer. When you place that square back onto production you can set those resources toward whatever you want; wonders, improvements or units.
[This message has been edited by WarVoid (edited April 17, 2000).]

[Gord McLeod]

quote: Originally posted by Steve Clark on 04-17-2000 06:08 PM I hadn't seen a reply like that before, prepare to take some heat. I, too, originally felt something along that line in that marketplace thread, thinking that some of those chieftains don't know what they're talking about. BUT you have to be careful in that chieftains like Orange and Gord may not have posted much, they actually may be vets of Civ from way back.

Post counts are pretty much meaningless. There may be some people who set store by them but they'll learn eventually... I was an old timer on the original Firaxis forums for SMAC, way way too long ago. It became very obvious on those forums exactly how meaningless post counts could really be - people would post nonsense messages, create entire threads for no other reason than to increase their post counts and gain a higher "level". It was not unheard of to find legitimate posters with counts of over 1,000 or so, but it was exceedingly rare. It doesn't seem to be as bad here, but stop and think about it - which matters more, the number of posts or the material they cover?

[Steve Clark]

quote: Originally posted by Gord McLeod on 04-17-2000 08:48 PM It became very obvious on those forums exactly how meaningless post counts could really be - people would post nonsense messages, create entire threads for no other reason than to increase their post counts and gain a higher "level".

Gee, I wonder who here at Apolyton that fits?

[MidKnight Lament]

I'll back up just about everyone here. I've seen some supposed veterans say some really stupid things, yet there's a few cheiftans around at the moment who I really respect for their ideas. I try to remember who people are if they make a lot of sense to me.

As for the topic, it's been brought up a few times before, and generally people have ended up agreeing that having two build queues is a little superfluous. After all, would you want to have an improvement and a unit finished building on your 20th turn, or would you rather have the unit built on the 10th, and the improvement finished on the 20th? After all, you're using the same resources, and having two queues isn't going to build either the improvement or the unit faster.

If you're worried about build queues, perhaps there should be extra categories that are available for selection when you're building your queue. For example, "Highest (Available) Defender", "Best Mobile Attack", "Best All-round", "Highest Bombard". That way, when you discover Metallurgy (sorry for using a Civ1 example), your build queue would stop building catapults and start building cannons. So you wouldn't have to change your queue, because the category would update it for you. How does that sound?

As for simply paying for an upgrade - I don't think I like that idea. How realistic is it that with a bit of cash you could upgrade a catapult to a cannon? I'd say, not at all. You still have to build the thing. Leonardo's Workshop was a very cool wonder, but it was a bit unrealistic.

- MKL
"I'm OK. How are you? Thanks for asking, thanks for asking"
[This message has been edited by MidKnight Lament (edited April 17, 2000).]

[Earthling7]

I think the SMAC system of asking if you want to upgrade your units for cash is a good one.

"perhaps one should only be able to upgrade troups that are in a city not anywhere in the enemy country" Yes, but as troops return to cities they would be upgraded...



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Greetings,
Earthling7
ICQ: 929768

Back to the topic:

I am all for Andz's idea..
Perhaps you can fine tune your production to split it up into percentages for units, improvements, wonders. etc. You could save some presets and keep changing them.. Like for war time, you could devote 80% to knights and 20% to city walls..

PS. How nice it is to find a Metallica fan on Apolyton.. \

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-Shiva
Email: shiva@mailops.com
Web: http://www.crosswinds.net/india/~shiva
ICQ: 17719980

Well, thanks for your replies to my first possibility. But what about the second one, to be able to upgrade unitsfor an amount of gold...I think this is to be discussed, too.

P.S.:I never wanted to say that "settlers", "chieftains" or "warlords" wouldn't say the truth, as WarVoid wanted to blame me for (if he talked with me when he called someone "buddy" ). I just said that I got the feeling that people with lower ranks, just like mine aren't as much respected as people with higher ranks. Some of you also made a statement to this point of view, so I can't have presented it wrong...

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"The more I know, the more do I know that I don't know anything" - forgotten who said that...
"Within the peace, enemy attacks us..." - Kaiser Wilhelm II, August 1914
"Hell, yeah!" - James Hetfield, while singing "Master Of Puppets" on Metallica-S&M-concert in spring 1999 in San Francisco

[BeeBee]

Midknight, do you have any idea how the resource model in civ3 will look like?
I mean, who says buildings and units will require the same resources?
After all, a bit unrealistic that a phalanx and a temple need the same stuff in order to be built.

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C'est dur etre bébé
[This message has been edited by BeeBee (edited April 18, 2000).]

[BeeBee]

Who says more realism makes the game unplayable? Let's see how Firaxis implements the whole stuff...
Anyway, didn't Sid Meier say there will be trade in a variety of resources (oil,...)?

Looks like there's gonna be distinction in resources needed for different things.
I might be wrong of course.

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C'est dur etre bébé

I don't think it's funny to manage a whole many-resource-economy. That's not CIV anymore. When you really want that, play Colonization or Imperialism, which are both great games. But in a true Civ, a resource system would be awful.

Hmm,... I have to say I for myself thought about bringing more Colonization athmosphere into CIV (I mean: letting other people do that )...

Let's see. But if a resource system destroys CIV, I'll blame people like YOU for it, and I'll persecute you wherever you go.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHA

[BeeBee]

mmmmmmmmm...
always Germans...

[MidKnight Lament]

BeeBee - No, i have no idea how the resource model will turn out. It's one of the things that I have a hard time trying to decide on what would be best. I know I want some resources, but I don't want it to get too complicated. It's a tough call. (Incidentally, I don't think you need to worry about Firaxis making anything too complicated. Thus far, they've kept their concepts pretty simple, as all good strategy games should.)

I made my statements about two build queues based on the current production model. Would you agree with me that there shouldn't be two build queues if production remains the same? Or would you disagree anyway? Is there another reason?

I still find the idea of two build queues perplexing, even if there were resources. Like we've mentioned in another thread, building a marketplace isn't just finding the materials to put in some paving and set up a few stalls. The marketplace represents much more than that, and production shields represent the effort taken to establish that. So to say that units and improvements require different resources is perhaps simplifying it a little. That's the reason we've got production shields in it's generalised form at the moment. Because it's a lot easier. And resources should only be added if they improve the game (which they do under raingoon's Energy Model, and which they might under a good trade model). They shouldn't just be added for the sake of realism, or we'll never know where to stop. Besides, who's to say that the same metal that goes into making a tank couldn't be used in a nuclear plant anyway?

I think a large issue that hasn't been represented in this thread is that military units should take some amount of population from your cities when you build them. After all, if you're building a Phalanx, how much of that "production" is making the weapons, and how much is it training the troops in formations and getting them battle-ready?

I still think two build queues is a bad idea. And I'm still not convinced that you should simply be able to buy an upgrade either. Sorry if I'm sounding negative. It's great that all these questions are being raised again.

- MKL

[ajbera]

How about this? You can already choose to disband a unit inside a city and gain production thereby. To upgrade units within cities, select an 'auto-upgrade' command that will advance the unit to the next appropriate type for a production (and/or monetary) cost of, say, 20% of the cost of a new unit of that type (or the cost of the upgraded component, if a SMAC-type workshop is in the game). Units that are in the field need not be sent back home for an overhaul; their improvement cost would be 50% the production/cost of a new unit, or 1.5 times the cost of the workshop component. For the record, I'd like to see the workshop.

[Dr Strangelove]

Well, let's see, in real life what's involved in shifting from legions to pikes or pikes to muskets? First you have to manufacture the weapons, then you train the troops to use them. The cost of the first is a given, there is no way around it. The cost of the later has historically been variable. If you have a standing professional army, the cost of training them with a new weapon might not be too large. Their full time employees, you pay them anyway, it doesn't make a difference whether they practise old skills or new. Remember that some turns may actually span a generation. If a turn lasts 20 years, then in that period of time you've had complete turnover of troops. On the other hand there have been times when old troops could not be converted to using new weapons or styles of fighting due to a strong sense of tradition in the ranks. In the balance it makes sense to provide some mechanism to convert old troops into new, but at a reduced cost which reflects the cost of shifting to new weapons. To reflect those eras where the military had difficulty adjusting to new technology you should have the traditional breaks where the old barracks become obsolete, requiring an expenditure to build new ones, since the barracks abstractly represent institutions of military training.

Yes, it's interesting that when you collect the resources on a forest, you can build a phalanx unit faster.
Does a warrior with bronze weapons need wood? Surely not, but one point is clear, and in Germany, many people have understood it: A game makes more sense with realism, but too much realism makes a game bad. Do you really wnat to mine copper and tin to make bronze of it to build a phalanx? Do you really want to cut wood to construct huts? or burn earthen squares to build an ancient temple? Do you really want to make the wood obsolete in the past not to be able to build a tank with more forests?
See, this is the point we should stop demanding more realism, because we might make the game unplayable. I think we have to come along with the fact that a phalanx needs the same resources like a temple/factory/hanging gardens. Different resources simply make the game too diffcult to play and even to learn, esp. when you use much micromanagement (also when automation options are available, many players like micromanagement, just like me ...).

Anyway, does anyone know a thread were wonders in Civ3 are discussed?

[MidKnight Lament]

But surely simply paying to upgrade units is as inplauable as rush buying anything. Either the resources are there, or they're not.

Colonization used some combos for buildings. You'd have to get so much production, plus have say 50 tools in your warehouses. Rush buying, or upgrading units could cost some money, but I don't think it should cost you only money. Sounds very unrealistic.
Do you think the Egyptians could have built the Pyramids in one year if they had all the money the world? It'd still take far longer than that.

I do agree that some upgrades to units are more plausible than others.

- MKL

[Patriqvium]

Why not copy the system of Alpha Centauri? I think it worked good, except one thing:

You can upgrade units in the middle of nowhere! Have some kind of a "range limit" (from nearest friendly city) included, and voilá, at least I would like it.

Check out the resource model in the Comprehensive Revamp of Trade and Infrastructure post... You'll need to fish it out..

I hope that ideas aren't forgotten when the posts expire....

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-Shiva
Email: shiva@mailops.com
Web: http://www.crosswinds.net/india/~shiva
ICQ: 17719980

[MidKnight Lament]

Unfortunately they can get forgotten rather quickly. But new people bring new ideas as well as old. The good with the bad. "Everything evens out for me".

- MKL

[tniem]

My best thought on upgrading units is that you have to build new weaponry. If you are going to a musketeer to a rifleman, you have to build the new guns which would cost production and then pay the troops to be trained in the new way of fighting. Of course some improvements just would not be possible, going from a catapult to a cannon just is to far in terms of how the weapon works. But a phalanx to a legion to a pikeman would only be the production of the weapon plus a small cost to train the troops.

[colossus]

How about having a new city improvement where, as an obsolete unit spend a few turns in the city, it will be upgrade to the new corresponding unit, similar to terrain transform.

[general_charles]

Well, I know that I have a quite low level, but here is what I think:
Your idea of seperate buildings and military units being built at the same time is quite good, in fact, why not build several buildings at the same time, I think that, although this civs were great, buildings take too long to build and in real life, it is more a matter of resources (and by that I mean different ones, not only shields) and also some time for the construction to be done.
This brings me to my second suggestion, in today's capitalist world, all of the buildings are built thanks to money, not only thanks to resources, and in the late stages of the game, I think that money should become much more important.
However, if you choose to have communism, this should change from money into working hours per head or something like this.
The idea from CTP to have a queue is good, but I think we should be able to have different buildings building together like in Age of Empires, and different resources like in Colonisation.

quote: Originally posted by Andz83 on 04-17-2000 04:21 PM I don't want to insult you but...

First of all lemme say that you didn't insult me. But I do have a response for you...

Second of all, it's ridiculous for you to base anything on the "level" I'm at. I guess I didn't really come back to this thread (no, not because you're only a warlord) but I'm glad I did...

You could post 999 times on this site and if your ideas are crap or you have no idea what you're talking about than who really gives a ---- what the hell you have to say. On the other hand, you could have great ideas for Civ 3 and found out about the site just last month. So I think it's extremely unfair to judge on how many posts someone has. I'm not saying my ideas are perfect, and I'm not saying a "prince" has lousy ones. Just don't be quick to judge. Beebee (a settler) has had some great ideas that I've seen, as well as DanM and a list of others. So you should just read a post and decide whether or not you agree without shunning the "lower" members of Apolyton.
Hopefully this post got read, I'm not sure. After all - I'm only a chieftan.

~OrangeSfwr

P.S. I found out about Apolyton in late February and I've been a proud member ever since. If I had joined in February of 99 and was currently a "King" would you respect me more?


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~~~I am who I am, who I am - but who am I?~~~

[DanM]

Your comments are right on,OrangeSfwr.BTW,thanks for the compliment,but thats not why I reply.
Maybe it's because I'm ONLY a settler ,but I generally only look at the name of the person who posted the comment and then read the comment.After reading several posts from someone,then I can decide on whether I think their comments are of any merit or not.BUT,even then,I would never say I'm not going to read or take seriously someone's comment just because they are lower in the social order,as others may do.
I think ANYONE can come up with a great idea,and sometimes great ideas are brought about by one simple comment by someone,and then others joining in with their ideas and suggestions until finally it evolves into a great idea.
Anyways,I think THAT is what this forum is all about.Let's all add a piece to the puzzle,whether we are settler or deity, and hope that Sid(slightly higher than deity) is listening

[MidKnight Lament]

Sometimes the best ideas come from recently joined members.

People who've hung around here for a while tend to get into a mode of thinking because we've read all the models before. Someone who's just joined can have nice fresh ideas because they're not influenced by the models that are popular in these threads. Sure, 95% of the ideas newbies come up with have been thought up and considered before, but there's some real gems every now and then.

- MKL