Battle

[general_charles]

OK, this is going to be long, it is why I am creating a structure, if you want to reply, tell me the part on which you are replying.

I)
Battles in civ2 were not the most accurate part of the game, this is why I have a few ideas on how to improve battle.

1

i. In the middle ages, battles in Europe were not the same at all as the battles of modern time, armies were owned by lords in feudal Europe, and the King had to rent their services. Furthermore, two armies would lie face to face, they would negocaite peace (70% of the time, peace was made, sometimes with one King offering money or land to the other) and if the army was defeated, it was most likely the the entire country would surrender.

ii. However, not all armies fought this way, and there was some guerilla fighting going on, with peasants that would kill soldiers one by one just to make an army much weaker, but i'll get back to this later

iii. Therefore, middle ages armies might just be more effective when they are in a great group and the other players might just be discouraged when they see this great army heading strait at them. Plus, there might be deals made not only with the leaders, but with the cities individually, maybe by founding a new state allied to the country that posseses this army, or by making the city one of the country's against a small deal of money for the city's leaders. There might also be a new rule, that shows the power of frightening that an army has, say an army of 14 units has to fight against an army of 5 units, while the first country has 31 units over all and the second only 12, maybe they will just surrender instead of fighting a lost cause. Besides the deals, the units surrundering should be allowed to return home safely in exchange.

2)

i. But fighting in modern life can be just like fighting in the middle ages, maybe there can be the same rule that frightens the enemy's armies, or your. But I think that in modern life, the more effective government types prevent individual cities from joining the enemy, althought it could still happen say if there is a lot of unhappy citizens in that city.

ii. I think that more details need to be included in the units' caracteristics, and here they are:
- strength * (the same bar as in the previous civs)
- morale *: the length of the war would have something to do with this, the stats from the war as well (number of units lost/number of units killed), the number of units that are surrounding the unit/number of friendly units nearby, as well as the frightening attribute from the enemy's army.
- fatigue *: depending on the time units rest and on the way they have just travelled, men that have just marched for two weeks do not fight as weel as men that have had a 2 weeks rest.
- equipment *: the ammount of equipment, fuel, ammo, food, water and all sort of things like that. Units should be allowed to have an autonomy for a certain time (which would be a further reason for upgrading, see later) and then their 100 percent will start to go down and they will not fight as well when it does and they will die when it gets to 0.
- range: units should have a range in meter or in another system and this will determine when they will start firing at the enemy in the open. For example, knights will have range 0, archers might have 50, catapults might have up to 100, later tanks might have 2000 while marines have 250, and so on.
- speeds: I think that the way units move is totally unrealistic and maybe there should be speeds allocated to units. There should be three different kinds of speeds:
slow walking speed (they do not tire the units much but they are not very fast and in km/day i.e. 20km/day for ground troops)
fastest walking speed (they tire the troops a lot but they march much faster, same unit, say 60km/day). Of course these speeds will depend on the terrain type, any terrain with a road will have the same speed, however, movement throught forests and hills with no road will be much slower. These speeds could change once automobile is found, as the troops can use convoys. But certain units should not be allowed in terrain types without road, tanks in forests for example.
The third type of speed is fastest attack speed, which would be in m/s (meters per second) and would be, for example 5 for infantry (about 10 miles per hour), 20 for tanks and so on, some would have 0, say cannons of artillery, as they only shoot from a fixed position and then be captured if that position is take.
- reload time: this will help in the battle to determine how much a certain unit could kill enemy troops before they actually move into range.
- armor type and weapons type: this could be mage to prevent warriors making damage to tanks, or even riflemen, as they had few explisives and therefore firepower towards tank, they would be highly inneffecite against them. This could ensure that in modern life combat, infantry stays important, infantry would therefore kill other infantry more effectively than tanks, especially in cities where tanks can be destroyed from hidden positions in buildings where the tanks can't come in.

iii. This would therefore add to realism, preventing phalanx from hitting fighters, and so on. But to ensure this, another concept has to be made: reinforcements and material supply. It seemed obvious to the civ2 creators to show support for units but not on how those units will get the support while away from home? I think this can be solved by using forward bases that get food, ammo, and all of the necessary equipement, and these bases should have a range that makes sure that the units inside that range heal, and rest and so on. But these bases have to be linked back to the main land, in order for the supplies to reach them, and these lines can be pirated, damaged, or even broken by enemy forces. This will add to the realism of the game, and units can be affected to protect the lines.

iv. To come back to the speed business, I think something has to be done about the train system, I think it is highly unreal. First of all, most countries have trains that link their cities together, but it does not mean that they can have troops anywhere anytime, but this again could be fixed by the speed factor. If the speed of all units is the same while they use the railroad system, it could make the game more real, and it would still take some time away, so to limit the range of units.

3)

i. If you have gotten to this point, you must ask yourself a very normal question: if units go 20km/day and if a turn last for 1 year, and sometimes more, up to 20, the range of the units will not really be limited by this new rule but only increased largely. This is true and that is why I have another idea in mind. In fact the units could travel up to 7300km in one year, this means roughly a fifth of the world's equator distance. This is why I think that when the country is in war, turns should last less time, as to plan real strategy attacks and defences, this could mean 1/4 of the time in the middle ages, 1/6 a bit later and 1/12 in the modern age, bringing us to a monthly management of our armies.

ii. But this does not come without problems. It means that you can lose even more units than you can build, because production must remain the same, and if we divide the production by 12, instead of taking say 2 real turns to build a tank, it takes only 14 short ones to build it, therefore giving a big advantage to countries at war. But let me say this: don't countries at war have much more effecient production? Is it more real to have a bomber up in the air for 2 years?

4)

i. This brings me to another point: airpower. I think it was highly unreal in civ2 to have plains the way they were, I mean fighteres could only attack bombers and other fighters while they were in cities, and I think that in order to fix it, there should be something like a zone of intervention for fighters, where the fighters automatically engage any enemy airplanes and where they give support to ground troops either engaging targets or being attacked.

ii. This could solve a lot of problems, and air support would therefore be much more realistic. But the problem of missiles remains, what can we do about missiles to make them more real, can we make fighters carry missiles to sink ship? Can we make air to ground or surface to surface missiles attack civilian or semi military buildings such as an oil refinery, a bridge, a factory, etc... Well, I have no real answer for this but I think that by allowing air raids and missule raids on those kind of targets, we could add a little fun to the game, and add realism.
[This message has been edited by general_charles (edited April 25, 2000).]

[Otso Vuorio]

I see you know a lot of European history and your ideas are very realistic, but maybe too realistic for Civ. This system would be a revolutionary in Civ, but can we take the risk, because it would change battle very radically and some people wouldn't like it at all!

[Otso Vuorio]

THE NUMBER 4

This part is very interresting and I think it would work out very well!!!

[MacLeod]

This isn't really related to the topic. More as to help some one out with 3 field agriculture.

It was actually 4 fields used and the term was crop rotation. 3 fields would be used each year whilst one was left fallow. the following year a different field would be left fallow. This greatly improved the amount of found generated. This is known as the Agricultural Revolution.

[DirkZelwis]

Hello!
I do not agree. The ideas would be very good for a strategic war game, which Civ IMO is not. Civ is a game about civilization [to state the obvious ], and civilization does not mean "military" to me. It *does* mean culture, and science, and arts, instead. What are ancient Egypt and Greek remembered for? Not for their great military progress, but for science like math (probably you too learned Pythagoras), arts like writing [who doesn't know the word "hieroglyph"? Any use for it today? If no, why does one know it? ], and culture like Aeskulap's oath, or Homer's tales.
No, Civ and civilization is IMHO definitely *not* about military. And I surely miss the non-military parts of a civilization in Civ. Shakespeare? Fine! Bach? Fine! Michelangelo? Fine too. But where in Civ is what is today's everyday culture, like going to a hospital when I have a broken bone? Or a museum, arts gallery, or even a simple park when I want to go there? Where is what kept people in Asia happy for several thousand years? (And I do not mean religion!) Where are Rubens, Van Gogh, Dali, Pythagoras, Homer, Cato, Beethoven, Schubert? Where are the arts? Would you probably be happy without Stephen King (I don't like him) AND without Stephen Spielberg AND without Andy Warhol AND without Madonna?
No, I surely do not need that much military. I need other things instead. Come to think of it, where is "3-fields-agriculture"? (don't have a better word for it) AND I'm not eating the same bread ancient Egyptians and Romans ate.
Bye, Dirk
"Dirks and Daggers."

[general_charles]

I do think that this has nothing to do with the topic, this thread is about the art of war, I do agree that civ should be about much more than war, but no country in the world has never lived war and I think it is therefore very important.
I loved civ2 and I think it is the greatest game that exists, but I want to be able to say: "until civ3" and one of the great mistakes of the was battle.
OTSO: Thank you, I know that airpower is the most important thing to change, it was the less realistic of all the game concepts in civ2. Take a game like Close Combat 4 (the previous ones didn't have that option), you fight with your men and tanks and you get the option while in combat to ask for an air strike and an artillery fire, this is good, these units never enter combat, they only shoot, they have no way of getting hurt, and this is the same in real life. However, cities should not be allowed to be taken only by tanks. Here's another historical example: when the Hungarians rebelled against the USSR in 1956, they managed to destroy 200 tanks with no tanks of their own nor artillery, they only used Molotov cocktails, this could not happen in the same size if they had sent infantry amonst the tanks, which they did later and crushed the poor Hungarians to death.

[Az]

I agree totally about the aeral warefare. this feature actually sucks in Civ2 . ( yes I know . I said it . something does suck in CIV) aeral units should be asigned to patroll ( and when I say it I dont mean Unit icons moving around , but I mean like lines that look similar to the trade routs in CTP (btw BRAVO Activison!))and if a plane gets into those squares he is 90% to get cought AND intercepted 100% if a radar is present and
-50% to the original rate if its a stealth one . and in adjacent squares 60% . 80% with a radar -60% to the original rate if its stealth . so then you can say : so what do we need SAMs for ? and the answer is we wont have them as units , but as tile improvements

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Enslave the enemy .

[general_charles]

I agree, I think that your ideas are pretty good, and I think it is nice to have detection from both airplanes and radar sites, but I do not know if your percentage is actually the best one.
I think that earlier planes (such as fighters and bombers, which, btw were not that developped in CTP) should have a lower chance to see an enemy plane, as they only relied on visual contact. But the more modern aiplanes such as jets might have radar and therefore be able to spot enemy planes more easily (you would, of course, have to research radar before jet engine) and the more modern airbases may be affected with long range radar and AWACS to spot the enemy from further away. As for stealth planes, I think a more realistic percentage would be to be spotted at 10% chance maximum, they are almost impossible to see (again, they could be spotted by visual contact).

[Az]

well thats true General... I havent thought about it , I must admit . thnx ... btw read my posts in democracy and war thread . ok ? I've posted there a nice idea about how to make democratic civs unhappy because of a war .... also I have posted there a definition of mine to full scale war ( a matematic formula , actually ) . if you have comments general , plz contact me on ICQ or via E-mail.

P.S. I havent given 2 much thought to the percentage . I guess you are right.

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Enslave the enemy .

quote: Originally posted by general_charles on 04-24-2000 03:50 PM i. This brings me to another point: airpower. I think it was highly unreal in civ2 to have plains the way they were, I mean fighteres could only attack bombers and other fighters while they were in cities, and I think that in order to fix it, there should be something like a zone of intervention for fighters, where the fighters automatically engage any enemy airplanes and where they give support to ground troops either engaging targets or being attacked. [This message has been edited by general_charles (edited April 25, 2000).]

Anyone ever notice the message that says "We have shot down an attempted air lift into..." and "There are enemy fighters near...procced?" This should be greatly expanded.


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

[Az]

I agree ,Orangesfwr : I've noticed that my airlifts were shot down ... but never mind that.... that should also be included by I'd like to be able to plan my airlifts like that they wont be usually shut down ( far from borders ) but another thing ... research should be invested in upgradin the flight range .... and I can pass an unlimited amount of units from an airport to another airport or an airfield ... I think that airbases should be considered airports too and airports shouldn't be included in the game as city improvements but as tile improvements ... and they will give trade in HUGE amounts but the city will be restricted to have only one that its using ///

but ... I am changing the topic ...

about the topic : the most important thing to improve is air warefare . that's it !

P.S. how about sending fighters and bombers in one block as its possible in CTP ... and then the fighters will defend the bombers ...

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Enslave the enemy .

I like that a lot. How does a bomber defend itself anyway? It really can't so what you said is good.

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

[general_charles]

Well, thank you for being so interested in air power, I think that it is very important to have air power, and the more fighters you have, the more effective should be your attacks. I think that the way bombers are used in civ2 is the worst kind of air manipulation. I think that bombers should have three choices when attacking:
- choose to attack military targets, airfields, barracks, units garrisoned, etc...
- choose to attack indutrial targets, manufactoring plants, solar plants, rafinery, factory, why not even nuclear plants, with the risk to have a meltdown...
- civilian targets, mainly kills population and makes them even more unhappy

BTW, I have noticed those airlifts shot down, but do you think it is realistic? Do you think that today, bombers can just infiltrate enemy airspace without use of fighters? Do you think that bombers should be allowed to destroy all of the armies of one country??? We have seen that it was not the case in Kosovo, while the cease fire agreement was signed, the serbs withdrew their armies almost untouched...

Well, I'd like to hear more about the joint fighter-bomber attack of CTP...

I've got a new idea. Suppose you've got a catapult and a pikeman. I'll just call them C and P to make this go quicker. OK

C attacks P. C inflicts some damage, but DOES NOT necessarily kill P. This sort of simulates the catapults throwing a rock. Then, on the next turn, the P comes up ready for orders. It can either move away, or do a counterstrike on the C.
Lets say it decides to do a counterstrike. It attacks the C to take advantage of its weak defense. This sort of simulates the pikemen charging the catapults.

The units with higher defense factors would resist damage better, and the higher attack factors would make the unit attack better (duh) This fixes the 'fight to the death' problem that I have seen posts about. This also promotes use of units like Alpine troops, who have both good attack and defense.

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Long live the Communists!
-- SilverDragon

Another thing:

The bomber attack is totally wrong. If a bomber is going to attack city A, and city A has a fighter in it, the fighter justs sits there in the city until the bomber comes. Then if it fights the bomber, the bomber will beat it. That is so unrealistic. In a real air war, the bomber would be blasted to pieces by the fighter, which would come attack the bomber around the time the bomber gets into the city radius.

I think if bombers come into the radius of a city with a fighter, the fighter should automatically come out and destroy it. But STEALTH bombers shouldn't be recognized by fighters, because the fighter wouldn't see it until too late

[Az]

SilverDragon : yes your ideas sound pretty nice , but I think that my model of airpower is much better .

About your ideas of fights NOT to the death ,I disagree because when the army is beaten in a battle the soldiers usually disperse and try to reach HQ ... the other thing when fortified , MOST units will have the choise to withdraw when beaten , to an AI chosen destination , that means 180 degrees from the attacker's location. also that bombard choise in CTP is great .

P.S. Silver Dragon:
" Lights out !
Guerilla radio !
turn that **** up !"
-Rage Against The Machine

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Enslave the enemy .

[general_charles]

I think that all armies have to fight to the death, but I like an option that exists in CTP (call to power) that just tells some units to bombard, the unit does not move into range and just kills other units without having to be damaged or killed in the process. However, this presents some inacurracies, if a battleship bombards another battleship and kills it, it is not fair, the other battleship would have replied in real life.
This is why I proposed to haveseveral options: the one to bombard several targets with bombers with the risk of being shot down if there are enemy fighters nearby, and as for artillery and catapults, they should only be used as bonuses for the attacks, artillery fire never destroyed a whole army, and it is only close combat that kills the enemy, but with air and artillery support, troops should be allowed to strike quite hard on the enemy forces, even when outnumbered.

PS, personnal note for SilverDragon: you really live in Bethesda? I used to live there but now I'm stuk in Belgium... Do you know the NIH, the Montgomery Mall, Walter Johnson High School...? What is that comment about communitsts?

Is the mall of which you speak in Pennsylvania, because I live close to the Maryland in Montgomerry county and there is the Montgommery mall 20 minutes from my house. Just wondering...

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

[general_charles]

Yes, that's it, what a small world!!!!
I used to live there, go to school and all, this is so weird...

Well, to get back to business, I heard a quite good idea, how about just having an army and just giving them a task for the war, after all, commanders do not control the whole of their troops. Take for example the eastern front during WWII, Hitler assigned some goals to his armies, which was Moscow, then Stalingrad, then the oil fields in the cocauseaus (don't know if it spelt like this or not) region. This could be a way to make sure that we do not micromanage our troops but that we instead take care of the refeuling, reinforcements, etc... I know that this seems to change a lot from civ2, but it is a nice idea, maybe for another game, not civ3...

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-- Capitalism slaughterer --

Wow, definitely a small world. How long ago were you in school? In Maryland or PA? How old were you when you lived here? How interesting...

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

[general_charles]

Well, I moved to the US in 1994 but I did not live in Maryland (Bethesda) until early 1995, in Montgomery county, and in 1996-1997, I went to Walter Johnson high school (9th grade). But I do not think that Montgomery mall is in Pennsylvania, it is in Rockville Maryland, but what ever... I'm now a senior in high school and I kind of miss those times.

There is another I'd like to say about civ3, I'd like to see different kinds of tanks, at least 2 but preferably 3, a small tank (the first one and the less expansive) a medium tank, very effective against infantry especially, and a last one, a heavy tank, very effective against other tanks but less against infantry than medium tanks (therefore providing some differences amonst the tanks even late in the game). And one other thing, I think that once units are mechanised, they should be able to move real fast in open group group and even more in roads.
[This message has been edited by general_charles (edited May 04, 2000).]

Oh well :-)

Back to the topic, do (Armor) Tanks in Civ 2 negate city walls like howitzers? The "third" tank in your system should while the other two do not. Armor should have a bonus against Mech Inf. because regular infantry are more evasive than a group of Mech Inf. The infantry (if in a great number) can destroy the tank, but I don't see how Mech Inf. can. Any thoughts?

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

[ember]

This is a repost of my combat system, originally proposed for the V2.0 list.
Any comments?

The CLAS-D combat system (modifed from the LASS system)
(note: all specific numbers are, obviously, arbitrary and would be subject to play testing)
All units are given combat ratings for:
close \ land \ air \ sea \ defense

close: is for non-ranged, within domain fighting (two legions fighting)
land \ air \ sea (LAS) : is for ranged combat against each domain. All combat between units from different domains or between air units is considered ranged.
defense: is the amount the opponents combat rating is reduced by. This makes certain modern units involnerable to weaker ancient units, like a tank vs. a phalanx in the open.

The rating used in a battle is called the combat rating.

The combat system:
Each round a number between 1 and 100 is picked for each combatant. If it is equal to or less than their modified combat rating the other takes damage equal to the units FP.
close combat proccedes to the death of one unit.

Ranged combat runs for a number of rounds equal to the percentage of max HP the attacker had at the start of combat.

Attackers get a plus to attack due to them having initiative. Rough terrain takes away some or all of this bonus, but can never give a net penalty.

Infantry get +25% normally and +50% vs. cities and forts.
mobile units get +50%.
River, hills forest, etc. take away -25%
mountains, galciers, etc take away -50%

Fortifying and forts and city walls gives +50%.

Stacking.
The main attacker is the unit used to launch an attack, and the main defender is the one with the higest combat rating (or designated for it).
If the main unit is an infantry type the auxillary unit is a mobile type, and vice-versa if the main unit is mobile. For naval combat most ships qualify as both.
The ranged unit on each side is the one with the best applicable LAS rating.

The attacker initiates combat and uses 1 MP. The auxillary unit adds 0.5x times it's close rating to the main unit (for both sides). Every 4th turn any damage taken goes to the auxillary unit instead of the main unit. The ranged unit makes an attack every 3rd round. The auxillary and ranged units for the attacker use 1/3 or 1/2 MP.
This allows a simple way of giving benifits to a combined arms strategy. Some units can be used in more than one roll. Mech inf count as both infantry or mobile. Armour are mobile or ranged. The attacker can choose which units act as auxillary and ranged combatnts, nearby aircraft can be used as ranged units also.

Bombards
bombards are ranged combats without the close fighters involved.
Not all units that have a combat rating vs. a domain can bombard it.
cannons can only bombard land, even though they have a relativly good rating vs. sea. If a ship bombards a square with a cannon in it the cannnon shoots back. (it has to wiat for the ships to get in range, even if they are trying to hit the temple, the cannons still shoot back)
In a bombard the defender is the unit with the best LAS rating. The target is what takes damage, not neccisarily the same thing. For older tech units this is random for every round, as tech gets better the target can be chosen, and hit, with more presision.

Raids
Raids are similiar to bombards, except they are conducted by mobile units, with both using their close combat rating. After the number of rounds given by HP is finsihed they automatically retreat. Ships can also conduct raids.

Defense:
dragoons, riflemen, ship of the line are the first units to recieve any defense rating, with 1-2. Stealth-fighters have a small amount also.
Mech inf. cruiseres, carriers, marines, etc have a medium amount, 2-3.
and Armour, battleships, subs, stealth bombers. have the most.
These are all units that are very hard to damage with even WWII weapons, or in the case of subs/stealth bombers, you need modern weapons to hit at all.

Air combat. Air units are based in cities, airbases/forts, and carriers. They can only be moved between cities by deploying them. All air units have 1MP, with which they can launch an assult (normal ranged combat) or assist in 2-3 ground/naval assults anywhere within their range, or they can re-deploy. Fighters can intercept one incoming assult per turn, and bombers can intercept one naval unit per turn if they have MP left (even a fraction).
Air units do not have a close combat rating, all air combat is considered ranged.
When a fighter intercepts an incoming unit it does a normal ranged attack against it. If the incoming unit survives, it continues to it's target, but attacks for fewer rounds do to lost HP.
Helicopters take 2x damage in air combat. They can transport 1 infantry unit into a battle, and act as the ranged unit. They can spot submarines (% chance every turn, higher the nearer to the sub). Air units in a city or carrier will intercept land/naval/air units attacking that square even if they have no HP left. Only helicopters can intercept subs this way.

Terrain gives a penalty to air units attack ratings.
-25% for hils, forest, etc. and -50% for mountains, etc.
Infantry give air units an aditional -25% penalty. (infantry on mountans are very hard to kill with planes). Spies cannot be attacked with ranged combat.

All buildings have HP. They are reduced in effectiveness by damage. Both units and building require money to repair. Units cannot be repaired in enemy territory. Population can be bombarded also, at ~10-20 HP per pop point, with fractional amounts lost. TI's ahve a ~2x land or Sea rating of being destroyed.

Nuclear weapons:
Count as a stealth bomber attack against every unit, structure, TI and population in the target zone, as a regular bomber in the surrounding squares, and a Fighter in the 2 square radius (shpaed like a city radius).


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"Any technology, sufficiently advanced,
is indistinguishable from magic"
-Arthur C. Clark

[The Mad Viking]

OrangeSfwr: with Stinger Missiles! Mech Inf have all the modern equipment - and while they can't hide as well as infantry (until they leave their APCs) they can outmanoevre the tanks all over the 60000 sq mile tile area. The tanks only advantage is if they surprise the Mechs with the infanry unprepared.


Else:
The fight to the death is a limitation, but a reasonable one when you consider that this is a strategic game with turns of at least 1 year duration. Can you imagine how slow things would get if units could keep retreating or both units were damaged without resolving combat? That said, it there are cases where bombarding units should fail to destroy units but not die themelves.

I think some fairly easy changes could reap big dividends.

1. Bombardment
First, artillery type units (Cats to Howies) should not die when stacked with a good defending unit. The counterattack will be directed at the defensive unit, which will be positioned to defend the long-range weapon. Now if the good defender dies, then the artilery would go to, unless in a fort.

Secondly, artillery, naval bombardment and bombers should normally not destroy land units. They should act much like a spy "sabotage" function - weakening the unit both in losses, morale, and disruption, making it easier to destroy.

Similarly, bombers and naval bombardment units should take little or no losses unless there is a special defender / coastal battery / SAMs present.

Bombers should still be able to sink ships. They should take very little damage from battleships and conventional cruisers. Certain ships should be able to shoot down certain aircraft.

As suggested, bombardment / bombing of a city would make citizens unhappy, potentially reduce population, and reduce industrial capacity. This could easily be modelled by turning shields to "waste" although it should show as "damaged" . The production lost would be regained over the next 3 or so turns as the factories are repaired.


2 Fighters
A scrambling vet fighter will beat a non-vet bomber. The current set-up means your fighters will protect your city from being bombed. I think we sometimes look at units as being completely homogenous, when I really don't think they would be. Maybe the "Bomber" unit is a "Bomber Wing" complete with some long range fighter escort. However, it is agreed that fighters should not take the kind of damage they do when defending against bombers. I think the attack should go through as intended, against the city, but the damage should be reduced, and the bombers should be eliminated.

Bombers have often damaged cities with high level attacks and got away with minimal damage despite enemy fighters. But over the course of a year, bombers will sustain heavy losses equivalent to losing a unit.

So we have a similar concept to the artillery one, but where the defending unit (fighter) is not subject to the losses from the attack.

A fighter escort should probably be built separately, and it when facing a scrambling fighet the presence of an escort in the stack would
a) improve bomber attack
b) give bomber a chance for survival
c) damage or destroy fighters


3 Air superiority
I agree with the air support function. When an air unit comes up for movement, you should have a "air support" command, which gives an attack bonus, and a "patrol" command which gives a defensive bonus, to all units with its radius. (5 for a fighter)

Conclusion
I think we all need to remember that Civ is not a tactical combat simulation, and that it takes a long time to play as it is. I am against changes that will, in total, make the game take longer.

[general_charles]

ember:
I really like your ideas, even though some things remain unclear, I think that the idea to give both military units and buildings HP is great, it was one of the things that civ2 did not do and that is very important. But how about civilian have HPs too? I mean, when bombers during WWII made air raids, they often hit civilian populations. The idea that units are costly to repair is good, because this is true.

Orange:
I think that mech infantry is equiped today with lots of weapons, mortars, heavy machine guns, anti tank guns, rochet launchers and SAM launchers, it is not just a small army equiped with antique weapons.

The Mad Viking:
I think you have some quite good ideas. But there is something I would like to ask you: doesn't it annoy you when two of your bomber units get killed why trying to shoot down a battleship while in real life, battleships were not effective against bombers, and only a couple of fighters could easily sink one?
However, there is one thing I do not actually agree with: when you say that fighters should have a 5 turn radius when patroling, I think they should wait for bombers to get closer, say within a 3 square radius, because they do spend some time fighting with the bombers, and they are, there should be some turns taken out of their radius. Besides that, I do agree with you and the high altitude bombing, but I think there should be an option, where your planes only get hurt if the enemy has massive air power in the area, becuse they are way out of range of the SAMs or AAAs.

[ember]

I had modeled pop losses, but it I had modeled it with fractional pop points. Each pop is subdivided into 1000, each attack agains a city, regardless of target does a certain amount of damage, but against civilian areas, much more. HP losses sustained by units supported by the city might sustain 1/1000 per HP lost, or so.
Growth was to be independant of food, asside for having enough, more important was general happines, from government, and social conditions. Growth rates would tend to be 20-100/1000th's per round (2 to 10%)
I had suggested a formulat for pop points to population that followed the civII amounts exactly for whole numbers (i would have to re derive it) Look for some of these ideas in the regions threads in List v2, if you are interested.

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"Any technology, sufficiently advanced,
is indistinguishable from magic"
-Arthur C. Clark

[general_charles]

OK, I see that you have lots of good ideas. This idea to have popgrowth independant of food production is good, even today (at least in Europe, the stats in the US are not the same), we have way to much food (thanks to CAP, the Common Agricultural Policy for EU countries) and our population is either growing real slow or declining, due to higher standard of living, people want less children. In an agricultural society, people tend to want more children to work at the farm, and infant mortality is quite high.

[Az]

General : I agree with you about the mortality . anyway there MUST be a kind of International Food trade ... like in the real life . about units . I imagine to myself any Unit as a groop of about 6000 men , in infantry , or 150-200 tanks in Armor about 5 bombers in a Bomber Unit and 10 7 fighters in a fighter unit. also I think that there must be a difference between helicopters ,and Gunships .coz I cant imagine to myself a transport helicopter shooting a tank ... but maybe its Just me *g* . btw ... not fortified Mech. Inf. have little to no chance of beating armor in any sitation , definetly not if they are the ones attacking . Tried it in Steel Panthers 2,3 . they've beaten my ass , all right . from those patrolling that I've suggested but against an unfortified infantry in a plain field ... well that Infantry general will have to answer some questions in HQ back home , that's right . btw stacking fighters and bombers will defend the bombers above . I know I've mentioned it before but I say it again coz I think this is the solution to the aerial problems . anyway if you have aeral models that are even better than mine plz post 'em . I'll take a look .


P.S. I demand the return of the Partisan Unit , a brand new one and one that takes no 60 shields (!) to make . anyway they should be available only if the city is attacked and has very little of defence units inside .

P.P.S. the best goverment is COMMUNISM !
just look at them makin' all this science when they're happy! give'em 40%-50% of luxuries and watch then grow happy as never... ( trade as in Democracy !! )


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Enslave the enemy .

I think G.C. saw my point. I think an Armor should have a disadvantage on Defense versus Mech Inf. (In Civ 2 a Mech Inf has about 50% chance of beating an Armor without fortification or fortress etc.) But when an Armor attacks a group of Mech Inf. from straight on, the result is in favor of the Armor (especially if it is more advanced). I like the idea of upgrading tanks. G.C. had a good point when he brought up WWI/WWII tanks.

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

[general_charles]

Dalgetti: I do agree that mechanised infantry have few chances of beating armor, but if you have played Close Combat, you see that you can have an awful time if you only have tanks, because once you get next to house, there can be infantry inside and those molotov cocktails and flamethrowers are really powerful. This is why a combination of marines, tanks, artillery and airpower, with some use of paratroopers would be very effective in combat. I think that in some situation, there can be some damage that mechanised infantry can do to tanks, for example in street fighting, do you know how long it takes a tank to turn 90 degres? Well, using a jeep or a hummer, you have a real nice acceleration and you can just shoot and run. As for air combat, I think that it is really complex, and I have no way of making it a bit more real without having a real complex system.
As for armor, I think that you definetely need different tanks, I mean, the first WWI tanks did not even stand a chance against early WWII tanks, and early WWII did not stand a chance against late WWII tanks, and those do not stand a chance against today's tanks.....