Tactic Upgradees

[DarkCloud]

In addition to unit upgrades units should have 'tactic' upgrades such as:
-Blitzkreig
-Napoleon
-Maginot Line

These could be discovered and would allow us to not have such redundant units as Horsemen,Knights,Crusaders,Dragoons, and Calvary.

[Nick-oh]

What effect would you propose tactic upgrades would have on your troops. Simply stronger attack or something more interesting like upgrade attack vs. infantry etc.

If it is simply a strength upgrade, then what's the difference between that and a new unit?

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"Common sense is not so common" - Voltaire

[UltraSonix]

I hated SMAC's way of creating tons of extra units everytime a new unit upgrade came out. Civ2's way of having more different units is better, and Civ3 should have the player then being able to have the option of whether or not to upgrade their units. This is why darkcloud's suggestion above would be good.

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No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards...

An excellent idea.. And Ultrasonix is spot on too..

There must be some other tactics worthy of inclusion. What about outflanking, interfering with supplies, etc..

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[emren]

Allow me to draw attention to my suggestion about civ's having Command Ratings.

To simulate the Blitzkrieg concept:

Imagine a civ having a rating of 8, earned through time via combat as explained in my original suggestion, subj: Stacking units.
Say an armour unit uses 2 command rating points, and infantry and artilley uses 1 CRP each. It is thus possible to combine 3 armour units, 1 inf and 1 artillery into a Tank Army (or Panzer or Armour, or whatever). This combined army has bonuses conferred upon it, simply due to it's overweight in armoured units. The organization of large groups of armour into frontline units was indeed the mainstay of the blitzkrieg concept.

[DarkCloud]

emren has roughly the same idea I do.

1.Say the units, which go from green to hardened have these ratings on experience. 1-5.
2.In addition to them they have a strategy rating of 1-5.
3.As new advances are discovered and new warfare types are made they learn new strategies.

If a civ has Sun-tzu's wonder they will automatically rate 1 strategy rating higher than they would have before.

Thus... no knights, crusaders and 50 other types of horse that only differ in tactics.

[Deathwalker]

A great idea, this could allow for a more interesting use of armys.

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I have walked since the dawn of time and were ever I walk, death is sure to follow

[Shadowstrike]

Don't forget naval tactics too, like the trireme's bronze ram, hit and run tactics, etc.

Since we're on the subject, add warplane tactics too. I can't think of any right now though.

[Marcel I]

IMHO the best option would be, as discussed earlier in another thread, to separate men and weapons. You could upgrade the weapons of your unit as you discover new technology and their experience level or tactical grading when you discover new tactics.
Firaxis should make it possible for you to recognize in a glance the kind of unit your dealing with. So there should be some kind of standard icons like the knights or cavalry in Civ 2 symbolizing the kind of weapons they wear.
In SMAC you had to study their statistics to get an idea what units you had to fight.
That took away some feeling of atmosphere I had when playing Civ 2. Even though crusaders may have been a stupid unit, you knew what was coming at you, when an army was approaching.
If it had been an army of horsemen with some upgrades you would have been in for a nasty surprise.


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Adopt, Adapt and Improve

[DarkCloud]

Some warplane tactics will be the same as troop tactics; Blitzkreig etc.

[Shadowstrike]

I was talking more of the warplane only tactics, and navla tactics. Though lesser known, these are just as important as infantry tactics. For example, the Greeks defeated the Persians at Salamis through superior tactics, not weapons.

[DarkCloud]

That is exactly why I suggested tactics!

[UltraSonix]

quote: These could be discovered and would allow us to not have such redundant units as Horsemen,Knights,Crusaders,Dragoons, and Calvary.

You know, I've just realised: what exactly do you guys mean by "tactics"? Why would it make redundant all those units? Because as you come out with more tactics, wouldn't it make the old units "redundant" anyway?

I'm confused...

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No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards... Despite any stupid advertisments you may see to the contrary...

[Deathwalker]

I hated SMAC way of making units and having a war, I still say that a combined army would be the best way, and an army could in corperate such improvements

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I have walked since the dawn of time and were ever I walk, death is sure to follow

[Ralf]

Rule 1:

AI-cities should have 2-4 potent quality units per city, instead of buckloads of resource-draining mediocre units.

Rule 2:

The AI settlers seems to be pretty keen on building unused fortresses all over the place.
Let AI build combined land/air "tripwires" instead - these can act as early warningsystems. More usefull.

Rule 3:

Unless theres a war going on, military units should "stay in bed", instead of vandering around aimlessly. AI vessels are an exception.

Rule 4:

If AI military vessels are within coustal human player city areas, they should have the same effect on that citys happyness and resource-drain as if they actually would be owned by that city - and away from it.

This would pretty much FORCE the human player to do something about it. Quickly!

Rule 5:

AI land-units should mainly stay garrisoned within cities, lashing out preemptive strikes on any invaders directly next to the city-squares. Perhaps there should be exceptions from this rule.

Rule 6: (The Holy Grail)

AI land-invasions should consist of at least 4-16 units locked together should-by-shoulder - and then move simoultanesly forward in any persistant direction, in the same pace.
They shouldnt be forged together by the AI however. Thats probably way to complicated for the AI to achieve.
Instead these wide shoulder-by-shoulder armadas should be avalable as seperate 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 or 16 wide separe entitys. From the AI:s point of view, the move as ONE unit (altrough one with a pretty wide a s s).

If any unit stumbles into a foreign city - they however break up: all the units to its left turns right, and all units to its right turns left; in order to do a pinch-manoeuvre on that poor city.

These AI wide a s s invasion units can not be produced by a single AI-city. That takes to long time. Instead these units are a joint-venture undertakings.
Then its created, its appears next to a city nearest to the invasion-begging enemy.

Ok, I gotta say that I'm really not following this. Are you guys talkin about upgrading units like to a new type of unit? Based on how much experience they have? Is this the Pokemon effect?

Or are you talking about increasing their strength being increased from experience? Or is it something different entirely?

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"...The highest realization of warfare is to attack the enemy's plans; next is to attack their alliances; next to attack their army; and the lowest is to attack their fortified cities." - Sun Tzu

[Dr Strangelove]

It sounds to me like what is being proposed is that specific tactical techniques would be acquired like civilization advances, then transferred to units in the form of increased defensive and/or offensive factor strengths. In a way that is already incorporated into the game. Take phalanx vs legion for instance; they're primarily different tactical organizations. Likewise goes for dragoons and cavalry, riflemen and marines, knights and crusaders, etc. If you're serious about this, consider how many tactical techniques have evolved in all the historical ages from 3000BC until now. In order to incorporate the significant ones you'd have to greatly expand the list of civilization advances, perhaps to the point of detracting from less militaristic aspects of the game. You'd forever be forced to decide whether to devote your research to military research or other types of research. One way around that would be to have a seperate military research tree.

I'd like to speculate that what you're really looking for is a way to make conflict resolution more a matter of skill, and to exert more control too. Personally, I think the best way to do that would be to develop tactical screens (ala CTP and Imperialism) that would allow the player(s) to actually direct their battles. The last time I proposed this the majority gave this idea the thumbs down, saying that it would make the game too militaristic. If that's true, why bother with such half measures as command ratings, experience ratings and tactical advances?

[Ralf]

Are we talking about suggestions to a 3-7 human player strategy game with 3-7 computers linked up with each other? If thats the case, most of above suggestions are intriguing, altrough somewhat complicated.

If we on the other end, are talking about a human vs AI game, you should bear in mind that most of above suggestions can be utilized *much* more effective by the human player, and by the upcomming Civ3 AI.

I dont know if all of my own suggestions were that good. They were scribbled down hastily. Perhaps some of them have flaws.
[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited October 11, 2000).]

[emren]

To the confused:

What I originally suggested (about civs having Command Ratings) was meant as a way of creating armies in civ3. Armies is what civs use to fight it out - NOT individual units. The point of creating armies is this: Combat becomes simpler AND more realistic, at least it can be made to be so. This is because a large number of units fight a large number of units INSTANTANEOUSLY. You're also likely to have far LESS armies than a regular civ game would have units. Combat results don't necessarily end in one army dying, it could also result in a retreat. This might even be dependent on what orders YOU give it.

The composition of an army, i.e. the number and TYPE of units in it, reflects YOUR civs ability to command military forces. It is simple: Say your civs Command Rating is 3 (rather low - I'd guess the maximum would be 9-12). Say a simple infantry unit requires 1 CR, and an artillery piece also requires 1 CR. Thus, your civ has the ability to combine 2 inf and one arty into an army. The point is, that the ARMY gets better stats (bonuses) than the individual units summed up. If you decide to create such an army, you just need your cities to start cranking out units to 'fill the ranks'.

Bonuses should only go up to a certain extent - having more than, say, 3 inf per army wouldn't give you any extra bonuses compared to having just 3. Instead, you'd just make more armies.

The whole point of the exercise is to allow for SIMILAR military technologies (units) being HANDLED differently by different civs, without introducing silly concepts like leaders. Think of any conflict in history. To armies squaring it off would have, roughly speaking, the same technology level. But maybe one civ knows better how to command and organize troops, and that's what decides the outcome.

I have no experience whatsoever in programming - so I haven't the slightest idea if an AI could handle this. Somebody tell me....
[This message has been edited by emren (edited October 12, 2000).]

[Vrank Prins]

quote: Originally posted by Marcel I on 09-28-2000 03:26 AM .... the best option would be, as discussed earlier in another thread, to separate men and weapons. You could upgrade the weapons of your unit as you discover new technology and their experience level or tactical grading when you discover new tactics .... .... Firaxis should make it possible for you to recognize in a glance the kind of unit your dealing with. So there should be some kind of standard icons like the knights or cavalry in Civ 2 symbolizing the kind of weapons they wear ....

What about this one.
1) In COLONIZATION (somehow I get the idea that this Sid-M.game is not very welknown to CIVvers) free citizen units could be given all kinds of occupation, f.i. miner, tobaccoplanter etc. and !! the equivalant of dragoon, artillery and musketeer. If a f.c.unit was destined as such, horses, guns and cannons had to be available in a city.
2) These requirements had to be produced and stored in a city-arsenal and -stable.
3) If troops had routed and had had the change to escape from being taken captive, you could send them to a nearby friendly city where they were armed again in one turn.

Introduction of these COLO-elements without any adjustements into CIV3 would mean to much micro-management. I suppose FIR. should reduce these principles to:
1) production of weapons (and that would include horses to) in resp. "arsenal" (new to introduce city-improvement), mill (see the thread "top 10 of new tech > Ribannah", factory and mfg-plant;
2) arming of troops becomes possible after production of weaponry;
3) training of troops becomes possible after building barracks;
4) upgrading of troops, meaning the renewal of their arms, would mean that a) these new arms will have to be produced first and then b) the troops have to be interned for say two or three turns in the barracks to get training. In this way they will learn the TACTICS which come with the introduction of the new weaponry. This makes the building and renewal !! (that's a thing that should stay in the game) of barracks even more important.
- The production of the arms is the thing that will cost shields/money. The time this takes depends on whether you have a mill/factory etc.
- It should also be possible to arm troops just like that, but the consequence of that will be that they will have little hitpoints.
- The arming of the first primitive units like militia and horsemen don't need the production of arms.
- Campaigning troops should need to be supplied in the field (allthough the way of doing this has been discussed in other threads I think it needs more thinking)

PS. BTW what is the meaning of "IMHO"
[This message has been edited by Vrank Prins (edited October 12, 2000).]

[emren]

On tactics:

Tactics is generally defined as being in the middle of military hierarchy. Strategy is on top, Tactics in the middle and Operations in the bottom. To better understand this, think of it like this: "Strategy: What war do I want to wage?", "Tactics: What battle(s) do I want to undertake to win the war?", "Operations: How can my units win this battle?".

I think the concept of tactics in civ should translate more into kind of a "what-can-my-armed-forces-do" mindset rather than "what-can-my-units-do" mindset. Even though individual units differed in tactics historically, they did not differ due to advances in technology - rather, they differed due to differences in organization and leadership.

As I've said before, I think leaders are inappropriate in a game at civs scale. Therefore, I'd like to simulate tactics differences in terms of organization. Specific, historic tactics don't make much sense anyway, since succes due to tactics are/were usually very short-lived advantages anyway. I mean, if blitz-krieg was a succes due to tactics, this advantage disappeared in 2 turns of civ-time. There's hardly any reason to program such concepts into the game for 2 turns worth of difference.

Organization reflects your civs ability to wage war. You might have many armies of small organization for defence. Or you might concentrate your units into larger organizations (armies) for offence. This type of thinking can span military history in its entirety, rather than focus on single, specific tactic abilities.

So how you organize, deploy and use your units - THAT's what civ tactics should be in my book.

[Dom Pedro II]

I think emren is right. Civilization is not a tactical game. The units represent changes in tactics, and there was already talk about tactical changes. These changes should be incorporated and some units should have such tactical abilities, but otherwise I think we're getting way to detailed. I don't see it working very well.

I agree with the overall civilization tactical concept. I think that there should also be an increased benefit for those civilization's with a historical tendency to be militaristic. Those that have a military culture should get certain bonuses, and those known to be unaggressive should get certain disadvantages.

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"...The highest realization of warfare is to attack the enemy's plans; next is to attack their alliances; next to attack their army; and the lowest is to attack their fortified cities." - Sun Tzu

Dom Pedro II.... aka Hannibal3

[Dr Strangelove]

Emren, you have the concepts of tactics and operations backwards. Strategy refers to the largest scale of planning, i.e., where I will send my armies. Operations is an intermediate level of planning, i.e., where I will place my corps, divisions, and regiments. Tactics is the lowest level of planning, i.e., how I will use my battalions, companies, platoons and squads.

Someday I would like to see someone attempt to design a bi-level version of a Civilization game. Before you say it can't be done consider this: there is a new type of CD under development that will use an ultraviolet laser, allowing a CD disk to hold up to 70 GB of data. The game "Braveheart" utilized a zoomable map of the entire island of Britain rendered down to a level of 50 meters. A 70 GB disc should be able to hold a map more than 100 times larger. If you accept less resolution, say down to 100 meters, then you could cover over 400 times the area.

Oh well, I've had this arguement before. I'm sure that this game will eventually be done because it will be possible to do it. "War: The Operational Art of Civilization." I'll buy it then even if you don't.

[emren]

Dr. Strangelove:

You're right, of course.

Mental note:
***Remember never to post b4 checking out the facts***

But I stand by the rest...

[Dom Pedro II]

Dr. Strangelove,

That stuff about the CD being able to hold 70 GB is interesting. I think it would be fun to have a map that could zoom down even to 500 meters. I would love to control every part of a war. I'd probably get a headache trying to play it though.

But although I disagreed with most of what was said, I think that a tactical screen where you can organize your stacked units is good because a general fights differently depending on what they are attacking or what they are being attacked by.

[Shogun Gunner]

Dr. Strangelove, that is a great idea to have a strategic/tactical view of combat. It seems a very basic attempt, in the area of city management, has been made allowing cities to "auto produce." The same could be done with combat for those who don't want to direct individual regiments or whatever. This allows your choice. I never set "auto" I might as well let seven AI's play each other.

I'm all for this, but we are talking about a very serious programming effort. The Universal Military Simulator was one such attempt many years ago. Possible, but possibly very expensive.

[Dr Strangelove]

I've had this idea about a Civ-like game where the computer designs a battleground for each battle. The basic features of the battleground would be determined by the general features of the main map,i.e.,terrain, flora, rivers, cities. Adjacent tiles of the main map would also influence the design of the battlemap, such as determining the terrain of the edges and the general slope. Units on the main map would be assumed to be strategic sized units such as corps and armies, and on the battlemap would be broken down to operational sized units such as brigades, regiments, legions. The battle would then be conducted just like a traditional turn based wargame.

It would be the wargame to end all wargames, the everlasting gob stopper of all wargames. You'd never need another. Divorce lawyers would florish.

Alas, I haven't been able to interest anyone in producing such a game. Maybe I should do it myself. Oh wait, when I last went to school people fed programs to computers via little beige manila punch cards. Hmmmm, maybe I'm just going to have to wait.

I remember "UMS". It was "UMS II" that was supposed to be a zoomable stratgic & tactical game, but it was never finished. They actually boxed the thing and sold it unfinished. Buyers were supposed to receive updates via mail, but none were ever sent. Man, was I bummed.

[DarkCloud]

Bump.