Installations

[David James]

In Civ2 we have fortresses and airbases; to that CtP adds listening posts, radar and sonar buoys. What would you like to see added/removed and why?

And here's my suggestion, dregged up from a previous thread and slightly editted:

I'd like to see a seaport or harbour or drydock of some sort that could be build along a coast for ships to take refuge in to recover from battle and made available in the age of sail sometime (a la Gibraltar etc). It could be combined with a fort and later an airbase whilst it couldn't be built beside another port so as to prevent it from becoming an excessively quick and easy method of canal building across continents - a movement rate halting like an airbase might help to quell that sort of nonsense as well.
(come to think of it - not allowing airbases to be built directly beside each other would prevent human players from building airbase walls as a cheap shield against nukes and air attacks as well)

I'd allow for installations to be built anywhere in the world (as in Civ2) and not just on the end of a road or whatever as in CtP (or so it seems so far - I just got the game a few weeks ago for dirt cheap). Also, installations would be built by engineers and other units with that ability, unlike tile improvements which I suggest continue to use the PW model. But roads could be built either way - by engineers and certain units or out of public works. Engineers wouldn't be able to settle, they could only build whilst settlers could only settle and build roads (like some military units, such as legions and other infantry). This would require having 3 different flags for units - settle, build roads, build installations.

I haven't thought as much about terraforming, but I'm inclined to go with PW on that one, esp. for things like draining swamps (which should come fairly early on) and clearing forest.

[Lancer]

David, shore guns would be a good one. Perhaps they could be associated with your forts. They could fire on units landing on that square, and the ships that bombard in support.

Yeah, I didn't like the strongly ground-based artillery system in Civ2... when I played the Apocalypse scenario for the first time (CiC), I tried to bombard destroyers with that Artillery unit you can bribe in Central Australia.. it didn't work, of course... I had already been playing the game for about a year then

[JosefGiven]

I like the idea of the mix of PW and settlers/engineers

I think I get what you are saying, David. Keep Public Works a la CtP, but have settlers/engineers who can trek outside of the PW sphere and allow players to alter terrain far from their civ like Civ II. A good, well-balanced mix, I feel.

I bet Activision will kick up a stink if Sid and co. rip the PW idea off, though

[David James]

If they don't like the idea of ripping off PW - then they could always pay for it from gold instead. I'm a big fan of using gold for more things as I always seem to gather reems of the stuff in every game
For instance, paying for science from surplus gold in CtP was a real step forward I felt as it reflects on reality far better than the Civ2 model - luxuries my ass! Still, PW from production does make a little more sense than being from gold (or at least from gold only) - if a king built a fort it meant those productive resources weren't available for house construction or anything else. A combination of gold and production would be acceptable I think. I would like to be able though to control the amount of production that each city sets aside, rather than it being at a nationwide level (maybe with a toggle option to set all cities the same anyway).

Lancer: Hey, good idea! It would be kind of like the coastal fortresses of Civ2 cities, and it makes a reasonable compromise for the ability of ships to bombard. I don't know about units that are landing (ie Marines) as the defending units can already fight back...

One problem I do see with all these installations is a real build-up on one tile - say, a harbour, airbase, fort, shore guns, radar and a listening post, not to mention roads/rails/monorail as well. A right click or a cursor (as in Civ2) describing what's there would be a real help, but how to display it all as a sprite is the problem. One way around it might be to assume that an airbase constitutes a radar as well - that's reasonable, and so make the airbase a little more expensive (and deduct the cost of a radar if one is already there). Likewise, a harbour could be assumed to include shore guns and a fort, so do the same sort of thing again. Now we're down to just an airbase, a harbour and a listening post, which is probably a lot more "displayable" on the monitor.

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Yes, as a matter of fact, going to Queen's does make me better than you.

[Cyclotron]

A few things:

Paying for improvements: I like the PW system, but I like the idea of paying too, so why not put in both? Some governments the states would have more control of industry (communism) while some would have to pay for services (democracy). This solves the money/shields problem and adds additional depth to governments.

Coastal Fortresses: Actually, assuming Civ3 uses CTP style bombarding, any artillery square in a fortress by the coast could be a great shore battery. I disagree with having an installation doing the firing, that's what units are for. In addition, it seems to me that cities with port facilities in them would do the same thing as these proposed harbors.

Lots of stuff on one tile: Well, if past games are any indication, many higher-level improvements like fortresses, airbases and radar stations were all mutually exclusive on the same spot. IMHO, it's better that way.

Other Units building things: Excellent idea about military buildings being able to build some things. Perhaps roads and irrigation by military units too.

My ideas:

ROADS- 1/3 move
RAILROADS- 1/5 move
CANALS- move ships at half speed, each move takes 2

FORTRESS- double defense
LISTENING POST- long sight range
MINEFIELD- damages ground units (yours and AI's) passing through, hard to get rid of (look at our efforts now)

SONAR BUOY- see subs
MINEFIELD- sea mines, deal damage to ships passing through (yours and AI's), destroyed after dealing a few hits

And JosefGiven: Activision can whine as much as they want. Hmmm, I wonder where they got that whole "Civilization" idea...

[David James]

cyclotron 7:

Making some of these installations mutually exclusive detracts from the reality that we're trying to recreate... consider Gibraltar for example. It started out long ago (ie several hundred years ago) as a fortress. It later became a port, especially with the British. The fortress was enlarged as well. Come WWII, an airbase and radar installations were built. Yet Girbraltar really isn't a city by any reasonable measure.
The point of these harbours is that they aren't in cities - they're out in the wider world. On the basis that they do the same thing as port facilities in cities, we shouldn't have airbases either as they duplicate airports (or cities themselves).
If someone wants to suggest a gold upkeep cost that would be fine with me.

Minefields have been suggested before I think, though not in this thread... a good idea and addition none-the-less. You'd have to have some unit which could pass through without getting damaged though (or less likely to), say an engineer or a minesweeper at sea. Provided that the engineer or minesweeper were on the tile, other units could then pass without damage. The engineer or minesweeper could also clear the minefield, but at high cost as you say (in time and production).
I've seen much the same idea for canals before as well - not that you're stealing ideas or anything - just that good ideas are likely to crop up more than once

I don't think military units should be building anything other than transport networks and installations as active soldiers have never really gone about establishing farms or digging mines. Once discharged, yes, but not as actual soldiers. I say transport networks so as to include canals, and of course minefields are an installation and not a "tile improvement" - I would suggest that minefields should result in decreased tile productivity as well, like pollution in Civ2.

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Yes, as a matter of fact, going to Queen's does make me better than you.

[Cyclotron]

Actually, Gibraltar is a city... if you think of all the military personnel, supprot personnel, technicians, and all sorts of people that make the base go and all their families... Gibraltar as you described it is nothing more than a small city with a port facility, city walls, a SAM site, an airport, and a coastal fortress. Why make tile improvements for these? Doesn't a city do this? Looking at gameplay here, not just realism, this is what cities are for! IMHO, there is no need for installations that duplicate city functions.

I really liked the Listening Posts in CTP...and I took full advantage of them