Apolyton CS: Civilization III: The List v1: Combat (page 2)

COMBAT
-Summarized by Thread Master: Victor Galis-
victorg@aol.com

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5. ADDITIONAL COMBAT-RELATED CONCEPTS TOP

ARMIES:

5.1) Another major part of this combat system is armies. An "army" in Civilization III would be a group of different types of units. There would be a combine command, and this would combine those units into a single unit called an army. The army would have as many move points as the lowest of its components. It would have the sight of the highest of its components. When attacking it would attack as a whole. It would be in a formation where the units are organized by range. When in a battle, the components of an army would become separate in the calculation again. Cavalry units would regain their extra move points. Melee units would charge in front, and ranged would advance to the edge of their range and fire at enemy melee units. An army might require a command unit, such as a general in order to be formed. A general would be trained in a city with some sort of improvement such as a Military College.

5.2) At sea, fleets would work the same way as armies, except at least one ship would have to be able to serve as the flagship (adding 10% to its construction cost, this would include the commander). The flagship would be just a normal ship with the +10% cost and some non-cumulative bonuses to its fleet.

5.3) An air fleet would work just like a fleet, except the command aircraft would be a different type, which would be solely a command aircraft. (More advanced versions might have improved radar, helping detect Stealth Fighters, or just seeing farther.) The advantage of an air fleet is that all AA and SAM batteries overflown still get only one round of fire, but now it is at the whole fleet instead of one round at each passing aircraft.

5.4) A carrier group would be a combined air/naval unit. It would have one or more carriers, one or more of which would be able to serve as a flagship. This unit would scramble fighters and bombers when attacked, or it could send its air forces as to attack a target. The only difference between this attack and that of an air fleet is that no command aircraft (slower and more vulnerable) is exposed to AA fire.

5.5) Also, each such combined unit could be named if the player pushed a certain hotkey. Otherwise, the computer would assign a name, such as third fleet, or so. They could be renamed anytime like cities. Single units would not be renamable, for efficiency purposes.

5.6) Defenders on a square all defend as an army, with or without a command unit (although they suffer penalties doing so). The only units that don't defend are the ones that don't stand a chance, like phalanxes will not attempt to defend against tanks.

SIEGES:

5.7) Sieges should be made a more viable option for taking an enemy city. Several things could make this happen:

5.8) Unhappiness factor: For every square adjacent to a city occupied by a fortified enemy unit there should be a number of people ready to surrender. These people would not necessarily be unhappy but would be treated as such. Happy people will not be ready to surrender, even if the siege is held out. If ethnicity is implemented, people of the same ethnic group as the besieger should go into this ready to surrender state. Also, if a city belonging to a more tyrannical government is under siege by forces of a democracy people would be put into this state. At a certain point when the number of people ready to surrender exceeds a certain point the city would possibly surrender or suffer penalties.

5.9) Resource factor: A square occupied by an enemy unit should produce only 50% of its normal production. A fortified enemy unit could cut all production in that square. If a cavalry unit is sentried in a square, then 75% of that production would be cut off plus 25% of all adjacent squares. A cavalry unit sentried in a square with a fortified unit would cut adjacent squares production 50%, or 75% if the square is not adjacent to the city itself. An enemy unit simply passing through a square would cut production 25%.

5.10) Isolation factor: If the siege is good enough to cut the city off (surrounded on all sides), then all science production of the city would be cut off. Money made in that city would only be spendable there, and maintenance would only be payable with money made from that city. Buildings that can't be maintained would take damage instead of being sold. If the province resource sharing concept (Cities within a province share resources. This would only be implemented if specialized resources [i.e. metals, wood, etc.] were implemented-this way cities would get the stuff that is not within their own radius.) is adopted, that city would no longer be able to participate.

5.11) Morale Penalty: Units in a city under siege would suffer morale penalties. This is of course if morale is implemented. If they fight to lift the siege, they would have a bonus though (units defending their homecity are much more motivated than the units trying to take a foreign city).

5.12) Artillery bombardments: Artillery in a square next to a city, along with a fortified unit, could make artillery bombardments at the city. Early units, like cannons could target large structures, units, or population centers. Later units like howitzers could target basically anything an airplane could target. If that artillery were inside a fortress, then it would gain a bonus to damage (to reflect higher accuracy). Artillery inside a city would fire at the sieging units, targeting the artillery first. If not attacking artillery units would be there it would then shoot at the sieging units.

COMBAT BONUSES:

5.13) Morale: Based on how you are doing in the war and how this unit has done in the past, along with social engineering. (Expect a volunteer unit for a democracy to have more morale than a conscripted unit in a tyranny.) Your unit will receive a +25% to -25% bonus. (Morale will go beyond this, but the bonuses will be limited here.) Should a unit get the equivalent of -75% morale (morale gets worse or better in the middle of combat depending on this combat; this is mostly temporary. If this reaches -60%, the unit will attempt to retreat (allowing a ranged unit time to pick off a few men before they get away.). If the enemy is faster, your unit will take heavy casualties while retreating (the men will scatter, making them easy to pick off, but hard to totally annihilate.) If your unit is faster they will retreat with few casualties, except for ranged fire. If they are the same speed, combat continues with a certain chance to retreat each additional round, based on terrain (good in forests, jungles, bad in plains and hills and mountains.)

5.14) Experience: Will be -50% to +100%. A new unit will always have a base experience of -25%. Over time it will be able to increase 1% at a time. (-25% -> -24%, and so on.) A unit, fortified in a city or fortress with a training facility, will slowly accumulate experience. (Units built in such places will have an automatic bonus.) A unit that starts with -50% will be a guerilla unit that springs up to repel foreign invasion. Experienced units should also have slightly higher rates of fire.

5.15) Home Government Bonus: This would be a bonus based on you government type. Despotic governments would have a bonus, monarchies would have a smaller bonus. Both of these would be fixed regardless of location. Social Engineering might alter these a little. Democracies and Republics defending their own territory would have a large bonus, unless the people are unhappy (that would neutralize it.) Defending home territory against a government less free than your own would be a bonus (depending on the difference). Democracy against some form of Tyranny (big bonus), Monarchy against Despotism (small bonus.) A communist government is considered far more free that it is against ordinary tyrannies, but this bonus is ignored against a democracy. Democracies would have a penalty attacking other democracies (reduced if the other committed atrocities.) Anyhow, you get the idea...

6. MISCELLANEOUS TOP

6.1) Hit Points: A unit does Hit Points multiplied by attack damage. So now a half dead unit doesn't stand half a chance against a similar fresh unit. It doesn't make any sense for 1000 musketeers to do as much damage as 2000.

6.2) Rate of Fire: This would be a number between .25 and 2, which would determine how often a unit fires. .25 would mean that it takes .25 rounds to fire, 2 would mean it takes 2 rounds to fire. This would be used in ranged combat only. (Melee attack based on number of attacks*damage of each/round.)

6.3) Heavy Armor: Some units like tanks will have a defense that looks like this: 10(6). The 10 is, of course, the normal defense value. The (6) is the minimum attack in order to even hope to deal some damage. Archers (attack 3), no matter how lucky they got, could never penetrate tank armor, let alone destroy one.

6.4) Higher Attack/Defense Values: Unit's statistics will be much higher, to differentiate more between the different ages, although the ratios may remain the same. This way a Pikeman may have slightly more attack than a phalanx, while a tank might still have about ten times the attack of both.

6.5) Line of Sight: A limitation for the line of sight depending on the terrain is called for. Riflemen may have a range of 5, but if they can't see that far it doesn't help them. Let's say:

6.5a) Plains & oceans: max. visibility Los=10
6.5b) Hills: Los of 5
6.5c) Cities: Los of 3
6.5d) Forest, Los of 2
6.5e) Jungle: min. visibility, Los = 1

6.6) Since each terrain square is different, you could have a random LoS, based on a base value for the terrain. Like a particular forest might have a Los of 4, while the average is 2. It means that only short range combat is possible in such terrain with small Los. (eventually, additional indirect fire) It would be the ideal terrain for infantry (high melee values) to fight against units outranging them.

6.7) For clarification: All units in a tile will defend together if the tile is attacked. The enemy will have the option of combining his units into armies and attacking like that.

6.8) Interdiction: Interdiction (use of bombers and artillery to slow movement). This would be an option to add 1 to the cost of moving across a terrain square.

6.9) Structural damage: Buildings would have hit points based on era and type (city walls would be almost indestructible, except by a long draw out assault). This way buildings could sustain damage in bombing runs without being destroyed. Their effectiveness should shrink as they become more damaged, but that should be a curve. A 25% damaged building would still be 90% effective, but a 75% damaged building would be less than 5% effective. This is because a hole in the roof won't disturb the functionality of a library that much, while having a foundation with nothing above it won't do you much good.

6.10) Militias: When a city is threatened with capture (i.e. the defenders are almost beaten), a militia unit would spring up. The size would be based on the age, your social engineering choices (i.e. Democratic Civilization's cities will fight Despotic attackers quite severely), how much the city hates the other civilization (have they bombed population centers?). The unit would be armed with mixed firearms, or mixed melee weapons (before firearms).

6.11) Stealth: Certain units would have stealth. Guerillas, subs, stealth fighters would have this. This allows them to ignore ZOCs. Stealth will be expressed as a percent. This is the chance that they will attack first, regardless of the range of the defender. The guerillas would have something like 50%. For each round of combat that would go down 25%. (Thus a guerilla has a 1 in 4 chance that they might attack two rounds before being fired on). Terrain will offer modifiers to this. In a jungle units may have +50%. This may replace the line of sight concept. Stealth fighters will start with 100%, but and remain that way (air combat is 1 round only (you can attack repeatedly)). Remember: each round of air combat is one movement point. Subs will start with a 95% stealth, but for each round lose 30%.

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