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

UNITS
-Summarized by Thread Master: JT3-
j_t_3@hotmail.com

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2. UNITS: THEORY/FORM TOP

2.1) ZOC: Ships should have ZOCs like land units.

2.2) Losing Experience-Over time, units not in battle slowly lose experience down to the "hardened" level, assuming we have the SMAC morale in Civilization III.

2.3) Flags-Not just colors, real flags that you could customize if you wanted to using ClarisWorks or something

2.4) Graphics-Make sure units look like what they're supposed to be, not like in SMAC. Maybe have units from different cultures look different?

2.5) Air-Completely automate air units

2.6) Transport size-Units are given size ratings. Transport units can hold a certain size rating. Prevents the eternally annoying transports that can hold 8 tanks but not 9 spies.

2.7) Range-Different range missiles depending on technology.

2.8) Cash-Units should cost money instead of minerals to support

2.9) Off Alert-Take units off alert. They gather their own resources when off alert, so support canceled. Attack and Defense lowered, though.

2.10) Nukes-nuked area cannot be entered by units for x turns. If city is nuked, city cannot build buildings for x turns. Nuked country can launch "retaliation attack" automatically when nuked. Increase range of nukes.

2.11) Long-range attacking units-catapults and other long-range units can attack from a few squares away

2.12) Raising armies-instead of building armies, you raise them through your cities

2.13) Loyalty: Have units have a loyalty factor that would affect their bribe price.

2.14) Support-Nation supports unit instead of city.

2.15) Tech upgrades-Option to upgrade units with whatever you discover once you discover it. Example: You have an archers unit defending a town. You discover Bronze Working. You can now add bronze armor to your archer unit if you wish.

2.16) Separate armies and weapons-The people are drafted from a city while their weapons are built in another.

2.17) Training Grounds-Not letting certain units that have to be trained, like an archer or a knight, be built until barracks are built.

2.18) Upgrade-Upgrade unit when new technology comes.

2.19) Cost-Cost of maintenance should grow or decrease over time.

2.20) Morale-Morale levels for units like SMAC.

2.21) Veteran-Over time, units gain morale levels.

2.22) Missile Silos-terrain improvement. Have a 50% chance of surviving nuke blast. Units inside not damaged if silo survives, destroyed if silo destroyed.

2.23) offense: this value determines the amount of damage done with a successful hit before modifiers.

2.24) defense: this value is how much less damage a unit takes from a successful hit by another unit due to armor, mobility, etc.

2.25) hit points: this value is how much damage the unit takes before it pushes up daisies.

2.26) morale: this value determines the percentage to successfully land a hit and also modifies the offensive value by a set percentage modifier. it also eventually increases with successive (successful) battles. let's say it ranges from 1 to 5 (as in SMAC but a less prosaic form).

2.27) range: movement points per turn.

2.28) now let's wade through an example title bout: in this corner, a rookie legion is attacking the veteran chariot in black trunks... ding ding!

· "legion x" (o:4/d:2/h:10/m:1)

· "chariot y" (o:4/d:1/h:10/m:4)

· let's also assume that the battle is to the death (as in the coliseum of yore).

2.29) Round 1 (part a): x attacks y. x has a 1 in 5 chance of hitting y (due to his cruddy morale). x luckily manages to hit y. (first blood goes to the young punk!). x does 4 damage (+0% due to low morale) and y subtracts only 1 damage due to his defense value and gains no bonuses because he wasn't fortified at the end of the previous turn and is standing on a plains tile (next time seek some cover at the end of the turn). x finally deals 3 damage total to y. y has 7 hit points remaining.

2.30) round 1 (part deux): y counterattacks x in his phase of combat (if x had managed to deal 10 hit points after modifiers and minus y's defense in the first hit, y wouldn't be counterattacking, he'd be dead). y has a 4 in 5 chance of hitting x. y hits (hey, you gotta like the odds). y does 4 damage +80% due to high morale (alright, we can rescale this during beta-testing 'cause that might be a bit too high). y actually does 7 damage and x defends 2 hit points due to his fancy roman shield. x is also standing on a forest which gives +50% to his defense rating. x defends an additional 1 hit point of damage. x is down to 6 hit points.

2.31) round 2: (part one) x attacks y again...

2.32) And so on until one of them (presumably x) is dead. this favors a strongly moraled attacker and bonuses could accrue to the defender based on terrain/fortification/city walls (adding a bonus to the defense rating). The beauty is that more advanced units gain in hit points and defense to the point where even the most veteran phalanx could never have enough of an offensive rating to overcome the natural defense rating of a tank, let alone dent it's hit points enough to kill the tank before the fatal blow is returned. the escalating defense rating of the advanced units would essentially block all the damage of an inferior unit whether or not the unit scored a successful hit and the retribution strike would be so likely to kill with the first successful hit with rising offensive values. even an inexperienced tank unit (which would land a hit only 20% of the time) would eventually kill the phalanx before any hit points could _ever_ be taken off him.

2.33) Additionally, stacked combat could be resolved unit vs. unit as in SMAC in this manner with collateral damage conferred on the surviving stack members of the losing defender. This system also works exactly the same with artillery, air to ground combat or ship to ship, except that there is no counterattack phase to each round unless the defender unit y) has a long distance attack (artillery, anti-air or ship based cannon, respectively) as well.

2.34) Most historical 'units' are a result of a combination of developments, not all of them technological. If all was related to technology, then the Hittites would have had Legions when they developed iron working (forced draft forging) in 1000 BC - didn't happen, 'cause it took developments in tactics, formations, and even sociology to result in the Legion - an organization, not a weapon type. In 4000 BC, you have 2 basic weapons/units available: the spear, either thrust or thrown, and the simple or self bow. Thus, in Civilization terms you get a bowman (leather brown in hue, carrying bow) or a spearman (leather again, spear underarm, no shield).

2.35) Develop Bronze Working: You can upgrade three ways: 1. (Slashing Swords) can now be forged: turn your spearman into a Swordsman, which is a minor increase in attack value 2. (Shields) can now be hammered out (literally!) - increases defense of any unit BUT bowman can't use them and shoot 3. (Bronze Armor) which is more expensive than shields, but can be hung on anyone - more defensive increase.

2.36) NOTE: If we adopt Ranged Weapons (one of the good ideas from C:CtP) then Shields increase defense against Ranged Fire, not against hand-to-hand - that isn't entirely historical, but usable in Game Terms Now, if you also have a cultural development: Armed Citizenry (as opposed to a Warrior Class) you can form Phalanxes out of the spearmen. These Require Shields, but not body armor (the late Greek, early Macedonian phalanx did not, in fact, use it). Phalanx gets attack and defense bonuses over simple spearman BUT it can't operate in rough country, gets severely penalized in woods, forests, swamps, etc - anything but open ground like plains or grasslands.

Point is, all these units (spearmen, bowmen, swordsmen, phalanx) can be represented by 3 icons (spearmen, bowman, swordsman) with appropriate color changes (leather brown to bronze, add shields) to indicate the Upgrades. For Ground Troops, mobile Chassis would consist of Horses, Elephants, or Chariots until the internal combustion engine allowed you to Motorize (haul in trucks) or Mechanize (haul in armored vehicles and build tanks) Horsemen are not Upgraded by putting a phalanx on a horse - riding horses is a Special Skill usually connected with a Special Class of People (equestrian Order in Rome, Knights in Indo-European cultures - the term is found in ancient Rome and Greece as a Social Class) So the basic leather-cloth-clad horseman gets bronze armor, changes his spear for a sword, adds iron (mail?) armor, adds a Lance (not the same as a spear) and eventually Upgrades all the way to a Steel Plate Armor + Lance = Knight. Then someone builds Musketeers and Gunpowder weapons have the Special Attribute of ignoring all armor effects on non-mechanized chassis! Goodbye knight, hello unarmored cavalry again...

2.37) The entire gamut of current military ground Civilization II/C:CtP units up to the modern period can be represented by less than 25 icons with variations like color changes added to them. This is doable, or should be by any competent modern game design group...

2.38) Give certain units better abilities against certain others in a "flexible", tabular format: for example assign an "motorized vehicle" flag to units A, B, C and D, then assign a "double attack against motorized vehicle" flag to unit E (Call it an anti-tank weapon)(This idea stems from my experience with a lot of scenario work where the inflexibility of the Civilization II "rules" becomes noticeable)

2.39) Same idea for air defense, air attack, cavalry defense etc...

2.40) a realization that a great many of history's naval battles took place between 1500 and 1850 before the development of ironclads and with more than frigates involved. So Civilization III needs at least:

2.41) fire galley (soon after triremes) (2-1-2) with ability to sink if ending turn offshore

2.42) roman-type ship (3-1-2)

2.43) medieval early galleon-type ship like the Great Harry built by Henry VIII with a castle-like structure on the stern (3-2-3)

2.44) Man-Of-War (5-3-3)

2.45) An U-2 type sub (6-2-2)

2.46) Someone mentioned that they would like a General/Commander unit that would give a defense/offensive bonus when combined with a stack of units that would become an Army. Others thought that this was overkill and wouldn't add much fun to the game. A fun version of this comes from the Civilization II scenarios. Their might be a Great Leader special unit/s for each civilization that MIGHT appear randomly throughout the game and that would have to effect of either a defensive bonus or offensive bonus while in a stack (like a General) or a happiness or scientific bonus for a city (perhaps like plus 5 happiness/science). These units could not be rebuilt once destroyed and would be specific to the age in which they arrived. Moreover they would last only as long as that Age to represent their life span (Modern, Renaissance etc.) Some of these could be for example, Napoleon, Churchill, Wellington, Richard the III, Gandhi, Lincoln, Hitler, Shakespeare, Newton, Einstein, Lenin, Mao etc. In some senses this would allow one to get rid of some of the Wonders that are tied to people and in some ways is like Colonization, except that enemies could try to destroy these units. This would help to make every game special.

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