posted May 26, 1999 07:56                

Would giving units terrain bonuses and handicaps be just oo much detail to handle?

posted May 27, 1999 07:51                

A) SMAC also had PSI combat.. will CivIII? That the two are based on the same engine (which is not confirmed) does not guarantee perfect similarities.

B) This is debatable.. do we really need all the possible units? If a unit we can design is succesful, but was NEVER used in real life, then there is something wrong with the game. I find it hard to believe that a player can top thousands of years of history. SMAC made sense, since it was the future.

C) All that matters in the end is if Firaxis supports it.

D) Not a valid point. If I don't use the editor, the AI still will, giving them an advantage. Same as in multiplayer games.

Besides, most of these situations can be resolved by just having more default units.

BTW, I really liked the workshop in SMAC. However, this is not SMAC. Not everything can, or should be transferred.

posted May 27, 1999 12:17                

The workshop in SMAC made all the units look exactely alike, which sucked bigtime. Having chassis types makes that happen, and itīs really boring. You canīt go "NO, heīs attacking me with knigths", but No he is attacking me with..some horse-y kinda unit...

whatīs the point of unit graphics if you can't separete them from each other?

posted May 27, 1999 15:38                

Also there has to be better chem and biological weapons, ones that create one square of pollution or can shift at random (to simulate wind)

I noticed logistics is going on on other pages but give artillery and bombers some range or munitions, how often can infantry fight back against arty? I've been fighting to find a way for civii to let ground units carry air so I can simulate rounds...

posted May 27, 1999 19:52                

I get the feeling that Firaxis is probably still on the fence about a unit workshop right about now. It worked fantastically for Alpha Centauri. But the Civ II system of units worked just as well for Civ II.

Part of the reason the workshop was so helpful for Alpha Centauri is because thinking up fifty completely new futuristic units is simply too daunting a task. Call to Power tried, and even with its handful of fifteen-odd futuristic units, they came off looking silly. Alpha Centauri sidestepped that by simply snapping bits and pieces together and giving it a name.

The six thousand years of human civilization has involved more significant advances than merely snapping bits and pieces together. The evolution of Legions into formations of Pikemen was more than just adding wooden sticks to their arsenal. It was a tactical evolution. Groups of pikemen gathered into square formations, able to point their pikes in all cardinal directions to withstand any enemy charge.

Battleships, destroyers, cruisers, carriers, frigates, transports, ironclads... they have different and distinct names for a reason. They're different, inside and out, through and through, in terms of the hull, the armaments, and the crew. You could strip all the weapons off a battleship and use it as a troop transport, but it wouldn't be as effective as a troop transport. You could mount dozens of huge gatling guns on a cruiser, but it still wouldn't be as effective a combat vessel as a battleship.

posted May 28, 1999 16:55                

For a historical civ game i think the unit editor is cumbersome. it is too dificult to trim unwanted units, too many variations are available, and they don't have much impact on the game, especially if all it is doing is giving your armour +1 attack (pazers), for an extra row of resources.

Units should aoutomatically upgrade. any obsolete unit has a 5% (random number) chance of upgrading each turn.

To simulate the economic burden of waging war, units should be supported by gold. Repairs also cost gold. The support cost is unaffected by unit status (1 gold / 20 shileds?) Repairs cost 1 gold per shield worth of repairs. Units repaired in the filed pay full price. At a city they pay 2/3 price and if the city has a barracks/airport/port it costs 1/3 price.

posted May 30, 1999 21:47                

Hence you get the best of both worlds - scenario editors can introduce new units at will (maybe even allow a 2D weapon component system?), and the best graphics don't suffer for it.

But any 3D units should be polygons, not voxhals. Voxhals suck. Majorly.

posted May 31, 1999 02:13                

We all agree that making some pollution, destroying a few units, and cutting city size in half wan't enough for a nuke. Here's my idea.

A-Bomb: Can be carried by a bomber. The bomber has to first attack the city. If it wins, the A-Bomb is dropped (This means that, with enough air defense, it can't get in to drop its payload) When it is dropped, the following things happen.
-All units in the city take a random blow to their health. For about half, it's enough to kill them. For the rest, it's enough to make them pretty much useless until they recover.
-Two-thirds of the city's improvements are destroyed.
-Half of all the people in the city die.
-A random number of squares are polluted.

H-Bomb
Again, must be carried by a bomber, which must successfully attack. The city is wiped off the map, and every square in the city radius gets polluted.

posted May 31, 1999 13:56                

------------------
"War does not determine who is right,It determines who is left."
-Crusher-

posted May 31, 1999 14:30                

Here are their points:

* It could create super units - Favorite poster on this is EnochF. He loves he's lawyer in a sub. The problem is, people don't look too far ahead. It won't be a problem to strict the workshop to only allow possible and reasonable unit setting.

* It would be hard to see the difference - Between a sub with infra-red tracking or without said Mo. Who said you could? Who said you should? Can you do that in real life? When you see an enemy sub, can you tell the difference? Beside, it doesnt have the be JUST like smac: they could program a clear unit editor that shows use JUST what you have: see Diodorus post.

* The stat difference is too small - also said Mo. Is the difference between an Axe man to a swordman is big enough? Well ofcourse it is! Duh! Civ is about history, not make belive. A sword can pass better thourth armor, a small AP ability. And yes, there is enough diffence between an F14 to other planes ( see F15 ) - like twice the cost, difference ranges and speed... etc. Even with civ static x/x/x system, the difference is big enough to count.

* I don't like to use it - Well, don't. You can switch it off.

* But then the computer will have an advantge - said NotLikeTea. A good guy, good ideas, but THAT was a bit dumb. Let's see: maybe if you switch it off, the computer can't use it also? Oh, wow, how did I think about that?

posted June 01, 1999 11:20                

I know that it has been said before, but I'd like to stress here that it would be great if certain units were more effective against a distinctive type of unit. It would be nice if artilery would be very effective against infantry units, but almost useless against tanks; alternatively, it would be great if an anti-tank artilery piece could hold it's own against a tank.

We've seen that a little in CIV II and SMAC where an infantry unit is more effective against cities. Now it's time to take it a step further.

It would also be nice to expand the active defence principle and the ranged defence. Tactically, it would be great if one could place an infantry unity on the front line, an artilery piece behind it, and an anti-air defence unity behind the artilery piece. The artilery and the AA gun would have a defensive cover of one square all around it, meaning that if a unit beside it is attacked, it will fire upon the unit attacking. I believe that an improved combat system to the game would vasty improve the overall appeal of Civilization.

posted June 01, 1999 16:15                

About unit-making, I think scilous covered that beautifuly.

posted June 01, 1999 17:12                

Have a cruiser, can add a ASW mod (spots subsd, can bombard subs), an AGIES mod (x2 vs air, acitve defends against air), a CRUISE MISSILE mod (+2 range of attack, carries 2 missile units), a HEAVY GUN (+4 att) mod or a NUCLEAR POWER (+2mp). maybe max of two of these.

posted June 01, 1999 22:56                

Firstly, a new build option would apprear in your city menu if you had units in the city. You could upgrade these units for a minimum cost of 2 rows of shields, plus the absolute value difference of each units cost. (Say upgrade a cruiser to a carrier, 2 rows of shields plus the 8 row difference = 10 cost). Cheaper than building a whole new unit, but not exactly easy. You could do a que build for this, as in "change all my Phalanx in City/My Empire to Marines", in all your cities, the build que would fill with the new upgrades after the current project. Capitalization would be automatically deleted from the build que of course.

posted June 02, 1999 08:38                

I think they should be distinguisable from unmodified units as knowing what the capabilities of a unit are, before you attack it, is a key part of the strategy of combat in civII.

I'm aware that you don't know a unit is a veteran but that the difference is only one modification (increased attack/defense strength) These units could have a number of modifications, which you won't know about unless you have a sign (ie different colour).

Like everything with civ3, we are looking at evolution, not revolution... I enjoy playing civ2. I thought I'd enjoy playing ctp... but found that they had changed too much and lost the spirit of the game.

I'm back playing civ2.

regards,

posted June 02, 1999 14:01                

I want the option to build 10-12 awesome cities, and sit behind my walls making money and discovering techs, without having to worry about my nearly-unbeatable vet. pikeman behind city walls (with an archer to take out any catapults that walk up) losing experience, and becoming very beatable. No, with this change, I'll have to constantly "move the front" by conquering. Of course, the far larger issue comes in modern times, when my vet. rifleman in a coastal fortress will do well even against cruisers.

This sounds like a neat idea, and it is in the very narrow confines of accurately modeling warfare. But when you think of how warfare fits into the whole game concept--BAD IDEA!!!

posted June 02, 1999 18:51                

In other words, your musketeers, instead of armor, rely on much thinner formations and making themselves, as an army, less of a target by about 2 x an order of magnitude. With automatic weapons and mobile heavy weapons (WWI and WWII, respectively) this dispersion goes up by another order of magnitude or more with each change of weaponry. Unfortunately for the troops, the massed muskets and more modern weapons do much more damage than arrows: there are accounts of crusaders with 15 arrows sticking in them and their armor and coming back from the battle, while there are no accounts of soldier