{ The List } Units

[Laszlo]

Anyone considered the possibility of a Satellite unit? As intelligence gatherers the spy satellite's role in modern warfare can't be easily dismissed.

Instead of Apollo revealing the world map, Civs have to build a Satellite unit. If not revealing the whole world, it would at least monitor a large swath of it. Perhaps launching several would allow the civ near-complete coverage. I think that they should be one-time use like missiles, but with an actual lifetime--say, 20-30 turns. They wouldn't in fact have to be actual units once you pick their placement, though for the sake of familiarity it might be better to keep it as one.

Below, some other ideas on the same theme. Not saying as important as spy satellites, but playing with the possibilities.

-Increasing resolution. Starts out at city and terrain scale, moves up to include roads and rail, eventually allows individual unit tracking. Happens automatically as technology matures (time and experience).

-Research Satellites. Whether it's inward (weather & habitat monitoring), or outward (Hubble and Chandra space telescopes), satellites are important for research. They could give a set amount or a small percentage boost to research.

-New Wonder candidate perhaps. The Terrestrial Planet Finder could be required before setting off a colony ship. Wouldn't want to spend all that time and money all to arrive at a barren star, now would we?

-Commercial Satellites. Bonuses to commerce through better communications, GPS technology, etc. Prospecting can reveal new supplies of resources like oil and better managing of resources like fisheries and farms (bonuses limited to bonus tiles, aka - whales, spice, etc).

-Television Satellites. Broadcasting over the world over, satellites help spread the owner's culture. The U.S. spends money to ensure outside news coverage in China and Middle Eastern countries. They can't do anything to stop the "propoganda" other than ineffectual bans on satellite dishes.

[CarnalCanaan]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
How does that a) have to do with units and b) be in the purview of a ruler? The game doesn't have that high resolution.

a) in PtW it was done with invisible units (similar to assassins, spies, etc.), implying that they did not interact with regular military forces. Perhaps this could be changed from a unit-based to an interface-based play concept - just as trade was unit-based before Civ3.

But I am here suggesting that they should remain units, albeit, revised/rethought unit types. Perhaps with an independent layer, a la the space and undersea layers.

b) this is valid, except that we already have a system where an individual (an immortal individual at that!) is responsible for the placement and construction of almost every single public facility in the given civilization. Marketplaces were often not "placed" by rulers but simply developed of their own demand. And in modern, liberalized societies, there's almost no action taken by any ruling individual that results in the building of, say, stock exchanges.

---

I think this is getting too complex. I just wanna be a merchant mogul again. Is that too much to ask?

[patcon]

Originally posted by CarnalCanaan
It doesn't really make sense to have a lawyer get shot by a tank, does it?

Not really, any unit will do. Personally I'd use a NUKE!

C'mon people, the lawyer thing was a joke. I should know, I started it.

Would a law school decrease corruption and happiness, or increase corruption and decrease happiness, decrease production???

[Tall_Walt]

Originally posted by lajzar

Advanced Missile Infantry
Arquebusiers (a very early musket)
Musketeers (aka musket men)
*Minutemen (America)
Riflemen (1880s)
***Fanatic (fundamentalism)
Machine Gunners (ww2)
***Stormtrooper (fascism)
Infantry (modern)

Someone with more knowledge of US history, tell me if minutemen were more or less advanced than riflemen? I'm thinking of a unit that would appear around the time of the declaration of Independance, to trigger a golden age at that point in history.

Less. Essentially, Minutemen (1770s) were a local militia, kind of a local Conscription, to put it in Civ terms. They used a long hunting musket that was more accurate, deadly, and longer ranged than military muskets. Also, rather than standing in formation, they fired from cover.

In ADM terms, I'd say lower attack, higher defense (perhaps with an exceptional retreat ability), and lower movement.

Originally posted by lajzar
Aquatic Infantry
Raiders
*Berserker (viking)
Corsairs (musketeer contemporary)
Marines (ww2)

Suggestions for the "marine" special ability include:
- More flexibility for where they can unload (normal units only unload into friendly cities, or only from special "shallows" sea tiles)
- Chance to capture ships when attacking
- Bonus when attacking land-sea, or between coastal tiles.

I would just say "Viking". A Berserker is something individual, not to do with sea warfare.

A corsair is just a pirate. A musketeer contemporary would be Marines, mostly the British Royal Marines but also the early US Marines, such as in Tripoli. They can only land on beaches. A unit of Marines was carried aboard all Age of Sail warships.

The WWII innovation is the landing craft, which could be represented as its mother ship, the assault ship. In WWII both the US Army and the US Marines (and many others) made amphibious assaults. They can only land on beaches, but they can land a lot of troops. This would be like a frieghter than allowed all its troops to land on beaches.

A modern innovation is the helicopter assault ship, which can land troops on any coast, somewhat inland, and carry VTOL fighters as well.

Originally posted by lajzar

Airbourne Infantry
Paratroopers
Air Cavalry
**Rocket Ranger (tesla-tech)
**Space Marines

Other Specialist Combat Infantry
Alpine Troops
Jungle Troops
Desert Troops
(insert terrain here) Troops
Special Forces (ie SAS etc)

Heavy Weapons Infantry
Flamethrower
Bazooka Infantry (ie TOW infantry)
RPG Infantry (that's Rocket Propelled Grenade, not Role Playing Game)
TOW Infantry

Mechanised
Mech Infantry
APC (aka armoured patrol car)

It has been suggested elsehere that these be "land transport" units. However, I think this would be a bad implementation, as most APC units have a infantry squad permanently assigned.

I agree. If Civ4 went with SMAC-like custom units, then you could pay more for faster infantry, everything from pure foot soldiers to horse soldiers to fully mounted mechanized infantry to air cavalry.

(terrain) troops are just cutting things too fine. It would be good if we were just simulating WWII, but it's too much detail for Civ, IMO.

Special forces: the question is what do they do? Maybe they can attack their choice of a unit in a stack, but they're pretty weak (because they're a small unit). Another possibility is that they add combat power without adding to stacking limits. Maybe ADM 1/1/2 invisible until they attack; maybe anonymous unless defeated.

Originally posted by lajzar
[Primitive Artillery & Seige
Ballista
Catapult
Trebuchet
Seige Tower

Instead of a siege tower, I would suggest sappers, then combat engineers. Sappers could remove the city wall or fortification defensive bonus. Combat engineers could additionally take position on any tile, acting as a temporary road or bridge, or when stacked with other units they would reduce terrain penalties. They could also do building tasks while having a good defense value. Another possible unit is marine combat engineers, SeaBees.

Originally posted by lajzar
Advanced Artillery & Seige
Bombard
Cannon
Artillery (1880s)
Howitzer (ww2)
SPG (aka self-propelled gun)

AA guns
Flak Gun
Rocket Tank
**War Walker

I can't help feeling that the AA gun city improvement from civ2 should be dropped entirely in favour of these units.

I agree, and we probably need to add Patriot (representing similar systems as well).

Originally posted by lajzar

AIR UNITS

Floating Units
**Balloon
**Dirigible (aka zepellin)
Helicopter (combat/gunship versions)
**Hover Tank (not air cushion - that would be horribly vulnerable; some SF tech here)
**Grav Tank

It has been suggested elsehere that transport helicopters be "air transport" units. However, I think this would be a bad implementation, as most such units have a infantry squad permanently assigned as air cavalry.

I think you're mixing concepts here. A balloon could just be an achievement allowing better line of sight. I think it would be onerous to have to put a balloon unit with every army. Balloons are just too cheap and expendable to buy--it'd be like buying individual horses.

Tanks are tanks: wheeled, tracked, or whatever.

A combat helicopter is just another way of doing close air support.

I think I agree with you about transport helicopters. OTOH, transport helicopters let you move non-airborne troops to places without airfields. Perhaps having a transport helicopter unit in a city should allow you to airlift a unit in range of the helicopter to anywhere else in range.

Originally posted by lajzar

Fighters
Biplane
Fighter
Interceptor
Jet Fighter
**Stealth Fighter
**Cloaked Fighter

Stealth Fighters are a conceptual misnomer given the way modern stealth tech works. Modern stealth tech only really works in level flight, and is actually easily detected by most modern mobile phone grids anyway

This is incorrect. Stealth coatings absorb radar and make the energy disappear (well, change to a trivial amount of heat). You just don't get a radar bounce you can see. Similar techniques prevent other kinds of detection. These are augmented by jammers that scramble what radars see in the area, so if you do happen to see a radar bounce, you can't tell it from all the junk the jammer's putting out.

Mobile phone grids use low power, line of sight transmitters, so unless the plane flies along one of those lines of sight, forget it. And generally they fly pretty high. However, the accompanying jammers probably do very bad things to the mobile phones.

(I used to have an air base near me. A pilot accidentally turned on his jammer and opened garage doors in a very wide area.)

I would drop interceptor. It's just a quirky unit that had a short lifespan. Mostly, it's a task, not a plane.

A concept that's needed is close air support. Whether done by fighters, attack planes, or helicopters, it's an important concept. I'm not convinced it's worth having one set of units for fighters and another for attack/close air support, but an order for an air unit to supply close air support should give a unit (or stack of units) offensive and defensive advantages. This could be countered by assigning fighters as combat air patrol over the unit, establishing local air superiority, or by having an AA unit there.

Originally posted by lajzar
Bombers
Bomber
Dive Bomber
Heavy Bomber
Stealth Bomber
**Cloaked Bomber

Dive bombing is more a technique than a kind of bomber.

Bombers should not be two turn units. It's a pain. They should fly out, possibly accompanied by fighters or being intercepted by combat air patrol over their target. Again, this is a case where being able to combine units into an army-like mixed group would work well. A late WWII bombing raid would have a bunch of bombers and several fighter groups bunched together, battling against fighters tasked to combat air support and AA guns. Or perhaps fighters should automatically escort bombers.

Originally posted by lajzar

Missiles
V2 Missile
Cruise Missile
ICBM

The missiles model needs to be changed radically. Given their one-shot nature, the opportunity cost for building them is just too big.

I agree. The only one that makes sense is a nuclear ICBM. A big nuke.

Cruise missiles are just a development that gives bombers and ships a very long attack range. Yeah, cruise missiles are expensive, but so are the artillery shells you'd need to buy to do the same job. Cruise missiles should either just be there, upgrading existing units, or be integral to modern ships, including subs, and bombers. Upgrading is more accurate since they fire from existing torpedo tubes, missile launchers, and bomb bays.

Originally posted by lajzar

SEA UNITS

I have divided the sea units by historical era rather than by functionality. I think this presentation works better here.

Ancient Sea
Sailboat (transport)
Galley
*trireme (greek)

Medieval
Caravel (transport)
Galleas
*longship (vikings)
*fire galley (byzantine)

Age of Sail
galleon (transport)
Man o War (pl: men o war)
Frigate (aka ship o the line)

The Chinese treasure ships and the Korean turtle ships belong here, but I can't recall their native names.

Age of Steam
Clipper (transport)
Dreadnought
Ironclad
*Monitor (america)

Age of Oil
Transport
*liner (french)
Battleship (BB)
Cruiser (CA)
Destroyer (DD)
Carrier (CV)
Submarine (SS)

Age of Rocketry
Heavy Carrier (CVN)
Aegis Cruiser (CG)
Missile Destroyer (DDG)
Nuclear Submarine (SSN)

Civ3 has it about right for the galley. It did have a sail, and if you can carry troops, you can carry something else. This was pretty true to the age of sail: you could take out arms and put in cargo. The big problem in the ancient world was lack of open ocean navigation, as Civ portrays.

Before the Age of Sail, ships were captured by troops on the ships, though archers could get in some early wounds. Ramming was generally just a prelude to boarding since wooden ships are very hard to sink (except by storms).

It seems to me the whole period to the age of sail works out pretty well if you load units into ships and then infantry fights in a boarding action. The winner gets both ships.

In the Age of Sail period, this changed so ships could defeat each other at range, without boarding. However, once enough damage is done it doesn't really matter whether the ship surrenders (the usual) or its crew is killed off with grapeshot until boarding is trivial. Since wooden ships still don't sink easily, you usually capture the ship. Magazines do explode, but more often they flood from damage; you don't have a reliable way to scuttle the ship. So fight until one ship goes to zero, put it back to one reflecting emergency repairs and give it to the victor

I would like Frigates to carry one marine unit for raids. (A frigate is not a ship of the line: a ship of the line has several times the firepower of a frigate. Specifically, a frigate has one gun deck, while a ship of the line has two or three, and proportionally more marines. Man of War is a general term.) I would either leave it at Frigate or add First Rate, a ship of the same speed and gun range as a Frigate but much higher fire power and defense. (And a couple marine units.) Transport could be handled by the earlier ships.

In the age of steam, you're correct that clipper ships (sailing ships) did much transport, but I think I would just keep around an AoS ship. Dreadnought is not an appropriate term for this age. Ironclad is best. The Monitor, and monitors in general, were coastal and river defense ships, and not particularly significant outside of the first use of the turret: Monitor and the Ironclad Merrimac just bounced cannonballs off each other, neither won. In the later Age of Steam you had battleships (which is just a shorthand for line of battle ship) with turrets.

In 1906, Dreadnaught launched: she had two innovations, all big guns and a steam turbine. Battleships through WWII were essentially refinements of her. But, I think Civ3 probably has the clearest terminology for someone not familiar with naval history.

France indeed had very significant passenget liners, but I'm not sure I see the game significance, except maybe as a cultural milestone.

If I were picking unique units, the British race-built galleons defeated the medieval Spanish armada and marked the transition from boarding to cannon. HMS Dreadnaught revolutionized warships, but it was picked up very fast by everyone else; still, it is far more familar. The German WWI U-boat was significant. In WWII, I think I'd pick the US amphibious assault ship. After WWII, in terms of actually getting used, it's got to be the US supercarriers, Enterprise on. If we have to pick one unique US unit, that's it, not the F-16--it's a fine aircraft, but not unique. The most significant US fighter would be the P-51 Mustang, the first able to escort bombers all the way to their targets.

Originally posted by lajzar
ASSYMETRIC UNITS

Some of these are very questionable, and there seems to be a huge split in the community as to whether these are wanted in the game.

I don't favor any of these new units, especially the return of caravans--they were really a pain, IMO. The Civ3 trade system is far superior.

[La Diva]

CARAVANS: Civ2-Civ3 Merger

Let the Caravan/Freight units be possible for greater benefit but not critical to game success. Dozens of caravans would be a nuisance to micromanage again, but we do need them. So keep the non-unit diplomatic trade feature, but bring back physical caravans for specific purposes:

1. Exploration - The caravan was one of the few units that another civ would allow in its Zone of Control. My caravans could find out a lot more than my military, diplomats, or explorers, uncovering another whole continent for me, then they would more than pay for themselves by entering a foreign city. The only problem was being lost to a barbarian.

Quote from another thread:
"... have an explorer unit that [doubles] as a caravan initially ..." - I like that, as long as the trade tech has been researched. You can cover terrain twice as fast and still get some financial boost when meeting new civs.

2. Trade Initiation - At least one post favored the caravan for the initial trade with a civ. In earth history, those who explored also traded, at least tokens of friendship, with the people they "discovered." So I support the explorer and all units that are exploring (removing the Black Fog) being able to initiate trade on a limited level. I don't agree with a physical caravan being required for the first Diplomatic trade once the roads and/or harbors are in place.

Make the caravan useful when dealing with civs that aren't goal-oriented toward trade. Why should I have to wait for another civ to build a harbor or build roads out to their borders before I can trade with them? If I send a caravan to them, let it pay off immediately but also let it motivate the civ to build the improvement(s).

The gold benefit of a caravan's first contact with a civ would be relatively small in comparison to negotiations through the Dipl screen, but it should come close to the unit's cost. The caravan should also let you offer to help build the Harbor, for a small contracting fee, say 25% of cost (mildly negotiable). If the civ accepts the offer, the Imp will be finished in 150% the number of turns in which your fastest city could produce it. The fee comes from the other civ's national treasury, lump sum or per turn, as it's able. The city chosen for the Harbor puts its current production on hold and puts all shields into the Harbor until the full cost is reached or until the requisite number of turns has been completed, whichever comes first. While in production, the receiving civ can't adjust the city's shield rate to pay less than optimum capacity.

Example: Your most productive city (15 Shields Per Turn) can build a Harbor in 5 turns. The other civ's coastal city (7 SPT) couldn't build it in less than 10 turns, using the most shield-productive combination of city tiles without resorting to starvation. So with your help, the Harbor will be built in 8 turns (5 X 150%, always rounded up). The receiving city can't switch worked city tiles from this productive arrangement in order to focus on pop growth or science if it means it will pay less than 56 Shields (7 SPT X 8 turns) for the Harbor). Any normal pop growth during production will assign the new citizen's tile using the same criteria.

One caveat with physical units: when another civ's caravan reaches you, the trade will take a token amount of gold from your treasury. If you're broke, one shield will be taken from each city, starting with the largest/most successful, until the token is paid; if necessary, a second shield will be taken, cycling through your city list until the amount is reached. The token extracted will be 10% of what the sending civ receives from the transaction.

As tech progresses, caravan receipts increase. After the IndAge, cost of production should also increase somewhat.

Early caravan attacks will not be grounds for declaring war but will figure more and more heavily from the IndAge on.

3. Diplomatic Benevolence - This is a good reason for each caravan to carry more than one type of cargo. If it reaches a poor country, you might be able to trade (or give) needed food or medicine rather than dyes, then continue on to another destination to sell the luxury items. In a game of increased realism, you might have to decide what the caravan will carry when it's created, adding to the speculative nature of the venture. I'd rather have AI furnish the "right stuff" when I need it. AI could also be set up to include these kinds of "compassionate care" supplies along with the genuine wares for trade.

4. Asset Relocation - a fancy way of saying it's a critical unit for facilitating Rush Production. It's not logical to make a military unit, send it to a young city, and disband it for the 25% salvage cash to speed up building an improvement. We need some form of caravan/freight or envoy to deliver the resources needed to finish the project more quickly. It happens in real life, so why not here? In my plan, only 25% of the caravan production cost would be lost to shipping costs, spoilage, and corruption, compared to the 75% using the other method.


Finished Goods: This goes back to Civ1 units, where you never knew what it was carrying or how much you would get for the cargo until the unit arrived in its target city. (Civ2's model of choosing the cargo wasn't much better.) Letting AI handle it is much more convenient, but the construct needs work.

The most important reason for trading finished goods is to generate revenue from civs who have the same tile resources as you. Every civ can be a specialist in half a dozen kinds of goods, not just 3 like Civ2, so there would always be demand to some degree. You could choose your products from a list or let AI manage it all.

Some have posted about distance vs. caravan revenues. The trade values need to be reworked from the Civ2 template. It was extremely frustrating to build a caravan and take several turns sending it to the other side of my empire, only to discover that the trade revenues gained were less than I originally spent! Trading with other civs gained more, but I should never have lost money on the venture.

A formula needs to be developed (or improved?), where net trade benefits increase to a certain distance from originating city (or civ center if not a physical caravan) and then decrease to account for increased shipping expenses. AI must also take into consideration the size and wealth of the target civ and/or city - no matter how far you've traveled, if the target civ is too poor, your luxuries won't mean squat.

Luxury resources will be worth more in trade income than finished goods, and Strategic resources will be worth the most.


With these suggestions, caravans become much more useful with less micromanaging.

[Tall_Walt]

What I'm hearing here is, "I want to do X, so we need an X unit." This isn't true. We don't build entertainer units or scientist units. In Civ3, we don't build caravans, we treat trade at a governmental level instead of a city or unit level; we don't built trade ships, we build harbors and airports at the city level. In Civ4, perhaps we'll select what tiles to develop in what way, but the cost of that won't be a worker but just a deduction from city (or government) income.

Civ has always been full of those kinds of abstractions: Civ doesn't let you arrange where things are inside your cities, though that could allow you to protect critical structures from bombardment. Some games with smaller scope do. If you want the sweeping scope of Civ, you have to abstract things.

Units are primarily needed for tactical combat. Any other use comes down to whether a unit is the best way to do things. With Civ3 getting slowed to a crawl by non-tactical units, we need to kill as many of those units as possible. If we keep workers and put in more non-tactical units, Civ4 will end up a wonderful game that no one plays.

Many tasks can get promoted from the unit level to the city or (hopefully) governmental level. For example, scouting: with only a few exceptions (Lewis & Clark and HMS Beagle, for examples) scouting is not micromanaged in real life: you throw money at the CIA or MI6, and the fog of war lifts, to a point limited by technology--and FBI counter-intelligence or MI5.

MOO2 is a excellent example of abstracting nearly everything but combat. One result was that combat could be much more detailed. Another result is you can play a game in a few hours. IMO, Civ3 games are just too long and boring, mostly because of pushing around non-combat units. Civ4 needs to be sleeker.

[La Diva]

Originally posted by Tall_Walt
In Civ3, we don't build caravans, we treat trade at a governmental level instead of a city or unit level;

Okay, if Civ4 provides a way to accommodate the uses I outlined for caravans, great. The units are purely a means to an end.

Units are primarily needed for tactical combat.

- spoken like a perfect warmonger. I hate waging war, despite the fact that I always win. If the non-tact units are gone, I, an avid Civ player since Civ1, will have no interest in the game.

One of the greatest parts of the game is uncovering the map and raiding all the goody huts. Lewis & Clark can't do that as well as I can. Discovering where the other civs are is a treat.

Civ4 needs to be sleeker.

I think most folks can agree on that. But there are two camps here: the warriors and the builders. Firaxis will have to think hard about how to keep us all happy.

As I've stated elsewhere, one of the most critical elements of this remake will be the ability to select the level of AI vs. player management for various facets of play. Give us all the new bells and whistles, but don't make them mandatory, and don't take away our old favorites. There are some who will buy Civ4 for the new graphics and for pure curiosity but who will want to play basically the same kind of game as before. It'll still make the company money to provide that option.

I welcome the changes, while still loving the older versions. Just don't turn this into nothing more than a war game.

[Kuciwalker]

La Diva, units are primarily for combat. Whether or not you're a warmonger, that's just a fact. The only other true use for units is tile improvement, and CtP even abstracted that (the ONLY unit function it seems to have abstracted, sadly). Everything else definately belongs in a menu somewhere, NOT as a unit.

[La Diva]

Kuciwalker, you're forgetting explorers, aren't you? Only caravans and explorers could travel through alien lands with any impunity, and even explorers could get kicked out. How do you uncover your world without them? Or do you wage war in the dark? If you don't know the size of their empire, how do you know you can lick 'em?

From what I've read in these threads, most of the expansion packs and offshoot games appear to be battle focused. Maybe most Apolyton members have developed a taste for that. I, on the other hand, chose Civ over games like SimCity because of the global scope and the occasional sortee.

As for units being primarily for combat, would it surprise you to learn that in some of my games NO ONE has declared war? The majority of units may be military, but I use them purely for peaceful purposes while I'm building my science, culture and treasury.

I keep my cities small but numerous and develop my infrastructure to be lean and productive. So far, I can't trust AI to do that. When I let AI manage my workers, they irrigate everything in sight, and my shield production goes down the toilet. Not smart.

If they take away all the non-combat units, I may as well go dust my piano.

I don't support going nuts with additions, specialists by the cartload, like some have suggested. And maybe Firaxis can come up with a viable management screen in lieu of workers, but I'll have to see it to believe it.

[lajzar]

The problem with staying in a hostel with very thin curtains is its very hard to sleep at night.

Update done. Scream if I missed something important.

[Tall_Walt]

Originally posted by La Diva
Okay, if Civ4 provides a way to accommodate the uses I outlined for caravans, great. The units are purely a means to an end.

Exactly!

- spoken like a perfect warmonger. I hate waging war, despite the fact that I always win. If the non-tact units are gone, I, an avid Civ player since Civ1, will have no interest in the game.

I wasn't clear. My point is that tactical combat needs units on a field so you can flank, surround, etc. Other tasks in Civ don't have the need (or as much need) for on the ground geometry.

One of the greatest parts of the game is uncovering the map and raiding all the goody huts. Lewis & Clark can't do that as well as I can. Discovering where the other civs are is a treat.

Raiding the huts needs a tactical unit since you may be in combat, but does all exploration? Civ doesn't model every single person, and people wander and explore all by themselves--just not to Lewis & Clark or Beagle distances. So what if, similar to the cultural aura around your civ, you had an exploration/reconnaisance aura, depending on transportaion technology? This would explore and lift the fog of war, even into nearby enemy territory. Any interaction with what was revealed would be by unit.

Nothing would preclude mounting long range explorations or reconnaisances like Lewis & Clark.

Civ4 needs to be sleeker.

I think most folks can agree on that. But there are two camps here: the warriors and the builders. Firaxis will have to think hard about how to keep us all happy.

I'm firmly in both camps. But as I pointed out in another message (I hope not in this thread), we've got to look at the basic math of the problem. We can have a 256 x 256 (IIRC) board now (and perhaps Civ4 will be bigger). That's 65536 tiles. (Can you tell I'm a programmer?) Let's say you've got range 2 vision so you can see 5 x 5. Best case, if you move diagonally, that reveals 9 tiles. That's over 7200 exploration moves to see the whole board. Realistically, you aren't going to do that, but with your own land and the sea, you're likely looking at 1000 to 2000 exploration moves, maybe 3000 considering that all moves aren't going to reveal 9 tiles, expecially in the early stages when they can't. Even if you use automatic exploration, thats 15-45 minutes just watching exploring units move if things work like Civ3. More if you're actually pressing the keys and deciding. The little Civ3 animations are cute, but not so cute I want to spend that much time watching them--I'd rather take that time to play another game of Civ.

Part of getting the game sleaker is not making every user look at everything happening. That doesn't stop you from looking, it just makes looking optional.

The game I've played most and longest is MOO2. The reason is that it's so sleak I can play a fully detailed game in a few hours, dipping into micromanagement only in the cases that need it.

As I've stated elsewhere, one of the most critical elements of this remake will be the ability to select the level of AI vs. player management for various facets of play. Give us all the new bells and whistles, but don't make them mandatory, and don't take away our old favorites. There are some who will buy Civ4 for the new graphics and for pure curiosity but who will want to play basically the same kind of game as before. It'll still make the company money to provide that option.

To some extent I agree with you, but new ideas (paradigms) are needed in Civ4. Civ3 is both a demonstration of why those changes are needed (remember the first version where you spent minutes per turn watching workers?) and a demonstration that those new ways can be good. I like the new strategic resource and trading system, but it would be horrendous if you had to plot out new trade routes for caravans every time a trade deal changed. If you actually had to build and move the caravans, the trade deal would expire before you got the route built!

Some of these changes provide a third choice other than AI or player management. For example, the exploration aura idea needs neither AI nor player management for nearby exploration. Exploitation remains in the player's hands, though.

I welcome the changes, while still loving the older versions. Just don't turn this into nothing more than a war game.

I'm confident that won't happen. Just having Soren at the helm makes me confident of that. Add that Civ4 would then be in competition with much more established RTSs--it just isn't going to happen.

[Tall_Walt]

Originally posted by La Diva
...
I don't support going nuts with additions, specialists by the cartload, like some have suggested. And maybe Firaxis can come up with a viable management screen in lieu of workers, but I'll have to see it to believe it.

One easy solution is that instead of moving a worker to a tile then commanding an improvement, you just click on the tile, select the improvement(s), and they happen without a worker unit, with the cost applied to your government or your nearest city. You get all the control you have now, just no worker unit.

[La Diva]

Hot Air Balloon unit - much earlier than the Flight advance so that new terrain could be covered more quickly. It would need a chance factor that might disable the unit for repairs for a number of turns, destroy the balloon but not the pilot (with some limited military ability), or truly crash and burn with no survivor. There could also be a possibility of the winds taking the unit to a different square than you directed it. MP should be at least 4 per turn.

How about a cyberleader or robotic workers after a certain tech level?

How about double agents (intelligence / Cold War style)?

MASH units (field hospitals) in wars after the MidAges. Units heal faster than being left idle in the field but not as quickly as in a city. Built in a single city and sent to the Front (not realistic but much simpler for gameplay), MASH units can relocate on a moment's notice. They can be attacked, but diplomatic repurcussions from ALL civs are severe. Only injured units can stack on this tile, plus one healthy defender. Perhaps after Flight advance, add the ability to Airlift the worst injured out of enemy territory but not necessarily all the way to your civ's nearest city. You choose from a limited number of Drop Zone tiles. The unit could be attacked on the journey home (through AI, not graphically), which would more realistically represent those who "didn't make it" through the airlift.

.. This would open the possibility of being hospitalized in an allied civ's city if the unit is dropped within their border. That civ would have to have one Hospital or MASH unit, though not necessarily in that city (let's be merciful after all).

.. Also allow a non-fighting Airlift plane to deliver supplies, food, munitions, medicine. It could have moderate defense capabilities but would have no attack points.

Anyone for Cruise Ships? They've become a significant industry for vacation coast cities, but how much will F'Axis want to put into recreation units? If Kuciwalker and Co. have their way, I'd say zilch.

Spy Satellite - love it! Rather than having to peruse the map myself, I favor an observation report generated periodically at the start of a turn, or available from a menu. AI could divulge info like troop movement and defense improvements in production but wouldn't necessarily tell everything. Every 50 turns or so, the orbit will decay sufficiently to need to replace it. Having more than one improves the amount and quality of data. - This is a perfect task for one of the Cabinet members I suggested in a previous post. I'd change Sze's suggestion, though, about what can destroy the satellite.

.. Any civ wanting to avoid the satellite's detection capabilities would have to create Los Alamos style underground facilities for military manufacturing and national security matters. If the satellite is built in time, however, it would be able to report that those hidden facilities were under construction and where.

.. This would give rise to Bunker Busters which would probably damage but not fully destroy the underground locations.


"Flavor Units" - the request seems to have more to do with unique names than unique qualities of these units. All that does is make the player spend more time in Civilopedia looking up the specs for each UU - bad move, IMO. Keep the names for like-skilled units identical, or use an adjective in conjunction with the UU. Not being a scholar of battle units, I can't give suggestions with any intelligence, but the idea is something like "Samurai Swordsman or Cossack Cavalry" would help to smooth the learning curve, if we really have to break out to unique names. - More busy-work, if you ask me.


{Dark Cloud, thread 104285} "I really disagree with nets and fishing fleets ... too large an abstraction ..." - I'm on board with that kind of thinking. When a citizen is assigned to work a sea tile with fish, it's presumed he has the necessary equipment, just like a citizen on a wheat or mined hill tile.


{lajzar & Tall_Walt} "Age of Steam" - It has always seemed a huge leap from galleons to transports. A missing link unit under steam power makes a lot of sense.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by La Diva
Kuciwalker, you're forgetting explorers, aren't you?

Explorers are military units, like any scout. In fact, the only way they are ever used in C3 is as pillagers. The world is usually very explored by the time you get explorers, anyway.

From what I've read in these threads, most of the expansion packs and offshoot games appear to be battle focused. Maybe most Apolyton members have developed a taste for that. I, on the other hand, chose Civ over games like SimCity because of the global scope and the occasional sortee.

That's not true at all. Witness the downplaying of the MGL and the creation of the SGL in Conqests. In fact, there are two other equally viable strategies besides warmongerer.

As for units being primarily for combat, would it surprise you to learn that in some of my games NO ONE has declared war? The majority of units may be military, but I use them purely for peaceful purposes while I'm building my science, culture and treasury.

Lack of war doesn't mean the units aren't primarily for combat. You have spearmen for defense, even if you aren't currently at war.

If they take away all the non-combat units, I may as well go dust my piano.

That's why workers are some of the few units that haven't been folded into a menu - they "give you something to do" during peacetime.

I don't support going nuts with additions, specialists by the cartload, like some have suggested. And maybe Firaxis can come up with a viable management screen in lieu of workers, but I'll have to see it to believe it.

I'm not trying to expand warmongering at the expense of other strategies by asserting that units are primarily military and should stay that way. What I'm doing is dividing the game up into different areas. Units are a big part of civ, yes, but they aren't all. City management is a HUGE part, and it's primary purpose is not "war" (though it can be diverted to that end, just like have defensive units can deter an enemy, giving a builder peace) but building. Ditto with the foreign advisor screen. Units should be very simple, and only do a (relatively) few things, just like every other part of the interface. It's just good design.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by La Diva
Hot Air Balloon unit - much earlier than the Flight advance so that new terrain could be covered more quickly. It would need a chance factor that might disable the unit for repairs for a number of turns, destroy the balloon but not the pilot (with some limited military ability), or truly crash and burn with no survivor. There could also be a possibility of the winds taking the unit to a different square than you directed it. MP should be at least 4 per turn.

1) Hopefully air units will retain the same mission-oriented system as in C3

2) This is a lot of complex stuff to implement for a relatively niche unit. You might as well just use explorers to scout.

How about a cyberleader or robotic workers after a certain tech level?

:vomit: @ future tech

How about double agents (intelligence / Cold War style)?

It already exists, it's called the Espionage screen.

MASH units (field hospitals) in wars after the MidAges. Units heal faster than being left idle in the field but not as quickly as in a city. Built in a single city and sent to the Front (not realistic but much simpler for gameplay), MASH units can relocate on a moment's notice. They can be attacked, but diplomatic repurcussions from ALL civs are severe. Only injured units can stack on this tile, plus one healthy defender. Perhaps after Flight advance, add the ability to Airlift the worst injured out of enemy territory but not necessarily all the way to your civ's nearest city. You choose from a limited number of Drop Zone tiles. The unit could be attacked on the journey home (through AI, not graphically), which would more realistically represent those who "didn't make it" through the airlift.

Again, complex coding for a niche unit that could be more easily implemented just like in C3 - a small wonder that causes units to heal in enemy territory. As I said in the previous post, the simpler, the better.

.. Also allow a non-fighting Airlift plane to deliver supplies, food, munitions, medicine. It could have moderate defense capabilities but would have no attack points.

It's called an airport

Anyone for Cruise Ships? They've become a significant industry for vacation coast cities, but how much will F'Axis want to put into recreation units? If Kuciwalker and Co. have their way, I'd say zilch.

What would be the point, again, of representing cruise liners on the map?

Spy Satellite - love it! Rather than having to peruse the map myself, I favor an observation report generated periodically at the start of a turn, or available from a menu.

Either simply reveal the whole map with Satellites, or allow building of an air unit that has infinite range, zero interception chance, and can do recon missions.

"Flavor Units" - the request seems to have more to do with unique names than unique qualities of these units. All that does is make the player spend more time in Civilopedia looking up the specs for each UU - bad move, IMO.

It's not that difficult to remember the bonuses. And you can right-click on a unit to see it's stats.

{lajzar & Tall_Walt} "Age of Steam" - It has always seemed a huge leap from galleons to transports. A missing link unit under steam power makes a lot of sense.

It's called an Ironclad.

[Tall_Walt]

Originally posted by La Diva
{lajzar & Tall_Walt} "Age of Steam" - It has always seemed a huge leap from galleons to transports. A missing link unit under steam power makes a lot of sense.

I tend to agree, but eras get mushed together in the broad sweep of Civ. A "Steamship" transport could be before the modern "Transport", between "Ironclads" and "Battleships". Ironclads running around with sail transports is accurate, though not quite galleons. The trouble is a "Steamship" unit is based on the same tech as an Ironclad, just evolved: no real breakthrough allows it, just a bunch of incremental improvements and cost reductions.

I definitely agree that a modern transport running with Ironclads and Battleships looks odd. One thought is bring in "Steamship" in the Industrial Age, needing coal or oil; then in the Modern Age, make "Assault Ship" be the result of Amphibious Warfare instead of the Marines unit. Assault Ships can take more units, incuding Helicopters and VTOL aircraft.

[La Diva]

Originally posted by Tall_Walt
Raiding the huts needs a tactical unit since you may be in combat, but does all exploration? Civ doesn't model every single person, and people wander and explore all by themselves--just not to Lewis & Clark or Beagle distances. So what if, similar to the cultural aura around your civ, you had an exploration/reconnaisance aura, depending on transportaion technology? This would explore and lift the fog of war, even into nearby enemy territory. Any interaction with what was revealed would be by unit.

Nothing would preclude mounting long range explorations or reconnaisances like Lewis & Clark.

The Explor/Recon Aura is intriguing, but it would depend on how fast it spread and whether any research or City Imp would speed it up.

.. The biggest problem with this concept is discovering goody huts in the unveiling but having no unit in the vicinity to take advantage of them. If you "open" the huts automatically as the fog is lifted, there's no unit risk when hoardes are encountered, so the game becomes more predictable. And since the other civs' auras are similarly expanding, you'd have access to fewer huts. The way the game works now, I've snatched the goodies from huts within two tiles of another civ's city just because they headed in a different direction. I'd lose all of those. A good portion of "aura exploration" would be spent on oceans, something my ships do now while they're waiting to pick up the exploring units after they've unfogged that continent.

.. The idea of "identical" huts for every civ to discover as their aura expands comes to mind, but that removes the motivation (and much of the civ trait) for expansion and exploration. How can you preserve the advantage of being the first to find the huts? "Going the extra mile" really means something the way this works now, unless I'm off base about how AI handles exploration for the other civs.

.. I'm prejudiced here, I admit it, because I use this feature aggressively. In most games, I'll get 6-12 free tech advances, plus units, tons of cash, and the occasional settler or city.

.. Any brainstorming to keep the same advantages with less work would be fine with me.

... over 7200 exploration moves to see the whole board.

That's why I use MANY exploring units and favor having faster ships (higher MP).

The game I've played most and longest is MOO2. The reason is that it's so sleak I can play a fully detailed game in a few hours, dipping into micromanagement only in the cases that need it.

To some extent I agree with you, but new ideas (paradigms) are needed in Civ4.

Maybe I should check out MOO2 and see what you mean. Spending days on a single C3 game does wear thin. My only foray away from straight Civ was ToT, which apparently hasn't stood the Test of Time since it doesn't have its own forum.

If you actually had to build and move the caravans, the trade deal would expire before you got the route built!

That's my point about goody huts and an E/R Aura. By the time you get there with a unit, some other civ will have beaten you to it.

.. As for trade, my point was to use the physical unit to initiate deals that AI won't allow now. There is no deal until the caravan reaches the target civ who was beyond the reach of Diplomatic Trade. Then once the initial contact is made, if the civ opens up (with roads/harbor), trade is handled through the Trade screen like usual.


This is good dialogue. I hope it helps F'Axis decide how to proceed.

[La Diva]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Explorers are military units, like any scout. In fact, the only way they are ever used in C3 is as pillagers. The world is usually very explored by the time you get explorers, anyway.

I disagree. Explorers can't attack and have no defense points - nothing military about them in this game. Maybe your explorers pillage (what a harsh term if you mean raiding goody huts), but I think the original intent is the way I use them, to dispel the Black Fog. And maybe your world is very explored by the time you get explorers, but mine never is. The benefits of finding other civs quickly and grabbing every goody hut I can find can put me several centuries ahead tech-wise in the early ages.

{Hot Air Balloons} ... 1) Hopefully air units will retain the same mission-oriented system as in C3

2) This is a lot of complex stuff to implement for a relatively niche unit. You might as well just use explorers to scout.

Well, it seemed like a fun idea at the time. I'm not the only one to suggest the unit, just the first to flesh out some of its characteristics. As long as we're dreaming of brave new worlds, why not dream big? I've mentioned some units that have no real interest to me, just for the sake of expanding the box -

:vomit: @ future tech

- units like those.

{double agents} ... It already exists, it's called the Espionage screen.

Have I missed something? Spies "exist" via the Espionage screen, but I haven't seen any double agent betrayals going on, AFAK. I just thought the risk would add another layer of intrigue for those who like that sort of thing.

Either simply reveal the whole map with Satellites, or allow building of an air unit that has infinite range, zero interception chance, and can do recon missions.

Clicking or keying an infinite-range unit all the way across the globe sounds less simple for the human player than asking for a report about a certain civ. I guess this all depends on whether you're thinking about micromanaging the play or programming the game.

.. What's visible to my eye on that map differs from what the spy satellite would be able to detect - the only way I can look inside a foreign city now is to pay for espionage, which may or may not yield anything of value. The satellite would handle it without the additional cost.

.. "infinite range, zero interception chance, and can do recon missions" - gee, sounds like a Spy Satellite to me . . .

{Flavor Units} ... It's not that difficult to remember the bonuses. And you can right-click on a unit to see it's stats.

Maybe if you play all the time, you can remember which units defend more effectively against mounted units, for example, but I'd flunk the test. You start adding dozens more units with unique-to-civ names, and you'll have a lot more players complaining than just me.

{Age of Steam} ... missing link unit ... It's called an Ironclad.

The Ironclad can't carry units. We need a steam transport with increased capacity and MP, midway between Galleon and Transport.

{Airlift Plane} ... It's called an airport

Cute, but not the same. I'm not passionate enough about the unit to fight for it. IMO, the Airport model is seriously flawed. Watch for my post on the City Improvements in the next few days, soon as I can get to it. Somewhere (maybe Movement, Supply, etc.) I wrote about the need for the boxwing (biplane?) aircraft as a precursor to the warplanes, a plane that could carry a single unit and land on any grassland and plains tile or in cities with a cheap Airstrip Improvement.

.. The reason for these early air units is primarily for their higher MP. The Balloon would explore faster, and the Boxwing would get a unit to the other end of the continent faster. Can I live without 'em? Sure, but they'd be mighty convenient.

[La Diva]

Originally posted by Tall_Walt
The trouble is a "Steamship" unit is based on the same tech as an Ironclad, just evolved: no real breakthrough allows it, just a bunch of incremental improvements and cost reductions.

The Tech Steam Power would cover the breakthrough for me. If there has to be a delay, let AI add it to the Build List maybe 20 turns after the Ironclad appears.

[lajzar]

I dopn't see teh need for a "steamship" transport. Steam was never really used for long distance ocean transport - it was only used for river transport and military applications. Of course, there was a contemporary of the ironclad used for transport - the clipper. But this was a sailship, not a steam ship. The clipper is teh missing unit between transports and galleons.

of course, if you can point me to a historical case of a mainstream ocean steam transport, I am all ears.

[ScipioX]

Steam transports were pretty much riverboats used to carry troops in the ACW. They weren't used on the open seas. Sail transports were more common, because they were usually commandeered civilan ships.
I like the idea of scout/explorer units. Moving them around gives you something to do in the early game.
And the race for goody huts is important, too.
I always thought that Flight should give you Biplane and blimp units, Advanced Flight Fighters and Bombers, and Jet Engines Jet Fighters and Bombers. Maybe some weak Helicopter unit at AF and a stronger Gunship at JE? And Stealth tech gives you Stealth planes.

[Tall_Walt]

A mainstream ocean steam transport? I'll give you two:

1. The Great Western, 1838-1856, but this is a very early example, so it's not entirely manistream simply because it's an early example. Because wind was free and coal cost money, the transition from sail was slow.
http://www.greatoceanliners.net/greatwestern.html
Later, completely mainstream, examples are at:
http://www.greatoceanliners.net/shipindex.html

2. USS Nimitz, CVN-68 , 1975-2025 (est.)
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/cvn-68.htm

The point of mentioning Nimitz is that steamships don't run on steam, they just use steam, created by burning wood, coal, oil, or uranium; converted to mechanical movement by pistons or turbines; and put into water by paddles or screws.

[Tall_Walt]

BTW, with regard to the American Civil War, the trouble with using it as a benchmark is that it was not a trans-oceanic war. I believe most ironclads and monitors were used on the Mississippi and its tributaries, and if not there, up and down the coast. That's a very different environment from open ocean, especially the North Atlantic. Remember "The Perfect Storm"?

The problem is that an early oceangoing ironclad like HMS Warrior is going to look just like a sailing ship because steam endurance wasn't enough for long deployments where you had to cross, fight, and return. Indeed, it's warships more than transports that had trouble with the transition, since transports just had to do a one way passage before refueling.
http://www.hmswarrior.org/

So it's actually the ironclad (of the type shown in Civ) that's not oceangoing.

[Tall_Walt]

Originally posted by La Diva


The Explor/Recon Aura is intriguing, but it would depend on how fast it spread and whether any research or City Imp would speed it up.

.. The biggest problem with this concept is discovering goody huts in the unveiling but having no unit in the vicinity to take advantage of them. ...

Actually, given the more active barbarians starting in Civ3, it could get interesting. Suppose you see the hut, but as you're doing other things, the hut evolves and expands, perhaps even becoming a computer player?


More, though, I wanted to expand on the aura bit. The Civ 3 culture aura seems a strange idea. I find it odd that culture in the first thing that occurred to them.

Transportation range is an important concept in looking at history. The Roman or British empires were able to stay so big because of effective transportation of goods and troops. Civ3 has a city radius expand from 9 tiles to 21 tiles based on culture. I think it ought to expand when horses are domesticated and keep on expanding throughout the game because of technological developments: horses, the wheel, Roman roads, stage coaches, trolleys, cars. A new city in late game wouldn't start full size, but it would expand pretty quickly as the workers installed the infrastruction. Cities would engulf each other, and the player would decide which one(s) to keep and which would get folded into metropolises. This would keep the number of cities you need to manage pretty constant through the game.

Another important concept is communication range., which early on is pretty equivalent to transportation range, though smoke signals, signal fires, and heliographs (reflecting sun off a mirror) are early exceptions. If we assume every civilization is going to have traders, travellers, hunters, and various other people wandering away from their cities, then a ruler will hear what's going on around his empire. He could also fund rangers, who originally were, well, out on the range, the outer range of know territory.

I think it's important, if only for computational and display reasons, to get away from representing amorphous operations as distinct units. This has aways been done by Civ in cities: you buy temples, not priests; marketplaces, not merchants. Civ3 represents culture this way: you don't have individual bards or bands wandering the map spreading culture. Similarly, the cloud of explorers surrounding a civilization shouldn't be represented as one unit that can only be in one place, but as a gradual lifting of the fog. (And possibly as a contraction of the fog if you don't keep it funded.)

The same applies to city development and workers.

[Tall_Walt]

Originally posted by La Diva


.. I'm prejudiced here, I admit it, because I use this feature aggressively. In most games, I'll get 6-12 free tech advances, plus units, tons of cash, and the occasional settler or city.

.. Any brainstorming to keep the same advantages with less work would be fine with me.

Well, you wouldn't just want the tech, units, and cash to appear at random, I expect.

... over 7200 exploration moves to see the whole board.

That's why I use MANY exploring units and favor having faster ships (higher MP).

If you're doing exploration manually, the number of units and their MP doesn't matter because you're still pressing a key for each move.

If you're exploring automatically, it still matters because the screen shows each unit making each move.

One solution is to show exploration only in very low detail on the world map, unless something significant is found, a hut, a resource, an enemy.

Maybe I should check out MOO2 and see what you mean. Spending days on a single C3 game does wear thin. My only foray away from straight Civ was ToT, which apparently hasn't stood the Test of Time since it doesn't have its own forum.

You may not like it because exploration is rather high level: you don't find things smaller than planets. However, it has some excellent ways to manage things "off screen" without units.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by La Diva
I disagree. Explorers can't attack and have no defense points - nothing military about them in this game.

A/D has nothing to do with whether or not it's a "military" unit. They server a primarily military purpose - scouting enemy territory, and pillaging tile improvements. Even simple exploration is partly military.

Maybe your explorers pillage (what a harsh term if you mean raiding goody huts),

No, I mean tile improvements.

but I think the original intent is the way I use them, to dispel the Black Fog.

Sure, I can see that, except that by the time you get explorers there IS no black fog. Hence, they are a MILITARY unit (by their stats, not by the intent of the designers).

And maybe your world is very explored by the time you get explorers, but mine never is.

What are you playing, 360x360 60% water with 2 civs?

Well, it seemed like a fun idea at the time.

"Fun ideas at the time" can very easily kill a game. Look at CtP - full of fun ideas, but in the end, crap because the "fun ideas" simply don't function in a civ-type game.

I'm not the only one to suggest the unit, just the first to flesh out some of its characteristics.

That the unit has been suggested before does not make it a better idea.

As long as we're dreaming of brave new worlds, why not dream big?

See above re: fun ideas.

I've mentioned some units that have no real interest to me, just for the sake of expanding the box -

:vomit: @ future tech

- units like those.

The prosecution rests, your honor.

pq[Have I missed something? Spies "exist" via the Espionage screen, but I haven't seen any double agent betrayals going on, AFAK. I just thought the risk would add another layer of intrigue for those who like that sort of thing.[/q]

If you're talking about a unit on the ground, that's what I was responding to. Creating a "double agent" is the sort of thing that happens behind the scenes in the espionage screen - unless you want to completely remake the espionage system to be a major, player-involved part of the game, it's out of place.

Clicking or keying an infinite-range unit all the way across the globe sounds less simple for the human player than asking for a report about a certain civ. I guess this all depends on whether you're thinking about micromanaging the play or programming the game.

I don't think you understand what I mean by "infinite range" - I mean it can do the recon mission into any tile on the map, not that it has infinite move points.

.. What's visible to my eye on that map differs from what the spy satellite would be able to detect - the only way I can look inside a foreign city now is to pay for espionage, which may or may not yield anything of value. The satellite would handle it without the additional cost.

Put it in as part of the recon mission. A plane can see anything a satellite can.

Maybe if you play all the time, you can remember which units defend more effectively against mounted units, for example, but I'd flunk the test. You start adding dozens more units with unique-to-civ names, and you'll have a lot more players complaining than just me.

No units defend more effectively against mounted units, it's simple A/D values. You can find those out by right-clicking on a unit. And in fact, I don't play "all the time" - I don't play often at all. Each UU has generally a bonus point to one stat. It's not complicated.

The Ironclad can't carry units. We need a steam transport with increased capacity and MP, midway between Galleon and Transport.

You didn't say that before, IIRC.

Cute, but not the same.

Actually, it is. The Airport is modelling at the city-improvement level of transport planes.

[DarkCloud]

great work lajzar!

[La Diva]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
What are you playing, 360x360 60% water with 2 civs?

Nope, I haven't used anything but the largest map size for at least three years, in either Civ2 or C3, and my landmass is usually the middle choice, so I don't get as many continental neighbors but don't get stuck settling a floating postage stamp.
.. My fewest civ count was 6; my largest, I think, 9 - with that many, I have less room for expansion without wiping out civs, which I abhor. I won one game by total annihilation, and it depressed me for a week. Yeah, it's just a game, but it felt like I'd wiped out whole species instead of fictional nations.

That the unit has been suggested before does not make it a better idea.

You're entitled to your opinion, as am I.

"double agent" ... behind the scenes in the espionage screen - unless you want to completely remake the espionage system to be a major, player-involved part of the game, it's out of place.

A little intrigue can go a long way to breathe new life into what might otherwise be a hackneyed reincarnation of C3.

I don't think you understand what I mean by "infinite range" - I mean it can do the recon mission into any tile on the map, not that it has infinite move points. ... A plane can see anything a satellite can.

If I understand your explanation, your way is still player-intensive. I don't want to click a single tile as the target recon for a single plane. I'm suggesting a pre-digested report with most/all of what's going on, rather than having to manually "case the joint." That shouldn't be too hard to AI to handle.
.. My other point about the Spy Satellite is that it would include observation abilities that the current planes don't have, to detect City Imps under construction and to observe troop movements that are now fogged out. A recon plane showing data after AI's move would mean I would have to have made the same recon mission on the previous move and remembered what was on each square at that time - I'd rather get the condensed report, thank you, to leave it to my "subordinates" who hand me the important information.

No units defend more effectively against mounted units, it's simple A/D values.

Maybe it is only A/D, but according to Civ'pedia, the Pikeman "is an excellent defender, especially against mounted units." I thought I remembered the manual going into more detail in that regard, but that book is incognito at the moment, so I can't confirm.

The Airport is modelling at the city-improvement level of transport planes.

However, the Airport can transport only one unit per turn, not at all like a ship. Not only that, but you must have an Airport at both termini, which means your significant cost doubles before you can even use the Improvement; plus, you can't Airlift eight tanks and mechanized infantry into enemy territory in a single turn. No, not the same at all, sir.

[La Diva]

Note: At the risk of triggering another wave of "turn workers into AI processes" replies, I'm posting additional thoughts about improving the Worker unit, assuming Firaxis keeps it. I've heard the complaints, so save your strength for more important rebuttals, okay?


Workers should attain Veteran status (not just tech advance upgrades). After completing 10 of the same kind of project (build road / irrigate / mine) they become experts and can finish the work in 1/3 less time.
.. This ties in with other posters who want Specialists. This way, the unit specializes In the Field rather than being produced on the City Screen with a special intent.
.. Any Specialist, then, who is assigned to a different kind of work (miner sent to build roads) will revert to the completion length of new workers, and might even take longer since they’d have an Attitude about doing another kind of work.
.. After a University is built in a city, any worker produced can become a Specialist immediately (finished a degree in that field), though it makes sense to still have some experience factor needed to reach optimum speed (3 projects instead of 10).
.. Multiple specialties should also be possible, so that a worker could be faster in roads, railroads, and pollution, e.g., or specialize in foresting and jungle reclamation.


I really miss Civ2's advanced engineers being able to enter an unimproved tile and start to work in the same turn. Using 30 or more engineers to build several tiles of roads and railroads in a single turn was stellar. It let me move my troops to defend an unconnected new city on a moment's notice.


Worker Specialists versus CityRadius Specialists:
In a crunch, pulling a citizen off a city tile to become a specialist is fine, but if you need him for more than a few turns to fix the problem, spend the shields to build a new Worker and assign him that task. Any city map citizen reassigned to specialize for more than, say, 10 turns will become unhappy, working at a job s/he doesn't like, and your problems worsen. You can also import a worker from another location to become that specialist for that city, showing as a garrisoned unit with no other work assigned (Rt-Click shows the special task), thus returning your citizen to CRadius employment. If that imported worker is a native of another city, benefits decrease by 20% for the first 10 turns, until s/he becomes familiar with the new city. (Captured workers aren't smart choices - see below). This means either keep your workers close to home or provide an Advisor chart with more census information available (number of workers produced and still living, current location and project, and turns to complete task, Age (what year unit created) which might affect experience/efficiency, number of units captured and by whom, number of units you've captured and from whom, etc.)


Foreign workers captured: needs some help, too. We should be able to "send them to school," let them reside without assigning other tasks, for a specified number of turns in order to acclimate them to our culture. After that time, their work efficiency would improve by 50% over capture level. Another phase of graduate school turns would raise them to native worker level of output (might also mean they had accepted their lot and had become citizens). However, another war with their civ or with civs predominantly of their religion might decrease that efficiency level again, or by chance even sway them to become spies/terrorists. Your Advisor would have a 50-75% chance of keeping tabs on their movements (to sneak into cities and spy or carry out terrorist attack, to bribe military units, etc.), depending on the size, government, and happy/culture factors currently in place.


I would LOVE to stop micro-managing my game, but every time I've turned my workers loose, they've started irrigating everything in sight! I need to be able to tell AI how I want my city squares developed (focus first on shield production, then science/trade, while keeping only one or two extra wheat sheafs per turn whenever possible) and then simply review the work every few turns. Or tell them to make a road or railroad between two cities and let them have at it. That would make for a much less cumbersome, more quickly played game.

lajzar: ... if minutemen were more or less advanced than riflemen?

You, and/or Firaxis, may want to check out a site like: http://www.historylives.com/citizensoldiers.htm for more information along this armament evolution.

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Comments on other quotes:

"Military units created in cities with foreign citizens might become of foreign nationality, and might not be as patriotic."
- This has merit and has parallel examples here on earth.

"... maybe the inca units travel along mountains as if they were grasslands."
- If that's put into place, then other specific-terrain civs would have similar advantages. But do we want to get that detailed? If that would be true, then units could die of thirst crossing the deserts, or die of cold in the tundra, not just by sailing too far from shore in a galley.
.. Certainly if this is put into Civ IV, the effects will fade as technology improves.

"... the navy is where the time being out of synch really rears its head (and could stand to be tinkered with)!"
- I agree! It seems that with every ship advancement (galley to caravel to galleon, etc.) at least one additional movement point should be added, until say 7 is reached (not counting Wonder bonuses) - there are some speed limitations, after all, and oceans are meant to take time to cross.

[La Diva]

Other unit-related issues:

Here's a pet peeve no one has mentioned: A worker has spent 14 turns of the 18 required to build a mountain road. I need him for an emergency. I should be able to send him back and resume project without starting from scratch. Yes, manhours should be lost, but keep it more realistic, like 50% at most. Even clearing a jungle, which starts to grow back while the worker is elsewhere, shouldn't lose all the effort put into it to date unless the worker doesn't return promptly. One turn's work is lost every two turns the incomplete project is left unattended, plus 25-33% loss of the remainder. Example: worker returns to work on the 14-turn mountain road after 6 turns. 14 - 6/2 = 11, minus 3 (25%, always rounded up) equals 8 turns completed, 10 to go to complete the road.


sending armament and/or military advisors to another civ to help them - that might then affect their enemy's desire to declare war on us, if they found out.


marcthornton, thread 104088:
"... select multiple workers or military personnel ..."
- yes, use the standard Ctl-Click method to select units in different locations (with ability to reposition map between selection clicks, probably with edge-of-screen scrolling or minimap clicking), then give a single order, including GoTo whatever tile (not necessarily a city).


alva, thread 104285
"The one negative from this is of course worker management ... Any ideas on how to solve this?"
- Why can't we stack worker orders like we stack City Production orders? Either a button or a menu feature to click a tile (GoTo), click an Order, click another tile, click an Order - you get the idea - then click the button/feature again to Implement, which would get the unit started and move focus to the next unit. - You still micromanage, but less often per unit.


bisonbison, quoted in lajzar's first post, this thread
Exclusive First-Discovery claim to units
- Not at all logical, since once the unit is observed and/or captured, any other civ can imitate it, and has done so, given enough time - just look at how many countries know how to make nuclear weapons now.


Tall_Walt, thread 118880
"... age of sail ... infantry fights in a boarding action. The winner gets both ships."
- I like that, much better than one ship getting sunk with all units on board.


"... maybe the inca units travel along mountains as if they were grasslands."
- If that's put into place, then other specific-terrain civs would have similar advantages. But do we want to get that detailed? If that would be true, then units could die of thirst crossing the deserts, or die of cold in the tundra, not just by sailing too far from shore in a galley.
.. If this becomes a part of Civ4, these MP bonuses must fade as technology improves.