{The List-} Movement, supply, etc.

[shuttleswo]

My $.02 Firaxis tends to design the general game concepts simply so as to make things accessible to casual gamers (not the type of people who would come here) the fact of the matter is that any 'supply line' or range limitation movements would be too complicated. It could be argued that the excessive complications in the CTP series kept it from being a commercial success.

That said I'm personally in favor of a Civ2 chopper-esque idea for limiting movement, rapid expansion and exploration. I've seen elements of this in other threads and in this one as well, but specifically I think that if you keep it simple it’s more likely to work. Simply put the longer a unit is away from it’s territory, or not in a foreign territory with a ROP agreement, the unit slowly looses HP each turn at some rate until it gets to 1 (or possibly dies) This seems easy to implement and easy to understand and - I think the AI could handle that pretty well, as it currently does know enough to withdraw units when HP gets too low (which currently only comes from battle damage).
I would further suggest though that a better method than supply lines, or supply units or other complex concepts (neither of which I think the AI, barring MAJOR improvement could handle effectively) would be the old pillage button. When in enemy territory just pillage an improved tile and fill your HP back up. Just like Sherman & Hannibal did!
It could be either just the pillaging unit getting the benefits, or all the units on that square, or a certain improvement yields different amounts of HP that can be divided between units (roads being the least, farms the most value - RR & mines somewhere in-between) I imagine that play testing would need to be done to determine how powerful to make that feature.

As for naval units, add the ability to attack (or raid) improved costal squares to refresh HP, and have increasing range (slower hp loss) with tech, with nuclear powered units eventually having unlimited range (e.g. no HP loss) I can already imagine a Viking UU that's special feature would be a very high success rate of pillaging costal squares. This would cause the map to be more slowly revealed to players as advances in naval technology would actually allow units to go farther from home, rather than simply getting there faster.

These features are easy to understand and use; and reflect reality in a good way (for those who like reality in the game) It also could make ROP agreements really interesting as your units could move thru that territory without HP penalties.

This would also keep very early exploration early on in check and keep extremely early warmongering to a minimum.

It even can figure into the AI difficulty level, as the AI could suffer from the effects of being 'abroad' more slowly on higher difficulty levels.

I apologize for plagiarizing or repeating any ideas (particularly The_Aussie_Lurker’s whose ideas this is based on)

[MrBaggins]

[SIZE=1] Originally posted by wrylachlan

[SNIP]

Since you seem to know a whole lot about this, can you explain it for me. It would seem to me that threat matrixes are inherently imprecise and would not require the precision that integral calculations give you. Also it would seem to me that matrix transformations are one of the things that vector units do exceptionally well. I'm totally willing to admit I'm out of my depth on this issue, so feel free to throw down some links so I can read up.

They aren't the matrix calculations you're thinking of... not x.y coordinate ones... just a synonym for matrix as in a 2d grid.

A clear explanation of Influence Maps is here

Influence maps get very computationally expensive in Civ... they scale badly. Since you have differening stats for strength, determining a common value for influence is tough. You might use independent values for melee, ranged and bombard, for example.

Since its always more computationally expensive to perform an floating point (SSE, Altivec) calculation than an integer calculation, you always design your system to use integers, particularly since integers work just fine for the application.

Yes, but If I'm sitting on a RR between 2 mountains then I can assume that I can't be flanked. I run that calculation once and then I can ignore the flanking consideration of any unit on the RR. This doesn't work if the mountains are covered in RR. So yes, making sure that every tile does not have RR does cut down the decision space.

Influence maps typically spread in a blind fashion. Checking whether a particular tile was a particular terrain to ignore them for the flanking algorithm every turn would probably be as costly either way.

I'm willing to argue your other points on their merits, but this is a total red herring. The code to add an upkeep cost to RR is trivial.The code to give a city a bonus based on the number of attached cities is also trivial.

The processor overhead is still massive... I personally agree with the RR argument... but you still have to measure the distance of every unit to every other unit, to determine if they can "reach" them.

It deserves consideration because I don't really love the CTP stack system. If that wasn't obvious you've been sleeping. As to why it deserves "limitations" I think you're mistaking my motives. I don't want the RR limits to make the flanking idea work. I want the RR limits because I think its the right direction to take civ. It just happens to also make the AI for the flanking idea easier.

I also want to rebalance the number of units for its own sake. That it happens to play into our current discussion of flanking is an ancillary benefit.

Thats fine... It's still unimplementable from a processor time standpoint.

[Kuciwalker]

The number of river squares is and has always been, managable... you only need to apply (slightly) different heuristic rules when you are adjacent to the river, thus limiting their effect on the decision space massively. This doesn't indicate an understanding of 'front lines' or attack directions, as you say. Merely a limited difference in ruleset, in a limited situation.

Yes, but the code to determine the defensive value of a tile that borders a river is predicated on what direction the attack comes from. Therefore the AI must make some sort of calculation of where the attack is likely to come from.

I still have my doubts that the AI in C3 pays any attention to rivers...

[shanorb]

Idea for Aerial Combat/Movement

I originally placed this in another thread I started, but I wanted to make sure it's on The List before it gets lost amongst all the other threads, so here goes:

Some of the changes described below would require a change to the engine. For Civ4, now's a perfect time to make engine suggestions. Others would be more flags that would be set for certain units. The most radical suggestion is to allow air and land units of different countries occupy the same space at the same time.


- Bombers and fighters have 2 turns to attack and return to base. Fighters would have fewer moves/turn than the bombers. This way we could have fighter escorts -- all the way there and back for short missions, partial distance for longer ones.

- Add the following flags that can be enabled/disabled for all units: Can Attack Air Units, Lethal bombardment of Air Units.

- Allow planes to overfly ground/sea units. When moving manually with the arrow keys, when an opponent is encountered, give the option to attack or fly over. When using the Goto command, automatically fly over any opponent units encountered. Ground units that can attack air units(and therefore see them) also have the option of attacking or moving under.

- If a unit has the Can Attack Air Units Flag enabled, then it can hit enemy planes. Otherwise, they are invisible. A unit unable to attack can sit on the same square as a plane and not know it.

- If at war, units with the Can Attack Air Units and Zone of Control flags can fire on enemy planes as they pass over or on adjacent squares. Example: A fleet of bombers heading into enemy territory would be fired on by Flak Units they pass over or near. This is analogous to how it works now w/ ground units. Enable the Lethal Bombardment of Air Units Flag, and you could lose some or all of your bombers before they reach the target. Even after they drop their bombs, it's a long trip home through the same gauntlet.

- Bombers can't attack other air units, UNLESS, they are other bombers on the ground in a city or airbase. Grounded fighters at the bases would get airborn to fight the bombers. The older bombers w/ gun turrents would have a stronger defense than the newer bombers without armament. Stealth planes would have a higher defense due to their stealth.

- Bombers can attack only once before returning to base and refueling, regardless of whether they attack on the first or second turns, because they theoretically drop all their bombs at the target site. Fighters would have the blitz flag on and can attack as long as they can stay in the air.

I do like how missiles are handled in Civ3. Another flag, say....Missile?? that would negate the above rules for the unit.

A previous point was made about railroads enabling ground units to outdistance air units. This could be fixed by changing the movement cost of railroads. 1/5 or 1/8 seems about right...

[POTUS]

A B-52 has enough defensive weapons it can carry that I wouldn't go close to it. 50 Stingers, up to 8 Sidewinders, up to 4 AMRAAMs. Whole lot of weapons.

[khai]

Ocean movement

The ocean is a dynamic enviroment.
I think that it would be a good idea to implemnt those things to ocean tiles:

- ocean currents; they play a great role in a nowadays shipping, you can go from USA to Europe 2 days shorter than the other way (thanks to the Gulf Stream), each tile should have a bonus or a penalty to movement.

- storms and meteorological anomalieties; there are some places in the world where it is extremly dangerous to sail (take in mind Cape Horn in a unpleasant weather), so tiles should have a different look and a bonus or penalty...

- Corriolis force (if I got that right); the general wind direction on a equatir is west -> so have that in mind while sailing your great fleets, you go west -> you get a bonus!

- ice, ice bergs, ice packs; it would not only give colour to this dull blue tile but also some strategic meaning of transportation, you can't go so fast in ice packs, in area of ice bergs you can damage your ship.


- another thing; my idea is that not all coast line should be defended becouse you can't land your forces on an unpleasent coast, like cliff coast. So there should be a difference in coast types and a factor how good it is for landing your troops, it could be then translated to time required to land or a defensive penalty.

These are just some thoughts , you are welcome to make them better. Pls. tell me what you think of it.

ALL HANDS ON DECK!!!

[Kuciwalker]

All that stuff would be really cool, but I don't know how the AI would handle it.

However, of all of these, I think the best (and easiest to implement) is this:

- ice, ice bergs, ice packs; it would not only give colour to this dull blue tile but also some strategic meaning of transportation, you can't go so fast in ice packs, in area of ice bergs you can damage your ship.

The easiest way to do this is simply make a fourth type of water tile (dunno what to call it). Ships have a VERY high chance of sinking in it, it has a high move cost, and it never loses the chance of sinking. Oh, and you are never able to trade through it. Think of this on the world map - it would no longer be trivial to get to America in the Ancient Era by means of Greenland.

[Bleyn]

A small comment on the inflation in the number of units in Civ with newer versions. Lets keep in mind here that the total number of units that could be produced in the original Civ was low. It was very low. It was so low that it was not that hard to run into the hardcoded limit regularly. There was a reason for it, and it had primarily to do with the capacities of computers when Civ was coded. In many respects you could say that it was artificially low.

With Civ2 the capacities of computers had increased, and the unit limit was raised. But I think one could still run into that limit in a long world conquering game. With Civ3, again better computers, higher unit limit. And honestly, have any of you ever played a game of Civ3 where you hit that limit without intentionally trying to do so? I seriously doubt more than one or two have. I haven't.

Personally, I seriously doubt that any real inflation ever occured. I think it still takes about the same amount of time to produce equivelent units. Rather the artificial limits of computer limitations has disappeared. I do not think we will see any real difference in unit numbers between Civ3 and Civ4. Because even if they do increase the number of units that can exist in the game at one time, a different and more 'natural' set of limits have taken over. Those are limitations of city production capacity, and the ability of humans and AIs to maximize their productive capacity. And those are the limits that should be there.

The only ways I can see of cutting the number of units in the game as drastically as has been suggested would be to significantly decrease the productive capacity of cities, or massively increasing the production cost of units. And either of those solutions would effectively just slow down how fast units can be produced. And there are two big problems with that. A lot of hardcore players won't be happy with seeing things slowed down that much, especially if they are the sorts that know aproximately how long it should take to produce certain things historically. And casual gamers probably won't like it if it made the game less fun.

And fun should be what its all about.

[POTUS]

The only time I have was a scen, forgot which one. By then, my turns took a few hourss if I went quickly.

[wrylachlan]

I disagree that it would slow down the game. Having fewer units would actually speed the game up as you wouldn't have to wait as long for the units to move. How much of your turn (in the end game) is spent doing fast exciting movement? Not very much. Most of it is tedious movement of lots of units. If there were fewer units, each of which was more powerful, not only would your turn go quicker, but each unit would be more fun to play with as you invest more in units when you have fewer of them.

As for the question of producing units slowing down the game - there are two ways to achieve unit numbers balance:
1) Unit shield cost
2) Unit upkeep cost

If you want to keep units building at the same speed, just jack up their upkeep cost.

The bottom line for me is that its a balance decision. You look at the size of the world and you can determine roughly how big the world economy will be after a certain number of turns (I'm sure firaxis has stats on this). Then you set the cost and upkeep on units based on that.

[ThePlagueRat]

Originally posted by wrylachlan
How about just giving ranged units a much lower attack value but giving every ranged unit in a tile a "free shot" every time a melee unit attacks or defends? Or alternatively give them a bonus to a certain number of melee unit's attack. For instance, every archer can give its bonus to the first 2 melee attacks per turn. Rifleman to the first 3, etc. etc.

Yup... Sounds better than the Civ3 system at least. A little bit similar to CTP. As far as I know the ranged units in CTP could shoot as many times as they wanted per round, as long as a melee unit was in front of it. That could make them a bit overpowered, and on the other hand, only one "free shot" per unit is kinda silly.

[DarkSlayer]

First let me bring up a new thought...

Roads and railroads:
The creation of roads is fine, gives a small movement bonus and thats it. But roading the entire map is just silly.

Then you could upgrade the road, which will demand upkeep per tile, and boost movement, and some other stuff... But you wouldn't road like maniac over your entire map.

Railroad could be like connecting cities only, then you can only transport between stations...which you only find in the cities, and can be built on the track only ... you don't railroad your entire map, then you could use 1 turn to load on/off trains.

But to the resent discussion...

Flanking stuff:
1 tile is like a insane large square in real world, and civ has never been about moving troops in formation like in "Medieval - Total War" ... so give it up.
Ambush on the other hand... that can be discussed.
Defending a hill is still defending a hill, forest is for hiding, and swamp is like hell.
Flanking becomes to detailed in civ, unless you create an "Civ - Total War" type game.

Supply lines:
Could be interesting, but I fear it will become to complicated. The discussion so far, is complicating and alienating civ as a game.

Moving units/ naval movement:
Creating a navy is far more difficult than creating an army. The navy should have admiral leaders to group ships, and give them an option called "recon" - push recon, and they check a large area around them. Maybe also patrol, you define a line/area, and any enemy ships get a supprise... need maybe more discussion...
But navy as a concept need a change, remember... Greece had a large navy in ancient times, and had large battles with Persia I think, Rome also had large and many sophisticated ships. civ doesn't reflect this I feal. It is difficult to get an army/navy-size and power that is historically worthy...

cutting the number of units:
Somebody made a reference to civ1 and the number of units you could have, it was maybe a low number, but still alot of units. I want rather functions that can administrate large number of units, gluing units into a stack, make 10 bombers bomb a target in one command ... "You 10 bombers - bomb that". Remember, I'm not talking about CTP stack ... just administrative functions in the game ... if you want to use them

Waiting and repetetive tasks is ruining the gameplay, get rid of it.

[Rasputin]

i agree that the non use of roads does show some of the abstract nee dfor supply, however , many times in wars one of the strategic targets is acquisition of the railways and highways for use of the attacking armies. so i think if the home civ dotn want to allow eneemys to use their roads they should have to pillage their own stuff to prevent it.

[Spiffor]

Regarding naval moves:

The main problem with granting too many moves to a boat is that Civ is a turn based game, i.e that you are a sitting duck as long as it's your enemy's turn.
As such, if you give 50 moves to a boat, it can basically move wherever it wants without anyone being able to stop it.

I'm not suggesting Civ becomes a RTS (yuck), but I think we could imagine faster navies, if we figure out a way to be reactive during the opponent's turn.

I think a system close to Civ3's air combat would be good in this regard. For example, you could order your ships to "patrol the coastline" or "patrol the area" (the size of the patrolled area depends on the ship's moves), and they'll attack any enemy ship entering the protected area.
Entering a protected coastline with ships would be similar to attacking a city on land: you send your attacking units on the protected coastline until there are no more defending ships or until you give up.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by wrylachlan
I disagree that it would slow down the game. Having fewer units would actually speed the game up as you wouldn't have to wait as long for the units to move. How much of your turn (in the end game) is spent doing fast exciting movement? Not very much. Most of it is tedious movement of lots of units. If there were fewer units, each of which was more powerful, not only would your turn go quicker, but each unit would be more fun to play with as you invest more in units when you have fewer of them.

If every unit was more powerful, would they have the same relative strength and thus be just as powerful?