{The List-} Movement, supply, etc.

[Torkkeli]

Now now...
Civ is not all about war...
But I like the idea of troops on enemy terrain costing more gold...

Naval movement/forces could need some remaking

Also do not forget that the hardcoded value for railroad movement must be removed. It would be optimal if it could be customized in the editor, say, from infinite to increasing with technologies (steam, electricity, maglev).

[hexagonian]

As much as I love the attrition factor in EU2, something like this would not work in civ4 if they keep the combat model as it is now (no unit limit cap, single unit combat resolution) because this would simply increase the number of needed units if you are attacking.

Rather than limit upkeep costs to just gold, you can also add food and/or shield cost to the equation - though this means that the entire economic system would probably have to be reworked (maybe multiply all tile resource factors by 5)

Originally posted by Torkkeli
Also do not forget that the hardcoded value for railroad movement must be removed. It would be optimal if it could be customized in the editor, say, from infinite to increasing with technologies (steam, electricity, maglev).

Infinite movement - Another one of those gameplay elements that need to be removed or made editable. Geez if Firaxis is so in love with this 'feature' they could make rail movement 1000 tiles - at least it would then be editable

[Sandman]

Regarding naval combat, I'd amalgamate sea squares into larger entities. So a sea square would consist of about nine land squares rolled into one. This would reduce the problem of ships appearing out of nowhere, and would make coasts more defendable.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Trifna
skywalker, I think that even if naval units move faster, there is ONE way to save naval combat:
exactly as Civ3 air combat was working with a radius, but you would defend some waters. This way, I think it is representative. But it certainly needs to be done better than air combat in Civ3.

No. Abstraction of air combat makes sense, because air units move above other things. Abstraction of naval combat doesn't make much sense and is... ugly. We might as well abstract ground combat as well.

[Kramerman]

i like controling my ships as they are. abstract naval movement is bad idea.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Stefu


I like this.

I want something done with the naval movement, too. skywalker's point is a good one, but there's an easy solution - instead of making the units move faster, give sea squares movement bonuses (like with roads and so). Perhaps higher movement bonuses to certain routes (for instance, in the Earth map, the currents Columbus used to get to America?)

I like that idea.

I think that, however fast sea units move, the oceans generated by the random map generator need to be wider than that. It should not be possible to land transports or get into bombarment range in the same turn you move out of port (unless you hold cities adjacent to each other on the same continent).

[Kramerman]

i disagree with you skywalker

if i have a port nearby an enemy city, perhaps across a gulf or something, i should be able to attack them that very same turn if i can get my ships and units within range. also, what if people generate large continent or island mass with small oceasn? then it would become even more easily accomplished to leave port and attack in the same round

[Kuciwalker]

As I mentioned, there are a few situations in which it makes sense. However, two seperate continents should not be placed so close together as to allow a naval strike in one turn, launching from a city. There needs to be a reasonable distance in order to allow interception.

[Kramerman]

why cant continents be so close together? is it not possible for a world to exist where continents are close enough together for that to happen? Continents should be as close or far as they are.

Perhaps a solution to your individual problem would be to allow a player to specify something about continetal drift when defining the paramters to a random map generater. such as wanting close, medium, or distant drift or something like that

[Sore Loser]

I'm not happy with the traditional supply system. In particular, it's boring that ships can go round the world without risks other than enemy ships. I think cities should be able to produce "supply" units that must be brought on long sea voyages, or the ship will take damage and ultimately sink.

As for interception, I don't think the solution isn't to create greater distances. Colonization had a decent offer on how to solve it, and I believe it could be used with good effect, with minor changes: If your ship is adjacent to another ship at some point during your turn and you then try to keep moving, there is a risk (depending on the armaments and maneuvrability of the ships involved) of having your ship halted, and exposed to the enemy's cannons next round.

[Kirastos]

Why don't we give ships some turns before they run out of supplies, like aircrafts, but not losing their battle potential till the end (like helicopters used to do in Civ 2). At the end, the crew would die, but the boat wouldn't sink, but stray according to the current (that means the development of new sea types of tiles and including sea currents). They could stray anywhere, sink if ever they reach dangerous zones, or reach coastlines and stay there. They could then be salvaged and recruid. Come to think of it, ships could be overtaken during combat (if it hasn't been damaged to much) with the supplies in it (that includes planes, bombs or missiles).

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Kramerman
why cant continents be so close together? is it not possible for a world to exist where continents are close enough together for that to happen? Continents should be as close or far as they are.

Perhaps a solution to your individual problem would be to allow a player to specify something about continetal drift when defining the paramters to a random map generater. such as wanting close, medium, or distant drift or something like that

Continents should, some times (though rarely), be that close toegether. However, note the rarely. In general, it is a bad idea, because it makes effective defense impossible.

[TheBirdMan]

Units could have two "life bars".
One showing the condition (health/damage) and one showing the units resources (fuel/ammo).

As for the condition bar:
When attacked the units condition/health should suffer.
The condition bar should decrease slowly if the unit is xxxx-tiles from a city/farm/camp etc of your own and increase/stay_in_top when inside.

As for the resource bar:
Each move and each shot (attack) deducts "one point" from the resource-bar. Then you are able to choose to move less and fire some more shot or move fast and then shot less.
When the resource bar hits zero, the unit can't move and the unit should loose one "condition point" every turn until it “dies” or is "visited" by a refueler (special unit). Refuelling should have a price say ??? (that should depend of the type of unit).

[wrylachlan]

I think a simple solution to this would be to have a chance that the terrain does damage to your units, and then a supply unit that nullifies that factor.

Every turn a ship is outside your waters, there is a percentage chance it looses a hp. That percentage chance is nullified by a supply ship. This only requires a slight change of code, and the addition of one unit.

You can use the exact same mechanism on land. When you're in enemy territory, there is a percentage chance each turn of loosing a hp. Having a "supply convoy" unit with you nullifies that chance.

Note that in the terrain forum, they're already talking about allowing some types of terrain to take hp from units, like deserts and swamps, so if they did that, the basic code to make this idea happen would already be in the game.

[Bleyn]

Originally posted by Sore Loser
As for interception, I don't think the solution isn't to create greater distances. Colonization had a decent offer on how to solve it, and I believe it could be used with good effect, with minor changes: If your ship is adjacent to another ship at some point during your turn and you then try to keep moving, there is a risk (depending on the armaments and maneuvrability of the ships involved) of having your ship halted, and exposed to the enemy's cannons next round.

I like this idea. Particularly if it was implemented so that the movement penelties started occurring as soon as you moved into the sight-range of the other vessel. Maybe just really small penelties for being two squares out from a say a battleship, with higher penelties for being next to them.

A patrol option could be added to ship commands, sort of like land fortify that would increase the penelties on enemy ships moving near by. Would represent the increased efforts of the patrolling ship(s) to find and stop enemy vessels.

Another potential bonus is in the diplomatic aspect. Being in a military alliance could negate these penelties for allied vessels.

What I really like though is its potential for making the sub and the carrier truely worthwhile in modern sea combat. Subs could move with impunity past ships like ironclads that can't possibly detect them. Nuclear subs could even be given a chance to sneak past ships that can detect them. Of course, subs wouldn't be able to slow down other ships. But a proper combination of subs and surface ships could be deadly. And I would argue for giving battleships and carriers at least a 1 square detection range on subs at some point in the tech tree to represent the fact that no modern self respecting navy with capital ships like those would ever move them anywhere without a proper escort of ASW combattants like destroyers and frigates.

And as for the carrier, it could have the potential for the longest sight-range/movement slowing area of any ship by extending the patrol concept to the planes on a carrier. So say a moving carrier with patrolling planes would get a 3 square sight-range. A patrolling carrier with patrolling planes might have a 4 square sight-range. This would be a very good way of helping to rectify one of the most glaring flaws in Civ3. The carrier is the King of modern naval combat in RL. But it is so weak in Civ3 that I almost never build them. And when I do, its usually as a way of moving planes to support a land invasion of an AI that has and is using air-power.