{The List-} Movement, supply, etc.

[Max Sinister]

Originally posted by Straybow
How does the player keep track of the capacity used?

He wouldn't have to, the computer would. Maybe you could put an overlay on the roads, rails and so on: Green means "still lots of capacity free", red means "no more capacity left, try elsewhere".

[lajzar]

I don't want overlays. I want to look at the world, not some VR simulation of the world. Granted, that is exactly what teh game is, but games (and novels) succeed based on the idea of suspension of disbelief - the game has to convince you that you really are in there, and an extra overlay just breaks the suspension of disbelief.

[Straybow]

Hmmm, I don't know anyone who's ever been convinced they're "really in" a turn-based strategy game... I would recommend some kind of counselling or antipsychotics for anyone who did feel that way.

[Mark_Everson]

Civ4 Supply Idea

Here's a quickie supply-based idea that could help with the problem of civilizations being able to project power ridiculous distances, even in early times. I skimmed the list, and didn't find anything similar. My apologies if it's already in there somewhere...

I would like to see units pay upkeep costs that depend on the difficulty of supplying them. A supply line could be traced to any friendly city. Supply lines can go on land through neutral and friendly countries, and also by water. For land units, normal land movement points could be used to figure out the "movement point length" of the path. The water path cost would generally be smaller, and would depend on naval technology.

Normal supply cost would cover up to something like three movement points, so generally any place with in your civilization there would be no added costs. For every five movement points (actual value TBD) beyond the base cost, it would cost an extra gold to support the unit. Conquered cities could be used for supply, but not in the turn they are conquered.

Using this approach, distant invasions would present significant costs to the player. The exact game mechanism for the player to determine how much to supply their army without inducing much micromanagement would need to be determined.

I was actually reading this list item because we're working on military supply issues for Clash of Civilizations right now. If anyone is interested in contributing to our discussions. please check out the Army Supply and Supply Lines thread on the Clash forum.

-Mark

[#endgame]

What about making railroads unlimited movement, but requiring you to build transports of varying capacity, that could load/unload units at cities? Sorry if it's been posted before.

[Spiffor]

A simple idea about sea exploration and sea movement

I think one of the main reasons why sea units are so slow in Civ, is because sea exploration would be incredibly fast otherwise. The Civs would know all coastlines very quickly, thus demeaning the fun of progressively discovering the map.

In turn, however, once theseas are explored, the ships are extreeeeeeemely slow, and planning a naval invasion is quite boring.

To keep a slow and progressive sea exploration, while quickening sea movement afterwards, here's what I suggest:

1. have a random chance that the exploring unit loses hitpoints for each square it discovers. This random chance acts like the trireme's random chance of sinking in the ocean, but it is less drastic. Also, a damaged ship can go back to the harbor for repairs without risk, because that random damage won't happen on the already explored way home.

or

2. Reduce the remaining moves by the amount of discovered tiles. For example, if a 5-move trireme moves once, and uncovers 3 tiles, it won't have 4 remaining moves, but only one.

[Trifna]

Spiffor, I think that a great deal of what made exploration harder in real life can be reproduced here.


What is to be reproduced, which slows exploration in reality:
- Damage
- Cost
- Ideologies (we need nothing else, there is nothing outside, there are monsters outside...)
- Unprecise map making and information gathering
- Natural frontiers


Only after can we try to remodel this in a game. So let's try to see how we can incorporate those:
1- Damage. But this has some limits: it is not every single explorator that got his ship sunk! But most unappropriate ship may get into trouble. Of course, let's not forget that from Magellan's bunch a ships and men, very little comes back...... very VERY little. He didn't have modern ships at hand.
2- Cost. BIG costs if we consider all what Christobal Colon got to do to get the funds. This may already be represented in great part in Civ.
3- Ideologies. Well... I don't know in detail but a great deal is seen in how technology is not researched as incredibly fast in the 20-21th centuries.

But even more:
4- You explore? Well... kinda. You don't just get "the map". You get something approximate. This time you see this? Next time... you see that. Finding the Mississipi river? Big big fun... The map should be treacherous to really show how it was: the player would get a different picture each time, but always more precise. Optionally, this part could be pictured with an "old map" graphic with monsters or something.
5- Natural frontiers. Now we're talking. Go ahead: explore Antarctica, pass through a jungle, find the source of the Nile/Amazon or try exploring the desert... and succeed in actually coming back. This really is a limit. And it was a serious limit also when it was time to pass over the Atlantic or do as Magellan: even if they DID come back, it took more time than any had expected. Territory matters: complete areas with a given tile type (ocean, desert, mountains, jungle...), units that can't pass so easily in harsh terrain, a difference between "armed units" and "explorer units".

[wrylachlan]

I think the ship movement problem is actually 2 seperate problems.

1)Early game ships are too slow since if you made them faster exploration would be too easy.

2)Late game ship movement is too slow since it would make naval landings too easy.
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I think Trifna hit it on the head in terms of: in the early game if ships moved faster, exploration would be much too easy. And I also agree that the reason it would be too easy is that the civ exploration model in general makes it too easy to get precise information. I mean how much can you tell about the lay of the land from the water? In Civ you can tell whether there are hordes of horses just by sailing by...

I think a couple of mechanisms could help this:
a )Making water travel more dangerous. But not dangerous in a random manner. Rather allow certain tiles of water to be more dangerous than others, and part of exploring is figuring out which those are. So you sail into what you think is clear water and your boat grounds out on a reef. Now that you've "discovered" the reef, it will appear on the map and you can sail around it. I think this is better than a random hp loss, since the player can feel he is in control more, and even the act of losing a ship is progress in that you now know something you didn't before.

b)Make sailing less precise through winds and currents. So when you try to sail due west there is a chance you are blown off course by a bit and instead go NW or SW. The key is again to make the act of getting blown off course part of exploring. So If you are blown slightly N a few times, you start to realize that there is a consistent N wind there and it appears on the map. And you could deal with something like the Gulf Stream exactly the same way.

c)Make mapmaking less of an exact science overall. This is piggybacking on an earlier idea I posted but I can't seem to find it... When an explorer is in sight of an area, you "see" it, the same way you currently "see" tiles in Civ3. But when an explorer leaves an area, instead of having the tile in shadow as it is now, have the map become stylistic, like an old-fashioned map, AND imprecise. Additionally, make some things more difficult to discover than others. Obviously an explorer will know if he walks over a plains covered in horses, but you shouldn't know where the gold in the hills is, or gems, etc. To find that out you need to establish a city somewhere nearby, and then some enterprising citizen will go out and dig.
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The late age problem is very different and has to do with the relative movement speed of ships versus rail. Its wierd that it takes significantly longer to travel by water than it does by land, but this is essentially another aspect of the rail travel problem, and I hope can be fixed simply by fixing the rail system.

[Spiffor]

Actually, for late-game purposes, I have also suggested an idea: link

[Straybow]

Winds and currents are too much to model in a game that isn't intended as an age of sail simulation.

However, the idea of generalized movement rates and intrinsic dangers as part of the map and supply model would be good.

[ThePlagueRat]

Ok, more dangerous seas sounds fun! Then I suggest different HP-damage rather than just sinking them all together. Furthermore, ships in general should have more HP than land units. Make them like they do in the ww2 user made scenarios. Ships and tank units have double the HP than foot units.

So, my idea is that when they take 4 out of 8 hits, they have to move half speed and they start sinking at the last HP left, but then you can rescue it by using another naval unit's attack-turn for rescue mission healing that last HP... stabilizing like in D&D