{The List} Terrain and terrain improvements

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by skywalker
How about give the penalty only to Wheeled units? I don't think it should apply on loading/unloading in a city, but that's me.

If you don't give the penalty to all units (with the exceptions noted above) then you loose the benefit of increased sea movement that the penalty allows. I do agree that wheeled units should be penalized more. And perhaps artillery units penalized even more than that.

And no, the penalty doesn't apply to cities, or colonies. That's kind of the whole point.

If they added in the ability to move through allied cities... the diplomatic game would get a boost, since it would be important to have allied cities to unload troops at in preparation for a war.

[DarkCloud]

Ideas from this site:

http://home.att.net/~civgames/ideas.html

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Volcanoes: Unable to build on them as mountains are now (but no roads or mining is allowed either)
-Jer8m8

Allow us to build cities, roads and mines on mountains! At least allow us to build them in the modern era.
-DarkCloud

The ability to right click on terrain and add text (from SMAC). This adds a great deal to the experience.
-jimmytrick

2. Improvements

-upgradable fortresses (maybe they can add defense AND act as a colony?)
-national flags (basically claim a square and eight surrounding squares, similar to colonies, but still count as within borders)
-bridges across one tile of ocean between landmasses
-canals (ship movement over land)
-Airbases
-cassembler

Missile Silos
-Drathx

-Farmland (Refrigiration)
-EnochF

[DarkCloud]

Let's finally have navigable rivers.

At least with smaller units like Triremes, etc.

Or if the computer takes Galleons, etc upstream then there should be a risk of 'beaching' much as there is a risk of being 'lost at sea' if triremes stray too far from land.

[DarkCloud]

Good work on the updating Nikolai, by the way

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Just wondering, do we post Resource ideas here, or is there another thread for that? I can't seem to find it if there is?

Thanks!

[Seeker]

I LOVE the idea of navigable rivers/canals!!

I loved making the panama and suez canals in Civ 2, it really gave you a feeling of accomplishment cutting the travel time in half, but it's so artficial to use cities as canals.

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by Seeker
I LOVE the idea of navigable rivers/canals!!

I loved making the panama and suez canals in Civ 2, it really gave you a feeling of accomplishment cutting the travel time in half, but it's so artficial to use cities as canals.

But the way navigable rivers in Civ2 worked, you loose the ability to assign a tactical advantage to defending across a river.

How to gain the navigation, and the Defense bonus:

Solution 1 - the shifting grid.
I've suggested this a couple of times, and gotten no response, so I think maybe it's too complicated. Basically the idea is that all water travel happens on a grid that is in between the land grids. Kind of like this:

LLLLLLLLL
L   L   L
L WWLWWWLWW
L W L W L W
LLWLLLWLL W
L W L W L W
L WWLWWWLWW
L W L W L W
LLWLLLWLL W
  W   W   W
  WWWWWWWWW

From the point of view of a water unit, a tile is the area with the w - border. From the point of view of a land unit, a tile is the area with the L - border. As far as a land unit is concerned, the river is between tiles, thus it can be used for a defensive bonus. From the water unit's point of view, the river is in the center of the tile, thus allowing navigation.

To get from one mode to the other, an amphibious unit (like an early scout) would "embark" on the river. This would cost a certain amount of movement points, as would disembarking. This cost would be offset by the significant movement bonus of moving on the river.

I have a much easier to understand .gif mockup of the proposal, but I don't have anywhere online to put it, and I can't seem to get the upload service to work for me (I think I'm behind a firewall at work). If someone would be willing to host it I'll email it to you.

Solution 2

Put the river back in the center of the tile allowing navigation.

Then say that the unit hasn't actually crossed the river untill it moves to the next tile - also taking the movement penalty, not on entering the tile, but on exiting. So if I enter a tile with a river, and get attacked I get the defensive bonus as if the river was between us.

If I walk along the river I still stay on "my side" untill I move out of the river tile, taking the movement penalty.

If Unit A attacks Unit B, along the length of the river, it depends if the units have taken their movement penalty whether the defensive bonus is applied. Thus if I come to a river on my side, then move along it's length, and my enemy comes to the river from the opposite side, then walks towards me along its length, we're still considered "On opposite sides of the river" for defense purposes.

I think this suggestion is a little kludgy, though it doesn't require quite as radical change as shifting the grid.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by wrylachlan
If you don't give the penalty to all units (with the exceptions noted above) then you loose the benefit of increased sea movement that the penalty allows. I do agree that wheeled units should be penalized more. And perhaps artillery units penalized even more than that.

And no, the penalty doesn't apply to cities, or colonies. That's kind of the whole point.

If they added in the ability to move through allied cities... the diplomatic game would get a boost, since it would be important to have allied cities to unload troops at in preparation for a war.

Well, you already said that Marines would not be affected, in order to make them useful and preserve the spirit of the unit. Since Marines are the only unit BESIDES Wheeled (by which I mean multi-move) units that can attack the same turn as they "unload", the effect of what you are proposing would be preserved. The only difference would be you could also land some infantry to help the Marines defend the beachhead (as Marines are poor on defense).

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by skywalker


Well, you already said that Marines would not be affected, in order to make them useful and preserve the spirit of the unit. Since Marines are the only unit BESIDES Wheeled (by which I mean multi-move) units that can attack the same turn as they "unload", the effect of what you are proposing would be preserved. The only difference would be you could also land some infantry to help the Marines defend the beachhead (as Marines are poor on defense).

I guess that's a matter of opinion. I like the idea of making it hard to get a beachhead. It's pretty historically acurate, and makes for dynamic play in a way which landing in lots of places up and down a coastline does not. It forces you to choose the beachhead carefully - someplace weak enough for your marines to take, but with enough defense for them to hold the beach long enough for the reinforcements to arrive.

It would also make paratroopers more useful since it would become very important to pillage the enemy roads so they can't get to your beachhead before it gets fortified.

Granted, to make this work in a balanced way, it may be necessary to rebalance the ADM values for Marines. However, once balanced, this simple 1 turn penalty (possible 2 turn for artillery) would create a much more dynamic invasion scenario.

[Kuciwalker]

I guess that's a matter of opinion. I like the idea of making it hard to get a beachhead. It's pretty historically acurate, and makes for dynamic play in a way which landing in lots of places up and down a coastline does not. It forces you to choose the beachhead carefully - someplace weak enough for your marines to take, but with enough defense for them to hold the beach long enough for the reinforcements to arrive.

The thing is, the beachhead should be difficult to take, not so much to hold.

Oh, and I don't see a point to having more than one turn delay (and it could in fact get quite annoying).

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by skywalker
The thing is, the beachhead should be difficult to take, not so much to hold.

Agreed, but in order to make all the possible landing spots hard to take you would need a ton of units side by side, which is A)more units than your civ can support, and B) A pain in the butt micro-wise even if you could support them.

There are a couple of solutions to this issue. One of which (and I support this as well) is to make some coastline simply unlandable. This allows the defender to use less units to guard the same amount of coastline.

How about this as a potentially elegant solution? Each type of coast tile has a different movement cost associated with disembarking on it.
Crossing grasslands=1
Disembarking onto grasslands = 2
Disembarking onto "Cliffs" = impossible.
etc.

And just the way wheeled vehicles can't cross rivers without a road, they can't disembark without a dock (city or colony). Once you get into Tanks and MAs, they can disembark without a dock, but use all their movement points doing so.

That mechanism gives you the choice - try to make a beachhead on the grasslands which allows easy disembarking but is probably defended, or go for the hills, which will take longer but be less defended.

[Kuciwalker]

Let me reiterate (your posts seem to be missing the point):

Objective - make coastlines defensible
Objective - make Marines work within their given role

The simplest way to do this is, of course, to keep ship movement down. However, you want to increase it, so for the sake of argument we can't choose that solution.

Possible Solution - make all units take at least a turn to disembark (except in cities)

Fails. Marines are now pretty worthless, as they have to wait an entire turn to attack.

Possible Solution - make all units except Marines take at least a turn to disembark (except in cities) -

Fails. While Marines are useful now for taking beachheads, they cannot hold them. In addition, we cannot simply up Marine defense, because for them to have a high enough defense to resist attack while unforified would make them a premier defensive unit (which is far outside their role).

Possible Solution - make all units except foot units take at least a turn to disembark (except in cities)

Succeeds. The role of Marines is preserved, in that not only are they good at taking beachheads, but Infantry, which are good defenders, can hold the beachhead afterwards. Since the Marine is the only true offensive foot unit, this doesn't pose any greater threat to the integrity of coastlines than the previous solution.

I'd like to not that in addition, I believe no unit should take more than a turn to disembark. It doesn't add much (one turn is quite enough time to respond to a transport on the coast), and it would be really annoying.

Of course, I still think the best solution is to simple keep ship movement down

[marcthornton]

I have some thoughts that apply to the terrain improvements and movement/cost of rail: I posted them in this thread HERE.

[marcthornton]

Shouldn't there be a wear and tear of the railroad piece. It must do more damage to the tracks to run 40 tons (A Bradley Medium Tank) across it than to run a herd of 10 horses and the cavalry men to go with them.

Maybe the tracks could degrade over time and load and fall back into a road state. I could see a road improvemnt doing the same and falling back to the trailblazzed state that someone described elsewhere.

[Kuciwalker]

That's why you have support for rails what you're describing is insanely MM-intensive.

[Bleyn]

Re: {The List} Terrain and terrain improvements

Originally posted by Nikolai

1.1 - Harsher environment

It should never be possible to irrigate desert or tundra EVER. Most military units that cross them should die, as should be the case with mountains and jungles. Forests and jungles should create plains when cut down. Irrigation should be curtailed.
(Posted By Sandman)

With respect to Sandman's thoughts on harsher environs, I've got a couple of comments.

While I agree that tundra probably should not be irrigatable, I disagree on deserts. The technical definition of desert is a warm arid region with sparse vegetation receiving less than 25 cms of rainfall annually. The thing is this is a very broad definition. While it does include what most people think of as deserts, the Sahara, the Gobi, the Mojave, etc. that are mostly sand and seemingly nothing else, it also includes some other less inhospitable regions. One good example of this is the high desert of eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, and at least most of Idaho, USA. This region, while counting as a desert by the technical definition in most respects(I don't know that it gets less than 25 cms of rain every year), is far from a sandy wasteland. And while not exactly the greatest for farming, is a productive region. There is a fair amount of ranching, not to mention a significant part of the potato crops for North America(if not the world).

As such, I would suggest that if there is going to be non-irritigable desert, there should also be an arid region that is irrigatable that is more like the current desert. In fact, the arid region should probably be at least if not more prevalent than true desert.

Though I don't know about military units dying persay in harsh environments, a potential for taking hit-point damage would be good. Especially if that damage continued to potentially occur when units are just sitting in a harsh environment and not moving. In fact if civ-attributes remain, reductions in hit-point damage could be a civ-specific advantage in some form or another. Perhaps military civs would take less.