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Civilization 4's Unit Workshop

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  • #31
    There's a problem there: IIRC, even muskets rendered personal armor useless (the amount of armor you'd have to wear to stop it would render you virtually immobile). So either move muskets to the industrial era, or think up something else.

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    • #32
      Originally posted by cyclotron7
      In response to MxM

      Let's face it, if we totally remove all time it takes to do things and just look at the end results, we don't need a unit workshop. You could easily sit down and list every last unit combination I've put down, make each one of those a unit, and be done with it: no unit workshop.

      But costs aren't 0. In my pitifully short list, there are 7 pre-gunpowder weapons, and 4 such armors. Assuming each unit has a choice of one weapon and one armor (including the possibility of no armor), that's 35 combinations. Note that 35 is just the number of foot based, pre-gunpowder units.

      The unit workshop appeals to those people who want a much greater variety of units without the need for a massively long list. By letting the player make quick selections on a screen and then use those templates, a player could conceivably manage hundreds of different unit combinations very quickly, drastically reducing the time it takes to build a unit.

      I haven't decided whether I need the extra variety or not. I used to argue against unit workshops when we were having these same discussions about Civ3. However, I never miss a chance to help think things up, as this discussion over Civ3 is what orginally brought me here. I'll reserve judgement on whether the system is valuable or not for when I see a good and balanced model.
      It just looks that here is 35 units, but probably only half of those is usefull, and at any particular point in time it is even much less. All you do is modifying attack and defense values, and at any point in CIV time you want to produce 3 types of foot units: 1) best attack, 2) best defense, and may be 3) best overall. May be, just may be you will have a unit with best attack, and average defense.

      Let me describe the game play with this workshop: You get new armor - you go to workshop, and increase armor of the best defense and best overall unit. You get better weapon - you do the same but with best attack and best overall unit. Is it fun? Nope. Starting with the middle of the game your workshop will contain a lot of old units, because you still have them on the field, and micromanagement will became tedious.

      The problem is related with simplistic attack/defense system. Brian Reighnolts (sp?) understood this when he was creating AC. This is why he created different type of weapons and armors (photonics, lasers, etc.). This is why workshop was a bit useful in AC.

      Thus, in my opinion, the combat system should be modified in CIV , before workshop would make any sense at all. There should be multiple types of armor and multiple type of weapon. However it is difficult to show graphically and probably difficult to make it to be intuitive and natural. Also for me the CIV game should not be about battle, but about state development and diplomacy. Wars are too similar and repetitive, contains a lot of micromanagement. Each time when there is a chance of war, I am thinking: do I want to do this again? In short, the simpler and easier war system, the better. No different types of armor and weapon, no eye painful looking at the units for type of armor (hmm… blue armor, is it good against swords or pikes?), no workshop.
      The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so
      certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
      -- Bertrand Russell

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      • #33
        You're forgetting one thing

        You can't just simply upgrade whenever you want to

        You have to be able to supply the resources (material, costs and maybe other things too?) to upgrade or build new units.

        If you want to build the best possible unit, then you are going to have to sacrifice, money, time and material resources.

        Got to remember, don't add the UW on top of Civ3, the UW has to connect with other new features of Civ4. And this ties in with what I was saying a while ago in the Civ4 List, If you have a good idea, Firaxis has to somehow take these ideas and connect them with each other.
        be free

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        • #34
          Originally posted by skywalker
          There's a problem there: IIRC, even muskets rendered personal armor useless (the amount of armor you'd have to wear to stop it would render you virtually immobile). So either move muskets to the industrial era, or think up something else.
          Muskets can be made armor piercing easily, that's fine. I always thought of muskets in game as something less than flintlocks, mostly because the Civ3 musketman has a stand for his musket, which IIRC was only for harquebuses (sp?) and other pre-flintlock guns that were much heavier; since he's around not too long after knights, I interpreted it as a very old, probably matchlock gun. Of course, the system can be tweaked if you don't agree.
          Lime roots and treachery!
          "Eventually you're left with a bunch of unmemorable posters like Cyclotron, pretending that they actually know anything about who they're debating pointless crap with." - Drake Tungsten

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          • #35
            Do you people love to reinvent the wheel?
            (\__/) 07/07/1937 - Never forget
            (='.'=) "Claims demand evidence; extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence." -- Carl Sagan
            (")_(") "Starting the fire from within."

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            • #36
              What do you think?

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              • #37
                It seems that way by looking through this thread
                (\__/) 07/07/1937 - Never forget
                (='.'=) "Claims demand evidence; extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence." -- Carl Sagan
                (")_(") "Starting the fire from within."

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                • #38
                  Hmm, this is getting a bit like SMAC? Well, I must say I like that!
                  Civ4 could just use the SMAC engine, just playing it on earth.
                  My words are backed with hard coconuts.

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                  • #39
                    Originally posted by skywalker
                    There's a problem there: IIRC, even muskets rendered personal armor useless (the amount of armor you'd have to wear to stop it would render you virtually immobile). So either move muskets to the industrial era, or think up something else.
                    Your avatar (it's great!) reminded me of the contrary...

                    My words are backed with hard coconuts.

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                    • #40

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                      • #41
                        A "unit" workshop for a ci game needs to be less focused on each weapon type and shield size and whatever, and more with history and strategic plans and so forth- it could also be great to mnipulate civ differences with.

                        Let say you have a very limited number of basic types:
                        Defensive inf. offensive inf. range inf. heavy cav. light cav., range cav. heavy siege. light siege, vehicle, light ship, medium ship, heavy ship (and so forth)

                        Then have tech levels (stone, bronze, copper, iron, steel, gunpowder, combustion)

                        Then have unit abilities- highly trained, police action, whatever

                        And finally civ bonuses (like saying-all mongol cav. in the following tech agaes gain +1 movement)

                        This type of more simplyfied unit workshop wpuld be simple enough for beginners to use, adds some level of different war styles to civs becuase players would seek to use civ bonuses, so a Mongol plaeyr might concentrate on light mobile hordes of cav while romans concentrate on infantry (siulates RoN system a bit)
                        If you don't like reality, change it! me
                        "Oh no! I am bested!" Drake
                        "it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong" Voltaire
                        "Patriotism is a pernecious, psychopathic form of idiocy" George Bernard Shaw

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                        • #42
                          A "unit" workshop for a ci game needs to be less focused on each weapon type and shield size and whatever, and more with history and strategic plans and so forth- it could also be great to mnipulate civ differences with.
                          Hmm.. that brings up another idea- could the Unit Workshop model Tactics... for example, one of the main differneces between the Roman Legion and other armies in its day was more due to the organization and tactics than the general equipment (although of course rich rome had better equip, but it was generally the same overall)

                          and the Phalanx was likewise more a defensive formation than any particular weapon.
                          -->Visit CGN!
                          -->"Production! More Production! Production creates Wealth! Production creates more Jobs!"-Wendell Willkie -1944

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                          • #43
                            Unit workshops would help when everybody is in the same age but you need a way to have a better military with the same techs as everyone else. Sort like how both USA, Iraq were in the modern age same techs, but USA creamed Iraq with superior weapons armor, since they had more money. Also heavier armor should affect movement points.

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                            • #44
                              Actually, the same effect could be achieved through unit trading. Iraq would be late Industrial Era (or even earlier) and have bought its weapons from Russia (which actually happened).

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                              • #45
                                although i don't really like the idea of a unit workshop in civ4, i'm not adamantly opposed to it. however, i think that to be truly able to design units, that should be a capability to be discovered and allowed later. why?

                                in the past, you didn't have many choices for weapons. you have a sword, and a horse. any genius would put two and two together.

                                now, in the modern era, you could conceivably have a fast-moving tank unit designed primarily for scouting... or you could have one designed mainly to punch holes, slow moving.
                                B♭3

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