Civilization 4's Unit Workshop

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Fosse


Your idea is interesting, but if the different paths yield not so different results, then it seems a waste of resources.

If there is no practical difference between longbowmen and crossbowmen (which you state would be so, in order to justify not researching both), then there is no pracical reason to have any difference at all.


Now, I like your idea a lot more than having a crazy unit workshop in Civ.

If the choices that your boolean tech tree offers were signifigantly different to make a real choice between two options, AND numerous enough to force that choice to be necessary, then you might be on to something.

If there are many more techs than there are now, and you spend all of your time researching the ancient age variations on infantry, then you'll be left behind as your opponants select a few that they really want, and then begin researching middle age level technology.

Problems with this? Well, how to make differences matter. Seems easy enough, with history giving us countless ideas. How to make the AI have good research choices (the current one researches Fascism and Communism right now, for example)... well, it's going to have to be improved anyhow... might as well be able to handle this. How to ensure that one "thread" in the giant tech tree does not show itself to be the best choice every time. Game balance... something that's always a little off in Civ.


Anyhow, I like your idea but mostly because I don't see it as a Unit Workshop at all, and it can lead to all kinds of interesting ideas for the tech tree, regarding units, improvements, wonders, and anything else.

The idea of an Alpha Centauri style workshop still gives me the creeps.

The idea is very similar to the "major" and "minor" tech proposal I made, when you put it that way

[yellowdaddy]

I like the boolean tree. One thing that turned me off Civ was that all it really is is a race up the technology tree - the main objective really being to get gunpowder first. It means that there's little incenticive to do much else - the game lacks enough depth and breadth to create a civilisation for the sake of it, so you end up having to build and bomb regardless, it leaves me frustrated and dissatisfied. I'd only play really now to see new unit graphics or try out new features, but as for replay value.. without the kind of levels of uncertainty that i'm talking about, it's quite limited really.

as for the current predesigned units, i just don't like the fact that my enemy can have identical units to me. It means I know exactly how they (the units) will behave, and how to defeat them. it turns a challenge into a chore.

I think it would offer more tension to not be quite sure what the enemy is capable of.
But I suppose I could go along with Fosse's suggestion of a range of untis per tech, as it's more or less the same as what I said, without the paraphanalia of a workshop.
I did like the Colonization did it, and I'd advocate that as a desireble alternative to a workshop. You could add up to three items to a unit - eg worker + parachute + machinegun = (amateur) paratrooper.
I think that's as far as we ought to go, and I'd enjoy that as a kind of solution to the problem of having identical units.
and you might have a choice of leath, mail, or plate for you mediavel warriors - with added costs.

However, I still find the idea of varying designs of my naval and aerial units - vehicles, attractive. different size warships and transports, bombers and fighters... i suppose this is still bit like SMAC (...oops! )

but then I suppose I'm after a game which is more like Colonization meets Gettysburg (+Balance of power 1990 and Sim City 1)! i.e. more than a basic economy, battlefield tactics, and geopolitics, and a bit more of a range of city sizes and shapes (not limited to one square) - even basic (Sim City 1/Caesar 3) city management would be nice.

[Fake Boris]

I like GePap's idea.

The unit workshop would be more like a tactical workshop, in which you decide which kind of regiments will make your unit.

A Roman legion would have swordsmen and an engineer brigade, with auxiliaries javelin, a Gaul unit would have light infantrymen with aristocrat cavalry, a Carthaginian army would have light infantrymen, archers and the super-heavy elephant brigade.

I don't like the idea of armor/weapons. Way too abstract, and, in the end, doesn't add much to the game. A unit workshop that would devise a unit strength by calculating the tactical dynamics between each of the regiment it contains would be more historically accurate (and more fun, in my sense).