{ The List } Units

[Laszlo]

Spy Satellites

Anyone considered the possibility of a Satellite unit? As intelligence gatherers the spy satellite's role in modern warfare can't be easily dismissed.

Instead of Apollo revealing the world map, Civs have to build a Satellite unit. If not revealing the whole world, it would at least monitor a large swath of it. Perhaps launching several would allow the civ near-complete coverage. I think that they should be one-time use like missiles, but with an actual lifetime--say, 20-30 turns. They wouldn't in fact have to be actual units once you pick their placement, though for the sake of familiarity it might be better to keep it as one.

Below, some other ideas on the same theme. Not saying as important as spy satellites, but playing with the possibilities.

-Increasing resolution. Starts out at city and terrain scale, moves up to include roads and rail, eventually allows individual unit tracking. Happens automatically as technology matures (time and experience).

-Research Satellites. Whether it's inward (weather & habitat monitoring), or outward (Hubble and Chandra space telescopes), satellites are important for research. They could give a set amount or a small percentage boost to research.

-New Wonder candidate perhaps. The Terrestrial Planet Finder could be required before setting off a colony ship. Wouldn't want to spend all that time and money all to arrive at a barren star, now would we?

-Commercial Satellites. Bonuses to commerce through better communications, GPS technology, etc. Prospecting can reveal new supplies of resources like oil and better managing of resources like fisheries and farms (bonuses limited to bonus tiles, aka - whales, spice, etc).

-Television Satellites. Broadcasting over the world over, satellites help spread the owner's culture. The U.S. spends money to ensure outside news coverage in China and Middle Eastern countries. They can't do anything to stop the "propoganda" other than ineffectual bans on satellite dishes.

[CarnalCanaan]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
How does that a) have to do with units and b) be in the purview of a ruler? The game doesn't have that high resolution.

a) in PtW it was done with invisible units (similar to assassins, spies, etc.), implying that they did not interact with regular military forces. Perhaps this could be changed from a unit-based to an interface-based play concept - just as trade was unit-based before Civ3.

But I am here suggesting that they should remain units, albeit, revised/rethought unit types. Perhaps with an independent layer, a la the space and undersea layers.

b) this is valid, except that we already have a system where an individual (an immortal individual at that!) is responsible for the placement and construction of almost every single public facility in the given civilization. Marketplaces were often not "placed" by rulers but simply developed of their own demand. And in modern, liberalized societies, there's almost no action taken by any ruling individual that results in the building of, say, stock exchanges.

---

I think this is getting too complex. I just wanna be a merchant mogul again. Is that too much to ask?

[patcon]

Re: Okay... I'm gonna step up...

Originally posted by CarnalCanaan
It doesn't really make sense to have a lawyer get shot by a tank, does it?

Not really, any unit will do. Personally I'd use a NUKE!

C'mon people, the lawyer thing was a joke. I should know, I started it.

Would a law school decrease corruption and happiness, or increase corruption and decrease happiness, decrease production???

[Tall_Walt]

Originally posted by lajzar

Advanced Missile Infantry
Arquebusiers (a very early musket)
Musketeers (aka musket men)
*Minutemen (America)
Riflemen (1880s)
***Fanatic (fundamentalism)
Machine Gunners (ww2)
***Stormtrooper (fascism)
Infantry (modern)

Someone with more knowledge of US history, tell me if minutemen were more or less advanced than riflemen? I'm thinking of a unit that would appear around the time of the declaration of Independance, to trigger a golden age at that point in history.

Less. Essentially, Minutemen (1770s) were a local militia, kind of a local Conscription, to put it in Civ terms. They used a long hunting musket that was more accurate, deadly, and longer ranged than military muskets. Also, rather than standing in formation, they fired from cover.

In ADM terms, I'd say lower attack, higher defense (perhaps with an exceptional retreat ability), and lower movement.

Originally posted by lajzar
Aquatic Infantry
Raiders
*Berserker (viking)
Corsairs (musketeer contemporary)
Marines (ww2)

Suggestions for the "marine" special ability include:
- More flexibility for where they can unload (normal units only unload into friendly cities, or only from special "shallows" sea tiles)
- Chance to capture ships when attacking
- Bonus when attacking land-sea, or between coastal tiles.

I would just say "Viking". A Berserker is something individual, not to do with sea warfare.

A corsair is just a pirate. A musketeer contemporary would be Marines, mostly the British Royal Marines but also the early US Marines, such as in Tripoli. They can only land on beaches. A unit of Marines was carried aboard all Age of Sail warships.

The WWII innovation is the landing craft, which could be represented as its mother ship, the assault ship. In WWII both the US Army and the US Marines (and many others) made amphibious assaults. They can only land on beaches, but they can land a lot of troops. This would be like a frieghter than allowed all its troops to land on beaches.

A modern innovation is the helicopter assault ship, which can land troops on any coast, somewhat inland, and carry VTOL fighters as well.

Originally posted by lajzar

Airbourne Infantry
Paratroopers
Air Cavalry
**Rocket Ranger (tesla-tech)
**Space Marines

Other Specialist Combat Infantry
Alpine Troops
Jungle Troops
Desert Troops
(insert terrain here) Troops
Special Forces (ie SAS etc)

Heavy Weapons Infantry
Flamethrower
Bazooka Infantry (ie TOW infantry)
RPG Infantry (that's Rocket Propelled Grenade, not Role Playing Game)
TOW Infantry

Mechanised
Mech Infantry
APC (aka armoured patrol car)

It has been suggested elsehere that these be "land transport" units. However, I think this would be a bad implementation, as most APC units have a infantry squad permanently assigned.

I agree. If Civ4 went with SMAC-like custom units, then you could pay more for faster infantry, everything from pure foot soldiers to horse soldiers to fully mounted mechanized infantry to air cavalry.

(terrain) troops are just cutting things too fine. It would be good if we were just simulating WWII, but it's too much detail for Civ, IMO.

Special forces: the question is what do they do? Maybe they can attack their choice of a unit in a stack, but they're pretty weak (because they're a small unit). Another possibility is that they add combat power without adding to stacking limits. Maybe ADM 1/1/2 invisible until they attack; maybe anonymous unless defeated.

Originally posted by lajzar
[Primitive Artillery & Seige
Ballista
Catapult
Trebuchet
Seige Tower

Instead of a siege tower, I would suggest sappers, then combat engineers. Sappers could remove the city wall or fortification defensive bonus. Combat engineers could additionally take position on any tile, acting as a temporary road or bridge, or when stacked with other units they would reduce terrain penalties. They could also do building tasks while having a good defense value. Another possible unit is marine combat engineers, SeaBees.

Originally posted by lajzar
Advanced Artillery & Seige
Bombard
Cannon
Artillery (1880s)
Howitzer (ww2)
SPG (aka self-propelled gun)

AA guns
Flak Gun
Rocket Tank
**War Walker

I can't help feeling that the AA gun city improvement from civ2 should be dropped entirely in favour of these units.

I agree, and we probably need to add Patriot (representing similar systems as well).

Originally posted by lajzar

AIR UNITS

Floating Units
**Balloon
**Dirigible (aka zepellin)
Helicopter (combat/gunship versions)
**Hover Tank (not air cushion - that would be horribly vulnerable; some SF tech here)
**Grav Tank

It has been suggested elsehere that transport helicopters be "air transport" units. However, I think this would be a bad implementation, as most such units have a infantry squad permanently assigned as air cavalry.

I think you're mixing concepts here. A balloon could just be an achievement allowing better line of sight. I think it would be onerous to have to put a balloon unit with every army. Balloons are just too cheap and expendable to buy--it'd be like buying individual horses.

Tanks are tanks: wheeled, tracked, or whatever.

A combat helicopter is just another way of doing close air support.

I think I agree with you about transport helicopters. OTOH, transport helicopters let you move non-airborne troops to places without airfields. Perhaps having a transport helicopter unit in a city should allow you to airlift a unit in range of the helicopter to anywhere else in range.

Originally posted by lajzar

Fighters
Biplane
Fighter
Interceptor
Jet Fighter
**Stealth Fighter
**Cloaked Fighter

Stealth Fighters are a conceptual misnomer given the way modern stealth tech works. Modern stealth tech only really works in level flight, and is actually easily detected by most modern mobile phone grids anyway

This is incorrect. Stealth coatings absorb radar and make the energy disappear (well, change to a trivial amount of heat). You just don't get a radar bounce you can see. Similar techniques prevent other kinds of detection. These are augmented by jammers that scramble what radars see in the area, so if you do happen to see a radar bounce, you can't tell it from all the junk the jammer's putting out.

Mobile phone grids use low power, line of sight transmitters, so unless the plane flies along one of those lines of sight, forget it. And generally they fly pretty high. However, the accompanying jammers probably do very bad things to the mobile phones.

(I used to have an air base near me. A pilot accidentally turned on his jammer and opened garage doors in a very wide area.)

I would drop interceptor. It's just a quirky unit that had a short lifespan. Mostly, it's a task, not a plane.

A concept that's needed is close air support. Whether done by fighters, attack planes, or helicopters, it's an important concept. I'm not convinced it's worth having one set of units for fighters and another for attack/close air support, but an order for an air unit to supply close air support should give a unit (or stack of units) offensive and defensive advantages. This could be countered by assigning fighters as combat air patrol over the unit, establishing local air superiority, or by having an AA unit there.

Originally posted by lajzar
Bombers
Bomber
Dive Bomber
Heavy Bomber
Stealth Bomber
**Cloaked Bomber

Dive bombing is more a technique than a kind of bomber.

Bombers should not be two turn units. It's a pain. They should fly out, possibly accompanied by fighters or being intercepted by combat air patrol over their target. Again, this is a case where being able to combine units into an army-like mixed group would work well. A late WWII bombing raid would have a bunch of bombers and several fighter groups bunched together, battling against fighters tasked to combat air support and AA guns. Or perhaps fighters should automatically escort bombers.

Originally posted by lajzar

Missiles
V2 Missile
Cruise Missile
ICBM

The missiles model needs to be changed radically. Given their one-shot nature, the opportunity cost for building them is just too big.

I agree. The only one that makes sense is a nuclear ICBM. A big nuke.

Cruise missiles are just a development that gives bombers and ships a very long attack range. Yeah, cruise missiles are expensive, but so are the artillery shells you'd need to buy to do the same job. Cruise missiles should either just be there, upgrading existing units, or be integral to modern ships, including subs, and bombers. Upgrading is more accurate since they fire from existing torpedo tubes, missile launchers, and bomb bays.

Originally posted by lajzar

SEA UNITS

I have divided the sea units by historical era rather than by functionality. I think this presentation works better here.

Ancient Sea
Sailboat (transport)
Galley
*trireme (greek)

Medieval
Caravel (transport)
Galleas
*longship (vikings)
*fire galley (byzantine)

Age of Sail
galleon (transport)
Man o War (pl: men o war)
Frigate (aka ship o the line)

The Chinese treasure ships and the Korean turtle ships belong here, but I can't recall their native names.

Age of Steam
Clipper (transport)
Dreadnought
Ironclad
*Monitor (america)

Age of Oil
Transport
*liner (french)
Battleship (BB)
Cruiser (CA)
Destroyer (DD)
Carrier (CV)
Submarine (SS)

Age of Rocketry
Heavy Carrier (CVN)
Aegis Cruiser (CG)
Missile Destroyer (DDG)
Nuclear Submarine (SSN)

Civ3 has it about right for the galley. It did have a sail, and if you can carry troops, you can carry something else. This was pretty true to the age of sail: you could take out arms and put in cargo. The big problem in the ancient world was lack of open ocean navigation, as Civ portrays.

Before the Age of Sail, ships were captured by troops on the ships, though archers could get in some early wounds. Ramming was generally just a prelude to boarding since wooden ships are very hard to sink (except by storms).

It seems to me the whole period to the age of sail works out pretty well if you load units into ships and then infantry fights in a boarding action. The winner gets both ships.

In the Age of Sail period, this changed so ships could defeat each other at range, without boarding. However, once enough damage is done it doesn't really matter whether the ship surrenders (the usual) or its crew is killed off with grapeshot until boarding is trivial. Since wooden ships still don't sink easily, you usually capture the ship. Magazines do explode, but more often they flood from damage; you don't have a reliable way to scuttle the ship. So fight until one ship goes to zero, put it back to one reflecting emergency repairs and give it to the victor

I would like Frigates to carry one marine unit for raids. (A frigate is not a ship of the line: a ship of the line has several times the firepower of a frigate. Specifically, a frigate has one gun deck, while a ship of the line has two or three, and proportionally more marines. Man of War is a general term.) I would either leave it at Frigate or add First Rate, a ship of the same speed and gun range as a Frigate but much higher fire power and defense. (And a couple marine units.) Transport could be handled by the earlier ships.

In the age of steam, you're correct that clipper ships (sailing ships) did much transport, but I think I would just keep around an AoS ship. Dreadnought is not an appropriate term for this age. Ironclad is best. The Monitor, and monitors in general, were coastal and river defense ships, and not particularly significant outside of the first use of the turret: Monitor and the Ironclad Merrimac just bounced cannonballs off each other, neither won. In the later Age of Steam you had battleships (which is just a shorthand for line of battle ship) with turrets.

In 1906, Dreadnaught launched: she had two innovations, all big guns and a steam turbine. Battleships through WWII were essentially refinements of her. But, I think Civ3 probably has the clearest terminology for someone not familiar with naval history.

France indeed had very significant passenget liners, but I'm not sure I see the game significance, except maybe as a cultural milestone.

If I were picking unique units, the British race-built galleons defeated the medieval Spanish armada and marked the transition from boarding to cannon. HMS Dreadnaught revolutionized warships, but it was picked up very fast by everyone else; still, it is far more familar. The German WWI U-boat was significant. In WWII, I think I'd pick the US amphibious assault ship. After WWII, in terms of actually getting used, it's got to be the US supercarriers, Enterprise on. If we have to pick one unique US unit, that's it, not the F-16--it's a fine aircraft, but not unique. The most significant US fighter would be the P-51 Mustang, the first able to escort bombers all the way to their targets.

Originally posted by lajzar
ASSYMETRIC UNITS

Some of these are very questionable, and there seems to be a huge split in the community as to whether these are wanted in the game.

I don't favor any of these new units, especially the return of caravans--they were really a pain, IMO. The Civ3 trade system is far superior.

[La Diva]

Re: { The List } Units

CARAVANS: Civ2-Civ3 Merger

Let the Caravan/Freight units be possible for greater benefit but not critical to game success. Dozens of caravans would be a nuisance to micromanage again, but we do need them. So keep the non-unit diplomatic trade feature, but bring back physical caravans for specific purposes:

1. Exploration - The caravan was one of the few units that another civ would allow in its Zone of Control. My caravans could find out a lot more than my military, diplomats, or explorers, uncovering another whole continent for me, then they would more than pay for themselves by entering a foreign city. The only problem was being lost to a barbarian.

Quote from another thread:
"... have an explorer unit that [doubles] as a caravan initially ..." - I like that, as long as the trade tech has been researched. You can cover terrain twice as fast and still get some financial boost when meeting new civs.

2. Trade Initiation - At least one post favored the caravan for the initial trade with a civ. In earth history, those who explored also traded, at least tokens of friendship, with the people they "discovered." So I support the explorer and all units that are exploring (removing the Black Fog) being able to initiate trade on a limited level. I don't agree with a physical caravan being required for the first Diplomatic trade once the roads and/or harbors are in place.

Make the caravan useful when dealing with civs that aren't goal-oriented toward trade. Why should I have to wait for another civ to build a harbor or build roads out to their borders before I can trade with them? If I send a caravan to them, let it pay off immediately but also let it motivate the civ to build the improvement(s).

The gold benefit of a caravan's first contact with a civ would be relatively small in comparison to negotiations through the Dipl screen, but it should come close to the unit's cost. The caravan should also let you offer to help build the Harbor, for a small contracting fee, say 25% of cost (mildly negotiable). If the civ accepts the offer, the Imp will be finished in 150% the number of turns in which your fastest city could produce it. The fee comes from the other civ's national treasury, lump sum or per turn, as it's able. The city chosen for the Harbor puts its current production on hold and puts all shields into the Harbor until the full cost is reached or until the requisite number of turns has been completed, whichever comes first. While in production, the receiving civ can't adjust the city's shield rate to pay less than optimum capacity.

Example: Your most productive city (15 Shields Per Turn) can build a Harbor in 5 turns. The other civ's coastal city (7 SPT) couldn't build it in less than 10 turns, using the most shield-productive combination of city tiles without resorting to starvation. So with your help, the Harbor will be built in 8 turns (5 X 150%, always rounded up). The receiving city can't switch worked city tiles from this productive arrangement in order to focus on pop growth or science if it means it will pay less than 56 Shields (7 SPT X 8 turns) for the Harbor). Any normal pop growth during production will assign the new citizen's tile using the same criteria.

One caveat with physical units: when another civ's caravan reaches you, the trade will take a token amount of gold from your treasury. If you're broke, one shield will be taken from each city, starting with the largest/most successful, until the token is paid; if necessary, a second shield will be taken, cycling through your city list until the amount is reached. The token extracted will be 10% of what the sending civ receives from the transaction.

As tech progresses, caravan receipts increase. After the IndAge, cost of production should also increase somewhat.

Early caravan attacks will not be grounds for declaring war but will figure more and more heavily from the IndAge on.

3. Diplomatic Benevolence - This is a good reason for each caravan to carry more than one type of cargo. If it reaches a poor country, you might be able to trade (or give) needed food or medicine rather than dyes, then continue on to another destination to sell the luxury items. In a game of increased realism, you might have to decide what the caravan will carry when it's created, adding to the speculative nature of the venture. I'd rather have AI furnish the "right stuff" when I need it. AI could also be set up to include these kinds of "compassionate care" supplies along with the genuine wares for trade.

4. Asset Relocation - a fancy way of saying it's a critical unit for facilitating Rush Production. It's not logical to make a military unit, send it to a young city, and disband it for the 25% salvage cash to speed up building an improvement. We need some form of caravan/freight or envoy to deliver the resources needed to finish the project more quickly. It happens in real life, so why not here? In my plan, only 25% of the caravan production cost would be lost to shipping costs, spoilage, and corruption, compared to the 75% using the other method.


Finished Goods: This goes back to Civ1 units, where you never knew what it was carrying or how much you would get for the cargo until the unit arrived in its target city. (Civ2's model of choosing the cargo wasn't much better.) Letting AI handle it is much more convenient, but the construct needs work.

The most important reason for trading finished goods is to generate revenue from civs who have the same tile resources as you. Every civ can be a specialist in half a dozen kinds of goods, not just 3 like Civ2, so there would always be demand to some degree. You could choose your products from a list or let AI manage it all.

Some have posted about distance vs. caravan revenues. The trade values need to be reworked from the Civ2 template. It was extremely frustrating to build a caravan and take several turns sending it to the other side of my empire, only to discover that the trade revenues gained were less than I originally spent! Trading with other civs gained more, but I should never have lost money on the venture.

A formula needs to be developed (or improved?), where net trade benefits increase to a certain distance from originating city (or civ center if not a physical caravan) and then decrease to account for increased shipping expenses. AI must also take into consideration the size and wealth of the target civ and/or city - no matter how far you've traveled, if the target civ is too poor, your luxuries won't mean squat.

Luxury resources will be worth more in trade income than finished goods, and Strategic resources will be worth the most.


With these suggestions, caravans become much more useful with less micromanaging.

[Tall_Walt]

What I'm hearing here is, "I want to do X, so we need an X unit." This isn't true. We don't build entertainer units or scientist units. In Civ3, we don't build caravans, we treat trade at a governmental level instead of a city or unit level; we don't built trade ships, we build harbors and airports at the city level. In Civ4, perhaps we'll select what tiles to develop in what way, but the cost of that won't be a worker but just a deduction from city (or government) income.

Civ has always been full of those kinds of abstractions: Civ doesn't let you arrange where things are inside your cities, though that could allow you to protect critical structures from bombardment. Some games with smaller scope do. If you want the sweeping scope of Civ, you have to abstract things.

Units are primarily needed for tactical combat. Any other use comes down to whether a unit is the best way to do things. With Civ3 getting slowed to a crawl by non-tactical units, we need to kill as many of those units as possible. If we keep workers and put in more non-tactical units, Civ4 will end up a wonderful game that no one plays.

Many tasks can get promoted from the unit level to the city or (hopefully) governmental level. For example, scouting: with only a few exceptions (Lewis & Clark and HMS Beagle, for examples) scouting is not micromanaged in real life: you throw money at the CIA or MI6, and the fog of war lifts, to a point limited by technology--and FBI counter-intelligence or MI5.

MOO2 is a excellent example of abstracting nearly everything but combat. One result was that combat could be much more detailed. Another result is you can play a game in a few hours. IMO, Civ3 games are just too long and boring, mostly because of pushing around non-combat units. Civ4 needs to be sleeker.

[La Diva]

Originally posted by Tall_Walt
In Civ3, we don't build caravans, we treat trade at a governmental level instead of a city or unit level;

Okay, if Civ4 provides a way to accommodate the uses I outlined for caravans, great. The units are purely a means to an end.

Units are primarily needed for tactical combat.

- spoken like a perfect warmonger. I hate waging war, despite the fact that I always win. If the non-tact units are gone, I, an avid Civ player since Civ1, will have no interest in the game.

One of the greatest parts of the game is uncovering the map and raiding all the goody huts. Lewis & Clark can't do that as well as I can. Discovering where the other civs are is a treat.

Civ4 needs to be sleeker.

I think most folks can agree on that. But there are two camps here: the warriors and the builders. Firaxis will have to think hard about how to keep us all happy.

As I've stated elsewhere, one of the most critical elements of this remake will be the ability to select the level of AI vs. player management for various facets of play. Give us all the new bells and whistles, but don't make them mandatory, and don't take away our old favorites. There are some who will buy Civ4 for the new graphics and for pure curiosity but who will want to play basically the same kind of game as before. It'll still make the company money to provide that option.

I welcome the changes, while still loving the older versions. Just don't turn this into nothing more than a war game.

[Kuciwalker]

La Diva, units are primarily for combat. Whether or not you're a warmonger, that's just a fact. The only other true use for units is tile improvement, and CtP even abstracted that (the ONLY unit function it seems to have abstracted, sadly). Everything else definately belongs in a menu somewhere, NOT as a unit.

[La Diva]

Kuciwalker, you're forgetting explorers, aren't you? Only caravans and explorers could travel through alien lands with any impunity, and even explorers could get kicked out. How do you uncover your world without them? Or do you wage war in the dark? If you don't know the size of their empire, how do you know you can lick 'em?

From what I've read in these threads, most of the expansion packs and offshoot games appear to be battle focused. Maybe most Apolyton members have developed a taste for that. I, on the other hand, chose Civ over games like SimCity because of the global scope and the occasional sortee.

As for units being primarily for combat, would it surprise you to learn that in some of my games NO ONE has declared war? The majority of units may be military, but I use them purely for peaceful purposes while I'm building my science, culture and treasury.

I keep my cities small but numerous and develop my infrastructure to be lean and productive. So far, I can't trust AI to do that. When I let AI manage my workers, they irrigate everything in sight, and my shield production goes down the toilet. Not smart.

If they take away all the non-combat units, I may as well go dust my piano.

I don't support going nuts with additions, specialists by the cartload, like some have suggested. And maybe Firaxis can come up with a viable management screen in lieu of workers, but I'll have to see it to believe it.

[lajzar]

The problem with staying in a hostel with very thin curtains is its very hard to sleep at night.

Update done. Scream if I missed something important.

[Tall_Walt]

Originally posted by La Diva
Okay, if Civ4 provides a way to accommodate the uses I outlined for caravans, great. The units are purely a means to an end.

Exactly!

- spoken like a perfect warmonger. I hate waging war, despite the fact that I always win. If the non-tact units are gone, I, an avid Civ player since Civ1, will have no interest in the game.

I wasn't clear. My point is that tactical combat needs units on a field so you can flank, surround, etc. Other tasks in Civ don't have the need (or as much need) for on the ground geometry.

One of the greatest parts of the game is uncovering the map and raiding all the goody huts. Lewis & Clark can't do that as well as I can. Discovering where the other civs are is a treat.

Raiding the huts needs a tactical unit since you may be in combat, but does all exploration? Civ doesn't model every single person, and people wander and explore all by themselves--just not to Lewis & Clark or Beagle distances. So what if, similar to the cultural aura around your civ, you had an exploration/reconnaisance aura, depending on transportaion technology? This would explore and lift the fog of war, even into nearby enemy territory. Any interaction with what was revealed would be by unit.

Nothing would preclude mounting long range explorations or reconnaisances like Lewis & Clark.

Civ4 needs to be sleeker.

I think most folks can agree on that. But there are two camps here: the warriors and the builders. Firaxis will have to think hard about how to keep us all happy.

I'm firmly in both camps. But as I pointed out in another message (I hope not in this thread), we've got to look at the basic math of the problem. We can have a 256 x 256 (IIRC) board now (and perhaps Civ4 will be bigger). That's 65536 tiles. (Can you tell I'm a programmer?) Let's say you've got range 2 vision so you can see 5 x 5. Best case, if you move diagonally, that reveals 9 tiles. That's over 7200 exploration moves to see the whole board. Realistically, you aren't going to do that, but with your own land and the sea, you're likely looking at 1000 to 2000 exploration moves, maybe 3000 considering that all moves aren't going to reveal 9 tiles, expecially in the early stages when they can't. Even if you use automatic exploration, thats 15-45 minutes just watching exploring units move if things work like Civ3. More if you're actually pressing the keys and deciding. The little Civ3 animations are cute, but not so cute I want to spend that much time watching them--I'd rather take that time to play another game of Civ.

Part of getting the game sleaker is not making every user look at everything happening. That doesn't stop you from looking, it just makes looking optional.

The game I've played most and longest is MOO2. The reason is that it's so sleak I can play a fully detailed game in a few hours, dipping into micromanagement only in the cases that need it.

As I've stated elsewhere, one of the most critical elements of this remake will be the ability to select the level of AI vs. player management for various facets of play. Give us all the new bells and whistles, but don't make them mandatory, and don't take away our old favorites. There are some who will buy Civ4 for the new graphics and for pure curiosity but who will want to play basically the same kind of game as before. It'll still make the company money to provide that option.

To some extent I agree with you, but new ideas (paradigms) are needed in Civ4. Civ3 is both a demonstration of why those changes are needed (remember the first version where you spent minutes per turn watching workers?) and a demonstration that those new ways can be good. I like the new strategic resource and trading system, but it would be horrendous if you had to plot out new trade routes for caravans every time a trade deal changed. If you actually had to build and move the caravans, the trade deal would expire before you got the route built!

Some of these changes provide a third choice other than AI or player management. For example, the exploration aura idea needs neither AI nor player management for nearby exploration. Exploitation remains in the player's hands, though.

I welcome the changes, while still loving the older versions. Just don't turn this into nothing more than a war game.

I'm confident that won't happen. Just having Soren at the helm makes me confident of that. Add that Civ4 would then be in competition with much more established RTSs--it just isn't going to happen.

[Tall_Walt]

Originally posted by La Diva
...
I don't support going nuts with additions, specialists by the cartload, like some have suggested. And maybe Firaxis can come up with a viable management screen in lieu of workers, but I'll have to see it to believe it.

One easy solution is that instead of moving a worker to a tile then commanding an improvement, you just click on the tile, select the improvement(s), and they happen without a worker unit, with the cost applied to your government or your nearest city. You get all the control you have now, just no worker unit.

[La Diva]

Hot Air Balloon unit - much earlier than the Flight advance so that new terrain could be covered more quickly. It would need a chance factor that might disable the unit for repairs for a number of turns, destroy the balloon but not the pilot (with some limited military ability), or truly crash and burn with no survivor. There could also be a possibility of the winds taking the unit to a different square than you directed it. MP should be at least 4 per turn.

How about a cyberleader or robotic workers after a certain tech level?

How about double agents (intelligence / Cold War style)?

MASH units (field hospitals) in wars after the MidAges. Units heal faster than being left idle in the field but not as quickly as in a city. Built in a single city and sent to the Front (not realistic but much simpler for gameplay), MASH units can relocate on a moment's notice. They can be attacked, but diplomatic repurcussions from ALL civs are severe. Only injured units can stack on this tile, plus one healthy defender. Perhaps after Flight advance, add the ability to Airlift the worst injured out of enemy territory but not necessarily all the way to your civ's nearest city. You choose from a limited number of Drop Zone tiles. The unit could be attacked on the journey home (through AI, not graphically), which would more realistically represent those who "didn't make it" through the airlift.

.. This would open the possibility of being hospitalized in an allied civ's city if the unit is dropped within their border. That civ would have to have one Hospital or MASH unit, though not necessarily in that city (let's be merciful after all).

.. Also allow a non-fighting Airlift plane to deliver supplies, food, munitions, medicine. It could have moderate defense capabilities but would have no attack points.

Anyone for Cruise Ships? They've become a significant industry for vacation coast cities, but how much will F'Axis want to put into recreation units? If Kuciwalker and Co. have their way, I'd say zilch.

Spy Satellite - love it! Rather than having to peruse the map myself, I favor an observation report generated periodically at the start of a turn, or available from a menu. AI could divulge info like troop movement and defense improvements in production but wouldn't necessarily tell everything. Every 50 turns or so, the orbit will decay sufficiently to need to replace it. Having more than one improves the amount and quality of data. - This is a perfect task for one of the Cabinet members I suggested in a previous post. I'd change Sze's suggestion, though, about what can destroy the satellite.

.. Any civ wanting to avoid the satellite's detection capabilities would have to create Los Alamos style underground facilities for military manufacturing and national security matters. If the satellite is built in time, however, it would be able to report that those hidden facilities were under construction and where.

.. This would give rise to Bunker Busters which would probably damage but not fully destroy the underground locations.


"Flavor Units" - the request seems to have more to do with unique names than unique qualities of these units. All that does is make the player spend more time in Civilopedia looking up the specs for each UU - bad move, IMO. Keep the names for like-skilled units identical, or use an adjective in conjunction with the UU. Not being a scholar of battle units, I can't give suggestions with any intelligence, but the idea is something like "Samurai Swordsman or Cossack Cavalry" would help to smooth the learning curve, if we really have to break out to unique names. - More busy-work, if you ask me.


{Dark Cloud, thread 104285} "I really disagree with nets and fishing fleets ... too large an abstraction ..." - I'm on board with that kind of thinking. When a citizen is assigned to work a sea tile with fish, it's presumed he has the necessary equipment, just like a citizen on a wheat or mined hill tile.


{lajzar & Tall_Walt} "Age of Steam" - It has always seemed a huge leap from galleons to transports. A missing link unit under steam power makes a lot of sense.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by La Diva
Kuciwalker, you're forgetting explorers, aren't you?

Explorers are military units, like any scout. In fact, the only way they are ever used in C3 is as pillagers. The world is usually very explored by the time you get explorers, anyway.

From what I've read in these threads, most of the expansion packs and offshoot games appear to be battle focused. Maybe most Apolyton members have developed a taste for that. I, on the other hand, chose Civ over games like SimCity because of the global scope and the occasional sortee.

That's not true at all. Witness the downplaying of the MGL and the creation of the SGL in Conqests. In fact, there are two other equally viable strategies besides warmongerer.

As for units being primarily for combat, would it surprise you to learn that in some of my games NO ONE has declared war? The majority of units may be military, but I use them purely for peaceful purposes while I'm building my science, culture and treasury.

Lack of war doesn't mean the units aren't primarily for combat. You have spearmen for defense, even if you aren't currently at war.

If they take away all the non-combat units, I may as well go dust my piano.

That's why workers are some of the few units that haven't been folded into a menu - they "give you something to do" during peacetime.

I don't support going nuts with additions, specialists by the cartload, like some have suggested. And maybe Firaxis can come up with a viable management screen in lieu of workers, but I'll have to see it to believe it.

I'm not trying to expand warmongering at the expense of other strategies by asserting that units are primarily military and should stay that way. What I'm doing is dividing the game up into different areas. Units are a big part of civ, yes, but they aren't all. City management is a HUGE part, and it's primary purpose is not "war" (though it can be diverted to that end, just like have defensive units can deter an enemy, giving a builder peace) but building. Ditto with the foreign advisor screen. Units should be very simple, and only do a (relatively) few things, just like every other part of the interface. It's just good design.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by La Diva
Hot Air Balloon unit - much earlier than the Flight advance so that new terrain could be covered more quickly. It would need a chance factor that might disable the unit for repairs for a number of turns, destroy the balloon but not the pilot (with some limited military ability), or truly crash and burn with no survivor. There could also be a possibility of the winds taking the unit to a different square than you directed it. MP should be at least 4 per turn.

1) Hopefully air units will retain the same mission-oriented system as in C3

2) This is a lot of complex stuff to implement for a relatively niche unit. You might as well just use explorers to scout.

How about a cyberleader or robotic workers after a certain tech level?

:vomit: @ future tech

How about double agents (intelligence / Cold War style)?

It already exists, it's called the Espionage screen.

MASH units (field hospitals) in wars after the MidAges. Units heal faster than being left idle in the field but not as quickly as in a city. Built in a single city and sent to the Front (not realistic but much simpler for gameplay), MASH units can relocate on a moment's notice. They can be attacked, but diplomatic repurcussions from ALL civs are severe. Only injured units can stack on this tile, plus one healthy defender. Perhaps after Flight advance, add the ability to Airlift the worst injured out of enemy territory but not necessarily all the way to your civ's nearest city. You choose from a limited number of Drop Zone tiles. The unit could be attacked on the journey home (through AI, not graphically), which would more realistically represent those who "didn't make it" through the airlift.

Again, complex coding for a niche unit that could be more easily implemented just like in C3 - a small wonder that causes units to heal in enemy territory. As I said in the previous post, the simpler, the better.

.. Also allow a non-fighting Airlift plane to deliver supplies, food, munitions, medicine. It could have moderate defense capabilities but would have no attack points.

It's called an airport

Anyone for Cruise Ships? They've become a significant industry for vacation coast cities, but how much will F'Axis want to put into recreation units? If Kuciwalker and Co. have their way, I'd say zilch.

What would be the point, again, of representing cruise liners on the map?

Spy Satellite - love it! Rather than having to peruse the map myself, I favor an observation report generated periodically at the start of a turn, or available from a menu.

Either simply reveal the whole map with Satellites, or allow building of an air unit that has infinite range, zero interception chance, and can do recon missions.

"Flavor Units" - the request seems to have more to do with unique names than unique qualities of these units. All that does is make the player spend more time in Civilopedia looking up the specs for each UU - bad move, IMO.

It's not that difficult to remember the bonuses. And you can right-click on a unit to see it's stats.

{lajzar & Tall_Walt} "Age of Steam" - It has always seemed a huge leap from galleons to transports. A missing link unit under steam power makes a lot of sense.

It's called an Ironclad.