Some sort of unit design allowed?

[joncnunn]

I'd rename Sidearms to "fists" because "sidearms" is also another term for certain types of guns in the US.

I'd drop the "Laser" from weapons, that's still sci-fi in the context of primary weapon. It is used to guide bombs by planes.

On types of boats, it seems to be missing the standard oil-based naval units of the 20th century.

Where this really breaks down though is that each air unit chasim & sea unit chasis would need thier own seperate lists of allowed weapons and shields.

There would even need to be speed limits based on techs. Motorized chasis travel much faster today than in WW II. And tanks in WW I weren't much faster than troops could march.

I think a unit list would be shorter than a realistic rules list ...

Originally posted by Ijuin

Some simple possibilities:

Weapons:

Sidearms (basic, attack 1, no extra cost)
Bronze spear (Bronze Working, attack 2, cost +10 shields)
Bronze sword (Weaponsmithing--requires Bronze Working and Warrior Code, attack 3, cost +20 shields)
Iron polearm (Iron Working, attack 4, cost +30 shields)
Iron sword (Feudalism, attack 5, cost +40 shields)
Musket (Gunpowder, attack 8, cost +50 shields)
Rifle (Military Tradition, attack 12, cost +60 shields)
Machinegun (Replacable Parts, attack 16, cost +70 shields)
Rocket Launcher (Rocketry, attack 20, cost +80 shields)
Laser (Lasers, attack 24, cost +90 shields)

Armor:

No armor (basic, def 1, no extra cost)
Wood/Leather armor (Warrior Code, def 2, cost +10 shields)
Bronze armor (Weaponsmithing, def 3, cost +20 shields)
Chain mail armor (feudalism, def 4, cost +30 shields)
Iron plate armor (metallurgy, def 6, cost +40 shields
Steel plate armor (Steel, def 9, cost +50 shields)
Titanium plate armor (Electronics, def 12, cost +60 shields)
Composite armor (Synthetic Fibers, def 16, cost +70 shields)

Armor can be boosted 50% in protection for a 100% increase in cost plus a -1 movement penalty for non-infantry units.

Chassis:
foot (basic, land, 1 move)
Horseback (Horseback Riding, land, 3 move for unarmored units but 2 move for armored units, cannot carry armor heavier than Iron plate)
Motorized (Motorized transport, land, 4 move for unarmored units but 3 move for armored units)
Clinker boat (Map Making, sea--sinks in ocean, 3 move)
Carvel boat (Navigation, sea, 4 move)
Steamboat (Steam Power, sea, 6 move)
Nuclear (Fission, sea, 8 move)
Prop plane (Flight, air, 6 operating range)
Jet plane (Rocketry, air, 12 operating range)
Cruise missile (rocketry, air, 6 range missile)
ICBM (satellites, air, unlimited range missile)

[GePap]

a much simpler and realistic weapons design worksho would be using tactics

example:

Heavy infantry (lots of equipment, expensive, slow, powerful) vs Light infantry (light equipment, fast, more fragile)- offensive minded, defensive minded, all around.

So you could always decide to make lots of light offensively minded infantry for quick attacks- cheap to raise, cheap to keep, easy to train. Or you can base your army around heavy infantry trained to both attack and defend (legions essentially) which takes time to create, train, is expensive, but can beat back hordes of cheaper guys.

Possible choices:

For infantry for example:

Heavy (lots of the latest equipment)
Light (cheaply and simply equiped)
Attack
Defend
Attack/defend
Trained
Ranged attack light
Ranged attack heavy


What each meant for example based on tech level:

So light bronze age infantry is weaker that light steel equiped infantry and so forth.

We could make civ type copunt more by giving bonuses to certain types of units depending on the civ.

Example- Romans get heavy infantry cheaper than others
Militaristic civs get trained infantry cheaper or faster, so forth.

[Kuciwalker]

I see everyone ignores the fact that UW should not and will not be in any civ game, and just goes ahead and proposes a system...

It's kinda like discussing how to implement an RTS-style battle system for individual battles; not gonna happen.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
I see everyone ignores the fact that UW should not and will not be in any civ game, and just goes ahead and proposes a system...

You are part of the development team? Since when?

As for the "should not", thatn is the discussion.

[Tall_Walt]

I see some good suggestions on representing real life systems in SMAC style. Remember that one of the elements in the SMAC unit design was power plant. For Civ4, this could be Man-Powered, Wind, Horse-Powered, Steam, Internal Combustion (or Oil), Gas Turbine, Nuclear.

Also SMAC had special features. This is where I would see navigation coming in for ships: Coastal Navigation, Astrolabe, Sextant, Chronometer, Loran, GPS. (I probably give more options than are useful, unless Civ4 decided to simulate the inaccuracies of pre-Chronometer navigation.

Instead of UUs one could have unique technology like Persian elephants, Polynesian navigation (imagine navigating from Hawaii to Tahiti without any conventional navigation tech), American supercarrier "chassis", etc.

[GePap]

If a unit workshop will work within a civ system, it simply can't be that complicated. For example, we should not be able to make steam powered land tanks - simply nuts.

So any UW must have certain limits- which is why I think it should be left simply to desining the desired tactics, and tech level decides the actual attack, defense values and such.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by GePap
You are part of the development team? Since when?

A few months ago.

As for the "should not", thatn is the discussion.

All I see are various models.

[MORON]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Originally posted by GePap
You are part of the development team? Since when?

A few months ago.

REALLY!?

All I see are various models.

Okay, I'll start a argument on the "should"

Unit design allows much greater variation in units that is need to represent the huge differences between even similar types of real work units. To have an unit for every type of warfare, every type of tactics and every piece of technology is obviously too tedius and makes annoying micromanagement hell.

Maybe the weapon-armor combination makes no sense in the civ combat context, but some other model can be applied, especially ones based around tactics.

It is arguable whether Civ needs to represent small differences between units given its scale and the fact that warriors can kill tanks, but I don't think unit design adds that much micro and I don't think the latter should ever happen (as in unit capacity should be dispersed out more and tech exchanges common).

[Tall_Walt]

I don't think steam tanks can be dismissed as just nuts. Civ is about alternate history. Different geography, different cultures besides each other, different orders of scientific advancements.

Tanks got invented in WWI. They were huge beasts, roughly 10m long and 3m tall. This is considerably larger than the steam locomotives of 100 years before. If the idea of the tank had appeared with the appearance of the steam locomotive--certainly a possible thought--then 50 years of development would have preceded the US Civil War.

It just takes a different emphasis in development to have steam tanks fielded in 1865 and turret warships not appearing until 1915 instead of the reverse.

A steam tank is essentially a steam locomotive that runs on spiked wheels instead of rails, and carries armor and weapons instead of pulling. It *could* have been attempted as early as 1805. The technology was there, it was the idea that was missing.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Tall_Walt
I don't think steam tanks can be dismissed as just nuts. Civ is about alternate history. Different geography, different cultures besides each other, different orders of scientific advancements.

Tanks got invented in WWI. They were huge beasts, roughly 10m long and 3m tall. This is considerably larger than the steam locomotives of 100 years before. If the idea of the tank had appeared with the appearance of the steam locomotive--certainly a possible thought--then 50 years of development would have preceded the US Civil War.

It just takes a different emphasis in development to have steam tanks fielded in 1865 and turret warships not appearing until 1915 instead of the reverse.

A steam tank is essentially a steam locomotive that runs on spiked wheels instead of rails, and carries armor and weapons instead of pulling. It *could* have been attempted as early as 1805. The technology was there, it was the idea that was missing.

I am sorry, but I seriously doubt that early 19th century metalurgy and early steam engines would have lead to a land battlehip in 1805- just syaing steam engines and steel are around, so you can make a steam tank is not sufficient.

Such a device, besides being horrifically slow, probalby inmovable due to the immense wieght and poor roads, plus with a small range given the problem of carrying its own fuel (which would have been coal- you were going to have men shoveling coal in the belly of this beast?) again if it could move at all would most liekly have blown up. Of, and you wonder what they would fire- since it would seem dangerous to keep gunpowder near the fires of the engine, less you have a catastrophic explosion..... so forth and so on, the list of reasons why it would be utterly implausible continues.

[Epistax]

I like the idea of something in between. You have all the normal preset units, but you have a few choices when you make them. For example I don't see why my phalanxes can't just hop on horses for the purposes of transportation; they aren't trained with them so they wouldn't fight with them, but they could get to an outlaying city much quicker. I'd also really like arming my workers so they become 0-1-1.

[Tall_Walt]

Originally posted by GePap


I am sorry, but I seriously doubt that early 19th century metalurgy and early steam engines would have lead to a land battlehip in 1805- just syaing steam engines and steel are around, so you can make a steam tank is not sufficient.

Such a device, besides being horrifically slow, probalby inmovable due to the immense wieght and poor roads, plus with a small range given the problem of carrying its own fuel (which would have been coal- you were going to have men shoveling coal in the belly of this beast?) again if it could move at all would most liekly have blown up. Of, and you wonder what they would fire- since it would seem dangerous to keep gunpowder near the fires of the engine, less you have a catastrophic explosion..... so forth and so on, the list of reasons why it would be utterly implausible continues.

I didn't propose that a fully functional tank was likely in the *early* 19th century, only that it could have been conceptualized or prototyped then. And after 50 years of development, it could show up when ironclads showed up c. 1865.

Early locomotives (c. 1805) *were* hideously slow, about 5 mph. IIRC, they first ran without tracks: the problems with this were solved with tracks since they were intended for commerce; an intention to use them for warfighting would have resulted in a different solution.

Men shovelling coal in the beast is just the case with the ironclads: indeed since the discovering of gunpowder, rigorous separation between magazines and guns, cooking, and armories has been necessary--and have sometimes failed, notably at Jutland.

I should note that originally a tank was a mobile infantry support pillbox. It was not in an anti-armor role, because no armor was around. An steam tank needs only walking speed, armor enough for infantry weapons, and gunports, though Gatling guns are an obvious weapon for them.

Another point is Hero's steam turbine. Nothing except lack of interest in technology prevented the steam turbine from being developed in Grecian times. An opposite example is that the concrete formula used by the Romans was only rediscovered in the last ten years: by using volcanic ash instead of sand, concrete becomes much stronger. Viewing scientific progress as an immutable sequence is quite mistaken, though it's often taught that way to emphasize the connections across technical fields. The connections are there, but other connections are usually possible.

[lajzar]

Originally posted by Epistax
I like the idea of something in between. You have all the normal preset units, but you have a few choices when you make them. For example I don't see why my phalanxes can't just hop on horses for the purposes of transportation; they aren't trained with them so they wouldn't fight with them, ...

Because phalanx units are armed with 15-20 foot long spears. You l;iterally can't travel with them on horseback. You'd need wagons to carry the weapons, and then you're back to the same slow movement as before anyway.

Plus, you may as well propose a separate land transport unit called "horsies"

[Ijuin]

Originally posted by joncnunn
I'd rename Sidearms to "fists" because "sidearms" is also another term for certain types of guns in the US.

All right. I was going by analogy to SMAC, in which the default was called "hand weapons".

I'd drop the "Laser" from weapons, that's still sci-fi in the context of primary weapon. It is used to guide bombs by planes.

What would you suggest for a late-Modern Age weapon to follow rocket launchers?

On types of boats, it seems to be missing the standard oil-based naval units of the 20th century.

Mabe so. The steamboat entry in this case was meant to cover all combustion-powered sea vehicles, since non-steam combustion driven large ships (i.e. thousands of tons) did not appear until WWI and nuclear vessels appeared right after WWII.

There would even need to be speed limits based on techs. Motorized chasis travel much faster today than in WW II. And tanks in WW I weren't much faster than troops could march.

Again, this was an analogy to SMAC, where the "rover" chassis representing all motorized wheeled vehicles had a movment of 2, to later be replaced by the futuristic hover chassis.

[Vince278]

I voted full but I know I'm just wishing in the wind. Doing those animated graphics would be a real beee-yatch.