Units that I miss

[joncnunn]

On paradroper use: Most SSI war games that have them will auto-eliminate paratroopers that attempt to land in an enemy controlled urban hex even if there are no enemy units present. For good reason too; even the ones not directly shot down, accidently hanged themselves on window ledges, taken prisoner immedatey have to scatter too the extent their no longer a conhesive combat unit but are now much like partisians operating behind enemy lines.

For the same reason, many SSI games will also auto-eliminate paratroopers attempting to land in an enemy occuplied hex.

[Generaldoktor]

What are you some kind of apologist for the Civ4 design team?

I didn't start this thread, but the title is units that are missed, for their capabilities. You offer paltry excuses why they can't be included or lame replacements.

Gunships are neat as is the airlift capability, but there still is no way to deliver substantial ground presence by air and that does not reflect the real world or the direction it is going for the near future. Unbalanced? Only in the right hands of people who know how to use them; and then, who cares? You snooze, you lose. Or, I just saw your doublepost; if there isn't to be air cavalry, then the airdrop unit replaces it. Normandy and Crete were a mess, btw, as far as airdrops, as you stated, but they still accomplished their goals, as did the 1945 Ruhr drop, done by an inexperienced unit. Arnhem and some of the Russian drops did result in nothing but chaos, but a small ground-taking success did come out of Arnhem, mostly in the American sector, (sorry Brits.) Air Cavalry operations, i.e. infantry from helicopters, have had no spectacular lack of success, unless you count that inconclusive battle in Vietnam that was the subject of the jingoistic film, "We Were Soldiers."

Otherwise, as I told the other guy above, giving a nuclear fuel option for sadsacks who don't have oil and can't muster the big ones to take it does not replace the true performance enhancement of nuclear submarines.

If the AI is incompetent with missiles (or paratroopers, for that matter,) they don't have to use them. Since when are we militant about AI rights? (Also used to eliminate "armies" btw, after Civ3. Bulls---!)

I remain in favor of special anti-ship planes that would be more effective than land versions. I haven't tried it, but I heard strat bombers won't base on carriers in Civ4; not useful if they did as long as the generic "bomber" is virtually useless against ships. More differentiation isn't always bad. The history of man is loaded with the history of warfare. Civ4 threw out the baby with the bathwater trying to simplify that. I think the designers know it too; and that's why we have the "Warlords" expansion coming. (Of course it didn't hurt that the new multi-player tournaments have mostly turned into general warfests. )

[Dis]

Re: Re: Units that I miss

Originally posted by joncnunn
Paratrooper replaced by:
Defensive: All (each airport can send one unit per turn and receive unlimited)
Offensive: None (unbalancing)

Nuclear Sub replaced by Sub (Sub can use either Oil or Uranium)

Carrier based bomber replaced by all aircraft. As far as I can tell, all air units may be based on a carrier

Missles : No replacement. Probably because AI is incompentant with them

Anti ship planes: Replaced by Fighters / Jet Fighters, which don't suffer the 50% pentally attacking ships that Bomber types do.

Chopters: Replaced by Gunships; and they are Tank killers. (In addition, Calvary now promote to them)

I know it's not a wargame, but war is an essentual part of this game. And the more units the better.

I want a paratrooper. Civ2 did this well. What was the problem? Perhaps I didn't use them well in civ2. I didn't find them unbalancing. Their low strength inhibited their use for attacking cities. As it should be in real life. What's the problem? Maybe they were too cheap and you can rush an enemy with them. They should increase the cost of them then.

I would like to see a nuclear sub and a fast attack sub. And for scenarios ww1 subs should be different than ww2 subs (though the time frame is too close for regular game implementation).

carriers. I guess they are okay. Maybe they could make a unit called a light bomber that can be based on them. But all other bombers should not be on carriers

battleships. Still too strong. Or maybe it's just because the enemy can't use aircraft well against them. They never seem to go obsolete in my game. I build them up till the end. They crush everything. Civ2 had this best with cruise missiles. Cruise missiles in civ2 obsoleted the battleship.

choppers. I never use the really. Unless I upgraded some cavs. They have some uses though. The restrictions don't bother me too much.

[Dis]

and if I recall civ2 correctly. The AI had no ineffectiveness using missiles against my ships. I lost many a ship to them.

I just don't miss them because the AI was too good at using them. .

[Generaldoktor]

Re: Re: Re: Units that I miss

Originally posted by Dis


I know it's not a wargame, but war is an essentual part of this game. And the more units the better...

Ichoppers. I never use the really. Unless I upgraded some cavs. They have some uses though. The restrictions don't bother me too much.

I agree with everything you said, (even the parts I didn't quote.) But I would learn how to use choppers if you are to get involved in multi-player, or even against high-dif level AI. They reportedly rule Civ4's late game as tank killers. I haven't had much war late, being sort of a builder type, (as my last post didn't suggest, I am changing my ways though. ) But that is the reports I've received, or read here.

[Dis]

I haven't really used them against tanks. Why would they be that effective?

And yes choppers have many different uses in the modern world. But many would be hard to implement in a civ game of this scope. That is why the choppers don't bother me much.

You have choppers uses in anti-sub warfare. But this could be assumed to be part of the destroyer unit. Air cavalry of course. Choppers used in anti-tank warfare. Choppers uses to evacuate the wounded. I was in the navy, I can't remember all the choppers we had. But that was most of the uses. The marines had the big ones for troop transport and the cobras. The navy had anti sub choppers and choppers for hauling supplies and crap.

[Generaldoktor]

RE: Gunships (the sole "chopper" presently; )

Ah, read the manual, gunships automatic 25% withdrawal chance and +100% combat boost vs. tank units. Everybody builds tanks, especially warmongers who remember rolling over everybody in Civ3. The warmonger afficianado in Civ4 or his AI counterpart, who is also programmed to do so, builds gunships, lots and lots of them. Bye, bye, armored assault.

As with anything, there's a counter. I believe you can knock them down with air combat patrol or with SAM infantry, this last right in the same combat. But you have to remember to do that.

RE: hypothetical Air Cavalry;

You can airlift right now defensively, (even crossbowman, as somebody said; don't get me started on Civ4 retarding upgrades for centuries with its inflated upgrade costs. ) But without paratroopers and/or some kind of air cav, there is no way to project substantial infantry power by air and that does not reflect the real world or what it will be in ten years and doesn't make sense in the way it restricts game play either, IMHO.

Make them "choppers" or make them Paratroops, or whatever, but we need a way to fly in infantry, offensively.

[AshenPlanet]

.

On Gunships:
Gunships are awesome units, but it has little to do with being anti-tank.
In this time period, nothing compares to gunships because of their 4 move.
They can even get blitz to make 4 or more attacks a round!

Once you get radio, combat changes overnight.
Bombers can bring any unit to 1/2 health in a vast radius.
Being able to run deep into enemy territory and plunder and attack so quickly on many fronts is an unparralleled ability.
Having the bombers to bring every unit in the area to 1/2 health gives the gunships the ability to wreak havoc.

Also, air-patrol and bunkers do nothing against gunships.
Gunships are not considered an "air" unit - they are catagorized as a cavalry-type unit (helicopter is a separate class).


On subs:
Nuclear subs aren't substantially better in combat than older oil subs - hence the same stats.
The main advantage of nuclear subs is that they can go for months without needing to re-fuel.
That is an irrelevant factor in civ4, since all non-air units have infinite range, and never need to re-fuel.


On air drops:
Air drops in real life were done by cottages (Market Garden) and hamlets (Normandy), but never near any village or town let alone in sight of any city.
Old paratroopers did not reflect this fact, paratrooping units in Civ 4 do reflect this.
Air drops can be performed on offense as well; it's just limited to 1 air dropped unit per turn.

As for modern projection of infantry forces, what happened in Iraq?
In Germany, we had a competant intelligence service and knew where the enemy guns and troop concentrations were.
In Iraq, we had no idea where the iraq guns were, and they were, in fact, spread all throughout the desert.
Since you can't air drop next to enemy forces (unlike old civ paratrooper units), infantry advancement was done by land and by amphibious landing.

.

[Generaldoktor]

I would question that there were no airmobile operations done in the two campaigns in Iraq, but I will read about the campaigns again. (Obviously, I am not referring to the counterinsurgency business going on now, but the original campaign in what, 2002? Also the 1991 one.)

I think range per turn should be increased on nuclear subs, to reflect the lack of need to refuel. The ICBM payload should be reallowed and they are more efficient killers. WWI/II subs frequently missed their targets due to primitive torpedoes/aiming/guidance aand were highly vulnerable to countermeasures due to noise, low crash depth and poor internal protection. The "game" (between modern subs and escorts,) has changed dramatically. If countermeasures have also improved, reflect it another way. I find it hard to believe the measures/countermeasures tradeoff is exactly one-to-one, (the U.S. Navy now claims its newest subs are virtually invisible; ) and the killing potential definitely is not, nuclear weapons aside. Only with large sea/air escort screens are surface ships anything close to safe today. The new escorts should be in the game and be required to be present and working to get the new countermeasures.

As I said earlier, I had trouble measuring the effect of the new Civ gunships because I have experienced very little conflict with my games in the modern era. There is much on various threads about the new gunship unit's superiority; your (AshenPlanet's) explanations are credible, but I still want an infantry projection by air and I don't think the gunship or "airlift" covers it. Your arguments about airdrops near cities being unrealistic I think all still hinge on game scale, which is purposefully vague in Civ. As I remember in Civ3, you couldn't drop them in the cities, but you could outside. I still contend, that given the large game scale here, that is consistent with real life experience. How far is Arnhem from Amsterdam anyway, (appears to be less than 100 miles; how big is a Civ square?) How far were the Cotentin Peninsula drop zones from Cherbourg, (which appears to be a fairly large city, though I'm having trouble getting a 1944 population figure; in 1990 the metro area had about 118,000 and it had been a deep water port for many centuries, which is why the Allies wanted it.) Don't allow drops directly into cities, but let them drop outside and move, if unopposed, or attack, just as in Civ3 (or CTP, or CIV2, from what I understand.)

[AshenPlanet]

.

I'm a mobility junkie.
I always go for mobility on chariots, horse archers, knights, and even early cavalry.
They are little better than infantry in enemy territory without it.
Later cavalry (when I expect to upgrade to gunships soon) I work towards blitz instead.

Gunships come with mobility for free and get 4 moves - they are so good.

Air drops, plain and simple, can not be done where there are enemy troops present.
100 miles away is well outside a city zone.
For example, both Boston and Philadelphia are 2 states away from New York City, but both are within 100 miles of it.

Increasing the speed on civ4 nuclear subs would make them faster than surface ships which they simply are not.
The lack of missiles issue is simply to help the ai, and not specific to subs or cruisers/destroyers.
Artillery, cannons, catapults, etc. all lost their siege at range capabilities.

That ai issue is, I think, a multiplayer/single player issue.
If the game was built from the ground up as a multiplayer game, then there's no problem using all kinds of complicated mechanics.
If a player doesn't understand how to use and counter gunships, or air power, or ranged siege from subs and catapults, then that's their problem.
As long as it's just human players, there's no problem using those units.
Unfortunately, Civ4 seems to have been built primarily as a sigle player game with multiplayer functionality.
I think they feel that their core support base are single-player players.

For single player to be challenging and fun, the ai needs to understand how to use all the untis available to them, otherwise games are just too easy unless the ai players get massive advantages like in previous civ games.
I think they wanted to get away from that.
So to make it easier on the ai, missiles, catapults, artillery, etc... are unfortunately gone.

.

[Dis]

The reason why we did no air drops of troops in Iraq was because we wanted a low casualty rate. We could have done it if we wanted to. Another reason might have been the large armored force Iraq had in 1991. They had one of the biggest militaries in the world iirc. And a huge tank force.

But keeping most of the troops in armored (or at least mobile) vehicles while the air forces did most of the bombing ensured the very low casualty rate.

simply put, the U.S. doesn't have the balls it used to have in WW2. . But we did save a lot of american lives this way.

[Dis]

As for Ashen's post we come back to the gameplay vs. realism argument. I won't get into that. It's been done to death. But what I will get into is fun. I want what's fun. And having more offensive options to reflect real world conditions is fun.

Paratroopers should be allowed to drop right next to cities. Most likely their strength will be so low (as it was in civ2) that a direct assault on the city would be suicidal. This is good, this is what we want. We want paratroopers to secure vital areas to reflect real life situation. They could occupy villages/hamlets etc. Or they could occupy resource squares etc.

This would be the most fun use of paratroopers, to take over resource squares. this could be overpowering for the AI. But I doubt it. As I see the AI guard some of their important resource squares often. It's not like they are undefended.

[Generaldoktor]

Yeah, Dis, I agree with both your statements. I'm sitting here, Googling airborne operations because I think some were conducted close to cities; and then I looked up; and said, "What am I wasting time on this for?"

I think it is possible to do airdrop/airmobile near urban areas whether it was done or not. But even that becomes a little immaterial. The title of the thread, which I did not author, is "Units that I miss."

Answer: Airborne Units, Nuclear Submarines, Stealth Fighters, enhanced naval bomb capability, (an A-4 can carry as much as the old B-17,) there may be a few others that I've forgotten in the course of this meaningless debate.

If Ashen, Joncnunn, Feyd, etc., feel differently, their votes are herein registered. I'm never too sure how much of this forum feedback really gets back to Firaxis anyway, but in any case. 'Nuff said.

[Dis]

nuclear submarines is next. The argument above against their use is not applicable imho. If stealth bombers are in, then so should nuclear submarines.

I admit, they are more difficult to implement since there are no attack and defense values anymore. Because you could argue that submarines are no more effective against armed surface ships than they were in ww2. And that is probably true. But they are much better on defense. Yes I know anti sub warfare is much better as well. But these new seawolf class submarines are pretty damn good. And our boomers were always so good to avoid detection in the first place. They could operate at low speeds without the reactor coolant pumps running (one of the noisier parts of a sub).

It all comes down to fun again. Who cares about realism. Who cares if new AEGIS cruisers have the same kill ratio against nuclear subs as destroyers have against regular subs. We want more units to play with. We want more advantages for our tech lead. Nuclear subs may not be effective against AEGIS cruisers, but they would certainly be effective against obsolete navies.

I don't like these restriction designed to "help" the AI. They don't need any help. The AI is much better at upgrading units in this game than in past incarnations of civ (and smac). I rarely face really outdated units anyways.

And as mentioned, the title of the thread is units we'd like to see. And nuclear subs, AEGIS cruisers, and paratroopers are some we'd like to see (along with light bombers that could be on aircraft carriers).

[Prussia]

I still don't understand why they took out carrier-based bombers...