NewB asks about automated surveillance

[snoopy369]

[q=snoopy369]
I certainly think it could have been done, but because of the caveats of actual implementation I suspect it wouldn't have been worth the time, compared to some other feature/features they would have had to not include... not to mention more bugs [/q]

Particularly adding in an automatic move done at the start of the turn - I think that would be a substantial bit of work, because they're not normally done that way.

[Tattila the Hun]

I do think it could be added to the end of turn, atleast it would help detect those sneaky invasions in peacetime, when all of my troops are fortified somewhere, ready to spring into action, should the planes spot something, as the only unit I'd need to "w" would be my usual "trigger" unit.

[frenzyfol]

Originally posted by Supr49er
I always thought you should be able to do some kind of surveillance once you get satellites. Why can't you build and launch satellites and program them to scout/spy on your enemies?

Good idea,
Also, what about radar towers as a tile improvement or a city building. Gives visibility to a surrounding area.
Or, researching radar gives +1-2 sight to ships/planes

[Willem]

I've been hoping for a patrol function in the game ever since playing SMAC. I still don't understand why that hasn't been implemented in the Civ series. Though of course the human player would probably be better at using it than the AI would.

PS: One thought as to how to even the playing field. Allow one aircraft in a stack the patrol function. Selecting this would simply push back the fog of war by a square or two in all directions. You wouldn't need to necessarily create a patrol route, it would just expand your overall view.

[commando007]

I think a few new modern age units are in order. possibly an automated sea unit with no attack, but a large vision radius, and for areal recon, perhaps an areal recon/sentry drone

[yaroslav]

Originally posted by Ming
You could be given an option at the beginning of your turn to initiate all patrol missions. And yes, it would take away their movement, but you wouldn't have to assign ALL your aircraft or ships to patrol missions. This would allow you to see where the potential invaders are while still having a chance to respond to them with other units. I would have no problem allocating a part of my navy or airforce to patrol only missions.

Exactly, and as soon as the patrol discover something, zoom in and show it to the user, who can say whether he want the patrols to continue or to stop the "yet not executed patrols" in order to use the not-yet-used-in-patrol ships/planes to counter the invasion that you have just detected.

Maybe this way you would lose unit movements, as snoopy says, but I do not see a problem with this.

[Unimatrix11]

Uhem - why not just give planes a spoting-range equal to their action range ? I mean recon missions are not done by whole squadrons anyways, but by small parts of each unit.

[Krill]

Originally posted by snoopy369
[q=snoopy369]
I certainly think it could have been done, but because of the caveats of actual implementation I suspect it wouldn't have been worth the time, compared to some other feature/features they would have had to not include... not to mention more bugs [/q]

Particularly adding in an automatic move done at the start of the turn - I think that would be a substantial bit of work, because they're not normally done that way.

Question: If the coding was put in place how much flexibility would it give Firaxis?

[commando007]

[QUOTE]Question: If the coding was put in place how much flexibility would it give Firaxis?[QUOTE]



if the code was put in place to execute automated commands both before and after turns, it could be expanded to any role in the game with very little additional work. however, the overall size of civ may cause firaxis to need to partialy rewrite the code dealing with turn prossesing to make it work. snoopy369 is right, it means more glitches.

[Yosho]

Originally posted by snoopy369
C. End of turn - after you've already cycled through any units you'd be using? That's more clicks than just doing the surveillance manually would take (hitting w,w,w,w,w,w,w,w for a whole stack). This is the only truly possible solution, however; A and B don't mesh with Civ's programming.

There could be some potential benefit from including a repeated survey command, but having it only happen at the end of the unit cycles just isn't that useful from a reducing MM point of view (the point of any automation). If it were possible - and it's certainly moddable in python - I doubt many of you would actually use it once it was done...

Well, you could have it work like auto-movement does; once you move some of your other units, plane will auto-survey the area, unless you've clicked on it and changed it's order before then. Just like if you told a unit to move across the map, it'll just keep moving on it's own at some point in the middle of your turn, after you've moved some of your other units, unless you click on it and give it other orders first.

Sounds like it'd be useful to me; perhaps not quite as useful as manually going through and clicking on survey on each plane individually, and perhaps occasioanlly annoying, but much better in practice then what we have nw.

[Blake]

A mod for this would be entirely implementable. Has it not been done yet in any mod?

[Lancer]

My solution is both simple and elegant. I get killed off earlier in the game.

[Modo44]

@Lancer Good one.

Originally posted by rah
Yeah, a patrol command for air, sea and land units would be great.

There is one for sea units, although you don't set patrol points, just tell the ship to attack incoming enemies.

[Lancer]

The game 'Empire Deluxe', made well over a decade ago had a wonderful patrol feature for aircraft. Aircraft could even take off, fly to a waypoint such as a set point out in the ocean, then fly to a different city and land. Next turn it does it all in reverse. Also you could set air units once produced to city hop to a destination and there wait for orders. Neat.

[Sir Og]

I think Dale's Combat Mod has the patrol feature, among other things. I haven't tried it myself yet because it is incompatible with Bhuric's unofficial patch.