Submarine bug

[Theseus]

Solitaire?

( )

[Gray_Lensman]

For those persons interested in the sub bug, I tried an experiment this morning.

Utilizing the editor, I added an additional ability to the submarine types. I turned on "Hidden Nationality" and VOILA, no war declarations. Note: You have to be careful and hold down the (Ctrl) key while adding the new ability or you will turn off all the original abilities such as invisibiliy, etc. Also, the original (conquests.biq for Conquests games) and (Civ3X.bix for PTW games) are Read-Only files so you may have to make backups/rename and then remove the Read-Only attribute before being able to save the changes.

Now, you have to think of the ramifications. These subs will be particularly lethal, in that they will be able to attack or be attacked without starting a war, not unlike what went on for years during the cold war. Also, they will become an awesome blockade tool, probably requiring so called house rules in multiplayer games.

I would probably have the preferences "Show Enemy Moves" and possibly "Animate Enemy Moves", in order to maybe catch a glimpse of the offending nation'c color during the actual combat. At least then, a possible form of retribution or countermeasures might be taken.

The added possiblities are endless. No wonder everyone wants the submarines to work correctly.

[gunkulator]

Bravo Gray_Lensman! I think adding Hidden Nationality to subs is just the ticket. Old subs tended to attack at night anyway. You never knew what or who hit you. Even during the day they would immediately submerge once a surface contact was sighted. Modern subs of course are hard to detect at all, let alone determine their nationality. In any case, it looks like this fixes the problem with minimum game balance issues.

[gnome]

Originally posted by Gray_Lensman
Utilizing the editor, I added an additional ability to the submarine types. I turned on "Hidden Nationality" and VOILA, no war declarations. Note: You have to be careful and hold down the (Ctrl) key while adding the new ability or you will turn off all the original abilities such as invisibiliy, etc. Also, the original (conquests.biq for Conquests games) and (Civ3X.bix for PTW games) are Read-Only files so you may have to make backups/rename and then remove the Read-Only attribute before being able to save the changes.

I keep my conquests.biq and other basic stuff vanilla (just to have a baseline to work off of)... and save any modifications I make as a scenario.

I think this is an awesome idea BTW... gonna try it.

[Shogun Gunner]

Originally posted by Gray_Lensman
For those persons interested in the sub bug, I tried an experiment this morning.

Utilizing the editor, I added an additional ability to the submarine types. I turned on "Hidden Nationality" and VOILA, no war declarations.

Great suggestion. I'm going to try it.

Now, you have to think of the ramifications. These subs will be particularly lethal, in that they will be able to attack or be attacked without starting a war, not unlike what went on for years during the cold war. Also, they will become an awesome blockade tool, probably requiring so called house rules in

The added possiblities are endless. No wonder everyone wants the submarines to work correctly.

I don't mind sub warfare not causing a declaration of war. I can live with that. I wonder however, how this will affect the AIs perception of the unit and will this change AI strategy?

[Raleigh]

Yes it affects gameplay. This really messed up one game I had so badly I had to reload the turn before and move the sub (a Gracious superpower declared war on me)...

[Gray_Lensman]

Originally posted by Raleigh
Yes it affects gameplay. This really messed up one game I had so badly I had to reload the turn before and move the sub (a Gracious superpower declared war on me)...

By your complaint, I seem to understand that the original settings for the subs is what affected your gameplay, not the new ability we are talking about in the thread.

[bobbo008]

If I can drop $100 on this game (40 for civ3, 30 for PTW and 30 for conquests), i think they can fix almost all of the problems, especially since most problems i'm sure have been brought to their attention soon after the initial release.

*sigh* this is a reason why games are pirated

[Admiral PJ]

This Sub bug has some advantages.. You can get a Civ to go to war with you, by letting them run over and attacking one of your subs. This is useful against civs you have peace or other treaties , meaning you won't get 'diplomatic' reputation penalties. I think its better than you declaring war first, as you get reputation problems for declaring wars i believe, the only thing is you won't be able to get a surprise attack in first.. you'll have to defend their forces for a while.. tho it depends if they have any forces with movement after they hit your sub.

This makes up for the bad effects, though it would be better if it was fixed.. it unbalances the game slightly.

I assume this happens with invisible land units too..

[Admiral PJ]

Perhaps this bug could be fixed by having a Hide command (or Submerge) which takes a whole turn to make the unit invisible.
The Hide command can be used again to make the unit visible.. so your allies can see your position and not run you down, but it also helps them know what your doing. Perhaps seeing your subs would scare off enemy ships too.
You could use the Fortify command key to do the Hide action.. its a similar command, and I don't really see how a submarine can fortify anyhow unless its in a subpen.

When a unit is unhidden it could move faster, and see further (inthe case of submarines, special forces units wouldn't get much recce bonus possibly ) because the sub can take in more air for its engines, and has less water resistance.. though i'm not certain how this works in reallife.

Another way to fix the sub bug, would be to give all ships Detect sub ability, maybe not including older ships. The subs would still be useful for scouting out enemy coastlines, where there weren't any ships to detect them.

[Gray_Lensman]

There is no sense in making suggestions as to how to fix the sub bug. All you can do is either live with it or edit the Hidden Identity Ability. see the following thread, same goes with AI use of Armies. Basically C3C is AbandonWare http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=117394

[Tattila the Hun]

Wasn't there a problem in the first version of CIV3, it didn't have the "This will mean war with the X people", when YOU tried to go to a spot occupied by enemy sub, it just declared war? Was it the same for AI's surface units/you subs? And if so, was it fixed?