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  • A suggestion to mod developers: Minefields

    I was thinking of a rather inexpensive but not overwhelming way to counter to the enemy bringing in large numbers of armor, howitzer, and mech. inf. right to the doorstep of a frontier city without any problems. Also, there's the issue of AI units coming into player territory without penalty.

    My idea is to give the workers the ability to turn a square into a mine field. Any square that is minefielded will only produce one food and one shield regardless of roads or irrigation if the square is in a city radius. That is because minefields usually make that piece of land quite useless for all other activity. Of course it is advisable to make the minefielded square look like a "normal" square to the enemy and thus roads and irrigation should be made on the square so the enemy doesn't suspect anything.

    Also, minefields will not be visible to any other civs unless they are allied or have right of passage. The civ that installed the mine field can obviously see that the square was minefielded by their workers. The only way enemy civs can see opposition minefields is with helicopters or explorers. And the only way to clear an opposition minefield is to bombard it three times. Can be done by one howitzer/bomber three times or three howitzer/bombers once.

    If enemy civ's units step onto a mine field that they didn't realize was there, then 50% damage is done to the first unit but units can not be killed by minefields. Then the minefield is discovered. If an enemy civ's units walk onto a minefield that is already discovered then the units to enter the minefield will have a 50% chance of having 50% damage.

    The minefields can be cleared by the civ that put them there by either bombarding or using workers. Also, minefields can not be laid on the another civ's territory unless you are allies for mutual protection.

    Minefields should not have railroad on them because RR would defeat the point of the minefield. I thought this up because most wars in the 20th century were wars of attrition at the front lines. Except for the Gulf War. Of course bombers still destroyed the enemy war machines in the heartland but the front remained an attritive environment. This would make the idea of combined arms more appealing with the use helos as observation posts. I have had too many games where I will roll in with howitzers and tanks and the enemy would do the same.

    Imagine a two tile deep minefield protecting your frontier city that has oil with fortresses around it. The general rules to invasion in real wars is that the invading party should have 3-to-1 numerical odds against dug in enemy. Those odds get higher as the level of the dug in enemy gets deeper. This minefield concept will test even the biggest of invasions.

    For people that think that military conquest shouldn't be that hard, well remember that it took 200,000+ troops to invade Normandy. If military conquest of territory was easy then we'd see a lot more of it but we don't.

    Please give suggestions and let me know if even this is feasible or not. Thanks for reading this far if you have.
    "Misery, misery, misery. That's what you've chosen" -Green Goblin-

  • #2
    Well, what exactly would the minefield be: a terrain or unit or something else? That should help find out what is needed to make a minefield.
    Georgi Nikolai Anzyakov, Commander Grand Northern Front, Red Front Democracy Game

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    • #3
      It should be possible, but isn't. If some sort of trigger system was available, or if there were 2 extra flags on unit abilitys to allow for a Mine Layer unit and a Minefield unit (immobile), or if there was a way to make a unit only able to attack/defend once, ten it would be possible.

      But none of those things are in, so I'm afraid it's not possible
      Better to be wise for a second than stupid for an entire lifetime.

      Creator of the LWC Mod for Civ3.

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      • #4
        Re: A suggestion to mod developers: Minefields

        Originally posted by Navyman
        Minefields should not have railroad on them because RR would defeat the point of the minefield.
        well if that were the case, we would know exactly where the minefields are when we start building roads.

        Overall, this is an EXCELLENT idea...but how is the AI gonna use it? is it possible to make the AI understand what minefields do?

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        • #5
          Re: Re: A suggestion to mod developers: Minefields

          Originally posted by ElitePersian


          well if that were the case, we would know exactly where the minefields are when we start building roads.

          Overall, this is an EXCELLENT idea...but how is the AI gonna use it? is it possible to make the AI understand what minefields do?
          The AI can use it as some sort of a modified method that it uses make fortresses. I am not too familiar with the AI or with modding to be able to answer detailed implementation questions but I can help with the concept if anyone wants.

          Replying to an earlier question, it is a terrain improvement.

          Thanks.
          "Misery, misery, misery. That's what you've chosen" -Green Goblin-

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          • #6
            a minefield could be an air dropable (paratrooper) unit with a zero movement, so you could air drop the minefield near a city.

            a nice touch would be if you could set the minefield to rebel and become a barbarian unit so that even the owner civ would have to deal with the minefield tile being a danger.

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            • #7
              As an extension or alternative, sea mines would also be an interesting addition to the game. Perhaps a new naval unit that could perform both mine-laying and mine-sweeping (vs. bombardment to remove mines) activity. Damage and visibility attributes would be similar to those proposed in this thread for land mines. I would also suggest that sea mines could only be laid in coastal and perhaps sea tiles as I believe that in the real world, they would typically be anchored to the sea bottom vs. floating freely.
              Hail to the Victors!

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              • #8
                Originally posted by jkjones
                As an extension or alternative, sea mines would also be an interesting addition to the game.
                As I recall, in Civ2 there was an editor bug where under certain circumstances if you edited a game in progress and saved it as a scenario, Barbarian ships carrying ground units would dump their cargo in the middle of the ocean. These "adrift" ground units could not move but didn't die, and did not show up on the map until/unless one of your ships entered the same square - then combat occurred. I used to think of of this as hitting a mine.

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                • #9
                  a minefeild should also be cleared by a minesweeper(new unit i thought of)(0/0/2)minefeild should have to be discovered first.also if u accidently send a unit into ur own minefield same efects should happen.






                  "Friends, Romans, Countrymen lend me your ears."

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                  • #10
                    It simply isn't possible, with a mod anyway. You'd need to go to Firaxis and tell 'em to reprogram a lot of stuff. Good idea, but simply impossible.

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                    • #11
                      Making minefields units might be the best approach. A zero-move barbarian unit would be dangerous to anybody. Events (if they ever get added...) would make it easy - make the mine unit with a very high defense value, but destroy it if it gets attacked by a minesweeper unit.

                      jkjones, sea mines were (are still?) free-floating balls of badness in the ocean, no anchoring was needed. Minesweepers would scoop them up and some poor sods would have to disable them by hand. Not a job for the coffee addict...

                      As a terrain, CivII Red Front handled it very well - very high movement cost to enter, reduced defense value for any unit on it. For game purposes, it puts the mines and sweepers in the background, the "feel" of the game, instead of actual player control. Roads would still work, so you'd need to disable the ability to build a road thru the tile.
                      The first President of the first Apolyton Democracy Game (CivII, that is)

                      The gift of speech is given to many,
                      intelligence to few.

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                      • #12
                        *sings* could be done with SLIC, could be done with SLIC!

                        This idea came up in the CtP and CtP2 mod forums early on. The main problem is that if you use tile-improvements, then without PW, you need a new order to give settlers. Even if you could do this, you would need to get the AI to be able to use it, and the AI in Civ3 is practically unmoddable.
                        (Making a Civ Game Rule #2: Make everything moddable )
                        If you make a 0 movement point unit, then how would you place it on the ground? It would just sit in the city doing nothing.
                        If you make it a barbarian unit, how do you know where it is? It'll just spontaneously create, yes?
                        Of course it is advisable to make the minefielded square look like a "normal" square to the enemy and thus roads and irrigation should be made on the square so the enemy doesn't suspect anything.
                        why? The AI doesn't "see" anything. Graphics are irrelevant
                        The rest of the original idea seems like the best way of doing it, but utterly impossible without a scripting language.
                        Imagine a two tile deep minefield protecting your frontier city that has oil with fortresses around it. The general rules to invasion in real wars is that the invading party should have 3-to-1 numerical odds against dug in enemy. Those odds get higher as the level of the dug in enemy gets deeper. This minefield concept will test even the biggest of invasions.
                        If the AI can use it.... Otherwise its just another way for the human player to increase his massive advantage over the AI.
                        1) The AI won't know how to place minefields effectively
                        2) The AI won't understand how to avoid or drive through the minefield.
                        Concrete, Abstract, or Squoingy?
                        "I don't believe in giving scripting languages because the only additional power they give users is the power to create bugs." - Mike Breitkreutz, Firaxis

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                        • #13
                          Re: *sings* could be done with SLIC, could be done with SLIC!

                          Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
                          If you make a 0 movement point unit, then how would you place it on the ground? It would just sit in the city doing nothing.
                          If events existed, you could put it anywhere.
                          Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
                          If you make it a barbarian unit, how do you know where it is? It'll just spontaneously create, yes?
                          Again, you could put it anywhere. You don't know where it is, you find it by blowing up, the same way mines are found in the real world. That's the whole point!
                          The first President of the first Apolyton Democracy Game (CivII, that is)

                          The gift of speech is given to many,
                          intelligence to few.

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Marquis de Sodaq
                            jkjones, sea mines were (are still?) free-floating balls of badness in the ocean, no anchoring was needed. Minesweepers would scoop them up and some poor sods would have to disable them by hand. Not a job for the coffee addict...
                            Nope, they were anchored. You want to put them in a particular place to close it off to enemy traffic, perhaps leaving a (not straight) path through for your own side to use. If you are concerned about surface ships only (like you want to bag enemy merchant shipping), you anchor them just far enough below the surface that they can't be seen. If you are concerned about submarines (like you want to keep enemy subs out of your harbor), you anchor them at various depths.

                            Free-floating mines are (a) easier to spot, (b) useless for denying an area to the enemy while allowing its use by friendly forces, (c) useless for creating a "mine field" of any sort. Dumping free-floating mines into the ocean just creates a random hazard - basically an act of terrorism. That's not to say it hasn't been done...

                            The original naval mines were contact or command detonated (this was the "torpedos" that Farragut was damning at Mobile Bay - what we now call a torpedo was originally called a "self-propelled torpedo" and a "mine" meant a land mine). In WWII, magnetic ones were created - leading to "degaussing" and wooden-hulled minesweepers. The latest minesweepers/minehunters have what amounts to little remote-controlled submarines to go after mines. However, the latest mines are really acoustic homing torpedos that sit on the bottom waiting for a target to show up and then activate & go after it. The USN has largely let its anti-mine capability atrophy - in the NATO division of labor scheme that fell to our allies (also, mines are not glamorous and the brass doesn't really like them). Therefore, the best minesweeping technology today is Western European.

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                            • #15
                              Re: Re: *sings* could be done with SLIC, could be done with SLIC!

                              Originally posted by Marquis de Sodaq

                              If events existed, you could put it anywhere.
                              Do they?
                              Again, you could put it anywhere. You don't know where it is, you find it by blowing up, the same way mines are found in the real world. That's the whole point!
                              And this would be to your advantage how? You use it as defense, then walk your defenders across a minefield, killing them all? Genius
                              Concrete, Abstract, or Squoingy?
                              "I don't believe in giving scripting languages because the only additional power they give users is the power to create bugs." - Mike Breitkreutz, Firaxis

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