Idea: unit's as in SMAC

[Lemmy]

i have an idea to create custom units in the game.
First forget all the units that are in the game now.

now there are three types of units:
platforms, only movement, no attack, no defense.
weapons, only has attack, no defense, no movement.
armor, only defense no attack, no movement.

Platforms have the "Army" unit abilitiy, with a movement of 1, and a transport capacity of 2.
Weapons and armor are like normal units, without movement.
Now if you want to create a unit in the game, you first have to build a platform, then the desired weapon and armor, and load them in the platform.
You could also choose to load two armor on the platform, to make a super defensive unit, or two weapons to make a super attack unit(which can be captured by the enemy).

One problem though, there is a limit on the number of armies you can have.

And i don't know if the AI will be able to handle this.

[Lemmy]

i've been doing some editing to the units, but if i test it, the game crashes.
i start a game, and when i build my first city, *CRASH*
any thoughts on how this could happen?

[Kal-el]

love the idea.

I think this is a great idea. And once you build the pentagon you will be able to add additional weapons, armor or even specials. I think you should give the platform the ‘blitz’ attribute so that it can attack more than once. I think this will work, I haven’t been able to test this in a game yet. I love the idea. Let me know how it is coming along.

[Kal-el]

love the idea.

I think this is a great idea. And once you build the pentagon you will be able to add additional weapons, armor or even specials. I think you should give the platform the ‘blitz’ attribute so that it can attack more than once. I think this will work, I haven’t been able to test this in a game yet. I love the idea. Let me know how it is coming along.

[Lemmy]

i'll keep you updated, i didn't do much after my last post here, was busy with school, and now i'm having exams.
I do plan to give it another try, once i downloaded version 1.16f.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Very creative, but it effectively negates most UU abilities and many warfare roles such as the cavalry/armour versus the slower infantry/artillery.

And would this destroy air units as an option?

It is cool, and I don't want to let anyone down, but radical ideas like this (see the one in General on terrain improvements) do need questions asked and problems brought up... and therefore hopefully solved so they can work!

[Lemmy]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
Very creative, but it effectively negates most UU abilities and many warfare roles such as the cavalry/armour versus the slower infantry/artillery.

not neccesarily, a fast platform with artillery may be to expensive and take to long to build, so there will still be slow artillery and fast cavalry, and the faster platforms could be given the same properties as cavalry.

And would this destroy air units as an option?

It is cool, and I don't want to let anyone down, but radical ideas like this (see the one in General on terrain improvements) do need questions asked and problems brought up... and therefore hopefully solved so they can work!

i haven't thought about air units yet, but i suppose they could stay the same, they only appear late in the game.

Your not letting me down, i'm actually happy that there is some interest, and you raised some good points.

[Lemmy]

but radical ideas like this (see the one in General on terrain improvements)

what idea are you referring to?

[cassembler]

This might be a great idea to beef up the late game...

[Lemmy]

this is what i came up with so far :

Platforms:
Warrior 1 movement
Horse 2 movement
Trained Horse 3 or 4 movement (Obsoletes horse)
Infantry 2 movement (Obsoletes warrior)
Tracked Vehicle 4 movement
Advanced Tracked Vehicle 5 movement

Weapons:
Stick 1 offense
Axe 2 offense
Bow 2 bombard
Spear 3 offense
Catapult 4 bombard
Sword 4 offense
Musket 6 offense
Rifle 8 offense
Artillery 10 bombard
Machine gun 12 offense
Cannon 18 offense
Radar artillery 24 bombard
Kick-ass weapon 32 offense

Armor:
Cloth 1
Bronze shield 2
Iron armor 3
Chainmail armor 4
??? 6
Kevlar 8
Titanium armor 12
Better armor 16
Kick-ass armor 24

i could use some better names for most of them, so if you know any, please tell me.
the values will still have to be balanced, but that will happen while i'm testing it.

There is still one major problem, there is a limit on the number of armies, can't have more than 1 per city, i hope firaxis changes that.

Off course, you don't need a complete unit (platform+weapon+armor) to defend your cities, only armor will be enough. So the one army per city limit can be seen a one offensive unit per city, but then you would have a situation where bigger is always better, so maybe i'll wait for a change..

[Kal-el]

name changes

maybe call cloth armor, leather.
and the strength 6 armor platemail.

what about adding a repeating rifle between rifle and machinegun, much as you have both a sword and catapult. There could also be something along the lines of a bazooka and heavy machine gun to differentiate between an M-16, standard issue assault rifle and an M-60 heavy machinegun. There could even be a distinction between the standard automatic assault rifle one with a grenade launcher attached.

One of the things I didn't like about the SMAC system was the lack of options. What I would like to see come out of this is a system that can produce a plethora of variations.

here's a problem I just thought of. What about the AI? Something tells me its not going to be able to handle this. It would be great for MP though.

[s3d]

Bombard should be property of platform. If you put unit with bombard into army it will lose it (as any other property). Army however retain all its ability. Also platform ahould have "carry tactical missile" property and armor/weapon blocks should have "tactical missile" property. That way AI will not be able put wrong units into platform.

[Lemmy]

Bombard should be property of platform. If you put unit with bombard into army it will lose it (as any other property). Army however retain all its ability

how exactly does that work with the bombard ability and armies?
i tried it a bit, but i can't get a platform to have a bombard strength the same as the weapon it carries.


I found a way to use the other properties to exclude certain weapons from platforms, the properties i use for the platforms are:
Carry foot units only
Can carry tactical missile

Bombard platforms have both proprties, and bombard weapons are Foot units and Tactical missiles, i tried this and it works, only bombard weapons can be put on bombard platforms.

I divided the weapons into bombard, light(spear, guns and rifles) and heavy (big cannons).
Infantry and horses should only be able to carry light weapons.
These platforms have no properties
Light weapons have the mounted property(can't be put on bombard platforms).

Tracked vehicles can carry heavy and light weapons.
Those platforms only have the can carry tacical missile property.
Heavy weapons have the tactical missile and mounted property(can't be put on bombard platforms).

i haven't tested everything yet, but i don't expect any big problems

[s3d]

Originally posted by Lemmy


how exactly does that work with the bombard ability and armies?
i tried it a bit, but i can't get a platform to have a bombard strength the same as the weapon it carries.

Ye,p you can not. Just give platform some fixed bombard value, that is all we can do. But you also can have some special platforms - like airdrop platform, all-terrain platform, hidden nationality platform etc.

[Lemmy]

Originally posted by s3d
Ye,p you can not. Just give platform some fixed bombard value, that is all we can do. But you also can have some special platforms - like airdrop platform, all-terrain platform, hidden nationality platform etc.

too bad, it does make it a bit easier for me, because i was also thinking about having two types of bombard units, foot units, like archers or men with rpg launchers, and heavy artilery units like catapult and artillery.