Thinking of adding landmines, but how exactly does ZOC work?

[korn469]

there has been compliants that forts in civ3 are worthless because they give free shots and don't actually stop a unit

but i had an idea, if you created a 0.0.1 land unit that was immoble but had zoc, would it actually stop an enemy unit or would it just add to the free shot ability?

what i am unsure of right now is, has free shots replaced civ2/smac ZOCs where the unit had to stop?

if it has, then would a 0.X.1 unit (set to act as a cruise missile and given immobile, but either load or airdrop, and possibly hidden nationality) actually defend but die automatically? unfortunantly i am almost positive that the AI couldn't handle this unit (because if set as a defensive unit it would stack them in its cities, and if set as anything else it wouldn't do anything)

what would be really cool is if a land unit had the submarine ability then you wouldn't be able to see it, so you could plant a few of these and actually be able to defend your boders

anyone have any thoughts on the subject?

[Immortal Wombat]

The AI wont be able to handle it.

If they're immobile, how will they get out of the city?

The human will vastly over-exploit them, because you have no way of limiting their use, and wars will be too easy to win.

[Gramphos]

Make them no movement at all, but allow them to airdrop. Would that work to place them?

[korn469]

Grampos if they didn't have any movement points would they be able to airdrop then? i thought they needed at least one movement point to air drop, and immortal wombat is right, i seriously doubt that the AI will know how to use them

but does anyone know if zoc for units is like in civ/smac or is it just the free shot?

[Qilue]

It's a free shot and usually only does 1 point of damage and doesn't always happen.

[Gramphos]

Don't know if they would airdrop without movement poits. Infact I don't know how the game would handle any unit without movement. Can't test anything right now as my brother is home for Christmas and has occupied the computer with Civ3 on, and leaves me for programming (and school work)

(Worst is that I can't chagk my ISP mail until this weekend)

[Sevorak]

The land mines that I'm developing for the Mod With No Name are:

1.1.1 (20).0.1

With the following flags selected:
Submarine
Immobile

And allowed only two commands
Airdrop
Fortify

ZOC is unchecked.

The idea here is that the land mine can use its movement point to do one thing - airdrop. After that, you might as well fortify it since it can't do anything else (the Immobile flag works to prevent mines chasing people). It's triggered when it is attacked in a STACK - then, one of them will get a defensive artillery free shot representing the land mine.

Might rework the stats, but the basic idea of the Immobile airdropper should work for mine placement.

-Sev

[korn469]

Sev

so when an artillary unit is in a stack one artillary unit gets a free shot?

also i gave the artillary in my mod a defensive value as well, so have you tested this out any, because i haven't yet

additionally i tried giving land units the submarine special ability but it didn't seem to do anything

and which AI did u select for your landmine? offense, defense, or bombard? because i found the AI to be especially passive when bombard was selected for their AI

[Gramphos]

You are right...
...that would work.

However, is there any way to make a unit that onlu can carry landmines, and use it as a mine placer?

What would happen if it gets Stealth ability?

Is there any way to remove th sight of that unit? (I guess not)

[Sevorak]

korn,

Yeah, I think that's how it worked, though I haven't tested artillery with defensive values yet. Let me know how that goes.

I picked Bombard. The AI won't use them right otherwise. It won't use them right at all, but if you select Offense or Defense it won't build them ever, preferring Spearmen or Swordsmen or something like that.
Gramphos,

I don't think we can do the mine layer unless we flag the mine as a foot unit and let a new unit be both an APC and a mine layer.

Stealth only deals with air missions AFAIK. I could be wrong.

-Sev

[korn469]

so as far as i know there is no way to hide a land unit from site, and Sev is right about the mine layer unit except you could tactical missile to the landmine, and then give tactical missile carrier to the mine layer, and even if the mine disappear you could make it really cheap

from my testing stealth only appears to work with air units carrying out air missions and it does effect land combat at all

so landmine can't be invisable unless firaxis changes the flags around

[Gramphos]

So, the cost of a mine layer should b high, and the cost of a mine low?

I need to mess around with things like this as soon as I get access to the computer with Civ3 again. (1 day left and counting)

[Gramphos]

Would it be possible to place mines (other type) in water?

[SlightlyMadman]

I just did a quick test myself, making catapult immobile, boosting its bombard to 10, and flagging immobile, submarine, and airlift.

Interesting. I dropped the price of airport to 0 and no required tech so I could test it at 3000 bc, and did the same with catapult.

It worked as expected. I could airlift it, but not move it. I'm not sure that the submarine trait did anything, especially since its invisble inside a city, anyways. I didn't go so far as to mess with helicopters or anything.

The AI didn't build a single one. I don't know why, with 10 bombard, it was an imbalanced unit.

The bombard ability is also wrong, as it allows it to bombard approaching units.

Does it really need to be invisible? I don't know a whole lot about mine fields, but, even if you don't know they're there initially, you would find out after your first troop walked in. That's practically nothing in game terms. They'd mostly be used to either force people through them or around them, not to take them by surprise, right?

[korn469]

SlightlyMadman

as long as they have airdrop they should be able to get out into the field

however unless the AI can handle this, then the argument for actually including them is very small

so there are two ways of making these units, as immobile bombard units, or as immobile defense units with a low defensive value and either 0 or 1 offensive value

the AI might airdrop them around cities, but i can almost guarantee it wouldn't fortify chokepoints with it

hehe what we need is for soren to make a mine ai

or for them to change zoc back to the civ2/smac rules