whats the special unit of the persians??

[korn469]

posted by Harlan
Korn,
The fact is we don't know if any elephant unit or units will be in the game or not. I have a hunch they will. This is based on the Polytheism pic, plus the fact that there are three blank spaces for that tech. For all we know, there could be a general elephant unit for everyone, and then a special version for India.

Chances are there still are some general units not shown in the tech tree. Look again at that image of all of those units you asked me to see and provided a link for. Look at the topmost land unit standing near the coast. If that's not a diplomat unit then I don't know what (he's holding a scroll), yet there is no such unit in the tech tree, despite Writing having a whopping 4 empty spaces. (The guy standing to the northeast of the chariot also looks like a diplomatic type, again holding a scroll instead of weapon)

harlan, first i have not seen three blank spaces for polytheism...i have seen a tech that doesn't have anything associated with it

check out these links
Tech tree with filler art
Tech Tree from Civ3.com

looking at those tech tech shots, the first one shows the units and then T's standing in for governments, buildings, and wonders...looking at a later shot from the civ3 site shows the tech tree filled in with artwork

both of these screen shots goes against both the theory that polytheism has three blank spaces that haven't been filled in yet, and it goes against the theory that writing has four blank spaces that haven't been filled in yet

as for the topmost guy holding the scrolls he is not a diplomat, he is most likely an explorer unit, made available with navigation...look at the similarities in the unit in the screen shot, and the unit under navigation in this screen shot of the tech tree

unit screen shots
navigation unit in the tech tree

it looks like the exact same unit to me...it's carrying the same scrolls...so unless the diplomat is made available with navigation then i highly doubt that it is a diplomat

As an aside, where is the info that the Russian special unit is the MiG? I noticed in the tech tree that there doesn't seem to be any space for it. There is one blank space at Advanced Flight for a special unit, not two, and we already know the F-15 is in. Plus, wouldn't having both the F-15 and MiG be too similar to each other?

looking at the screen shot for advanced flight i see what you are talking about, but i think that those tech charts are filled in for the most part, and that empty space isn't reserved for new units, wonders, and structures but is instead just empty...that means advanced flight has helicopters and paratroopers in my opinion and no other units

harlan in all likely hood the mig and the f-15 are going to be upgraded jet fighters...looking at the tech chart, jet fighters are found with an unidentified missile and a SAM missile site city improvement under rocketry...the unidentified missile is most likely a conventional cruise missile...since the CSU takes the place of the normal unit i don't think that they show CSUs on the tech tree...so iron working will show just the swordman and not the swordman and the legion

take a look, the jet fighter is the second unit under rocketry

jet fighters from the screen shots

ok i am going to try and identify the land units in the screen shot going from the explorer in the northwest to the artillary unit in the southeast, reading right to left

*explorer, warrior, cannon, iroquois CSU, panzer tank (german CSU), eagle warrior (aztec CSU), pikeman
*impi, unidentified, musketman
*Cataphract perhaps? (persian CSU), musketeer (french CSU), catapult, hoplite (greek CSU), samuri (japanese CSU), modern tank {synthetic fibers}, mech infantry {robotics}
*knight, chariot, unidentified, archer, conscripts {nationalism}, unidentified, bowmen (babylonian CSU)
*ww2 tank {motorized transport}, spearmen, longbowmen {invention?}, horseman, artillary

that is my best guess for the land units

also check out this thread in which i list all the units by tech

List of units in Civ3 based on screen shots

also i would like to point out a few other facts that lead me to believe the elephant isn't in the game...

*in civ 2 horseman were available with one tech, chariots with two and elephants with three
*in civ3 chariots are available with one tech, then both polytheism and horseback riding are three techs {warrior code, the wheel, horseback riding}{cerimonial burial, mysticism, polytheism}
*in civ3 the chariot is a 1.1.2 unit and the knight (middle age unit) appears to be a 4.3.2 unit
*in civ3 horses are a resource required for building units and elephants are a luxery that makes people happy...in civ3 all resources appear like more than one unit requires them

taking all of those facts together i believe that the horseman will be 3.1.2, so i just don't think that the elephant is going to be in civ3...if you have any evidence to blow a hole in one of my screen shots or one of my assumptions please show it to me...i'm not trying to be hardheaded on this issue i just think that the evidence most likely points to the fact that the elephant is no longer in civ3, and if the elephant isn't in civ3 then the indian special unit must be some other unit...and all of the insight on this thread points to the Cataphract being the persian special unit but only time will tell

[Harlan]

Korn,
I posted my theory about the tech tree in another thread, maybe you missed it. It seems to me obvious that the spaces are going to be filled with something. Why else would some techs have so much space (up to 6, not counting the tech picture) and others so little (1)? It clearly has nothing to do with the length of the name, as that runs over in the case of Amphibious Warfare.

Furthermore, things we know are in the game aren't on the tech tree. For instance, many wonders, including the Grand Canal. For another, the civ-specific units. For another, resources (we've been told that Iron comes with Iron Writing for instance, and its easy to see Uranium will fill the empty slot in Fusion). Tile improvements - only a few are there (where's advanced agriculture, roads, mining, etc). More info on when things become obsolete. The tech tree will be an amazingly useful thing when its all finished.

The T's you see in that early shot are just placeholders for a first sweep at making icons for several categories. I would say that shows us that there are no more regular units, buildings or wonders, but we can't even say that, cos where are all the 12 major and 24 minor wonders - it falls far short on that.

The bottom line is, we can't say whether elephant is in or not, given all the blanks spots still in the tree. My hunch says it will be, because of the pic that goes with Polytheism. For comparison, look at the pic that goes with Miniaturization. Its of an offshore oil rig, which seems completely random until you see that the tech gives an offshore oil platform. In the same way the Polytheism pic makes no sense unless elephants happen there. Presumably elephants as a resource don't go there, cos you don't need to discover Polytheism or animal breeding or anything else to kill an elephant and take their tusks. Even if elephants are there as a resource, that still leaves two blank spots for that tech, and what else could possibly be connected to Polytheism but yet more elephants?

You're right that the Navigation guy is probably the guy with the scroll. But that's just one of three guys who appear to have no weapons, and aren't in the tech tree so far (and would make no sense as civ-specific units, presumably).

[korn469]

Harlan

you brought up some objections

*Why else would some techs have so much space (up to 6, not counting the tech picture) and others so little (1)?
*Furthermore, things we know are in the game aren't on the tech tree. For instance, many wonders, including the Grand Canal
*I would say that shows us that there are no more regular units, buildings or wonders, but we can't even say that, cos where are all the 12 major and 24 minor wonders - it falls far short on that
*The bottom line is, we can't say whether elephant is in or not, given all the blanks spots still in the tree.
*But that's just one of three guys who appear to have no weapons, and aren't in the tech tree so far (and would make no sense as civ-specific units, presumably).

i'll take them point by point

*the reason that a tech might have so much space could be for artistic reasons...the lines in the tech tree and the overall placement seem to have something to do with the actual size (and therefore blank spaces) in the tech tree...again if you compare the tech tree with filler art to the newer tech tree from civ3.com that i pointed out in my previous post then you will see that in the first tech tree all techs were the same width and there were some artistic problems like techs over lapping each other...even in the more complete tech tree all of the techs are about the same width

*things could have been cut out since the preview that stated the grand canal was in the game...i have never seen a screen shot with it in the game, and firaxis hasn't mentioned it in a while...so right now there is little information to either prove or disprove anything is in the game...but most likely much of what we have seen in recent screen shots will make it into the game

*as for the 12 wonders and 24 minor wonders...we know of at least 6 wonders in the ancient age, with the structure under monarchy being a possible 7th wonder, so that would give us seven wonders of the ancient world...i doubt that any miniwonders will be in the ancient world...unless for basically every structure in the game you can build a mini wonder that acts like building X in every city...but for argument's sake it appears like there could be 7 wonders in the ancient age with zero mini wonders...some of the other wonders could have been cut out as could have some of the mini wonders, so right now i would say that we cannot know how many wonders are in the game...but the great wall and light house are highly likely to be in the game (seen in a number of different screen shots over a long amount of time) while the grand canal is much less likely to be in the game (never before seen)

*i still do not think that the elephant is in the game, and i think that there are relatively few things that firaxis is going to add to the tech tree...if you look there are 13 blank spaces in just the first seven techs...one for bronze working, zero for masonry, three for alphabet, two for pottery, three for the wheel, two for warrior code, two for cerimonial burial...so while there might be as many as CSUs, and two resources, plus maybe three luxeries...that would only fill in ten of the blank spaces, and would mean that most of the luxeries, CSUs, and resources would be in the ancient age...because there are at least 12 more blank spaces just in the second row, and an additional 18 blank spaces in the rest of the ancient age tech tree...so we have 43 blank spaces...and even by putting every single, CSU, resource, luxery, and tile improvement in the ancient age we cannot fill in all of the blanks...plus we know that many of the CSUs and resources are later in the tech tree, so that cuts down on things that could be in the ancient tech tree...so i can say that while more may get added, firaxis is not going to fill all of the techs up

*i have no idea what the three guys were...but two of them looked like they had weapons and one i just couldn't tell about...but none of the three clearly looked like a diplomat, so maybe one of them was a diplomat we really cannot say yet

so while an elephant special, an elephant unit, and an elephant CSU might eventually get added to the tech tree under polytheism and fill up it's empty spaces...how about alphabet, mathematics, and philosophy? can you think of eight things to put in in the tech tree for those three techs?

also firaxis has shown that it will cut things out of the civ2 tech chart, so i'm sure that the same thing applies to units, and out of all the units in civ2 the elephant to me seems like it has little chance of making it into civ3

so what implications would that have on the indian CSU? it means right now we don't have a clue...and it will be at least the friday after next before we can find out about them

also according to the adrenaline vault which just updated their release date list today civ3 is coming out on october 16...and the latest release date for civ3 right now is amazon with an october 31st release date...a game usually goes gold 7-12 days before the release date, so that means firaxis has between a 1 1/2-2 months to completely finish civ3...right now they are in beta according to jeff morris, and that they are doing q/a basically checking for bugs, fixing balance issues, and polishing the game...so this means that civ3 is most likely either feature and unit complete or very close to it, and if that is true, that means the tech chart on civ3.com is probably fairly close to a final chart...so most likely the elephant isn't in, but i am making alot of assumptions here, so i maybe be completely wrong...i thought that civ3 might include some kind of SE variables for the different civs, but i never predicted the civ specific abailities...we'll just have to wait and see

who knows they may release an updated screen shot on friday that clearly shows elephants, but right now i am highly skepical that elephants are in the game

[Harlan]

Korn,
Regarding the elephant being in the game, I said it was just a hunch, and its probably an overly hopeful hunch at that. But all those spaces being filled by something eventually, I'm certain of that.

Personally, I think the Grand Canal is in the game, since they announced it in. But if you're iffy on that, how about the Pentagon - announced TODAY from Civ3.com that its in as a minor wonder. Yet it isn't to be seen in the tech tree, despite having an easily recognizable five sided shape. I also doubt there will be only 7 wonders to each age, since the total number of wonders we're given is now greater than 28.

As to how to fill all those blank spaces, its very easy. In addition to the things I mentioned, there are others, like government type. Note that every government tech has at least one blank space after it. How about extra abilities, such as ability to make complex treaties with Writing, or one free tech with Philosophy (I'm not saying that's in the game, but that kind of thing). Hopefully you can click on any of these icons from the tech tree and get a description, so why not include everything?

While the Ancient age has 42 blanks by my count, the Middle Ages have 22, Industrial 15 and Modern 10. That makes perfect sense, because odds are a greater number of special units, resources and wonders will fall in the Ancient Age (you can estimate the age for what we know of the wonders and special units and see what I mean).

Remember, there are going to be bonus resources, strategic resources and luxury resources. Most of these are going to come in the first couple of ages. Most of them don't have logical techs to tie to, so they may explain some of the wierder blank spots. It could be that one knows a lot of these from the get-go, but we don't know that. And it will be a great obstacle to ICS if most start out unknown, because you don't want to build tons of cities until you know enough techs.

Mark my words, those blanks will all fill up. I also took part in the CTP betas, and at this point in the game, many graphics of this type were still incomplete, plus those screenshots may be old already.

[korn469]

Harlan

well today's news was certainly suprising and good...both the military academy and pentagon are certainly interesting, i was afraid that the military academy was just going to count as a barracks in every city

going back and looking at the tech chart screen shots, there are seven wonders in the ancient age already on the tech chart: the colossus, the lighthouse, the great library, the pyramids, the great wall, the oracle, and the wonder that comes with monarchy

i have also seen other structures that appear to be wonders like darwin's voyage, so maybe they have yet to put in the minor wonders into the tech tree

by your count there are 89 blank spaces...16 CSUs, 8 resources, 8 luxeries, and 24 minor wonders add up to 56...that still leaves 33 items, of which only a few (maybe 6: farms, mines, airbases, coastal fortresses, advanced farms, roads) are going to be tile improvements...what are the other items going to be? i just don't see what other things they could add to the tech tree to fill in each and every single blank space

lol but we still don't really have a solid clue as to what the indian CSU is

[Harlan]

Some others: government types (6 or so), things becoming obsolete (and not just wonders: remember having to sell barracks several times in Civ2, even some resources might become obsolete), special features (like +1 naval movement with Nuclear Power in Civ2), some stray items in categories we think are already done. For instance, I think there just has to be a Diplomat, Spy, and Engineer (or are we going to have the same ancient looking Settler the whole time?!?). The new Worker unit may be updated as well. Hmm- all of those are non-military, maybe non-military type units aren't included yet.

If we knew them all, you could add them all up, and you'll juuuust barely get to 89!

[korn469]

Harlan

i agree that i think there will most likely be advanced forms of the settler and worker, but i'm not sure if diplomats/spies are going to be in civ3, and it looks like one of my favorite units and concepts of all time isn't going to be in civ3...the partisan and guerilla warfare...at least it seem like nuclear war will be more involved

If you theory is right about the tech treen not being filled in then i would say that they still probably have to add in all 24 miniwonders, but there is one thing i don't think they will show on the tech tree and that is CSUs

the reason i don't think they will show CSUs is because from all accounts the impi is also a spearman, as is the hoplite, and bronze working only has one empty space...also the mig and the f-15 will most likely be CSUs based on the jet fighter which comes with rocketry...rocketry doesn't have any empty spaces, so going by your reasoning that means that CSUs depicted on the tech chart is probably unlikely because some units that have CSUs don't have a place for them, unless they reorganize the tech chart

but back to the topic at hand...

how many think the Cataphract is the most likely persian CSU? and if it's not the Cataphract then what two units would be the most likely candidates for it?

and Harlan, if you had to make a guess about the indian CSU without using the elephant, what would you say is most likely?

[red_jon]

Fine, everyone can ignore my carpet posts ... you'll all be sorry when in Civ3 you find the special persian unit can fly...

[Footie Mad]

Originally posted by red_jon
Fine, everyone can ignore my carpet posts ... you'll all be sorry when in Civ3 you find the special persian unit can fly...

No imbalance plz ^_^ Though it would be a good laugh.

[Harlan]

Well, I wasn't gonna mention the flying carpet cos I thought that would fall more under the Arab civ, what with 1001 Nights and all .

So, asides from that, and elephants, there isn't much left for India that I know of. The only one I can think of is Longbowmen. The English are famousfor them, but the Indians used them centuries before England as such ever existed. There was no big technological leap, you just needed to be superstrong to pull back a bow that was as tall as you were. So it took a specially trained elite to use them - definitely special unit material.

Regarding the Impi and MiG/F-15, I highly doubt Civ3 will have two special units on the same tech doing roughly the same thing. Either they'll be on different techs doing slightly different things, or Firaxis has changed their minds on having those. Perhaps the Impi comes much later, to at least come close to the Zulu real life golden age of the 1800s - for what we know, all the other golden ages seem to correspond to their real life counterparts.