c168 WHY CIV-SPECIFIC UNITS ARE A GOOD IDEA

[Iskandar Reza]

well why not let the computer choose for the AI the speciality based on surrounding, and let us choose ours ourselves.

or why not a kind of joker/wildcard unit that can be customized and evolved as the times change, to suit our situation? i mean historically that's what happens, right? unit types evolved and improved. like english longbowmen, for example. or turkish jannisaries.

let the player be able to adapt and evolve the special unit.

[Buck Birdseed]

Cyclotron: just tick the "randomise civ-specific units" box. Surprise, Surprise, Simple. As for your second point, I heartily disagree. Any attempt made so far to make totally distinct AI personalities has failed. Civ-specific units will force them to adapt different tactics, as "you should be able to see", but which I will quantify, unlike you. The AI, which is one AI, let's not kid ourselves, will look at what's available and use it to its advantage. If the same things are always available it will do the same thing. If different things are available it will do different things.

LOTM: Thank Sid you're not in development. It's not a historical simulation, it's a game. It's supposed to be fun, not realistic. I mean only seven 6000-year empires? One, government-sponsored advance at once? No internal politics? It's not realistic at all! But it's fun. They went towards realism in Civ 2, which was a bad move. Now they're moving back towards Civ 1 and the ideals it embodied. Hooray!

Iskandar Reza: I just don't think it'd work, that's all. All units would be customised in the same way by the AI.

[Will 5001]

possible solution

Couldn't a simple solution to the problem involve the game recognising the surroundings and giving special units according to the terrain (such as alpine skiers in terrain such as modern day Switzerland) so that players have an increased bonus when fighting on home soil. In contrast enemies would have terrain difficulties when attacking empires with significantly different terrain (such as the German defeat in Russia and difficulty for the allies to cope with Jungle warfare in WW2). This could give a much better feel to the game and solve the problem to useless special units.

Will 5001

[Comrade Tribune]

My greatest problem with those civ-specific super units is they lead to totally absurd preventive counter-strategies, such as: 'We must kill the Germans before 1900, because if they survive into the 20th century they will be unstoppable.'

[Cyclotron]

Cyclotron: just tick the "randomise civ-specific units" box. Surprise, Surprise, Simple.

Irrelevant. You still have the same Civs doing the same things, only now they don't have the same name. Meeting the "germans" or the "zulus" or the "french" is irrelevant, if CSUs are random. This is because my complaint is really against "the panzer civ" or "the impis civ,"
because that's not distinctive at all. The name doesn't matter; It's the fact that there will always be this recurring ability of a recurring civ that will use the same recurring tactics and you must use your same recurring tactics to deal with them.

As for your second point, I heartily disagree. Any attempt made so far to make totally distinct AI personalities has failed. Civ-specific units will force them to adapt different tactics, as "you should be able to see", but which I will quantify, unlike you.

You contradict yourself. If "all attempts" to do this have failed, that must include SMAC's specific units... but then you say that CSUs will solve this? Please explain...

The AI, which is one AI, let's not kid ourselves, will look at what's available and use it to its advantage. If the same things are always available it will do the same thing. If different things are available it will do different things.

I belive your article gave examples of how you'd like to see the Germans flooding me with Panzers, the Vikings raiding my coasts, etc... Personally, I want to have the Vikings equally adept and equally likely to attack me by land, depending on their situation. Why would the Germans ever start a sea war if their sole advantage was in the Panzer? CSUs limit strategies, because no fool would attack on an equal footing when they can always be ahead. Why even bother with a sea assault, or air attack, or even infantry support if I am the Germans?

You were right the first time, Snapcase. CSUs are the worst idea ever to be proposed for Civ3.

[Buck Birdseed]

Have you even played SMAC? It didn't have unique units. It had "leader personalities". And let's just say the second point is where we stand in total disagreement- I want the AI employing more than one tactic to attack me. You obviously just want one, steamlined, idealised tactic which, after you learn to defend yourself against it, means the game is over for you.

[Grim Leaper]

Civ-specific units are an interesting concept. After long thought, i have decided that i dis-like them. They could either ruin (if badly implemented, which i doubt will happen) or not play much of a part in the game.

the concept of CSU are good, but i feel they should not be "civ"-specific units, and instead, units that reflect what you civilisation is good at. The zulus' impis were only better than their spearman equilievelents because they were useful to the zulus, who fought over large stretches of african savannah, with little cover - They needed to get to battle quickly. To me the european spearman was also better than the impi, given they fought over the rolling green hills, covered with trees etc. where it wasn't possible to win by running at the opposition. What i am saying here is that both teams will whip each others ass's if playing on home ground.

The trouble with this is that in civ this is very hard to implement, and will probably just confuse the game.

With the current information concerning the CSU and how they will be implemented, i know i will be turning them off for my games.

[Cyclotron]

I want the AI employing more than one tactic to attack me. You obviously just want one, steamlined, idealised tactic which, after you learn to defend yourself against it, means the game is over for you.

Actually, I want that too... you are right that this is where we disagree. I think that CSUs would make for only one tactic per civ, which I do not want. Could you explain to me how a single civ would increase its tactics of attack if it had one clear advantage, on one unit, on one medium, in one age? How does that make for more than one tactic by the AI? I read that you wanted to be attacked by hordes of impis, raided by masses of longboats. You know, that's called using only one strategy, and that is what CSUs would do. Why build mech. inf. if I can clobber you with panzers every game?

[SerapisIV]

PC-IGN
each of the game's sixteen civilizations will have a unique unit that fits in a particular era

Does this mean that each Civ gets four unique units, one per era? This would eliminate a lot of problems with regards to Roman Legions versus German Panzers when picking which civ to play. Maybe you get a unit per era, as technologies are also divided into four eras. Why not units too? Firaxis hasn't made any definitive statement with regards to unique units other then they exist.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Snapcase

LOTM: Thank Sid you're not in development. It's not a historical simulation, it's a game. It's supposed to be fun, not realistic. I mean only seven 6000-year empires? One, government-sponsored advance at once? No internal politics? It's not realistic at all! But it's fun. They went towards realism in Civ 2, which was a bad move. Now they're moving back towards Civ 1 and the ideals it embodied. Hooray!

.

Reread my post. I am quite aware of civ2's abstractions and simplifications. Please name for me one game that deals with large scale macro-history in a more realistic fashion. Being a game is does not mean it should not be historically accurate. A good history game should be fun AND historically accurate. Just that the historical accuracy in Civ2 is so different from that in a grognard war game some folks cant recognize it.

Are they concioulsy moving away from the Civ2 Brian Reynolds ideals? I think i'll hold off buying it, in that case.

LOTM

[Buck Birdseed]

Originally posted by cyclotron7


Actually, I want that too... you are right that this is where we disagree. I think that CSUs would make for only one tactic per civ, which I do not want. Could you explain to me how a single civ would increase its tactics of attack if it had one clear advantage, on one unit, on one medium, in one age? How does that make for more than one tactic by the AI? I read that you wanted to be attacked by hordes of impis, raided by masses of longboats. You know, that's called using only one strategy, and that is what CSUs would do. Why build mech. inf. if I can clobber you with panzers every game?

It wouldn't. Each civ would have one strategy against you. Sixteen tactics. compare this to Civ2, which had a maximum of two or three strategies, all basically varations on a theme.

[Bereta_Eder]

Snapcase I read your article carefully. Nothing you said changed my opinion about unics.

As for strategy, if unics are all they have then how are we going to have 16 different startegies when the only thing that will be different is knowing that the Zulus are going to break my nerves building Impis en masse?

If Firaxis had concentrated their time on improving the AI instead of balancing some stupid Impis with.... Panzers (that's a laugh) things would be much better for Civ 3.

Much better for us but maybe not much better for Firaxis.
Because when you shout on your advertismenets about unics the populace will be hooked. We will not but we are the minority of dedicated civ players.

If they shout improved Ai we would be enthousiastic but the populace will just not understand.

[Captain]

Some very good points and rebuttals in your column, Snapcase - you almost had me convinced.
But the most solid arguments so far have been Grumbold's, Kropotkin's, and Cyclotron7's.

The main sticking point is that any unique advantages should be gained by the choices you make in how you rule your empire (that is, how you play the game). It should not be predetermined, whether by hardcoding to a name or randomized, just by selecting a civ name or clicking a box. I should be able to adopt my playing style to meet the challenges of the circumstances.

Civ 2 already had a good system for this, though it can definitely be improved. For example, if I was an island player, I would not only build lots of ships, I would build port facilities to make my ships veterans. This is a deliberate strategic choice I make, to concentrate resources on producing vet ships and maintaining those ships and facilities - instead of being able to build dragoons or whatever else (opportunity cost). But that's my choice and I could adapt my style where necessary, instead of being locked into some unique unit, hardcoded or randomly preselected. If I later built up colonies on a large continent, I might cease shipbuilding, sell some port facilities, and adopt a land-based strategy. Or whatever. Keep it open-ended - restrictions should come only because of playing choices you make dynamically, not statically.

[Rollo_CH]

1. Longboat for Vikings is good. But Vikings disapeared and what Civ-specific unit should they have in 1942 during WWII???

Jeje2,
What about the finnish ski-infantry? They did a helluva good deal of damage to the Bolsheviks during the WW2 era...

[Jeje2]

Originally posted by Rollo_CH
Jeje2,
What about the finnish ski-infantry? They did a helluva good deal of damage to the Bolsheviks during the WW2 era...

LOL
Should have figured that out for myself...


Now we then get to the question on how many special units per race we want?
Also if we take WWII and the German versus American tanks there are reasons to differencies. One of them being that German didn't have have some special metal alloies that USA did have. => USA grenades had a much better penetration rate than German. So Germans had to compensate with bigger grenades leading to heavier tanks etc. (OK, this has been told to me by a WWII panzer freak, hope I remembered it correctly)

So what I wanted to say is that is it special units or just units adapted to local recourses? (Ups, I started this message with an oppisite goal in mind What happened? )