ASK The CIV TEAM 8/22/01!

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Even if the units do fight together, I still feel that 3 units is too few. A more reasonable upper limit is 8 (9 with Pentagon!). Of course this should only be achievable if you are at war or mobilised for war. Militaristic societies should have a limit of 5 units (6 with Pentagon) when at peace. Non-militaristic units should be limited to 4 units/army (5 with pentagon) when at peace!
Note, that this limit should only count for direct-attack units, not bomardment units, which would probably soften up the target from a distance and would probably never engage a unit directly (From all I've heard, this is how bombardment units will work).
I also feel that armies with larger numbers of ranged units (bowmen, riflemen etc) than their opponent should get a bonus to attack strength based on how many extra ranged units they possess!

As for limits on # of armies/Civ, I only think this should apply during peace-time. Militaristic societies should be able to have 1 army/2 cities and, during war, all bets should be off (i.e. number of armies should be limited only by number of appropriate leaders and maintainence costs!).

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[Mister Pleasant]

Uh, am I missing something? Exactly what good are armies if they are just like transports that hold units but have no attack value or do not add to the value of member units? Sounds lame to me - another perfectly good CTP concept ruined by Firaxis

[Wittlich]

Originally posted by Mister Pleasant
Uh, am I missing something? Exactly what good are armies if they are just like transports that hold units but have no attack value or do not add to the value of member units? Sounds lame to me - another perfectly good CTP concept ruined by Firaxis

MP, IMHO, I believe the armies WILL have an increased attack/defend value. The LEADER however will not have an actual attack/defend value. The Leader will be treated like a transport which holds the force together.

[introvert]

The way I understand it is that units in an army will share hit points during combat. So when an army attacks the best attack unit will attack until the whole armies hit points are used up, and when defending the best defencive unit will defend until the whole armies hit points run out.
Stacking units and adding their attack and defence bonuses seems silly, because then an army of spearmen will be able to defeat a single armor unit, and you cannot convince me that that is reasonable.
If I'm right then bulding armor units will actually be worth while. Amor in CivII was good, but it's attack and defence did not compare to artillery and mech inf, so I know I rarely built them. But it had more hit points than either of those units. As you would want armies to have as many hit points as possible, you would want to stack a good attack or defence unit with as much armor as possible. And an armored army will actually be able to punch through a strong defencive position and drive deep into the enemies rear. Rather than having armor after armor get wasted by one or two mech inf's.
Of course the combat system has apparently be significantly altered, so using CivII comparisons may be badly flawed, but I think I get my impression across here.

And presumibly armies will move at the rate of the slowest unit in it...

[Phutnote]

Whoa. I'm confused about armies a bit. They pool their hit points as in the first attacks, but stops before it is destroyed, and then the next attacks, but stops before it is destroyed, and lets the third attack instead.

In other words they attack in sequence?

Or do they attack as one group with a big glob of hit points? Do units in cities share hit points when they defend, or do they defend one by one? Attack values have been shifted alot. I wonder what tweaks hit points have had, and if firepower even exists anymore.

Sounds like some significant changes to the system. Tantalizing new tidbits of info.

1 army per 4 cities . . . hmm. In the modern age on a large map a big empire might have what, 20 or so cities? That'd be 5 armies. Sounds like a decent number.

I guess there'll be an impetus to found an extra 4 cities if you really need an extra army . . . but all those pop point losses from the big manufacturing cities to do it would hamper the war effort as well . . .

I think civ III warfare is shaping up to be rather interesting.

Phutnote

[Colwyn]

"Once an army is built, you can load THREE units onto the army, and those units will pool their hit points during an attack"

Each unit has an attack, defence and hitpoint ratting amungst others.

I think the magic word here is :

"the units will pool their hit points during an attack" ie there is no mention of pooling attack or defence strength's only hitpoints so as it means I don't think a 1/6 and a 2/4 unit army would become 3/10.

If not I am wondering how units within an army would die if attacked, as individuals or as a group ie 3/10 all die.

If this would occur(attack and defence poolling) a fortifyied army on a mountain etc would be near impossible to kill ie could get a very high defensive value. Artillery bombardment(2 space range) though perhaps over time cause enough damage to make it move off or even die. Which is also very realistic too.

Dan certainly knows how to realease just enough imformation to get the forums going and our minds a calculating, well done until I go mad.

[Adm.Naismith]

Funny, my browser show no sign of a link to last AskTheCivTeam on official CivIII site, while I can read it via Apolyton.

Is it mine proxy/cache problem? Do you regularly see the new link on the official site or reached it by e-mail list announce?

Back to the stack:

Even if the units do fight together, I still feel that 3 units is too few. A more reasonable upper limit is 8 (9 with Pentagon!). Of course this should only be achievable if you are at war or mobilised for war. Militaristic societies should have a limit of 5 units (6 with Pentagon) when at peace. Non-militaristic units should be limited to 4 units/army (5 with pentagon) when at peace!

As for limits on # of armies/Civ, I only think this should apply during peace-time. Militaristic societies should be able to have 1 army/2 cities and, during war, all bets should be off (i.e. number of armies should be limited only by number of appropriate leaders and maintainence costs!).

Sorry Aussie_Lurker, but how can you support these tuning? They seems more a matter of game balancing, and one difficult to do without actually playing the (beta or demo of) game.

The difference you proposed between militaristic civ and not, seems too much an advantage on the side of warmonger, and before you askthis can be guessed before of a played game because it's only a comparison between "quantities" of the same object.

The limit related to number of cities is obviusly a game design trick, so can been liked or not. It doesn't seem unfair, because in the past armies weren't very numerous, and that matches with the limited number of cities you are likely to have at the early part of game.

Sure, Roman Empire have quite enough Legions, and they can be translated on a great number of armies... hmmm

[Kenobi]

Originally posted by MarkG
as dan posted just now, leaders are like "transports" with attack/defence values

as many armies as you can(1/4 cities)

that is a good question, especially for the movement part

Some more questions:

- Can great leaders stack ships? Bring on Horatio!
- In combat, does an entire stack get annihilated in the event of defeat, or can you retreat at some point to conserve your forces?
- Can a great leader stack more than 3/4 units if he's in a city?
- For that matter, if you have a stack in a city and non-attached units, how does combat play out?

On the subject of maximum number of stacks, I agree with their plan (i.e. one stock for every four cities). Too many potential stacks and you run the risk of hordes of low value units running rampant and defeating their betters.

[korn469]

To answer your first question, in Civ III we introduced the concept of an army. To build an army, you need either a great leader or the Military Academy (Small Wonder). Great leaders can appear when an elite unit wins combat. Once an army is built, you can load three units onto the army, and those units will pool their hit points during an attack. If you build the Pentagon (Small Wonder) you can load an additional unit into an army.

It is also important to note that you can only have one army per four cities, and militaristic civs have a greater chance of producing great leaders.

Elite units are not the same as civ-specific units. Elite units refers to units that have been promoted to elite status (regular->veteran->elite) by winning battles.

Yes, IIRC they are like transports that can carry units, but have no inherent attack or defense.

Ok from the site and Dan's follow up, this gives me a question...
Does the Elite unit turn into a great leader, or if an elite unit wins combat does a great leader unit appear on the map along side the elite unit?

From what Jeff Briggs said before, that the most powerful fights first and then when it is damaged it steps down and the new most powerful units fights then, taken along with "those units will pool their hitpoints" means that lets say you have the egyptian war chariots attacking a greek hoplite

here is how i theorize that combat would work, all three chariots are undamged but one is veteran, the veteran chariot would attack first, the first turn it scores a hit, the second turn the hoplite scores a hit, but a damaged vetern war chariot is still stronger odds wise than an undamaged normal war chariot so the vetern attacks again scoring another hit, then another hit, then the badly damaged hoplite hits it, so now the undamaged normal war chariots have better odds than the damaged veteran war chariot so one of them attack, it is damaged, the next round the other undamaged normal war chariot attacks and it kills the hoplite...that is the most likely way that combat will work

what that means is that a three unit army will still have the same attack/defense values since they attack one at a time, but it will now have three times the hit points...the big change here is that before in civ2 when units attacked one at a time you might lose two units and the third unit would win taking a little damage...now most like all three units will survive but all will take a roughly equal amount of damage, this will let more units have a chance of becoming veteran and elite and of spawning more great leaders...also armies means that low defense units have a better chance of surviving a counterattack

[korn469]

Kenobi

- Can great leaders stack ships? Bring on Horatio!
- In combat, does an entire stack get annihilated in the event of defeat, or can you retreat at some point to conserve your forces?
- Can a great leader stack more than 3/4 units if he's in a city?
- For that matter, if you have a stack in a city and non-attached units, how does combat play out?

unknow if a great leader can form a fleet, or if you could stack aircraft either

i have heard that retreat is in the game, and your forces can retreat as long as you have more mobility than the units attacking you, except there is an all out attack command where your units fight to the death

i would say that a stack counting as one unit would be limited to 3/4 nomatter if it is in a city or not, however you should be able to put multiple armies on the same square

as for the combat if you have a stack and non attached units in the stack...the strongest unit would defend, so if you have three horsemen stacked in an army in a square and a musketman then the musketman would defend, but if you had three knights in an army then a chariot in the same square the knights would defend

this brings up another question though...you have two equally strong armies of three legions each and one unattached horseman, the square gets attacked by an army of knights and the knights win...are both armies and the horseman destroyed like in civ2? or is it the collateral damage system in SMAC or is it something else?

[OneFootInTheGrave]

CTP system seems better

At least for now, until we play the game, the CTP unit stacking seems much better.

Their system gives you more tactical options and decisions to make.

In here the only advanatage over the Civ II seems the better survival odds for an army, as korn pointed out, which is good but not near the CTP system.

In CTP series the army benefited defensivly and attacking wise, you had ranged units, normal ones and flanked ones, so it really mattered how are you going to organise the army to get the most out of it, and i feel it added greatly to the gameplay. You had a battle screen to, which added to the war feeling even more. Wars were not easier to win since you could defend quite well in stacks too. Moving units accross the map was easier, and spying becomes a 'must' part of the game.

Well Civ III system seems to be a step down, but well we cannot have improvements in every aspect I guess.

And on the Pentagon wonder. Doesnt it unbalance the game in the favour of warmongers?
If you can have a stack of 4 units and the enemy can only have 3. That is a 33% advantage in hit points

I guess that you could build two such armies with some support and overrun the enemy easily. if you could have more units in a stack that difference would not be so great.

But what i feel is missing is
1. no ranged units or flanking ability
2. no battle screen
3. small number of units in a stack seems to take a bit of the gameplay out.

All in all, this seems that could have been done better.

[korn469]

OneFootInTheGrave

i think that the strategic implications of armies in civ3 is not fully know yet, so even if they work exactly as i theorize there could still be a great number of strategies arise from the use of armies

also i think that one advantage of the civ3 army system over the CtP2 system is that the civ system is simpler and faster...so i don't really think it is a step down...more like a tradeoff than an actual downgrade

[MarkG]

Originally posted by korn469
also i think that one advantage of the civ3 army system over the CtP2 system is that the civ system is simpler and faster...

perhaps the ctp2 system was more complex, but it wasnt difficult for the player. the novice player only needed to know that if he grouped his units they would fight better. the hardcore had tactical control over his armies


anyway, we need more details. perhaps Dan could put together a small tutorial like the one for resources and colonies!

[Grim Legacy]

I'm pleased to see that the army stack is limited in several ways, most notably by it's size and by the number of supporting cities. I was afraid of having to deal with endless piles of units before.
This way, the army is an interesting and valuable asset, not just some of your units heaped together to roll over a few enemy cities.

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Grim Legacy
I was afraid of having to deal with endless piles of units before

yeah, now you'll just have to deal with endless units