ASK The CIV TEAM 8/22/01!

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by Grumbold
I can see barbarian villages surrounded by a single Civ left alive to provide combat training for their new regiments.

A.N.:
Somenone (Dan Mahaga?) already mentioned that fight with barbarians doesn't count for elite status > leader conversion. No cheat available here

Grumbold:
If an elite unit spawns a leader and does not disappear in the process, then can one elite unit be used to repeatedly spawn new leaders?

A.N.:
Watching E3 movie (the first, amatorial take, IIRC) I'm almost sure to have got a glance of an (elite) unit winning and trasforming itself into a Leader/General.

If that's true, surely it seems a bit silly from a realistic Point of view, but probably is needed to balance things: if you rush for many leaders, you end without valuable, strong troops to command!

If you can't "farm" leaders fighting barbarians then you have to fight a war every time you found another 4 cities just to optimise your leader pool? that is going to be "interesting" to play around with. Barbarians are probably still going to be good troop trainers though to get to elite when you're not wanting to fight wars with your neighbours.

I think I'd be a tad upset if my elite legion transformed into a 0/0 army leader and got slaughtered before I could use him Luckily Dan seems to have scotched that concept. I expect human players will still hit a single unit that just spawned a leader hard to try and kill it before it can regroup into a 3 stack.

KH you may be right about the army stacks. I thought you could have max cities/4 but had to wait for leaders to form them. Every army ought to have someone leading it...

[KrazyHorse]

Grumbold, don't worry about losing units:

Dan stated that the unit doesn't transform; it spawns off an additional GL unit.

If you can't "farm" leaders fighting barbarians then you have to fight a war every time you found another 4 cities just to optimise your leader pool? that is going to be "interesting" to play around with

Why would you have to do this? You don't need a great leader to make a stack; just the cities.

[Guildenstern]

About the number of armies availible...
Does the effect of one of the small wonders go away after time, or can you have like 3 more armies than your competition? Also, about small wonders, can only one built? The army system would seem to favor the more populous civs to keep getting fatter and more powerful, kind of like in real life...

[CapTVK]

Colonies allow you to harvest a resource that you need, but that isn't within your borders. As long as your colony is connected to your trade network by road or railroad, you gain the benefit of that resource.

Spot on, I was right all along!

Colonies are the equivalent of a depot in the classic Railroad Tycoon. Could prove interesting during war (cutting routes)...

[Rommel393]

Ok, there is one thing i dont understand about armies. How would their movement be handled? If u had lets say, a rifleman and 2 tanks in an army, would it move the rifleman's speed of 1 or the tanks speed of 3? Or would there be some sort of compromise?

Actually, there is more than 1 thing i dont understand... how would attack and defense be handled? If their hitpoints are pooled than would they attack seperately and switch from strongest to weakest unit as the first ones to fight get damaged? Or would they have some sort of attack/defenses bonus to their ADM?

And something that bothers me.... will armies upset the balance of offense versus defense? It seems like it would to me. You couldn't defend all your cities with armies because you can only have 1 army to every 4 cities. Plus that would be just plain expensive.

I like some ideas about armies but other ones bother. We'll just have to wait and see how it turns out in the game. There will probably be an option to turn them off anyway incase you don't like them. But that would probably mess with the AI.....

[Steve Clark]

Good analogy, Cap. But it would also prove interesting during times of diplomacy and culture! If a neighboring civ do not like me mining gold from 'their' mountains, I'll say fine, I'll give that colony but I want 50% of the gold each turn (or something else).

[The Mad Viking]

Grumbold, (& KH) - you need a great leader to make an army, as I understand it. I expect the number of leaders you can "farm" will be limited by your # of cities. As such, you will want to have 8 cities if at all possible by your Golden Age, or you will be limited to one great leader. Civs with late Golden Ages will have a great advantage in spawning more leaders- but will not be able to have any leaders until they have their Golden Age! (This will not discourage ICS, although other things will...)

I like the sounds of the new stacked combat.

I don't think ranged combat and flanking have any place in CIV3. This is a strategic game, and those are operational / tactical level strategies. The ranged combat and mobility of the units are taken into account when the attack, defense and hitpoint totals are generated. Battlescreens would make the game take longer, and it already takes long enough, IMO.

[Stefu]

Question. Just having the units in an army pool their hitpoints sounds a bit... boring. How 'bout rewarding creating a good stack with combined arms with a little bonus? For instance, let's say that I group one Legionnaire, one Archer and one Horsemen into one stack. Presumably, Legionnaire will be the one doing the attack, but how about game recognizing that stack also has Archers to weaken up the enemy and Horsemen to bother them, and giving an according (small) bonus to Legionnaire? This'l encourage people to build more than one unit type (which, with me, usually was "two-MP unit with highest attack.)

[ChrisShaffer]

As such, you will want to have 8 cities if at all possible by your Golden Age, or you will be limited to one great leader. Civs with late Golden Ages will have a great advantage in spawning more leaders- but will not be able to have any leaders until they have their Golden Age!

Mad Viking, I haven't seen anything linking Golden Ages to Great Leaders. From what I read, the Americans can't have a Golden Age until late in the game, but that doesn't stop them from getting a Great Leader early in the game.

[barefootbadass]

hello, folks, I haven't played civ2 in ages cause I lost my MG cd but now I'm getting really excited about civ3. After reading what the site said about making armies and combat, it seems to me that the units per army idea makes a lot of sense given the attributes that units use in fighting.

my understanding of what firaxis means by stating that the hit points in an army are pooled is that the total hit points are apply to the army as if it were a single unit. the attack value of the army would be that of the unit with the greatest attack value and likewise for defense. basically 3 unit armies allow you to have high attack, high defense, and high hp units that can work together to make one army unit. There was the factor of firepower of units that was present in civ2 and I don't know if that will also be present in civ3 or if it is how it will be implemented. Anyway, this system doesn't seem to be as realistic as a combined arms situation where having ranged units such as archers can really help infantry types, but the units will work better as part of an army and having a 3 unit army would allow basically all the types of specialization one would expect from a system with combat being governed basically by 3 attributes. As for fears that warmongering civs will have a ridiculous advantage with 4 unit armies, I would think peaceful types could counter this by making denfensive armies(1 high defense unit and 2 high hp units) and putting them strategically in fortresses or cities with city walls or defensive bonus terrain. It seems to me that, although not entirely realistic, this system is simple and elegant, and will have the strengths that made civ2 such a wonderful game.

[Fiera]

Re: Standard - Vereran - Elite

Originally posted by Wittlich
So to answer your question Fiera - IMO, No, you can get an elite unit when ever a veteran unit wins a certain combat(s). This has no tie to your Golden Age.

Yes, you are right. Some of us were confusing the elite unit with the civ-spicfic unit, which is tied to Golden Ages. So then, Great Leaders can also appear at any moment on the game, whenever an elite unit wins a battle.

Do we know which knowledge is required to build the Military Academy?

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
Grumbold, (& KH) - you need a great leader to make an army, as I understand it. I expect the number of leaders you can "farm" will be limited by your # of cities

This belies your claim:

"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)"

See the "either/or"?

[Sirotnikov]

Re: Re: Standard - Vereran - Elite

Originally posted by Fiera
Yes, you are right. Some of us were confusing the elite unit with the civ-spicfic unit, which is tied to Golden Ages. So then, Great Leaders can also appear at any moment on the game, whenever an elite unit wins a battle.

Which means, who ever gets a great leader in ancient times can be really really strong. I just hope it's ballanced well, so that it won't give one too much power, to run amoc, but still give enough punch to make elite units worth keeping alive.

Do we know which knowledge is required to build the Military Academy?

I assume - Nationalism. Sinec that's the known pre-requisite for armies

[Grumbold]

Has anyone trawled the techs and spotted when the academy comes in? Without evidence I would guess during Nationalism, which means there will be a whole lot of game where farming leaders is a key strategy.

[KrazyHorse]

With evidence, Feudalism.

http://www.gamespydaily.com/screenshots/index.asp?id=3190