Rpodos has recently started a thread on the strategic forum 'On the utility and use of armies' that has become rather interesting. It appears that at least some of us really like using them. Civ3 has introduced certain new features, and the great leader/army concept was one of those.
But as all things eventually need improvements (if not they're outplaced by newer and better concepts), so does the army concept. Let's face it, the idea and implementation function rather well in the game, but need some more polishing up ...
This thread is meant as a source of army related suggestions toward Firaxian programmers. Please stick to that.
ARMY CONCEPT
An army should represent a major 'problem' toward the enemy. Therefore an army should become more powerful. Have you ever feared an army of an enemy AI civ? No, I haven't yet. Of course the AI can't work with them very properly (they manage to create armies with eg. knights instead of riflemen whilst they can produce both!), but with a couple of new ideas this might change.
1) not being able to pillage is just crazy (they've overlooked this I suppose) --> for an army it should be easier in comparison to a single unit. Imagine an army marching on through enemy territory: they can always send some divisions around to pillage and sabotage.
So an army must be able to pillage TWO surrounding squares from the square it stands on.
2) whose countrymen can stand the presence of an enemy army for too long before capitulating? In the game this is possible, because the AI civs won't attack you if your army is defensively strong. So we must create the need to attack enemy invading armies.
suggestion 1: army's mother civ receives % of enemy's treasury each turn the army is on enemy's territory; increasing % as turns proceed.
suggestion 2: trade blockade; if an army enters the 12-square radius of an enemy city, that city won'y have acces to any strategic and luxury resource from the mother country.
3) armies take too long time to heal, even in barracks, not exactly representing real life. In real life damaged armies get reinforcements. So healing should be faster.
4) armies must be able to disband and form a new one after a certain period; this would reflect peace/war times and would make us easily able to upgrade the army's units.
Ok, a couple of first thoughts.
What do you think?
AJ
But as all things eventually need improvements (if not they're outplaced by newer and better concepts), so does the army concept. Let's face it, the idea and implementation function rather well in the game, but need some more polishing up ...
This thread is meant as a source of army related suggestions toward Firaxian programmers. Please stick to that.
ARMY CONCEPT
An army should represent a major 'problem' toward the enemy. Therefore an army should become more powerful. Have you ever feared an army of an enemy AI civ? No, I haven't yet. Of course the AI can't work with them very properly (they manage to create armies with eg. knights instead of riflemen whilst they can produce both!), but with a couple of new ideas this might change.
1) not being able to pillage is just crazy (they've overlooked this I suppose) --> for an army it should be easier in comparison to a single unit. Imagine an army marching on through enemy territory: they can always send some divisions around to pillage and sabotage.
So an army must be able to pillage TWO surrounding squares from the square it stands on.
2) whose countrymen can stand the presence of an enemy army for too long before capitulating? In the game this is possible, because the AI civs won't attack you if your army is defensively strong. So we must create the need to attack enemy invading armies.
suggestion 1: army's mother civ receives % of enemy's treasury each turn the army is on enemy's territory; increasing % as turns proceed.
suggestion 2: trade blockade; if an army enters the 12-square radius of an enemy city, that city won'y have acces to any strategic and luxury resource from the mother country.
3) armies take too long time to heal, even in barracks, not exactly representing real life. In real life damaged armies get reinforcements. So healing should be faster.
4) armies must be able to disband and form a new one after a certain period; this would reflect peace/war times and would make us easily able to upgrade the army's units.
Ok, a couple of first thoughts.
What do you think?
AJ
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