How To Make Modern Warfare Realistic

[Navyman]

Regarding the cruise missile attack mod, I respectfully disagree.

The effectiveness of the modern cruise missile (Tomahawk) is not derived from a large warhead (which is what you are implying by giving a large attack value). The effectiveness of the Tomahawk comes from its range and precision!

Here is a quote from the US Navy site:
"Tomahawk® Block II uses a Terrain Contour Matching (TERCOM) and Digital Scene Matching Area Correlation (DSMAC) missile guidance system. Block III adds a Global Positioning Satellite guidance capability to TERCOM and DSMAC. Radar detection of the missile is extremely difficult because of the small radar cross-section and low altitude. Tomahawk® has two warhead configurations: a 1,000-lb. blast/fragmentary unitary warhead and a general-purpose submunition dispenser with combined effect bomblets. Because of its long range, lethality, and extreme accuracy Tomahawk® has become the weapon of choice for the U.S. Department of Defense."

http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/factfile/missiles/wep-toma.html

The warhead is just 1,000 lb! 1,000 lb of TNT sounds like it's a lot but in the grand scheme of things in war, it really isn't. An F-15E can carry around 6 2,000 lb and that isn't enough to level even one city block let alone destroy an entire division of infantry or tanks or whatever. I guess one can assume that the infantry or the tanks or mech. inf are standing right next to each other in nice tight formations over level ground but that is not the case in war. Usually several hundred tons of ammunition is used to even get the enemy just to scatter!

Assigning a cruise missile with an attack of 25 does not accurately model the role the cruise missile is meant to play on the battlefield. But on the other hand, giving the cruise missile the "precision attack" capability does sound like a more appropriate change to make.

[Patroklos]

Hey all,

I apologize for having neglected this post, but after I made it life sort of seperated me from the gaming community for awhile. I was curious if any of you who respoded had made any progress with the mods discussed in this thread.

I myself am just getting back into the Civ3 arena, and a few of you may have read my latest musings on the game in my Bio/Chem weapons thread. But still, these mods on conventional units in the modern age are needed.

As far as Navyman is concerned, I agree with you. Cruise missiles are not devestating because of warhead, but because of precision. Finess many times wins agains brute strenght. Unfortunetly there is no wat to "increase" precision in the game. However, iincreasing the bombardment value does make sure that whatever it hits is destroyed, as in real life, so it has the same effect as improving precision.

This thread is very old so I doubt anyone of you will read this, but I hope I can find a way to revitalize it since I missed out on the first discusion of my ideas.

Hope to hear from you

[Catt]

It's been a long time since your first post - how has the mod played out in gameplay? I spent some time modding a while ago, but didn't have a whole lot of success at stimulating effective AI use of modded units. Yes, the AI would use them, but the human (me) could always use them more effectively. Have your mods made the AI more formidable or less? I came away from my modding experience believing the true test of any mod was to create a more challenging AI opponent, but haven't yet seen a mod do this well (even if it produces a more realistic unit functionality).

Catt

[Patroklos]

Like I had said earlier, the real world (aka military) took me away from the world of gaming just after I made this thread, so I've not had much of a chance to play since then. That is basically why I ressurected the thread, so I could see how otheres made out in my absence.

As far as my experiance with the changes goes, they have been varied. A human player can take into account all the stategic advantages of the new units we mod. The AI however, is not actually "intelligent," and will attempt to use these new units in the context of its old stategy instead of adapting like a human. Changes like those made to the cruise missle such as bombardmnet values and range the AI can appreciate and make use of. However, in all the trials I never saw the AI make use of the expanded capability of the missile to be loaded onto naval vessels. This is because normally the computer can't, and in my experiance the computer doesn't learn new tricks, only increases it's grasp on the old ones.

As far as changes in my personal game play I have made since modifying the units there are many. Navies are now much more dynamic. Alowing the Aegis and Submarines to use cruise missiles gives a ranged aspect to naval combat consistant with reality. Also due to the new range of the naval weapons, recon is now very important because the weapons range is further than the line of sight of the unit firing. Unforunatley the AI does not use the new ranged weapons for naval warfare so it is like a modern navy fighting a WWII navy. I also need to explore the effects of giving a cruise missle a tactical flag. The fact is I haven't had a game in the modern era where there was a robust enemy navy to tackle in the modern age.

As far as the changes to the land units, they were mostly in range and strength stats more than functional. It is nice to have powerful marines. In fact marines become an alternative to regular infanty (this was before I raised the production costs to account for increased training). Paratroopers also became survivable, which was the point of the modification. These increases were basic enough for the AI to grasp. It was not hard for them to figure out that their artillery could move faster and fire further.

The combat engineer, well that a wholly new and unique unit. This bieng so, the computer has no idea what to do with it, and in fact I have not even seen an AI build one. There is a problem though. While I had originally decided to allow the unit to build roads, railroads, and fortresses only so that workers would not be replaced by a cheaper population free military unit, this is not quite so. The fact is the only thing an engineer can't do is irrigate and build mines. Well, by the modern age you normally have already irrigated and mined everything you could and all you need your workers to build is roads and railroads. Hence all you need is combat engineers. I will way the pros and cons of this, and see if I can solve it. That is of course, if you all don't solve it for me first.

[Knightblade pDM]

I added all of your changes(except the Combat Engineer) into my own mod which already had some dynamic yet realistic changes taken from other mods around the Civ world.

Between your changes and my own, this game has gotten 150% better in the Modern Ages, whenever I reach it that is LOL

[igloo_boy]

The problem with accurately depicting modern warfare in a game such as Civ 3 is the diversity of modern military forces. Its far easier in the ancient ages when a guy with a big stick was the apex of military technology.
Navyman suggested adding a few units to reflect the incredible diversity of the modern armed forces. IMO they would all make nice additions, especially the more defense-specific units, giving a Civ the ability to counter a stack of MA with something more than a bigger stack of MA.
However, I'd venture to ask, where does it all end? Someone will want to add a 'wild-weasel' unit to attack air defence guns, and so on. There is an almost endless chain of units/counter units/counter counter units that one could add. At some point we have to be happy with what we've got, an amazing civ building game not a modern combat simulation.
As a final comment, I really love the idea of a combat engineer unit. In addition to building roads/rr/forts, IMO a lay minefield/clear minefield ability would add a twist to ground warefare. A minefielded square would damage one or more units moving into it. This could be regardless of who put the minefield down. To avoid rampant mining, a minefielded square would act like pollution to any city nearby (hard to farm in a minefield).

P.s. PTW is going to add a huge depth of stratagy that SP cant ever hope to match. Cant wait to see just how sneaky people will get

[Patroklos]

I like the idea of making the combat engineer able to make and clear mine fields. This is very congruent with real life. Also, this would make the combat engineer basically the most diverse unit in the game, with both terraforming, defence, and mine laying abilities. For this I would raise the production cost significantly.

Only problem with the mines is that as far as I know the ones created so far are actually individual units. This means the engineer can not create or "lay" them and would then need an offensive ability to destroy them, which the engineer has almost none off. (the mines I have seen are basically stationary units that have no offence, extreme defense to make sure they destroy whatever runs into them, and are also invisible using the submarine trait. They are "layed" by a truck unit that drops them off). In order to "lay" a unit, the engineer would have to have a transport ability, but then they could transport anything making them an APC sort of unit.

To create the type of mine laying and clearing ability that would be optimal, mines would need to become a terriforming feature. Engineers would in essence "build" mine fields like a road or fortress. The engineer would then be very different from a worker in that it now has a unique terraforming ability. This would mean there couldn't be any other improvement on that tile, but like igloo_boy said, you can't really mine or farm a region coverned in mines effectively (you can argue with that I know, but for simplisity's sake lets just say you can't). Now how you would get a tile improvement to hurt a unit when it goes over it I don't know. Nor do I know how to make a minefield invisible if it is a tile improvement and not a unit. I leave that to public debate