Patch idea: obsolute units.

[johncmcleod]

I like solver's idea. I just don't understand how a unit with guns could lose to swordsmen. You'd blow their heads off before they could reach the target. I also think the gap between attack and defense in infantry and mech infantry units is too much. So two infantry units are standing in some grasslands. One attacks the other. And he only has a 25% chance of winning. I think infatnry should have 9 attack and 11 defense. Also, marines are TOTALLY underrated. Today, the US marines go through more rigorous training the US army infantry, and generally have better fighting skills.

[Palleon]

Originally posted by johncmcleod
I like solver's idea. I just don't understand how a unit with guns could lose to swordsmen. You'd blow their heads off before they could reach the target. I also think the gap between attack and defense in infantry and mech infantry units is too much. So two infantry units are standing in some grasslands. One attacks the other. And he only has a 25% chance of winning. I think infatnry should have 9 attack and 11 defense. Also, marines are TOTALLY underrated. Today, the US marines go through more rigorous training the US army infantry, and generally have better fighting skills.

Then use the editor. That's how I dealt with the idea of "obsolete" units. I gave musketmen, Infantry, Rifleman etc a 2 hp bonus. I gave tanks, modern armor, and mech infantry a 4 hp bonus. If you keep the a/d/m the same, then they have a lot more survivability, and it's a bit more realistic. The older units still have a chance to win, which means that you're not a god, but the more modern units still have a significantly better chance of winning the battle. Plus it makes far more interesting modern battles which everyone has 10-12 hp instead of 5.

[Deathwalker]

I like this idea but it does sound a bit like Fire Power

[Phil_de_geezer]

I just don't understand how a unit with guns could lose to swordsmen

Really? Superior numbers? Ambush? Incompetent/arrogant leaders?

one attacks the other. And he only has a 25% chance of winning

The guys who don't move are going to have a serious advantage, considering they can take cover and aim better.

[dunk]

Originally posted by muxec
So the first step is improving AI.

Why?

The AI doesn't see a guy running around with a sword. It sees a 3-2-1 unit, just as it should. Now, 3-2-1 doesn't stand much of a chance against 24-16-3, but it will still take up a movement point of that modern armor. Think of the modern age swordsman as a human shield. Maybe the AI has more imagination than you do.

[Palleon]

Originally posted by johncmcleod
I just don't understand how a unit with guns could lose to swordsmen.

Case and point, The wars between the "Native Americans" and the English, and then American settlers during the Colonial Era. They didn't have any guns at first, and later on they had a few, but the settlers still lost plenty of battles, because the Indians had superior military tactics at the time, knowledge of the land, and overall better guerrilla tactics. They lost at the end though because their technology was inferior. But they won some battles, not the war, and in Civ3, the people with higher technology might lose a few battles, but overall, they'll win more often than not.

[star mouse]

Longbowmen defeating a tank - can't happen? Dumb luck can happen. And of course, you're assuming that the longbowman has only a bow and a quiver of arrows as weapon. Also suppose they sent flaming arrows?

[Palleon]

Who's to say they're not explosive tipped arrows? Or a shaft made out of C4? It never said what kind of arrows they use, I'm sure they are upgraded with the times. Or maybe a lucky arrow hit a weak point in the armor and damaged the engine. You can make up any number of reasons for obsolete units to get in a lucky shot and win.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Palleon
Here's what I'd like to see happen. I've seen this in a game before, I don't recall which one however. We all know upgrading units can be expensive, which is why you can't always do it. But what if we were able to upgrade in the build queue? Lets say you have a spearman, and you want to upgrade it to infantry. You move it to a city with a barracks, and select it to be upgraded. It would work like you were building infantry, but the shield cost of the spearman would already be done, so it would take less time than it would to build a new unit. This way, your big production cities could upgrade units exceptionally fast, without a crippling gold cost. What are your thoughts on this?

That's not a bad approach really. The real problem in the game is that the AI can't upgrade it's units because it's always broke. It's just not terribly bright when it comes to managing it's finances, especially in comparison to the human player. So it never has the funds to do any mass upgrades, unlike the human player.

But if the upgrade was based on shields instead, and happened automatically, then it wouldn't be a problem. It would just take away some shields from it's current production until all the units stationed in the city were upgraded, at which point it would resume building whatever was in it's queue.

And there could be some sort of sub-routine in place so that any unit that enters a city with a Barracks will be forced to remain there until it's finished upgrading. At the most, it would probably only take a turn or two, if the city had a half decent shield production happening.