Unconventional Warfare in Civ III

[lago]

After I wrote that, it occurred to me that creating a "Park" (sounds so innocent, doesn't it) is a type of unconventional attack for the EcoRanger. It does have standard attack and defense values, I think, but they're so low you wouldn't use it that way if you have a choice.

But its Create Park attack is an act of war, and that's the distinction. That's one of the things I like about the stealths -- you can wage war without actually, well, going to war. You can do this in Civ2 by bribing cities, but there it's strictly a matter of money. If you have the cash, you'll succeed. With the stealth units, you play percentages, and there are different ways to attack and thus defend. It's realistic but also very playable.

[NQUOTES]

I think CIV3 should factor in world terrorism and also implement a national media as a improvement to a civilization. What is a war without CNN. Everyone knows that the threat of terrorism is very prevalent in a modern society.

[MidKnight Lament]

quote: Originally posted by lago on 03-13-2000 08:33 PM you can wage war without actually, well, going to war.

Precisely. Got it in one. I like to stay non-military for a large proportion of the game, but that doesn't mean I don't want to screw over my enemies!

- MKL

[Dienstag]

I haven't played/seen CtP, but I don't think I'd like most of the "unconventional warfare" units. You guys have some neat ideas, and I could write all night, but I think I'll try to expand on the idea of the "spy screen."

My whole concept for the "spy screen" is pretty much just a developement of current Civ II screens, so you might see a resemblence. There should be a key (F3, for example) that brings up the Intelligence Minister screen. This screen contains (besides whatever appropriate data) a short list, a long list, some slider bars, and a button.

The short list:
This list has the countries which you are currently most concerned about. You can change this list at your convenience, it's just meant to make things easier. Clicking on any of the countries takes you to that country's Intel Window. Also for convenience, the names of civs you're at war with could be displayed in red.

The long list:
This is a list of every civ you are currently aware of (assuming Civ III has more than 7 civs). This is the slightly more tedious way of getting to any given civ's Intel Window.

The slider bars:
These allow you to modify how you spend the "intel budget." I'm assuming Civ III will have another screen somewhere that determines how much you spend on intel each year. Instead of tax/science/luxury, your choices will be whatever it is that Intel people spend money on. I suggest it include training, bribe money/"compensation", salaries, propaganda, plus whatever else someone can think of.

The button:
This takes you to the counter-intelligence screen, because I couldn't think of a better way to get there. This screen tells you who you know is spying on you, and lets you try to do something about it. I haven't thought a lot about this, but somehow you should be able to decide whether to try misinformation, disinformation (I think there's a difference, but I forget what), or just make their spies "disappear." you should be able to try to mislead the other civs into thinking any of the following:

1. Your military is stronger/weaker than it really is. This could be as specific as number of units, for example.
2. Your military readiness is higher/lower than it really is.
3. You (don't) have a certain tech.
4. Your attitude toward a certain civ is worse/better than it really is.
5. You are (not) currently building/researching/developing a certain wonder/tech/prototype.
6. Your economy is stronger/weaker than it really is.
7. Lots more stuff, but this is the basic idea...

The Intel Screen:
This screen tells you everything you think you know about a certain civ, what you think that civ knows about you, and what you're doing about it. There is the "intel file" on this civ which tells you all this; you can read through everything or just the sections you're interested in (military, tech, economy, etc...). There's also a mini-map of the country showing you which cities you have spies in. You can each spy specific orders or all spies together a set of priorities, such as:

1. Move to other city/come home.
2. Collect info on military/science/economy/etc...
3. Steal technical data/blueprints
4. Incite social unrest
5. Sabatoge communications/transportation/industry/etc...
5. Assassinate leader?!?
6. Hide
7. Try to detect enemy spies

Each spy can attempt one of these things per turn. The more aggressive the option, the higher the chance of failure. Sometimes, even when they're not doing anything, a spy will simply disappear.


This is the best I can do at the moment. I hope I did a half decent job describing my idea. There will have to be a way to increase/decrease the number of spies in each country as you hire more/change you're priorities. I'd also like to incorporate this with a whole system for non-human intelligence (spy satellites, listening posts, etc...). Anyway, that's my idea for a non-unit-based spy model.

[Youngsun]

I humbly accept all the criticisms from you guys and I reckon some sacrifices of realism are needed for the sake of game play.

1.Corporations should be controlled by players.(Either under capitalism or communism)

2.Regarding the size and impact they make,only MNEs(multi national enterprise)should be allowed to appear during the game.(Manufacturing firms can be perfect examples)And there is simply no room for smaller corporations for the game.

3.Corporations should be able to produce trade commodities.(The demand of each city was produced randomly by checking the city's own supply in CivII. In that sense, each city was actually representing a corporation in CivII.)

4.Corporations should be represented by either a unit or a city improvement. I think they are more flexible than a city improvements but less flexible than field units. What about an immovable unit which can be located in city as a unit but can not move ?

This new unit can grow like an organic creature and has unique stats like S/FP/PR/PC/MC/TS with one trade commodity which it can produce.

S=Size
FP=Financial power(monetary power)
PR=Public relation(also Brand recognition)
PC=Production capacity
MC=Marketing capacity
TS=Technology status(the higher the better)

This corporation unit will fight against other civ's ones to dominate World trade.(Trade War)

Like a parasite, they will stick to one city and consume citizens' income but if the business environment in the city goes bad they can also perish. They will pay tax each turn to their civ's government which means extra revenue for their governments.

I will simulate one case scenario for this.

New York has currently IBM,Ford and Coca cola units which are all belong to American civ but two turns ago 3 new units from Japan and Germany infiltrated into the city. These NEC,Toyota and Daimler Benz units are big and powerful.

New York is big and prosperous so there is full 60 different trade commodities demand list for the city. PC,Automobile and Soft drink are definitely on the list. Since city improvement of power plant, highway and supermarket have been built the demand of PC,Automobile and Soft drink has tripled.

IBM
S=20 FP=32 PR=15 PC=35 MC=25 TS=50 PC USA
Ford
S=25 FP=22 PR=20 PC=75 MC=25 TS=32 Autos USA
Coca-cola
S=23 FP=62 PR=95 PC=25 MC=80 TS=8 Soft Drink USA
NEC
S=18 FP=25 PR=10 PC=40 MC=20 TS=55 PC Japan

I will skip the other two.(both produce Automobiles)

New York is size 40 megalopolis and has 100 demand of PC each turn. Now IBM unit can produce 35 and NEC for 40 so total 75. Still demand 25 is not satisfied so both unit will grow and there is no serious competition.

But New York's Automobile demand is 100 but Ford has 75PC, Toyota for 60PC and DB for 55PC so total 190! The supply exceeded the demand by 90! some unit have to go out of business sooner or later. Each turn they will fight to dominate market share by using their FP/PR/MC/TS power.

Coca Cola has virtual monopoly of the market in New York. Since this kind of business requires more PR than TS for its success, hard earned 95PR of Coca cola makes the firm hardly under threat from any other Soft drink manufacturers.

Each unit's management should be done by independent AI but its strategic move can be contolled by the player like other mil units.

International Trade

Civs should be allowed to trade trade commodities produced by their corporation units by setting a trade route.

Each city should have its own demand list like Railroad Tycoon which can be affected by both prosperity and pop. size.

If a Civ fails to satisfy these demands under certain percentage, the dissatisfied portion of pop. will generate unhappiness.

If your domestic corporation unit produce more than required by your civ, the surplus can be traded with other civs.

When these units are at infancy they are extremely vulnerable due to threats from bigger existing units from other civs so care has to be taken.

Corporation units can stack too through merging and annexation and this corporate alliance can be very powerful indeed.

Trade route should be made by trade pact between two civs not by the camel and it should be much easier to establish if there is no diplomatic problem. ( I have nothing against this poor animal)

Note:Employment element was not applied due to its complexity.

[This message has been edited by Youngsun (edited March 14, 2000).]

[MidKnight Lament]

Dienstag - This is exactly the sort of thing I was thinking should be in an intelligence screen. I can't elaborate now, because I'm going to bed to recover (I'm a bit unwell at the moment), but keep those ideas coming. It's good stuff.

- MKL
[This message has been edited by MidKnight Lament (edited March 14, 2000).]

[The Mad Viking]

MKL (great handle, great thread)

I've given quite a bit of thought to spies lately, regarding counterintelligence. But apparently not as much thought as Dienstag! Excellent work!

I agree completely that espionage would work better as a screen. It should be difficult to establish your first spies in each civ, a little easier to spread them between cities. I agree that a percent of your budget should be allocated to "intelligence" including espionage and propaganda. I think that spies should give their reports with a confidence factor - a probability that their information is correct- although for "non-vet" spies even the confidence factor could be wrong. In general, spies should still give mostly accurate information most of the time. It would put a lot more spice into attacking a city.

Ironic that you can tell exactly what's in an enemy city half-way across the map, even without an embassy for that civ - but you can't tell whats below that catapult in the stack outside your city walls!

And guess what? Eliminating the units means that a single Mata Hari will no longer be able to conceal ten armoured divisions on a railway through open plains in the heart of heavily occupied enemy territory!

[The Mad Viking]

The other thought i had related to trade and production. With improved trade, you should NEVER be able to simply buy a unit or improvement. You can't buy something that hasn't been mined, logged, refined, manufactured etc. If you don't have the production capacity, you'll have to buy it from someciv who does. They would need to increase the number of shields (or reduce shield cost of units etc.) to balance it. But turning cash instantly into tanks made by ? makes no sense. This would IMHO more correctly demonstrate the importance of production. You can't buy, sell, eat or drive it, if it hasn't been produced!

[lago]

Dienstag's ideas deal with something that I found mildly annoying in Civ2, namely that information from Spies is always completely accurate. It may not tell you everything, but what it does tell you is guaranteed correct. This sounds like a good way to allow you to deceive (and be deceived) and I hope Firaxis includes something like this.

Other factors, like governments and trade, would have an effect on intel. If you have lots of foreign trade or multi-national corporations (however that is implemented), your overall intelligence abilities should improve. Communist and Fundamentalist governments should be more difficult to penetrate than Democracies, etc.

[Sirotnikov]

Wow, I i spent a lot of time thinking about my vision of espionage and then comes Dienstag and explains his vision, which is similar to my own but he apparently has spent much more time thinking aobut it and expanding it.

Very well done, Dienstag!

I also think we should some how encorporate Mad Viking's suggestions about veterans and non veterans.

Youngsun, your latest suggestion of corporations has captured me. i think this is the main frame of what would please me in civ 3.

P.S.
What do you people think about my idea of selling units for money, without the costumer nation being able to get science for it? I could be selling nukes to the aztecs that don't even have gravitation. And the units i give them don't make them discover nuclear power or something. Also this is done in the world for money saving. It saves money to buy apachees from the USA rather than starting your own apachee development team and production line.

Youngsun, you actually mentioned australia importing merkavas in the history book thread . I'd like to see this sort of thing in civ 3.

[MidKnight Lament]

Excellent ideas, all! Perhaps I should have started a few different threads.

I think an espoinage screen could be really cool in Civ3. To add to all those ideas mentioned before, I think you should be able to bribe a foreign spy to work for you. The foreign civ would still believe that they owned the spy, but they wouldn't. That spy could then gain much information from the foreign civ from you. In this way, you'd have to be wary about the spies you had. There should be some sort of rating (loyalty?) for each spy (perhaps dicatated by how much you pay them) which determines how easily they can be bribed. Would you rather have 5 very loyal spies and get relatively accurate intelligence information, or would you be happier to have 10 spies who are not as trustworthy so that you can gain information about more cities?

Should you be able to move spies from city to city as you wished? (To enable you to get the most effective information from the most important cities). Or should there be penalties for moving spies around? Would it take them a certain number of years before they were effective in a city?

The Mad Viking - Thanks I like yours too. Actually, I've probably played CTP as the Vikings more often than any other civ.

- MKL

[Adm.Naismith]

Lot of excellent suggestions, my only dubt is some (e.g. Youngsun Corporations) are worth a whole game alone

I'm trying to imagine myself looking at every usual CIV parts of game (productions, trade pacts, diplomacy, wars, etc.) and taking care of corporation side effects, lots of intelligence decisions and manage to have some sort of life outside, at least to speak with my wife applying for the resulting divorce

Ok, just kidding, but I'm asking myself if we are not adding too much micromanagement to the game (and no, better AI help is not the answer, because the actual level of AI can't cope with this decisions IMHO).

Still, if you can judiciusly prune your models to keep them enough easy to use (as a part of a greater game), I will be happy to support them, as good as they are.

As they are now, yours idea will better fit into a "On-line, permanent CIV game" like Ultima, where every player play a role in a bigger world and none try to master everything.

Maybe that will be interseting to develope, but not with Firaxis people so reduced in number they already must delay Dino and postpone CIV III

------------------
Adm.Naismith AKA mcostant

[Youngsun]

Another harsh criticism from Admiral

OK But I think my latest suggestion was pretty close to my limit to compromise for the favour of game play(There is already too much sacrifice of realism)But I will push hard.

Model upgraded(simplified).................

1.I said "Corporation" will be a unit. Any organisation which comprises of people can be a unit(Either an infantry division or a corporation)

2.Corporation units should not have movement rate. Their battlefields should be in cities and they should leave fields to other mil. units that means they can exist only in cities.

3.The whole mechanism of corporation works SIMPLE. Corporations consume the city's resource,employ the citizen,sell their products to the client cities and pay taxes to its own government.

3.1 resource consumption
Under current system, a city can produce food,shield and trade only. The city production(food,shield and trade)is an actual representation of 1st industry and under my model,no corporations can engage this sacred duty of cities.

3.1.1 Food
Some firms can consume "Food" then turn them into "processed food".

3.1.2 Shield
Some firms can consume "Shields" then turn them into "Manufactured goods".

3.1.3 Trade
Some firms consume "Trade" then turn them into "Service".

3.2 Employing citizens
All citizens working on tiles within city radius are in 1st industry and all of them are self-employed as farmers,miners,fishers,etc. Corporations can draw this rural pop. into real city life by recruiting them as salary men/women.(let's be politically correct here )

3.3 Selling products to citizens
A city has Farmers,Miners,Fishers and Public servants basically.

3.3.1 Demand(hypothetical thus can be changed)
Farmers' Demand on Processed food is low
Farmers' Demand on Manufactured goods is low
Farmers' Demand on Service is low
Miners' Demand on Processed food is medium
Miners' Demand on Manufactured goods is medium
Miners' Demand on Service is low
P.Servants'Demand on PF is medium
P.Servants'Demand on MG is medium
P.Servants'Demand on Service is medium
(Fishers' Demand=Farmers'Demand)
Salarymen's Demand on PF is medium
Salarymen's Demand on MG is medium
Salarymen's Demand on Service is medium
Other city specialists' Demands are all high.(Entertainers & Scientists)

Farmer/Miner/Fisher-Low class
P.Servant/Salaryman-Middle class
Entertainer/Scientist-High class

3.3.2 Public servants
They are employed by you(Government)and work for all the city improvemnts(Bank,Factory,Cityhall,etc)and Salarymen are employed by corporation units. Others are all self employed.


3.4 Paying taxes
If a "Corporation unit" employs one "Salarymen" total ,that means it is size 1 corporation unit. (10 salarymen=size 10 unit)
Traditionally, A "Salaryman" produced certain amount of gold as a specialist but this time they do that as paying taxes to the government. That sounds okay as long as the salarymen works for domestic firms but if they are employed by foreign firms, half of taxes will be collected by that foreign government.

4.Unlike other mil units, Corporation units are productive units as long as your civs' 1st industry can produce enough raw materials(Food,Shilds and Trade)for them.

Still more works needed.........

[This message has been edited by Youngsun (edited March 15, 2000).]

[Dienstag]

Thanks everyone for the praise and criticism of my spy-screen proposal. It seems to have brought out many good ideas by others, such as Mad Viking's confidence factor, lago's effect of trade and government ideas, and many others. I'd be happy to try to compile these ideas into a comprehensive idea of espionage, but I've got Finals coming up (should be studying or sleeping now) and as MKL aluded to, this was a thread on "unconventional warfare."

I totally agree with The Mad Viking about not being able to "rush-buy" something. You should never be able to buy a stealth bomber squadron or the Cure For Cancer in one turn just because you're rich. This idea needs a lot of work, but it can be done...

Question for Youngsun: If the corporation is a unit, how do you produce it, and can it be killed? I don't think it would be appropriate to kill all the defenders of Seattle, only to find that it is still occupied by the Microsoft Corporation. On the offer hand, if you invade Seattle, have you rid the world of Microsoft permantently? Just asking. Everything else you've said sounds good, as long as we can avoid needless micromanagement and Adm. Naismith's wife leaving him...

Back to the topic: What about the other great CtP units? Do we like/dislike the ideas represented by them (slavery, biological warfare, etc...)? Do they have to be units instead of some other system?

Final thought: Does CtP have nukes? I haven't played it, so since no one's mentioned them I'm wondering if either CtP doesn't have nukes or are they considered conventional warfare now? Once again, just asking...

-Dienstag

[MidKnight Lament]

CTP does have nukes, and I believe that they are considered conventional warfare.

Do you want me to start another thread for the espionage screen?

- MKL