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OK, this is going to be long, it is why I am creating a structure, if you want to reply, tell me the part on which you are replying.
I)
Battles in civ2 were not the most accurate part of the game, this is why I have a few ideas on how to improve battle.
1
i. In the middle ages, battles in Europe were not the same at all as the battles of modern time, armies were owned by lords in feudal Europe, and the King had to rent their services. Furthermore, two armies would lie face to face, they would negocaite peace (70% of the time, peace was made, sometimes with one King offering money or land to the other) and if the army was defeated, it was most likely the the entire country would surrender.
ii. However, not all armies fought this way, and there was some guerilla fighting going on, with peasants that would kill soldiers one by one just to make an army much weaker, but i'll get back to this later
iii. Therefore, middle ages armies might just be more effective when they are in a great group and the other players might just be discouraged when they see this great army heading strait at them. Plus, there might be deals made not only with the leaders, but with the cities individually, maybe by founding a new state allied to the country that posseses this army, or by making the city one of the country's against a small deal of money for the city's leaders. There might also be a new rule, that shows the power of frightening that an army has, say an army of 14 units has to fight against an army of 5 units, while the first country has 31 units over all and the second only 12, maybe they will just surrender instead of fighting a lost cause. Besides the deals, the units surrundering should be allowed to return home safely in exchange.
2)
i. But fighting in modern life can be just like fighting in the middle ages, maybe there can be the same rule that frightens the enemy's armies, or your. But I think that in modern life, the more effective government types prevent individual cities from joining the enemy, althought it could still happen say if there is a lot of unhappy citizens in that city.
ii. I think that more details need to be included in the units' caracteristics, and here they are:
- strength * (the same bar as in the previous civs)
- morale *: the length of the war would have something to do with this, the stats from the war as well (number of units lost/number of units killed), the number of units that are surrounding the unit/number of friendly units nearby, as well as the frightening attribute from the enemy's army.
- fatigue *: depending on the time units rest and on the way they have just travelled, men that have just marched for two weeks do not fight as weel as men that have had a 2 weeks rest.
- equipment *: the ammount of equipment, fuel, ammo, food, water and all sort of things like that. Units should be allowed to have an autonomy for a certain time (which would be a further reason for upgrading, see later) and then their 100 percent will start to go down and they will not fight as well when it does and they will die when it gets to 0.
- range: units should have a range in meter or in another system and this will determine when they will start firing at the enemy in the open. For example, knights will have range 0, archers might have 50, catapults might have up to 100, later tanks might have 2000 while marines have 250, and so on.
- speeds: I think that the way units move is totally unrealistic and maybe there should be speeds allocated to units. There should be three different kinds of speeds:
slow walking speed (they do not tire the units much but they are not very fast and in km/day i.e. 20km/day for ground troops)
fastest walking speed (they tire the troops a lot but they march much faster, same unit, say 60km/day). Of course these speeds will depend on the terrain type, any terrain with a road will have the same speed, however, movement throught forests and hills with no road will be much slower. These speeds could change once automobile is found, as the troops can use convoys. But certain units should not be allowed in terrain types without road, tanks in forests for example.
The third type of speed is fastest attack speed, which would be in m/s (meters per second) and would be, for example 5 for infantry (about 10 miles per hour), 20 for tanks and so on, some would have 0, say cannons of artillery, as they only shoot from a fixed position and then be captured if that position is take.
- reload time: this will help in the battle to determine how much a certain unit could kill enemy troops before they actually move into range.
- armor type and weapons type: this could be mage to prevent warriors making damage to tanks, or even riflemen, as they had few explisives and therefore firepower towards tank, they would be highly inneffecite against them. This could ensure that in modern life combat, infantry stays important, infantry would therefore kill other infantry more effectively than tanks, especially in cities where tanks can be destroyed from hidden positions in buildings where the tanks can't come in.
iii. This would therefore add to realism, preventing phalanx from hitting fighters, and so on. But to ensure this, another concept has to be made: reinforcements and material supply. It seemed obvious to the civ2 creators to show support for units but not on how those units will get the support while away from home? I think this can be solved by using forward bases that get food, ammo, and all of the necessary equipement, and these bases should have a range that makes sure that the units inside that range heal, and rest and so on. But these bases have to be linked back to the main land, in order for the supplies to reach them, and these lines can be pirated, damaged, or even broken by enemy forces. This will add to the realism of the game, and units can be affected to protect the lines.
iv. To come back to the speed business, I think something has to be done about the train system, I think it is highly unreal. First of all, most countries have trains that link their cities together, but it does not mean that they can have troops anywhere anytime, but this again could be fixed by the speed factor. If the speed of all units is the same while they use the railroad system, it could make the game more real, and it would still take some time away, so to limit the range of units.
3)
i. If you have gotten to this point, you must ask yourself a very normal question: if units go 20km/day and if a turn last for 1 year, and sometimes more, up to 20, the range of the units will not really be limited by this new rule but only increased largely. This is true and that is why I have another idea in mind. In fact the units could travel up to 7300km in one year, this means roughly a fifth of the world's equator distance. This is why I think that when the country is in war, turns should last less time, as to plan real strategy attacks and defences, this could mean 1/4 of the time in the middle ages, 1/6 a bit later and 1/12 in the modern age, bringing us to a monthly management of our armies.
ii. But this does not come without problems. It means that you can lose even more units than you can build, because production must remain the same, and if we divide the production by 12, instead of taking say 2 real turns to build a tank, it takes only 14 short ones to build it, therefore giving a big advantage to countries at war. But let me say this: don't countries at war have much more effecient production? Is it more real to have a bomber up in the air for 2 years?
4)
i. This brings me to another point: airpower. I think it was highly unreal in civ2 to have plains the way they were, I mean fighteres could only attack bombers and other fighters while they were in cities, and I think that in order to fix it, there should be something like a zone of intervention for fighters, where the fighters automatically engage any enemy airplanes and where they give support to ground troops either engaging targets or being attacked.
ii. This could solve a lot of problems, and air support would therefore be much more realistic. But the problem of missiles remains, what can we do about missiles to make them more real, can we make fighters carry missiles to sink ship? Can we make air to ground or surface to surface missiles attack civilian or semi military buildings such as an oil refinery, a bridge, a factory, etc... Well, I have no real answer for this but I think that by allowing air raids and missule raids on those kind of targets, we could add a little fun to the game, and add realism.
[This message has been edited by general_charles (edited April 25, 2000).]
I)
Battles in civ2 were not the most accurate part of the game, this is why I have a few ideas on how to improve battle.
1
i. In the middle ages, battles in Europe were not the same at all as the battles of modern time, armies were owned by lords in feudal Europe, and the King had to rent their services. Furthermore, two armies would lie face to face, they would negocaite peace (70% of the time, peace was made, sometimes with one King offering money or land to the other) and if the army was defeated, it was most likely the the entire country would surrender.
ii. However, not all armies fought this way, and there was some guerilla fighting going on, with peasants that would kill soldiers one by one just to make an army much weaker, but i'll get back to this later
iii. Therefore, middle ages armies might just be more effective when they are in a great group and the other players might just be discouraged when they see this great army heading strait at them. Plus, there might be deals made not only with the leaders, but with the cities individually, maybe by founding a new state allied to the country that posseses this army, or by making the city one of the country's against a small deal of money for the city's leaders. There might also be a new rule, that shows the power of frightening that an army has, say an army of 14 units has to fight against an army of 5 units, while the first country has 31 units over all and the second only 12, maybe they will just surrender instead of fighting a lost cause. Besides the deals, the units surrundering should be allowed to return home safely in exchange.
2)
i. But fighting in modern life can be just like fighting in the middle ages, maybe there can be the same rule that frightens the enemy's armies, or your. But I think that in modern life, the more effective government types prevent individual cities from joining the enemy, althought it could still happen say if there is a lot of unhappy citizens in that city.
ii. I think that more details need to be included in the units' caracteristics, and here they are:
- strength * (the same bar as in the previous civs)
- morale *: the length of the war would have something to do with this, the stats from the war as well (number of units lost/number of units killed), the number of units that are surrounding the unit/number of friendly units nearby, as well as the frightening attribute from the enemy's army.
- fatigue *: depending on the time units rest and on the way they have just travelled, men that have just marched for two weeks do not fight as weel as men that have had a 2 weeks rest.
- equipment *: the ammount of equipment, fuel, ammo, food, water and all sort of things like that. Units should be allowed to have an autonomy for a certain time (which would be a further reason for upgrading, see later) and then their 100 percent will start to go down and they will not fight as well when it does and they will die when it gets to 0.
- range: units should have a range in meter or in another system and this will determine when they will start firing at the enemy in the open. For example, knights will have range 0, archers might have 50, catapults might have up to 100, later tanks might have 2000 while marines have 250, and so on.
- speeds: I think that the way units move is totally unrealistic and maybe there should be speeds allocated to units. There should be three different kinds of speeds:
slow walking speed (they do not tire the units much but they are not very fast and in km/day i.e. 20km/day for ground troops)
fastest walking speed (they tire the troops a lot but they march much faster, same unit, say 60km/day). Of course these speeds will depend on the terrain type, any terrain with a road will have the same speed, however, movement throught forests and hills with no road will be much slower. These speeds could change once automobile is found, as the troops can use convoys. But certain units should not be allowed in terrain types without road, tanks in forests for example.
The third type of speed is fastest attack speed, which would be in m/s (meters per second) and would be, for example 5 for infantry (about 10 miles per hour), 20 for tanks and so on, some would have 0, say cannons of artillery, as they only shoot from a fixed position and then be captured if that position is take.
- reload time: this will help in the battle to determine how much a certain unit could kill enemy troops before they actually move into range.
- armor type and weapons type: this could be mage to prevent warriors making damage to tanks, or even riflemen, as they had few explisives and therefore firepower towards tank, they would be highly inneffecite against them. This could ensure that in modern life combat, infantry stays important, infantry would therefore kill other infantry more effectively than tanks, especially in cities where tanks can be destroyed from hidden positions in buildings where the tanks can't come in.
iii. This would therefore add to realism, preventing phalanx from hitting fighters, and so on. But to ensure this, another concept has to be made: reinforcements and material supply. It seemed obvious to the civ2 creators to show support for units but not on how those units will get the support while away from home? I think this can be solved by using forward bases that get food, ammo, and all of the necessary equipement, and these bases should have a range that makes sure that the units inside that range heal, and rest and so on. But these bases have to be linked back to the main land, in order for the supplies to reach them, and these lines can be pirated, damaged, or even broken by enemy forces. This will add to the realism of the game, and units can be affected to protect the lines.
iv. To come back to the speed business, I think something has to be done about the train system, I think it is highly unreal. First of all, most countries have trains that link their cities together, but it does not mean that they can have troops anywhere anytime, but this again could be fixed by the speed factor. If the speed of all units is the same while they use the railroad system, it could make the game more real, and it would still take some time away, so to limit the range of units.
3)
i. If you have gotten to this point, you must ask yourself a very normal question: if units go 20km/day and if a turn last for 1 year, and sometimes more, up to 20, the range of the units will not really be limited by this new rule but only increased largely. This is true and that is why I have another idea in mind. In fact the units could travel up to 7300km in one year, this means roughly a fifth of the world's equator distance. This is why I think that when the country is in war, turns should last less time, as to plan real strategy attacks and defences, this could mean 1/4 of the time in the middle ages, 1/6 a bit later and 1/12 in the modern age, bringing us to a monthly management of our armies.
ii. But this does not come without problems. It means that you can lose even more units than you can build, because production must remain the same, and if we divide the production by 12, instead of taking say 2 real turns to build a tank, it takes only 14 short ones to build it, therefore giving a big advantage to countries at war. But let me say this: don't countries at war have much more effecient production? Is it more real to have a bomber up in the air for 2 years?
4)
i. This brings me to another point: airpower. I think it was highly unreal in civ2 to have plains the way they were, I mean fighteres could only attack bombers and other fighters while they were in cities, and I think that in order to fix it, there should be something like a zone of intervention for fighters, where the fighters automatically engage any enemy airplanes and where they give support to ground troops either engaging targets or being attacked.
ii. This could solve a lot of problems, and air support would therefore be much more realistic. But the problem of missiles remains, what can we do about missiles to make them more real, can we make fighters carry missiles to sink ship? Can we make air to ground or surface to surface missiles attack civilian or semi military buildings such as an oil refinery, a bridge, a factory, etc... Well, I have no real answer for this but I think that by allowing air raids and missule raids on those kind of targets, we could add a little fun to the game, and add realism.
[This message has been edited by general_charles (edited April 25, 2000).]
], and civilization does not mean "military" to me. It *does* mean culture, and science, and arts, instead. What are ancient Egypt and Greek remembered for? Not for their great military progress, but for science like math (probably you too learned Pythagoras), arts like writing [who doesn't know the word "hieroglyph"? Any use for it today? If no, why does one know it? 
This fixes the 'fight to the death' problem that I have seen posts about. This also promotes use of units like Alpine troops, who have both good attack and defense.
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