Why don't we get the flexible unit system à la SMAC?

[Chaos Warrior]

Don't we deserve it? Isn't it one of the most important improvements in SMAC, cocnerning the development of CIV? The other one would be the Social Engineering, but why don't the Firaxians implement a flexible unit model as we had in SMAC, why do they bother us with static units as in CIV2? (isn#t that what they intend to do?) That doesn't sound too pogressive to me, even if they include some kind of tech level (AFAIK).... I really wonder what's so bad about the SMAC unit model...


wouldn't it be great to take "Infantry", "Muskets" and "Special Training" to get a nice 18th century Guard Infantry, for example?

[Darkknight]

I think we are getting that check out the civ3 firaxis site.

[Urban Ranger]

I would like to design my own unit also. As I pointed out in another thread, it is rather silly to give every civ the same units.

I rekcon this could be a problem with the computer players. I don't think the AI routines can handle this kind of flexibility.

It's a rather sad day when Firaxis decided to remove the ability to build custom units.

[Roman]

They did not. You will still be able to create your own custom units.

[Chaos Warrior]

ahem... 2 people say they removed it, 2 say they didn't... aren't we able to get any 'serious' information somewhere? perhapos we're talking about different things here...

[-- but not Snapcase]

Bah. The Unit Workshop invariably hinders people from making custom units. Sounds strange? It's not, really, because the most important customisation feature is not in-game, it's in scenario making.

[Urban Ranger]

--, your reasoning is flawed. You are saying that, once people have the ability to tweak with their units inside the game, they will cease to make scenarioes. I don't think that is the case, since the unit workshop and the scenario editor are targeted towards two different groups. There are people who like to mess around with strange units but lacks the patience to build scenarioes from the ground up.

[Yog-Sothoth]

I feel that the unit workshop and SE is aspects that fit more into scifi games like SMAC than in "historical" games like Civ3 will be. Fixed units can be made more detailed and you don't get problems with recongnizing units etc. And the units in SMAC looked utterly stupid.

And you will be able to create your own custom units, now it's 3 vs 2

I'll bet you will buy the game anyway CH

[RonHiler]

I agree with you 100% Chaos and Urban. I think it's an amazingly huge mistake for Firaxis to not put in a unit workshop. For me, at least, that's a game breaker. When I first heard that CivIII was in the works, I was as excited as everyone else. When the announcement came down that the unit workshop was out, I crossed it off my list, with no small amount of regret. Ah well.

Civ, when it came out 10 years ago, was an astonishingly great game, and is among my top favorite five of all time. But the gaming world has moved on, and a lot of Civ's systems are now obsolete. Civ III needs to be more than a facelift of Civ II (as Civ II was of Civ). It needs to update its subsystems to take advantange of the new concepts in gaming today. If it doesn't do this, I fear it will fare poorly with the public.

The deletion of the unit workshop is, to me, the first indication that this reworking isn't going to happen. The static units are one of the biggest and most fundamental systems that needs updating. If they aren't going to fix that, what exactly is it, then, that they are improving?

A lot of people here at Apolyton disagree with me (based on the poll, which has nearly 50% agreeing with Firaxis' decision), and that's fine. Everyone's entiteled to their opinion. In the end, when the game is released, the final judge will be the sales and reviews and such. I wish them well, I really do. But at this point, I'm skeptical.

Anyway, if you want a Civ style game with a unit workshop, there is one in development, which has just entered its Alpha testing phase. I know, because I'm the lead programmer for it Check my webpage if you want to take a look. Sorry, though, we don't have Governments. Take a look at Clash of Civilizations or Guns, Germs, and Steel if governments are more important for you, for those two games have heavy government systems in them (although I am unsure if either has a unit workshop).

Ron

[Trachmir]

I think that one of the main reasons people diagree on issues such as the unit workshop (as well as future techs and SE engineering) is that there are to very diffrent views od Civ, and thus what civ3 should be:

1) That Civ is a historical game where you can watch and herald in the history of mankind.

2) That Civ is a game that allows you to re-invent history.

I am of the latter camp.

Just a thought.

[Chaos Warrior]

well, butt , I'd like to be able to play a nice balanced and halfway realistic game without changing the rules. I like the SMAC system, it's definitely better than the civ2 onw, so I vote for it. basta.

the same about social engineering... I'm not going to buy a CIV game where I have to deal with static Government forms!

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger on 02-11-2001 09:05 AM I would like to design my own unit also. As I pointed out in another thread, it is rather silly to give every civ the same units. I rekcon this could be a problem with the computer players. I don't think the AI routines can handle this kind of flexibility. It's a rather sad day when Firaxis decided to remove the ability to build custom units.

I think some folks are getting confused about what's happening with units in general. The whole point of not having a unit workshop is that we want you to be able to build whatever kind of unit you want, and the unit workshop actually hampers your choices.

You will absolutely be able to create your own units. You will have the flexibility to do practically anything you want with them: you can give them whatever tech prereqs you want, name them whatever you want, fiddle with their abilities, and *lots* more.

Then you select what image or animation you want to represent that unit, and presto, you've got a custom unit.

The decision not to use a design workshop makes sense when you consider the limitations of that system. With that system, you're forced to use a couple of stock "chassis" or general unit types, coupled with a variety of weapons and armor that don't really look different but just have different stats.

Say you wanted to create a UFO unit for a scenario you were doing. With the unit workshop model, you'd be stuck using whatever the closest chassis in the game was, maybe a tank or an airplane of some type. You could snap some generic weapons onto it, but chances are it wouldn't fit your vision of what the UFO would look like.

If you want a more specific example, go into SMAC and try to create a catapult using the existing unit workshop components. Whatever you come up with, I'd be willing to bet it doesn't look much like a catapult.

When you're not constrained by the unit workshop model, you basically find (or create) a graphic of a UFO that you like, and attach it to the custom unit you've created, complete with your own custom technologies, attributes, prereqs, and so on.

The point of all of this is that we are NOT taking away anyone's ability to create custom units; to the contrary -- we're trying to allow for the maximum level of customization.

Dan
Firaxis Games, Inc.

[Roman]

Just look at Dan's post and rejoice. This is exactly what I was thinking. Once again Firaxis made a very wise decision not to include the Unit Workshop in the game.

[EnochF]

Round of applause for Dan Magaha

[Cyclotron]

AGGGGHHHH... I am physically, emotionally, and spiritually drained after hearing this depressing news... poor civ, my gaming vitality dies with thou...

:dissolves into small self-pitying pool of liquid and floats mournfully away: