Many Civ Irrelevancancies

[polymths]

Many concepts and units are simply irrelevant in Civ2 and it remains to be seen whether these irrelevancies continue in Civ3.

Here is a partial list:
1. Land Terrain (as it relates to movement and combat)
Since human and even AI civs build roads/railroads everywhere, the movement effects of terrain simply are totally negated. Effectively, mountains, hills, and forests disappear from significance in land combat to a degree that has never been seen in real life. What's the point of special units like alpine troops that ignore terrain when there all RRs all over the place anyway???

2. Naval Transport/Naval Warfare
With the addition of airports, paratroopers, and helicopters that can take over cities, and with infinite speed RRs, who needs to build military transports and the necessary naval escort. I mean with just four cities in enemy territory, I could instantaneously transport four units every turn using airports! Does anyone even bother building a navy or transporting units using naval transports?

3. Aircraft Carriers
The range of aircraft and abundance and ease of making airbases make aircraft carriers simply irrelevant. I can't remember the last time I built ACs.

4. Stealth Bombers
Since bombers float in the air after attacking, they are suceptible to counterattack. Since stealth fighters are cheaper, only slightly less powerful and can attack and retreat in the same turn, what is the point??? In all Civ2 games, I simply build lots of stealth fighters and ignore stealth bombers completely.

5. Subs
Way too weak to be built

6. In fact most military units
In Civ3, a flood of howitzers can doom any enemy. Just max out city production capability, build a flood of howitzers, and infest enemy lands like a disease.

I'm sure readers can come up with many more!

[Cyclotron]

Subs are NOT weak! My naval force is always battleships, destroyers, and subs. Cruisers? Gimme a break! My point is, subs are actually quite useful and potent. Maybe you just aren't using them properly...

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- Cyclotron7, "that supplementary resource fanatic"

[polymths]

quote: Originally posted by cyclotron7 on 05-10-2001 05:54 PM Subs are NOT weak! My naval force is always battleships, destroyers, and subs. Cruisers? Gimme a break! My point is, subs are actually quite useful and potent. Maybe you just aren't using them properly...

Although I never build subs, I must admit that I do need to build AEGIS cruisers otherwise my naval forces would get cruise missiled to death.

In any case naval forces are pretty much irrelevant for the most part since all of my troop transports are done using airports, RRs and paratroopers.

[Cyclotron]

I ususally play on an island, and although I use paratroopers extensively, I find that my shores are best defended by battleshipos with destroyer lookouts, and that subs are quite possibly the best way to deal with enemy transports by parking them just outside a port city's radius, waiting for a trasport to leave the harbor. Whn I do this, I am never invaded.

Back on topic, I agree with all your point except the sub one and the one on naval strength. When I give up on my navy, my stuff gets pillaged, by engineers get ambushed, and every now and then I may lose a city for a few turns. It's hard to develop well when you are constantly rush building ground defenders. I create an extensive navy whenever I can and wherever there is the need... it allows me to take the fight to the enemy and stop his invasions without obstructing my heartland rail lines, my engineers, or disrupting my cities. Plus, I never have to deal with the big headaches like armor and howies!

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- Cyclotron7, "that supplementary resource fanatic"

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

I have been considering some of Polymyths concerns about so-called special units (Paratroopers, Alpine troops, subs etc.) and I think I have some suggestions on how these problems can be overcome in Civ III:

Alpine troops: Firstly, travel on roads should not be a simple 1/3 MP, but should be in some way dependent on terrain (for instance, travel on flat terrain should always be faster than over mountains or hills). With this in mind, alpine troops should treat all hill and mountain terrain as flat plains (for movement purposes). Additionally, Alpine troops should get significant attack/defense bonuses when attacking enemies in the appropriate terrain!

Paratroopers: I feel that either these units should travel like aircraft (after all, they are supposed to be airborne!) or there should be a special Aerial Transport for moving around paratroopers and other ground units. The main advantage for paratroopers would be that they should be able to disembark from the transport straight into combat (other units must disembark at an airfield). Paratroopers attacking whilst parachuting into battle should either get a free attack, or should get a bonus to their attack and/or defense strength!

Stealth Units (Stealth Bombers/Subs etc.): I believe that Subs, stlth bombers/fighters should all fall under a special "Stealth" category. I feel that all units should have a Stealth Rating (SR), and all units and cities should have a Detection Rating (DR). So long as the DR is lower than the SR, then the unit can sneak-up undetected (until it attacks)-obviously DR will be dependent on unit type, and city tech! The "Stealth" units I mentioned above, however, would have an additional special advantage. They should be able to get a single free "Stealth" attack. After this attack they are free to either move back to base (if they have the MP's available), or stay around and fight a normal battle. Once they attack, any invisible unit becomes visible (but once a "Stealth" unit moves away from it's target, it would regain its invisibility!).
I should also note at this point that it should be possible for Bombers to conduct strategic bombing runs against city and tile improvements (causing them damage!)
Also, if height and depth become part of the game, then air units and submarines should have the advantage of increasing altitude or depth, thus making them invulnerable to many forms of attack.

Aircraft Carriers: The only way that this unit can be made more useful is in the following ways-1) Making oceans, seas and channels larger in terms of tiles (by way of example, British and American fighter planes during WWII could only reach Western France before having to head back to base for refueling, and this should be the case for turbo-prop fighters in Civ III), this would increase the usefulness of Carriers as a mobile platform for fighters. They would have to make a greater distinction between the MP's of Prop vs. Jet Aircraft!
2) It should be possible to stack naval units in the same way as you'll be able to stack ground units (thus giving AC's the benefit of a convoy!)
3) The defense strength of AC's should be increased-slightly.

On a slightly related topic-I believe that aerospace tech should be gradual; ie your first development should give you bi and tri-planes, next you get turbo-prop planes (Spitfires, Lancasters etc.), next should come early jet tech (Me-109, Korean War jets), next should come modern jets (B1 bomber, F-18 and Mig-21) then lastly the stealth jet aircraft.

Anyway Polymyths (and everyone else), I'll be glad to hear what you think of these suggestions.

Yours in Civ,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[Bereta_Eder]

quote: Originally posted by polymths on 05-10-2001 04:19 PM Does anyone even bother building a navy or transporting units using naval transports?

There is no other way to conquer the world that to have transports leaving your shores packed with tanks every 4 turns.


EDIT: assuming you're playing Deity or Emperor

[This message has been edited by paiktis22 (edited May 13, 2001).]

[Zanzin]

Many of the problems you're talking about polymths (i.e. heaps and heaps of howizters taking over cities) would be alleviated if Firaxis implemented stacked combat ala CTP. A lone howitzer would get wasted a reasonably defened city. Also, in reference to transporting say 4 units a turn via air (one per city in enemy teritory) this wouldn't be enough to ward of a decent enemy response. Also, how did you take those cities in the first place? You had to transport the units via sea to their cities first, right? (Assuming the enemy is on another continent)

[SerapisIV]

One of the largest problems with subs which is that the AI can see the whole map anyway (all the way through SMAC) so it doesn't matter if its a sub or trireme, the AI knows its there. In MP, subs are a different story, they are actually very, very useful. If Firaxis creates a semi-legit AI (less cheating), subs can and should be much more useful.

About the other complaints about units, I feel SMAC addressed a lot of them, magtubes were never the spiderweb like they were in Civ, also unit movements meant something. The key as with everything in Civ3 is the AI, true max production should always destroy an opponent, but a good AI should allow you to be that far ahead.

I agree with carriers, next to useless in Civ2 and SMAC