Trenches

[HazieDaVampire]

quite alot, their was alot of trench warfare in WW2 too, but it wasn't on such a large scale as WW1.

[Claw919]

Of course, WW2 was *60* years ago...

Anyway, it really wasn't trench warfare, as such. People were "digging in" at their positions, but they weren't building trenches (eg. long lines of trench).

Trench warfare WAS seen recently in the Ethiopia-Eritrea war, where both sides were using WW1 tactics - human wave assaults being held back (or not) by people leaning against the front side of a trench firing their a$$es off at a wave of approaching angry people who wanted to kill them.

That's mainly the problem with incorporating trenches in the game. Trenches were meant to guard against human wave attacks, since mobility (and defence against flying bullets) was really undeveloped at the time. In other words, you'd trench in at one end of a field and you'd have, say, 90 seconds to shoot as many bullets into an advancing hoarde as possible. Equally, you could only take a field by *having* a hoarde of troops to send at the enemy.

Civ3 is, in reality, not a game of having a ton of troops to send at someone. I can see an advantage to having a unit dig in (eg. 'fortify'), but not really TRENCHES as such.

Claw919

[HazieDaVampire]

i'd just like it, it seems like a cool thing to have, a long line of barbed wire and trenches ready for the possible assault from the dreaded zulu's (I bet the indians never see these trenches!).

[phunny_pharmer]

Trench warfare is already in the game!

Come to think about it, before armor, you have trench WW1 built into the game:

• After infantry and before armor, defense already rules the board. Attack has a high 6, defense (without bonus) 10.
• Although cavalry have 3 movement, either the attacker needs artillery support or an overwhelming number of attack units.
• Railroads give the defender the advantage, if the initial onslaught is repulsed
• The lack of new improvements/wonders in the late industrial era, forces old cities to begin to make units.
• It is the age of MPPs.

So, if you have an overwhelming number of units, what do you get- imperialism.

If the defender can fight off the initial attack, trench warfare results- stalemate.

With the advent of MPPs, all civs are hopelessly entangled (that has been my experience). By that time, my core cities are usually maxed out (with the help of the rush-buy) and are either producing cavalry, infantry, or artillery. For the first time, I usually begin to pay gold for support.

To create trench warfare, just have enough defensive units in your border cities to repulse their first wave.

[edited for spelling mistakes]

[Kull]

Rather than some kind of "new" feature (probably tough to code in to PTW at this point, and even harder to impart to the AI), how about tweaking the existing Fortification graphic so it uses a sequence similar to Roads?

A single fort would look like a fort, but two would appear to be a Trench (or in earlier ages, a wall). As you string them together, a nice line of walls/trenches appears, anchored at the ends by a single tower/fort. This would look really neat, and probably wouldn't entail a major restructuring of the code and graphics.

Getting the AI to use this might be a challenge, but there are some relatively simple concepts they could follow: Build it on borders that are "X" tiles long, build it at chokepoints, build it only against enemy civs, etc. There's probably more, but you get the idea.

[Andrew_Jay]

Kull, I think that is the best idea. Just make the trenches something aesthetic.
I know one change that will be needed is to how long it takes for a worker to build a fort/castle/bunker. One thing that really bugs me is that it uses the same formula for other terrain improvments: Grassland:easy, hills: harder mountains:virtually forever.
Does anyone else think that the times for forts should be inverted? Fortifying a mountain takes almost no effort (tunnels, caves anyone?) but to succesfully fortify a flat, grassy field takes some skill.

[HazieDaVampire]

it would be cool! Loads of artillary, and trenches with infantry in them.
Infantry could even dig bigger trenchs made to hide the lower halfs of tanks! so just the turrey is visable! (But this could be the same as the trench warfare trenches.

[phunny_pharmer]

Now, anti-tank dictches (cost 2 MP for tanks) would be interesting, as opposed to tanks, Hazie. Is that what you are suggesting?

[HazieDaVampire]

noooo, but thats a good idea too! I was thinking of ditches that tanks drive into to hides all the tank cept the turret so it can still fire! this would be a defensive thing!

[Coracle]

Of course trenches could only be effective in one or two directions, not all around.

[HazieDaVampire]

yeah, I just want to see a continent battle scared with trenches. Would also be cool having towns and citys surrounded by trenches like what the romans did! That should give a bonus too!