UNITS (ver1.1): Hosted by JT

[JT]

New thread, more paperwork for me.

General summary of the last thread:

UNITS
Spy Planes-multiple turns of feul, long range, no armor or weapon. Used for scouting.

Patriots-draftees from cities

Sea Engineers-terraform the sea

Supply Trucks-supply one nutrient/mineral/gold(whichever is chosen) from home city to city truck is assigned to.

Assassin-Like spy, except kills prominent researchers or builders to set enemy back.

Anti-sub Helicopter-Maybe with a sonar beacon that extends a square in every direction so you can pick up the subs?

Merchant Fleet-Caravans on the sea. I like this one _a lot_.

Air Transport-Airplane that transports units

AWAC-Like spy plane, but shorter range. Gives support to any attacked air units within 4 squares.

Spy Sattelites-Keep constant watch over a certain area.

Refugee-If city is captured, this unit appears. Can add its population to another city. No offense or defense.

Intelligance(sp?) Unit - Anti-spy protection

Longbowmen-Advanced archers

Cannonades-Between Cannons and Artillery

Arqbues-Between longbowmen and musketeers

Biplane-Drops paratroopers

Guerrila-ignore ZOCs, but have weak attack. Mainly for pillaging and defense.

Mobile Radar Jammer-creates "cloud" of blackness one square in every direction

Crop Plauge Plane-Destroys farm and irrigation

Mobile SAM-doubles defense of units stacked with it against air attacks

Mobile SDI-obvious

V2s-Missle that destroys all units and improvements in square

Nuclear Bombs-Armed on bombers and dropped

Decoys-Fake units with no attack or defense that are used to draw the enemy out of position

Officers-Units that add morale to other units with them in stack. Appear randomly at first, then trained later in game.

National Guard-Appointed like elvises or scientists. At first the weaker version, seasonal army. Then, with appropriate advance, it turns into the more powerful National Guard.

CONCEPTS

Flags-Not just colors, real flags that you could customize if you wanted to using Clarisworks or something

Graphics-Make sure units look like what they're supposed to be, not like in SMAC. Maybe have units from different cultures look different?

Air-Completely automate air units

Transport size-Units are given size ratings. Transport units can hold a certain size rating. Prevents the eternally annoying transports that can hold 8 tanks but not 9 spies.

Range-Different range missles depending on tech.

Cash-Units should cost money instead of minerals to support

Off Alert-Take units off alert. They gather their own resources when off alert, so support canceled. Attack and Defense lowered, though.

Nukes-nuked area cannot be entered by units for x turns. If city is nuked, city cannot build buildings for x turns. Nuked country can launch "retaliation attack" automaticly when nuked. Increase range of nukes. Give nukes effects of PB's from SMAC?

Long-range attacking units-catpults and other long-range units can attack from a few squares away

Raising armies-instead of building armies, you raise them through your cities

Support-Nation supports unit instead of city.

Tech upgrades-Option to upgrade units with whatever you discover once you discover it. Example: You have an archers unit defending a town. You discover Bronze Working.You can now add bronze armor to your archer unit if you wish.

Seperate armies and weapons-The people are drafted from a city while their weapons are built in another.

Training Grounds-Not letting certain units that have to be trained, like an archer or a knight, be built until barracks are built.

Upgrade-Upgrade unit when new tech comes.

Cost-Cost of maintinance should grow or decrease over time.

Morale-Morale levels for units like SMAC.

Veteran-Over time, units gain morale levels.

Missle Silos-terrain improvement. Have a 50% chance of surviving nuke blast. Units inside not damaged if silo survives, destroyed if silo destroyed.

COPIED FROM POSTERS(I hope noone minds)

offense: this value determines the amount of damage done with a successful hit before
modifiers.

defense: this value is how much less damage a unit takes from a successful hit by another unit due to armor, mobility, etc.

hit points: this value is how much damage the unit takes before it pushes up daisies.

morale: this value determines the percentage to successfully land a hit and also modifies the offensive value by a set percentage modifier. it also eventually increases with successive (successful) battles. let's say it ranges from 1 to 5 (as in smac but a less prosaic form).

range: movement points per turn.

now let's wade through an example title bout: in this corner, a rookie legion is attacking
the veteran chariot in black trunks... ding ding!
"legion x" (o:4/d:2/h:10/m:1)
"chariot y" (o:4/d:1/h:10/m:4)
let's also assume that the battle is to the death (as in the coliseum of yore)...

round 1 (part a):
x attacks y. x has a 1 in 5 chance of hitting y (due to his cruddy morale). x luckily manages to hit y. (first blood goes to the young punk!). x does 4 damage (+0% due to low morale) and y subtracts only 1 damage due to his defense value and gains no bonuses because he wasn't fortified at the end of the previous turn and is standing on a plains tile (next time seek some cover at the end of the turn).
x finally deals 3 damage total to y.
y has 7 hit points remaining.

round 1 (part deux):
y counterattacks x in his phase of combat (if x had managed to deal 10 hit points after modifiers and minus y's defense in the first hit, y wouldn't be counterattacking, he'd be dead). y has a 4 in 5 chance of hitting x. y hits (hey, you gotta like the odds). y does 4 damage +80% due to high morale (alright, we can rescale this during beta-testing 'cause that might be a bit too high). y actually does 7 damage and x defends 2 hit points due to his fancy roman shield. x is also standing on a forest which gives +50% to his defense rating. x defends an additional 1 hit point of damage. x is down to 6 hit points.

round 2: (part one) x attacks y again...

And so on until one of them (presumably x) is dead. this favors a strongly moraled attacker and bonuses could accrue to the defender based on terrain/fortification/city walls (adding a bonus to the defense rating). The beauty is that more advanced units gain in hit points and defense to the point where even the most veteran phalanx could never have enough of an offensive rating to overcome the natural defense rating of a tank, let alone dent it's hit points enough to kill the tank before the fatal blow is returned. the escalating defense rating of the advanced units would essentially block all the damage of an inferior unit whether or not the unit scored a successful hit and the retribution strike would be so likely to kill with the first successful hit with rising offensive values. even an inexperienced tank unit (which would land a hit only 20% of the time) would eventually kill the phalanx before any hit points could _ever_ be taken off him.

Additionally, stacked combat could be resolved unit vs. unit as in smac in this manner with collateral damage confered on the surviving stack members of the losing defender. This system also works exactly the same with artillery, air to ground combat or ship to ship, except that there is no counterattack phase to each round unless the defender unit y) has a long distance attack (artillery, anti-air or ship based cannon, respectively) as well.

If I missed any, please let me know!

PS-Jon Miller, I couldn't find your ideas, but feel free to post them again!

[Buffalo]

I have noticed that in the first units thread that many people hinted at how they would like to see the units upgraded somehow.
I think that in CivIII they should have ALLyour units upgraded when you discover a new advance.
Now mind you I don't want to see 100 archers automatically upgraded to musketeers in one turn. That would be insane.
However, I think it would be a good idea if your units were to progressively be upgraded (such as 10% of your archers-randomly are upgraded to musketeers on the first turn after the discovery. Then after 10 turns you would have a new army w/o having to destroy old units (or have them go on suicide runs).
I think this would make the game play more realistic. Because in the real world the U.S. no longer has wooden ships roaming the seas, instead they have crusiers or battleships. Another nice point is this makes the micromanagement a lot easier or non-existent.

[This message has been edited by Buffalo (edited May 21, 1999).]

[This message has been edited by Buffalo (edited May 21, 1999).]

[Ecce Homo]

Zeppelins - can be used for either scouting, bombarding or passenger transportation.

Does anybody want a Unit Workshop like in SMAC? I have never played it, so I don't know how it works.

[Lancer]

In the age of sail both frigates and line of battle ships played a major part from aproximatly the mid 1400s until the American Civil War and the Monitor vs the Merrimac made em all obsolete.That's 400 years! I can't even get my first frigate out before the steam engine comes along.The battle of the Nile,Nelsons bridge!Trafalgar,St Vincent.
England built an Empire on oak and sail and I can hardly get a ship built.
Personally,I see that there is room for improvement here.
Thank you for this forum.

[Asmodeous]

I like the SMAC method. :P

Except give me more stuff to work with. I want more special skills, I want more weapon types, I want more hull types, I want I want I want.

There's a great deal of things you can do, and also make more specialized units, and it gives you a power others can't reach yet.

And get some named units once in a while, too. Like USS Enterprise an' whatnot. Ships and units that get bonuses because of better training/larger of the same thing ,etc. Circa. MOO and MOO2, where occasional aliens have named ships. Hmm. Could find them in Huts. Historical figures with their units/tanks/etc. For instance, Paul Revere. The Rough Riders... Etc.

Me.

[kmj]

A few things:

First off: This apparently got missed from the last thread (AGAIN) so I'll post it gain.
When disbanding units in a city, you should not receive any shields if you are building anything other than another unit. I've been playing with the bold too much, I think.

I really dislike the idea of upgrading units. Adding armor, additional abilities, etc. Too much micromanagement for this long term game. I've heard discussions on other forums about the idea that, based on the length of time you have a technology, the power of the unit that you get with the technology increases (too a point, obviously). This would add the element of realism without adding any micromanagement. For example. Lets say take tanks from CtP:16a/16r/10d/6m. With this method (and throwing in hp/fp for realism), for the first few years, they would only be 14/14/8/4(25/3), then for the next 20-30 years (or turns), they would be 16/16/10/6(35/4), and finally the more modern ones would be 18/18/12/8(45/5), maxing out there, as you would move on to the next type of unit.

(btw, JT, I didn't mean to be belligerent in my last post, I just wanted to make sure you weren't "weeding out" posts.)

[Druid2]

TOO MANY UNITS.

You can ruin a game by adding every single bell and whistle that anyone can ever think of. I'll pick just one example of a distinction, but no difference: "Cannonades-Between Cannons and Artillery"
The questions that must be asked before adding ANY new unit : What does this add to the game, besides the use of a historically accurate name? What parameters would be different between the proposed units - for exmaple, if cannon=4 and arty=6, is the game significantly better by adding a cannonade=5?

A very successful game .. lasted over a hundred years ... has only 6 units, and they're not upgradable: King, Queen, Bishop, Knight, Rook, Pawn.

I'm not suggesting THAT level of simplicity.

But complexity of design does NOT make for increase in playability... IMHO, just the opposite.
--------------
<u>Upgrading units</u> I like the way SMAC does it. If you pay, you can upgrade either all or a specific unit, even in the field.

To that method, I'd like to add: pay less if the unit is in a city with appropriate improvement. pay more if you do a field upgrade.
--------------
<u>Unit workshop</u> It is *really* nice to be able to create a unique design that you think is good. It should be able to be 'turned off' via a start-time option, tho, so you dont have to bother with it if you dont want.

[This message has been edited by Druid2 (edited May 21, 1999).]

[Theben]

Just moving something from the "cheats" list. If this has been covered already, my apologies:

As for the missiles, someone(I think it was don Don) suggested moving missiles like land
units, then using the 'paradrop' key to have it 'drop' on a seen enemy target. This
eliminates missiles that scout, and can fly over territory and then land like airplanes. As
you said, though, this should be in the units thread.

[willko]

cheers all,

i also agree that units in civ3 should be upgradeable without having a leonardo-esque wonder (something along the lines of the smac upgrade options would be cool, but integrated within the non-unit-workshop paradigm that firaxis will probably embrace).

if possible, (again echoing earlier stated sentiments), the ability to name certain units would be nice (even if they only show up in the message screen along with the unit status when you click on the unit, or as a windows pop-up mouse thingie).

jason beaudoin's suggestion to automate air units seems like it wouldn't hurt, but only if the current civ2 model of fighter/bomber movement is kept. after all, since air units must refuel either at the end of turn or every other, he's right in saying it's only a matter of the computer figuring out whether the target is hittable without risking running out of fuel on the round trip.

did anyone else think choppers were a bit too powerful in smac? will they be the choppers of civ2 or those from the more recent brian reynolds game? the ability to attack more than once in a turn is pretty potent, although naval units also have had similar powers in the civ series. maybe some thought should be given to balance issues down the line on the difference between civ2 helicopters and smac's. but all in all, the helicopter seems to get the short shrift in civ2 considering its manifold uses in today's modern military. this leaves me to think that once the "modern" era of units is introduced in the game, there should be a little more variety to the range of units available.

i like the idea of having experience for units ala some other strategy games, but for civ, the possibility exists of having the same unit (after upgrades) for millenia. this may easily be "explained" as that standing body of armed warriors keeping the same nominal designation while the individuals making up that unit are phased in and out over time. but this all leads one to wonder how a single unit remains "ultra-elite" over such a long time if it's constituent members couldn't still be the same soldiers who served in the conflicts that gave them the experience to be so well trained. how is problem of lost verisimilitude (if it is that big a problem in the first place) to be solved? i'd say institute a "standing-down" variable per unit. which would work like this: if unit x doesn't participate in combat in more than a decade, it starts to lose it's training levels (morale, or whatever this "battle-experience" rating will be called) little by little until it reaches the one that's middling, or competent. following the smac model, this would mean your unit would eventually just be "hardened" rather than staying "elite" despite not fighting in eons. that way, players who change their governments/social settings to make a large veteran standing army and sit on it until the need arises won't benefit from a tactic that doesn't really happen in the world. i mean, we may have a huge military but they don't start off as being the best of the best without every firing a shot in the heat of real battle. look at how well the weary but toughened germans did against the initial waves of green american soldiers in ww2. think of it this way: the rolling stone gathers no moss, eh? in smac this "problem" never really pops up because of the the smaller time frame between possibly battles, no unit will "live" longer than three or four centuries and turns pass at only a year at a time vs. the variable scaled rate in the civ games (so we aren't stuck in antiquity forever).

just another idea.

/willko.

[Theben]

I'll also side with Druid2 to some extent. Many of the proposed units have easily combinable, redundant, or unrealistic features. That plus do you really want to move 2,000 units for your civ each turn, while individually constructing buildings in each of your 500 cities?

Spy planes/assassin/AWAC/intelligence officer/spy sats: Have an abstracted intelligence that is on a different screen. Techs give you % bonuses to intelligence missions (Jet Flight-"you now have spy planes available. +10% to ? mission[s]), which would include assassinations, amongst other things. Some techs might lower your bonus (internet= -10% to ? mission[s] due to reduced effect of propanganda on your citizens and allows easier access to your data by enemies). Your % bonus in intelligence is compared to your opponents % bonuses, subtract the higher from the lower for end bonus.

Sea engineers: If a SMAC-style workshop is implemented(which I like) simply allow a "special" to be added to engineers that allow for sea/space "terraforming".

Supply trucks/merchant fleets/caravans: This is something else that needs to be abstracted.

Anti-sub heliocopter: Heliocopters in civ2 are already anti-sub!!

Patriots: Well, there should be some kind of militia a city can draw on in desperate times. SMAC basically has it already (1-1-1 police).

Refugee: I agree but it should not be under the control of any player unless they have a military unit stacked with it.

Longbowmen/Cannonades/Arqbues: Easily adopted thru a workshop screen. I wouldn't make them individual units, though.

Biplane-Drops paratroopers: Say what? I don't think so!

Guerrilla: Can also launch "ambush" on regular armed forces that acts like spy sabotage(if successful); this can result in the destruction of a badly damaged unit.

Mobile Radar Jammer: More like a % penalty to certain intelligence missions attempted in that square only.

Crop Plauge Plane: I guess, but is it worth it?

Mobile SAM: 2 ideas- 1)Allow the option to be added in the workshop; 2)The SAM gives all units in that square the SAME defense vs. air that the SAM has.

Mobile SDI: I'd like it, but it should either be almost as expensive as regular SDI or not as effective(or both). Otherwise, why build one in the city if you must pay large construction costs and maintenance?

V2s/Decoys/National Guard: I disagree. They are not needed, & v-2's weren't that tough.

Nuclear Bombs: I propose a nuclear bomber unit, which would basically be a earlier, cheaper nuke unit, that causes somewhat less damage overall.

Officers: I'll say "maybe" only because I proposed the same idea months ago, but now I'm pretty much against it. Anyway, my version was called a "leader" unit and it was always randomly generated. It added to the morale of the stack and reduced the effects of "random combat" results(I'll explain in a different thread).

Concepts
Air: Read don Don's proposals under movement. I have some ideas that I'll give later. Complete automation of air units seems dangerous to me, though.

Unit cost: should cost money, minerals, and/or food, and at varying levels depending on the type of unit(Masters of Magic had a good system for this).

Nukes: Needs LOTS o' work, but please, NOT as powerful as planet busters (at least not until after 2000 a.d.!).

Long-range: Not until missiles are available should this be allowed. Consider the vast distances we're talking about, catapults can't fling rocks that far!

Training grounds: Again, Masters of Magic only allowed certain units to be built once the pre-requisite city structure was built.

All the other ideas I either like or don't have too many qualms with, except I'd like to say that the SMAC-style workshop should not be allowed to upgrade certain units from one to another. What comes to mind is wooden to metal hulls for ships. Maybe 'wooden ships' would be a type of chassis and 'metal' another? Also that the different 'chassis' have maximums that they can reach, or minimums they can be given. So if a 1 attack is considered "stone weapons" your battleships cannot be given attack level 1 weapons, while wooden hulls cannot be given attck 16 "24-inch guns".

Ecce homo,
Never could stand zeps in civ2. Their bombardment capability was limited, their transport not enough to carry anything besides a diplomat. I can only see "scouting" as an available option, but in civ2 they also had unrealistic ZOC powers. Those would have to go too. Finally, their lifespan in the game would be so short why build them at all?

Asmodeous,
The named units...I once proposed allowing you to name your 'elite' units(harder to come by than in SMAC I was thinking) and, of course, the elite unit would have a little extra power(not movement, I was thinking maybe +50% hit points). Then when you see a legion on the horizon, click on it, and you get a "Bane of Lions" instead of "green" or "veteran", you KNOW you're in trouble...






[This message has been edited by Theben (edited May 21, 1999).]

[JT]

Oh, this is real great. I don't say all the ideas, I get flamed. I do say all the ideas, I get flamed. Look, I'm not saying every single units/concept posted is a miraculous innovation in Civ, I'M JUST POSTING THE THINGS BECAUSE PEOPLE REQUESTED IT! Please, just tell me you want all the ideas or you don't, and if you don't want them all, what kind you don't want. Thank you.

[willko]

hey jt, relax. i'm not sure if everybody is up on the function of the moderators or listmasters or whatever yin has you guys calling yourselves!

please keep posting the synopses of previous threads in newer versions (maybe people might read the caveat that they are just your summaries of other people's ideas, maybe not).

and i guess this may go to the graphics thread, but my view is that the units don't have to be rotationally animated like they are in smac (because it doesn't make that big a deal). i'd rather they were easily replaceable so that modpacks can make new unit designs (unlike smac's proprietary unit graphics which can't be changed by joe shmoe using photoshop). animated gif's if necessary. whatever. plus since civ3 shouldn't have the units workshop, you won't have the modular weapons/armor must fit on all chassis problem that smac had.

/willko.

[JT]

I would like to see a smaller version of the units workshop, where you can combine different units. Put a Phalanx on a horse, and voila! A 2-2-2 unit in 3000BC. I'd like it.

Thx, willko.

PS: People, just a request, would you tell me to either just put the big topics on here or to put all of them? It seems there is a problem either way, but if more people like one way, then I'll do it that way. Thanks in advance.

------------------
-Civ3 Thread Master of OTHER and UNITS.
"We get the paperwork, you get the game!"

[Theben]

Yo JT,
No flaming intended. Just presenting my opinions, which I've been working on since last year.

[23 Skidoo]

Given the myriad of unit suggestions that have been pouring out of our collective imaginations, what I'd really like to see is a very broad unit customization functionality - like SMAC, but additionally, unlimited open slots for custom unit graphics and original design, not just mods.

This way, we can design custom units within parameters set by the game (Firaxis doesn't have to go apesh*t building in 16 billion different units), AND we can design new/mod units to our hearts' content.

If animated sprites are used, I'd like to see a standard file format so I can build my own. That's about it from me. I really don't need Firaxis to build in gas attack Crop Dusters, or Cyber-otakus with CIH assault.