UNITS (ver1.1): Hosted by JT

[the Octopus]

Let me say that I wasn't too crazy about the SMAC unit system. With the modular units that all looked more or less the same, I could never reall feel a sense of "connection" with my units. They were just "infantry", "speeder", and "needlejet". They just all seemed so bland and uniform that they really detracted from the game for me. In Civ II all of the units were very different, both graphically and in function, and I felt that I could "relate" to them better. I wish I could explain what I mean more clearly (because I'm sure this post isn't very helpful in a concrete way...) but SMAC just lacked a certain something in the units. I don't want Firaxis to do the same thing again with Civ III. I don't know if the unit workshop is a bad idea altogether, or if it just needs to be changed somehow (how?) or what, but I didn't like the way SMAC handled it.

[willko]

the units workshop:

in smac the tech tree and unit modularization into chassis, weapons, armor, and doodads made the units workshop essential (heck i started turning off the default unit prototypes after my third game when the stupid computer kept upgrading after every single tech gain).
but i think this is also a question of how firaxis is going to implement the graphical look of the units. if they go with the 3d-ish rotating units of smac, then the workshop as a modular replacement of weapons and armor types wouldn't jibe well with modifications attempted by the internet community (just like smac). the technology they used to animate the units in smac was proprietary and hence nonreplaceable in mods. civ3 should be totally modifiable as an end product as far as unit graphics are concerned. other than this sticking point i agree that it would be very useful to be able to upgrade a phalanx i built way back when into an archer or even cavalryman at a later date.

as far as topic glossing: i think you should include a short synopsis of all the ideas as long as that is feasible. if this topic gets too heavy, which is very well possible at the rate we are going, then you should hit the "main" points that most people seem to chime in on and stuff that's different and potentially interesting to brian. if an idea is repeatedly shot down, than maybe it should be put up as a topic of debate before being "eliminated" from the summary list, but i think most ideas put on these forums should find themselves on a summary list going to firaxis. it's only fair.

but thanks for volunteering to do this, i know i wouldn't like to cull all this stuff together on a regular basis. big thumbs up.


/willko.

[VaderTwo]

JT, just want to say that I think you're doing a good job on this thread, especially considering that the units thread is by far the largest one and that you are also handling the 'other' thread.

I think it might be an idea, if you already haven't done it, to create a Units summary thread where all of the good ideas will be filtered to rather than post it at the beginning of each units thread.

I wouldn't worry to much about bringing every idea forward from past threads, I posted a couple of threads with some ideas for discussion and no discussion happened. No problem, but I could have restated them or brought them forward if I wanted to.

[Trachmyr]

Octopus,

I agree that SMAC units were lacking and were very cheesy, that's why I would like to see that the choices of Chassis, (size) and Locomotion give DIFFERENT base graphics, not simply add parts. When it comes to Armour, power plant, weapons and some special abilities, then you could "add" parts to the basic unit graphics.

Example:

Light Land + Wheel = Cycle (they were used in WWII
Medium Land + Wheel = Jeep
Heavy Land + Wheel = Truck
Medium Land + Track = Medium Tank
Heavy Land + Walker = AT-AT style mecha
Light Sea + Propeller = Speedboat
Heavy Submersabile + Aquajet = Stealth Sub
Heavy Air + Wing = Bomber (power plant decide prop/jet)
Light Air + Rotary = Light Chopper

This way you can have custom units without the blandness of SMAC units

P.S. Ancient Units

Infantry + None = Infantry soldier
Infantry + Horse = Calvary
Chariot + Horse = Chariot
Infantry + Elephant = Elephant calvary
Siege + Wheel = Frame for catapult, ballista, ect.

[Utrecht]

The reason that I like to see more units is that in my experience, the late ancient/reniesannce seems to go by much to quickly.

The introduction of several new technologies and units will go to great lenghts of slowing this down.

The Unit Workshop as implemented in SMAC I don't believe will work for Civ III. The scope of time is simply to large to effectively cover ancient to post-modern units.

However, I like the ability to add special abilities to standard units. I.e. Add Nerve Gas to a Machine Gunner. +50% attack

Add airmobile transport to a rifleman + 2 movement etc.

[JT]

Thx, people.

I think I'll give Vader's idea a try, it would make it easier for me and for people who are trying to see what we've talked about so far.

Yeah, willko, I wouldn't want the workshop if the graphics are like SMAC's, but upgrading is a must. I still would like to see some way of "combining" units. Like, combine Phalanx with Horseman, you get Armored Horse or something. Of course, the graphics have to get better before this happens.

[JT]

Not really. Select the "conventional payload" weapon with air units and it turns into a missle. The payload wouldn't be available to other types of chassis.

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

[NotLikeTea]

Little idea for a non-combat unit.

Missionary/Propagandist - Could be used by any government type, though more succesful with some than others. COuld be sent into other cities to make them support your government type. Not a spy, capturing cities, but inciting public pressure to get another civ to change thier government type (assuming public pressure, civil wars, etc is ever implemented). Would be able to select what you want them to work on (Encourage democracy? Capitalism? etc.. only your own choices are possible). On the home front, they could act to keep your people in line, agreeing with your policies, and decreasing fallout from revolution. Would be especially suited to Capitalism, Fundamentalism, and Communism. Could lead to fun cold war!

[Depp]

Please, no unit workshop. In MSAC all units were the same, and all were based on new techological advances. But here on earth, in the real history, tactics has played as big a part as new weapons.

Phalanxes + horses= Useless, if you havn´t developed the tactics to use them (and i don´t really think they can be combined either)

Tanks were initially just artellery support until the germans brilliantly shocked the world with the blitzkrieg, a all panzer thrust with supporting infantery.

[SnowFire]

Hmm... oh yeah, refugees. I remember suggesting them waaaaay back in July for SMAC, but they missed the cut. Refugee-popping will be much more fun than Partisan popping, even though it might count as an atrocity.

On radiers: Call 'em radiers instead of guirellas, and the most important thing is that they don't lose a turn when they pillage. Lawrence of Arabia did not sit around after he blew up the Turkish rail tracks, he made tracks into the desert. So stats of 4-1-2 (ignores ZOC, treats all squares as road, loses 1/3 movement point for pillaging instead of turn) would be perfect.

Btw, biplanes won't be dropping any paratroopers, they're too weak. Best just to keep the actual dropping planes of the paratroopers invisible, IMHO.

And oh yes, especially heroic units who've reached the "elite" skill level should get special names, like the Railroad Tycoon I speed record trains (I'm taking a ride on the SnowFire Bullet). Not all of them, but say every fourth unit that reachs elite.

I also like the "You need special buildings to build x" idea. A stables for cavalry should also temporarily increase movement from a city by one- even normal land units get an extra move (for that turn) when they start their turn or enter a city. The stables should change its name to "Railroad depot" or something in the modern age, though.

[Diodorus Sicilus]

- You folks will have to forgive me for late replies - I can usually only get back to the forums once a day at most - this "life" stuff keeps getting in the way...
RE Chassis:
You can have fixed or semi-fixed chassis, because if you go wandering off into all the possible variations on a theme of "powered wheeled vehicle" the game will be virtually unplayable and unprogrammable. Also, some Chassis have very distinct liabilities and limitations in design. Examples:
You can't design your own horse. Yeh, yeh, you can breed bigger and faster ones, but in fact there were horses big enough to carry an armored man (head to foot) and wear horse armor at Gaugamela in 322 BC, so you can essentially have any size horse you'd resonably want very early - let's not go crazy: if you got horse, you can put a man and any man-size armor and shield on the horse.
Elephants come in different sizes (3 distinct breeds, before one of them got wiped out by everybody in the Mediterranean area using them in battles and circuses) BUT who cares? Any elephant is bigger than anything else on the ancient battlefield, so relative size only matters if it meets another elephant: again, let's not go crazy here.
Let's keep it simple on the sea (fine alliterative motto, that). Hulls come in two flavors: built for speed, built for cargo. Warships before gunpowder were almost always in the Built for Speed category, with little or no cargo capacity. Everything else was Built for Cargo. Add types of sails, oars or sweeps (difference between Penteconter, Trireme, and Galley) and just about every ship up to gunpwder can be accomodated.
Iron, Steam, and Guns:
Frigate is Built for Speed Hull big enough to Mount Cannon. Essentially, you get an Advance that allows you to put together enough sail power for a bigger Built For Speed Hull, add Cannon (another Advance) and Presto= Frigate (or Ship of the Line, which is Built for Cargo Hull, Advanced Sails, and lots and lots of Cannon).
Steam Frigate is our wooden cannoned friend upgraded with Steam Engine - didn't last long, because the Iron Hull allows armor and the Explosive Shell made wooden hulls death traps - anybody making notes on these Advances I'm throwing out here? Steam frigate is a slightly faster transition ship, but an easy graphic - add a black smoke stack to a Frigate icon, trailing smoke...
Modern Hulls, aside from submarines that are a separate Bucket of Fish, come in three types: Detsroyer Hulls (built for extreme speed and maneuverablity) Cruiser Hulls (compromise) and BattleShip (wide) hulls - variations on our old Built for Speed, Built for Cargo options. The destroyer hull is ONLY useful for destroyers - the carrying capacity is so low they are practically out of date today, when the smallest warships are Frigates or 'Destroyers' that are as big as WWII light Cruisers.
The Cruiser Hull is in many ways the most useful - modern Frigates, WWII Cruisers, most Aircraft Carriers - also Fast transports (Amphibious Attack Ships)
Battleship Hull (Built for Cargo with Armor) are the slowest - it takes a lot of engine capacity to drive that sucker through the water - BUT it has the potential for the most proection - room for compartmentization, armor, redundant systems, etc.
A modern advance if deemed necessary, might be some kind of extreme Engine that allows you to drive a Very Large Battleship Hull through the water - this would be the modern 200,000 ton+ tankers, which are bigger than any warship simply because no one puts that many military eggs in one basket any more - but it Could be Done If Someone (Joe Joystick the Gamer, furinstance) Wanted To...
Aircraft 'chassis' are limited by metallurgic, aerodynamic, and engine power advances. The limiting factor could be that the computer uses a sliding factor in calculations - the more engines you hang on an airframe, the less advantage you get out of each one: there were prop aircraft built with 6, 8, 10+ engines, but they were lumbering targets - too big for the technology, so to speak. Thus, aircraft devolve into Built for Speed (fighters, interceptors), Built for Cargo (transports, bombers), and Special (helicopters). Hang the right engine on it, and you got Pursuit (fighter with prop engine), Interceptor (jet fighter), Bomber (prop multiengine cargo chassis) or Strategic Bomber (need better name, but for now...) (jet engine, cargo chassis)
Each Chassis has a Capacity. Horse, Elephant, Chariot are pretty fixed: 1 man per horse, up to several men per elephant of chariot, but the Weapons System wouldn't differ in effect appreciably (kill one elephant and the whole system crashes, so to speak). Late Chassis (hulls, airframes) would have capacities that could be upgraded (bigger hulls, more powerful truck/tank chassis) but what you hang on it would have limits: Try to put over, say, 50% of the capacity (weight) into engines for speed, and the return falls off dramatically - that last tile-per-turn will be very, very expensive...
(Almost forgot) On the ground, keep the modern 'chassis' simple: Motorized or Mechanized. Motorized is all the wheeled vehicles. You can get Advances that make 'em bigger, but they are basically penalized severely when they move into rough country - but get a BIG road bonus: this is how you get your Artillery (towed) and infantry to move fast. Motorized Chassis in which you put all the allowable capacity into Speed with no Armor (protection) and little capacity to carry any weapons - you have the effect of a Motorcycle or Light Motorized unit - which you should use, as they were, for reconnaissance.
Scout units, by the way, in modern terms, ould be those with Special Attributes piled onto the chassis that give them 2+ tile range of vision.
Finally, I thoroughly agree with the previous Post that there should be a lot more Special Interactions between different types of units. Cavalry/Mounted Units should be very hard for early Cannon to hit, because the guns were practically immobile and hard to "train" to track moving targets. To use an ancient example, a Phalanx with iron Armor and weapons versus a Legion in open terrain had virtually the same factors. The Legion's advantage came in that on any kind of rough ground, it still had the same factors while the Phalanx would be seriously penalized. Phalanx is death to Mounted units from the front, but gets cut to bits if hit in flank or rear. Legion has no special defense against Mounted, but can react well to flank or rear attacks. If we have a special Battle Screen or other 'detailed' battle system, it has to reflect this stuff...

[Ralph]

New special unit: The “Red Cross-unit”.

No defence/attack capability, speedy move-rate. Destroying an enemy R.C-unit gives atrocity-penalties in your relation to all other Civ´s.

Special ability: Can restore the health-bar in one wounded unit from red to full green (and by doing so; give that one unit a new second move/attack-ability WITHIN the old turn) before returning to nearest city for “refuelling”.

To avoid unbalanced game-problems: Any drawbacks needed?

[Depp]

You should be unable to control the red cross units, they go on their own towards nearest battle and begin healing units on random.

[mindlace]

MUSKETEERS/GUNPOWDER:

I more or less agree with the discussion RE: aincient and modern units, but we must keep in mind that gunpowder as a unit weapon was *not* adopted for it's ability to pierce armor.

A soft lead ball fired from a musket often did not pierce the flesh, much less armor.
Furthermore, bows and crossbows were/could be much more accurate than the first gunpowder weapons: Firearms did not supercede arrow weapons in accuracy until the development of rifling.

It was the crosssbow and, I believe, the compound bow, coupled with steel tipped arrows, that did in Mideval style armor.

(cannons, did, of course, limit the effectiveness of _city_ armor, but that's another topic)

The foremost reason for the adoption of gunpowder was that the training required to use firearms was much less than that of arrows. It could take years to get someone to the point where they could use arrows effectively, consistently, and quickly- 3 months of training, and you've got your rookie stuffing, locking, pointing and shooting.

Therefore you could field much larger armies faster as long as you could produce firearms fast enough.

So I say, that at least for the initial gunpowder units, that while they _don't_ mitigate older armor, they're much cheaper than their counterparts with arrows/swords/what have you.

[Diodorus Sicilus]

You touch on a VERY important point: that the 'cost' of a unit is far more influenced by the cost of training (and keeping the men trained-upkeep) than the cost of the weapons themselves. Personally, I'd like to see the initial cost of units lowered relative to general Shield/Gold amounts produced and available, but the Upkeep cost of the units vary depending on the real 'costs'. As mentioned, longbowmen trained to operate in an ordered mass (the real secret of the English system - longbows themselves date back to the Kaduchi in the Middle East in Xenophon's time), or musketeers trained and kept up to Veteran (or Elite, or Commando - whatever the top grade is) would be expensive to keep, because they have to be kept trained: and even a couple of days a week out of the workforce (the training of the English Yeomen) is appreciable time from production.
Putting the major cost in the Upkeep would also allow a distinction between Standing Mass Armies (relatively rare) and Militia or Conscript forces, which are equipped and trained and then sent back into the workforce until they are needed: once men and weapons are put together or produced, you could raise (with the proper Government-Social Organization) a massive army of Green Troops of, say, Musketeers, really quickly. Veterans, specialized artillerymen (cannoneers) and cavalrymen would take longer, because they all take longer to train and it's more expensive to maintain their training.
Valid points concerning the death of armor, but the fact is that when individual gunpowder weapons became general in Europe, armor became increasingly scarce, whereas during the High Middle Ages, the long bow and crossbow simply caused the armor to get thicker- steel plate and specially shaped armor was the result. The final note on soft lead balls and armor was said at Waterloo: after the battle British soldiers complained that French cuirasses (chest armor for cavalry) made great soup kettles, but they couln't find one without a bullet hole through it!
In any event, for Game Design purposes, it's elegant to have Armor effects keep getting better and better, and have the Singularity Event of individual gunpowder weapons drop or remove the Armor effect: for all the talk by theorists, no army has ever given up gunpowder and gone back to other missile or personal weapons voluntarily- in 1690 after a won battle, one French general noted French pikemen had all thrown away their pikes and picked up enemy muskets - the soldiers, at least, knew which weapon they prefered!