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I am creating this thread as a summary and discussion point for the master list on the other forum.
Redleg if you want to host this as well please do, or start a new list entirely.
I can and will edit this too make it more readable and even add stuff as time permits.
The summary includes all 15 general topics raised in the other thread, ideas have general attribulation to them and many times examples have been deleted to save space.
**** Summary to Follow ****
1) ARMIES vs. UNITS
Armies: Redleg, don Don, Goob
The military advisor would be directed to raise an army of x citizens - as a temporary unit or standing unit. These citizens would be taken from work, such as farming or mining and become a named unit, chosen by the player. (I have always wanted to name my units). Units would require a budget that would be automated (so as not to cause micromanagement) but the player could change the budget for each unit if he chooses. The unit wont be a spcific type, but determined by the equipment the player chooses. For example, when raising an army the player can ask to raise a 10,000 man unit armed with muskets. The unit would be a musketer, but this is not a cookie cutter unit. The player could just as easily ask for a 10,000 man unit armed with muskets and horses making a Calvary unit. The ability to create combined arms units would be nice too, mix Muskets, some horses, and cannon, and you have a Napolionic army.Cookie cutter units would be available for those that dont want to customize thier forces. Current techs would determine the arms the unit could be equiped with, and of course the better the equipmet and the more men asked for, the higher the inital cost to raise the army.
The idea of raising armies could simplify things. Stacks can be eliminated in this system. The idea of a stack no longer is needed because the army IS the stack. The army can be whatever you define. For those that dont want to monkey arround with custom units can choose from pre-defined units. I think this would be nice to define WHAT the unit is in hard terms - i.e. 10,000 guys with horses and rifles. I think for this to work alot of effort would have to be put into automating the process of units, but the extra dimension in realism would be nice.
In real life all units are mixed. A Roman Legion had a corps of medium infantry (the classic Legionaire) with heavy infantry and heavy cavalry attachments. Then there were the auxiliaries: light cavalry, infantry, and archers (these were often non-Romans from the province or region of the legion's station). Plus engineers for seige weapons of various design. Then there were support personnel, including laborers attached to each century.
An army can be made up of components, each component would be 1000 troops (or 5000) The components could be mixed arms or all infantry or archers, etc., which ever the player wanted. Combat results would include the destruction of components of the army but not necessarily the whole thing.
Units: Jon Miller, ember, Diodorus Sicilus, Shining1,
The SMAC idea of the main defender taking the damage, but not neccisarily having killing off all the units in a square. A bonus is given for having ranged, mobile and infantry units in the same square. (maybe +50% for each other type present)
To me a unit represents a combined arms division with a focus on one specific aspect of that, and includes all the support equipment and personnel neccesary.
A legion represents that, while an archer unit would be similiar but have many more archers propotionally than a legion, but would still have some footmen and mounted scouts.
a artillary brigade has some infantry for self defense, but too few to actually launch an assult.
When a unit is destroyed it means that the infrastructure of the unit is so damaged and the unit rendered innefective, that the reaining soldiers are re-assigned or disbanded (or sent to the mental hospitals)
special units like spies are too small to be bombarded.
We do need distinct units because they allow for distinct graphics (and if the game doesn't look good graphically, it won't sell and we're all back to square one) and because there are units which, whether they were 'mixed' in fact or not, had very distinctly different characteristics that should be indicated. One source of confusion is that the current CivII or CtP 'units' are a combination of individual weapons types and units: Archers are an individual weaponry, but the Legion was a unit, as mentioned in an earlier post, that included several different types of troops working together - but it had a distinct set of characteristics that are not the same as a Phalanx or a 'Banner' of mounted Knights.
My solution is to add the General. Yeh, yeh, another new unit, but this one would allow you to form Armies of units. You could not get a General (build?) until after a certain Advance (Philosophy would be a good example, since the formal concept of Generalship came out of both Greek philosophy and Sun Tzu's writings) and the quality of the General would vary - maybe as much as the Green through Elite/Commando ratings in SMAC. Certain Wonders, like Sun Tzu's Academy or (a new one) Greater General Staff would also allow 'upgraded' Generals. The number of units the General could command would vary with these ratings, and what he could do with them on the Battle Screen (see below) and possibily even how far he could stretch his Supply Line or how fast he could move his army.
In combat, you go to the Battle Screen, which CtP included and then bungled badly. On the battle screen you can either use Computer Default (which you have to do if your force - a defending group, for instance- has no General with it) Tactics OR deploy your troops. This deployment could either be Precise (you place every unit) or from a Menu: Linear Defense, Defense with Counterattack, Attack Center, Attack Right, Attack Left, Holding Attack, Fighting Retreat, etc. - or you could Menu place and then modify it (move one unit into reserve, for instance)
The Screen would be divided into 30 'tiles' - 15 for each side. These would be 5 wide by 3 deep, representing right flank, right middle, center, left middle, left flank, and the support and reserve versions of the same. Deployment would have to include the Center tile, and for the AI or player without General would pretty formulaic: in the middle, with long-range units in support (archers, artillery) with Reserve tiles occupied only if you had the front covered (Right Middle, Left Middle, Center minimum). If your General is good enough (Veteran, Elite grades, for instance) you can do things in the deployment like put everyone on one side of the Center.
If you have "outscouted" the enemy - you have a Spy or Scout with your Army, or your army has an intrinsic Scout factor (includes barbarian Light Horsemen, for instance, or a force of All Mounted/Mobile troops) then the opponent has to deploy first - look at his placement, make yours appropriately, proceed to slaughter the poor sod.
To reflect REAL relative Ranged Attack abilities, we're going to need a Short and Long Range Attack. There will be virtually no Long Range Attack in ancient or medieval units. Short Range Attack can deploy in the Support row of Tiles on the battlescreen and fire in support (there's a reason for these titles, folks) of the front line. Long Range Attack units (Artillery, Howitzers, etc) can be in the Reserve row and still attack everything back to the enemy Front or Support row (depending on their Range Ability), and in some cases further - we need a Battlefield Missile unit to supplant the Howitzer as the maxy Bombard, which has the range to reach the enemy Reserve row of tiles.
Combinations of units will make an army work better: if the opponent has not occupied a tile in front of them, Mounted units can move up to two tiles forward and attack the flanks (maybe three tiles if they are high enough Morale or the General is good enough) of enemy units, which gives a combat bonus to the flankers. Infantry move slower (Battle Screen = 1 tile regardless of Main Map movement) while early artillery (and catapults if we keep 'em) can't move on the battle screen at all.
An Army is not destroyed entirely in a battle - at least, not all the time. I very much like SMAC where a unit getting whipped automatically retreats out of action if it can. On the Battle Screen, at a certain point of losses of units combined with loss of tiles (and enemy units in your Support or Reserve Tiles would be Very, Very Bad) the army will start to retreat. If you have a General, he might get one chance to "rally" them, but it shouldn't be easy. If your opponent starts to retreat off the battle screen (and will move away one tile on the Main Map) you can attempt a Pursuit. Pursuit will only be attempted by Mounted Units that have not suffered losses in the battle - in other words, a fresh Reserve Cavalry unit is worth it's weight in enemy corpses: it will cause major casualties to the enemy.
All of this is a lot more complicated than we have now, but it's based on some simple concepts:
1. General units to regulate how you can stack and move units together (form Armies)
2. A Battle Screen on which you can micromanage if you will, your combats while keeping them within the framework of a 'traditional' battle - front, support, rear, center and flanks.
3. Always, the option of allowing the computer to do it all, with or without some basic commands from you, so that the combat portion of the game can be as slow and complex or as fast as you want it to be.
Special abilities can be conveyed by having certain units in the stack - a siege engine, for instance, to negate city walls for an infantry attack from that city, for instance. (i.e you have both units positioned in the same square, and the infantry can attack the city without the defender gaining the city walls bonus). Similar to my first idea - the spotter unit gives the bonus option to the attacking jet.
In my view, combined arms and a planned attack - combined with numerical superiority - should be the way to decide combat. Since elite players already plan their attacks along these line, it should be made clear from the start that a combined arms approach and some planning will be required. For instance, although swordsmen will make good general purpose units, a mix of swords and spears will serve better if attacked by horsemen.
Defensive units are then keyed to defend against a single target - horses for instance. They still gain bonuses, however, for city walls and the like (mounted units loose their mounted bonus when inside a city - making them better attacking units).
2) AIR COMBAT
ember, Frank Johnson, Shining1, Bell, Redleg, Doo1284
due to the extreeme speed, yet huge dependance of air craft on fixed bases, they cannot be acuratly represented under the current model
All aircraft bombard. Air craft do not tend to get into one unit shall die situations as easily as ground or naval forces, there is a strong chance of both sides being damaged to some degree, but still efective as a unit.
air craft can only be moved by deployment (see my economics thread post) they can be deployed to owned and allied cities, air-bases and carriers. In the case of nuclear weapons and cruise missiles, to subs and cruisers instead of carriers.
Air units have four options for each turn; to attack, to go into active defend mode (sentry), go inactive (fortify) and to redeploy.
Redeploy is done by sending them back to the deploy list to be re-deployed the next turn.
Attack:
The movment of the air unit gives its attack range. When it attacks it bombards the target.
figters and bombers can just choose to bomb units or structures. one of these is then picked at random.
Stealth fighters/ bombers can choose induvidual targets. The unit with the best agains air defense rating always defends
There would be modifiers to air attacks, ranges for planes & missiles (not included in summary)
Active Defense:
Only can be used if the plane did not deploy or move in the preceeding turn
for fighters: When an enemy plane targets somthing of yours or an allies in the defense range, they get a pre-emtive air attack on the attacker. It functions as if the active defender had initiated the bombard. If the attacker survives, it bombards the target normally. a unit can only active defend once per turn, and only one unit can defend agains each attacker. Stealth bombers have a 50% chance of the active defense failing to notice them. Figters on carriers active defend agains naval units as well as air units.
For bombers: Enemy naval and ground units are targeted, when they enter range. can be set to only target certain unit types if available, like carriers and transports or settlers.
helicopters: are the only air unit that can attack submarines, target like bombers, but target subs preferentailly. They have a % chance of detecting submarines in vision range.
Fortified:
Air units only defend if they are in the target square. A carrier attacked by a sub will automatically scarmble helicopters to pre-emptivly strike (% chance before, % chance simultaneously in this case). They do not have to have movment left to defend agains a direct attack, only a distant one.
A good staratagy for bombing is to send in adavanced fighters (target terrain improvments even) to use up the defenders counter attacks, and damage them, then to bring in the bombers. This simulates escorting the bombers with long range fighters.
SAM units activly defend in a 1 square radius. AGIES cruisers have a range of 2 or 3
When air units attack terrain improvments they have a % chance of hitting based on the type of air craft (50% fighters, 90% stealth bombers...)
Helicpters can be used to attack with a marine unit. The helicpter bombards, then the marine attacks in the target square unit it clears all the defenders or dies trying - like an amphibous attack.
Fighters have an effective range that you described. Its longer ranged with better planes. In this area your forces have air superiority. If an opponent also has fighter coverage in this area, then the area is contested, and you only get the bonus if your aircraft are more numerous or superior.
All units fighting within the radius on your side would gain a bonus depending on the type of aircraft as long as they weren't occupied with other missions like bombing enemy units or cities.
Fighters +25%
Fighters + Divebombers (or divebombers uncontested) +50%
Jet Fighters +25% (always superior to fighters)
FighterBombers +50% (acts as fighters so need no escourts)
Stealth Fighters +50% (always superior to jet fighters, can dodge intercept attempts)
Random events for bombing missions
* The aircraft are spotted and an intercept is launched. Each intercepting fighter unit halves the likliness of a successful mission.
* The aircraft are spotted, but not in time to intercept. Your air units scramble while the enemy is near or over the targets. Each scrambling fighter unit is -25% to a successful mission.
* The aircraft are not spotted unit they have reached the target. Enemy fighters are caught on the ground, and AAA batteries are not at full readiness for the attack. The enemy bombers get a +50% surprise attack bonus.
* There are aircraft available to intercept, but the attack is forewarned and your defeneders are ready on the ground. Attack is rolled as normal.
If the attack is a REAL sneak attack, involving a breaking of a treaty, it is always the surpise way. Other factors on the success of the mission would be...
* Stacked fighter escourts. Each fighter sent nullifies one intercepting or scrabbling enemy fighter.
* Terrain. Attacking targets in hostile terrian would boost their defense.
* AAA or SAM presence. Clearly if speical ground based air defenses are in place this would affect the roll. A new improvement, perhaps called Radar intallation could boost chances for an intercept in a region.
The outcome of the mission should be one of the following.
* Success! If a primary target was set it is destroyed or heavly damaged.
* Limited success. A Primary target was damaged or a secondary target was hit instead.
* Misfire. Weapons missed the targets and hit a residental area. This could hurt your reputation if you are a democracy or republic. (whom wouldn't have the option of targetting civilian areas, unless sneak attacked)
* Failure. Enemy defenses proved too strong, and drove away or shot down your bombers/escourts. Some units maybe just be damaged.
Targeting
Missions for fighter bombers can be given by stationing commando units next to a city or satellites over a city. Targets are limited, you only get the main defenders for the city, (mobile SAM unit, etc) and some primary structures - factories, airbase, naval yard, etc. This keeps the attack fairly simple - if you have the spy unit in place, you can then select the target from the menu for aircraft and artillery.
Also, please consider the REAL uses of bombers! Bombers, cruise missiles and fighterbombers strike Buildings not Armies! Well they could harrass them, but not likely destroy an entire division. Here's an idea for when a air unit approches a city:
*"Carpet Bomb"
*Bomb installations
*Target population centers
*Bomb airfields
*Bomb ports
*Straffe Units
3) SUPPLY
Redleg, Frank Johnson, Goob, Jason Beaudoin
Units must have a supply line to continue to operate. If they lose supply, they lose effectiveness and eventually desert. this will stop the lone warrior wandering for centuries. Supply must be automated to reduce micromanagemet, but will cost money to maintain a unit far away that is harrasing a nation. The player will be advised when the cost of maintaing a faraway unit is excessive. Ancient units can recive supply when pilligaing forign lands, and this will reduce the cost - but importantly the unit must have contact with the home nation so it wont desert. Later units will gradually lose this feature or robbing supply from conquered nations as later arms require specific calibers and such.
Supply lines which come out of cities showing how your men are being supplied. The availbity of supplies would be symbolized in a mode, lie view "supply lines" and the tiles would become colored in a scale from completly suppiled to no supplies.
*Supply lines would extend father from large cities
* They would move easily along roads and rails, but disipate quickly over swamps, mountains etc.
* The range of supply lines would increase with advances like the wheel, seafaring, automobile, and advanced flgiht
* Enemy units could blockade supply lines, beseige cities, cutting them off from supplies. Allied civs could provide you with supplies.
* Each unit would have a value called "tolerance" showing how supply depend a unit is. For example, early settlers and guerilla fighters would have little need of supplies, tanks and mech infantry, who need fuel to run effectively would be very dependanto n supply lines.
* Units could only heal while in strong supply lines, they would lose hits if cut off. Other effects of being cut off could be the unit abandons (is destroyed), surrenders to a besieging enemy, or loss of veteran status.
4) ANCIENTS vs. MODERN
Redleg, delcuze2, Hans2, Diodorus Sicilus, Goob, ember
Ancient / modern combonations should be extremly rare - almost imposible. Units in CivIII should advance with the times.
Ancient units wont be allowed after (just for example) ANYONE discovers Armor. The ancient unit would be forced to upgrade to a "Milita with firearms" or disband.
The only time an ancient / modern confrentation should be allowed to happen is when the ancient civ has had NO CONTACT with any nation at all. Like the Aztecs, I guess.
Make the defense and attack factors of the high-technology units bigger. If a "warrior" is a 1 strength point unit, perhaps a cavalary unit should be at 12 points.
I propose certain types of units and certain era units cannot defend or attack against others. For example, anything below say musket-and thats being liberal-shouldn't be able to damage air units.
We have GOT to have Upgradable Units in CivIII ala SMAC. There is nothing stranger than modern tanks whacking a phalanx: there just ain't numbers big enough to show the disparity in strength between the two!
As soon as a "modern" weapons tech is discovered and units using them are created then armies/units that are "ancient" will have a -1 strength/morale factor (BTW, I believe morale most be an element of unit strength.) When there is another discovery then all ancients would get another -1 penalty and so on.
Example:
Cannons discovered: Phalanx have a -1 penalty added to there strength when engaged with armies that possess cannons.
Muskets discovered: Phalanx or swordsmen now have a -2 penalty in combat against these units.
Bombards are a key idea for the modern eras.
attacker: unit initialting the combat
target: unit or structure that takes the damage
defender: unit who's defense rating is used to damage the attacker (mostly for air attacks), often but not always the target, especially when air units attack structures.
Active defender: ranged units that can launch a counter bombard, somtimes pre-emptivly, depending on the situation.
in a bombard round two things happen.
The attacker has attack rating % chance of doing fp damage to the target
The defender has defense rating % chance of doing fp damage to the defender
The bombard procedes for hp of the attacker rounds. (badly damaged units do not have the firepower available to mount a heavy attack)
5) STACKED COMBAT
Frank Johnson
When stacked, a unit should boost the overall attack/defense power of the stack. I image a coloization style combat report option giving the details of the combat.
Legion: BASE 4 VS Phalanx: BASE: 2
Archers +50% Archers +50%
Archers +25% Walls (+100%*)
Archers +12.5%
Catapult *
* Catapult halves city walls bonus!
With this system units like artillery, catapults, and the such can be used like in real life, to supliment armies, not to be whole armies themselves. Also all sorts of bonuses could be made up with this... for example, if you had 2 horsemen in a stack fighting a lone pikemen you'd get the "Flanking bonus" and the pikemen would lose the +50% verus horse
6) NAVAL COMBAT
ember
ships have 2x movment rate (to speed things up)
all modern ships have the bombard ability and can active defend to counter act the increased movement. They can damage units that bombard them within their range. Can only damage subs if they attack or you have helicopters
Carriers group. (2 carrier, amphibous ship/transport, air defense cruiser and pair of destroyers) bases 4 (stealth) fighters, 2 helicopters, and 2 marines. The marines can be helicopter deployed. Has bombard range of 1, and can spot subarines, (helos and destroyer) deployes two units/turn
Battalship (4 battalships, 1 cruiser, 2 destroyer, transport) carries 1 marine, bombard 1 square, can deploy 1 every other turn
Cruiser (6 crusiers, 2 destroyers, transport) carries 1 marine, 2 missile units, bombards 2 squares(missiles). can deploy one per turn
Destroyer (8 destroyers, 2 cruisers) no transport ability, bombard 1 square, very fast, spots subs
AGIES crusier (6 AGIES crusiers, 2 destroyers, amphiboues ship) bombard 3 squares(inherent missiles), spots subs, 1 helo unit, 1 marine, 3 missile units can deploy one unit / turn
Submarine (8 submarines) bombard 2 squares (missiles), 4 missile units. deploys 1 / turn
Cruise missile units represent a much more intense bombardment than the regular bombard of a crusier/sub.
Transport (8 transports / amphiboues ships, cruiser, 2 destroyers) no attack, can carry up to 2 helicopter units, and a total of 8 units.
7) LAND COMBAT
ember, Shining1
Only changes involve cannon, artillery, howitzer, and an itorduced unit, the V2,
cannon, artillery, howitzers, can only bombard and cannot take cities. cannon and artillery need to be stacked with a normal unit to prevent an imidiate counter attack by the defenders. only the V2 unit has more than 1 square of range, with a range of 2 or 3 depending on play balance
SAM - active defends angains air attacks, even with no movement remaining.
2) Combat variables
These should be kept simple. Combining attack and defense values to get a basic value is a step in that direction, modifying these values according to the opposition and terrain would seem to be a viable method.
Example:
Hoplite
Bronze Long spear (3) (+1 vs. horse, -1 vs. infantry)
Bronze armour (1)
Open terrain (0)
gives an attack value of 3 against infantry, or 5 if the unit if fighting mounted cavalry.
Legion
Iron Broad sword (3) (+2 vs. infantry)
Iron armour (2)
Open terrain (0)
Gives an attack of 7 against infantry, or 5 against mounted units.
etc.,
Weapon stats
Club (1)
Spear (2) (+1 vs. Horse)
Long spear (2) (+2 vs. horse) +1 for iron weapon
Sword (2) (+1 vs. Infantry)
Broad Sword (+2 vs. Infantry) +1 for iron weapon
Bronze armour (1) (hoplite)
Iron armour (2) (chainmail)
8) MISSIONS
Redleg-
What about the ability to give units missions? anyone think this is usefull?
9) NAMING UNITS
Redleg, Goob
To give a sense of history and identity.
10) ADVANCED COMBAT
snipe
I think you should be able to determine formation and battle stratagy for your troops and have this all help determine combat results. That way you can play general or whatever. Anyway, I think combat needs to be more complex and involving than the computer merely using some mathmatical formula to determine which units live and die.
11) SUB-GAME for COMBAT
delcuze2
The problem I have with the current concept of "units" in Civ games is that they force a disconnect between the time scale being played by the civilization's economic, social and technological systems and the time scale being played by the wargame.
Historically most wars lasted for very short time spans. For example in CIV II, World War II would take only 7 or 8 turns to play, the 30 years war would at most last all of 10 turns and even the struggle between Rome and Carthage didn't last that long given the game's progressive time scale.
I think the idea of building armies full of equipment is fine, but it seems to me that a sub-game of conflict that happens over a few turns would be more realistic and still just as much fun.
In addition to being more realistic (IMHO) This would allow for two kinds of warfare:
1. Cold conflict with spy's, diplomacy, trade wars, cultural struggles, etc.
2. Hot wars with operational level battles occuring specific contested regions of the world.
I imagine moving around "armies/stacks" until you declare war, then having an *optional* intense mini-wargame to resolve the conflict.
12) STRUCTURAL DAMAGE
ember
structures have hit points based on their era (~10 ancient, 30 modern...). Damaged structures are repaired at 20% per turn, and cost double maintenance while doing so. THe building's effectiveness is reduced proportionally. (20% damaged SDI stops 80% of nuclear weapons). Population points are counted as structures for bombardment damage and targeting. damage reduces food in the storage proportionally to % damage done.
13) CITY CONQUERING
Trachmyr
Unless a city is very unhappy before the coquest, it will be unlikely to join your civ. You might be required to occupy the city with military forces, or it will return to it's previous owner... or atleast revolt.
Cities that were in poor condition or in poor spirits may welcome you, otherwise you'll need to hold the city until the unrest subsides. A city can be subjugated, and it's citizens forced into grueling labor, if enough military is present. Cities waiting to return to it's previous civ should wait until armies are signifigantly far off. And units produced/recruited at a conquered city may instantly turn against you!
14) COMMUNICATIONS
Trachmyr, don Don
Communications are very important to military endevours. Let us represent this in CIV3 by:
1) You can only issue commands to units within communication range. This would be city radius for primitive cultures, but would improve in range as tech increases (and equiped with if using a design workshop).
2) Automated units for when they go out of comm range
--- Go to (set with cursor) and HOLD position
--- Go to (set with cursor) and ATTACK enemy
--- Go to (set with cursor) and return with REPORT
3) You can give orders to a messenger (another unit) to give them to the target unit.
4) Com Jammers can block communications, tight-beam communications can counteract this
5) (???) you don't know the exact staus of your units, they will however send reports to tell you of their condition
This can be applied to cities far away from the capital before National goverments are implemented
Unless cut off by oceans or opponents' ZOCs, messengers can go pretty far in a few weeks. But the idea of assigned missions rather than simple "Go To" is great.
15) MORALE & TRAINING
?
[This message has been edited by Goob (edited May 20, 1999).]
Redleg if you want to host this as well please do, or start a new list entirely.
I can and will edit this too make it more readable and even add stuff as time permits.
The summary includes all 15 general topics raised in the other thread, ideas have general attribulation to them and many times examples have been deleted to save space.
**** Summary to Follow ****
1) ARMIES vs. UNITS
Armies: Redleg, don Don, Goob
The military advisor would be directed to raise an army of x citizens - as a temporary unit or standing unit. These citizens would be taken from work, such as farming or mining and become a named unit, chosen by the player. (I have always wanted to name my units). Units would require a budget that would be automated (so as not to cause micromanagement) but the player could change the budget for each unit if he chooses. The unit wont be a spcific type, but determined by the equipment the player chooses. For example, when raising an army the player can ask to raise a 10,000 man unit armed with muskets. The unit would be a musketer, but this is not a cookie cutter unit. The player could just as easily ask for a 10,000 man unit armed with muskets and horses making a Calvary unit. The ability to create combined arms units would be nice too, mix Muskets, some horses, and cannon, and you have a Napolionic army.Cookie cutter units would be available for those that dont want to customize thier forces. Current techs would determine the arms the unit could be equiped with, and of course the better the equipmet and the more men asked for, the higher the inital cost to raise the army.
The idea of raising armies could simplify things. Stacks can be eliminated in this system. The idea of a stack no longer is needed because the army IS the stack. The army can be whatever you define. For those that dont want to monkey arround with custom units can choose from pre-defined units. I think this would be nice to define WHAT the unit is in hard terms - i.e. 10,000 guys with horses and rifles. I think for this to work alot of effort would have to be put into automating the process of units, but the extra dimension in realism would be nice.
In real life all units are mixed. A Roman Legion had a corps of medium infantry (the classic Legionaire) with heavy infantry and heavy cavalry attachments. Then there were the auxiliaries: light cavalry, infantry, and archers (these were often non-Romans from the province or region of the legion's station). Plus engineers for seige weapons of various design. Then there were support personnel, including laborers attached to each century.
An army can be made up of components, each component would be 1000 troops (or 5000) The components could be mixed arms or all infantry or archers, etc., which ever the player wanted. Combat results would include the destruction of components of the army but not necessarily the whole thing.
Units: Jon Miller, ember, Diodorus Sicilus, Shining1,
The SMAC idea of the main defender taking the damage, but not neccisarily having killing off all the units in a square. A bonus is given for having ranged, mobile and infantry units in the same square. (maybe +50% for each other type present)
To me a unit represents a combined arms division with a focus on one specific aspect of that, and includes all the support equipment and personnel neccesary.
A legion represents that, while an archer unit would be similiar but have many more archers propotionally than a legion, but would still have some footmen and mounted scouts.
a artillary brigade has some infantry for self defense, but too few to actually launch an assult.
When a unit is destroyed it means that the infrastructure of the unit is so damaged and the unit rendered innefective, that the reaining soldiers are re-assigned or disbanded (or sent to the mental hospitals)
special units like spies are too small to be bombarded.
We do need distinct units because they allow for distinct graphics (and if the game doesn't look good graphically, it won't sell and we're all back to square one) and because there are units which, whether they were 'mixed' in fact or not, had very distinctly different characteristics that should be indicated. One source of confusion is that the current CivII or CtP 'units' are a combination of individual weapons types and units: Archers are an individual weaponry, but the Legion was a unit, as mentioned in an earlier post, that included several different types of troops working together - but it had a distinct set of characteristics that are not the same as a Phalanx or a 'Banner' of mounted Knights.
My solution is to add the General. Yeh, yeh, another new unit, but this one would allow you to form Armies of units. You could not get a General (build?) until after a certain Advance (Philosophy would be a good example, since the formal concept of Generalship came out of both Greek philosophy and Sun Tzu's writings) and the quality of the General would vary - maybe as much as the Green through Elite/Commando ratings in SMAC. Certain Wonders, like Sun Tzu's Academy or (a new one) Greater General Staff would also allow 'upgraded' Generals. The number of units the General could command would vary with these ratings, and what he could do with them on the Battle Screen (see below) and possibily even how far he could stretch his Supply Line or how fast he could move his army.
In combat, you go to the Battle Screen, which CtP included and then bungled badly. On the battle screen you can either use Computer Default (which you have to do if your force - a defending group, for instance- has no General with it) Tactics OR deploy your troops. This deployment could either be Precise (you place every unit) or from a Menu: Linear Defense, Defense with Counterattack, Attack Center, Attack Right, Attack Left, Holding Attack, Fighting Retreat, etc. - or you could Menu place and then modify it (move one unit into reserve, for instance)
The Screen would be divided into 30 'tiles' - 15 for each side. These would be 5 wide by 3 deep, representing right flank, right middle, center, left middle, left flank, and the support and reserve versions of the same. Deployment would have to include the Center tile, and for the AI or player without General would pretty formulaic: in the middle, with long-range units in support (archers, artillery) with Reserve tiles occupied only if you had the front covered (Right Middle, Left Middle, Center minimum). If your General is good enough (Veteran, Elite grades, for instance) you can do things in the deployment like put everyone on one side of the Center.
If you have "outscouted" the enemy - you have a Spy or Scout with your Army, or your army has an intrinsic Scout factor (includes barbarian Light Horsemen, for instance, or a force of All Mounted/Mobile troops) then the opponent has to deploy first - look at his placement, make yours appropriately, proceed to slaughter the poor sod.
To reflect REAL relative Ranged Attack abilities, we're going to need a Short and Long Range Attack. There will be virtually no Long Range Attack in ancient or medieval units. Short Range Attack can deploy in the Support row of Tiles on the battlescreen and fire in support (there's a reason for these titles, folks) of the front line. Long Range Attack units (Artillery, Howitzers, etc) can be in the Reserve row and still attack everything back to the enemy Front or Support row (depending on their Range Ability), and in some cases further - we need a Battlefield Missile unit to supplant the Howitzer as the maxy Bombard, which has the range to reach the enemy Reserve row of tiles.
Combinations of units will make an army work better: if the opponent has not occupied a tile in front of them, Mounted units can move up to two tiles forward and attack the flanks (maybe three tiles if they are high enough Morale or the General is good enough) of enemy units, which gives a combat bonus to the flankers. Infantry move slower (Battle Screen = 1 tile regardless of Main Map movement) while early artillery (and catapults if we keep 'em) can't move on the battle screen at all.
An Army is not destroyed entirely in a battle - at least, not all the time. I very much like SMAC where a unit getting whipped automatically retreats out of action if it can. On the Battle Screen, at a certain point of losses of units combined with loss of tiles (and enemy units in your Support or Reserve Tiles would be Very, Very Bad) the army will start to retreat. If you have a General, he might get one chance to "rally" them, but it shouldn't be easy. If your opponent starts to retreat off the battle screen (and will move away one tile on the Main Map) you can attempt a Pursuit. Pursuit will only be attempted by Mounted Units that have not suffered losses in the battle - in other words, a fresh Reserve Cavalry unit is worth it's weight in enemy corpses: it will cause major casualties to the enemy.
All of this is a lot more complicated than we have now, but it's based on some simple concepts:
1. General units to regulate how you can stack and move units together (form Armies)
2. A Battle Screen on which you can micromanage if you will, your combats while keeping them within the framework of a 'traditional' battle - front, support, rear, center and flanks.
3. Always, the option of allowing the computer to do it all, with or without some basic commands from you, so that the combat portion of the game can be as slow and complex or as fast as you want it to be.
Special abilities can be conveyed by having certain units in the stack - a siege engine, for instance, to negate city walls for an infantry attack from that city, for instance. (i.e you have both units positioned in the same square, and the infantry can attack the city without the defender gaining the city walls bonus). Similar to my first idea - the spotter unit gives the bonus option to the attacking jet.
In my view, combined arms and a planned attack - combined with numerical superiority - should be the way to decide combat. Since elite players already plan their attacks along these line, it should be made clear from the start that a combined arms approach and some planning will be required. For instance, although swordsmen will make good general purpose units, a mix of swords and spears will serve better if attacked by horsemen.
Defensive units are then keyed to defend against a single target - horses for instance. They still gain bonuses, however, for city walls and the like (mounted units loose their mounted bonus when inside a city - making them better attacking units).
2) AIR COMBAT
ember, Frank Johnson, Shining1, Bell, Redleg, Doo1284
due to the extreeme speed, yet huge dependance of air craft on fixed bases, they cannot be acuratly represented under the current model
All aircraft bombard. Air craft do not tend to get into one unit shall die situations as easily as ground or naval forces, there is a strong chance of both sides being damaged to some degree, but still efective as a unit.
air craft can only be moved by deployment (see my economics thread post) they can be deployed to owned and allied cities, air-bases and carriers. In the case of nuclear weapons and cruise missiles, to subs and cruisers instead of carriers.
Air units have four options for each turn; to attack, to go into active defend mode (sentry), go inactive (fortify) and to redeploy.
Redeploy is done by sending them back to the deploy list to be re-deployed the next turn.
Attack:
The movment of the air unit gives its attack range. When it attacks it bombards the target.
figters and bombers can just choose to bomb units or structures. one of these is then picked at random.
Stealth fighters/ bombers can choose induvidual targets. The unit with the best agains air defense rating always defends
There would be modifiers to air attacks, ranges for planes & missiles (not included in summary)
Active Defense:
Only can be used if the plane did not deploy or move in the preceeding turn
for fighters: When an enemy plane targets somthing of yours or an allies in the defense range, they get a pre-emtive air attack on the attacker. It functions as if the active defender had initiated the bombard. If the attacker survives, it bombards the target normally. a unit can only active defend once per turn, and only one unit can defend agains each attacker. Stealth bombers have a 50% chance of the active defense failing to notice them. Figters on carriers active defend agains naval units as well as air units.
For bombers: Enemy naval and ground units are targeted, when they enter range. can be set to only target certain unit types if available, like carriers and transports or settlers.
helicopters: are the only air unit that can attack submarines, target like bombers, but target subs preferentailly. They have a % chance of detecting submarines in vision range.
Fortified:
Air units only defend if they are in the target square. A carrier attacked by a sub will automatically scarmble helicopters to pre-emptivly strike (% chance before, % chance simultaneously in this case). They do not have to have movment left to defend agains a direct attack, only a distant one.
A good staratagy for bombing is to send in adavanced fighters (target terrain improvments even) to use up the defenders counter attacks, and damage them, then to bring in the bombers. This simulates escorting the bombers with long range fighters.
SAM units activly defend in a 1 square radius. AGIES cruisers have a range of 2 or 3
When air units attack terrain improvments they have a % chance of hitting based on the type of air craft (50% fighters, 90% stealth bombers...)
Helicpters can be used to attack with a marine unit. The helicpter bombards, then the marine attacks in the target square unit it clears all the defenders or dies trying - like an amphibous attack.
Fighters have an effective range that you described. Its longer ranged with better planes. In this area your forces have air superiority. If an opponent also has fighter coverage in this area, then the area is contested, and you only get the bonus if your aircraft are more numerous or superior.
All units fighting within the radius on your side would gain a bonus depending on the type of aircraft as long as they weren't occupied with other missions like bombing enemy units or cities.
Fighters +25%
Fighters + Divebombers (or divebombers uncontested) +50%
Jet Fighters +25% (always superior to fighters)
FighterBombers +50% (acts as fighters so need no escourts)
Stealth Fighters +50% (always superior to jet fighters, can dodge intercept attempts)
Random events for bombing missions
* The aircraft are spotted and an intercept is launched. Each intercepting fighter unit halves the likliness of a successful mission.
* The aircraft are spotted, but not in time to intercept. Your air units scramble while the enemy is near or over the targets. Each scrambling fighter unit is -25% to a successful mission.
* The aircraft are not spotted unit they have reached the target. Enemy fighters are caught on the ground, and AAA batteries are not at full readiness for the attack. The enemy bombers get a +50% surprise attack bonus.
* There are aircraft available to intercept, but the attack is forewarned and your defeneders are ready on the ground. Attack is rolled as normal.
If the attack is a REAL sneak attack, involving a breaking of a treaty, it is always the surpise way. Other factors on the success of the mission would be...
* Stacked fighter escourts. Each fighter sent nullifies one intercepting or scrabbling enemy fighter.
* Terrain. Attacking targets in hostile terrian would boost their defense.
* AAA or SAM presence. Clearly if speical ground based air defenses are in place this would affect the roll. A new improvement, perhaps called Radar intallation could boost chances for an intercept in a region.
The outcome of the mission should be one of the following.
* Success! If a primary target was set it is destroyed or heavly damaged.
* Limited success. A Primary target was damaged or a secondary target was hit instead.
* Misfire. Weapons missed the targets and hit a residental area. This could hurt your reputation if you are a democracy or republic. (whom wouldn't have the option of targetting civilian areas, unless sneak attacked)
* Failure. Enemy defenses proved too strong, and drove away or shot down your bombers/escourts. Some units maybe just be damaged.
Targeting
Missions for fighter bombers can be given by stationing commando units next to a city or satellites over a city. Targets are limited, you only get the main defenders for the city, (mobile SAM unit, etc) and some primary structures - factories, airbase, naval yard, etc. This keeps the attack fairly simple - if you have the spy unit in place, you can then select the target from the menu for aircraft and artillery.
Also, please consider the REAL uses of bombers! Bombers, cruise missiles and fighterbombers strike Buildings not Armies! Well they could harrass them, but not likely destroy an entire division. Here's an idea for when a air unit approches a city:
*"Carpet Bomb"
*Bomb installations
*Target population centers
*Bomb airfields
*Bomb ports
*Straffe Units
3) SUPPLY
Redleg, Frank Johnson, Goob, Jason Beaudoin
Units must have a supply line to continue to operate. If they lose supply, they lose effectiveness and eventually desert. this will stop the lone warrior wandering for centuries. Supply must be automated to reduce micromanagemet, but will cost money to maintain a unit far away that is harrasing a nation. The player will be advised when the cost of maintaing a faraway unit is excessive. Ancient units can recive supply when pilligaing forign lands, and this will reduce the cost - but importantly the unit must have contact with the home nation so it wont desert. Later units will gradually lose this feature or robbing supply from conquered nations as later arms require specific calibers and such.
Supply lines which come out of cities showing how your men are being supplied. The availbity of supplies would be symbolized in a mode, lie view "supply lines" and the tiles would become colored in a scale from completly suppiled to no supplies.
*Supply lines would extend father from large cities
* They would move easily along roads and rails, but disipate quickly over swamps, mountains etc.
* The range of supply lines would increase with advances like the wheel, seafaring, automobile, and advanced flgiht
* Enemy units could blockade supply lines, beseige cities, cutting them off from supplies. Allied civs could provide you with supplies.
* Each unit would have a value called "tolerance" showing how supply depend a unit is. For example, early settlers and guerilla fighters would have little need of supplies, tanks and mech infantry, who need fuel to run effectively would be very dependanto n supply lines.
* Units could only heal while in strong supply lines, they would lose hits if cut off. Other effects of being cut off could be the unit abandons (is destroyed), surrenders to a besieging enemy, or loss of veteran status.
4) ANCIENTS vs. MODERN
Redleg, delcuze2, Hans2, Diodorus Sicilus, Goob, ember
Ancient / modern combonations should be extremly rare - almost imposible. Units in CivIII should advance with the times.
Ancient units wont be allowed after (just for example) ANYONE discovers Armor. The ancient unit would be forced to upgrade to a "Milita with firearms" or disband.
The only time an ancient / modern confrentation should be allowed to happen is when the ancient civ has had NO CONTACT with any nation at all. Like the Aztecs, I guess.
Make the defense and attack factors of the high-technology units bigger. If a "warrior" is a 1 strength point unit, perhaps a cavalary unit should be at 12 points.
I propose certain types of units and certain era units cannot defend or attack against others. For example, anything below say musket-and thats being liberal-shouldn't be able to damage air units.
We have GOT to have Upgradable Units in CivIII ala SMAC. There is nothing stranger than modern tanks whacking a phalanx: there just ain't numbers big enough to show the disparity in strength between the two!
As soon as a "modern" weapons tech is discovered and units using them are created then armies/units that are "ancient" will have a -1 strength/morale factor (BTW, I believe morale most be an element of unit strength.) When there is another discovery then all ancients would get another -1 penalty and so on.
Example:
Cannons discovered: Phalanx have a -1 penalty added to there strength when engaged with armies that possess cannons.
Muskets discovered: Phalanx or swordsmen now have a -2 penalty in combat against these units.
Bombards are a key idea for the modern eras.
attacker: unit initialting the combat
target: unit or structure that takes the damage
defender: unit who's defense rating is used to damage the attacker (mostly for air attacks), often but not always the target, especially when air units attack structures.
Active defender: ranged units that can launch a counter bombard, somtimes pre-emptivly, depending on the situation.
in a bombard round two things happen.
The attacker has attack rating % chance of doing fp damage to the target
The defender has defense rating % chance of doing fp damage to the defender
The bombard procedes for hp of the attacker rounds. (badly damaged units do not have the firepower available to mount a heavy attack)
5) STACKED COMBAT
Frank Johnson
When stacked, a unit should boost the overall attack/defense power of the stack. I image a coloization style combat report option giving the details of the combat.
Legion: BASE 4 VS Phalanx: BASE: 2
Archers +50% Archers +50%
Archers +25% Walls (+100%*)
Archers +12.5%
Catapult *
* Catapult halves city walls bonus!
With this system units like artillery, catapults, and the such can be used like in real life, to supliment armies, not to be whole armies themselves. Also all sorts of bonuses could be made up with this... for example, if you had 2 horsemen in a stack fighting a lone pikemen you'd get the "Flanking bonus" and the pikemen would lose the +50% verus horse
6) NAVAL COMBAT
ember
ships have 2x movment rate (to speed things up)
all modern ships have the bombard ability and can active defend to counter act the increased movement. They can damage units that bombard them within their range. Can only damage subs if they attack or you have helicopters
Carriers group. (2 carrier, amphibous ship/transport, air defense cruiser and pair of destroyers) bases 4 (stealth) fighters, 2 helicopters, and 2 marines. The marines can be helicopter deployed. Has bombard range of 1, and can spot subarines, (helos and destroyer) deployes two units/turn
Battalship (4 battalships, 1 cruiser, 2 destroyer, transport) carries 1 marine, bombard 1 square, can deploy 1 every other turn
Cruiser (6 crusiers, 2 destroyers, transport) carries 1 marine, 2 missile units, bombards 2 squares(missiles). can deploy one per turn
Destroyer (8 destroyers, 2 cruisers) no transport ability, bombard 1 square, very fast, spots subs
AGIES crusier (6 AGIES crusiers, 2 destroyers, amphiboues ship) bombard 3 squares(inherent missiles), spots subs, 1 helo unit, 1 marine, 3 missile units can deploy one unit / turn
Submarine (8 submarines) bombard 2 squares (missiles), 4 missile units. deploys 1 / turn
Cruise missile units represent a much more intense bombardment than the regular bombard of a crusier/sub.
Transport (8 transports / amphiboues ships, cruiser, 2 destroyers) no attack, can carry up to 2 helicopter units, and a total of 8 units.
7) LAND COMBAT
ember, Shining1
Only changes involve cannon, artillery, howitzer, and an itorduced unit, the V2,
cannon, artillery, howitzers, can only bombard and cannot take cities. cannon and artillery need to be stacked with a normal unit to prevent an imidiate counter attack by the defenders. only the V2 unit has more than 1 square of range, with a range of 2 or 3 depending on play balance
SAM - active defends angains air attacks, even with no movement remaining.
2) Combat variables
These should be kept simple. Combining attack and defense values to get a basic value is a step in that direction, modifying these values according to the opposition and terrain would seem to be a viable method.
Example:
Hoplite
Bronze Long spear (3) (+1 vs. horse, -1 vs. infantry)
Bronze armour (1)
Open terrain (0)
gives an attack value of 3 against infantry, or 5 if the unit if fighting mounted cavalry.
Legion
Iron Broad sword (3) (+2 vs. infantry)
Iron armour (2)
Open terrain (0)
Gives an attack of 7 against infantry, or 5 against mounted units.
etc.,
Weapon stats
Club (1)
Spear (2) (+1 vs. Horse)
Long spear (2) (+2 vs. horse) +1 for iron weapon
Sword (2) (+1 vs. Infantry)
Broad Sword (+2 vs. Infantry) +1 for iron weapon
Bronze armour (1) (hoplite)
Iron armour (2) (chainmail)
8) MISSIONS
Redleg-
What about the ability to give units missions? anyone think this is usefull?
9) NAMING UNITS
Redleg, Goob
To give a sense of history and identity.
10) ADVANCED COMBAT
snipe
I think you should be able to determine formation and battle stratagy for your troops and have this all help determine combat results. That way you can play general or whatever. Anyway, I think combat needs to be more complex and involving than the computer merely using some mathmatical formula to determine which units live and die.
11) SUB-GAME for COMBAT
delcuze2
The problem I have with the current concept of "units" in Civ games is that they force a disconnect between the time scale being played by the civilization's economic, social and technological systems and the time scale being played by the wargame.
Historically most wars lasted for very short time spans. For example in CIV II, World War II would take only 7 or 8 turns to play, the 30 years war would at most last all of 10 turns and even the struggle between Rome and Carthage didn't last that long given the game's progressive time scale.
I think the idea of building armies full of equipment is fine, but it seems to me that a sub-game of conflict that happens over a few turns would be more realistic and still just as much fun.
In addition to being more realistic (IMHO) This would allow for two kinds of warfare:
1. Cold conflict with spy's, diplomacy, trade wars, cultural struggles, etc.
2. Hot wars with operational level battles occuring specific contested regions of the world.
I imagine moving around "armies/stacks" until you declare war, then having an *optional* intense mini-wargame to resolve the conflict.
12) STRUCTURAL DAMAGE
ember
structures have hit points based on their era (~10 ancient, 30 modern...). Damaged structures are repaired at 20% per turn, and cost double maintenance while doing so. THe building's effectiveness is reduced proportionally. (20% damaged SDI stops 80% of nuclear weapons). Population points are counted as structures for bombardment damage and targeting. damage reduces food in the storage proportionally to % damage done.
13) CITY CONQUERING
Trachmyr
Unless a city is very unhappy before the coquest, it will be unlikely to join your civ. You might be required to occupy the city with military forces, or it will return to it's previous owner... or atleast revolt.
Cities that were in poor condition or in poor spirits may welcome you, otherwise you'll need to hold the city until the unrest subsides. A city can be subjugated, and it's citizens forced into grueling labor, if enough military is present. Cities waiting to return to it's previous civ should wait until armies are signifigantly far off. And units produced/recruited at a conquered city may instantly turn against you!
14) COMMUNICATIONS
Trachmyr, don Don
Communications are very important to military endevours. Let us represent this in CIV3 by:
1) You can only issue commands to units within communication range. This would be city radius for primitive cultures, but would improve in range as tech increases (and equiped with if using a design workshop).
2) Automated units for when they go out of comm range
--- Go to (set with cursor) and HOLD position
--- Go to (set with cursor) and ATTACK enemy
--- Go to (set with cursor) and return with REPORT
3) You can give orders to a messenger (another unit) to give them to the target unit.
4) Com Jammers can block communications, tight-beam communications can counteract this
5) (???) you don't know the exact staus of your units, they will however send reports to tell you of their condition
This can be applied to cities far away from the capital before National goverments are implemented
Unless cut off by oceans or opponents' ZOCs, messengers can go pretty far in a few weeks. But the idea of assigned missions rather than simple "Go To" is great.
15) MORALE & TRAINING
?
[This message has been edited by Goob (edited May 20, 1999).]
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