UNITS (ver 1.2) hosted by JT

[VaderTwo]

I like the idea of the unit workshop, however, it was a little tedious in SMAC.

The only problem I have, and I challenge someone to solve it, is once gunpowder comes what is the armor/defense rating based on? Aside from Kevlar, no one has used armor since the conquisadors and yet if you had a group of archers versus a group of marines, the marines would easily win because of their additional firepower, range, and rapidity of fire.

[Harel]

Well, I allready suggested that the new combat model will combine rate of fire and accuracy.
However, the solution is quite simple: a bullet doesn't so, in the end, MUCH more damage then an arrow. However, it IS more accurate and fire faster. I suggest that gunpowder weapons will have a high AP ability ( armor piercing ) with will negate armor.
Kevlar will have a high level of armor rating, plus AA, active armor will reduce offensive weapons AP ability.
Problem solved.

[Mo]

I would rather have a bit toned down version of the unit workshop. You get all the normal units preset. For each unit you have a few modifications you can make. Most of the you wouldn't have to research.
Example:
You discover Steel which allows you to build crusiers.
You can add antiair guns to your cruiser and make it agis cruiser. You can also sacrafice some armor to make the ship faster. Or you can a helicopter landing pad which will allow it to refuel helicopters. These modifications will either have a downside trading armor for movement, or they will increase the cost. Some modifications will have to be researched(ex. anti air guns for crusisers, longbows ...)

[Diodorus Sicilus]

Defense in Gunpowder Times:
Dupuy's "Numbers, Predictions & War" noted that the Dispersion Factor - the amount people sarted spreading out to avoid being a Good Target, increased dramatically throughout history. Specifically, and I sent this off to the Clash of Civ thread, there are 'Singularities" where the Dispersion increases by an Order of Magnitude or more. Here are the Dispersion Factors by period:
Ancient Medieval: 1
Napoleonic Wars (muskets) 20
US Civil War (Rifles) 25
WWI (machineguns) 250
WWII (Tanks, aircraft) 3000

In other words, your musketeers, instead of armor, rely on much thinner formations and making themselves, as an army, less of a target by about 2 x an order of magnitude. With automatic weapons and mobile heavy weapons (WWI and WWII, respectively) this dispersion goes up by another order of magnitude or more with each change of weaponry. Unfortunately for the troops, the massed muskets and more modern weapons do much more damage than arrows: there are accounts of crusaders with 15 arrows sticking in them and their armor and coming back from the battle, while there are no accounts of soldiers with 15 musket balls in them doing anything but working on their bleeding and rigor mortis techniques...

[CormacMacArt]

I have to agree with Mo's idea. Allow "tweeking" of units, not the creation of new units.
"Just turn it off!"

Well, but I would like it for modern/future units. One question: Weren't the Samouri (sp?) relativly few in Japan? I thought they didn't have near the numbers that one Roman Legion had.

The other thing that has not been discussed (or I have missed it) is STEALTH. Now, I eliminated the stealth title on my fighter and bomber, because they were not really stealth; my opponent could see them and shoot them down with relative ease. I think STEALTH should be another flag on the unit, in anticipation of the stealth naval units of the future.

[Flavor Dave]

Cormac--I have a different interpretation of stealth. Hey, the Serbs are able to shoot at stealth planes. They aren't invisible to people, just to radar. This makes them stronger combat weapons. But if the Serbs had stealth planes, we'd know where they are, through spies, satellites, Kosovars, etc.

Now, if you want to make invisibility a future tech, allowing the creation of invisible planes or ships, that's a different thing.

[CormacMacArt]

Yeah, I know that the Serbs can see them (I assume this is only during the day), but I was thinking back to the Gulf War, when the F117 would attack and the Iraqis had NO IDEA where the plane was. Also, Naval units "see" other ships with radar, but what if my battleship (USS New Jersey, of course) had been modified to be stealth? I might be able to sneak past your blockade.

[Mo]

I think there should be 2 types of stealth. Complete stealth, a futur tech which can make any unit invisible. There should be some ways to find them, spy planes, sensor posts... I also think you should see where they are attacking from.
Normal stealth: can only be used on air and naval units. They are invisable, but all other units have a chance to spot and reveal them. I think this chance to stop them should be greater with helicopters and ships since helicopters fly lower than bombers/fighters and ships are at the same level as the other ships.

[Flavor Dave]

On a practical level, they really need to do something to enhance the "Triad."

1. Cruise missiles are too powerful against naval units. Either CMs, specifically, or all units, shouldn't be able to eliminate a stack. I don't mind 2 CMs taking out my battleship, that's the risk of war. I don't like 4 CMs (240, shields, or 144 for the AI at deity) taking out my 2 heavily loaded transports, and two battleships (perhaps 1200 shields or more.) Once cruise missiles come into the game, you can't use your navy against the AI, until you have cranked out a ton of AEGIS'. It's not just unrealistic, it's bad for gameplay.

2. Bombers are a waste of shields, once the AI has flight, cuz he magically has a fighter in just about every city right then. Bombers should either be cheaper, or should have the ability to attack and return. As it is, you just build two or so for special duty, like taking out that pesky MI in a hill fortress. But then, why not build a CM, for less than 1/2 the cost? The bomber is only THEORETICALLY reusable.

3. Helicopters should, too, altho they'd have to lose some power, or they'd be too powerful.

4. Fighters and bombers should have something like 30 mps, as long as they're moving from city to city. As a practical matter, they're needed at the front, where you likely have small or wrecked cities. The cities that can properly build them are so far away it might take 4 turns to do anything with them. It's better to build a howie, and send it by rail.

These 4 changes are really necessary in order to overturn the overdominance of the army, esp. in the modern era. This is one of the biggest, easy-to-solve problems in Civ2.

[Flavor Dave]

My twist on something I've seen suggested before--the Colonist.

He costs 40 shields, and costs like a settler (in food and shields). He goes anywhere outside the city radius, but within X squares (15 on med. world?). Once he's at the colony site, you order him to exploit, and whatever that square produces, goes to the city. Then he improves the land--builds a road, irrigates or mines, etc. The enhanced yield (arrows and food or shields) is transferred to the city. He ends by building a fortress, and then performs his final function--he Converts, into the appropriate military unit--phalanx, or pikeman, or musketeer. Or maybe you just convert it into a Garrison, with 2d, 2a, costing one shield and one food (never two, or else he's not to useful in republic). The unit becomes obsolete at industrialization or communism. Or, maybe at this time, it becomes a minor tribe. It CANNOT found a city. It cannot exploit a square in a city radius, even if that square isn't being used at the time.

This adds to the strategic options. When you have those cities that are all food, or all shields, you have the option to exploit fully what it is, or build a Colonist to make it a more well rounded city. You probably shouldn't allow more than one Colonist for a city until it reaches size 9.

Another adaptation of someone else's genius;-)--the Scout. It's a modern unit, available with combined arms. It can paradrop. It sees two squares. It moves like a partisan. It can pillage. It instantly heals, every time it survives combat (which won't be often, it should be weak, maybe 2a, 4d). It does not cause unhappiness in a democracy, no more than a spy does. It would go together with enhancements to bombers (either cheaper, or able to attack and return) very well.

[Diodorus Sicilus]

"Stealth" exists in several forms in both naval and air units already.
WWII naval ships depended on armor for defense. Modern ships depend on Radar jamming, decoys, and basically being hard to target rather than trying to survive a direct hit. That's why even the smallest warships these days have their own helicopter or drone aircraft: they're used to put up false imagry, jamming chaff, infrared sources to decoy missile trackers, etc. - all forms of Naval Stealth. That's your real current defense against the Cruise Missile for non-AEGIS ships.
Similar with aircraft: Stealth is relative, and the real defense is the combination of satellite, AWACS, and other surveillance and counter-surveillance systems that work together: for every strike aircraft there are a dozen other aircraft covering him physically or electronically: the 'Stealth' craft just need less separate cover.
Not as technically sophisticated, but in the US Army even 20 years ago we already had infrared-absorbing paint on tanks, the Soviets were 'cooling' tank exhausts to foil infrared detection, camouflage nets were made with 'anti-radar' pigments and materials: in any kind of half-covered terrain, it is still very, very difficult to target a ground force that knows how to hide.
Stealth technology should be related to earlier Advances like Camouflage (a WWI French advance) and Maskirovka (the Soviet set of techniques for faking and hiding military capabilities). The three could make a Heirarchy of defensive capabilities, something like this:
Camouflage: Each stack appears as a single unit to the enemy
Maskirovka: Units and Stacks only appear to the enemy if his ground or air unit is or passes next to them.
Stealth: Allows you to build air, sea, and ground units with X % greater Defense Factor against any air attack (playtest to determine what's appropriate: my gut feeling is something between 10% and 33%)

[primetime000]

crusher, i would just like to know where you got that quote from.

[JT]

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