UNITS (ver. 2.0): hosted by JT3

[loinburger]

I don't like the idea of "nuke mines". They sound way too powerful, especially if stacking is used (imagine losing over 5 units because of one misstep). Not only that, a nuke mine wouldn't be realistic. If a tank runs over a mine, it loses its tread. If a soldier steps on a mine, he either loses a leg or a few more body parts. But the thing is, Civ III deals with huge numbers of troops, so if a few tanks get their treads blown off or a few soldiers become crippled it really doesn't affect the army a whole lot. I've always seen mines as HUGE numbers of mines packed together in a square, but still not enough to kill all but the most wounded or accident-prone unit moving throught it.

[Flavor Dave]

Mines have come up before. Now, I'm not against them--but as a practical matter, minefields are part of the fortress/fortification bonuses. They are part of why it is tough to take out a unit in a fortress.

[ember]

I also feel that special minefields are a bad idea. They just arn't in the scale of the game on land. It would be nice to see a couple of sea TI's. Only put in costal waters (mainly to block bays and harboours) sea mines would stop the movemnt of any unfriendly ship that moves into the square.

Other improvments, ability to build a tunnel under the ocean, max 1 square, and a SOSUS type sonar bouy system.

------------------
"Any technology, sufficiently advanced,
is indistinguishable from magic"
-Arthur C. Clark

[loinburger]

First, the way I view mines:

I would still contend that mines deserve their own unit ability. I see no reason to have a special "mine" unit, even at sea, and instead advocate the position that mining should be a TI put in by Engineers and removed by any unit (in, say, 2 turns) or an Engineer (in 1 turn, i.e. less time). Mines There would be no special "mine layer" or "mine detecting" or "mine destroying" units, not even at sea (this would, however, require that Sea Engineer units are available). As for whether mining should be a standard Engineer ability (made available with tech), a special Engineer upgrade, or an upgrade made to any unit, is up for grabs (I favor the first option). Mines can only attack+damage five units (even if there are more in the stack, if stacks are used) before they are used up, and the TI disappears. You will always know where your own mines are. Any unit adjacent to a mined square has a %chance based on its morale/veteran status to detect the mines--units with the "scouting" ability have an increased chance.


Second, why mines should even be in the game:

I understand the arguments that "mines are on a tactical level" or "mines are already part of fortifications." I do not deny this, especially the second point. However, I still think that mines should be their own TI because:
-even though they are usually used for tactical purposes (in fact, they always are), all you've got to do is up the scale by 1000%. After all, your engineers have a couple of years to put all of these mines in the ground.
-although mines are a part of fortifications, the mines themselves do nothing without a unit holding down the fort. A mining TI would serve to damage enemy units without expending support for your troops.
-one argument against mines was that pillaging roads was essentially the same thing as placing mines. I disagree. Putting several tons of explosives under a dirt road is different from removing the road due to the fact that the explosives will cause damage while the lack of a road (presumably) will not.
-one argument that was flying across the TI thread was "how do you keep enemy units from using your railroads/maglevs/etc?" Mines could be one of many solutions to this problem if mines destroy movement TI's. My suggestion was that a Maglev/Railroad/Road that was mined in which the mines were set off would be immediately degraded to a Path (either 1/2 movement or terrain/2 movement). Thus mines would serve the dual purpose of slowing your enemies as they clear/don't clear the mines, and also of automatically pillaging your movement TI's so that the enemy can't use them.

Sorry for the lengthy post.

[Theben]

This is not a thread I thought would ever need a *BUMP*.

[Mo]

Reservists: You should be able to pay a yearly fee to train reservists which you can them call up at any time to serve in your military. The more money you expend the more units you can call up. I would limit the units that can be called up to non-high tech units(almost all ancient and renisance units and regular army, tanks, bombers and fighters non stealth, marines and mech infantry)
There would have to be a limit to how long they can serve at one time. They might have to be limited to your territory that people won't over use them.

[Stefu]

Here's my idea of how Generals should be in.

General is a unit. It can't fight, but if it is part of a stack, it will rise the morale of the stack by 1-3. This isn't cumulative (you cannot stack lots of generals for lots of effects. The moral rise depends on how good the general is.

Generals have a random tendency to born. They can be born on any city of your empire. You will be noted if this happens. They have 3 factors: Loyalty, Command and Fame. Command diecides how big a bonus the stack gets, whil e generals with low loyalty may rebel against you. Fame is 0 at start, and grows if General wins lots of battles. If you have really famous generals, they can cause dropping in War Discontent. Also most famous generals are noted in table, which in multiplayer can be used as show of power "You be nice and quit, or General Lee will crush you."

Assassin is an unit which can be used in cities to target scientists (takes points away from research, bankers (target player loses money) or politicians (happiness temporaly suffers). It can also target generals. If it succeeds, general will be killed.

If city, where General has left from rebels, then General may rebel too, depending on his loyalty. If this happens, General returns home and starts commanding stack of rebel units.

Also, if general has big fame and low loyalty, he may try to coup. In this case the units of his stack rebel and appear near your capital. If he can capture capital, and there is rebellion because of happiness penalty, rebelling cities join his attempt.

Also, he is mentioned in Battle reports, like "Suvorov crushes 5 units of French Musketeers."

Foreign powers can try to bribe General. Again,the sum depends on General's loyalty and fame (More famus Generals have to be bribed with bigger sums of money.)

So, what do you say?

[Diodorus Sicilus]

Generals. Historically, durn few generals were ever assassinated. The majority who get suddenly taken off the field of play go by way of combat or old age/retirement. I'd axe the assassin as a regular unit, possibly have a Wonder/Improvement of Hashashim or Ninja, the only historically significant assassin groups.This would keep assassination down in % probability: only 1 or 2 civs could have them at all, and they would be obsolete by modern times. Contrary to the conspiracy theorists, there is little creditable evidence of government assassination plots that succeed against foreign government leaders: assassination tends to be more random, and from internal opposition.
I posted on generals a loooong time ago, less on their fame than on their capabilities (I like the famous general idea, it's good mind candy for the game). Capabilities would include that of the military staff, so ancient generals would start by allowing you to stack more units together and move them as an 'Army' under General X. Development of Conscription (mass armies) and the general can stack with even more units. Finally, develop Radio (modern communications) and the stacking limit goes up again.
The better (Veteran? or Famous?) generals would add a + factor to all units in the stack, and an additional wonder of Greater General Staff (available with conscription) would make all generals in the civ from then on Veteran. The alternative would be building lots of Military Academies to train staffs.
General's chance of getting killed in action would be random, but much higher in ancient, pre gunpowder battles, and higher when his army is attacking (good generals tend to be up front where the action is in the attack).
The Loyalty rating would be important only before Nationalism and for Coup attempts. The only historical general that I know of that changed sides since nationalism and nation-states arose (early 19th century) was A. A. Vlasov in WWII, who worked for the Nazis against Stalin. Even he, however, was captured on the battlefield first, didn't actually walk over to the opposition on his own.
One great point, the idea of a too-popular general leading the opposition is appropriate for almost any kind of government: Coups against Despots or Totalitarian (Stalin worried a lot about Zhukov's popularity) or Theocratic (look at the histories of the crusading or early Islamic Caliphates), and electorial in a Republic or Democracy. One slippery addition could be indicating whether the general is the Monarch or related to him in Monarchy. If the monarch, the civ gets a general increase in loyalty/happiness (warrior king syndrom) but if merely related then the coup probability goes through the roof as he gets popular!

[Harel]

I guess this was suggested, or atleast in a similar form.
Anyway, this is what I would like:

First off, this idea consider that:
A. We will have a unit workshop.
B. We will have weapon "imporvement" techs. Either researching upgradings, general improvment, minor techs, theoratical vs. practial... just read the Technology thread. They got tons of ideas.

My suggestion is:

You don't just design and get a new unit. You allocated cash to the propose, and decide how many turn you want to invest. You then select how would you like the unit to be.
The more money/technology/time you spend in the project, the more likely the product will be very good. For example, when you research the wheel you get a normal 4/1/2 chariot. A good design can give you up to +25% bonus to weapons, armor, HP, speed, morale and fuel, and reduce cost up to 66% of normal cost.
However, the project may also fail, making a product which is up to -25% worse in all the above catgories, and cost up to +50% more.
Spending little time or money on the product increase the chance of getting a bad product: but even a properly design project may fail.

When you create the project, you may direct your resource into: increase quality ( better weapons, cost more ), increasing quantity ( cost less but poorer performance ) and middle ground.

[Theben]

You still playing civ1? I haven't seen a 4/1/2 chariot in years....

Anyway, I'm kinda ambivalent. It could work. One thing is that if a civ encountered another civ with a superior design it would try to incorporate their design.

[loinburger]

Generals:
On the Combat thread I've posted ideas about different orders which can be given to troops: fortify, hold, conceal, scout, delay, ambush, blitz, raid, and devastate. If Generals were used, then my feeling is that they should give specific bonuses as well as overall ones. For example, if General Bob, an expert on Raiding, were to attempt any other order (including doing nothing), his stack would receive +3 to morale (General Bob talks a good fight). If, however, his stack were on a Raid, his stack would receive +3 to morale, +25% to ATT, and +25% to Retreat.
If any of my order ideas are are taken, historically famous generals could receive bonuses in their historical methods of combat (Rommel on the Blitz, Forrest on the Raid, etc.). Perhaps these generals could even be trained at Military Academies for even better performance?

As for Assasination: I agree with Diodorus that assasination should not be all that easy to do. However, I do think that if you attack an enemy stack containing a General, you should be able to target the General specifically. This would be just like a normal attack, except that your stack receives a -25% penalty to ATT, but you have an additional chance to kill the General based upon your ATT power (this would be like finding the General's HQ and launching tactical nukes at it. Not very likely that it would succeed, and not a very smart thing to do, but desperate times sometimes call for desperate measures). I don't know how feasible this idea would be, though.

[ember]

I still think induvidual general units are to much micromanagemnt. Maybe have a general in command for each region, and for attacking forces in a region sized chunk?

------------------
"Any technology, sufficiently advanced,
is indistinguishable from magic"
-Arthur C. Clark

[Theben]

The assassin unit aside, it has possibilities. The +1-3 stack bonus should depend on the system used: if each +/- = a =/-5% in a unit's combat strength then it's okay, but if based on the rates given in SMAC, then a +1 should be the max.

My only other quibble is that "loyalty" shouldn't be known to the player.

[Diodorus Sicilus]

One person's micromanagement may be precisely what the next guy enjoys doing...

[Theben]

I do believe that's the shortest message I've ever seen you post...