UNITS (ver. 2.0): hosted by JT3

[JT3]

I'll post a summary soon.

[yin26]

-=*MOVING THREAD UP*=-

[CivMike]

Just found this site. I have several ideas for units...and have tried to organize them.

Land
-Mobile Rocket Launcher
-Troop Transport (would have defense of 2)
More organized transport of troops
-Rangers (Marines. paratroopers, and mech. infranty are only troops in Civ. There needs to be something in the middle that isn't priarily amphibious. )
-Trench troops (Would have to dig trench first, etc. Attack/defense woudl be high then only...kind of like fortifying.)


Air
-Modern non-stealth fighter. (In Civ2, you have the old propeller fighter and then jump to stealth. There needs to be something in the middle, and it would be available alongside Stealth planes-as in it wouldn't expire).
-Modern non-stealth bomber. Same concept.
-Tank-killers. (good against ground units, horrid against air units)
-Air transport units. (C-17)
-Spy planes of various types. (has been mentioned alot in discussion)
-Have 2 or 3 types of helicopters, like the Osprey (actually make it effective) and the Apache, etc. Having just one isn't really reality.
-Air Force One. Complicated, but would be used to transport your leader to another nation's capital and would have a low defense by itself--you could opt for fighter escorts to increase it--and would cause major reputation problems if you attacked it.) 1 Marine unit could board it, along with the President.

Sea
Basicallly, need more "modernization" and choices among each type of unit. For example:
-Submarines
U-Boat (earliest, expires with reg. submarine)
Submarine (newer, never expires)
Seawolf..can change name (newest, never expires, higher attack/defense than reg. subs.)
-Carriers
Old and new, increasing carrying capacity
-Battleships
Old and new concept.

Rockets
-Stragetic Nukes.
-Land to air missiles (battlefield use only, ONLY offensive ONLY planes).
-Patriot missiles (battlefield and carrier use only, must fortify to activate, ONLY defensive against ONLY missiles for 5 x 5 area around it)
-Land to land missiles (kind of like a SCUD) that would be launched via trucks--the graphic would indicate that. You would fire it by hitting a key, with a range of 10, and then it would have to "reload" somehow)

Other
President-With a new concept of a global summit (explained), you would need to send your president/leader. In a city, with increased protection in the capital, the defense is HIGH, on the road, its lower, and on air force one, its little, but would have high reputation consequences if attacked. Could board Air Force One only.

Unit Concepts
Naming/organizing. Kind of like "Carrier group JFK). This would help in tracking troops around the globe. Complicated but doable.

Thats about it...long but hopefully helpful.

[FinnishGuy]

My unit wishes:

- Strategic bombers: destroy or disable city improvements. Slows down or even stops production if used in massive numbers.

- ICBM nukes. These would be very expensive to build but can reach any map location without range limitations. Has a chance to counterattack automatically if enemy attempts nuclear first strike. Target cities can be preset by player.

- At least 3 version levels in aircraft and tank units (WWI era, WWII era, modern). Perhaps fourth, future.

[Mo]

Air transports:
I think it should be automated like in civ2 with the airports just increase the capacity and allow units to transport to airbases. A helicopter transport could be used to transport small number of units small distances. They don't have to land or start at airbases or cities.

ICBM nukes:
I think the closer the launch site (city, sub ..) is to the target should decrease their chance of launching retaliation.

[FinnishGuy]

Mo:

Very good point on ICBMs. Shorter reaction time...

[Sieve Too]

Although the Spy is already too powerful, recent events in Kosovo have prompted me to request a new power for Spies: Steal maps. Right now maps can only be exchanged by peacefully agreeing civs. While a stolen map wouldn't show unit positions, terrain improvements and city sizes would be visible.

[FinnishGuy]

Some more thoughts on ICBMs:

The proposed automatic counterattack capability would create true MAD (=Mutual Assured Destruction) balance. As it now is in CIV II and SMAC, nuclear first strike always succeeds because the opponent can't respond until his turn. If you have enough nukes, you can completely wipe out the enemy before they can do a thing (provided no SDI/defence satellites). With the ICBMs nuclear war would become very risky gamble as you never know how strongly the enemy can retaliate. Still you know that he WILL retaliate almost certainly. Consequently, the world would be pacified by the balance of terror, like in the real cold war between USA and USSR. Until someone gets MAD enough to try his chances...

[Darkstar]

Actually, I'd like to see them use the customization of unit design in SMAC. With additions...

Sense Range - Sense Range becomes a stat, like weapon, armor, hit points and chassis. This would be how many tiles away does a unit have the ability to see. When the modern techs get reached, you gain the ability to add an enhancer, granting extended range. For instance, with the advent of optics (telescopes), you can now design units that have +1 sighting range. With the advent Radar, you can add a short range radar to a unit design, and gain a +2. Yadda yadda yadda. Certain chassis gain an automatic sense range bonus due to the element they operate in. Surface ships gain +1, as do Air chassis. High Altitude optioned air chassises would gain another +1 sense range, on top of their normal +1 due to being an Air Chassis. (High altitude air units would cost more to build, but only be vulnerable to High Altitude Air Response units (SAM Missiles, High Altitude Interceptors, yadda yadda yadda).

I'd also like to see a combat system used where defense knocked off damage inflicted, and all units used their Weapon rating to inflict damage. This would mean that when your heavy "Arthurian Knight" model tanks of Weapon 12 Armor 8 Move 2 Early Heavy Tracked Chassis go into the 3rd World countries and fight "Phalanx" model Weapon 2 Armor 2 Move 1 Bronze Age Infantry chassis, the tanks couldn't be HARMED. I mean, lets be honest...

I think any unit in Civ or Civ 2 can be fairly well modeled in the SMAC unit design system. I would just like that system extended with certain enhancements to allow an even greater variety of possible historical fiction/fantasy lines.

And it would be nice to limit being able to build units based on certain chassises to cities that had the prerequisite infrastructure. For instance... to build Horse chassis units (Horse Cavalry, Horse transported Infantry, Knights, Chariots) requires a stables. (Of course, wonders/secret projects could allow for counting as an automatic building type throughout all bases of your nation... i.e. Stygian Stables could act as a stable in all your cities).

-Darkstar

[DarthVeda]

How about a terrain built by engineers called "Missile Silo" that you could store your nuclear missiles in. The Silo would be invulnerable to nuclear attack, but vulnerable to conventional attack.

I still want the concept of mercenaries. You could lease your troops to another nation for X years, then they would be returned. You could also lease them to barbarians as "Pirates", but you would dictate where they would be placed. Pirate units would take longer to be returned.

Any unit sent as a mercenary receives a veteran upgrade. There also need to be a few more types of experience:

Conscript -- Rush Bought
Green -- Produced normally
Experienced -- Some Combat
Veteran -- Hardened War Vet
Elite -- Crack Division

Customization would be nice, but only if it could be modified easily for scenario purposes. Also if it prevented silly mixes. Like a Knight with a nuke.

Also, if a nuke hits a city, the city should be leveled. Especially with repeated nuclear attacks.

[Mo]

spys:
In SMAC when you try and steal technology and they don't have any tech which you don't posses you will steal their world map.

[Flavor Dave]

"-Tank-killers. (good against ground units, horrid against air units"

You mean, like the helicopter?;-)

What would be the purpose of a modern fighter?? How would it fix a flaw in the game??

What would extra helicopters add to the game? As far as realism goes, if you want realism, play 2 turns and die of old age.

[CivMike]

On modern fighters, it just makes sense. You don't jump from propellers to stealths. I know civilization can't mimic everything in the real life military, but that gap is just silly. I think that a modern fighter could be less expensive, and have firepower somewhere between the propeller and stealth. I also think that there is a problem in the game of fighters only being good for attacking bombers--I've had fighters lose to pikemen. C'mon! Fighters, as seen with Kosovo, attack cities regularly, not just bombers. But anytime I try it in Civ 2, I usually lose. Also, bombers should be able to bomb more than one target on a run.

On tank killers, helicopters are only part of tank-killing warfare. Attack planes are also good for it. Just an added weapon, thats all. Adding different types of helicopters I think just makes strategy that much more important.

Maybe its just that i'm in a family full of military people, so I'm a perfectionist! :-)

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

Instead of a fighter between stealth and propellors, how about a modern fighter/bomber that would have a bombard ability (like bombers in CtP) that is slightly less than their attack ability. This way your fighter would not lose to the pikeman, but might not destroy it either, but do damage. This would work if the air combat is more like CtP and not Civ 2.

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"When Mr. Bigglesworth gets upset, people DIE!"
- Dr. Evil

[CivMike]

I definitely like the fighter-bomber idea. I had not thought of that. It would be a workable solution, and should be included when you think about it.