UNITS v3.0 (hosted by technophile)

[ottok]

my suggestion
to water:
Cannoon Canoen "oiler ship", Swimmer?, "Titanic".
To Land:
Footbows, Ford-Tank (as look old car but say 7/2/2 maybe) (cheaper of Armor of course) Missile Armor ( +5 a )
Air
Satelite, Unitsmove helikopter, boieng.

[loinburger]

Question: Who was the Japanese general who masterminded the attack on Pearl Harbor? The one who was "assassinated" by American forces by having his plane shot down?

[Theben]

Yamamoto. Shot down over Bougainville (sp?) Island in the Solomons. Why do you need to know?

[loinburger]

No reason in particular--I was just looking over the summaries again last night, and got to the part where assassinating enemy generals was discussed. Diodorus had said that very few enemy generals were assassinated, and that most went the way of falling in battle or dying of old age. I had responded that it should be an option to specifically target a general unit when attacking a stack--the chances of the general getting killed would increase, but your overall attack strength would decrease something like 25% or 50%, making such an attack a bad idea for the most part. Last night I got to remembering how Yamamoto had died in just such an attack and how his death would be a good example for why a general-specific attack would be a good feature to add, assuming that any sort of Civ III discussion were to begin again. I just couldn't remember Yamamoto's name.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by technophile (edited December 08, 1999).]</font>

[Urban Ranger]

First impression: too complex, too messy, too many units.

It would be better to limit to a set of orthogonal attributes, such as weapons, armor, movement, etc., that could be used in the unit work shop.

If a certain attribute only works with certain others, it's not a good situation. Of course, exceptions are allowed, but you should find other ways to achieve the same goal.

For example, merchant fleets can be created by putting "convoy" on a ship hull/chasis.

There is no reason why there should be only one weapon slot, say. There could be two. Then 2 weapons could be added, which could be the same or different.

As of Famous *, they seem to be just heroes with various abilities. Just use the hero model from Warlords, MoO, MoM, or Heroes of Might and Magic (or create your own). Heroes could have their own sets of goals and objectives and aversions. So if your SE choices directly conflict with that of a hero, she will leave.

Just some random thoughts.

[Stefu]

About unit workshop: Armies of today do not use armors. Even if you count flak jacket as one, we still have long period when armors were not used. Therefore, I suggest we hitch armors from Unit Workshop screen, and instead we could give each unit 2-3 weapons. This is realistic - for instance, Legions had Spear and Short Sword. Shields and armors could be also counted to this, and they would only give protection to certain kinds of weapons, namely swords and arrows. Not to bullets. This would also fit into "combat screen" idea, which was presented in List 2: ie when in fight, stacks charge towards each other, using their weapons. Ie. If Dragoon has Musket and Sword as weapons it first rides towards enemy shooting its musket, and when in near fight uses its Sword. Also, with this system, many units could be presented realistically. For instance, Storm Troop unit could have Rifle, Hand Grenades and Flame Thrower. It starts with shooting Rifle, ehen it gets nearer enemy lines it starts throwing Hand Grenades, and finally cleans remains with its Flamethrower, weapon of short range but much effect. If unit charges with mere flamethrower, it gets squashed before it gets to enemy, if it has all these weapons it has propably "beefed up" the enemy long enough to allow it to wipe up the enemy with flamethrowers.

[Mo]

Great idea, but I wouldn't place a limit on how many weapons they can take, just that it they take more than 3 or 4 it becomes really expensive. For the moterized and mechanized chasise there should be a standard armor because if you are on the inside of a tank you have metal walls around you.
Also there should be a factor which would slow the movement of a unit depending upon how many weapons and special abilities it has.

[Theben]

Well, Stefu, I say NAY to your proposal. I would suggest that the unit only pay for it's most expensive weapon, and if a battle screen is used then the unit uses the best weapon available FOR the range it's at AND is equal in cost or cheaper than the weapon purchased. So you could get swords free with your musket-wielding dragoon, but if it wanted a six-shooter for close range it'd have to pay more (which would likely come with a better rifle- voila! A cavalry unit).

As to the point you made about infantry not being armored, nowhere is it written that the player must blindly adhere to earth history. A study was done of Napoleonic-era armies, and it was determined that if the soldiers had just worn metal helms- not unlike WWI helmets- the casualty rate would have been reduced significantly. Why shouldn't we be able to do that?

Last and most important, a unit's offense affects its defense and vice-versa. If you kill them before they can shoot you, that's excellent defense. If you survive an attack then you have a better chance of using your weapon. You could say that this was included ib civII but it was dropped in SMAC, and I pretty sure there'll be a unit workshop in civ3. Which is why I suggest you read the LASS and CLAS-D systems in COMBAT. Oh and you can read that CITV one too, I guess.

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Theben
Co-Moderator of the Civ3 Forums

[Mo]

The system doesn't prevent you from putting armor on your men. I think there are four ways the extra weapons could help a unit.
1. They just add and extra point to the attack
2. They count as close or ranged(different from the main weapon in the ClAS-D system)
3. They could affect its stats in a different class(air for land units or land for air units ect..)
4. They act as special abilities: Machine gun on a tank increases its attack against infantry, or rockets help infantry against mechanized.
I dislike the first option, but would support a one or more of the last 3.

[loinburger]

Geez oh Pete, I walk away for a week and all of a sudden people care about units again!

I disagree strongly with Stefu about armor. It is true that wearing plate armor won't protect you from rifle bullets much better than leather armor will, but the fact remains that it WILL add some protection. Likewise, while kevlar will not protect from a mortar, it WILL protect from most bullets. And then, of course, you've got yourself the differences between battleships and destroyers.

One could make a complicated combat system where kevlar doesn't stop swords but stops bullets, plate armor stops swords but not bullets, plate armor restricts movement but kevlar and leather doesn't, blah blah blah. I say, if you want something that complicated then play an RPG or a trading card game. This leaves you with two options--armor with defensive properties that allow for few if any variables (variables being different defense factors against different units), or no armor at all. I for one am in favor of the first.

[Urban Ranger]

I must agree with Stefu that a unit can at most carry two weapons. Not only it costs money for the equipment, but it also takes time and money to train soldiers using them.

At any rate, my original concept is like this: if you place one weapon in a slot and special equipment in another, you get a unit which can fight (somewhat) and has special abilities. An example would be combat engineers (weapon + engineering equipment). Another example would be commandoes (special forces) with weapon and commandoes package.

If you put two weapons of the same type in the weapon slots, you get a regular fighting unit. For example, putting, two spears in a unit makes it a phalanx.

[LOGO]

This is a re-post from someware else but I want to know whay you think about it, it's my answer to the revamping of the air power system that is so overdue, why would it take a couple years for a bomber to drop it's bombs?

AIR UNITS

I think you should be able to build an airfield on the ground (or an improvment on the city, which should be required for any landings anything but choppers or harrier-like craft)with some kind of system of supply, one that is built you could move a "bomber unit" to the airbase. There you would have a fixed flying range (depending on the plane and airial refueling) you would then go into a menu and set targets for cities, and what kind of targets your bombers would attack. Depending on how many planes you'd have you could do more or less. Also you could deploy interceptors on cities or airfields that's duty would be to defend city, you could dramaticly increase the odds by building a radar improvement like Britain in WWII. You'd also be able to have air supremesy fighters to patrol for other fighters, break air defences, and enforce treaties. This would make your airforce less stressful to manage, more realistic, and more effective-without making it too realistic. Also without a garrison unit ground units could very easily overrun airfields.

[lemur866]

ARMOR FOR MODERN UNITS

Lets look at the Musketeer. In Civ2, Musketeers are primarily defensive units, because muskets are powerful, but slow to load, etc. When we look at early gunpowder battles, we see that attacking units were decimated by defending units that had even a little cover. A charging musketeer gets off only one shot, then has to reload or use his bayonet. If you reload you are basically standing there for minute or so (you can't reload a musket lying down). So...if muskets are your weapon, you'll be great on defense, not so good on offense.

BUT, if we use the SMAC weapon=attack strength, armor=defense strength model, then unarmored musketeers like civil war infantry become strictly offensive units like catapults, rather than great defenders but poor attackers.

The way around this is to consider that some weapon types influence DEF. Catapults, bazookas, artillery and other Heavy Weapons should reduce DEF. This is what happens in SMAC where Artillery is much easier to kill than regular infantry/rovers.

Other kinds of weapons should increase DEF. Phalanxes and pikemen don't have to be well armored to be great defenders, because the enemy has to get past the spearpoint before he can damage your tender skin with his sword. So, a hoplite spear would have an attack of 1, but add 1 to your defense. A pike would do the same, but also act like ECM vs mounted chassis. Or you could make some sort of close order spear drill a special ability, like ECM in SMAC.

Ranged weapons should also increase DEF, not just ATT, because you get a chance to shoot from prepared positions at the nasty enemy before he gets a chance to cut you. For consistency, let's say that all ranged infantry weapons like bows, slings, muskets, rifles, and machine guns increase DEF by a certain amount...a tiny bit for bows, some for muskets, medium for rifles, and lots for machine guns. After all, machine guns and barbed wire were what made WWI into such a bloody stalemate. In WWI there were NO offensive units that could take a well prepared defender, despite fearsome artillery and the beginnings of air support...until the tank came along.

Defense in the gunpowder era does not consist of getting shot by the other guy and shrugging it off, but in not allowing yourself to get shot in the first place. Your rifle or musket is not used so much to shoot and kill the enemy, but to force him to take cover and spoil his attack.

My main point: Entrenched unarmored riflemen MUST be defensive units, or else the game will have no relation to historical reality.

Civ2 was realistic this way, with musketeers and riflemen being good defenders. SMAC doesn't work this way...you don't notice as much because it's a science fiction game. But let's imagine this scenario. Two squads. One has hand weapons and plasma steel armor suits. The other has no armor, but impact rifles. Now...on a modern battlefield, the unarmored but heavily armed squad will be much better attackers AND defenders than the armored squad.

Often heavier armor does not neccesarily mean better defense, even on the ancient battlefield...in many ways armor makes for OFFENSIVE units. Heavily and expensively armored knights weren't used to crouch behind city walls, but to smash the enemy. A knight's armor allows him to shrug off a defender's feeble attack or the occasional unaimed arrow or rock and ride down and destroy the enemy.

Likewise, heavily armored tanks aren't used to sit back and take the enemy pounding. They are supposed to rush forward and pound the enemy despite getting pounded themselves. The armor allows the heavy tank to shrug off lightly armed attacks and concentrate on it's objective.

So...heavy armor should allow a bonus not simply to defense strength, but to ATTACK strength, perhaps by adding something akin to a morale bonus.

So, to sum up: The SMAC style weapon=ATT, armor=DEF MUST be abandoned if we are to have anything like historical accuracy.

[lemur866]

Wait, my example wasn't quite clear. Let's take a more real world example. Let's say we take the SMAC model and apply it to Civ3.

OK...take two squads. Equip one with swords and plate-mail armor. Equip the other with AK-47s and no armor. According to the SMAC model the first group might be 3 ATT, 3 DEF, the AK-47 group might have 7 ATT, 1 DEF...but the exact numbers don't really matter, just that DEF 1 for the soldiers. If you had the riflemen attack the knights according to this model they'd win most of the time, but if you had the knights attack the soldiers they'd win almost all the time.

But of course this is a ridiculous result. The knights should get slaughtered by the soldiers either way. The unarmored riflemen should be vastly superior on the defensive than the armored swordsmen....swordsmen charge the riflemen. Riflemen fire. Swordsmen drop dead. Battle over.

Now, there may be times when a guy with a sword ambushes a guy with a rifle and manages to stick the sword in him by surprise before the rifleman can respond. That's why we still have that random factor, where an inferior unit can still sometimes damage a superior unit. But if you had to bet, I think you'd put your money on the riflemen, right?

And when we deal with modern units vs modern units the model collapses even further. Let's say we imagine that our 7-1-1 riflemen are pitted against each other. With stats like that, victory goes to the first person who can charge the other guy and attack first. But that's not the way *I'D* go about things if I were a general in real life. In real life attacking riflemen need at least a two-to-one advantage over the defenders, more if they are dug in. That's why generals turn to things like tanks, artillery and air support, not mass infantry charges.

Once again: weapon=ATT, armor=DEF is *BAD*! Bad simulation! Bad! No biscuit for you!

[Theben]

lemur886, Go over to the COMBAT thread(s) and read up on LASS and CLAS-D, and tell me what you think of those.

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Theben
Co-Moderator of the Civ3 Forums