UNITS v3.0 (hosted by technophile)

[LOGO]

I totally agree, there should be more complex systems of attack and defence.

[LOGO]

Or should I say more realistic, not more complex.

[loinburger]

LOGO: Go to Combat. Theben has that thread pretty well sewn up. (Therein you shall find descriptions of CITV, LASS, CLAD-D...)

lemur: head over to Combat and check out the combat system recommendations that have been posted there. Pick one or two that you like, or make your own (and post it over there, but please--if you make your own, make it significantly different, I don't think that Firaxis can take another new combat system). Many of the new combat systems and other posts in Combat allow and sometimes require that there be new units and new unit abilities. Feel free to come on by Units again and make some suggestions (unfortunately we don't know if there will ever be another list sent to Firaxis, but don't let that stop you. Better safe than sorry). I sincerely doubt (and hope) that Civ III does not use the same combat system as Civ I or II, or SMAC. As you said, it seems far too simplistic.

By the way, welcome to Apolyton (unless, of course, you're a lurker, in which case I mean "welcome to the world of posting at Apolyton...)

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"Geez, what did you hit that thing with?"

"Oh, just your standard issue Big Gun."

http://www.jesusdance.com

[stodlum]

I don't know if someone else has this in the summary yet, (sorry if it is!) but it was an idea I posted last June in the CTP forum.

'Wonder'ful units. (not called that)
These would be units which are also wonders (i.e they serve a special function and can only be built once)

e.g.

The Enola Gay
The Trojan Horse
The Rocket
The Great Eastern (first steamship)
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by stodlum (edited January 18, 2000).]</font>

[Mat'bu Sanju]

Personally, I hope that naval units are more affordable in this game then in the previous.

It's annoying to build a Carrier, because then you have to convert production in several citys to provide for aircraft ( or take planes away from other theaters)

Also, bombers should have a much longer range, and Nuclear missles, in the likely event that there won't be different kinds, should have greater range depending on the map size.

Here is a list of units I think that should be last in line for the tech tree

Land
The pinnacle of infantry units should be the "Land Warrior" system currently being devopled by the US Army.

Navy
The Pinnacle escort naval Vessal should be the DD-21 land attack destroyer, or the ill-fated Arsenal ship.

Air Force
I think it should be the Joint-Strike Fighter for light-medium attack.
The Bomber should be a hypersonic banshee, long range, aremd to the teeth (see this month's "Popular Science")

Missiles/defense
And, of course, we should have cruise missle galore. For SDI we should have either a Theater Ballistic Missile defense based on DD-21 destroyers or Patriot-style mobile SAMs




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Don't Get Left Behind!

[RyanR]

I think there should be some sort of special unit that can be built in Democracy, that would require support but not make people unhappy. Maybe some sort of "invisible", parachuting BlackOps or PychOps super-expenisive unit.. like the CIA.

I don't like the current model where it is all but impossible to wage even a limited war in Democracy.

[Ekmek]

Geez I go to Sapper School for a month and see a lot has gone on in Civ III units section...

stodlum: I like the idea of Wonder Units. It should go well with the variuos leader unit ideas that have come up. It would also add a lot to scenario building (like capturing units or building one to win etc.) And it would add more of an arms race feel than just building the manhattan project.

Speaking of nukes and the various effects I wonder if the programmers can some how link the nuke identifier (attack of 99) with fire power? i.e. an attack # of 99 would make it a nuke but a fp of 1 would only cause a 1 square area of pollution and damage (kill everything in one square and only one square of pollution) so in some scenarios you could simulate Chem or bio wpns (if they don't come up with those weapons anyway) and go from there like a fp of 5 would be a huge nuke of 5x5 area. Just an idea...

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"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."
- Jim Morrison

[Mark Haertl]

The player should equip the Air Units, especially the fighters and helicopters. So, if you have the Apache-Helicopter, you could give him some normal rockets for buildings and four or eight (Hellfires) against other helicopters. When it attacks, it has different attack- and defense-strenghts, which is dependent from the unit, with which it is in contact.

Mark

[Orz]

In reply to JamesKirks idea about communist troops:
Communist "peasant troops" were cannon fodder indeed but they won the war... So no attack penalty but maybe while Democracies should have trade & production bonuses then commies should have unit cost and spying bonuses...

[emren]

Hello there, I'm a completely new poster to these forums. Also, I've spent probably thousands of hours playing CIV 1&2.

However, I'll throw in a suggestion here on this assumption: Stacking Multiple Units into Armies does NOT yield synergies - i.e., the resulting stack is not more powerful than each individual unit fighting separatly.

What I'd LOVE to see in a game, is a system that does exactly that. Each civ should have a Command Rating assigned to it. Through winning combats (and building certain buildings and wonders), your civ gains Command Rating Points. Through improving technologies, your civ LOSES CRP's (putting new techs into your units decreases their actual experience with new weapons).

With more and more CRP's you should be able to increase the number of units stacked in an army, thus increasing your overall military strength by experience and improvements in organization skills.

Result: A low CR allows only a limited number of different units to combine into armies, and yielding no special bonuses. A high CR allows for more complex combinations (more units) of units, creating more powerful armies. As new technology is researched, organizational skills are lost or need to be re-discovered as new weapons and new doctrines of war are invented.

[Theben]

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font><font size=1>Originally posted by emren on 09-15-2000 05:06 AM</font>
Hello there, I'm a completely new poster to these forums. Also, I've spent probably thousands of hours playing CIV 1&2.
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>

Welcome to the forums! I hope you enjoy your stay.

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font>However, I'll throw in a suggestion here on this assumption: Stacking Multiple Units into Armies does NOT yield synergies - i.e., the resulting stack is not more powerful than each individual unit fighting separatly.

What I'd LOVE to see in a game, is a system that does exactly that. Each civ should have a Command Rating assigned to it. Through winning combats (and building certain buildings and wonders), your civ gains Command Rating Points. Through improving technologies, your civ LOSES CRP's (putting new techs into your units decreases their actual experience with new weapons).

With more and more CRP's you should be able to increase the number of units stacked in an army, thus increasing your overall military strength by experience and improvements in organization skills.
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>

There have been suggestions dealing with combined stacks, from allowing small stacks where individual units fight individually, large stacks where units wth "special" abilties add to others combat ratings or nullify their weaknesses (i.e. helicopters &/or infantry in a mechanized armor division), to having the all individual units combine into one: the unit IS the stack. Command & Control has also been suggested. However,

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font>Result: A low CR allows only a limited number of different units to combine into armies, and yielding no special bonuses. A high CR allows for more complex combinations (more units) of units, creating more powerful armies. As new technology is researched, organizational skills are lost or need to be re-discovered as new weapons and new doctrines of war are invented.
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>

Having special bonuses dependent on C&C is new. And having C&C shrink when new tactics and organizational methods are developed is quite radical. Even govt structuring (revealing current bureaucratic structures for that civ) could effect the level of C&C. Too often we forget that history is not a continually progressive straight line; often it reverses course. That is a great suggestion. Thanks!

[civbuilder]

So many units! These would become real micromanagement nightmares! I don't particulary like the 'stacks' idea i think under some ideas they could become too strong, if this feature were to work it would require a limiting system, i do like the idea of having commanders though which run the stacks. If the commanders were limited to haveing a certain number of units. My idea is to possibly even a certain number of 'control' turns which count down from when a stack under thier command leaves a city or better your borders. Depending on the number of units in the stack, and the experience and command potential of the commander this could vary, more skilled commanders like Alexander the Great might be able to keep thier stack together for 30-40 turns, while less quality commanders might find they can't keep thier stack together for more than 15, making them less useful in a hostile invasion. If you make commanders extremely expensive (possibly having them indestructable - plausable since them would normally be returned - for a price if - captured in battle) and gave them no actual attacking abilities (thier only abilities would be commanding the stack) then this would add appropriate limits to the powers and uses of stacks and would not simply create a scenario where the civilisation which can afford to plough loads of units together wins. As i have tried to explain, real large armies (such as Napoleon's when he invaded Russia) lose moral as time goes on, they begin to die slowly and have to attack quickly. If the gradual weakness is modeled then it could allow smaller bands of forces to 'run away' and then attack after a number of units in the opposing stack have died or given up (the regularity of this could be determined by the commanders skill and past campaigns), it would also stop the gratuitous use of stacks to simply overwhem an opponent and would promote more tactical play.

My reasons for have 'normal' commanders immortal is that if they are going to be used simply for holding stacks together it makes it easier to upgrade your troops, because the commanders in my model have to be expensive and if you had to build afresh every advance. . . Of course special commanders as it has already been speculated could have shorter life spans.

How will these be implimented? I would'nt want them controlled as units, rather selectable from a menu and then having a number of units assigned to them who quickly converge and form the stack, this would make it easier to introduce 'historical' commanders, it would also be good for allowing assination attempts. . .

A final point is this, if a commander leaves his stack at any time (you should be able tto call him back) then what remains of the stack should revert back to individual units.

[Theben]

I'm afraid I must disagree. It would be much easier, IMHO, to move a few stacks each turn than to have to move the literally hundreds of individuals units we must now. And stacks should make things easier for the AI. Look to Heroes of Might & Magic II/III for a guide. The AI has the ability to create powerful armies that are capable of defeating human opponents often.

[civbuilder]

I'm not sure you fully understood what it was i was saying. The point i was trying to make was that it could become too simple for a powerfull empire to build stacks of say 10 units, great, but a stack would undoubtebly have an advantage over normal units. My worry is that the only things capable of destroying a powerful stack is another powerfull stack, smaller civilisations would be unlikey to be able to assemble these in the same quantities, this would be disasterous to the balence of gameplay as one nation could quickly become unbeatable in battle and games would become one sided. My idea was to have stacks, which i admit do remove micromangement, which have several inherent disadvantages - that they are expensive due to requiring a general to lead them, that they slowly decrease in power (perhaps a unit is lost every X turns after leaving home territory until the stack is disassembled or runs to the end of its life. X depending on the skill level of the general), and that they have a lifespan which begins counting down after leaving friendly territory. This would, i believe, create several things. 1-the stacks would not be able to simply conquer an entire civilisation due to the weakening and lifespan factors. 2-Stacks could be formed for defensive purposes lasting for a long time due to the lifespan only counting down when outside its civilisations borders, thus allowing defensive strategies to be formed against stacks and making it more difficult for offensive stacks to conquer. Surely this makes the game both more realistic and challenging? And to clear things up this is a form of stacking, but one which i feel would give more balence.

[Mo]

It is realistic that a larger civ can devote more manpower and industry to fighting a war than a small civ. There are two ways that the small civ can compete:
1. That the small civ develops better technology and trades with others so that it can get some better equiped troops to deal with the "super stacks"
2. A small country to survive must make alliances with other countries and these countries together should be able to get enough units to make a large stack to counter the invading army. Also it is easier to defend, because of the various fortifications, which would mean that the small civ wouldn't have to have a stack of equal size.

Another blancer could be unit training, small countries can't afford large armies, but they can train there units better. Large countries who rely on superiority in numbers often lack the training and technology of smaller better equiped nations.