MOVEMENT, SUPPLY, ETC. (ver 2.0) hosted by don Don

[don Don]

Looking back in MOVEMENT, SUPPLY, ETC. (1.0) Vader Two, Diodorus Silicus, and Theben said much the same. One suggestion for incremental road technology is in §1g, including requirements for mounted/wheeled units to cross mountains. The supply rules also allow for movement at ½ cost (on top of roads/RR effects) in uncontested territory. These are just suggestions, and even if Firaxis likes the suggestions they will no doubt tweak everything to their taste.

The main reason why explorer/alpine units don't get any extra movement on real roads is because of supply. In civ/civ2 the movement rates are de facto supply rules. One generally can't move tens of thousands of men around faster than the supply chain can move. Explorer/alpine units are small, lightly equipped units that essentially have no supply chain to hold them back. They're already moving as fast as their feet allow!
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by don Don (edited July 13, 1999).]</font>

[loinburger]

Roads, mounted units, etc.: Consider the fact that the Caucasus Mountains were never successfully invaded and that Transylvania repelled the Turks whereas the lower regions failed, and consider that the Fertile Crescent got itself taken over every hundred years because there weren't enough mountains. Chariots and cavalry were DEADLY back in the olden days. But try getting a horse up a mountain range with no path, and you've got yourself a dead horse. So I like the idea of mounted/chariot units receiving a significant penalty for crossing hilly/mountainout terrain, and would even support a restriction to them going up a mountain without there being a road. If you go increasing the number of moves each unit has (which I've always felt was a good idea), then you run the risk of Civ III becoming a "build chariot sweep across the world by 2000 B.C." type of game. I tend to dislike rush tactics and therefore support the mountain movement restrictions.

Railroads + Roads: Have any of you ever seen Buster Keaton in "The General"? Two rival civilizations (in the Civ sense of the word) used the same rail lines in that movie to devastating effect. Maybe the railroads can be easy targets for an ambush ala Lawrence of Arabia. As for roads, it only makes sense that they be easy to take over, but then that leads to rush tactics all over again (early in the game, anyway, which is when I hate them the most). Perhaps there should be an option of setting up a 'roadblock', in case you don't want to completely destroy that mountain road that you spent 5 years building and yet you also don't want the Assyrians to drive their chariots into your hometown. A roadblock can be set up by any unit, takes one turn to complete, negates the effect of a road (or railroad), and takes one turn to remove, all done without damaging the road/railroad. A roadblock cannot be removed by bombardment, although it is automatically removed if the road/railroad is destroyed. In other words, nothing serious, just a little delaying action while you prepare an ambush and rush some units out to meet the chariots.

As for air units (as well as mountain crossings), I like most if not all of the ideas posted here so far, but have a few additions. These are in regards to the idea of turning the Civ III world into a true 3D rendered sphere showing altitudes and elevations (I feel that this could be done, as a sphere resembles a flat map up close, and it would be a simple matter of game mechanics/a complicated matter of a rotating viewpoint to avoid any negative consequences of having mountains jutting up all over the place). A unit's ZOC would no longer be a circle, but rather a sphereoid/parabaloid--the ZOC would cover the spaces surrounding the unit and would go as high as the unit's AA capabilities would allow (a guy with a sword would have a ZOC going up 0 spaces, a guy with a gun would go up 1 space, a missile launcher would go up 2) and would cover the surrounding spaces (except at the apex, where the surrounding spaces would not be covered--a sphereoid/parapaloid). What this would mean is that a high-altitude bomber attacking a city/unit would no longer be repelled by a host of enemy units surrounding the target; using the present engine the bomber could not attack a city if it were surrounded by warriors, but under this system the bomber would have no problem reaching its target. This altitude system would also mean that a biplane wouldn't work in the Himilayas (the elevation is too high, about 4, and the biplane can only work at 1 or 2), and that other airplanes would be easier to shoot down the lower they flew/the higher the attacker is. Of course, the airplane wants to fly low in order to hit its target, also, so there's some give and take. Furthermore, the altitude system could be used to better compute travel times through mountains--maybe the Appalachians would take 3 move points while the Himilayas would take 6. And finally, you can't go too high without oxygen masks, so nobody can colonize Mt. Everest until they reach a high tech level.

[don Don]

Roadblock: nifty idea. Just trigger an avalanche at a critical pass or two instead of destroying miles of roadway.

I think we'll be building 20,000'+ structures before we'll even consider colonizing 20,000'+ mountains.

PS: Caucasus successfully invaded and conquered at least twice: Cimmerians (early 6th BCE) and Scythians (mid 6th BCE). The Scythians were horse tribes similar to the Huns and Mongols.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by don Don (edited July 14, 1999).]</font>

[Flavor Dave]

technophile--if I understand you correctly, you favor this penalty for horse units b/c it's more realistic. Well, if you want realism, play two turns and die of old age.

It is already the case that, without roads, you'll use archers and legions thru mountains instead of chariots and elephants. You get better defense, and no penalty when attacking pikemen. So I guess as things play out, your suggestion that horse units in mountains react like helicopters is a really minor change to the game. I still don't like it, tho, b/c making changes solely for "realism" is one step down the path to a bad game.

[loinburger]

Flavor Dave: reaslism schmealism, I'm trying to make this a better game too, so don't go *****ing at me for throwing in the 'realism' factor. The primary reason I want this restriction on horses and chariots et al is because I HATE rush games, and if you increase the number of moves that units get (something I am in favor of) then you're going to get a game called "the fall of civilizations that didn't build horses and got whupped by the Mongols." In "reality" civilizations that got whupped by horse and chariot tribes popped back up in one form or another (ex. China) because you can't just wipe a civilization's influence off the face of the planet--however, it is not influence that you get rewarded for in Civ, it is survival, and it don't matter a hill of beans if those nasty Assyrians that just captured your last city were 'influenced' by your civilization (aka they stole your tech) because you're just not playing anymore, they are. So please, if I EVER speak of 'realism', don't give me a realism speech (I hope this isn't coming off too strongly, I do not intend for it to) because I'm after about the same things you are. If Civ were "real" it would suck, I agree--you would play two turns and then die, as you say. But have pity on us poor builders who don't want to have to go off researching cavalry right off the bat.

[loinburger]

they edit out '*****' now? What a pity. I don't know what they were thinking of, I meant a poodle.

[loinburger]

Don Don: But I thought that the folks in the Caucasus were the most warlike of them all--didn't they conquer India? Or did they go soft after that?

[don Don]

The Saka did conquer western India in 2nd c. BCE, and they were Scythians; that particular tribe of Scythians were never in the Caucasus mountains.

:| Flavor: Don't jump down the guy's throat on that point! He isn't the first to propose limitations on mounted and/or wheeled movement through mountains, nor the first to propose that units take damage crossing mountains.

[korn469]

this idea concerns two problems in the game. the first one is units are made up of people and large armies would require a significant investment of resources and people to keep it running. The other problem it addresses is the fact that it cost the exact same to support a warrior as what it does to support a wing of stealth bombers.

instead of subtracting a population point to create a unit i think the way units are supported should be changed. do away with support costing sheilds. i think that a certain number of units should create a soldier specialist. the soldier specialist would be like all other specialist (scientist, tax collector, entertainer, doctor, engineer, transend)...one population of a city not working the land and this would represent the logistics and people need to keep a military machine running. like specialists in alpha centauri the soldier specialist would modify labs and economy and psych.
the modifier would be -2 economy -2 labs +1 psych

this would require that to have a huge modern military machine you would have to have a large well developed population

some units would require more support than others. have units rated in support points from zero to three support points. a freedom fighter/muja-hadeen(sp?) unit might take zero points. a regular army infantry division might cost one point. a armor division might cost two points. finally a stealth bomber wing might cost three points.

support level

three it takes 4 support points to create the first soldier specialist each soldier specialist provides a total of 6 support points the first soldier specialist doesn't cause a econ/labs penalty

two it takes 4 support points to create the first soldier specialist each soldier specialist provides a total of 6 support points

one it takes 3 support points to create the first soldier specialist each soldier specialist provides a total of 5 support points

zero it takes 3 support points to create the first soldier specialist each soldier specialist provides a total of 4 support points

minus one it takes 2 support points to create the first soldier specialist each soldier specialist provides a total of 3 support points

minus two it takes 2 support points to create the first soldier specialist each soldier specialist provides a total of 2 support points

minus three it takes 1 support points to create the first soldier specialist each soldier specialist provides a total of 2 support points

minus four it takes 1 support points to create the first soldier specialist each soldier specialist provides a total of 2 support points each soldier specialist has a -3 labs/-3 economy modifier +1 psych

naturally when units were disbanded or killed the soldier specialist would turn back into regular workers

if you lost soldier specialist for whatever reason then the units they supported would be disbanded

[loinburger]

Korn: I like that idea about soldier specialists (obviously the exact benefits/penalites resulting from the different support levels would have to be ironed out in play-testing) except for one thing, that being the labs penalty. Wars have produced some of the largest technological boons in history (although they have been only boons in war-related fields, at least until someone found another use for whatever got invented). In the Tech thread the semi-consensus was that research should be directed towards one or several blind paths (i.e. Industry and Agriculture). Perhaps instead of producing a labs PENALTY, soldier specialists should produce a lab BONUS, but only in certain fields; fields which are the most geared towards war (such as a tech path called War) would receive the maximum bonus. However, if the civilization were trying to direct research towards a path which is in opposition to war (I don't know, painting? music? The thing is, almost EVERYTHING can be used for a war, be it for propoganda or weapons development), then those paths would receive a penalty to research. So soldier specialists would not necessarily slow down research (in fact, they might speed it up), but they would serve to lock a civilization into a certain technological path. "Once you start down the dark path, forever will it control your destiny" sort of thing.

Psych bonus? Sure. War means money. Let the death cause the psych penalties.

Econ penalty? Sure. The more a country spends on war, the less it can spend on anything else.

[korn469]

technophile

like somebody says on this thread "the best ideas are the ones that can be improved"

i think your suggestion is great. so if you are researching a war tech you get a labs bonus. if you are researching a peace tech you get a labs penalty. i like it!

korn469

[loinburger]

I consider the effects a war has on a population's happiness to be "Support".

Problem: Democracies are terrible for war. This means that a despot can go invading you with an inferior army and not fear severe reprisals until you manage to change governments. What a pain. While some may argue that the benefits of a democracy outweigh this disadvantage, I disagree. I think that democracies SHOULD receive severe happiness penalties if attacking a rival civilization, but SHOULD NOT receive happiness penalties, or should receive a lesser happiness penalty, if the rival civilization struck the first blow.

Example: WW II. After Pearl Harbor the majority of Americans were pissed off enough to not give the government a "happiness penalty". There were still plenty of unhappy people, but this was mostly due to the fact that there was a war and not due to the fact that the AMerican government was involved with it.
HOWEVER:
The Vietnam War eventually got the American people so riled up that some historians actually think that he civil unrest may have eventually started a revolution. The doves began to outnumber the hawks and the government was severely criticized. Much unhappiness was caused, not because there was a war, but because the US government was involved with it.

Solution: As a Democracy/Republic:
If a rival civilization declares war on you, your citizens do not become as unhappy as they normally would while your military units are away from their home bases. However, as soon as the war ends, you had better get those units home as soon as possible.
If a rival civilization attacks you, you citizens will not become as unhappy as they normally would while your military units are away from their home bases. Your Senate will not accept peace until the rival civilization has paid for its crimes against your civilization.
The more a rival civilization differs from your own in social engineering choices, the less unhappy your citizens will be while you are at war with that civilization and the less willing your Senate will be to make peace.
If a rival civilization commits atrocities against you, your citizens will demand vengeance (will not become unhappy AT ALL while your units are away from home) and, depending on the circumstances, your Senate might not make peace ever--it will demand that the rival civilization be eradicated completely.

A democracy is more opposed to war than the other government choices, but if you ruffle its citizens' fur enough it will bite back. I think that Civ III should reflect this.

[ember]

As a minimum, no unhappines should be caused by your units being anywhere within your borders, it shoudln't have to be in your city.

You basically are saying that if someone commits an atrocity against you, your units in their territroy don't cause unhappiness?

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

[loinburger]

exactly. The present Democracy and Republic governments seem to assume that people, if given the choice, would always rather "turn the other cheek" than seek veneance/preventative measures. But if someone nukes your capital, it doesn't matter how democratic you are, the citizens are going to call for blood and won't quiet down until you've hammered the offending civilization to its knees. They're not going to CARE that Johnny might not come home from the war, because they know darn well that their ideals and their way of life is at stake. So yes, atrocity=no unhappiness.

Also, I agree that units should be able to be stationed anywhere in your borders and not cause unhappiness.

[Flavor Dave]

Well, the thing about horses taking damage thru mountains--they ALREADY are punished by not getting the movement advantage!! Who would YOU send thru hills to conquer the Zulus--archers and legions, or chariots and elephants? The units with the 2 defense, that's who.

Hey, if you want to weaken chariots and elephants more in bad terrain, OK. I think it's a bad idea, but a small bad idea. As the game is played, what you're talking about is mostly theoretical, since 1. If you have to go over mountains to attack, you are kinda stupid for trying. Wouldn't it be smarter to build a fortress in the mountains, put a phalanx/pikeman and an elephant in there, and go in the other direction, over plains and grasslands?!?!

Finally, what kind of rush games are you trying to avoid. Maybe it's just my patient, non-HG/ICS dependent style of play, but what you're talking about has never been a big issue for me. Even when I moved up to a new level and endured the requisite butt-kickings till I figured things out, I'd only lose a city here and there.

Increasing the movement of units won't change that, I don't think. If a computer civ known for being offensive sellouts (attack without adequately defending) comes after me, I am confident I'll stop them, and then I'll just do an end run and take a couple of their poorly defended cities.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Flavor Dave (edited July 20, 1999).]</font>