Civ specific units

[John LeMaitre]

A berserker was a Viking warrior that (perhaps hopped up on something or another) would fight twice as well as any normal warrior, but would fight without concern as to his own safety. Sort of a Nordic Kamikaze.

On second thought, the berserker sounds more like an AD&D character than a CTP unit...! It'd be like naming or giving disctinct personalities to each of your units. In reality, most units are treated like berserkers when I play!

Perhaps we should just stick to changing names and sprites, but I think that it'd be neat to have a special unit for each civ, just as some governments do. How can you play the Phoenicians without elephants, or the Aztecs without Pochtecatl?

[Dark Schwa]

To: ALL

Nice ideas! I had a similar idea to the general/warlord/admiral one (which was very good, BTW). The King! The king (or other head of state) would be _you_. It would give major bonuses to combat, and maybe even have some special abilities, like a super-convert in a Theocracy, a "calming effect" in a Democracy, etc. But if the King is killed -- game over. Assassinating AI king would usually cause the empire to split.

As for the other military leaders, I can forsee great abuse. Rich civs could crank out the warlords and have them with every unit stack, or with every unit. There needs to be a way to limit the number of warlords in play, by restricting the number to 5 per civ, one per city, or perhaps one for X million citizens.

re: the snow-egyptians.

Here is what I would like to see so that continuity is maintained, sorry if it's a bit pipe-dreamish.

Each "civ" is merely a database of people, place, and city names, and Nothing more. The overall "personality" of the civ is determined by 1) their location, as people in colder climes may be more industrious or people in warmer ones may be more agressive. 2) their early interactions with other civs. i.e., a civ that starts out next to a powerful babylon would tend to be influenced by it in terms of religion and disposition. 3) their most plentiful natural resources. Horses would be known to people in areas that have horses.

Here's how it could work:
The AI Japanese build their first city, and name it from a name in their Japan-only database. Their first unit (a warrior) leaves the city and discovers a river. Since the Japanese unit found it first, he would get to name it. He names it Edo-gawa, and the name shows up on the map. Pretty soon the Japanese run into the Nigerians, who live a bit further north and have knowledge of reindeer domestication. Japanese and Nigerians trade tech, and the Japanese get Nigerian reindeer-cavalry units. The Nigerians have not yet developed a state religion, they learn Shinto from the Japanese and start building roadside shrines. The Polynesians who live in the Southern jungle have already domesticated the elephant, so they have no need of reindeer cavalry and spurn Japan's attempts to trade. The Polynesians settle on the river the Japanese discovered and call their settlement Edogawa. The Persians who have had a continent all to themselves for the past 1000 years have a very well-developed theocracy, and a well organized church. Their very advanced form of Zoroastrianism sweeps through Japan, Nigeria, and Polynesia and all three start importing Persian technology and start building large Zuggurats to Ahora Mazda, who finally promises the local animists an afterlife.

Etc.

[Nordicus]

JM:
I like the idea of this berserker type. I agree that one shouldn't get too carried away, though; after all, one can only put these in the aips (i.e. personality types), so you can't really have one for each civ without a lot of time and effort. Yeah, if you don't mind that, I say go for it. I have six new personality types (in production but on hold until this mod is complete) which will make it so each AI type can have a generic unit. But I for one would not wish to make a specific aip for every civ type--designating personalities to types of civs or races (as unpopular as it might seem) may be the easiest way to do this.
Here are the default types:

1. slaver........."Slaver"
2. cleric........."Religious"
3. milmany........"Militant"
4. milfew........."Aggressive"
5. scifew........."Agreeable"
6. scimany........"Peaceful"
7. barbarian......"Barbarian"

And here's the one's I'm including:

8. democrat......."Democratic"
9. imperial......."Imperialist"
10. expans........"Expansionist"
11. neutr........."Neutral" ("Passive")
12. xenoph........"Xenophobic" ("Reclusive")
13. errat........."Erratic" ("Unpredictable")

Now, these might do--maybe a couple more.
But, like I said, if anyone wants to go ahead and make one for each civ, hey, that's great. I'll help if I can.

Dark Schwa:
Interesting ideas, I'll say that A tech tree for each civ! Aye corummba! I like the idea of a "King," although there's no way I'd hang my arse in the wind like that! Plus, that sounds immeasurably difficult.

Wes:
D'oh!
I missed your comments...gettin to be a habit
I'll have to try that mod...no, *hangs head in shame*, I haven't yet.

[Nordicus]

Hmmmmmm. Yunno, I've been thinking. General types aren't gonna cut it. So, how do we have more specific AI types for specific types of civs?
For a new AI type for a certain number of civs, how do you determine the differences from which to chose which civs belong to which type?
Choice of government? Race? Religion? Language?

Anyone have ideas?

[John LeMaitre]

I really like that "King" idea... It adds a whole new dimension to the game. Imagine holing your "civ leader" (a more generic term) in your capital, and having to race him to another city when your capital is under siege! Cool! Having to waste resources just to guard the guy! Realistic!

Of the discussed units, I like the following:
The "king" (Only one allowed, a starting unit along with the settlers)
The "general" (no more than 1 per 3 cities? Is this possible?)
War dogs
War elephants
The berserker
The assassin (this could get tricky, with the King unit running around...)

Would it be possible to give a personality type to a government instead of to a civ? It would seem more realistic to me....

[Nordicus]

Hey, John...

Yeah, I sorta liked the idea of a "leader" unit--many possibilities, but the more I thought about it, the more problems came up. If it could be done, it would work for all-human multiplayer games, sure, but the trouble is placing importance on it for the AI. The AI will treat it like any other unit and so it'll be a matter of finding what city it's in and blast away until its dead, end of civ...way too easy.
If we're talking one for the human player only, not the AI...well, then, that's something different.

I think a General, Admiral, and Air Marshall (Commander, whatever) unit would be cool. If it could be implemeted (and if the AI knew how to use them), I'd like to try it.

Would it be possible to give a personality type to a government instead of to a civ? It would seem more realistic to me....

Nope.
I would like that, esp. since, say, for example, your best ally goes to war and changes govs, then it's basically a new leader you're dealing with.
I don't see that this can be done.
It has to be for AI types, maybe 8 extra ones including the CTP default types.

[WesW]

Regarding the King; I think the designers tried the implement this same idea, but ended up not including it, for whatever reason. There are numerous references in various files to spies having the ability to assassinate leaders, parliaments, and/or cabinets. I don't know exactly what effect this would have had, perhaps thrown the civ into chaos for a number of turns, like when changing governments.

Also, I ran across a help string for a combat engineer unit (out-commented, of course). I guess that unit would have allowed you to build tile imps. outside the range of your cities (roads, presumably).

If someone were to go through all the files, and list all the things that they didn't implement in the game, there is no telling what-all they would come up with.

Nord, I think you are beginning to think like me, in that whenever someone proposes something new, the first thing you think about it whether or not the AI can be taught how to handle the new ability. Imo, anyone who comes up with new ideas needs to think this way, too.

[John LeMaitre]

I'm of the opinion that it's a good idea to bounce ideas off of people - people who MAY know how to implement them, even though I'm not "SLIC" enough to do so myself.

Besides, I have a feeling that the designers of CIV III, seeing as they want to sell the game to US, are probably looking at this forum from time to time. They may like an idea (or see that we do!) and add it to the new game, in whatever language they program the sequel in.

In that spirit, I think that the "king unit" idea would be best if used as a gaming option, not as a rule. It really would change the game quite a bit. I assume that it was removed mostly because it changed the slant of the game away from CIV II too much.

[Mark H]

No offense, but I disagree! Since the AI will always be lame (yes it can cheat more, but that's not much of an improvement), I see no reason not to share ideas that will only be used in MP games. Those are the games that will always be challenging.
Just my 2 cents ;-)
Mark

[Nordicus]

Well, I must apologize if I suggested that throwing ideas around is counter-productive in any way, since I feel precisely the opposite--many of the ideas I've gotten have been thru "brainstorming," and I find it extremely stimualting...creatively speaking

[Nordicus]

Hey, everyone...

Here's roughly what I have in progress for AIP-specific units, et cetera--the trouble is which civs will belong to which aip?--:

1. xenoph (Xenophobic)
2. imperial (Imperialist)
3. expans (Expansionist)
4. meso (MesoAmerican)
5. democrat (Democratic)
6. ccleric (Catholic)
7. mcleric (Moslem)
8. greek (Hellenic)
9. india (Indian)
(default aips)
10. slaver (Slaver)
11. warfew (Aggressive)
12. warmany (Militant)
13. scimany (Peaceful)
14. scifew (Agreeable)
15. cleric (Cleric--or Christian?)
16. barbarian (Barbarian)

So far, this is just for a modern era, since that's as far I've gotten so far; various aips can be loaded during different circumstances, so these are not eternal!
Here's the civs I've been playing with, so I'll use these for an example (and in order for this to work without an individual aip for 32 civs (!), similar civs must be grouped together...as I said, this is not set in stone and no offense is intended if you feel that your civ has been wrongly included)--I've weighed a lot of things here, and some civs simply cannot realistically be grouped in a modern-type situation, but here are 32 for starters:

1. China, Korea, Indonesia, Viet Nam (or Thailand or Siam)

2. Japan

3. Russia (or USSR)

4. Maya (or other Central American name, I just prefer Maya), Inca (same, except for a South American name), Aztec (otherwise known as Mexico), *Iroquios and *Sioux
(*Note that in a modern situation, I'm considering not having these last two so that modern civs elsewhere can be used)

5. United States of America, Canada, United Kingdom (or England), Australia

6. Italy, Spain, #France (possibly 13. instead for the WW era)

7. Persia (or *Iran and *Iraq, possibly), Arabia (or Saudi Arabia), Egypt, Turkey

8. Greece

9. India

10. ?

11. Mali, Ethipoia, Zulu (KwaZulu)--and possibly *Xshosa (their civ name different)

12. Germany

13. #France (possibly)

14. Israel

15. Norway, Sweden

16. Barbarians are barbarians, I guess (I'd rather not have them in modern period at all, since they're so absurd and useless, oh well).

Obviously, depending on what year it is, many of these can be quite different, but like I said, this is not definite and I very much welcome anyone's opinion. I'm not looking for an argument or debate, I'm just trying to have the most realistic feel to a modern earth map situation with the minimum amount of work (which is still quite a bit) without spending months to achieve it.
Generally, I'd like "democrat" types to automatically like ("love") one another, the same for "cleric," "mcleric," "ccleric," "xenoph,"and so on. Alliances would be certain. I feel this would be a great test for the AI to fight along side its Ally.
So, the WW and Cold War eras are what I had in mind for many of these, but they can be adjusted for any period, I'd imagine.
And this makes it possible for "civ-specific" units, or aip-specific: xenoph types will be able to build pikemen, imperial will build samurai, meso will build warriors, etc. Types for each set will likely have to have similar qualities, or at least balanced...opinions?

Anyway, what does everyone think?!
(And what the heck do we do with the Slaver thing--I can't decide--?)

Later.

T.

[DanMc]

Nordicus, regarding the idea of having a wonder for each civ, you'd have to be able to place that wonder in each city of the civilisation, otherwise if you lost your capital city (where the wonder would probably be placed), you wouldn't be able to build any of those units!

Secondly, (I can't remember who suggested it, sorry), if you were to allow (say) the English to build Samuri, they should only be able to do it at a higher cost than the Japanese, reflecting their inate advantage in building such units.
This could lead to some great alliances in multiplayer games (with some sort of modifications to SLIC?) - the Japanese could trade 5 Samurai for a Spanish galleon.....

Dan

Just a thought......

[EdCase]

In relation to the personality relating to the government...surely exactly what happens is..new government new personality?
Just my 2 cents as I quit playing CTP before most of you appeared in the forum Just pop in now and again to see if its worth updating a nd trying again.
Nice to see it being kept alive though

[EdCase]

In relation to the personality relating to the government...surely exactly what happens is..new government new personality?
Just my 2 cents as I quit playing CTP before most of you appeared in the forum Just pop in now and again to see if its worth updating a nd trying again.
Nice to see it being kept alive though

[EdCase]

In relation to the personality relating to the government...surely exactly what happens is..new government new personality?
Just my 2 cents as I quit playing CTP before most of you appeared in the forum Just pop in now and again to see if its worth updating a nd trying again.
Nice to see it being kept alive though