We have a proposed basic military / combat system for Clash. It can be found under:
Military/Combat System - Whatcha Think? Is there a military history buff out there who would like to come up with a list of standard units and their characteristics under this system.
(I think you'd need to read over the whole system and the comments on it first, and make sure you're reasonbly happy with it before taking on this assignment)

If you're interested in the job, post here and / or email me.

Seriously, now: You mentioned that there will be armies of mixed units (so e.g. no chariot image to represent a chariot charge)... hm... this means you want to be LESS abstract in Clash than it's done in CIV et al.

What's my point?

Now, reading so many threads about CIV, CtP etc., I became aware that there really are two factions: Faction one sees the building-and-inventing game - IMHO the way CIV was MEANT to be, with war only being one (and by no means the most desirable) option.

Faction two sees CIV as a war game, debating unit stats, tactical maneuvres etc. But, frankly, CIV IS no war game, and since Clash is to be a "civ-like" game, it shouldn't be either.

The question is: Why are there military units in CIV at all? Well, it's an abstraction - quite an abtraction indeed. Remember those guys who complain that "in reality" a steamboat wouldn't need 20 years to cross the Atlantic? Those are the people who simply don't undersatnd the abstraction principle. Even IF you see a single chariot in CIV, this is by no means what it symbolizes - much more it represents an army whit a more offensive approach, using antique weapon technologies, finding it's way through the enemy's territory. What you don't see are the fortresses it build underway (for camping), the support lines etc. - all this is covered by the very simplistic abstraction.

Clash is be to be a game of epic proportions (like CIV) - frankly, in most of the epochs building an actual army doesn't make any sense from the REALISTIC point of view - whatever you do, however you implement it, the army will stay an abstraction and will become more and more paradox the more you try to flesh it out with "realistic" features.

So my idea was: No armies. Not normally. You might build one, maybe two. But that's it. Never in history there where dozens of standing armies in a nation (not armies spread out over the land, mind you). The Great Army of Napoleon - 1 big army, 3 branches. That's it. Hitler's forces - essentially 2-3 armies. Whatever.

The typical method of "I have a little army icon here and it's going to kill you" could be replaced. After all I have read about the possible influence of disease, culture etc., I propose to build a "military plasma map"

What's that?

Say you are the Roman Emperor. You definitely have a certain military level, some legions etc. But remeber, we're talking years, decades and centuries here. So, instead of building little icon armies, you set an overall military level first, giving your country a certain defense value (which is locally modified by cities and, maybe, castles). Imagin that as a rubber plane in a given height. You then set "military highlights" at certain strategical points. Just imagine you poke your fingers from below - on the upper side of the rubber plane there will be elevations, representing areas of high military presence / strength, which can be moved (slowly).

War in a game like CIV is no thing of tactical battles - it's the reflection of decade-/century-long struggles, involving much more than combat. It's nothing that can be counted (as units), not over such a long period. It's the long struggle between forces, and this could be reflected by this "power plasma", where the places of high power / presence strive to move each other back.

I admit,this is VERY unconventional - but frankly, the popular "we move our little stack" technique is so popular only because it's simple to do.

If you are interested in making a good simulation of history, this model could be quite a novelty, and could very smoothly work together with other, plasma-like models (culture, religion, disease...)

Hm???

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Honi soit qui mal y pense

I see what you're saying, but I for one like the somewhat explicit representation of forces. I think the concept you present is interesting, but I think we'd leave a Large portion of the civ-playing public uninterested in Clash with such a system. The people who complain about movement rates just don't understand that it is a design feature that allows one to do a civ game in 500 turns rather than the 10k+ it would take with semi-realistic movement rates.

Anyway, that's my take on it at the moment, and with limited sleep

Anyway, this leaves us with the problem of making something which is essentially ABSTRACT more REALISTIC...

On culture / disease... I think you've got a point. Go ahead and go to the threads and put your views up there . It is information on people's (esp project members') views on each issue that we need. Make counter-proposals if you can.

Actually, your idea is closer to the original 'Civilization' board game (very few people seem to realize that 'Civ' was just a
ripoff of an already wonderful, popular boardgame). It didn't have 'armies', just population units. You built a city by getting 9 population units in a province that was 'city friendly' (18 units if the province was not). Each city became a 'trade' resource.

When you 'attacked' another province, it was actually a 'migration'. It all depended on the province population limit. One by one, each side removed one unit until the total number was under the province pop limit. Populations of many civs could co-exist.

Come into my arms, spiritual brother!

To be even more exact, CIV1 was more or less a real crossbreed between "CIVILIZATION" (the board game) and Sid Meier's "Railroad Tycoon". Since both "parents" were great in themselves and Sid is a real genius as far as playability / game balance is concerned, CIV became the cult it still is.

Btw. there actually IS a computer version of the "real" CIVILIZATION, but don't bother looking at it: It's VERY slow, VERY buggy, VERY unplayable and VERY stupid - which makes it IMHO absolute worthless. It can't even be used as an easier to handle alternative to the board, since navigating over the map alone is a pain...

But now that you mention it: Well, I didn't really think of that ol' game when posting, but you are certainly right - maybe I didn't think of it because my "great civ times" (here: board game) where when I was at the university (I'm 33 now)

And the computer game 'civ' was just largely a bigger 'Civilization'. The techs in the board game were far superior, in fact -- the progression of ages was the way you actually won, too.

But in this thread units are the topic, so here another idea, not quite as exotic as the previous one.

Why don't you let the player make certain tech discoveries and then equip his units accordingly? I mean, you do not develop "knights", but "scale mail" etc.

Of course, me being the graphics freak, I have a certain reason for that approach: If we really include standard army images on the map (maybe different as per culture / epoch, but not per unit type), then we could at least HERE have a bit of graphical fancy, and that even without using too much cpu power: Imagine a more or less stark naked guy whom you can equip step by step: clothes, armor, weapons, helmet... a bit like the old paper dolls you could attach cutout paper clothes to. I've seen something like this in some computer RPGs, but never before in a strategy game.

Afar from the visual fun, which is maybe even easier to do than creating real indiviadual gx for each unit type, you'd have the big plus of having a near unlimited number of units available. The values / properties / specials are attached to the parts of the equipment, so the combat value of a unit is simply their sum. With a bit of creativity it would even be able to let people design their own uniform (optionally - of course there should be auto-functions if so desired).

Erm... did I mention that I once was a collector of tin miniatures and as such still a fan of colorful uniforms?

I think, using such a system, we could turn the obvious (visual) drawback of having only standard icons on the map into a big, unheard of feature.

Or am I getting carried away by the idea?

I think your proposal is doable. Of course a lot of other projects are doing it too, so it wouldn't be a feature unique to Clash. I think that if standard units are made available for those who don't want to "play that game" your proposal would be a bonus in Clash. As you point out its insta-customized graphics. People might even be able to overlay several of their custom units to make custom army representations giving visual clues as to what the most important elements are in that army group.

1) We do not have to worry anymore about the grapical representation ON THE MAP - a standard icon (army / fleet / air) which may change over the epochs and - maybe as per culture is absolutely satisfying if one sees a detailed (and even customizable) image on the right (or whereever).

2) Doing these "doll graphics" is much easier (and can thus be looking very professional, since there is more time to care for those tiny details) than doing totally different unit graphics for each type. Essentially, you do the proper figure once, and give it several types of equipment.

3) As for the gameplay aspect, there will be literally an unlimited number of unit types. What can the player want more?

Mark:

I fully agree that there should be standard, "pre-built" units so customizing is optional.

Hrafnkell:

This ceratinly should NOT result in s "fashion war". There's no need to change anything if the player doesn't want it. But let me tell you one thing: I do not know whether you ever saw a game of "Warhammer" - it's a tabletop war game you play using fantasy tin miniatures. Believe me, at least half of the fun of this lies in the sight of one's own colorful army, lovingly painted, with elaborated coat-of-arms... let's assume Clash will become not only a good, but a GREAT game - an addictive one, played again and again. Wouldn't you like to have not some generic civ with standard equipment / uniforms, but instead lead YOUR army into battle? Imagine this in multiplayer - people could, if they want, exchange their personally edited graphics files, and you had YOUR very unique army marching on the road.

Always keep in mind that these are OPTIONAL ideas - no need to change anything if you don't want it, a default set will always be available. But for those mod freaks out there (and they are quite numerous amongst the civers), this, together with a good scenario editing tool, would be HEAVEN.

Hehe, you showed your true face when you admitted having played Warhammer Epic

No, really, that's exactly the difference: Warhammmer (without "Epic") is for those freaks like me, for whom atmosphere is nearly more important than the game
Saying that about the spray color de-masked you as being more the hardcore gamer... who certainly can't understand my strong vote for what you must see as unnecessary fancy.

Anyway, don't forget that I introduced myself as the graphics maniac to this project, so I HAVE to stress the graphical aspects, since I won't comment anything on the actual coding and not much on game algorithms.

Sure, you are right, it would be rather questionable if it was worth such an effort just for the eyecandy, but as I had toped to make clear the nice thing that this nice tweak would in fact be easier to do PLUS it would give Clash something CIV doesn't have (aside from gameplay aspects, but I mean visually).

And do not forget that this graphical configuration is only the reflection of the unit value customization, so it's not really eyecandy ONLY.

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If somebody asks you "Art thou a god?", you tell him "YES!"

I, for one, would almost beg for customizable units to be included. Like in Masters of Orion 2. I'm not too in to the 'look', but to me, the most fun part of playing General is in tweaking and using subtle differences in military units.

I would love the choice of (at least) light, medium and heavy units of all mobility choices (horse, foot, mech, air, sea, etc).

the thing about the "light, medium, heavy" variants could be done very easily for moust unit types.

Let's say when getting certain advances you can develop certain "standard units", i.e.

- infantry
- cavalry
- artillery etc., you know them

When developing a certain advance, you may e.g. get the design model for "ancient cavalry", being essentially cavalry without any add-ons, let's say they wear leather armor and a short sword by default.

Lateron, you discover "chain mail", and from now on can design a cavalry wearing that - here's your "heavy scout". Of course, one must be careful to balance equipment values (e.g. armor could make the unit slower?).

Same goes for weapons - you develop the war lance and can give that to the cavalry, may naming it "light knight", being able to upgrade these to "regular knights" when having discovered pate mail lateron and finally maybe "heavy lancers" after the introduction of full plate.

I'd strongly advise to NOT replace older techs by newer techs. Advanced as the new equipment may be, it often should have it's drawbacks (like weight, cost...), so often one would want to still build some "old-fashioned" units (not as in CIV, where you simply CAN'T build a phalanx in the modern ages).

As for the graphical aspects, it's IMHO absolutely necessary to reflect the individual equipment visually (and it looks nice, too... ).

I cann't agree with idea of custom units. I played SMAC. I don't play now because this custom unit system.
1. You need to spend a lot of time to produce different units.
2. Because they are similar many times you just don't know which is which.

You are absolutely right that no one would like to designe similar units again and again.

What I'm talking of is having fixed "standard" unit types which will appear in the "units to create" roster as soon as you have the necessary advencements. But you CAN design custom units. For what? See, players's style of play varies - with me, I'm a very defensive player. I'd just love to give my spearman that one point more defense by letting them wear full plate even if this makes them less maneuverable.

Now you could say: "Fine, why not include a premade heavy spearman by default?". Because then you'd have up to hundreds of "default units" which vary only slightly and make it very hard to know what is what.

Giving the player the opportunity to design custom units makes sure there will be - besides the "standard versions" only the unit types he's really interested in in the roster.

I don't think it would be any problem to even save a list of unit designs for use in later games (at least, if the later games are based on the same setting / scenario), so each second of "work" spent on tinkering with your units won't be lost when the game is finished.

So, regarding your two (in themselves absolutely correct) points:

1. You CAN spend a lot of time but it will pay and you only have to do it once (if at all, since there ARE default designs).

2. You WILL be able to differentiate not only because you decide on their value, but because you will be able to design them visually to a certain extent, as well.

Still opposed?

Sounds good to me. I feel the possibilities in the SMAC system, but IMO they can not reach the goal. Your idea is much better.

Why show individual "units" at all? Select a "commander" for a task force, and build or assign individual unit types to that task force. That task force is, by definition, a "stack" of individual unit capabilities. It fights as a whole, takes damage proportionally to various elements, and has a movement factor that depends on its makeup.

Minimum TF size = 1 unit + commander. [Now you have an additional 'factor' to play with :: commander capabilities, if you want to do so. You also have a new thing that civ's can become expert in :: being good commanders.] Maximum TF size = ??

However we are seriously considering:

1. Dominique's build units from the ground up notion (at least I think it was D who first brought it up). This would also make unit graphics more varied as a bonus. Finally it'd add some order to the unit power system which would help in designing individual units.

2. Optional Tactical combat system to fight battles out. Not necc. for the first pass at Clash, but keep it in mind as an add-on.