posted May 20, 1999 12:54                

1) Land Unit Movement: higher mv rates, revamp road & RR
2) Naval Unit Movement: higher mv rates, lower transport capacity
3) Air Unit Movement: units stationed; ranged attack 1 mp
4) Supply: mv at ˝ cost in uncontested territory, damage outside supply
5) Trade: lines set up using stationed ships
6) Zones of Control: flexible response, no absolute control
7) Exploration: cost mp to explore
8) Air Superiority: special ZOC for fighters
9) Air Support: ground attack
10) Strategic Air Attack: surprisingly simple (defense complicated)

The text of the rules can be found at MOVEMENT (1.0)

**Please read them very carefully** they will probably answer your questions before you post.

posted May 20, 1999 01:02                

(Excerpts):

Itokugawa: And about reality: Armor should be at least 6 times faster than unmounted units and airplanes at least 10 times faster than armors. In a 1000 X 1000 world this would be affordable but not now.

Speed of modern units: Yes and no. Open ground speed of a tank was usually 18-22 mph in WWII. That's *slower* than a Napoleonic light cavalry charge! Movement allowance I would keep low, because the primary limitation of all vehicular movement is fuel. Patton was limited more by supply than any other factor. Aircraft moreso, as they must fly out and back safely, whereas a tank that runs low on fuel can hold out until supplies catch up.

Theben: 3a)Then I would include a limit such as "cannot fly more than x2 attack range w/o landing at friendly base".

I might not be adverse to having the computer calculate bases and cities in transfer range. Range would be more like tripled; doubled because you're not going back plus whatever economy increase the unloaded planes get. However, given the bugginess of the goto function, I'm not that confident in additional programming. (No offense to the hard-working programmers.) While I would love to "fix" everything, some things just wouldn't be worth the trouble. Like RR. So I prefer to have strategic air transfer follow the model already established for airlift. Just assume that moving supplies air to small (unrepresented) airfield waypoints is included if necessary to reach distant locations.

Theben: 3b) All well and good, except that cities w/o airports should force air units to end their movement or cost extra mp's(reflecting the lack of immediate supplies and maintenance at the city).

All cities are already considered to have airfields with development of Flight advance. Since air transfer is limited to 1/turn, no need for end of move or extra cost. Moving a plane square-by-square as in 3a models the lack of immediate supplies for additional units, assuming the unit moves more than 1 mp × air multiplier.

Theben: 3c) Then you should allow the "one in or out" per city/airfield with the tech advance, not the airport. I stand by my idea, my reasoning being the construction of the airports includes building the capacity(cargo planes, etc.) to conduct airlifts all across your nation.

Building airports in more cities increases in/out for those cities; if effected by city size as previously suggested that would be enough. As mentioned above, flaunt not the laws of murphy and programming corrolaries. :·)

Theben: As to the mechanics of the transfer, I would use a targeting system similar to the paradrop. You'd have an little plane with an 'X' through it, once you passed it over a valid target(friendly airbase in range) the 'X' would disappear, and it would instantly move there once you click. The computer would tally the actual mp's used, including fractions if air multiplier used, maybe telling you the cost before actually sending the plane.

3b is instant air transfer; move by hand is separate. Attack range and moving square-by-square unrelated. Moving air units pass over w/o attacking. In "reality" the aircraft might make stopovers for rest & refueling, but in this model we just move them sq-by-sq (using the air multiplier). Do you mean a macro-like function or something so you don't have to count squares? [idea adopted]

Theben: 5a-b)I would adopt a trade model similar to what SMAC has, but allow a grid that displays the lines of trade. Then pirates/privateers could sit on or near those lines, siphoning money away from one or both(or more if overlapping lines) trading partners. Of course, there's also that nasty habit of diseases following trade routes...

Yes, a line or something should appear when trade line is established. Since overseas trade routes are on trade lines, which require stationing ships along the route, the stationed ships are the points where attck of any sort is resolved. It's just a way to model it all.

Theben: I just don't think the stationing of ships is necessary.

Well, it's a way to have some continuing cost for trade routes, and cost for protecting trade. If spacing requires two or three units to reach the objective each station must be protected individually. Protection from piracy around ports requires a ship in each ocean square touching the city. Protection is no guarantee against piracy.

Theben: 6-7)Sounds ok, I believe CTP will have a "guard" function similar to what you describe. One question: is the unit forcing it's way through ZOC's out-of-supply? How would it reconnect w/o moving back?

A unit forcing its way through ZOC follows the same rules as any other. Supply is not traced through a square in opponents' ZOC. From 4a, "Any unit not touching a square in supply takes damage each turn depending on distance from nearest square in supply." By that definition there's a transition area of 1 square width, possibly in an opponent's ZOC, where a unit would not get the movement cost reduction but also would not suffer out-of-supply losses. Chances are a unit forcing through a ZOC is either in that transition area and moving to another square in transition, or moving to a square not touching any square in supply.

Obviously there are details to be worked out: how much damage/turn? How do intervening hostile ZOCs increase the effective distance? Can a unit be totally cut off, and would that kill the unit or just magnify out-of-supply damage? I wouldn't bother speculating on all that at this level of discussion.

Theben: I oppose any idea for fighters to have ground-like ZOC's that completely stop movement. Otherwise no unit could ever approach an enemy target w/fighters.

Air ZOC will effect supply status only… [and other aircraft]

posted May 20, 1999 01:42                

CyberShy: moving in stages for civs in combat to avoid I-move-everybody-50-squares-and-kill-you. (See his thread in General/Suggestions.)

Trachmyr: Another [solution], which can be incorperated as well, is that units must "prepare for combat", this action must be taken before an attack is possible... and it cost a signifigant amount of movement (as a percentage of starting movement allotment).

My counterproposal: Mobilization allowing incremental movement or some of the strategic movement rules already suggested; unmobilized civs will move "normally." (There would be some cost involved to mobilize.)

Brother Greg's objections: The only way to do a truly realistic system, while being fun as well, would be to have turns of a week or so, with current movement rates. But then we'd need, oh, roughly 150,000 turns per game… As I said, the current system works, and is fun. The only argument you have is "realism", and as I stated, realism doesn't come into it if it interferes with gameplay, which this would.

Seriously, please go and try CIV II, and just multiply movements by, say, 3, and see how it plays. Take my word for it, it ain't fun… I think you're making too complex system, to fix a problem that isn't there in the first place. I don't think I'm going to convince you, though a little healthy discussion is always good.

My response: I have playtested the movement rates indicated in §s 1a and 2a, with armor at 8 and modern ship movement rates up to 22, against the AI. Since much of the military action still uses dips/spies there is no imbalance created. Units rarely get to attack multiple times, since damage reduces movement proportionately. Railroads tend to de-emphasize the high movement rates later in the game in any case. But I don't have MGE to test it with tougher opponents. Any voluteers?

What it should do: force players to do D-Day style massed invasions across a wider front, rather than isolated landings that defenders have a good chance of flanking, pinning down, and eliminating. "Feint or real?" is the dilemma every defender must face.

mrtemba: I think that there should be… currents in the ocean and "[jet] streams" in the air… they would only work one way.

Asmodeous: …1 year per turn THROUGH THE WHOLE GAME or 5 years per turn the entire way through would give one more basis for setting up movement in a logical manner. Part of the reasons that movement rates got skewed in Civ1/2 is that you start off with 50 years per turn, then you go to 5, then 1, then .5, etc, etc. So part of the time it makes sense, the rest of it it's like all of your units are on drugs of some sort.

Trachmyr: Hexes [or staggered squares]…
Shining1: I hate hexes…
Asmodeous: Hex-based tiles are the only way to have "fair" movement…

Lancer: Would it be possible to leave the movement distances per turn about where they are and have everyone move at once?

posted May 20, 1999 04:16                

Zones of control should not forbid movement when at war, but make it possible for the opponent to bombard an enemy unit. Coastal fortresses and big ships should generate naval ZOC.

posted May 20, 1999 06:00                

while i can see the validity of arguments by grognard wargamers that are pro-hex (i.e. the tradition of strategy board-games & various computer war games), that argument is easily countered by citing the "traditional" system within the civilization series (including smac).

but ultimately i think it comes down to one thing: ergonomics. the 8-cardinal directional system of civ(1/2/smac) allows something hexes do not: mapping movement directions exactly to the keyboard (i.e. the numeric pad). one of the greatest interface coups of the civ series is the ease of unit movement (made slightly more complex by the isometric perspective begun in civ2 -- but still ultimately more manageable than mouse movement for every unit).

that's one more reason it's so easy to say, "just one more turn" in these kinds of turn-based games. imagine the annoyance of moving units hundreds of times by mouse commands alone -- even with smac's click and drag go-to command interface.

so please. read my lips, no new hexes.

posted May 20, 1999 14:01                

Which thread this belongs to is difficult to say but here goes.

--------------------------------------------
How about different resources, such as iron, coal, petroleum, and uranium.

For example, the maintenance cost of per turn of any modern army unit would require a certain amount of petroleum and iron. This would make economy and trade more important because countries that don't have natural resources must trade for them.

Make it that the where the resources are located are predetermined but remain unknown until the technology is developed to discover them. So a country might be behind but suddenly by 1900 discovers an oil reserve
and suddenly turns the game in his favor.

You can also give each country the ability to store resources like oil in reserve. So if country A trades for oil from country B, but wants to take it over, country A might want to build up a reserve before declaring
hostilies, country B on the other hand, might be forewarned of the attack because of the oil build up.

I always felt that although CIV is a great game, it over emphasized the military aspects and de-emphasized the economic aspects of history.

posted May 20, 1999 15:22                

If you think you have micromanagment of movement issues NOW, just wait.

"Unit in Supply" rules, for example would just about cripple the ability of the AI to launch attacks. It would, almost certainly, never be smart enough to work out all the details.

posted May 20, 1999 22:32             

To avoid micromanagement to upgrade the roads would be to have them automatically upgrade all at once, build something in a city to upgrade all of its roads or have them "grow" like the forests in SMAC

I'd also like to see railroads modified so that you can use them only to travel from one city to another. In civII, once the railroads are established across your empire, it is too easy to have an internal defense strategy. Also if the commodity supply & demand structure is used, you could develop trains (steam,diesel and electric/bullet) to transport troops and/or goods.

posted May 21, 1999 10:27                

I do not like the idea of having the roads "just grow on their own" .. nor of having them all updraded at once.

There is a strategic value in having good roads "here".. but not "there". Real world countries understand this: France intentionally made it's railroads unusable by German trains... [rails narrower, I think.]

posted May 22, 1999 04:06                

------------------
CIV3 DEVELOPMENT LIST COORDINATOR

posted May 22, 1999 04:08                

Perhaps an easier way to implement the idea of supply lines would be to make all units similar to the Civ2 Helicopter. Every turn a unit would lose health and would have to return to a base/city every six turns.

The game could allow you to build fortesses, air fields or naval base that could substitute for a city in this respect. (They could also store units and heal them quicker after a battle).

As units got more advanced, the number of turns before return could be advanced. Also early units could supply by foraging/pillaging instead of retuning to base.

This would have the added of advance of helping to simulate/stimulate the historical expansion of world powers, as they sought to build and defend bases so that there ships could trade in far away oceans (i.e Capetown, Singapore, Hong Kong, Phillipines, Hawaii, Puetro Rico etc.)

posted May 22, 1999 09:10                

There should be some form of supply unit and each city would count as one. When you progress through the ages you will get better supply units and with more supply points.
Each of these supply units would extend the supply by a number of squares depending on how many points they have, and each square would cost a number of supplies.
If a unit is within supply they function normally, if not will begin to loose Hitpoints and movement capacity.

The supply would be easily shown on the map by similar lines as the borders in SMAC.

Then you could complicate it further if you want to. A supply unit has to be in supply of at least one city. That city and all other connected cities would have to pay the support for all units within the supply units or city supply range equally (as in CTP)
Each sea based supply unit would be connected to a certain city. This city would in turn have to have a certain number of transportships docket in their harbor, depending on the distance in sea movement. A straight line would be shown on the map, and any nation (CIV) that whants to inferfere with it could attack it and try to destroy the transport and eventual escort (as pirating in CTP).
If a supply unit is cut of from all cities they will cease to function within one turn if the line are not restored.
With technology developing there could be other supply units such as airlifting (functions exactly as sea supply, though expensive in support).

posted May 23, 1999 12:34                

Really? An army can forage for food and supplies in any inhabited, nonbarren environment.

As for traveling 'undamaged' ..Why not? If you're going to allow a unit to "repair" while resting in a non-city square -- pretty unrealistic, but certainly makes the game more playable.

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While I'm on the subject, I am opposed to a change to make exploration more difficult and/or dangerous. In SMAC, units that are sent on exploration missions rarely survive, as it is, due to encounters with hostile, indigenous lifeforms. Make them less mobile and/or damaged in some way will really cripple exploration... making contact w/ other civs less likely, making diplomacy and trade less, etc. etc.

posted May 23, 1999 05:29                

Let the computer divide your country into administrative subcountires. A subcountry would be all cities that are connected by road and/or have city areas next to each other. If you are lucky your entire empire is only one subcountry. In the subcountry all food, ammo and fuel can be pooled and supply any friendly units in the area, that is, in a city-area or on or besides a road that leads to the subcountry and not besiged by enemy forces. If your country is divided by a desert or mountains then there would be two subcounties but you could build a road to conncet then thus making the two into one. This road would be important to guard since a clever enemy could send a army to cut of the supplyline .Roads would be important during a campaing so roads could be destroyed by the retreating side or maybe in the battle for a tile, i think that there is a need for a combatengineer unit for this... The area supported by the subcountry would be the area that is accessible to a city in the subcountry and all roads connected to the subcountry plus one tile in every direction so that really small gaps wouldn't be a problem and connecting for example small islandcities next to the mainland.

If you want to move supplies from one continent to another you would start a supplyrout between two cites and stating what supplies you want to move between the two and the quantities. Instead of forcing you to build a unit to move them from one city or another or start a traderuote o'la C:ctp that is pirated by enemies two seconds later the cites would send aways a convoy-unit that woldn't cost anything (maybe a small amount of gold) to build and is sent by the city automaticly. those units could be sunk by enemies but each convoy wouldn't have a large amount of cargo and the city would send more than one per turn so that some would slip trough.

Food and ammo (=production) would be taken from the cities in the subcountry but fuel would be a resource like tobacco or whatever. But the resource wouldn't be like other resources that are few and almost never are at the same place. Instead the computer would would make larger areas were there is oil, maybe 5-10 tiles, to see thenm you could press some special button (O=oil perhaps) and the areas with oil would be highlighted (some might be hidden and not found until later on in the game). In these areas you would be able to build a special tile improvment called oilfield and would produce fuel. This way war could be started just to conquer areas with oilfields. The same could be used for iron ore so that a country can't build steelunits without some basic resources.

(Modified text from Topic:CIV3 Suppliying your troops in the general/suggestions forum)

posted May 24, 1999 12:27                

In the early ages, armies could more easily find supplies in the field, not needing a city. And in the current or future times, technology was available to the bureaucrats to bring supplies forward.. or even airlift 'em long distances.

Ok, the story of getting fuel to Patton in France was an engaging one, and a logistical puzzle. And logistics is important to a field army... but why add uncounted level s of complexity just for supply?

posted May 24, 1999 03:40                

quote:

---

How does it help the game be more enjoyable?

---

posted May 24, 1999 13:22                

I also agree that *some* ships should be able to travel up at least *some* rivers. There may have to be made a distinction between major (that can be sailed) and minor (that can't) rivers. Also, there would have to be ratings on which ships can navigate rivers (frigates, etc.) and those that can't (battleships).

posted May 25, 1999 02:17                

Of course, make a mobile supply unit. You'll need one if you ever want to make a landing on another continent.

posted May 25, 1999 23:57                

If implemented as above, terrain such as deserts and mountains could afect foraging. More than one turn in a desert, even with foraging, causes damage (losses). Simple, and yet not a real pain in the butt. You don't have to keep supply routes open, but you do have to keep an eye on your movement.

Then you could have a supply caravan as another ability. Lets units last longer in hostile terrain.

posted May 26, 1999 14:21                

1. Defeating a superior invasion force with a brilliant flanking move to cut the supply line/supply city/beachead.

2. Reflecting the dependence of modern armies on oil.

posted May 27, 1999 17:35                

In my deployment system, all units built are added to the deploy list, and any unit with full movment (and health?) can be added. after you have moved your pieces for the game you choose where to deploy your units in the deploy list. They can be deployed in any allied city, base or certain naval vessels (like carriers, transports). The deployed units become active at the beggining of the next turn (maybe without any mp left, for balance), but if the location they are being deployed to is taken, they are destraoyed, without offering any deffense, to prevent people from instantly defending their cities / bases.

cities and bases that are under siege have a limit on the units deployed to them (depending on how well surrounded, and size, etc)

This is the only way for air units to be moved in my system. They bombard from where they are based.

See my thread A new civilization concept?
for details...

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

posted May 27, 1999 19:11                

The engineers should be able to modify existing rivers too, that should be less expensive in resources than building a brand new canal. This could be very useful, and it should be a very expensive option. Maybe a new Wonder would be good to introduce here.

posted May 27, 1999 19:45                

My thoughts about supply.
keep it simple. You are in supply within your borders. you cannot repair units if they are not in supply. naval units are alyways in supply (very mobile, realsitically, some of the fleet can travel back to port and bring some supplies in a turn). In my system repairs cost gold. We could make field repairs full price, repairs in a city 2/3 price, or 1/3 price with an appropriate structure (barracks, airport, port)

posted May 31, 1999 09:09                

quote:

---

Supply has no effect on unit support costs, only on effectiveness of that support reaching the unit. Supply would extend some limited distance from the nearest friendly city not in rebellion. Supply radius would start at 1; increasing 1 with wheel or horse and again with auto. Supply cannot be traced through unfriendly units' Zone of Control (including Fighters). Any unit in supply moving to a tile in supply gets movement costs cut in half. Any unit not touching a tile in supply takes damage each turn depending on distance from nearest tile in supply. Display grid could be toggled to show supply status instead of city radii.

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posted May 31, 1999 18:35             

It would be interesting if there could be, in addition to its terrain, three different types of coast squares:

Beach - units can unload and load from/to transports and units with multiple movement points can move again or attack

Normal - units can unload and load from/to transports but multiple movement points units cannot move again or attack until the next turn.

posted May 31, 1999 19:49                

In the border thread I saw it proposed that military units could "sieze" disputed teritory, that is teritory that is next to the border, not deep within their territory. Capturing cities always works.

posted June 01, 1999 14:12                

Ember: Still that doesn't differentiate from airlift. If you can deploy that way, why have airlift? Why connect cities with RR except on tiles that would gain the RR bonus? I'm exaggerating; I just want you to clarify your ideas.

posted June 01, 1999 17:06                

Airlift is instant and allows the airlifted unit to defend in the following turn. In effect an airlift is a priority deploy. You use the fastest transport to get it there right away.

RR is faster still for short distances, it allows the unit to activate active defense if it has sufficient move remaining. I don't think RR shopuld be truely unlimited move. Pathfinding AI always moves you over some roads eventually and you lose movement that way also.

Deploy takes minimum one full turn, during which the unit can be destroyed, but offers no defense. If that is too quick you could make it take one turn to add a unit to the deploy list, then the next turn you place it, and the turn after that it arrives, 2 full turns to re-deploy a unit, or 1 to deploy a new one.

The comp. only checks ZOC when you try and move, doesn't it?

posted June 03, 1999 15:06                

1. First and foremost, I want to reiterate what someone else posted--THIS IS NOT A PURE WARGAME!!! Anything that too dramatically enhances the importance of the military part of the game messes it up.

2. Bombers either have to be made alot cheaper, or they have to have the ability to attack and return to a city. As it is, they are a big waste of shields. At deity, the AIs play all sorts of games to prevent itself from falling too far behind in science, and will steal flight in a heartbeat. Your window of bombers unhampered by pesky fighters is small.

Another point is that both fighters and bombers should have unlimited, or nearly so, MPs as long as they are traveling between cities. This would enhance gameplay. One of my frustrations with Civ2 is that you can't really use the 3rd leg of the triad much.

3. I favor a WOW that enhance the movement ability of caravans. Details in the Wonders thread.

4. In another place and time, I made the following suggestion--there will be 3 kinds of shields. Fuel, building material, and exotics. Each square is given a value, totaling 3 points. 1-1-1 means an equal portion of each shield is fuel, building materials, and exotics. This would be equal over the whole board, but there would be concentrations in different areas--one area might be heavy in building materials, or weak in fuels.

Anyway, you would have a building advisor, who would keep track of this for your empire as a whole. Let's say your empire produced 100 shields as a whole. As long as each of the 3 elements was at least 25 (1/4), you're OK. But if you are 20-25-55, then you lose the last 20 shields of exotics (to get your lowest to 1/4 the total), and lose them in each city in proportion to the shields produced (20 of 100 is one of every 5, so every city producing at least 5 loses one, if 10, loses 2, etc., until you've lost 20 shields).

I think this would add an element of strategy to the game, and also enhance the value of explorers. If you find your home are is weak in a certain element, you need to think about tradeoffs--conquer your pesky neighbor, or that other, nice, neighbor, who just happens to be sitting on a bunch fuel.

The random element should be similar to the terrain, where some areas have alot of mountains, but no huge mountain ranges. It might be simpler to triple everything--cost in shields, and the yield too.

posted June 04, 1999 02:38                

ember (and Harel, if your still there): The computer checks ZOC when you try to move. But when the enemy units moved into their current position (last turn, or X turns ago) it checked for ZOCs then, too. The computer is always checking, every time every piece moves, so having it maintain a map is very little overhead (bit-toggling).

Flavor Dave: long time no see (at least in the forums I read)
I have similar ideas. I want to have movement rules with more strategic generalizations = less player mmgmt [micromanagement]. More emphasis on trade shifts focus of the military towards defending trade routes rather than brute conquest. But the AI needs to be programmed to think trade. Check out the proposal in MOVEMENT, especially §3) Air Unit Movement, and let me know what you think.

posted June 04, 1999 10:32                

Another thought, to enhance trade--perhaps you could have explorers build a trading post, sort of like engineers build an airbase. The trading post would have the following power--you can instantly move any caravan to it.

Another thought--the explorer could "convert" into a trading post, with the same abilities as above, and it would become a unit with a1, d3, in a fortress. That gets back to your thought about the game emphasizing other roles of the military besides conquest. The trading post wouldn't survive a war, unless reinforced with some offensive units from back home. NOTE: the trading post shouldn't get any terrain bonus, or perhaps, you can only build a trading post on a plain or grassland.

posted June 04, 1999 11:05                

An idea I had posted in OTHER as a terrain suggestion:

Problem: by the mid-to-late game travel on land is quite fast. But sea travel is so slow - it needs to be sped up. An infantry unit can move on a Railroad across land far faster than it can move across water in a ship. This makes no sense.

Solution: *Sealanes* like roads except built on water. This is easy if they are built as public works (or by some sort of "sea-former/settler"). They represent a given technology of sea transport used in a regular commercial/non-fighting fashion. 4 possible levels: Galley, Sailing Ship, Steam Ship, Supercargo ship.
- They would have terrain limits: early sea lanes couls not be built through deep waters far from land.
- They would have movement limits similar to land transport, though maybe faster early and slower late.
- They would have to begin and end at cities (need large ports to load and unload) and units could not just jump on them.
- Land units move along them just like any road or RR square, but while at sea the units cannot do anything except die if attacked. All units on a sealane move at the same movement rate and have the same MPs - they are limited by the ships they are on, not by their own ability. Same for planes (because you might want to ship a plane across a wide ocean that it can't fly over in one turn).
- They can be built and used by any player. Note that while computer units can travel along the sealane, they could not attack an enemy port at the other end. Unlike roads, since all the units on a sealane are non-combat, they should not prevent the movement of another player's sealane units through the square.

Sealanes do not render existing ship units irrelevant.
- Players who want a defensive ability for sea transport would still build transports, galleons, caravels, etc. Players contemplating amphibious landings (necessary until the first city on a continent is taken) would still need troopships and such. Players who want to power project would still need aircraft carriers.
- Before a sealane is constructed, the ocean needs to be charted and mapped, and early transit would depend on actual ship units.
- Sealanes could be pirated and pillaged like roads. Thus, a player needs a strong navy to protect sealanes thet the player considers vital.

Sealanes solve ocean movement problems.
Sealanes answer the "round-the-world-with-a- chain-of-transports" problem.
Sealanes would not alter the game balance considerably.

Cost considerations:
Sealanes need to be cheap enough so that players do not feel that they are economically better off by building transport ships instead. That defeats the purpose of the micro-management reduction.

AI considerations:
Obviously, the computer needs to be smart enough to evict any settlers on the ground or go to war to prevent a player from slipping in, founding a city, setting up a sealane, and then flooding the computer with lots of units.

posted June 04, 1999 18:45                

Using Regions: Each region has a 'deploy list'. Units built in a region can only deploy in that region, and units re-deployed from within that region can only be brought back in that region. You could ship a limited number of units a turn between (nearby) regions from the deploy menu. This would make long distance deployments take longer. Regions linked by (rail)road or by port cities would have an increased amount available for transfer.

For isolated cities the number of deploys per turn/ turns per deploy would mimick the small amount of supplies that can be brought in (say, muskets), combined with what can be built/trained locally (the troops to carry the muskets)

Truely isolated cities would have no regions within a reasonable proximity and would have to fend for themselves. In modern times there is so much bulk transortation (including air) that the imroved deployment in larger/national regions would be reasonably realistic. Remmber cities under siege will ALWYAS have a reduced (like an isolated city in the mid-game) number of deployments per turn. Some smuggeling will always occure on the time/geography scale that civ represents.

Deploy can only occure between cities, bases, and some naval vessels. transports and carriers can deploy, say 2 units, a turn, to represent the fact that ships move a lot faster than they do in civ, the visiable unit represents the concentrated, velnerable portion of the fleet.

posted June 04, 1999 20:00                

Second Suggestion/Discussion Point:

Roads and Railroads' effects are currently pretty bland and homogenized. First, road networks were a post-4000BC development, and Good (all weather) Roads not only a late development but due to several different Advances. They affect not only movement, but Supply and City Radius/Size.
Early Roads: all you're doing is leveling the ground, marking routes. This Advance is available (was available in Mesopotamia) relatively early: by 2500BC. Effect is simply to make Movement Cost for the terrain the same as for Grassland/Plains AND allow city radius to extend one tile.
With no road network, city radius is not going to be more than one tile from the city. Think about it: in 4000BC you've got no wheeled vehicles, no barrels or pottery containers - how are you going to haul anything from the outlying famrs into the city? Add roads of any kind, and pack animals at least can make longer journeys and wheeled vehicles become usable- extend the radius to about what it is now.
Paved Roads (Rome 312BC) are graded, good foundations, stone, brick, or concrete surface, require big bucks every turn for maintenance BUT provide faster movement (single riders could make 100 miles a day on the Roman roads) - possibly to 1/2 Movement Point per tile regardless of terrain. They would NOT extend the city radius again. Reason: draft animals only go so fast, and after 100-200 miles they eat up in fodder the weight they're hauling in the wagon over any kind of road: animal transport establishes a firm upper limit on how far you can haul Bulk Goods (like supplies and food). Later, in the early 19th, late 18th century, you can get Advance: MacAdamizing which gives you cheaper all-weather roads, but you still need Motor Vehicles to extend the range you can haul Food over them effectively.
Rivers and Railroads extend everything much further than roads do. A river boat (Nile River, Egypt as early as 3600BC) can haul several tons while being poled along by a couple of men. A city on a river would have a City Radius extended up and down the river several tiles. In addition, Supply Lines can be traced much, much further along a Navigable River than along any road before Motor Vehicles.
You extend your Navigable Rivers with another Advance: Canals - and more maintenance costs to keep 'em working.
Railroads practically negate the city radius: you can haul bulk goods from anywhere the railroad goes into the city. You can also supply virtually any size army/stack as long as it's in a tile with a railroad and that railroad reaches a bunch of your cities.

Third Suggestion/ Discussion Point:

posted June 04, 1999 20:38                

I do agree that modern ships should be faster. For a frigate to be only 33% faster than a trireme is kinda silly, and also, IMO, has a negative effect on gameplay. The slowness of ships is yet another way that this game is unbalanced toward the army.

posted June 06, 1999 12:23                

Ancient and medieval armies could mostly forage or plunder the food needed. Modern armies are just too large for doing so (except for guerrillas).

Shortage of fuel and interchangeable parts would stop armoured vehicles, while infantry could go on.