posted July 06, 1999 19:33            

I think that building units should take down population in respect to the size of the unit, but I am not really sure how this could be carried out as of yet

one idea that I have is that cities that are producing units take man power from a national group of population reserved for that purpose (and disbanding a troop would add the disbanded strength to the stockpile)

and one could also move from the stockpile to any city with national or regional government structure or any city connect to one by roads, railroads or the like that are free of enemy zoc and the same method is used when removing a population point to go into that stock pile

the amount of people that went to make that population point (in civ2 the first was 10000 the next 20000, etc.) would go into your stockpile

this would realistically give the edge in combat to those civilizations that are larger

then that national stockpile, which would be divided evenly between the (or as dictated by the social engineering choices) between the cities of national and regional government (for the occasion of one of those cities being blocaded from the rest), would be used to form the units

(maybe something like the courthouse would denote regional government and the palace would of course denote national government)

each type of unit would require different ammounts of people depending on the social settings and technolgy and type of unit

a city (or regional or national government or a city connected to one by an unbroken, by enemy zoc, road) would then pay the production price to train and equip that unit

there would be technology that would change the available organization choices allowing for larger groups to work together and thus units that are larger, a good example of this would be the radio

each like 1000 combat strength (number subject to debate) would be represtented in the game by like 10 hp

an alternate idea is to have the respective particpants of a battle have their respective combat strenth taken down by the largest common denominator and then the ratio used as their respective hps for that battle

combat strength would be found by taking the whole size of the unit and subtracting a precentage that reflects medicine tech level, organization tech level, organization type, terrain type and army(ies) type

for example a settler unit would be cheap to build but would take a lot of population away from your stockpile, which would make sense

some examples of combat strength modifications:

in jungle more people would be sick - less combat size
if medicine is better less people are sick - greater combat size
in ancient times there was often a lot of people who did not engage in combat who traveled with the troop - less combat strength

also, for those units who work the land, the time factor for finishing the work would be related to the combat size, showing that larger groups of people can get more done

this idea would also take care of that strange occurance in civ2 where a settler that takes you down a million population works the same as one that takes you down 20 thousand

this idea would also but more ballance into the game by making big cities more worthwhile and go against the strategy of producing thousands of small cities (my favorite strategy)

please comment, this is just one page of my ideas and I have many more, but this post is getting a little long

posted July 06, 1999 19:40            

Unfortunately revolutions and revolts in the cities is done too simplisticly in civ, you really can't wage an insurgency or a counterinsurgency low-intensity type of war (if i could think of a way i would suggest it, give me time ). that would add more to special ops and leaders and go to a suggestion I had in the COMBAT thread which is to diversify war because Civ sticks to a really basic view of warfare (conventional mostly and try to take the cities, not really what military history was about).

I love the "have resources availlable on the map" idea (kinda like Age of Empires) but make it include horses and elephants and livestock (the native americans didn't have horses until europe brought them and the elephant story is the same) this would make it more challenging to build units and give a cultural feel too. (this should be mentioned in the terrain thread I'll lend my support there too).

Brain: I'm not a big fan of your religious units, they are represented. The "jesus" idea really killed it, maybe if you atleast tried the term "martyr" it might not have seem too out there.

posted July 06, 1999 20:17            

Brain,
Flav Dave has a point. Spies are already powerful enough; any unit more powerful than a vet spy is not something I want. Actually I want LESS units overall, and spies should be abstracted to a espionage screen. The only single person unit I want is a generic military "leader".
My point was that religion has been a touchy topic here. Just check out the "Real Religions in civ3?" thread in the Suggestions forum. Even after I tried to explain my position I received negative responses. So care is called for when discussing religion. And the "Jesus" unit really turned me off, although I wasn't crazy about the rest anyway.

Jon Miller & E,
I'm still against units causing pop reductions, for the above reasons (7/3 post).

posted July 06, 1999 21:11            

topic: settlers (or the like)

there should be settlers like in civ that improve the terrain

the biggest reason for this instead of public works is that public works does not make sense in military situations

One thing I hated in call to power is that I could not send a settler to build forts, railroads, roads, and airports when fighting in enemy territory

I always in civ send settlers or engineers for an attacking army

of course you should be able to build stuff in enemies land whenever you want (that is the reason they have that limitation there) but you should also sometimes be able to and that distinction can only be had with a unit

also if one civilization is invading another the defending civilization should not be able to improve at their own leasure, no, the invader should be able to destroy the improvers

this of course leaves the tiring mircomanagement of improving during peace with settlers

this can be solved, as I see it, in either of the following ways (maybe both):

have a competent auto ai with a lot of choices to choose from like farm and road only or road only between cities or improve only in a certain city radius or improve only within the bounds I set (which would then be set by clicking certain points that have a line connecting then and ending when you click the original point), of course this would be devided into different sections such as what improvements do I make and a lot of choices (multiple ones can be picked such as: mine mountains, mine hills, irrigate plains, road plains) and then a seperate section of where do I make them and a lot of choices (such as the bounds choice or the city radius choice or the road between cities choice) and finally there would be a third section with special choices like as soon as a foreign unit moves within seeing radius alert and then when such a thing occured you would get a message at the beginning of your turn asking if you want the unit to cancel action or continue on auto

long paragraph

an alternate idea (or maybe both should be included) would be to give each settler a building queue that would show you the order of their jobs, where their jobs are to be done (the location numbers and maybe if you click on that entree it shows a picture of that square and moves your cursor there), and what they (the settler) are going to do there

as I mentioned previously in the units thread, the time it takes to do an improvement project should be a factor of the size of that unit but this idea would only work if my size idea was accepted

settlers should be able to be protected by small armed attachments that are hooked with the unit, modern settler type units would have guns with them providing some defense, their unit in actual combat would have a large subtraction because of its type (if my size idea is used)

canals and terrain changing as well as bridges and tunnels should be possible, maybe not as drastic of height changing as smac though

posted July 07, 1999 13:31            

I do this now. I do it when an AI is tired of me buying his cities and goes democracy. Lay siege to his cities, to starve them and deprive them of arrows. Build tons o' spies, and either have them randomly destroy buildings, or go after the money and happiness stuff. It's really fun when you see that a city is paying for improvements that cost way more than the revenue it's generating, b/c you've destroyed the bank and marketplace. Also, destroying the happiness stuff forces either revolt (and no revenue) or an increase in luxuries.

Also, remember that in demo, each unit needs a sheild of support. Occupy all mined hills and buffaloes, and watch the enemy city go from producing 15 shields to 5. It's gonna take a while to build that factory now, ain't it?

"I like the population cost of units idea it is more realistic and it makes it more challenging."

Wrong on both points. It isn't realistic, unless the population model is radically changed. The US has a huge military, yet it's a speck compared to our total pop.

2nd, it wouldn't be more challenging, it would be easier. You understand the power of we love days, and the computer doesn't. So, late in the game, you're going to have vastly larger pop. than the AIs. That would mean that the AIs couldn't support a huge military, and you could. Using your idea, as long as I survive to build the SoL, it's all over. I go demo, go we love to get a huge pop., then build an unmatchable military.

posted July 07, 1999 15:27            

topic: generals

If there are generals in this game they should not be like in moo2 (and diffinitely not like in mom) because they would be too powerful

If generals are in the game they should not be bought as in moo2 or mom, did the confederacy pay an arm and a leg for Lee or Jackson? was pay even a factor for them? The answer is of course no and no like it would be for every other famous leader of men. If history provides any telltale of human experience (which we are at some level trying to recreate) mercenaries have rrarely proven to be the greatest generals.

mercenaries themselves matterred numerous times in history (and that should be added in diplomacy as I will add later) but their leaders did not go arround selling their personal services and neither did domestic governors

it is true that military and domestic leaders were bought but most of the payment was for bribe to facilitate the betrayal of that leaders city or army

if generals are in the game there should be a disabling option

generals (or domestic leaders) should come via random events or when your civilization is in trouble

if generals are in the game they should just provide help to the army, not be a seperate powerful unit (maybe they could be a weak diplomat looking type unit and be weak in themselves but help surrounding units) by themselves

generals should age and die after like 20 turns (this would help limit them and keep them from dominating so much)

also generals should not provide as many plus as leaders did in moo2

posted July 07, 1999 23:11            

Seriously, tho, if you want priests to convert, then just play Age of Empires. It works in AoE b/c the production model is so different from Civ2.

posted July 08, 1999 15:53            

the idea is extremely unrealistic and if it is included (without in option to turn it off) I would not play the game

move this idea to the religion thread and let them take it on if you want more discussion of it

besides it would be unballancing and add nothing to the game as already stated

posted July 08, 1999 18:31            

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

posted July 09, 1999 08:27            

It would be more realistic to only allow one nuke to be built, by any civ, anywhere. That's really real.

posted July 10, 1999 16:27            

Talking about nukes, why not include biological/chemical weapons?

They would kill/decimate units and population, but as a less grade than nukes.
City/terrain improvements would not be harmed.

posted July 11, 1999 02:27            

"Their definitely needs to be penalties, specifically diplomatic, but should they last forever?"

posted July 11, 1999 14:36            

Military Units and Population -
Flavor Dave, the US has an army of half a million that is not a huge army. But i see your point in how people can get a huge army with a huge population and beat down the computer, but that's life, even in civ3 science and money go up with a huge population too. I saw get rid of the "we love days" and add some disasters to poulation like epidemics too.

posted July 11, 1999 14:36            

It should not work ala smac, A nukes you, B and C (your allies) do nothing, you nuke A, B and C cancel alliance and declare war on you.

Is this the place for this conversation?

Jon Miller

posted July 13, 1999 12:02            

Da Sicilian,
#1 post: Pretty much what I was thinking, only with a lot more details.

posted July 13, 1999 14:17            

Please explain (altho maybe in another thread.) If you're getting rid of "we love" in order to make your idea of the military taking away from the population, that's putting the cart before the horse, not to mention making the Pyramids the sole goal of the game.

If you have some other reason for getting rid of "we love," please explain. Your idea is IMO a bad one, since it takes away one of the 2 key advantages of democracy (the other being immunity to bribery.) Your idea would mean that you'd be forced into warmongering communism or fundy.

posted July 13, 1999 16:37            

Who the hell cares about us and Japan. Let's think about how this would work in Civ3--you know, the game we're talking about. I don't know about you, but when I have nukes and I'm in war mode, I'm in one of two situations. Either I'm pretty dominant, so that the AIs are afraid of me and make peace everytime I take a city or kill one of its units. Or, I'm completely dominant, and the AIs are acting as one to try to keep me from winning. In either case, your diplomatic penalty doesn't matter.

And if you're talking about the AI using nukes, why would you want to make the game easier for you?

posted July 13, 1999 17:40            

By the way - this thread is getting long and it is about time for a new summary. How far has JT3 come?

posted July 15, 1999 17:05            

More generally, if your diplomat or spy tries to do something nasty, there should be some probablility that your unit becomes a unit for the other player.

posted July 16, 1999 16:01            

Sea Units and the Design Workshop.
Assuming a SMAC-style workshop is instituted for CivIII, here are my ideas on how to ‘build’ naval units for the historical periods.
Each naval unit onsists of:
Chassis:
Wood Plank Hull
Available very early, with an advance like Wood Working
Wood Clinker-Built Hull
Much sturdier than the above, allows both larger vessels and longer sea ranges. Requires Joinery or some similar medieval woodworking advance.
Iron Hull
Another increase in size now possible, and much more armor can be carried. This requires Wrought iron, Blast Furnaces, and other 19th century advances to be built in quantity.
Steel Hull
Almost any size hull can be built if you’ve got the engines to move it. Requires modern Steel Making (Bessemer or Open Hearth process for Bulk Steel production) advance.
Each Hull is also indicated as either a Speed Hull (long and narrow) or a Cargo Hull (fat and wide). There are also two Special Modifications of the basic hull types:
Catamaran Hull
Two waterline hulls with a deck between them. This can be made of any materials, provides a huge deck cargo space compared to ancient ordinary cargo hulls, but less cargo space compared to modern vessels. How to work this into the Advances list is a real problem: it was discovered very early in the Pacific islands and made the colonization of the Pacific possible because of the capacity and stability of the hull. It was also used for huge war Polyremes in the Mediterranean, but then abandoned there. It’s therefore a relatively early advance, but has to be given some serious negative factors so that it doesn’t become the standard hull-type for all occasions.
Pressure Hull
This is a hull built for submersibles or submarines. Using any material before Steel Hull for a Pressure Hull is basically suicidal.
There is a maximum size or capacity for the iron and wooden hull-types: you can only build them so large before the ocean starts pounding them to pieces. Steel hulls (modern) can be built effectively as large as you want, but of course that makes them more expensive, hugely harder to move at any speed, and harder to protect and easier to target.
Propulsion:
Oars
This is available at the start of the game - they were used on riverboats or rafts in the Neolithic period.
Sweeps
Longer ‘oars’ with several men on each. Used for large galleys and polyremes, more efficient that oars. Requires some sort of Geometry advance, or possibly Naval Architecture of an ancient sort.
Sails
Requires Cloth Making, Cordage, or similar Advances.
Advanced Sails
This covers all the Lateen riggings, multiple mast ships, etc. Requires Mechanics (block and tackle) and Geometry advances.
Steam
The basic Steam Engine applied to ships. Requires the Steam Engine Advance.
Steam Turbines
The Naval propulsion of most of the 20th century. Requires Steel, Special Alloys advances as well as the basic Steam Engine.
Diesel-Electric
This is the power plant for Submarines before Nuclear. Requires both Electricity with Generator/Motor Applications, and the Diesel advance.
Nuclear
Requires Nuclear Propulsion or Nuclear Power Advance.
Sweeps are long oars, each manned by several crew. Advanced Sails is a generic for the multiple-mast lateen and square sail rigging of the late medieval period through the nineteenth century. It could be further broken down into a half-dozen individual advances, but I don’t see the point of such subdividions: with various hull types and sizes, the variety of capabilities of the usual types of ships can be shown without that complication.
Weapons:
Ram
Requires Bronze-Working
Boarding
Effectiveness depends on the offensive weapons of your ground units.
Catapults
Greek Fire (an Upgrade to catapults at Sea only)
Requires Mathematics advance
Cannon
Requires Cannon, Gunpowder advances, with possibly a Naval Truck (carraige) Application of Cannon. These and the Catapults are Heavy Upgrades: many anvcient Fast Hulls simply won't be large enough to carry them safely - the classic Trireme being a case in point: only the larger Polyremes (which werre appreciably slower) could carry catapults or ballistae.
Artillery
Requires the same advances as for ground unit Artillery
Torpedoes
Requires Smokeless Powder, Steam Engine advances
Antisubmarine Weapons
Depth Charges
Homing Charges
These develop after Submarine, require some separate advance or Application after Submarine.
Missiles
Require same advances as Rockets or Cruise Missiles.
The ram can be fitted to any hull except the catamaran, but it’s usefulness (attack factors) are very low when fitted to a sailing vessel and its factors drop permanently after cannon are mounted on ships. All weapons have a Weight or Size factor, which makes it very hard to mount some combinations on some hulls.
Antisubmarine Weapons might also be included as a single package with the Antisubmarine Special Capabilities (see below). These weapons can also be modified by other technical developments: naval gunnery became much more effective and with a much longer range after the development of Central Fire Direction, advanced again with Computers, while Acoustics, Miniaturization, and Computers also made possible or upgraded both torpedoes and missiles.
Defensive Equipment
Cataphract
Wooden Hulls only, requires advanced Wood Working or Joinery
Iron Armor
Wooden or Iron Hulls only, requires Wrought Iron advance
Nickel-Steel Armor
Iron or Steel Hulls only, requires Steel and Special Alloys
Compartmentalization
Any Hull type except Catamaran: Requires a primitive Naval Architecture advance
ECM
Any Hull Type:Requires Electronics, Computers advances
Point Defense Weapons
Antiaircraft
Antiship
Requires Special Alloys, Computers, Miniaturization advances
Some defensive factor is built into the hull and propulsion type: a small Speed Hull will be harder to hit than a large Cargo hull, for instance. As with weapons, there is a Weight factor to the various armor types. Cataphract is the ancient ‘roofed’ warhsips - wooden, sometimes thin-metal sheathed ‘armor’ for the rowers. ECM is the electronic suite of jamming and anti-targeting devices that constitutes the modern warship’s ‘armor’. Compartmentalization can be applied even to wooden hulls (Chinese ocean-going junks, for instance) and is most effective with wide, Cargo hull types.
Special Capabilities
Antiaircraft
This includes Radar spotters, guns or missiles and requires the same advances as for those weapons.
Antisubmarine
SONAR, MAD detectors, possibly the weapons as well: depth charges, hominh torpedoes and spread charges like HEDGEHOG or SUBROC
Amphibious
Supporting or carrying and landing troops takes some specialized construction: this represents it.
Cargo
Container Cargo
The ability to carry bulk goods, very important for moving Food around as a Trade Item. Requires Trade and some kind of Container Application: Pottery, Wooden Barrels, etc. The modern freight apparatus is Containerized Shipping, which also requires special constrruction, but it greatly increases the speed and efficiency of freight/trade handling.
Aircraft Handling
Flight Deck, Hanger Deck, and the paraphenalia to launch and recover aircraft: this makes the hull into an aircraft carrier. Requires Advanced Flight

Upgrades:
Certain hulls can be Upgraded or rebuilt without having to build an entirely new ship. Any wooden hull, for example, can be rebuilt or re-equipped as long as the hull configuration (Speed or Cargo) remains the same. In other words, if you have the capacity, you can mount cannon on an old wooden Cargo hull (cog, hulk, or carrack). You can also change propulsion systems: Steam engines can be mounted in existing sailing Cargo Hull or Speed Hull types. You cannot, however, change a Cargo into a Speed Hull, or make anything into a Pressure Hull - those conversions would be so extensive they amount to building an entirely new ship.

posted July 17, 1999 11:45            

What about this as a kind of special ability? Units with this ability would be able to attack units, but not fight to the death. They would, say, attack untill they themselves are wounded to 50% and then stop. Maybe they would be given an extra point of movement to retreat?

This would allow you to sneak into enemy territory, and do damage, with a minimum of units. It wouldn't be too powerful since it would not do as much damage as a normal attack. Perhaps it could work like SMAC artillery, where it cannot fully destroy a unit (except maybe civillian units?)

posted July 17, 1999 12:52            

I like your stuff! well developed and thought out (you must be betwen books!) a lot of the stuff should be included in the combat section (actually I haven't checked yet if you put it there but it should). I like it because it backs my idea that there should be a strategic level but the zoom function should take you to the tactic level (an operational level war I don't think is necessary yet).

I'm all for the generalship idea and how different ages let you command different size armies, there definetely needs to besome C2 represented in Civ3. But besides the Prussian/General staff lets adda West Point wonder to train leaders (slight bias)

I think the formation idea totally backs my idea that as you progess through the ages organizational advances should be included and you generals should have an AI to know how to fight with that formation (real time fights too).

NLT: guerrilla warfare is great if they add a real time tactical level the hit and run tactics would be possible (GW is really only at tactical levels). I would like to see a revolutionary warfare ability but it would to hard to simulate idetifying and isolating a cities/regions elites and instituing a counter/shadow state, dau tranh (if you wan too) etc. and doing the whole rev war thing. I'm going try and wok on it, unless somebody has any ideas? (But take it to the combat thread!)

posted July 17, 1999 15:37            

In the Combat Thread (I think) I mentioned using cluster bombs (fired by bombers or artillery) to place "fragmentation mines", small mines that don't do a whole lot of damage but slow down an enemy and increase the effectiveness of bombing runs. This would be one possible use of mining, as a special ability for an artillery/bombing unit (the frag mines would only be effective until a unit removed them or until they damaged a certain number of units).

Another possibility for mining would be as a terrain improvement. Engineers (I don't think Settlers should have the mining capability) could pack a square full of mines which would be visible to you but not your opponents. Your units could move into and out of a mined square without any damage penalties (although perhaps with a movement penalty), and enemy units would suffer heavy casualties/movement penalties if moving through the mined square.