Current Units list:
http://www.firaxis.com/ubb/Forum8/HTML/000012.html

2. Jet fighters as in between fighters and Stealth

3. Commando units: can do the destructive things a spy can do and fight really well. Have a chance to be invisible depending on terrain. Should be very expensive and only built in city with barracks

4. personnel carriers

5. mobile SAMs

Helicopters:
Attack Chopper (Apache)
Battlefield Support Chopper (Huey)
B.S./Transport Helicopter (Blackhawk)
Heavy Transport Helicopter (Seahawk, Chinook)
Stealth Chopper (Comanche?)

Tanks & Mechanized Infranty:
Armored Personnel Carrier or APC (M2 Bradley)
Main Battle Tank (M1 Abrams, T-72)
Recon Vehicle (Jeep, Humvee)

Infranty:
Riflemen,
Alpine Troops,
Marines,
Anti-tank Troops,
Paratroopers,
SEALs,
Commandos,
Partisans,
etc.

Navy:
Patrol Boat (Coast Guard)
Torpedo Boats (For hunting Submarines)
Destroyers,
Cruisers,
Nuclear/Heavy Cruisers, (Modern Battleship)
AEGIS Cruisers and Destroyers,
Carriers,
Transports,
Hovercrafts,
Hunter Subs, (Capable of seeing other Subs)
Nuclear Subs, (Only one to carry missiles)
Stealth Ships, (Experiement by Lockheed & US Navy )
Cargo Ships (For trade and Civil transport)

The movement allowance should be increased (it doesn't take 4 years to gross atlantic in a stealth bomber)

Remeber that a unit is division/airwing/task force scale.
A modern infantry division will have a lot of different weapon types in it, as will an air wing...

STEALTH

this is a topic that i thought deserved a post to itself. i think that stealth fighters and bombers should be treated differently when they attack. because a stealth bomber is one of the most powerful weapons in our arsenal but it only flies at 540 mph, a german Me-262 from WWII was faster (550 mph IIRC) here's what i'm proposing.

when a stealth fighter or bomber attacks, their is no counter attack, it is a one way attack...air units on alert can't scramble and intercept a stealth bomber or fighter. you can't see them coming and they attack you and then they slip away. i also think that submarines should get a bonus like this except not as powerful. maybe one free attack like in Axis and Allies or something along those lines. guerilla and commando units could get a free suprise attack like this too. all of these units could fall under a special suprise attack rule.

here are some preliminary ideas.

unless detected you cannot engage a suprise attack unit. while undetected a suprise attack unit may attack you at will.

stealth bombers and fighters: have a tiny chance of ever being detected

submarines: cannot be detected except by destroyers, other submarines or antisub aircraft, can get off a suprise first shot and then have a good chance of slipping off undetected if they want

commandos: get a free suprise attack, then attack like normal

guerrillas: get a free suprise attack, then have a good chance of slipping off undetected (hit and run tactics)

and here are some new ideas

i definatly think guerrilla units should be in civ3 replacing partizans, guerrillas could have a propaganda ability that would slowly turn people in the city hostile to their current government, guerrillas wouldn't have to be supplied (if supply lines are implemented) and they would be great at hit and run attacks (damaging the enemy then escaping) bad terrain would work in their favor(they get a movement bonus in it for example) however in a stand up fight normal military units would kill them. i think that guerrilla units should not be able to be built and they would always be computer controlled, and can only be created in one of these ways. after a city is taken they are created (like partizans), if a city is unhappy it has a certain percentage of a guerrilla unit appearing close to it (it would work in a manner like ecodamage causing a fungus explosion in SMAC), a commando unit (think green beret) could train guerrillas, it would work like a spy causeing drone riots in SMAC except that guerrilla units are created instead of drone riots happening.

tell me what you think

korn469

the guerrillas are a great idea, especially as a punishment for unhappy cities (and perhaps gov't choices?). I think it would be neat if guerrillas and commandos had a chance to be invisble based on terrain (say, 75% in mountains, 50% in forests and jungles, 25% in hills and swamps)

I would like some more polar units, specific to poles, like an Icebreaker sea unit that would move other naval units across ice, some sort of Inuit-like polar unit, and Nuclear Subs (that could, as well as carry missiles, move under the Ice).

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Here is an idea that I had posted earlier but it seems to have been lost in the forum shuffling: Have units be able to have multiple states that essentially act as seperate units. Some examples:

MASH Unit:
State 1:A/D/M of 0/1/1 - Land
State 2:A/D/M of 0/0/2 - Land; Sees 2; Can heal infantry units

Fighter:
State 1:Whatever it is in civ2
State 2:A/D/M of 1/1/1 - Land; uses no (or little) fuel

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If you want to support your soldiers on the battle field then, you have to send real men to fill the gap that battles have cut!

Would be much better IMO.

In a single-player game, if the former ruler attempts to use the spy, the newer ruler should be alerted about the pending order. The new ruler can either allow the command, or can use the spy in one of the usual ways: steal a technology, establish an embassy, plant a bomb, etc. and then move her to the nearest friendly city. Once the double agent has been used by new ruler, she is "exposed" as a traitor to the former ruler and becomes a regular spy unit for the current ruler. She will not be able to provide information about her former ruler.

In a multi-player game, this approach wouldn't work because the original ruler would become suspicious if the double agent didn't instantly respond to his command; there wouldn't be time to alert the new ruler and allow him to decide what to do. So, the spy would obey the former ruler's command unless she is ordered to to take an action against the current ruler. In that case, the current ruler will be alerted and given a last chance to command the double agent. Of course, the double agent would probably be in the field, not in the city, in this case, so her options would be limited to bribing a unit or spying on a nearby city. In any event, after the current ruler issues an order to the double agent, she would become a regular spy unit for the current ruler and move to the nearest friendly city. As in the single-player game, she would no longer provide special information about her former ruler.

Since double agents will be a very valuable asset, it should be somewhat risky to bribe a spy. The failure rate should be at least 67%. However, a converted spy would have a higher than normal chance of successfully completing her mission (80 to 90%) if the new ruler issues a command to her. This seems reasonable because of the unit's covert status. As described above, though, once the double agent has been used against the original ruler, she is moved then to the nearest friendly city and loses her double agent status, becoming a regular spy for the current ruler.

The second would be a modern missile. It is more expensive (naturally) and completely obliterates a city it hits, creating "heavy" radiated land at ground zero and random ajoining spaces, and weak radiation in the other ajoining spaces and some in spaces 2 squares away. Not only would all ajoining units be destroyed, but all units within 2 squares take 80% damage as well (if not prepared).

Lastly, I'd like to see a futuristic nuke, roughly the equal of a level 1 planetbuster in SMAC. If the city is low enough, a heavily radiated pond remainds after being nuked. All ajoining squares have heavy radiation, some squares 2 squares away get heavy radiation, and the rest get light. All units within 2 squares are destroyed, and ones 3 squares away take 50% damage.

My idea is to have a reserve pool. This would act as your reserve forces, all units in the reserves would cost 1/2 - 1/4 maintenance.
At the begging of your turn all new built units are added to the reserves (I like having regions, where building does not occure in specific cities, this would be the method to distribute units / improvments)
Any unit with full move can be added to the reserve pool.
At the end of your turn you can assign where any/all your reserves will be deployed (the computer picks spots as defaults (less defenses or borders) and you can modify it or leave it as is. Units can be 'sentried' in the list to leave them as long term reserves.

Deployment takes a turn or two (playbalance/ distance). During this time the unit does not contribute to the defense of a city/stack, but if the square is taken all units being deployed there are destroyed.

Units can be deployed in unlimited quantities to cities that are ports/roaded to your capital and not besieged.
Limited numbers to remote cites / partly besiged cities / bases / airbases / allied cities / and some ships like planes to carriers and missiles to submarines (in my system, the only way to move air units is be deployment, they attack like artillery.)
Numbers in each situation would have to be play balanced

the thing that makes nuclear war so horrific is because of M.A.D. (mutual assured destruction) M.A.D. was what prevented a nuclear war between the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. M.A.D. lasts until one side either deploys a reliable ABM (anti ballistic missle) system or develops an overwhelming first strike capability (either stealth bombers or a red octobor like sub). one of the uses of stealth bombers is to fly across the world and to either destroy the eniemies missles or to launch a massive first strike and either way to destroy the eniemes ability to launch a counter strike. (however having ballistic missle submariines at sea prepared to oblitorate your eniemy provides deterance to a first strike)

there are only two scenarios where a nation would fight a nuclear war.

1. they are about to be destroyed reguardless, so nothing is lost by go nuclear

2. they have the ability to win a nuclear war. to have the ability to win a nuclear war is only possible in one of two ways.
a. have a monopoly on nuclear weapons
b. have the ability to launch a first strike (stealth bombers) and have the ability to render a counter strike ineffective (a well deployed ABM system)

well anyways my basic proposals are

1. there should be an ICBM unit in the game that can hit anywhere on the map.
2. ICBMs have a specific target determined when they are built (but can be changed during your turn)
3. when a missle launch is detected all players then have the option of launching their ICBMs
4. all ICBMs hit at the same time
5. stealth bombers are virtually invisable to your enemies
6. every square has a at least a surface and an air component
7. air units can fly over ground units. (an air unit in the air component of the square a ground unit in the ground component of the square)

that's all i can think o for now

how about after activation, they cause double unhappiness normal units do for two turns, and suffer from a MORALE penalty (-1, rusty skills?). and, for the first turn after reactivation, they cost double support.
This would simulate the somewhat slow process of reoutfitting and mobilizing non-active duty personnel.

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Q Cubed
Renaissance Q • Q-of-all-trades
Thread Discussion Facilitator for Wonders

However, the game needs to refine unhappiness. For example, people should only be unhappy if the unit is outside the civ's overall borders. It makes no sense for people to get upset because a unit is in between two cities quelling a peasant revolt.

2) suffer from a MORALE penalty (-1, rusty skills?): I understand what you are saying, but I don't know if this is really true.

A +100% experience seems like a bit too much, even for a very elite unit. Same with -50% (based on SMAC). I'd suggest making it more like -25% and 50% for the full range of possible unit experience. 1% increments do make sense though (and perhaps gains of up to 10%+ for a really tough battle?)

Paradrop units should require cargo planes from which to drop. I didn't understand in SMAC why you could make a cargo needle jet (with its annoyingly low movement rate) and then weren't able to drop units away from airbases. This made even less sense when you could make paradrop units and drop them further away than the needlejet could move... I suppose the paradrop unit wasn't actually using a needlejet to get where it was going, but it still seemed odd.

Command units (general, captain) seem unneccessarily complex to me. I would assume each unit itself would have its own commanding officer, so I don't see the theoretical need for a unit to allow stacking to work. Practically, it also seems rather inconveniencing, and more trouble than it's worth... that's just me though.

Requring units to have food, fuel and ammo supplies also seems rather complex. It would make things much more realistic, and limit the possibility of waltzing around an enemy's indefinately, while far away from any supply lines. If this is implimented, modern naval vessels and ground forces should have adequately large fuel tanks to allow them to function for many turns before running out. Additionally, "large fuel tanks" could be a sepecial ability given to some units, allowing even longer tours of action without refill. Also, nuclear reactors could be made to eliminate the need for refueling with naval vessels (not entirely accurate, but good for game purposes).
If a unit does run out of fuel, it should not be entirely disabled (this applies with pre-modern warfare and food/ammo as well). For a naval vessel, the result of being out of fuel could be a segnificant reduction in movement rate (down to 2 or 1?) and a segnificant combat penalty. For pre-modern units, lack of ammo would negate any ranged attack benefits and lack of food would reduce morale and give a combat penalty. Obviously, lack of fuel in an air unit would have the same result that it does now.

On the subject of morale, and combat, I like the idea of units gaining morale from combat, and I like the idea of units loosing men (persons in modern times) and being able to refill their ranks at friendly cities. When they do this however (refill), the overall experience level of the unit should be reduced to compensate for the new, inexperienced recruits. Also, when in battle, and a unit is segnificatly reduced in manpower, when a certain number/ratio/morale of the losing side of the battle is reached, the victors should enslave the losers. These enslaved men should cost food to keep alive with the unit, and when returned to a friendly city with the unit, they should be added to the friendly city's pop'n as slaves under whatever form slaves take in the game.

Catapults and canons should function like early versions of SMAC artillery.

Unit upgrades should not be possible where it's theoretically impossible. That is, CivII's long progression of upgrading from elefants to knights to dragoons to cavalry and such shouldn't be possible (or warriors to musketeers to riflemen). Any major restructuring of the unit, or drastic change in armament (swords to guns etc.) shouldn't be possible. However, small upgrades based on new technology should be possible. For example, if you had a basic jet fighter, you should be able to upgrade it's weapons from 50 mm canon to 80 mm or whatever (I have no idea what sizes are realistic, so forgive the horrid guess), and get a minor combat bonus from this (+ a few attack points, or perhaps a movement bonus for better engines). However, you should not be able upgrade a propellor driven fighter from WWI to a modern jet driven, air to air missile equiped air superiority fighter.

Lastly, given the wide range of desired unit types, I really think that a SMAC style-unit editor should be available IN GAME, even in pre-modern times. A chasis might be "infantry", or "horse" (note that horse might not always be horses. In some climates, Elefants or camels or dogsleds might be used... perhaps giving advantages in some terrains and disadvantages in others?). This would allow for horse-mounted archers, scout tanks (humvee), cargo helicopters and all the other variations that people seem to want. Some people really dislike the unit editor for various reasons, and in SMAC form it is somewhat lacking... however with a properly adjusted set of weapons/chases(sp?)/special abilities, I think it could work very well.

special abilties ideas/rehashes: nuclear reactors (no fuel needed), big fuel tanks, paradrop (can be droped from cargo planes), stealth, sub (might be chasis instead), big food stores, extra slave taking ability, extra police powers, extra view distance, morale/experience boost, SAM ability, gurilla(sp?) tactics (makes parisans/alpine troops?), sub detector, marines (attack from transport)

Artillery should not be a special ability like in SMAC. It doesn't make sense that any old weapon design can be converted to function for long range bombardment. Catapult, and canon equipped units (infantry or ships mainly) should be the only way to make artillery.

Horse chases(plur,sp?), should not be allowed artillery weapons.

Modern weapons should only be possible on modern chases, and there shouldn't be any tank archers either

On a totally separate note, another unit that has been discussed in the Diplomacy thread is the harvester/extractor. It would setup an outpost and collect resources for a city without actually having to have a city. Apparently this is like a SMAC supply crawler, but stays in one place.

kd5bjo the poster, NOT the TM:

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Here is an idea that I had posted earlier but it seems to have been lost in the forum shuffling: Have units be able to have multiple states that essentially act as seperate units. Some examples:

MASH Unit:
State 1:A/D/M of 0/1/1 - Land
State 2:A/D/M of 0/0/2 - Land; Sees 2; Can heal infantry units

Fighter:
State 1:Whatever it is in civ2
State 2:A/D/M of 1/1/1 - Land; uses no (or little) fuel

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I think this is too many, especially given that combat avaition from the end of WWII to now is ignored unit-wise (jet fighter). Otherwise I'm all for new units, especially my personal crusade: separate improver/engineers from colonists.

On a totally separate note, am I the only one who detects a slowdown of activity on these threads? Has everyone moved over to the chaos that is Apolyon?

5 armor
10 infantry
3 fighters
1 bomber
1 spy
5 nukes
3 medium-range missiles

In other words, it should be kinda like "Axis & Allies".

Basically a military unit = people + equipment + training

I see no reason that a unit can't be improved over time almost without restriction. It may not be really "realistic" whatever that means, but for the simplicity in the game it makes sense to restrict unit upgrades to a given broad class of units but otherwise I see no reason you shouldn't be able upgrade a Legion to a Musketeer to Infantry to Mech Infantry. We're changing the equipment part of the equation. I like the way SMAC handles it with the cost varying by the degree to which you're upgrading the unit.

The changes/additions I would like to see are two -- no upgrades outside a city which contains a barracks/training center and a default loss of morale levels _unless_ the unit then spends time retraining. Perhaps this loss is scaled to how much of an upgrade the new equipment represents.

Have to vote with n.c. -- too many types and too many units is very bad. Civ should not be a wargame and it should make no pretense of being "realistic" (whatever that means) except in the broadest of terms.

The variety of units should be enough to distinguish the general types of military forces thru the ages, no more and no less. And I know there's plenty of room to argue forever just how many that is -- but very many more than are in Civ2 will be too many.
However, there are ways to keep the number of unit types down and still create more variety. One way is the workshop concept in SMAC, which I personally like a lot (the implementation needs some improvement but the idea is sound). Another would be to stick with a core set of units which can have upgrades that improve them without changing the unit type. For instance, the basic Infantry unit of might get incremental improvements in offense and defense power as technology advances in weapons, transportation, communications, etc, become available. At certain boundaries we need a new unit (a new icon) to represent a fundamental change, introduction of gunpowder would be one.

But I would not favour units again like in Civ1 in civ2 in smac and in ctp. I would prefer Men that can be Equipped with Weapons and Trained. So if I want a legion I have to build swords, equip about 1,000 people of my city population with it and train them for some turns. I can choose wether they should have better training (combat bonuses), normal training (no bonus) or less training (combat penalties(sp?)). These 1,000 men are no longer available for working in my city, so that if I have thousands of units, my civ will stagnat. If your "units" (MEWT) suffer casaulities in battles, you have to send more men with equipped weapons to supply them. So if you have no more swords, you cant bring a legion back to full strength!

I would also favour if you need special buildings before you can build special units. That means: You cant build any planes before you dont have a shipyard. So, a city of "size 2" cant build a battleship anymore except it has a shipyard! I also think this shipyard then should be upradeable, so for wooden ships you need a shipyard level I for steel ships level II ...
Generally I think buildings should be upradeable, but that doesnt belong here.

kd5bjo the poster, NOT the TM:

quote:

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Here is an idea that I had posted earlier but it seems to have been lost in the forum shuffling: Have units be able to have multiple states that essentially act as seperate units. Some examples:

MASH Unit:
State 1:A/D/M of 0/1/1 - Land
State 2:A/D/M of 0/0/2 - Land; Sees 2; Can heal infantry units

Fighter:
State 1:Whatever it is in civ2
State 2:A/D/M of 1/1/1 - Land; uses no (or little) fuel

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"We have harnessed the power of lightning and used it to make sand think." -- Unknown

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Anyway, Atahualpa: I'd have to agree with Gordon the Whale totally on your suggestion. I'd also like to add that your problem, that the units will all look the same, isn't really applicable to a historically based game as much as it was to SMAC. In SMAC, all the weapons were fundamentally the same. They were some sort of gun you can stick on anything and that function as an infantry, tank, fighter jet, bomber jet and naval based weapons equally. There were no restrictions on what weapons could be used for. Also, the weapons themselves were very small on all of the units on the map, and other than armor, it was quite difficult to tell the units apart. **This won't be the case with CivIII** (if it's done properly (or how I think it properly)). The difference with what I'm invisioning for CivIII is that basically most of those problems won't apply. There's not going to be about 12 different generic looking guns that can be used for anything. There will be swords, pike/spears, bows and arrows, catapults and other non-combat "weapons." These won't, or at least shouldn't, look anything like eachother on the map. In fact, the above options could be made to look just as different as the units in CivII look. The same thing applies for chases. A horse doesn't look like an infantry unit, which doesn't look like a tank or a jet. That wasn't a problem in SMAC, but I just thought I'd mention it.

DickK: All this stuff can be used in conjunction with climate-specific unit chases. If a city is in a certain climate, then the "horse" chasis would be exchanged for a more appropriate one, possibly with corrisponding bonuses/penalties.

kd5bjo: You're suggestion that when a fighter plane gets shot down, it walks around as a basic infantry unit? ... the other interpretation I can see is that it's taxing along the ground... but... why would it do that, and why would you want it to?

The mash unit might be interesting.. like a seige tank from starcraft... international treaties could be made to make it illegal to attack a mash unit.. (sorry, off topic).

Gordon: more variety = more units, especially if they have different ablitites. I think we will have to respectfully disagree as to the merits of having more or less four legged units.

DickK: I agree with your upgrade idea, but I have not used the SMAC workshop. Basically, I would like to keep unit development simple and consistent with existing Civ conventions.

New units should be fun, necessary for good gameplay and not redundant. I think that 1) nat'l guard 2) mobile SAMs, 3) commandos, 4) personnel carriers, 5-6) cargo planes & helos 7) spy planes 8) recon satilites 9) colonizers as separate from improvers/engineers and 10) JET FIGHTERS fit this description.

Atahualpa- I agree that certain buildings should be necessary before constructing certain units. This should not be overly limiting, however.

As for units as a part of the population, have a rule that units can only be created and/or exist (not supported w/shields or money, a different concept from what I'm about to describe) based on the following rule: one unit per citizen up to five, and then one unit per two citzens up to ten, and then no more. Clearly this formula could change. However, it should apply regardless of gov't type, because it reflects population.

kd5bjo- unfortunately, ideas get ignored on the treads all the time. the summaries, on the other hand, should have them. (Speaking of, what's up with the unit summary?) I think the MASH unit has been mentioned, and the jet fighter has been discussed, since it is the most obviously ignored unit in Civ II. As for the states, I don't understand. The combat summary discusses ideas that may be similar. perhaps it would help if you related your ideas to that.

Perhaps, if a unit workshop is used, general chasis type could require buildings. For example, horses would need a stable (or kennel for dogs or.. whatever a camel or elephant would need...??). Wood-based ships would need a port, and metal-based would need some more advanced shipyard. Mechanized units like tanks and jets would need some sort of factory, but nothing more specific than that. You can still make a jet without an airport, even if it's harder to land it/take off.

Additionally, some sort of advanced weapons factory might make sense for weapons more powerful than rifles or canons. A normal factory might suffice in this role however (This would apply to tank guns, artillery, battleship guns and any sort of vehicle mounted smaller missle (air to air or SAM), not to mention futuristic energy weapons ).
Nuclear weaponry, or nuclear reactors etc. should also require some sort of special facility.)

Maybe I missed something, but the principal objection to the workshop (other than details how SMAC implemented it) seems to be how the resulting units would look which is an objection I understand but the way that it ended up in SMAC doesn't bother me at all and I think its an issue that can be solved.

Leaving the issue of the icon aside, the workshop seems to me to be the ultimate in flexibility and fits in well with the tech tree giving you technology for new or improved equipment and in some cases special characteristics for the unit. With a set of base units (SMAC calls it a chassis), you add offensive stuff (names of weapons that give a base attack number), defensive stuff (names of protections including armor, shields that give a defensive number), a powerplant type, and up to two out of a dozen or so special characteristics (radar, police powers, AAA ability, etc). There's no reason this concept couldn't work for Civ3. But it may ultimately be smart to leave it out because the additional complexity it will add to the game due to the much wider time period that Civ3 will cover and, therefore, the greater variety of base units, equipment and special powers that would be needed. A fixed set of units is easier to understand for casual play and if combined with a good editor, then those that want to, can alter the units in the game as they see fit. And if a fixed set of units is used that's fine with me and I, personally, would add less than a dozen units to the Civ2 set and most of those would be to add some to the modern period (after gunpowder and steam power) where I feel like there are a few genuine gaps (like land based AAA/SAM or spy planes) and a couple units incorporating near future technologies.

As far as things like the MASH units go, its a cool idea but I don't see it for Civ3 if its only use is military. If MASH units in the game make sense, then we need Truck Brigades attached to Infantry Units for them to qualify for road movement bonuses, supply organizations needed to keep units deployed and railroad units needed to make use of the rails. All this stuff needs to be abstracted so we let the infantry unit have the road bonus because we know trucks would be provided, a damaged unit self-heals because we know medical and resupply units are attached, and it gets to use the rails because we know there are railroad organizations busily making the trains operate. Realistic? Of course not, but this a game about the big picture stuff of creating a civilization and making it prosper.