These units should be very expensive because of their hard trainning and the fact that only the best of the best are commandos.

A thing that exists in RTS games but not in civ2 is unique units that are not build in quantities. C&C:RA - Tanya, C&C: TS - Cyborg Commando.

These units should be expensive and built rarely but would allow special operations.

What I would like to do is suggest functions for the commando units:

Pillaging for free / for movement points
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Many railroads and bridges were destryed and caused severe damage to enemies. In civ2, when a unit pillages it ends it's turn. That leaves her open for an attack the next turn.
If we would have a unit that could pillage something, and then have 1 or 2 movement points left to escape it could stop enemy invasions or hurt productivity.

Sabotage / Destruction of buildings
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This abilty is now used by civ2 spies.
Why? Usually it is done by commandos.
The commandos would have an excellent chance to succeed, while spies will have the normal chances.

There are much more functions, some of them are already in civ2 but are associated with wrong units.

I know you would say this would only complicate things, but I say - not.

These are super units. They will have nearly 100% chance of succeeding. However the player would have to guard these units very carefully since they have low att/def
and are very expensive.

They will have 2 to 4 movement points since they have to make a fast entry and a fast exit.

They should be paradropped or swim through sea (seal units! they must remain in contact with the shore or else they will drown. Just like triremes! )

This makes such special missions more focused for the AI. All special abilities are concentrated in one expensive unit.

It can be completed not as a unit but as a game function: you buy a task from a "special ops" screen: destroy *object* at square *x,y*. HOWEVER: this would become less fun, more tedious, and the AI will have no idea how to do it. PLUS it will be then unstopable. THEREFORE I STRONGLY SUGGEST THIS WILL BE A UNIT.

Why should it be in the game? It's more realistic and more fun. It adds another dimention to boring wars. And the best reason is: Come on you people! I really really want this thing! *sniff* Please!

instead those abilities would be obtained by
veteran units . those units would cost money support ( finally )

the mastering of the level is

militia - regular units

trained - +25% A/D/R after barracks

( lowe the maintnance of barracks plz )
battle hardened - after ANY battle.

veteran - winning a battle in which other friendly units haven't survived .( with the stack combat idea of course )

you could then upgrade the veteran unit to kinda soldier of fortune unit . costs money.
costs shields . costs science (?) .
it would have a the usual A/D/R rate of a Vet , and their power would be sabotage and quick movement . It is plenty of people because each tile represents huge amounts of territory , so there are actually lots of bridges to destroy

Dalgetti

quote: It can be completed not as a unit but as a game function: you buy a task from a "special ops" screen: destroy *object* at square *x,y*. HOWEVER: this would become less fun, more tedious, and the AI will have no idea how to do it.

Intead, here's an example model for a screen based system:
*Have it as a subset of the spy screen (ie also get rid of the spy unit).
*you choose to pay a certain amount to order an attack/sabotage on something, see above posts for stuff that can be done.
*At this point, the success or otherwise of the mission is determined (but not revealed). The factors affecting success could include - distance to enemy (including whether they're inside your borders), relative tech levels, gov types.
*After a few turns (modelling the time it would have taken the commando to attack the unit or whatever) the success or otherwise of the mission is revealed. At this point the enemy civ can declare war on you etc if you're caught.

The system could also be adpated so that slower moving units can be sabotaged - you pick the unit to sabotage, and even if they've moved, they can still be damaged.

I have previously suggested that each units be given two "weapons" slots. A commando unit can be created by giving it "spies package" in one slot and a regular weapons in the other slot.

Shadowstrike: we had a lengthy discussion of an espionage screen several months ago. I am not sure if it is achived. We concentrated on pur "cloak & dagger" activities, though, and there was nothing on special units operations IIRC.

Spies should be used in times of peace with the higher emphasis on staying unrevealed and less emphasis on success, while the commandos will be used mainly in times of war with higher emphasis on success but the attacked civ would find out who attacked it.

What I'm afraid of though, is that with commandos as a screen there would be no possibilty to stop commando functions, that is quite easy if we just need to kill the unit. However this might be too easy to kill ... ? go fig.

About Dalgetti's idea... sorry, i didn't really get it... I didn't get enough sleep today. I'll check it tommorow again .