Shadowstrike

Note that kevlar does not provide any melee protection. More than a few people have been fatally stabbed despite wearing bulletproof armor. Generally, it won't be a problem though, since any civ advanced enough to have kevlar won't be fighting with swords.

The battlefield mobility should also reflect what kind of terrain it's best in. Armor could chew through infantry on nice flat grasslands, but move it into a hilly/mountainous terrain or even a thick forest and its got problems. A simple all-unit movement reduction wouldn't suffice, since the infantry movement doesn't degrade nearly as much as it would for vehicles.

How turn-based is this tactical combat? It shouldn't always be 'one turn to close range', no matter what the difference might be. Units would move closer at their combat speed, thus giving the MBT's 3 or 4 unanswered volleys ((32 - 14) / 5)? In that case, you'd want to know the range of a given weapon, since it may not always be exactly proportional to it's firepower.

What happens when two sides are evenly matched? For instance, if the range of the two tanks is equal, who fires first? In the legion vs barbarian example, which side is going to win and at what cost? Most fights aren't to the death and one side retreats or is routed (it's not really a fight after that).

The computer would have to be given some basic tactics when controlling your units. Your archers should be placed behind the legionnaires when the enemy melee attacks, that sort of thing. Otherwise it'll end up losing easy battles, which we don't want. And just because you are attacking a square (strategic offense) doesn't mean you can't sit back and wait for the enemy to come to you (tactical defense).

Medical and salvage capabilities. Just because the tank is out of action, doesn't mean it's parts can't be used. If one side wins, they could use 10 (to pick a number at random) wrecked vehicles to restore 1 perfectly good one. Same thing for wounded soldiers. The usual ratio is 2 to 4 times as many wounded as killed. The survivors could be rounded up and captured or restored to full servuice, depending on who wins the battle.

How would veteran-ism affect how all this worked? Fortifications and trenches? Seiges? Supplies?

I think it is generally accepted in most 'wargame' scenarios that:

-the defender deploys first
-the attacker may be able to spot some if not all of those units before deploying
-the attacker moves first
-a stationary unit gets first fire if a target moves into its range (provided it did not fire already in its own turn)

A deployment menu would be nice. From what I've seen, individual battles are utilizing more and more troops, and becoming somewhat rarer. If battles become large and sparse enough, they could even implement an Imperialism 2 type combat interface.

With regard to the Roman Legion vs Barbarian Horde example; as was accurately pointed out, there is a point at which an army will break and run. Generally speaking, the more veteran the troops, the higher casualties they can take and still remain a cohesive unit. The legionnaires will more likely be very highly trained, while the barbarians are, well, barbarous. They'll break at, say, 20% casualties (5-10% dead, depends on medical abilities). The Romans could take 40% (10-20% dead, modded by meds). Thus the two sides would start off killing each other at a 1:5 ratio, but the barbarians would break first and then take a few more casualties in the retreat. Include both morale and experience levels. Combat resolution would thus include modifiers based on relative experience and morale. So happy, inexperienced troops would be about on par with unhappy, veteran ones.

When troops are not in battle, their experience goes down slowly and the morale goes up quickly. Put them in a city and the levels change even faster (we'll ignore le cafard for now). Increasing military spending (for training) can, of course, keep experience from going down as fast.

My big problem is that as the battle realism goes up, tactics become ever more important. Various combinations of number of units, attack range, and basic capabilities will decide even the simplest choice: attack or stay put. It'll be really hard to program a halfway intelligent tactics system to utilize combined arms effectively.

a stationary unit gets first fire if a target moves into its range
This could be a problem in WW1 or later era battles since since by this point some artillery duels took place so far apart that in between when one side fired and the shot actually hit, the other side could find a target, load, and fire back. Maybe a shell velocity value? It'd make any transition from projectile to laser/particle beam/rail gun weapons interesting... No, the easiest thing I can think of would be to make relative casualties per tactical turn very light so that no side gets a ridiculous advantage from attacking first.

When you click your "National Arsenal" you should be able to see something like this.

Trained men are coming from cities through a barrack which might be there.

Munition points,other industrial products and such can be produced from your factories or purchased from other technologically superior nations.

Munition points(advanced)are for something more advanced than basic infantry weapons like mobile SAM.

Higher firepower means more consumption of munition pts.

Then you should be able to form a unit such as division or brigade which can be stacked together as a bigger organisation.

By using the basic elements from your arsenal, you can customise your divisions and such for whatever taste you've got.

You can give more heavy equipments to your division if you want high firepower support or reduce heavy stuffs to have agile mountain troops which fight in rugged terrain.

Now you have 5 units
2 infantry divisions
1 mechanised brigade
1 armoured brigade
1 air-borne brigade

You can control them separated as they are now or if you don't want that kind of micromanagement you can group them as corp,army or special task force and name them whatecver you like to name it thus you have the feeling of controlling one big unit.

quote: The battlefield mobility should also reflect what kind of terrain it's best in. Armor could chew through infantry on nice flat grasslands, but move it into a hilly/mountainous terrain or even a thick forest and its got problems. A simple all-unit movement reduction wouldn't suffice, since the infantry movement doesn't degrade nearly as much as it would for vehicles.

You've been reading this thread carefully and thoroughly(I can certainly see that)and you have an excellent point there.

As you have pointed out, among ground force, infantry troops should be the least to be affected by their surrounding terrain considering unit movement while they have the best chance of exploiting it for defense.

quote: How turn-based is this tactical combat? It shouldn't always be 'one turn to close range',no matter what the difference might be. Units would move closer at their combat speed, thus giving the MBT's 3 or 4 unanswered volleys ((32 - 14) / 5)? In that case, you'd want to know the range of a given weapon, since it may not always be exactly proportional to it's firepower.

Misunderstanding there and its my fault. I should have said this model doesn't support tactical map system.

Unlike ctp& ctpII, this is more like colonisation or civilisation with exception of stacked combat concept which is greatly enhanced by complicated bonus factors.

Battlefield mobility affects a battle as a part of combat bonus nothing more OK?

quote: What happens when two sides are evenly matched? For instance, if the range of the two tanks is equal, who fires first? In the legion vs barbarian example, which side is going to win and at what cost? Most fights aren't to the death and one side retreats or is routed(it's not really a fight after that).

then defending side has upper hand and for the [b]Initiative[b] thing they(equally matched tanks) both exchange fire at the same time.(it is simulatable and some game did it beautifully).
Yes since the fight is between human beings who become cowards after they get bashed too much(demoralisation)retreat,draw,surrender and such should be represented in the game.

quote: you are attacking a square (strategic offense) doesn't mean you can't sit back and wait for the enemy to come to you (tactical defense).

Sure I want it represented in a way which establishes the field engagement situation like this

1.Assault & Defense(attackers assault and defenders defend)-result can be decisive if both sides are determined
2.Engagement(both sides assault and collide)-result can be decisive
3.Limited engagment(both sides don't send out major portion of their army)

and this could also be effected by random factors with resonable predictability so there is no more fixed attackers' attack and defenders'defense even if your unit enters an enemy held square you might have two or more possible scenarios.

quote: When troops are not in battle, their experience goes down slowly and the morale goes up quickly. Put them in a city and the levels change even faster (we'll ignore le cafard for now). Increasing military spending (for training) can, of course, keep experience from going down as fast.

Yes and this should expensive for more modern units since they consume munitions and fuel to have military exercises.

quote: My big problem is that as the battle realism goes up, tactics become ever more important. Various combinations of number of units, attack range, and basic capabilities will decide even the simplest choice: attack or stay put. It'll be really hard to program a halfway intelligent tactics system to utilize combined arms effectively.

With tactical battle map, that would be the inevitable outcome but as a leader of nation, we should more concerned about how many jets are purchased or how is our war industry going rather than ordering a tank unit to advance 2 squares of battlefield to shoot enemy troops unless you've got Hitler's mean spirit(just kidding). I mean there should be clear line what we can do and can't do in terms of scale and I prefer and the very characteristics of the game requires stable strategic decision making with perhaps few detailed affair for added flavour.

[quote]the easiest thing I can think of would be to make relative casualties per tactical turn very light so that no side gets a ridiculous advantage from attacking first.[quote]

Yes point taken.

Hmmm, I don't think you can have it both ways: Introduce weapons range as a real tactical modification but then keep it so simple that one side gets only one combat turn to utilize an advantage, no matter how overwhelming.

For instance, 30000 Roman Legionnaires against 1000 GI's with M16's and plenty of ammo. Chances are, those poor Romans would get absolutely slaughtered. But using this combat model, 22500 (60k-15k / 2) guys (more, actually, given the extra mobility of Ancient Men. incidentally, I thought making the distinction between them a nice touch.) would survive the initial attack. After that, the GI's would be screwed, since the iron sword has a higher melee rating than the advanced rifle. And given the odd combinations of technical abilities found in a Civ game, this is not an unlikely battle. But it can't be totally in favor of firepower, since if it were, say, 10k Romans against a scouting party of 100 GI's, the Romans would certainly win, though they'd take some heavy casualties.

It also occurs to me that some weapons are of very little use against certain types of enemies. Armor piercing tank rounds would not be the weapon of choice against massed infantry. The current weapons list makes no distinction. But that, perhaps, is a bit too detailed. In any event, a decent commander would have supporting infantry and specifically anti-infantry weapons anyway.

With regard to defender advatage: in melee attacks, this wouldn't make much of a difference, since by the time the defender can hit the other side, so can the attacker. Thus, no advantage given. Defensive advantage would really only go to troops with cover and ranged attacks.

Yeah, I realize that building cities is going to be more on my mind than commanding an individual tank. I think it will be possible to have the computer resolve the battle all by itself, but first we have to work out a realistic model for it to operate on. I say this as if Sid were hanging on our every word

Now that I think about it, getting the computer to attack or defend is mostly a matter of comparing maximum ranges of each side. The longbow archers can sit tight but the opposing composite bow archers must move closer to attack. Melee troops would stick close to the ranged ones, but if the enemy has ranged troops that can hit them, they'll move to attack.

I think that using a turn-based system like this would resolve combat on a 1-D line rather than a 2-D map. Units can move closer or further away, but not lateral. Simplfies things immensely, no? Throw in some random modifiers like Youngsun suggested, ideally ones that could turn the tide in a close battle but not allow spear-toting militia to beat a battleship, and combat becomes quite realistic indeed.

Of course, we have yet to figure out how aircraft will operate in all this.

There is no preset weapon-range for arms within the list and "Initiative" applies when there is clear gap between two oppsossing sides' firepower.

Let me clarify the Firepower vs. Ancient melee isssue.

"Melee" represents close hand-to-hand combat capability whereas "Firepower" can covers both close combat/ranged combat as long as the battle goes on in favour for firepower-based units.

Thus if those GIs want to shoot their rifles rather than using their bayonets, they can or will do so without any problem.

Also the GIs get "Initiative" all the time since legionnaires' weapons are outranged by advanced rifle.

1000 Advanced rifle armed band vs. 30000 legionnaires

1000 X 15 firepower = 15000 firepower & 3000 melee
30000 X 6 melee = 180000 melee

The most favourable battle situation for those legionnaire would be "engagement"(both sides collide)but that is highly unlikely since the GIs get initiative but this time let's give these legionnarire some chance.

Engagement
1000 GI shoots 15000 firepower delivered.
15000 legionnaires died.
15000 legionnaires hit with 15000 melee.
(15000:3000 = 5:1)
1000 GIs lay dead
200 Legionnaire died
Legionnaire KIA:15200
GI KIA:1000

Of cours this case was greatly simplified and utterly ridiculous.

1.Modern Infantry formation would have far more firepower support than pure rifles such as attached artillery formation.(with artillery,mortar,machine-gun support even 500 GIs will be able to wipe out 30000 leionnaires)
2.No commanders would allow their GIs charge against a legion when they are outnumbered. We also often see in the course of history when greatly supeior colonial force which is numerically inferior against its oppsossing native force it just dug in.
3.When fully equipped, leionnaires' mobility is hopeless outmatched against partially motorised modern infantry formation and if fully motorised or mechanised the gap will be simply unimaginable.
Ancient men might be faster but their movement get ristricted as they get more equipments. Iron armour reduces 1 mobility. Iron shield reduces 1 mobility and mule reduces 1 also already the poor legionnaire can't take any more! unless he doesn't want to move.
4."Engagement" will be obsolete combat move after firepower weapons dominate battlefield and those riflemen will just dug in unless you see two armoured forces clash.
5.High firepower inevitabley leads a change of military doctrine from jam packed formation of musketeer/legion to dispersed more modern formation to avoid massive slaughter which can be done by automatic firearms thus modern troops get higher survivability. So when two opposing forces have the same total firepower but one is superior in firearms & doctrine(dispersion tactic)and the other is not, the one with supeior arms/doctrine will triumph with less casualties against the one is inferior in those area. Just imagine 6000musketeers vs. 500 GIs.

So What I'm trying to say is that in normal game circumstance, legionnaires don't have chance to defeat those GIs unless mighty god is on their side so every situation goes exactly right for them.

quote: It also occurs to me that some weapons are of very little use against certain types of enemies. Armor piercing tank rounds would not be the weapon of choice against massed infantry. The current weapons list makes no distinction. But that, perhaps, is a bit too detailed. In any event, a decent commander would have supporting infantry and specifically anti-infantry weapons anyway.

quote: Armour Basic tank(or Inf-tank) +8 armour +6 firepower +1 mobility(1.ignores trench effect 2.Ancient enemy melee/support negated ->applied to all armour) Heavy Tank +10 armour +6 firepower(X2 vs hard target) +2 mobility 'Blitzkrieg' tank(WWII) +12 armour +7 firepower(X2 vs hard target) +5 mobility can "blitz"->applied to all armours after this MBT(post WWII) +16 armour +12 firepower(X2 vs hard target) +7 mobility MBT(next generation) +30 armour +16 firepower(X2 vs hard target) +8 mobility(finally it equals 3 map mobility)

You see those X2 vs. hard target? MBT(next generation) will have 16 firepower when they face infantry troops or other soft targets but will throw 32 firepower at enemy armour/hard targets.

quote: With regard to defender advatage: in melee attacks, this wouldn't make much of a difference, since by the time the defender can hit the other side, so can the attacker. Thus, no advantage given. Defensive advantage would really only go to troops with cover and ranged attacks.

Exactly. that's why those GIs would dug in rather than charge.

Modern Armoured force vs. WWII Panzer force
First line should be occupied with shock/melee troops and support/reserve troops line up for next line.(their lining up can be changed/customised and that depends on what mission you give to your units.

Indirect Fire Support/Close Air Support/Air support/Naval support can be used and it's all depends on situation.(adjacent units may contribute in firepower support)

A combat should be resolved something like a Colonisation style but with complicated bonus factors which can shown during the battle.

quote: Of course this case was greatly simplified and utterly ridiculous. So What I'm trying to say is that in normal game circumstance, legionnaires don't have chance to defeat those GIs unless mighty god is on their side so every situation goes exactly right for them.

Uhh, but as we both pointed out, using your model, the Romans win. And even if the GI's dig in and get some defense bonus, the Romans will still cream them. What we want is to change the combat model so that crazy results like the Romans winning this battle don't happen. I am, of course, open to suggestions. And it's not a ridiculous scenario. Why can't I just send out a company or two of GI's and expect them to scour the countryside clean of Iron Age soldiers? What if I'm fresh out of tanks and APC's? They do, after all, require a lot of maintenance. Those grunts should still be able to handle a bunch of legionnaires, even without armored support.

My bad on the tank vs infantry stats. Didn't read the specs carefully enough.

Those pictures are fantastic. Where are you getting them all?

*Mobility
1.Men have pre-given movement bonus(ie. modern men:2)
2.Arms & equipments(personnel)effect men's move by reducing the given bonus as they are provided to those men. When an ancient man get an iron armour(-1 move) his original move "4" will be reduced to "3".
3.Horses provide positive effect on men's move by increasing it during ancient/medieval era.
4.Modern men can have more options for their transport ranging from trucks to air transport(horses can still be used if you insist)
5.Heavy equipments like catapult or field artillery pieces require at least horses or something bigger transports to be carried around.
6.When you give enough horses to a unit(fully mounted)that unit's mobility increases dramatically.
7.When you give substancial number of horses to a unit but not enough to be fully mounted troop that unit get partial battlefield mobility bonus but Map mobility stay that same as the slowest moving element which exist within the unit.

Example (1)-cavalry formation
3000 armed men + 5000 Horses
This troop is fully mounted and any left over horses can be used as extra baggage carrier so the unit can last longer without meeting a friendly supply column.

Example (2)-partially mounted formation/mixed
3000 armed men + 1000 Horses
Major portion of the troop are foot soldiers and if there are many supply & heavy equipments to be carried there is strong possiblity that this unit has very small number of cavalry men indeed. However this troop get some battle field mobility bonus due to presence of mounted troop within the unit if there is any.

Example (3)-pure infantry formation
3000 armed men + 200 Horses
This is an obivious infantry formation with small number of attached mounted scouts/dispatch riders and some horse drawn supply carts.

quote: What we want is to change the combat model so that crazy results like the Romans winning this battle don't happen. I am, of course, open to suggestions.

Good call!

First suggestion:What about simply increasing other firearms's stat? So an advanced rifle might get 30 firepower instead of previous 15.

Second suggesiton:Introduction of firearms' range concept perhaps? Here goes an example. One prmitive bow armed band vs. Longbowmen. Since primitve bow has range of 2 while longbow has 5, Lonbowmen can shoot 3 times until they finally receive primitive bowmen's retalitory volley(5-3=2) By the same token, Advanced rifle men will shoot 15 times until they are eventually forced be engaged in hand to hand combat Thus the second volley of 1000 riflemen will wipe out 30000 legionnaire. The minium required number of GIs to score victory against 30000 legionnaires is 133.3 men and if you have less GIs than that pray to the God

Those pictures are all from Steel Panters I & II and I like them too(detailed graphics but simple/clean image for an easy recognition)

quote: I would like to see a Bombard Cannon..similiar to AOE unit..where you could move and bombard on same turn...maybe even have a later stage unit..like modern era..where it could be upgraded to a Multiple Warhead launcher

"MLRS" is in the list as well as the bombard.

Air units should have "Range(=how many squares)" and usually bombers have longer operational range than fighters do. You may give orders like CAP mission,Interdiction,Interception,CAS mission ,bombing a specific target,etc. Missions such as bombing a specific target will have instant result while CAS(close air support)mission will be incorporated with ground forces' operation as you can see "combat screen" in my previous post.

Aircraft Speed/weather condition(maybe not considering the time scale of the game )/distance from target area should determine how many sorties can be made during the turn so faster aircrafts which have very close target from their base will have more sorties than slower ones with further target.

I've been lurking on this discussion for the past week, and I have some info that might do your model some good. I think your numbers for modern weapons effectivenesses are Waaaaay too low. That's why you are getting the Romans beating modern soldiers . My sources (more below) say that the theoretical killing power of FE a WWII machine gun is about 250x as large as an individual legion member (sorry don't have numbers for M16 etc. but its probably at least 50x). And that is assuming the legion is fighting with modern-style dispersion. If they stayed in Any type of formation it would be a massacre. And, as has been mentioned before, the analysis also doesn't include morale either. If Half a group of men were killed/disabled before even Reaching the enemy, they would historically have broken Long before reaching them for hand-to-hand IMO. So that may be another thing you could include explicitly. (I know its been discussed here in general terms.) Anyway I will give you a reference to some info you can use if you're interested...

I've done a lot of research over the past several years for the Clash military system, and I have a wonderful quantitative resource for military firepower over the ages from which the info above came. Its a statistical study of warfare done by a group headed by a guy named Dupuy. He generated a numerical battle-results calculator! Now, I wouldn't necessarily trust the numbers with real lives at stake... but for a game its quite adequate. I discuss some of his system (and my adaptation of it), and give a table showing a historical range of weapons types and dispersions at:
http://people.mw.mediaone.net/markeverson/clash_combat.htm . The table is about half way down the page. We also have a battle system two guys who've left the project worked on that you may be interested in. Its at:
http://www.usq.edu.au/users/krenske/game/civ/scouting.htm .

Happy New Year,

-Mark

------------------
Mark Everson
Project lead for The Clash of Civilizations
(That means I do the things nobody else wants to do ;-) )
This Radically different civ game needs your suggestions and/or criticism of our design.
Check our our Forum right here at Apolyton...

Thanks for the info. Mark but I couldn't get access to first URL(http://people.mw.mediaone.net/markeverson/clash_combat.htm)!!!
Now I will go to your site directly to look for the table.

eg, a hoplite may have

L A S S
A 1 0 0 0
R 0 0 0 0
D 2 0 0 0

Anti-Tank Helicopter; (Apache?)

L A S S

A: 16 12 16 0 Special; +25% attack against AFV's
R: 20 20 20 0 Has high defense because
D: 12 12 12 0 of it's counter-measures,
which also boosts the evasion
Evasion =7 slightly
Armor =12-Apaches have medium armor, which protects them from most small arms and machine-guns.

Firepower=7-Helfire missiles can blast through almost anything, ever!!

Feel free to use this system (modified from the current LASS idea which is already in the list) to produce your own ideas. I'm sure most of you can come up with something better than this.

quote: I'll add some more of my ideas periodically as long as there's any interest.

Don't worry about losing interest Matthew just post it and that will help to keep this thread alive.

quote: Feel free to use this system (modified from the current LASS idea which is already in the list) to produce your own ideas. I'm sure most of you can come up with something better than this.

I love the workshop because it gives a plus to strategy : if you are under attack you can quickly build some cheap/weak units to defend yourself. In case that you plan an invasion, you can prepare in time an attack force consisting of more expensive/stronger units. And beside that it adds more subtlety to the scissors/paper/stone system (cavalry/archers/pikemen or battleship/distroyer/submarine). This way a single military tech could give you the victory on the battlefield. Two tech = almost total strategic victory (Mongols had fast horses and the composite bow and that allowed them to conquer half of Eurasia; Alexander the Great had phalanx and his genius ).

Seriously, the limitation of overconquer should came from the others aspects of the game (economic = high cost of keeping a huge army, social = unhappyness of conquered city => garnison needed, diplomatic = all others payers allied against you etc).

However your idea for combat screen is too complex. Actually what you try to do is to include a whole separate game : The Operational Art of War I&II (or Steel Panthers maybe? - I didn't play it yet). I think that's too much for Civ3. Maybe in Civ4.

Phalanx vs. Tanks? If modern armor negates ancient attack then that is the answer.
Phalanx vs. GIs? Well...in WWI infantry attack against machine guns over and over again with huge casualty. In 1879 at Isandlwana 30000 zulus armed only with spears and leather shields wiped out 5000 british armed with the-most-modern-at-the-time breech loader rifle. In conclusion, size does matter.

I've got several ideas for a few unique and different helicopters.
Med Evac helicopter, (Huey?)

Hitpoints=10-Fairly generous defensive capabilities
Firepower=5-armed only with basic machine-gun type weapons.
Evasion=5-not a very fast hunk o' junk

L A S S

A 10 8 10 0
R 0 4 0 0
D 10 8 10 0 Transports two infantry, restores one infantry unit to fuul health in it's stack every turn, thats why its a Med Evac chopper, eh.

By the way, thanks for the feedback Youngson, your National Arsenal and Organision Workshop ideas are awesome, spectacular even!

Firaxis, you'd better be listening!!!

C-Ya all soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You can suggest more if you got any and don't hide them from me

quote: However your idea for combat screen is too complex. Actually what you try to do is to include a whole separate game : The Operational Art of War I&II (or Steel Panthers maybe?- I didn't play it yet). I think that's too much for Civ3. Maybe in Civ4.

The combat model I put above is based on Colonisation style believe or not. And that was enhanced little bit to accomodate "stacked combat" & "combined arms concepts" so nothing is too complex here

Matthew how's it going?

Med Evac helicopter? Medical? Evacuation?

quote: Transports two infantry, restores one infantry unit to fuul health in it's stack every turn, thats why its a Med Evac chopper, eh

You mean two infantry units? in civII term perhaps?

Spotter Helicopter; (Gazzelle?)

Uses an advanced laser rangefinder to aid combat helicopters in order to increase the 'one shot kill' potential of their ordinance.
In game terms, this would translate into an increased attack value against any and all ground or sea units attacked by a stack containing one of these spotters.
To prevent abuse of this ability, it is not cumulative.

///////L A S S

/////A 0 0 0 0
/////R 0 0 0 0
/////D 6 0 6 0

The forward slashes are to stop the lines getting screwed up like they did in my previous posts.

I shan't be able to post anything else until saturday,
to much damned School work!!

Youngson, Darkcloud, Technoophile, where r u!!

House Carl

Big strong mediaeval fella with a twenty-foot long sword. Used during the Hundred-Years-War against the French by the English. Combined with the mighty Longbowmen and Knights of England, these guys often played a major role in the destruction of French armies many times bigger than their own forces.

////////L A S S

//////A 4 0 0 0 First unit with 4 attack
//////R 0 0 0 0
//////D 3 0 0 0

Fantastic work you have there! A few suggestions, comments, etc.:

1. Take all you have written in this thread, condense and edit all that material, whip it in a PDF file, and post a link. The advantages of this is a person can read that offline, plus you can have all your illustrations in there. It's quite daunting to go through this thread right now. Now if you could include an index in that PDE file also, that would be just great

2. Did you steal those diagrams of military hardware from PG3 or PG3D?

3. The illustrations are great but they are too wide for my screen. If you could make them narrower it would be perfect. Nitpicking, I know.

4. I think the unit workshop in SMAC has almost the perfect combination. What I think would be the best is for a unit to have, on top of the basic "frame" type: one armor slot, one movement slot, two weapons slot, two special slot, and a doctine slot.

For example:

Ancient Skimisher
Basic Frame - infantry
Movement - foot
Weapon 1 - short sword (bronze)
Weapon 2 - short bow
Armor - leather
Special 1 - wilderness survival
Special 2 - none
Doctrine - skimisher

Modern Special Force Unit
Basic Frame - infantry
Movement - foot
Weapon 1 - light arms
Weapon 2 - espionage kit
Armor - bulletproof vest
Special 1 - wilderness survival
Special 2 - combat insertion/extraction
Doctrine - special forces

Hoplite=1 MP

Tank-Buster Chopper= 7/8 MP

Spotter Chopper= 7/9 MP- almost no weapons and a
fairly decent engine.

Med Evac Chopper= 6/7 MP

House Carl= 1/2 MP

C-Y'all Soon!!!!!!

Hoplite=1 MP

Tank-Buster Chopper= 7/8 MP

Spotter Chopper= 7/9 MP- almost no weapons and a
fairly decent engine.

Med Evac Chopper= 6/7 MP

House Carl= 1/2 MP

C-Y'all Soon!!!!!!

People are always people. I don't think that different 'eras' should change the conscripted mens ability. It's the weapons and armoring that makes the big difference, and training ofcourse.

Maybe your civ's overall health could play a part in how good your men can be (without weapons), this will probably, but not necessarily, increase with time. With knowledge, food and hospitals e.t.c.

Tiger Tank

////A D R M

//L 18 16 16 3/4 Sloewd down by heavy armour*.
//A 0 8 0 0
//S 0 8 0 0
//S 0 0 0 0

*And a badly underpowered engine.

Youngsun, wher've ya gone!

On another topic...

I've followed this thread with some interest, and I think it's a shame that they're not going to have a unit workshop at least available as an option in civ 3. The Clash of Civilizations military model will have a lot of the things you have been talking about here, and could Seriously use more discussion and ideas. If you are interested in checking it out please look at the Current Clash Military Thread. We have a new military coder, Laurent, who is making serious progress, so there is the potential for you to see any good suggestions you might make actually Implemented fairly soon!

I don't think that's a lot of additional work for little gain. There are already some players expressing utter disgust at this decision and refuse to buy the game as a result. I am not so extreme as I will evaluate the game carefully. Of course, missing the unit workshop wouldn't work out to Firaxis's favour in my case.

About varing ability of men for each era.

I was thinking once I occupy some enemy land and some of its population come under my control there should be different consequences which depend on situation.

CaseA(Primitive people come under control of modern civilisation)
After British colonial force subdues some primitive tribes in Africa, we wouldn't expect to see those tribemen as eligible candidate for conscription to serve in the British army-no instant call for mobilising occupied population for militatry use until those people are more civilised.

CaseB(ancient/rennaissance people come under control of modern civilisation)
Unlike their primitive counterparts, those people(ancient/rennaissance)should be conscripted by their modern masters much easier than primitive ones. The British used the Egyptians and the Indians(Sepoy)extensively throughout the colonial era.

CaseC(Ancient people come under control of rennaisance civ)
There should be no real difficulty to mobilise the ancient men since there is no dramatic difference between those two civilisations.

Perhaps there should be only 3 distinct eras(Primitive,Ancient and Modern)by merging rennaissance and modern as one. Primitive people shouldn't be able to cope with modern military training(think about air force and navy)which make them virtually useless in military use after their subjugation while ancient people have more chance.

Just imagine your civ is the only modern civ in the globe and others are primitive or ancient and your military forces are almost unstoppable then this limit imposed to usage of people based on era will function as some sort of obstacle to you because occupied population will be useless for a long time which depends on how primitive your opponents are.

Urban Ranger
Your suggestion looks good and I especially like the "doctrine" part which gives the distinct colour for each branch of armed forces.

If you read my model carefully you can find the term "unit" is not a "unit" used in Civ series or SMAC.
In CIV or SMAC, unit is just one piece of thing that represents bunch of arms moving together while "unit" in my model represents a military organisation such as division or brigade. That's why my model is very different from SMAC style one. A unit is an organisation which includes combat personnel,equipments and given training/doctrine.
An infantry division does not consist of only riflemen! there maybe some artillery piece(to improve firepower support)attached or some horses or trucks given(to improve mobility of the unit). If my model is used there will be no catapult unit or cannon unit roaming around(less unit variation!)but just infantry divisions or Roman legions which might have those equipments(catapult & cannon) as attached forms. My "organisation workshop" may give some ideas about how combat personnel and equipments come togeather as one unit.

Mark

quote: I've followed this thread with some interest, and I think it's a shame that they're not going to have a unit workshop at least available as an option in civ 3. The Clash of Civilizations military model will have a lot of the things you have been talking about here, and could Seriously use more discussion and ideas. If you are interested in checking it out please look at the Current Clash Military Thread. We have a new military coder, Laurent, who is making serious progress, so there is the potential for you to see any good suggestions you might make actually Implemented fairly soon!

quote: Originally posted by Youngsun on 02-13-2001 02:41 AM Perhaps there should be only 3 distinct eras(Primitive,Ancient and Modern)by merging rennaissance and modern as one. Primitive people shouldn't be able to cope with modern military training(think about air force and navy)which make them virtually useless in military use after their subjugation while ancient people have more chance. Just imagine your civ is the only modern civ in the globe and others are primitive or ancient and your military forces are almost unstoppable then this limit imposed to usage of people based on era will function as some sort of obstacle to you because occupied population will be useless for a long time which depends on how primitive your opponents are. [This message has been edited by Youngsun (edited February 13, 2001).]

History is full of primitive people meeting more advanced people. Your basically is saying that advanvced civs don't use conscripts from from conqured tribes that are too primitive beacouse they are not good enough. I don't agree. Actually, i would say that conscripting from a newly captured cities isn't hardly likely at all. It has to go several years until a captured civ is likely to be trusted to be given weapons, and don't use them against you. There is a reason why primitive tribes isn't normally trained as a modern conscript. It is called prejudice.

I don't for a second believe that 'primitive tribes' are more more stupid and lazy than swedish people (i'm swedish). I meet stupid people everyday, and i'm not too bright myself, so i know that there are a great variation of dumbness in the world. But the prejudice is a part of the nationalism. You can't get a bunch of soldiers to kill other soldiers unless you give them a feeling of superiority towards the others.
My theory is that primitive men are not consripted simply beacouse it would endanger the feeling of nationality that keeps your troops loyal, and why bother spending money on making your troops loose their prejudices when there are so many men to conscripts in your own civ? (those who you know will be loyal). Sooner or later the tribes will be a natural part of your country and you will no longer see them as primitive tribes. It all has to do with point of view. By that time they probably will be so assimilated bye your culture that there is no real difference in your lifestyle except maybe some special small things like some art and music and other symbolic things too make them feel good about their origin.

During every war we have seen that once a tribe discovers how the advanced society works it soon will begin defending it's right with more sophisticated methods. But this was not my point. My point is that humans are so much alike in different eras and different cultures that it's only the weapons, shielding and training that should have some effect. There is only cultural differences between different people. Among every people you can find the same mix of stupid and smart, nice and bad guys.

In civ terms. A people should maybe have a attribute called loyalty, (or nationalism or whatever). This atrribute decides whether the men are suiting as conscripts or not. If not they are harder to train and more likely to be bribed or revolting. I think the easiest way of representing this is simply to forbid building units in captured cities for x number of turns. The number of turns depending on difference in tech level, difference in government, religion and ofcourse if the civ still is at war with you.

Also, no difference in how the men themselves fight without equipment. Let the equipment and the chance decide. Moral and health could play a part but don't make it too complicated. I wouldn't like to see the war machine get too complicated we still are playing civ, not war.

quote: Your basically is saying that advanvced civs don't use conscripts from from conqured tribes that are too primitive because they are not good enough

I said

quote: should be conscripted by their modern masters much easier than primitive ones.

So there are some difficulties involved to conscript less advanced people but that's not impossible but just takes time.(the more primitive the longer it takes to be eligible for recruitment)

quote: i would say that conscripting from a newly captured cities isn't hardly likely at all. It has to go several years until a captured civ is likely to be trusted to be given weapons, and don't use them against you.

Of course, "assimilation of conquered people" takes time but what I was talking was after they become less rebellious we can conscipt them but unless they are quite fond of modern technology they shouldn't be able to control aircrafts nor battleships. You may still conscipt them but you will get primitive men in your stock(national arsenal)whose ability is somewhat limited to use only primitive to ancient weaponry.

quote: I don't for a second believe that 'primitive tribes' are more more stupid and lazy

Excuse me? I did NOT say primitive people are stupid and lazy. However they lack understanding of very basic modern science such as mathematics or physics which are extensively taught from year 7 to year 12 in all over the modern societies. And it takes time to teach such concepts to those people who were not aware of such things.

quote: By the time they probably will be so assimilated by your culture that there is no real difference in your lifestyle except maybe some special small things like some art and music and other symbolic things too make them feel good about their origin.

That's right and now you also acknowlege it takes time to assimilate people.

quote: In civ terms. A people should maybe have a attribute called loyalty, (or nationalism or whatever). This atrribute decides whether the men are suiting as conscripts or not. If not they are harder to train and more likely to be bribed or revolting. I think the easiest way of representing this is simply to forbid building units in captured cities for x number of turns. The number of turns depending on difference in tech level, difference in government, religion and ofcourse if the civ still is at war with you.

I absolutely agree with you stuff2.

quote: Also, no difference in how the men themselves fight without equipment. Let the equipment and the chance decide. Moral and health could play a part but don't make it too complicated.

I realised that your unit is not the same as the "unit" used in Civ 2. There is one major difficulty to implememnt your idea though, namely, it is a rather modern one.

Ancient units didn't have such standardised organisation and doctrines. I think the ones came closest are the Romans, who had quite formal requirements for their legions. Most others didn't.

Therefore, I reckon the strength of a "unit" should be somewhat less strict than that of modern military units, say, a battalion or a company.

As you pointed out, a Civ unit is just a loose grouping of men and equipment put together for a particular mission, and it should be treated as such.

What I am saying is any such units shouldn't have any standardised attributes; these should be depedent on the number of combatants, training, equipment, experience, and morale. We can then throw in other modifiers such as supply status and terrain.

I used terms like "division" or "brigade" to help other people to understand what I'm trying to portrait as a unit but it's not those terms which hold the significance to bear the fundamental difference between the SMAC one and mine but the nature of the unit.

quote: What I am saying is any such units shouldn't have any standardised attributes; these should be depedent on the number of combatants, training, equipment, experience, and morale=. We can then throw in other modifiers such as supply status and terrain.