Firstly, I would like to state that the info releases for Civ 4 look very promising - the game looks very slick and it has introduced a lot of features that I wanted in the game (such as better trade and diplomacy) - the religion and civics ideas seem good too so overall a big thumbs up from me :goodjob: .

However, I'm a bit concerned that the game is shipping with only 85 units (I think) - given that 18 are going to be Unique Units and c13 are going to be 'utility' units (scout, explorer, worker, workboat, settler, 5 great people, spy(?), caravan(?), missionary) - that only leaves c54 main units. I sure hope king and flag units are being counted separate to the 85.

Given that Civ 3 missed out great chunks of historical units (e.g. Renaisance and WW1 era are the two periods that really stick in my mind) then Civ 4 is almost certain to miss out vast chunks too :( .

This bugged me in Civ 3 but Rhye's excellent modpack redressed this by filling in the gaps - unfortunately Civ 4 seems likely to have even bigger gaps and the detailed units look like they are going to be hard to replicate by the modders - I reckon it will take about 12 months after the games release before someone has had time to construct a pack that sets all this straight.

I will probably need to upgrade my PC to run this game anyway so I reckon I might wait a while until the modders have done their magic and added in all the units that should have shipped with the game but didnt.

I understand, the idea behind less units = more value from promotions - but can't they simply transfer the promotion skills to upgraded units?

I don't want to critiscise what looks to be overall an excellent game but the lack of units does bother me - I think just a few more units (say 15 more) would make a large difference.

What do you guys think? Do you think 'less is more' or do you think 'the more the merrier' or do you think 'wait and see'?

The game as released has fewer civilizations and fewer units so that we have to buy expansion packs - it's that simple.

I just think we should wait and see what happens. Alot could change in the months we got left to wait before Civ4 is finished and shipped. I'm pretty sure its not going to be that hard to mod. Modders will jus have to learn how to do it for the game, and then after that is should be pretty easy to mod for. At least thats what I'm hoping.

I think more will come in future expansions, but I simply think that the main reason they have reduced is because of the new promotion system and also new "strength" ranking.

I hope they didnt do what they did with tanks in Civ2, only one to represent WW1,WW2 and modern tanks.

I agree that it's just so that they have something left for expansions. Actually, I'm pretty sure they already have a lot of ideas for expansion but purposely decided to leave them out from the basic game.

It's all just business.

I'd say with the current system (1 type of unit per "pawn")
-> less is more realistic.

Example - "Modern infantry" unit.
(that represents all mortars, light artillery, tranports, snipers, light flaks, etc, etc.)

But if they would make it possible to group different types of units, more would be marrier, but i don't think that's going 2 happen.

I agree that it's just so that they have something left for expansions. Actually, I'm pretty sure they already have a lot of ideas for expansion but purposely decided to leave them out from the basic game.

It's all just business.

:goodjob: Certainly

And most of us will still end up buying the expansions... :rolleyes:

And most of us will still end up buying the expansions... :rolleyes:

Well, of course... :lol:

I just sometimes wish they would charge me $150 up front and deliver the full game all at once...

I have a bad feeling they will only give us culture based unique units in this game, and not Civilisation based UU's, perhaps that can explain a bit of this. I was really hoping for more diversity between the CIV's not less!

Given that many units were rarely, if ever, used in Civ III (IME) reducing the number in Civ IV makes sense to me.

Given that many units were rarely, if ever, used in Civ III (IME) reducing the number in Civ IV makes sense to me.

Which units were rarely, if ever, used? I added thirty or more new units to the full game and I still used every unit.

Let's start with explorers and conquistadors, marines and helicopters...

Feel free to add paratroopers, modern paratroopers (in C3C, at least), chariots for most people, AEGIS cruisers.....

Arathorn

I agree that some of these units were almost useless as the developers made them, but they could be modded into usefulness. Increasing helicopters' range makes them much more useful - as does increasing the range of units they can carry. Improving the range and the attack stats on paratroopers make them very useful as well. Improving the Marines' attack to make them into elite shock troops gives them more usefulness as well - especially when deployed via the now longer ranged helicopters.

The question is not whether it was essential to use all of the units to win - but whether they had their role. I have seen plenty of strategies that call for just using Celtic swordsman, Cavalry or Mounted Warriors to win - does that mean that all of the other units should be taken out of the game? Of course not...

Would you people really rather have a game with fewer units than C3C? I would rather have more units and more ability to make "useless" units useable than have fewer units and have to create flavor units from scratch.

also they took away defence/attack values so now each unit can be either a defender or attacker, so there's more options for one unit

I think that is probably a key point

With the special abilities addable, it looks like you would start with

Infantry and then as they advanced you could make them Paratroopers or Marines or Commandos (depending on your needs)

So each unit essentially represents an additional 1-3 possible 'specialized' units [of course you wouldn't be able to Build Marines/Paratroopers, but how many of them do you need, you would just have to plan major amphibious/airborne assaults one war ahead of time...Also All infantry might have limited amphibious/paratrooping ability..and you can just choose to upgrade it..such as Marine 1 (built with), attacks from sea at 1/2 strength...Marine 2, attacks at full strength, etc.]

plus 54 main units sounds like more than even C3C had (I think 48 on a quick count)

The question is not whether it was essential to use all of the units to win - but whether they had their role.

You hit the nail on the head: many units in Civ don't have a role, or can't have a role. They're either obsolete before you even build 'em, or the game can't accurately portray their traditional use.

Paratroopers, as an example, are traditionally employed "behind the lines": cutting off retreats, supply lines, communications, securing geographic chokepoints, etc -- none of which exist in Civ III (or, as I suspect, Civ IV).

And, ultimately, there's nothing you can't accomplish with bread 'n' butter forces: infantry, armor/cav, artillery. Throw in some transports, if necessary, and conquer the world. The rest of the units are nothing more than chrome (w/ the exception of UUs).

Doesn’t even matter with the modabillity C4 is supposed to have...

@ Volstag I agree...the base should be infantry, armor/cav/horsement, artillery/catapults, transports, and the dominant naval vessel of the era (Frigate, Battleship, and Aircraft Carriers)


The beauty of this game will lay in the unit’s customization their uniqueness in doing so

I agree with Firaxis on having fewer units and each unit having more capabilities and upgrades.

If we have a lot of units, then each unit will become obsolete very soon. This would defeat the purpose of introducing RPG-like capabilities for the units.

It sounds to me that the system might work like in Alpha Centauri, where you can build a basic unit and add one or two special features, like bombing capabilities or extra radar. (I used to create air colony pods and expland over alpha centauri by air)

If it is like Alpha Centauri, then you cannot compare CIVIII units and CIV-IV units. As somebody said earlier in the thread, in CIV-IV you will build a infantry, you give him anfibious attack, or something like that, and you have a marine. In this case one CIV-IV unit is like two different CIV-III units. (sort of).

I wouldn't mind if they dropped UUs int eh Civ 3 sense and made all Civs units look unique and be named unique. Same stats, different look.

But anyway, it looks like there are more units and they are adding in transition units rather than putting in the giant gaps that did exist in the past.

I think another reason for less units is the unit upgrades. If there are dozens of speciality upgrades, then they could get by having 1 to 3 types of units per time period. If the upgrades are relatively redundant (e.g. cumulative bonuses to say attack), and can be purchased separately, than you'd really only need say 1 tank unit to represent a 100 years of tank warfare (+ upgrades).

less units means less time to beta test means the game comes out earlier.

Isn't the answer in the new battle approach they choose? If your unit wins a battle it can achieve bonus skills. Perhaps some of those bonus skills render other units useless.

Isn't the answer in the new battle approach they choose? If your unit wins a battle it can achieve bonus skills. Perhaps some of those bonus skills render other units useless.

Yes and the multiple guys per unit could make for a very long game with a lot of different units. Sticking to the basic "sword>spear>horse repeat" units in the early eras should make the game faster.

Personally, I don't like having to worry about too many units, and which units to build for a given situation. (i.e., I don't want 5 types of tanks, or 10 types of swordsmen/medival infantry) What's the point in say, building 8 WWI tanks, then getting WWII tanks, building 5 of those, then you get modern tanks and build 10 of those?

Weapons and armor were imporved upon because of competition, not always peaceful research.

Chieftess is right. Why to waste time to building better units if you have tanks against knights?

Some of us do not just play the game to win - but also enjoy the variety of dozens of different units, lots of different resources and varied terrain types. If you do not care about variety, flavor or such things, why not just play chess?

One vote for a huge variety of units here.

So each unit essentially represents an additional 1-3 possible 'specialized' units [of course you wouldn't be able to Build Marines/Paratroopers, but how many of them do you need, you would just have to plan major amphibious/airborne assaults one war ahead of time...


Does this possibility bother anyone else? That you might have to fight a war just to be able to create marines/paratroopers/etc? What if I want to be at peace, but want a group of marines ready to go just in case there's a war? I think the idea of specialized upgrades is great, but I'd like a way to have some of the abilities built in without fighting, possibly through the use of a barracks or similar improvement.

Personally, I don't like having to worry about too many units, and which units to build for a given situation. (i.e., I don't want 5 types of tanks, or 10 types of swordsmen/medival infantry) What's the point in say, building 8 WWI tanks, then getting WWII tanks, building 5 of those, then you get modern tanks and build 10 of those?

Weapons and armor were imporved upon because of competition, not always peaceful research.
Precisely. The main point is exactly that. He/she with the superior technology... almost always wins the day. See also: Cortez versus the Aztecs, the Gulf War, the Europeans colonizing the world, and so on.

If you were to take, for example, a WWI tank, say, a Renault FT-17 (1917) and pit it against an M-60 (1960), the FT-17 would very quickly be a pair of smoking treads. Nevermind pitting a P-51 Mustang against an F-22 Raptor, or what have you. In Civ3 terms, assuming everything concurent, that means in the Modern Age, after about 30 turns of research, you should have a near complete combat edge over somebody who went off and researched something else.

Plus it also introduces some options: do you go with the lower-quality, quantity army? Or the lower-quantity, higher quality army? As is there's no way to replicate (intentionally or not) something like the Cold War in the Modern Age. You'll both have just about the same thing unless the AI's just hopelessly behind. It's all a numbers game "I have 3 to his 2 so I win."

With diversification, it could open up a question of more "I have 2 to his 3, but my troops are each worth 1.5 of his" situation. Without the tried and true "I have Artillery and the AI is too dumb to use it, so I'll win even though I'm behind" strategem.

The point is this: towards the end of the game, you should have to spend a good amount of money upgrading your forces to keep them relevent, or you should fall behind. That is the way it's worked throughout history (Poland had the finest Cavalry forces in the world - didn't do much against German Panzers).

Unit diversification should really only come into effect in the late Industrial ages and forward into the Modern Age, but it should be in place. I don't mean you should have a whole bunch of variants of a given unit, but you should show the evolution of units. (Bolded for Emphasis) Humankind has technologically advanced more in the past 100 years than all of human history before that combined. That should be represented somehow, not just packaged up in fewer techs than the Ancient Age and about as many units. The jump from Tanks to Modern Armor is about as night and day as going from Horsemen to Cavalry. Nobody would find that acceptable.

Basically, the message of the Modern Age should be "Upgrade and R&D, or become militarilly irrelevent" because that's pretty much what happens regardless in-game and real-world. It's not "bad realism" either because if the game goes on that long, you're either milking your culture or shooting for the UN, where you're trying not to tick people off and playing nice, or conquering the world, in which case it won't make much of a differene.

Even so, it should only be about 3-4 unit representations at most (Say, WWI -> WWII -> Cold War -> Modern Era, applied to Infantry, Tanks, Planes, and probably some other things).

You could cut down on this some with the new promotions systems, but something beyond "You instantaneously learn how to make Sherman tanks!" and "You instantaneously learn how to upgrade these to Abrams tanks!" really needs to be put in place.

And where are my jet bombers? "Yeah, we figured out how to put these things on those worthless fighters, but not the things you can actually use to blow stuff up with." :crazyeye:

Anyway, that's my rant. I'm not expecting it to happen, but damn if I won't mod it in once some good unit models come out. At least they're implementing penalties for older units against modern ones - that's a step in the right direction at least. Death to :spear: !