This is an idea I'm sure was asked before, but I think I know how to do it (but I can't).

Give units 2+ attack types, as well as formations. This will change the flow of gameplay quite a bit and maybe even help us by giving us lined out anti-SOD gameplay or battles (maybe).

This is how it works. In gameplay, you may have only two units on any tile. If the tile has a fortress, the limit becomes three, and a city is five. Units have regular stats which are for defense. They do well in defending against a certain type of weapon. If you like this can be done with promotions. Attack types are given by having the unit upgrade by pressing a button. Upon upgrading, python sees this and sets movement to what it was before upgrade. So, say we have an archer.

"Hi!" This is the archer. His two attacks are... wait that's a bad example, we'll come back to him later.


This is axeman "Hi!" His attack types are chop- Kerplunk!!! -and Smash/Bludgeon- Thwwaak! -His chop does highest damage but is not good versus overly heavy (it can't penetrate) or wooden (it gets caught) armor. His bludgeon attack is affective versus wood (smashing), but not good for any type of metal armor. So he is built to kill everything but heavy plate type armor. He is going to attack a fanatic (cloth armor). Which attack should he use?

Chop! Because it does the highest damage, although neither are ineffective versus cloth armor.

What about a conscripted asian archer unit? Hint: Wicker Armor

Yes! Bludgeon! That's correct! Now if we look at an axeman from up north, he will be wearing leather armor. Remeber this, but now it's time to go back to archers.

Archers have very... unique attacks. They can attack at range (yes somebody figured that out, it's called the spelldemo mod), which does good damage to medium armored units and light armored units, and just a little for heavy. However, all archers have a backup plan, and on my particular ones it is called a dagger. Daggers are actually more effective versus units with heavy armor than an arrow (getting in the chinks) but not as powerful as an arrow on anything else. It does defend much better, however, because with the short distance on the battle field, an arrow will give you the first strike chance and then you're dead. If you want you could make it so that archers start with the arrow attack for first strike and then go to dagger, that is if you are going to use armor as defense and weapons as offense, not both as both.

(if you think about it, a xyphos blade will do well in defense if the armor of the defender is a heavy bronze phalanx type, but no so well with wooden armor, because a xyphos was made to be used when you were belly to belly with the enemy, so you could find the places in their armor that were most vulnerable. If you used wooden armor with it, you would be mutilated on the end of a spear before you even got to striking distance)

So, let's forget all the examples I gave and boil this down to ancient greece. We'll use three basic types of weapons: Peirce, Shock, and Smash

Peirce includes spears, arrows, darning needles (javelins), and daggers.
Shock includes xyphos blades, scimitars, murmillo swords, and throwing knives.
Smash includes butt spikes, shield bashes, and rods and shafts (common militia)

Pierce beats Smash
Smash beats Shock
Shock beats Peirce

(please tell me if I'm wrong at any point)

This works because with shock you generally have heavier armor and effective, precision blades. This would easily beat spears, and arrows and javelins too. Daggers might stand a chance, if for some reason you used them with armor good enough to withstand a shock blade :)

A smashing weapon is going to be out of control, moving around like mad, and with lots of force. In a tight formation tipicle of shock infantry, these will do a lot of damage. The other point is that the force that smash weapons carry is large, and if you can knock over 200+ pounds of bronze, the 140+ man inside will not be getting back up easily.

Now, in order to wield a massive smash weapon, you would need to cut down somewhere, and that would be armor. The only exception to this would be the flail/mace man. Arrows and spears do well against medium and lighter armor, and spears can be somewhat effective against a few types of heavy armor. Plus the long reach of most pierce weapons means that you are likely to get the first hit, which could be all you need.

Daggers are peirce, but I dont think they should be kept that way. I think they should be a part of the "Special" class. Special does all sorts of wierd things. (It is special).

OK. Tomorrow I post about my ideas on formations, and on Saturday I will talk about some miscelanious things. Right now, it's time to take a break.

This area is to post completed mods only. If you wish to discuss an idea post it in the general Creation & Customization board.

drat. I meant to post it there, but i guess while i was surfing around i had the idea... could somebody move this thread?

hey Saint, i like all your ideas! but i think the problem with that could be the AI. but lets see what the experts say about it!
and furthermore i can only do graphics ;)

Well, since it's still here I'll do as promised and post about formations.

Formations are great. Who in their right mind doesn't love the idea of a formation? YOU don't!? Oh well, here it is:

We're gonna start here the way I did ancient greece, just so that you kinda get a feel for what it is I am talking about. Keep in mind that if this is done then it should include way more than 3 formations.

Inward V formation (good for defense against cavalry and other strong, but loose formations)
Box (great defense versus flanking menuvers, like a V formation...)
Line (strongest formation, pushing the weight and momentum of the entire column at the enemy)

V beats Line
Box beats V
Line beats Box

Makes sense, don't it?

In order to change formations, you upgrade your unit (just like selecting an attack) But, it can get more complex. For instance, I have my two units, and I say "Hey, a toxetos and a phalanx unit... I should put them both together! So you move them to the same square and "load" one into the other (ewww) Just kidding. What you actually do is select the "combine" button. This brings you to a screen that looks like this

_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l....Sprites Avaliable: 22 (11 + 11)
_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l
_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l....Sprite Types: Toxetose, Phalanx (click one)
_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l
_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l....Preset Formations: Line, Box, Inward V, Outward V, Horde
_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l
_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l....Recently Used Formations: K formation, Sparse, Parallel ll
_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l


In order to place a sprite, just click the one you want and move your cursos onto the grid. Depending on ther size of the unit (cavalry, siege tower, spearman, it will take up a different amount of space.

Infantry and Man units: 4 space square
Cavalry and Mounted: 6 space rectangle

Arrow in middle shows the way the unit is facing. By double clicking on the unit set the rotation automatically to the nearest angle of 12.5 degrees (eight directions) You can also click again to keep changing or drag your cursor for more custom variations (mostly asthetic, with a few exceptions) Note: The square's center never moves once it is clicked once, it just swivels. By clicking once and moving the mouse cursor you can move the unit's positioning.

All the sprites you can possibly use is up at the top (you may have a max of 11 in one unit and left overs are thrown away). The different types that can be mixed are below that (all the different sprites in the two units combined). Premade formations are just below that, and recently used ones are at the bottom (all recently used are custom made ones that work with the sprite type classifications (archer and melee). When you combine units, you do more than just change the formation (which you can do at any time at the cost of one movement point), you also combine abilities and strength. In other words the computer finds the mean of all abilities for each sprite and gives them to the new unit. So:

A Toxetoes, an archer with say, 2 tile away bombard and a bombard strength of 4, but a melee strength of 2, and a movement count of 2, has 5 of its 11 sprites combined with 5 phalanx, a melee unit with strength of 6 with a movement count of 1, will come out as follows:

Take the bombard strength of all ten units, which is 20 ({5*4}+{5*0}) and divide it by the total number of units (10), and you get 2, which makes sense because it's about half the bombard strength of your original toxetoes, which was about twice as many archers.
So:
Bombard=2
Melee=4
Movement=1 (will explain)

The computer takes the lowest movement and applies it to the entire formation, because people aren't gonna move faster because they're combined with other units: They're Going As Fast As They Can Already!

So the above is the base stats. With a formation, we can change certain aspects. Horde, for instance gives no attack or defense bonus, but, since it's really a lack or formation, gives the unit the movement of the mean (rounded) of all the sprites in the formation. So with the horde formation our "toxephanx" now has a movement of 1.5 or 2. Horde also has no preferred formation to go up against, because there is no strategery at all in the battle.

However, if we put our new unit (which you get to name) in the line formation, then we go back to 1 movement, but we get a bonus to attack, right? Well, not exactly. Yes, we do get a bonus, and yes, it's for strength, but it's not the full bonus, because the formation we made looks like this

.O.O.O.O.O.
X_X_X_X_X

With O being archers and X being melee. Now, as you may know, when you have this formation as a solid melee, it gets a bigger strength bonus because you will have your units like in example.bmp, where the first line (the top) is attacking over the head of the second one, and is actually pushing forward, so that the entire front line is like a meat grinder, and as you go over the enemy, the people behind you would stab them repeatedly (very greusome). This grinding motion that is what the phalanx is know so well for. With archers, you have the ranged peopel stand back and fire over the heads of the melee, pretty much killing the idea of a grinding pattern (but it does protect the archers). So, we'll find the optimal formation for our "toxephanx"

The optimal formation looks like this:

O
OXX
O.X
OXX
O

it looks much like a hat turned on its side. From here, the melee can work together and the archers can be spaced out to maximize arrow spread. The hole behind the middle melee is ok, because even if he died, there is still coverage of the area, and the middle archer could finish the person who entered the hole off (like a trap).

And don't say "I'm sure that's not optimal formation," because a group of greek resistance fighters on a raid for the tent of the persian emporer Xerxes used this formation when they were discovered, and were able to keep most of the party alive despite their definate disadvantage in numbers.

So that's basically how that works. Any questions? Please?

P.S., if somebody wants to do this, I think I know how it could be implemented... (P.M. me)

What you are describing is exactly where I like the Total War series (well, I've only played Medieval, but presumably all operate on similar principles). There are actual tactics involved on the battlefield as well as strategy on the "game board." Of course, TW sacrifices flexibility in exchange for realism. It's either fun or maddening to try to line up your spearmen to guard those archers or run your cavalry around the spears to come up at the archers from behind.

MTW is also more realistic than Civ in that since it limits itself to one time period, the mechanics of the politics and military of the time are a better fit. I like that provinces can revolt, giving you the feel that there's a real world percolating under the feet of the units you can see.

Anyway, if there's a way to bring that into Civ4 without compromising what makes Civ4 fun, more power to you! :)

I've never play Total War, but if the idea was good enough to be made into a game, then I'm on the right path, right?

Good thinking, TNS.
I came up with a formations system like yours a while ago, but never got around to making it into a mod (school got in the way :P ). So if you need help with anything, just ask.

Another idea you could use is a supply system where your units each have a set stock of food and ammo (if applicable). Units lose food stocks when they leave your territory (-2 with a road, -4 without?) and lose ammo whenever they attack or defend. When fortified in your (or an ally's) territory, units with depleted stocks will automatically replenish themselves (at a cost to you).

Should a unit's food stock run down to negative numbers, it has a chance of dying of starvation (at a rate of food*10, so -10 food is auto-death, -5 means 50/50, and so on), while running out of ammo simply makes the unit weaker (like 50% strength?).

One way to keep your forces strong from a distance is via supply caravans. These units, built with food like settlers and workers, replenish their food stocks whenever they're fortified (in your territory or not), and can give out excess supplies to your other troops, again, at a cost to you.

Pro's:
More Realistic
Limits Early Exploration
Allows Convoy Raids
Prevents Stacks-o'-Doom
Caravans can be used Outside of Combat (Civ2, anyone?)

Con's:
Makes War More Costly
Dilutes Armies with Non-Combat Units
Could be Difficult for Newbies
Upsets a Lot of Old Mechanics
Hard to Mod

That;s a really cool idea! I might have t oput that down in the general all inclusive mod thread! Thatnks MistaUnderhill! Oh, and just so you know, I don't plan on doing this, because I have so many ideas I would never have time to mod them all. I am thinking that everything in this thread would go well with my midievil times stuff. It would be cool if somebody would mod this.

Thanx Again,
.......TheNewSaint

Here's the link (Link Here) (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=3821749#post3821749) to my midievil times thread. P.S., if this makes war harder, that's great, because I've always thought it was just tooooooo easy to wipe out an entire civilization, or go to war in general.

Thanks,

I'm a bit of a lazy modder myself (great ideas, no real work), so I understand where you're coming from. :D
But since not many people are doing projects like these and I could use the practice, I figure maybe I could do something in my spare time.

The only bit I'm finding trouble with is adding information to existing units (like food and ammo variables).
Could any of you Python gods/goddesses out there show me how to do it?