A [MOD]est Proposal

QES

Court Jester
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Jul 18, 2006
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A small thought. What if units as "differing" types were removed for land units?

TOO LONG, WONT READ VERSION:
-Units become generic and varying in size, but with specific "unit-based" upgrades visa vie promotions.
-Technology grants access to unit-type promotions.
-Barracks-line buildings would give free promotions (non-specific so each unit made could be tailored specifically)
-Unit-promotions could be purchased for gold.
-Unit-promotions determine what graphic the unit has when on the map (this can also change if promotions do) to allow for easy identity of "largest" promotion.
-Unit-promotions would become obsolete over time, so that free unit-promotions could be freed up for more combined and modern arms.


The Idea:
Promotions would reflect the technological development, and the graphic of the unit would depend on those promotions.

Units could come in 3 flavors and 3 types.
Infantry, Cavalry (because let's be honest they work independently) and Armored (in the early game this could also be artillery).
Small, Medium or Large.

What was IN the military unit would be defined by it's promotions, and every unit would always have one FREE promotion. The graphics associated with the unit would be whatever was it's highest promotion.

With Bronze working the "Polearms" promotion would be possible. Which would give a bonus against cavalry. With Archery the "Archer" promotion would be given, either giving first strikes (visa vie Civ IV) or a range-1 bombard attack. With Iron Working the "shields" and "swords" promotions would be available, giving the unit defense or attack bonuses. Many unit-promotions would be direct increases to strength.

Each technological development of what used to be a "new unit" in Civ would now represent "new promotions" which would be available. Longswordsmen would now provide the "shields II" and "swords II" promotions. To upgrade what was once Unit-specific advances, players and civs could spend money to upgrade their units. Level-based promotions would be as they are now, and should remain unaffected. Weapons/types modifiers would be purchasable at creation, and buildings could allow for more free purchases of THIS kind of promotion at a unit creation (getting a unit immediately up to swords II for example)

What cities would actually be producing would be 3 generic(ish) sizes of various unit types. Small Infantry, Medium Infantry, and Large Infantry Units. The sizes would affect base strength and base HP (perhaps one thing that bugs me some is how all units have 10 HP, perhaps some should have 30.)
Calvary would also come in 2-3 sizes.

Upon creation, depending on technologies and buildings available, the unit would be created with free unit-promotions. Which in the early eras would represent using spearmen or swordsman, and in the late stages would represent Paratroopers or Infantry.

The promotions themselves should be obsolete-able and prioritize-able. So that the AI in the later stages of the game does not attempt to make infantry with spears. Also, unit types could still be obsolete-able. So "Medium Calvary" might disappear all together once "Medium Armor" came around.

Finally, preexisting units could be upgraded with monetary means to gain other promotions. This is to say, the "upgrade" button would "buy" unit-promotions. The cost of upgrading a unit with new equipment would depend on how many unit-promotions it already had. This would make late game units more expensive to upgrade. The Barracks line of buildings could add the additional (free) unit-promotions to newly created units. This would mean that cities with the barracks line of buildings would not only be producing units with higher experience (general promotions), but also higher grade units (more unit-promotions/modern equipment). Every unit should be able to "upgrade" to gain whatever promotions are available to the civilization at the time. This could mean that a unit which was built with 4 unit promotions might have Swords I,II and Shields I,II, but could also be upgraded with gold to have archer I, and archer II.
This would make upgrading far more common in civ II (and things affecting upgrade costs would be more valuable) as well as giving a higher onus on funding armies. It would also mean that each unit would be an entire combined force unto itself. Promotions would be associated with graphics, and the most common element/graphic would be what the unit looked like on the map. If equal, there could be a priority list given.

This would make the 1upt work very well and represent combined arms very effectively. Each unit would be a mix of archers, spearmen and the like. Which would make each unit it's own little army.

Note: The barracks line of buildings should be able to keep up with giving units promotions akin to the level of technology developed. A city with the barracks line in the late industrial age should be able to produce units which would be the equivalent of "Infantry" upon creation.
 
sounds alot like Elemental's unit design system. In Elemental (now that they finaly have the worst of the bugs ironed out), it is interesting, but ultimately "generic" seems to be the operative word. It just gets bland. you use the same units you start the game with, just upgrade thier gear. i dunno, i prefer going the route that makes units MORE unique from one another. If i could mod it so that every civ has a full roster of unique units, each with its own strengths and weaknesses, I would.

that said, i won't say your idea is bad, or that it can't be great, but i think you will need to put a lot of effort into making sure it doesn't become too generic.
 
It occurs to me that the names of the unit-promotions perhaps should just BE the units they replaced.

"Spearmen" is a good promotion name, as it represents having Spearmen IN the unit.

In this, every unit's function throughout the game could just BE a promotion in which "this unit has those kinds of warriors".


Some units would have to be special though. Paratroopers would have to be unique, for examples, else-wise entire armies would be getting para-dropped which is a bit counter intuitive.
 
sounds alot like Elemental's unit design system. In Elemental (now that they finaly have the worst of the bugs ironed out), it is interesting, but ultimately "generic" seems to be the operative word. It just gets bland. you use the same units you start the game with, just upgrade thier gear. i dunno, i prefer going the route that makes units MORE unique from one another. If i could mod it so that every civ has a full roster of unique units, each with its own strengths and weaknesses, I would.

that said, i won't say your idea is bad, or that it can't be great, but i think you will need to put a lot of effort into making sure it doesn't become too generic.

I think so long as the unit-graphics can be tied to the largest/most important/prevelant unit promotion type, it would work, as things would certainly LOOk different on the map.

All the major difference would be is that your archer looking unit is a bit more defensible than you're used to. Or that swordsman can also shoot that city from a safe distance.
 
But strategicly, he is right. Look at WWII OP maps; you only see a few types; INF, ART, Armor icons. Cause that's exactly what these forces presented; A Panzer Compagnie almost never acted on it's own; they needed panzergrenadiers to protect the panzers from being knocked out by enemy inf traps, like molotov cocktails, bazooka like weapons and sticky bombs. So a frontline fighting force contained of a mix of Armored bataljons and Infantry bataljons, often supported by artillery regiments and heavy small armor forces, like AA, AT and Mortar units.

On a scale you have with CIV 5, it's hardly possible to implement all those types of units in a "good" way. Also it's hard to implement it on a tactical scale; those compagies worked togheter like "clockwork" ; the germans were masters in exploiting and getting the most out of these weapons.
 
But strategicly, he is right. Look at WWII OP maps; you only see a few types; INF, ART, Armor icons. Cause that's exactly what these forces presented; A Panzer Compagnie almost never acted on it's own; they needed panzergrenadiers to protect the panzers from being knocked out by enemy inf traps, like molotov cocktails, bazooka like weapons and sticky bombs. So a frontline fighting force contained of a mix of Armored bataljons and Infantry bataljons, often supported by artillery regiments and heavy small armor forces, like AA, AT and Mortar units.

On a scale you have with CIV 5, it's hardly possible to implement all those types of units in a "good" way. Also it's hard to implement it on a tactical scale; those compagies worked togheter like "clockwork" ; the germans were masters in exploiting and getting the most out of these weapons.

I'm not sure what it is to which you are responding.
 
Or that swordsman can also shoot that city from a safe distance.

A unit can be melee OR ranged, not both.

I think you have a good idea there, OP, especially since Civ 5 operates at that kind of scale. The trick is getting it to work. I am trying to think of a way to get it done with current XML tricks.

I think the only way to make it customisable is to add a slew of promotions to the front of the promotion tree, and make the first few levels free. That way, when a player first builds a unit, he can pick the two or three opening specialties.

These promotions can still have unit, tech and promotion prerequisites.

EDIT: Mored thinkings: I'd drop the size differences. Give them names relevent to the era and nation (potential examples: Warrior Band (Ancient Era), Legionary Cohort (Classical Rome), Infantry Regiment (Rennaisance and beyond).

I'm actually really tempted to give this a go, but it's a big project.
 
Hello All,

I was actually just working on a similar mod to improve 1UPT... I'm not certain I'll go in the armies direction (b/c it'd be a lot of work), but if I had more time I think the idea could work. Anyways, my current 1UPT improvement mod is mainly focused on movement scaling issues. By increasing the lowest moves to 3 I've made it possible to get past most AI logjams (and the AI uses the move 3 to its advantage, too). Anyways, if you want to check out my mod you can find the thread here. I'd love to have your feedback on it. ;)
 
I did another thought dump, and here it is.

HOW I WOULD (CAN) DO IT
-----------------------
1) Units are explicitly of regiment size (with era themed naming: band, cohort, regiment)

Code:
Warrior Band -> Early Infantry     -> Infantry Retinue     -> Infantry Regiment  -> Modern Infantry Regiment  -> Mechanised Infantry Regiment
Hunter Band  -> Early Skirmishers  -> Bowmen Retinue
             Early Siege Engineers -> Late Siege Engineers -> Artillery Regiment -> Modern Artillery Regiment -> Rocket Artillery Regiment
Cavalry Band -> Early Cavalry      -> Cavalry Retinue      -> Cavalry Regiment
                                                                                 -> Armoured Division         -> Modern Armoured Division
Example unique units:

Legionary Cohort (replaces early infantry for rome)
Auxillery Cohort (replaces early skirmishers for rome)

Longbowmen Retinue (english)

2) Those things learned in training or experience are represented with selectable promotions. Civ 5 does not support mutually exlcusive promotions (yet!) so make sure that you are NOT attempting mutually exlusive doctrines.

Fire and Manuver (Industrial Age), Fire by Rank (Renaisance), Close Order (Classical), etc.
Undermining, Siege Trenches, Creeping Barrage etc

3) Those bonuses that are gained from equipment are given by non-choosable upgrades given for free from national buidlings that give that promotion for free. These buildings should cost strategic resources (probably quite a lot, say 3 or 4, were applicable).

Examples: Bronze Weapons, Iron Weapons, Grape Shot, Rifles, Rifled Artillery, Composite Bow, Crossbows
From once-off national buildings like Bronzeworks, Ironworks, Artillery Academy, Modern Cannon Works, Materials Science, Engineers Guild etc

I was actually just working on a similar mod to improve 1UPT... I'm not certain I'll go in the armies direction (b/c it'd be a lot of work), but if I had more time I think the idea could work. Anyways, my current 1UPT improvement mod is mainly focused on movement scaling issues. By increasing the lowest moves to 3 I've made it possible to get past most AI logjams (and the AI uses the move 3 to its advantage, too). Anyways, if you want to check out my mod you can find the thread here. I'd love to have your feedback on it

By our powers combined... :cool:
 
-Unit-promotions determine what graphic the unit has when on the map (this can also

I would suggest mixing the unit graphics so that a unit with the spearmen and archer promotion contains 6 spearmen models and 6 archer models. Otherwise the player would have to hover with the mouse over every enemy unit to see what it actually contains.

This might only be possible with source code modding. But I feel trying to make a mod like this with the current sdk would require you to change your design to accommodate the limitations of the sdk. Better in my mind to start with doing the math on how the system should work in detail and try to find any problems with it.

Anyway, have you thought about including peasants in your system? Maybe the default soldiers you get when building a unit are peasants? I'm no historian, but it seems to me like peasant armies were common a thousand years ago but isn't represented in the civilization games (or maybe the warrior unit is supposed to be peasants?).
 
I think so long as the unit-graphics can be tied to the largest/most important/prevelant unit promotion type, it would work, as things would certainly LOOk different on the map.

All the major difference would be is that your archer looking unit is a bit more defensible than you're used to. Or that swordsman can also shoot that city from a safe distance.

How do plan on making cavalry useful if every unit could potentially contain spearmen? Flanking and taking out archer units and the like would not be possible.

Why would I build something other than spearmen/swordsmen/archer-units except when I don't have the strategic resources for it?

I'm not bashing your idea. I just want to know in more detail how you will try to improve the combat system since I'm trying to come up with a new system myself.
 
How do plan on making cavalry useful if every unit could potentially contain spearmen? Flanking and taking out archer units and the like would not be possible.

Here's a solution I just thought of:
The solution requires that a unit consists of different types of soldiers (archers, spearmen etc.) and not just have a promotions like "Swordsmen +4 Strength". Anyway, the first time a unit is attacked on a turn it will reorient itself towards the direction of the attacking unit. If the unit is attacked again during the same turn and the attack comes from one of the three tiles in the rear, the attacking unit will engage any ranged soldiers in the defending unit first.

An example to illustrate the system:
The red player has a single spearmen/archer unit. The blue player has both a spearmen-only unit and a cavalry-only unit. It's the blue player's turn.

Blue attacks red with the spearmen unit from the west. This causes the red unit to reorient itself so that it faces the attacking unit. After the combat is concluded the red unit is open for flanking attacks from the three tiles to the east of itself. Blue attacks red with its cavalry from the east and because it counts as a flanking attack the cavalry engages with the archers for, lets say, the first half of the battle time before the spearmen starts fighting instead of the archers.
 
You don't have "Spearmen/Archer" units. That's absurd. What you have is Infantry Units (that can be upgraded to perform better vs cavalry) and Skirmisher Units (that can be upgraded to have bows, composite bows, etc).

Mixing up unit graphics depending upon upgrades probably isn't possible right now.

EDIT: I have already starting building a reworked Infranty Regiments proof of concept, which basically replaces many of the units with their regimental counterparts, and will allow diversity with promotions and support buildings.
 
You don't have "Spearmen/Archer" units. That's absurd. What you have is Infantry Units (that can be upgraded to perform better vs cavalry) and Skirmisher Units (that can be upgraded to have bows, composite bows, etc).

Mixing up unit graphics depending upon upgrades probably isn't possible right now.

EDIT: I have already starting building a reworked Infranty Regiments proof of concept, which basically replaces many of the units with their regimental counterparts, and will allow diversity with promotions and support buildings.

I was commenting on QES's original idea in which as I interpreted it every in-game unit would be representing a combined arms unit. Maybe something like a division or corps.

In your system, what does an infantry regiment that doesn't have any equipment promotions represent? Ill equipped light infantry or maybe levied peasants? How strong are they compared to a regiment with equipment?

Do you allow players to build all equipment buildings in a single city so that regiments built there get all equipment promotions? If not, how do you avoid all players from fielding a single mold of super regiments?

Not being negative, I'm just interested in your design! :)
 
Well, thanks for the interest.

The design in ongoing, but the first thing I would do is abstract the equipment upgrade buildings so that there is maybe no more than 2 per era. The building gives a buff (numbers still undecided) to all units you produce, and becomes obsolete later.

To give an example, I have the Warrior Band, which is your basic, first ever available infantry unit. With bronze working you can build the National Bronze Works (which is pretty cheap) which gives all warrior bands a 15% combat bonus. This bonus doesn't apply to Early Infantry units, since they have iron weapons to begin with, and get steel later.

My rationale for doing it this way was that if you wanted or needed to buff your warrior bands, then the option was there. All you needed to do was build the bronze works, and you get a nation wide buff for all Warrior Bands. If you didn't need the buff then you didn't need to waste the production on it.

EDIT: I'd love to be able to restrict upgrades to the units built only in those cities that have the requisite infrastructure, but I'm not sure if it's possible right now. That's why I went for the "National Wonder" version.
 
If anyone here can make it a reality, go for it. My modding abilities are subpar at best.
 
Here's another idea. Without any military buildings, a city can only produce light infantry and skirmisher regiments (in modern times maybe militias will be the only available unit). To be able to build archer regiments the city will need a Bowyer's Workshop building for example. Same thing for heavy infantry, spearmen, gunpowder units etc.

Another thing I have been thinking about is having cavalry be tied somehow to the aristocracy, since they would join the ruler as cavalry during war while infantry would to a high extent be levied from the peasantry. Or maybe I'm mistaken? Basically if your policies favor the aristocracy you would be able to keep more cavalry and get them cheaper.

It might also be a good idea to change so that cities have to build queues. One for buildings and one for units. Units would cost mostly or only gold to produce and would only take a few turns.

I think this will have the benefit of promoting the player to have more than one city producing military units. The two queues make it possible for your science city to still improve its science output while producing units. As it is now diverting your production to produce units in a city specializing in something other than producing units is not efficient.

Once you have built your somewhat expensive Swordsmith, you have your swordsmen producing city and building another military building in the same city would only hinder the city from specializing in something while at the same time reduce the number of swordsmen you could produce during wars.

The low build time and the fact that units cost gold would allow a player who have lost the first battles, and thus most of his army, to quickly empty his war chest and get a some additional units on the field before having his cities overrun. As it is now the long build time makes it hard to get units on the field before the enemy conquers a city or two. Of course the attacking player can do the same, but my hope is that the one unit per tile system would make harder for him (having a large army) to take advantage of additional units.
 
As I said above, having production of a unit restricted to certain buildings doesn't seem possible right now.
 
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