Mechanics of Unique Units

[CornPlanter]

Most of us enjoy UU due to flavor and diversity and strategical possibilities and what not. However, current UU mechanics are flawed badly. This thread is meant to discuss alternatives. Purely for fun of course, I'm pretty sure such important mechanics for civ5 are already decided.

Spoiler:

So, what I dont like about UU is this. Imagine Mongols, a proud warrior race, aggressive to the extremes, meant to kill everything at moves (and what doesnt move can be moved). However in this particular game they happened to be nowhere near horses.

They ofcourse do know what a horse is. They have seen pictures, and besides Subutai had seen several real horses when he was visiting neighbors Aztecs.

After Subutai returned to Karakorum, together with Temujin they came up with the idea of the best cavalry in their era, called Keshiks. Purely theoretical concept, ofcourse, since they never even tried to ride a horse, leave alone fighting or using bows while riding it. Too bad they could never implement it.

Ten centuries later, when Mongol empire no longer existed, Aztec historians (specializing in medieval wars) admired the invention of what could have been the unstoppable force. They were really amazed by the genius of Subutai who only saw horse once in his life and yet came up with such a brilliant idea of Keshiks.

Yet the historians always wondered, why being such a genius, he couldn't come up with ideas to (ab)use resources he really had, like Iron and Ivory, and train Unique troops superior to those of every other nation and conquer the world? Like Unique Mongol Infantry or Unique Mongol War Elephants? Why he wasted his time on theorizing about horses instead?

How would you change UU mechanics to address this problem? Is that possible at all, considering that we want a nice gameplay too?

p.s. sorry for my poor English.

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Suggestions so far:

1. Force the starting location close to appropriate resource.
2. Several different UU for each civ, unlocked by having appropriate resources, adopting civics, etc.

[Loppan Torkel]

Perhaps they were meant to ride for the same reason they were aggressive to the extreme - genetic composition. Too bad no horses were around for them...

I have to say I like some hard-wiring when it comes to civs. What's the point of having different civs if they all are the same? If the Mongols didn't have any early wars - why would they still turn out to be an aggressive civ?

[Jean-Luc Picard]

The most obvious solution for me would be to force the starting location of Mongols near the horses (or place horses near Mongolian starting location - whichever is made first in map generating script).
The same way would be with Vikings forced to start near the sea and maybe even Egyptians to start near the desert and give them of course some bonuses related to deserts.
The question is: wouldn't this make every game somehow predictable and boring?

[axi]

The Germans in WW2 lacked the resources to fully utilise their superior tank designs and doctrine (limited steel production, oil shortages) and lost the war against the greater numbers of T34s and Shermans. However, if one considers the reasons behind their insistence on quality vs quantity and on amassing the tanks in spearhead divisions instead of distributing them evenly all over the front, the scarcity of resources is the reason.

So your logic dooesn't apply in every case, though in the case of the Mongols it does.

Of all strategic resources in the game, the ones that have historically denied some civs the access to specific weapons technologies are horses and elephants. Copper and iron are too widespread to actually be circumvented in weapons technology. Aluminum and oil have affected war by scarcity, but they have not prevented the spreading of weapons technologies. Uranium is more a matter of industrial facilities to refine it rather than raw availability.

Most UUs anyway do not originate from a specific resource, but from a specific social characteristic of it's civilisation. The hoplite f.e. isn't created by the abundance of iron, but due to the availability of free citizen-warriors who fight as equals (and a terrain that favors infantry of course).

A good way to implement what you want is have each civ have a couple of UUs and have one of them appear in the game, depending on:
Terrain: Sum up the types of terrain inside the fat crosses (fat circles) of the capital and the next 2 most culture heavy cities and decide according to the percentage of sea(naval), flat(mounted), rough(infantry) and forest(ranged).
Civics: Specific UUs like hoplites, legions, frigates, can appear only with democratic civics and others (samurai, keshiks, war chariots) can appear only with traditional or despotic civics. If the condition is not satisfied, the alternative UU appears instead.
War: If one UU is ancient and the other more modern, have the ancient one appear only if a certain percentage of turns before the unit's advent have been in wartime. This way, if you are not a warmonger, the later unit may be more useful.

[Gre_Magus]

I really like the idea of unique units being tied to the "civics path" you choose, i.e. hoplites being tied to one path and samurai or knights being tied to the "traditional" path. It would be interesting if instead of every civ getting knights if they had horses, iron, horseback riding, and guilds, you had to have the appropriate resources and technology, and have reached the right level on the "monarchy" or "feudalism/indirect rule" path. If you chose the "republican path" maybe you'd get heavy infantry, like Swiss pikemen, instead.

[ko3ak]

I would like to see more UUs per Civ and more powerful UUs. I find that no matter which Civ I choose, combat feels the same. I think the UUs shouldn't be just replacements for existing units. They should be a completely separate class of unit. Perhaps they could be almost a hero type unit. When you build a UU it should be something that others fear above all other units.

[The_J]

If i'm not wrong, nowhere is said, that UU will exist in Civ5...

[mechaerik]

Originally Posted by Jean-Luc Picard

The most obvious solution for me would be to force the starting location of Mongols near the horses (or place horses near Mongolian starting location - whichever is made first in map generating script).
The same way would be with Vikings forced to start near the sea and maybe even Egyptians to start near the desert and give them of course some bonuses related to deserts.
The question is: wouldn't this make every game somehow predictable and boring?

This would be a great Game Option, not so sure about base game.

Originally Posted by ko3ak

I would like to see more UUs per Civ and more powerful UUs. I find that no matter which Civ I choose, combat feels the same. I think the UUs shouldn't be just replacements for existing units. They should be a completely separate class of unit. Perhaps they could be almost a hero type unit. When you build a UU it should be something that others fear above all other units.

But the problem is, you don't only build 1 of your UU. You build many. And that can wind up being very overpowered.

[seasnake]

The key is to have several UUs per civ but they're only available if you have certain policies/practices/religion/resources/military tradition. For example, taking England. If you've fought in a lot of religious wars, you can recruit Knights Templar. If you know Archery and have a feudal government, you can build Longbowmen. If you have a lot of city-states, you can recruit native scouts to ally with your forces. If you invest in espionage over time, you can train MI6 agents. What you do opens up unique units over time.

[Danielos]

The little Civilization-inspired RTS-gem "Rise of Nations" actually had multiple unique units for each civ. It even went so far as to invent modern unique units for civs like Inca and Babylon.

[CornPlanter]

@ axi: I like your ideas

Besides, iron and copper were important. It was all about quantities. I.e. Lithuania couldn't even dream about full plate armor and stuff. Like their nemesis Livonian order had.

[axi]

Lithuania couldn't even dream about full plate armor and stuff. Like their nemesis Livonian order had.

Doesn't this have something to do with Lithuania being mostly rural while the Livonians were more mercantile? I guess that even if they didn't have access to iron locally, they would be able to import it from Scandinavia.

Of course my knowledge of the area is minimal, since I'm from the south of Europe. So correct me if I'm wrong.

[ko3ak]

Originally Posted by mechaerik

This would be a great Game Option, not so sure about base game.



But the problem is, you don't only build 1 of your UU. You build many. And that can wind up being very overpowered.

I agree there is a potential for it to be overpowered. It would have to be finely tuned, no doubt. The Hero units don't necessarily have to be invincible. You could still make a lot of them and they would have to have some weaknesses to exploit, but at the same time, they should fulfill a function far removed from other units. A UU should not fill the same role as an existing unit.

Also, perhaps some Civs should have UUs for the purpose of espionage (MI6), or some for trade (caravans), or some for engineering or diplomacy. That way each Civ becomes a bit more unique as well. So, maybe Britain has spies and the Spanish don't, but the Spanish have explorers where the British don't.