General discussion thread

The Experience and Combat Project

· Combined Combat (by Thomas SG) done nothing – Dales Stack Attack removed because of failures and errors

· New Ranged Bombard Concept (by Thomas SG and Dale) in progress – good preparations

The new bombard concept assigns to a unit three new tags. All units have now a bombard range. The bombard range is graded in steps of 0.1 between 0 and 1. Beyond that it goes in full steps of 1. Furthermore all units have two bombard power values. The first value tells you the strength against soft targets. Typical examples for soft targets are infantry units, mounted units and the population of cities. The second value tells you the strength against hard targets. Typical examples for hard targets are mechanized units (like ships and armored units) and all kinds of buildings.
The advantage of this concept is for example a well done archer and ranged bombardment as well as a simple realization of anti-person weapons. It even allows to give modern units like tanks a bombard capability without breaking the balance.

And this is absolutly needed with the new concept for forts, city walls and castles. Please notice that the bonus of city wall and castle won’t accumulate! City walls are somehow the first defense line while the castle is the second line when the walls are conquered.

Elements like the limited bombard damage and the bombardable city defense are no more in game. Defensive buildings give units now a direct defense bonus like terrains or features do. Furthermore units may get an extra bonus if they are defending important cities. That is the result of an increased motivation. Especially the defense of the capital and holy cities will motivate your soldiers. But also the cultural and infrastrucal development of cities will influence the motivation bonus. This bonus can be reduced by the destruction of buildings but never be wiped out if it is a capital or holy city.

· Active Defense (by Dale and Thomas SG) done – but recalculate damage after New Ranged Bombard Concept – made for combined combat

Active Defense allows units to attack enemy troops when they come close to their position. Notice that the attacked enemy troops can hardly do anything against the attack. They just can try to intercept the first wave of the defenders but they can’t shoot back immediately.

But there are just a few weapon systems in CCV that have the needed capabilities for Active Defense. Only patroling fighters and jets, units with heavy artillery, helicopters and missile armed units like the mobile missile artillery and missile cruisers can do so.

· Opportunity Fire (by Thomas SG and Dale) good preparations – made for combined combat

The bombardment of enemy positions is no more free of risk because the bombardment will betray the position of your bombarding units. This gives the enemy the chance to start a concentrated opportunity fire if he has got weapons of the same or higher range. So it is a good advice to bombard with lots of units at the same time to spread the opportunity fire.

· Bombing Missions (by Dale and Thomas SG) good preparations

Lots of units have now the capability to bombard units and defensive buildings. But while this requires just a small range the quite precise bombardment of other predefined targets requires heavy modern artillery with high range or air units. But always keep in mind that the defender could be able to intercept bombarding air units or may start the opportunity fire if the attacker is in range. And always keep in mind too that even a well aimed bombardment may miss its target.

There are now six types of missions in CCV:

Target Bombardment – Military
Choose this mission to attack land units and military important buildings. If existing the highest priority of this mission is the destruction of fort, city wall and castle because those buildings increase now the defensive capabilities against all land units (also gunpowder units). But the destruction of this buildings is typically quite difficult but possible with the early catapults, feasible with trebuchets and cannons and quite easy with modern weapons like artillery and bombers. If there are no high priority targets or the unit is not capable to attack them other targets will be choosen. Modern weapons of high range or air units may attack all kind of other interessting buildings like barracks, stable, military academies or even the Pentagon. Just port and airport are not included in this mission although they are of military interest because there is a separate mission to attack them. While the attack of other buildings requires a high attack range land units can be attacked by all bombard capable units. This includes also an archer bombardment! But with intact defensive buildings it may have just a small effect.

Target Bombardment – Port
Choose this mission to attack port near buildings like harbor, light house or drydock and of course ships in port. The destruction a ship in port is much easier than the destruction of the same ship in the open sea!

Target Bombardment – Airport
Choose this mission to attack airships, fighters, jets and (strategic) bombers on the airfield and of course the airport itself. Just patroling fighters can escape from a successful bombardment if the attacker passed the your air or missile defense.

Target Bombardment – Industry
Choose this mission to destroy all kinds of industrial buildings from forge to industrial park. The scope of this mission is also the destruction of all kinds of power plants.

Target Bombardment – Current Production
Choose this mission to damage the current production.

Area Bombardment
Choose this mission if you desire the maximum damage and if it doesn’t matter to you what is hit. But don’t choose this mission if you want to try to avoid to hit civil targets or risk massive losses under the population.

· Advanced Invisibility System (by Thomas SG) done

The Advanced Invisibility System was made to design a better naval combat.

It allows units to see as many invisible classes as you like. Furthermore you can define an independed invisibility probability with an accuracy of 1% for all invisible classes that the unit can see. Moving respectively patroling around in a small area will increase the chance to see an invisible unit but it also increases the chance to betray your position if you are invisible yourself. But in some cases moving may also cause a loss of contact to an already detected unit!

There are now three naval invisibility classes in CCV:
Conventional Submarine - Silent Submarine - Stealth Ship

· New Vision Concept (by Prime0ver and Thomas SG) done – better graphics required

The vision range depends now on other more plausible factors and new vision improvements.

Before the invention of the spyglass and radar scouts and good positions on hills are the only way to a good terrain overview. Without them you will just see the immediate vicinity and near mountain areas if your view isn’t blocked by trees. So it’s now a good advice to have scouts or units with the scout promotion with you. Otherwise the next ambush may be near.
The inventions of the spyglass and the radar will improve your vision range. Those inventions are especially useful for your navy. But even spyglass and radar will never make scouts useless.

Furthermore the new two vision improvements can help you to control your terrain – the sonar buoyer and radar tower.
The sonar buoyer has a good chance to detect all kinds of ships and submarines. Of course the sonar buoyer just can control water areas. Please even think about the blocking effect of land masses when you place your bouyers!
The radar tower increases the view over land and sea. The radar tower helps you to detect land units and ships. But trees, mountains and peaks can also block the view of the radar. So it’s a good advice to place them at the coast or on mountains.

· Advanced Interception System (by Thomas SG) done

The Advanced Interception System was made to design a better air combat.

The new system is still based on the both well known interception concepts – interception by unit and interception by SDI. Aircrafts can be intercepted by units while rockets can be intercepted by SDI. But missiles can now be intercepted by both.
The Advanced Interception System assigns to aircrafts now an air level and to all interceptors an
interception level. Defenders can intercept units up to the next higher level. The interception probability
is related to the level. The probability will change by factor 2 per deviate level.

CCV uses this system to grade the air interception technology. It allows for example to make a machine gun or a flak a useful weapon against airships but useless against modern jet fighters. It also allows hunting flying bombs with fighters and gives your jet fighters, mobile SAMs and missile cruisers a chance to intercept guided missiles.

· New Cargo Concept (by Thomas SG) almost done – AI okay, texts seem okay, but load routine must be reworked

The new cargo concept allows to reserve parts of the cargo space for special cargos.

CCV uses this concept to give units the capability to cargo different special cargo types. For example it is now possible to give submarines the capability to cargo missiles and persons.

· Capitulation and Desertation (by Thomas SG) nothing done

Whenever units haven’t got the chance to withdraw from a lost combat they will capitulate in 50% of cases. And 10% of the capitulating units will even show allegiance to the winner.
If a unit capitulates the winner will conquer the equipment and set up a unit of the same unit type with a damage of 60%. But the unit will have no experience, promotions and even no special unit promotions (like discipline, amphibious or blitz). Only if the beaten unit showed allegiance to the winner the unit will keep all this things. Conquered units won’t heal if the winner hasn’t got the needed technologies. But even if the winner has got the needed technologies mechanized units will only heal with half speed because of the different foreign technology.

But your army won’t only suffer from desertation after lost combats. In war times desertation can hurt all your non mechanized troops. The desertation quota can be up to 10% of the current troop strength. The desertation quota depends on different factors. The desertation quota will be the smaller the more your people dislike the enemy nation. So keep an eye onto the nation relation ship. But also the relative military power of your own and the enemy army will influence the quota. If your troops are hopelessly inferior to the enemy the desertation will increase. Also the general war weariness can support the desertation.

· Terrain Tactics (by Thomas SG) done

The Terrain Tactics were designed to specialize units with reference to their origin and combat experience.

All Terrain Tactics are high effective promotions. For the first level of those promotions units must be made up of people who grow up in the terrain or had a successful fight in the terrain. For the second and third level a successful fight is absolutly necessary. A unit is made up of people with terrain experience if a fitting terrain can be found in the owned city radius of the creating city.

There are seven Terrain Tactics in CCV:
City Attack – City Defense – Forest Combat – Jungle Combat – Hill Combat – Desert Combat – Snow Combat


· Mechanic, Medic and Red Cross (by Thomas SG) done

The units are now divided in non mechanized and mechanized units. While mechanized units can heal faster with a mechanic, non mechanized units can heal faster with a medic or with the Red Cross. The Red Cross is now a Team Project that gives the first medic promotion for free to all units if they can acquire this promotion.

Units can also be hybrid. Those units can theoretical heal extreme fast because they can get the mechanic and medic promotion. The only example for a hybrid unit in CCV is the Mechanized Infantry.


· Equal Promotions and Smart Unit Upgrade (by Thomas SG) done

The Smart Unit Upgrade reduces all classes of promotions by one level except the leader promotions. This procedure makes allowances for the fact that even veterans aren’t in relation as good with the new weapons and tactics as with their old. Because of the equal promotion costs of 8 XP per promotion the reached XP won’t be reduced anymore. The XP from buildings and Great Generals are suitable to the new system.

· War Games (by The Lopez, Dale and Thomas SG) some preparations

Not finally planed – but it will use a MAD Nukes Rework, Nuke Bombers, the Nuclear Weapon Team Project and perhaps a Missile Silo Concept and Mobile Missile Carriers.

· Unit Pack (by Thomas SG) some preparations

· Formation and Scale (by Thomas SG) graphical only - some preparations

· Cultural Units (by Artists) graphical only - future plan