Vokarya's Workshop: Units

Oh I see the sense in the cavalry upgrades now.

Well where does Mecha Infantry fit in here? Especially since it's not the upgrade of the infantry line anymore (since it doesn't get city garrison etc etc). I'd say Late modern Light, the unit art is a M2 Bradley imho.

Or just go from light tank directly to mecha infantry?

Noyyau said:

Oh I see the sense in the cavalry upgrades now.

Well where does Mecha Infantry fit in here? Especially since it's not the upgrade of the infantry line anymore (since it doesn't get city garrison etc etc). I'd say Late modern Light, the unit art is a M2 Bradley imho.

Or just go from light tank directly to mecha infantry?

Click to expand...

Mechanized Infantry is part of my "mobile defense" line. There's a large chunk missing from the center of the line that I have planned. The line goes Mounted Infantry - Man-At-Arms - Dragoon - Mounted Rifleman - Motorized Infantry - Mechanized Infantry - Walker Mech. These are speed-2 units that can get defensive bonuses (unlike most speed-2 units until the Transhuman Era). It's going to take some time to put all of this in as I don't think all of the art that I want exists and I may have to learn how to put unit models together.

Vokarya said:

I have always wanted to do some reorganization of the cavalry units and their upgrade paths. Before the Modern Era, I want to have four groups of mounted units:

• Mobile Defense units with speed 2 and NOT having Doesn't Receive Defensive Bonuses.
• Light Mounted units that are cheaper and lower-Strength than Heavy Mounted units.
• Heavy Mounted units that are move 2 and relatively high attack strength.
• Elephant units with speed 1 and high Strength.

Elephant and Heavy Mounted units merge together into Tanks. Mobile Defense units are not part of the main mounted tree; they are part of the main foot troops line. So I came up with a "ladder" for the horse and tank units, arranging them by era (or portions of eras).

This is how I want the ladder to look.
BLUE units don't yet exist, but I will make them.
PURPLE units exist but will be renamed.

Light Heavy
Ancient Chariot Horseman
Classical Horse Archer Light Cavalry
Medieval Heavy Cavalry Knight/Mailed Knight
Renaissance Lancer Cuirassier
Industrial (New) Light Cavalry Cavalry
Late Industrial Armored Car Early Tank
Modern Light Tank Tank/Heavy Tank
Mid-Modern Main Battle Tank
Late Modern Modern Armor
Early Transhuman Stealth Armor Thermobaric Tank
Mid Transhuman Hover Tank Plasma Armor
Final Dreadnought Armor

The idea is this: Light Mounted units upgrade to the next Light Mounted unit (so Chariot upgrades to Horse Archer). Heavy Mounted units upgrade to either the next Light Mounted or the next Heavy Mounted (Horseman upgrades to either Horse Archer or Light Cavalry). I'm not completely sure if Light Mounted units should ever be able to upgrade to a Heavy Mounted, especially with Auto-Upgrade turned on. This is the biggest question that I have about this. But in general, this is the plan I want to pursue.

The one unit that I don't know what to do with is the T-95. I don't even know what this is supposed to be. There are a couple of different Wikipedia articles on various tanks named the T-95, but I don't know which one is the one in-game. It definitely needs a rename to make clear what it is.

I'm not sure whether Helicopters should be a part of this. I definitely want to develop Recon units into a more extensive separate line as well.

Click to expand...

You are missing an important line IMO. Basically I see it going something like this. The anti-calvary calvary line:

Ancient - Elephant Rider
Classical - War Elephant
Medieval - War Elephant Strength Upgrade
Renaissance - Elephant Bombardier
Industrial - Elephant Calvary
Late Industrial - Elephant Anti-Tank (Think Elephant w/20 mm Solothurn anti-tank rifle)
Modern - Tank Destroyer
Mid-Modern - Tank Destroyer Strength Upgrade
Late Modern - Modern Tank Destroyer
Early Transhuman - Modern Tank Destroyer Strength Upgrade
Mid Transhuman - Plasma Armor

Combat Wombat said:

You are missing an important line IMO. Basically I see it going something like this. The anti-calvary calvary line:

Ancient - Elephant Rider
Classical - War Elephant
Medieval - War Elephant Strength Upgrade
Renaissance - Elephant Bombardier
Industrial - Elephant Calvary
Late Industrial - Elephant Anti-Tank (Think Elephant w/20 mm Solothurn anti-tank rifle)
Modern - Tank Destroyer
Mid-Modern - Tank Destroyer Strength Upgrade
Late Modern - Modern Tank Destroyer
Early Transhuman - Modern Tank Destroyer Strength Upgrade
Mid Transhuman - Plasma Armor

Click to expand...

Elephants and tank destroyers do NOT have the same role. Elephants are slow, dedicated-attack units and anti-cavalry is a nice little side effect; that's why the Elephant Cavalry merges into the Early Tank. Tank destroyers are not unthinkable, but they would form a separate branch, probably off the Early Tank.

Note sure how you can say that. Elephants are anti-mounted units and mounted units turn into tanks so I think clearly elephants should turn into anti-tank units.

In my view, I also agree with Vokarya on the elephants upgrade issue. Looks very strange to me too to upgrade from elephants to anti-tank units. I also prefer them to merge into tanks line.

I don't think there's a way an elephant could upgrade to an anti tank bazooka for example. Does it look weird only to me?

45°38'N-13°47'E;13090157 said:

In my view, I also agree with Vokarya on the elephants upgrade issue. Looks very strange to me too to upgrade from elephants to anti-tank units. I also prefer them to merge into tanks line.

I don't think there's a way an elephant could upgrade to an anti tank bazooka for example. Does it look weird only to me?

Click to expand...

I agree.

JosEPh

Name suggsteion for the industrial light cav: Ulan or Hussar.
I kinda like the idea of the elephant upgrade line. I don`t think its a further stretch to upgrade an elephant to a tank destroyer than upgrading a cavalary to a tank. Both are changing living mounts for vehicles in the abstact. It comes down tohow reasonable it is in game mechanics, and I like the idea that elephants which are very strong against cav become very strong against the units that cav upgrades into after they upgrade themselfes.
Also, you can argue that antitanks (at least in WW2 times) often had mor armour and larger guns than tanks, but lacked flexibility (lacking a better word here). The greater strenght and less movement doesnt seem to be a bad representation for that.

45°38'N-13°47'E;13090157 said:

In my view, I also agree with Vokarya on the elephants upgrade issue. Looks very strange to me too to upgrade from elephants to anti-tank units. I also prefer them to merge into tanks line.

I don't think there's a way an elephant could upgrade to an anti tank bazooka for example. Does it look weird only to me?

Click to expand...

We're actually talking about a completely different type of unit. Tank destroyers are armored vehicles with less armor and bigger guns than tanks, specifically devised to destroy opposing tanks. They had their heyday during WWII, but seem to have dropped off in popularity since, which is another reason why I'm not that keen on including them. If they were included, they would be an alternate upgrade path for the Early Tank.

Vokarya said:

We're actually talking about a completely different type of unit. Tank destroyers are armored vehicles with less armor and bigger guns than tanks, specifically devised to destroy opposing tanks. They had their heyday during WWII, but seem to have dropped off in popularity since, which is another reason why I'm not that keen on including them. If they were included, they would be an alternate upgrade path for the Early Tank.

Click to expand...

Ok, I've got it. I was thinking about infantry units armed with bazooka because I think those were some early anti tank weapons. It makes more sense now. Well, in this case I don't know, both options look good to me.

Vokarya said:

We're actually talking about a completely different type of unit. Tank destroyers are armored vehicles with less armor and bigger guns than tanks, specifically devised to destroy opposing tanks. They had their heyday during WWII, but seem to have dropped off in popularity since, which is another reason why I'm not that keen on including them. If they were included, they would be an alternate upgrade path for the Early Tank.

Click to expand...

A modern tank destroyer uses something like a TOW missile launcher and they are still very much a part of the modern arsenal. The tank-esqe tank destroyer saw its heyday in WWII for sure but it evolved into the anti-tank missile toting vehicles of today.

Zorn said:

Name suggsteion for the industrial light cav: Ulan or Hussar.

Click to expand...

Hussar is a Hungarian UU in MEGA Civ pack.

About the elephant units becoming tanks or tank destroyers: I don't really think tank destroyers are even necessary as a separate unit. They were never used on their own, rather as an addition to tank formations or infantry formations, and the abstraction in Civ IV is no so high level, creating them as separate unit is superfluous. It also doesn't fit in with elephant unit philosophy - them being anti-cavalry is, as Vokarya said, just a little bonus to their main assent, great strength. Tank destroyers were much more specialized than elephant cavalry, with almost no ability to fight infantry and limited offensive capabilities (they were mainly aimed at defensive roles, ambushes and similar, thus lack of armour). Elephant line upgrading to early tanks makes much more sense to me, as tanks are still important anti-tank weapon (inheriting the anti-cavalry role of elephants) and they are major punchers in the modern era armies (inheriting the same role of elephants).

BlindKitty said:

About the elephant units becoming tanks ...

Click to expand...

I always thought it was a bit strange to be able to make such upgrades. I understand that it makes sense to equip an Arquebusier with a new gun and some training and he becomes a Rifleman, but 'upgrading' an elephant or a horse into a tank always seemed very strange to me. I'd prefer if some unit lines simply became obsolete. Then, e.g. if you wanted a tank army you'd have to build it rather than the current situation where you just spend a little money and voila! your mounted soldiers now instantly drive tracked tanks which you also instantly mass-produced. I don't think we necessarily have to have neat 'lines' and upgrade sequences all the time.

I remember in earlier Civ's that I almost never upgraded units, it was always too expensive; in RoM AND, I find the costs are almost trivial.

Would the AI be likely to have difficulties if units weren't always upgradable? I wouldn't have thought it'd be too difficult to tell it to disband very old obsolete units...

I guess not being able to upgrade a chariot along a 'line' into a tank would be rather a large departure from AND's philosophy.

Cheers, A.

BlindKitty said:

About the elephant units becoming tanks or tank destroyers: I don't really think tank destroyers are even necessary as a separate unit. They were never used on their own, rather as an addition to tank formations or infantry formations, and the abstraction in Civ IV is no so high level, creating them as separate unit is superfluous. It also doesn't fit in with elephant unit philosophy - them being anti-cavalry is, as Vokarya said, just a little bonus to their main assent, great strength. Tank destroyers were much more specialized than elephant cavalry, with almost no ability to fight infantry and limited offensive capabilities (they were mainly aimed at defensive roles, ambushes and similar, thus lack of armour). Elephant line upgrading to early tanks makes much more sense to me, as tanks are still important anti-tank weapon (inheriting the anti-cavalry role of elephants) and they are major punchers in the modern era armies (inheriting the same role of elephants).

Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/601st_Tank_Destroyer_Battalion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/773rd_Tank_Destroyer_Battalion

"The US Army finished the war with 63 active tank destroyer battalions, mostly self-propelled" (WW2)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1134_Anti-Tank_Guided_Missile_Vehicle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FV438_Swingfire
"When it first came into use in the 1970s, the FV438s were operated by specialised anti-tank units of the (British Infantry and Royal Armoured Corp)"

I am not saying they are the most common unit in a modern military but I think they are common enough to make them possible from a realism perspective and certainly useful enough to keep around from a game-play perspective.

Combat Wombat said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/601st_Tank_Destroyer_Battalion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/773rd_Tank_Destroyer_Battalion

"The US Army finished the war with 63 active tank destroyer battalions, mostly self-propelled" (WW2)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1134_Anti-Tank_Guided_Missile_Vehicle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FV438_Swingfire
"When it first came into use in the 1970s, the FV438s were operated by specialised anti-tank units of the (British Infantry and Royal Armoured Corp)"

I am not saying they are the most common unit in a modern military but I think they are common enough to make them possible from a realism perspective and certainly useful enough to keep around from a game-play perspective.

Click to expand...

I'm not saying I won't consider it, but I have a lot of other things I want to implement first. I've been working on unit modeling over the last few days, and it's going fairly well but a lot of trial and error involved. (I don't think I'll ever understand how I managed to get Japanese soldiers with four arms.)

Vokarya said:

I'm not saying I won't consider it, but I have a lot of other things I want to implement first.

Click to expand...

Oh I understand I just want to make sure I push my opinion while you are in the general vicinity of thinking about this stuff

Vokarya said:

I've been working on unit modeling over the last few days, and it's going fairly well but a lot of trial and error involved. (I don't think I'll ever understand how I managed to get Japanese soldiers with four arms.)

Click to expand...

At least they wern't tentacles

Here's a unit that I know has been asked for at least a couple of times and that I've wanted to include as well: the Gatling Gun.

View attachment 371587

The Gatling Gun keeps the complete stats of the current Machine Gun, but it has a new unit model. I found the original model in Orion's Grand Inquisition mod, which combines the regular Machine Gun barrel with the gun carriage from a Cannon. I figured out how to do some elementary unit model combining in Nifskope, but it turned out to be harder than I originally thought. I could only get the model to look proper if I added the gunner to the gun, and only if the gunner model was one solid piece; for example, I couldn't find any working Native American model.

There are six different Gatling ethnicities:
European:
View attachment 371588

African:
View attachment 371589

I turned an Imperial Japanese machine gunner into this for Asian civilizations (and this was the one that at one point had 4 arms, two in the outward pose and two holding the nonexistent machine gun against the body):
View attachment 371590

Indian:
View attachment 371591

Middle Eastern:
View attachment 371592

Greek/Russian (I thought this one would look good for either):
View attachment 371593

The units use the regular Machine Gun animations. I can't do anything about the hands - they are posed where they are for the regular Machine Gun to hold the gun against the body and lower it to the ground for firing. With these models, the gun barrel and carriage stay static on the field.

The Machine Gun itself gets upgraded a little bit: it is now available at Automatic Weapons, has a strength of 38, and a cost of 310 (slightly more than Infantry).
View attachment 371594

One of my big principles for adding new material is to add things that expand on an existing concept, in preference to adding something completely new. The Gatling Gun was one such addition, to expand on the Machine Gun. The Minigun is the third unit in the Machine Gun chain. It comes available with Modern Warfare. The Minigun is a strong defensive unit: I placed it at Strength 60, given what it has to compete with on the modern battlefield. If this proves to be too high, we can bring it down.

View attachment 371758

I found the Minigun artwork in Orion's Grand Inquisitions mod (it's a Machine Gun with a different body). With a little bit of alteration, I was able to create some variant arts so that they would look good in game.

View attachment 371759View attachment 371760View attachment 371761View attachment 371762View attachment 371763View attachment 371764

The Motorcycle is a unit that was in previous versions of RoM. The graphics and game text assets are still buried in the files. I'd like to resurrect this unit as an expansion of the Recon line. The Motorcycle requires Automobile tech and is Strength 20, Speed 2. It can only defend and gets the other standard benefits of a recon unit, but I've classified it as a Wheeled unit. I'd almost like to give them the Commando promotion as well, to make them really fast - keep in mind they are fairly weak compared to most other Industrial units and are defend-only.

I think these units have a definite place with their Sentry I promotion for +1 sight range and their ability (not inherent, but capability) for Medic promotions. I use Adventurers in every stack almost solely for the +1 sight range, but also Medic I if I can get it. I'd like to expand on this line further, but not too much - I think two more units would work (I think a modern recon land unit - jeep or Humvee, not a helicopter - and a hover unit would be the right combination).

View attachment 371769View attachment 371770