Far-Reaching: An idea for a new unit system in future Civ games.

As it stands currently in all the civilization games, units are individual entities. You develope new units as you research new technology (you start off with a warrior who then upgrades clearly into a spearman and then a pikeman, etc.) Unique units help punctuate special traits in civilizations. I have another idea.

Instead of a list of preset units, I think units should be created. What technology should unlock is not a static list of new units, but new equipment for units to use (and thats a new place to implement some resources, yeah?) For instance, you would open the production screen of a city, and select a "Create Unit" item. You may be able to define some presets. You are then presented with a screen that lets you select a unit "chassis" (like infantry, cavalry, armored, etc.), along with special modifiers like weapons and armor (all researchable), "training" (which would affect some more stats; more on training in a bit), some aesthetic options and the ability to name units. These would all influence production time and cost of units.

On the subject of unique units, instead of having the system of unique units, give "unique training" abilities that can apply to certain unit configurations. This would allow civilizations to give special benefits to certain units other could not. Training is essentially the same thing as promotions, only with a tad more flexibility.

• In the unit creation screen, the ability to modify training would exist.
• This training would impart certain benefits on units.
• Training would only be available within the presence of certain buildings or with enough XP on units.
• Certain training types would be ineffective with certain units (infantry training does not benefit tank training very much)
• Despite this, you may choose to issue unusual training if you determine it as the best cource of action.
• Certain trainings may enhance other trainings or certain other modifiable stats for units
• Training may or may not take extra time
• And certain civilizations would have the ability to give unique training abilities to their units, enhance their training prowess or apply certain training abilities immediately to certain configurations at no cost, among other things

So for instance, in the American civilization, instead of having the minuteman unit, you would open the unit creation screen, select an infantry unit, equip them with no armor, give them a musket, give them a customizable uniform, and apply training where applicable (like one that would allow them to fight better in forests and whatnot), and an American unique training would exist that would grant firearm wielding units with no armor the ability to traverse all terrain types at no extra cost as long as this configuration doesn't change (modern era foot infantry with no armor would also be able to gain this benefit.) You may also grant some unique weapons and unique chassis that further allow special customization based on the civ you are playing as.

And upgrading a unit would just simply return you to this customization screen where you could change up some options (obviously training options already picked stay unless stated otherwise) to make your unit stronger and all of them have some cost associated with them if you do not have the assets. (Maybe certain weapons would be resources which would cost gold and other resources to produce.)

You could have presets already extant or you could save your own. You also should be able to rename your units at any time.

All in all, the outcome of the units made by this system would be similar to what we have now (though with some more customization), only the process of creation of the unit is what is revamped. Thoughts?

This system seems like an overly complicated version of what we have now. Your "training" mechanic is accomplished by the current promotion mechanic, and customizing the look of units causes more problems than it does solutions by reducing their readability. I don't see the benefit.

The point of customization is to try to mix and match different aspects of different units to create something different and unique. As it stands, the only the things that make units feel different are the occasional unique units, which you can only use for so long. And yeah, training is very similar to promotions but I feel that it could be a bit more in depth than what we have now. I am trying to go for a more organic feel of unit progression. Instead of having a defined "This is a pikeman, he will be a rifleman next" thing going on, I wanted to have a system that more encourages: "Now my troops have a better gun to use, and some better armor. Do I want to focus on improving one of those moreso than the rest? Defensive oriented units vs offense? Maybe an infantry unit with limited interception capability?" Players can get very creative given the freedom to do so.

There's nothing overly-complicated or unfun about such systems. They are present in both MOO2 and Alpha Centauri, both classic strategy games, loved in part for these very systems.

Snes, from what little I can gather from your response, I would assume that you prefer predictability in games. You know, you play and think to yourself: "That's an infantry unit, it can be countered with an armored units" and things along those lines. I would much prefer a system like this: "Here is an infantry unit with some interesting abilities. I wonder which tactics would work best at taking them down" or "I just researched some new tactics and weapons. I wonder which combinations would work best against certain other configurations, and how I can use these units best."

EDIT: Also, yes kirbdog, SMAC is a perfect comparison to the kind of system I was thinking of. Only the scope would be much grander, considering the timespan of the Civilization games. And of course, there is always room for even more customization than what that game offered (which was impressive in and of itself).

I don't see anything wrong with wanting things to be easily read and reacted to. If I see an enemy civ has an army with a lot of horsemen, the natural response should be to invest in pikemen, not to check each individual horseman to see what his strength is and build up a strategy just to take him down. That's how Civilization combat has always worked.

I'm not opposed to a deeper promotion system, and the idea of getting new promotions (or training, if you prefer) through research is intriguing. However, I'd be wary of making individual units too deep and customizable, to the point where basic counter play gets thrown out the window. Every unit is a part of an army, not an army in and of themself.

That's also not the point of the system. The system still maintains unit specializations, it just makes the specializations even more pronounced (or less, if you prefer. What ever build you feel you can use to make the most out of units.) Having infantry geared with better armor and training towards fortifying with a higher combat strength on defense for instance could be a possible build, while tanks that use flamethrowers are good against heavily fortified infantry enemies (though not so much unfortifed), especially in forests. Having some extra customization to units in that regard I feel would only make the game more interesting. And it means you do not necessarily need to wade through tree after tree of every possible permutation of unit; just create your own.

I just don't see how what you want couldn't be done with the current promotions system or a modified version thereof. As long as things remain easy to read and react to and it maintains the same feel of building and commanding an army.

I agree with Snes. This isn't rock-paper-scissors but I don't want a complete system like you suggest.

I don't mind if when you are the first to research a particular unit, you can give them all an automatic promotion or something because it is a bit shallow but what you suggest is too far for civ I think.

A workshop system like the one in SMAC would add quite a few new features and more strategic depth imo.

Researching bronze working could make bronze spears and swords available, and if you want a guy on a horse to use a spear, then why not? The spear could provide a bonus vs cavalry (like the lancer).

All such complex systems fail in one of two ways.

Firstly, the options will have too small of effects.
Or secondly, they will have too large of effects.

When the effects are too small, making choices is boring as your choices fail to have any dicernable impact on the use of the unit.

When the effects are too large you have a system where most options are bad options, and a few choices are the 'right' choices to make. Such a system is very harsh against new/unexperienced/casual players who do not know which are the bad options.

At the center, between these failures, is not a promised land of perfect fun and balance. It is instead plagued by both failures at once, as different aspects fail in each of the two ways.

Herfelt said:

and if you want a guy on a horse to use a spear, then why not?

Click to expand...

The first horse mounted unit in Civ3 did use a spear.