Proposal: Add 10x modifier to unit stats

Since there are a HUGE amount of different units done or are under construction, there seem to be a difficulty to distinct them from each others.
Therefor we tried out a idea we got: all A/D and Bombardment strenght we multiplied with 10.
So a unit with A: 12 will now have 120.
The reason for this is between 110 and 120 you can fit in 8 units, while between 11 and 12 you cant add a single one.

But there are a lil problem to this, the unit costs. Is it possible to make ONE shield resemble 10?

We have tried this out and the battles are thought as they were without the 10x modifier.

What do you CivFanatics think of this?

/Double Agent OmniMower

I thought of that too (but haven't had time to try it out) because I think I remember several people doing similar things in Civ2... Don't know how to fiddle with the costs... Except that aren't those numbers already multiplied by 10? I mean when it says 6 doesn't the game see the cost as 60... Maybe there is something in the general settings of the editor that you can mess with.

The only problems will be in bombardments, a bombard strength of 1 has very little chance of destroying improvements, while a bombard strength of 10 has a good chance of at least doing some damage, and then you look at the fact that even catapult will have a bombard value of 40!?!? Even in the ancient age you could reduce your oponenets cities to rubble on moments.

I find a much more playable alternative (And one that fosters a mor realistic obselesence factor- no spearmen killing tanks) is to have a HP bonus each era, or half era, to represent the improved armour and battle tactics over the years.
I start with ancient units having -2hps, this gives regular units 1 hp, and elite units 3 hps (notice how this means that in the ancient era experience has a much more exagerated effect, using veteran unit can double thier hps!) In the middle ages all units up to musketmen and cavalry have -1 Hp (gunpowder equiped troops have +0 to represent the impressive armour penetration of even weak firearms) and in the modern and industrial age all Infantry units have a +1 hp bonus (this gives you a reason for using infantry rather than 100% mechanized armour and allows for tacticians to use helicopters.

With a seperation by hps, two units can have identical ADM stats, but be in different eras, A good example is the Phalanx and the pike man, both 1/3/1, but the pikeman has a HP bonus to represent its improved armour.
You can give other units a special HP bonus or penalty to represent numerical superiority or its lack. A tiger tank could have better stats than a normal tank but a -1 HP penalty to represent the fact that they were few in numbers, if you want to get the full benifit, put them in an army. Same goes for the early units.

Ive playtested this extensively and it works great, the problem would be that experienced players may find it easier to beat the A.I. in the early eras, (the A.I continues its tactic of thowing its units at you peacemeal despite the fact that units with 1 hp fare very badly when attacking units with more than one HP, as you may have seen already fom your games, but once the A.I. gets veteran units- either through the war academy of just general production of baracks, combats between units of the smae experience can be very hard to divine, because of the high chance factor) but for less experienced players- having the game get harder as it goes on could be more fun- and you may have trouble killing musket men with your knights, (though that is very realistic) I'm working on some pre-industrial cavalry (dagoons) to fill the gap, wih higher attack and lower defence than knights, the dragoons would also be good for civs lacking Saltpeter.

One off shoot is that micro management of wars is not so tiring as combats a quicker and more decisive.
Also there are many ways to add caracter to a unit, give it a Zone of control for example and it is instantly better than a unit of same stats but without ZOC, and a defensive bombardment is also very usefull, though I recomend a value at least half its normal bombard rating.

Originally posted by Kinboat
Don't know how to fiddle with the costs... Except that aren't those numbers already multiplied by 10? I mean when it says 6 doesn't the game see the cost as 60... Maybe there is something in the general settings of the editor that you can mess with.

Click to expand...

That could be true, but i would like it to be multiplied in the editor aswell. You can change the settings of how much shieldoutput each of every terrain and resource, but that would result in a lot of shields in the Cityscreen.
But if you could set that each produced shield is worth 10 then the Citycreen would be the same, but we would be able to set costs better and even more distinguish the units apart.

This should be an easy add-on/change in the editor....

/OmniMower

Great ideas Smoking Mirror,
but i dont totaly agree on the bombardment thing, but that is because Im not see it important to do that. And every one can destroy improvements, its only matter of time.

But for all others, Great ideas. I will combine these to: 10x modifier with the HP bonuses.

Thanx SM...

/OmniMower

I think it is posible to improve the Bombard resistance of your cities, though I'm not sure about the terrain improvements- remember the A.I only realy uses bombards to destroy improvements; If every bobrdment from the A.I results in instant destruction of the terrain improvements (ironclads usualy take 4-7 attacks to destroy an improvement) you will soon find your borders and coastline totaly destroyed, and any cities on the coast will be qickly reduced to rubble.

Remeber that clearing a forest gives you only 10 shields, about enough to build 1/10th of a warrior under the new system! I'm not sure how to change this. Also the high production would also increase polution levels. You could just double costs, that would give more room for diversity.

I see your point know, and yes it would be some problems with the bombardment issue.

mmm.....need to dig in to that....

Thanx for your thoughts SM.

Improvements and citizens have bombardment defense values in the editor (General settings tab, defensive bonues box just to the right of center). Simply multiply these by 10 also...

I did a mod a while back, with a logrithmic increase in a/d/m values. Modern Armor ended up with 180 or so attack. It reveled some huge holes in the tech / unit tree (as Smoking mirror alludes to with the need for a dragoon unit).

I really, really wish there was a way to export / import the units (and techs) to a spreadsheet!!! It would make scalings etc. much easier!!!

Cheers,
Shawn

Originally posted by Grey Knight
Improvements and citizens have bombardment defense values in the editor (General settings tab, defensive bonues box just to the right of center). Simply multiply these by 10 also...

Click to expand...

That was interesting,
about the spreedsheet, what would you need on that (.xlc) sheet?

Hmm, - cost; A/D/M; bombard range, strength, and rate of fire; operational range; HP bonus

Hmm - let me see if I can find my old post... AHA! Here it is.

The rest of the stuff can be edited fine in Civ3Edit IMHO, it's doing mass changes to the base unit values which are easier in a spreadsheet.

Why? Can you write a quick & dirty .xls or tab-delimted import / export utility?!? I asked Gramphos for this months ago, I don't know what happened though...

Cheers,
Shawn

Hi Grey Knight,
well I think I already got a .xlc file over the units we use and some of the units made here... I´ll see if I can find it.

/OmniMower

Creating the Excel file isn't the big deal (I've downloaded my old one out of the forms -- check the link above), it's the import (by hand!)of the values into a BIC file which is a pain.

I'll pester Gramphos again

Cheers,
Shawn

ah, got your point, yes that would be a pian in the a** to do.

/OmniMower

Originally posted by Smoking mirror
I think it is posible to improve the Bombard resistance of your cities, though I'm not sure about the terrain improvements- remember the A.I only realy uses bombards to destroy improvements; If every bobrdment from the A.I results in instant destruction of the terrain improvements (ironclads usualy take 4-7 attacks to destroy an improvement) you will soon find your borders and coastline totaly destroyed, and any cities on the coast will be qickly reduced to rubble.

Click to expand...

Yeah, you are so right about this. I've been playing with modified values (not 10x and not logrithmic but something in between) and ships destroying coastal terrain improvements is a major PITA. I never REALLY played the standard game so I was blaming Firaxis for this! Now you've made me realize it's my fault, what with increasing the bombard values so much (along with all the other values). I haven't looked yet but I suspect that the "defense value" of terrain improvements is hard coded. Aaaarrrggghhh! I don't want to redo all my stats back down to lower values tho I appreciate the elegance of your HP mods ideas.

It's not so much a problem for my civ since I cover the coasts with naval mines but it sucks to see AI using a single destroyer to destroy entire suburbs (city sprawl mod) with a single volley of her medium size guns.

If someone comes up with a solution to increasing the defense values of terrain improvements please share.

Let's just hope that the problems can be sorted out.