Military Unit Tree Proposal

Ok here is my proposal for changing the Chariot->Dreadnought Armor line

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqiOjOqgZ9qJdFdGVXBGb0xfclFLaVNMM2F4Y2tTMnc&usp=sharing

I think this makes it make way more sense. Light Calvary will actually upgrade into Heavy Calvary lol. Scout line has been removed and will be precursor to helicopter line in next part of the proposal. Massively simplified the tank lines. Having a bunch of specific tanks as the generic unit is very un-civilization and having the line split and recombine twice was also very dumb.

More changed lines to come

One thing I don't like is knight and mailed knight being concurrent. Really one should morph into the other. But the later should need a specific resource, if that's not available, you default to knights.

Mailed knight, needs a forge, horse and Iron resource to build. Knight (Or a form of Calvary) would only need the horse.

Personally, I'd delete the light/Heavy Calvary and replace it with one unit. Possibly the precursor to the mailed knight, a Generic Calvary unit, with Civ Specific alternatives such as the Byzantine heavy Calvary.

Too many units is just as cluttering. The early years go by so quickly, even at Eternity speeds that you don't have time to build them all.

Horse archers, Elephants and Mounted infantry, should all be separate tree's, with specific bonuses and detriments, but then all morph into the Generic Calvary units.

Horses should then Morph into the Tank regiments. With the scouting units morphing into the Helicopter squadrons, as I'm sure you've alluded too already.

I agree with the Knight/Mailed Knight thing they are both essentially the same unit and I would love to be able to get rid of one or make Knight upgrade to Mailed Knight. Let me make the change on the chart. The second part of this is re-balancing some of the stats.

Next part

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqiOjOqgZ9qJdDdncThManVwYU1FS3hpM2ZFb2stelE&usp=sharing

Scout line leads into helicopters and Light Swordsman to the Paratrooper line and gets a jetpack trooper before it mergers into helicopter line. Added Armed Helicopter to represent combat helicopters before they became a purpose built platform in the vietnam war.

Light Swordsman also leads into marine line via new unit Early Marine based on 18th century British navy marines the originators of the term. A travesty 18th century marines were not represented until now. Marine line then becomes amphibious assualt craft ala "Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle" then becomes amphibious walker mech to mirror the infantry line. I felt swordsman is better going into the marine and paratrooper lines since both are based on attack rather than defense like the rest of the infantry line.

Next Part

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqiOjOqgZ9qJdFg4dE9kVzVkSV9BTUZpbldGanR5RkE&usp=sharing

Warrior no longer upgrades to Archer or Javelineer but does upgrade to Axeman or Light Swordsman(shown in previous chart). Archer upgrades to either longbowman or crossbowman. Javelineer line becomes grenadier then anti-tank. I did this since horses become tanks the anti-horse unit Javelineer line should become the anti-tank line. Also Modern grenadier made no sense nothing like that has ever been used in the real world. Light Swordsman line was moved to Marine line shown in previously spreadsheet. Infantry can also now upgrade to Special Force then into Special Infantry.

And just because it needs to go somewhere I included the missile line. Only change renames the V1 to Programmable Missile to make it more generic.

Next Part

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqiOjOqgZ9qJdFBVd255a0pDY3pCX09Sc1ZyYzFQc0E&usp=sharing

Tackled fixed wing aircraft in this one. This was mostly changing names to be more generic instead of using specific aircraft model numbers.

Early Bomber replaces IL2. I see early bomber as representing the early bi-plane bombers of late WW1 vintage. Adding in Ground Attack representing the P-47 Thunderbolt and changing the A-10 to be named Modern Ground Attack. Seaplane gets a sub-hunter upgrade to represent P-3 and P-8 sub hunters of the US Navy. Seaplane also gets an upgrade path from Airship since they share similar anti-submarine purposes.

Edit: going to hold on doing anymore until I get some feedback positive or negative.

I think we'd have to look very carefully at this, and I wouldn't want to change anything until after we finish modifying the tech tree - that's going to throw some things off, and we need to see what is affected by that.

I'll post some of my own thoughts here.

There are a couple of things from a first glance that I'm not sure are workable. Armed Helicopter is not a good idea, I think - Vertical Flight is the helicopter technology, and that's exactly where the Gunship appears. Vertical Flight will be pretty early in the Modern Era; it comes earlier than I think you are thinking it will be. I could be wrong.

Early Marines seems to be more of a troop-vs.-ship unit than an amphibious unit, and so I don't think those will work either, as there isn't a mechanic for troops vs. ships (at least that I'm aware of). I'd also be really against making them the only upgrade for Heavy Swordsmen. I'd prefer leaving Heavy Swordsmen allowable to upgrade to Musketman and then allow Musketman to upgrade to Grenadier, so you can keep your specialized city-attack units instead of having to disband and retrain them.

Also, you really can't have any non-National unit upgrading to a National Unit (like Infantry - Special Forces). It will totally mess up auto-upgrade; people who use auto-upgrade will be cut off from ever building the National Unit because auto-upgraders will use up all the slots. I think that is why the direct Agent - Special Agent/Top Secret Agent upgrade path had to be turned off. I also want Modern Infantry to upgrade to Special Infantry, as I don't care for Mechanized Infantry without City Garrison (Mech Inf can get City Garrison if upgraded, but not when freshly trained) and Walker Mech with its extra maintenance. I think Special Infantry needs a rename, but I'm not sure what.

I agree current cavalry is kind of a mess, and there are too many kinds of tanks in the late game. I'm not even sure what the T95 is supposed to be. I'd like to have four separate lines of mounted troops:

• Heavy Mounted: speed 2, heavy hitters. These are most of the cavalry we have now, then evolving into tanks in the late game. I'd have this line end with the Plasma Tank before merging with the light mounted line into the Dreadnought Armor. Again, I'm not sure if we can have them upgrading to Dreadnought Armor if it will cause a problem with auto-upgrade, but I don't think it is as severe with these offensive units as it is with Infantry, because those are by far the bulk of your defensive forces at that point in the game.
• Light Mounted: speed 2 or more, not as strong but with a better withdrawal chance and better speed in the later eras. I like the Tank Destroyer idea; those and helicopters are your modern light cavalry. I think this line would end with the Hover Tank; make it the lighter of the two unlimited endgame tanks.
• Mobile Defense: speed 2, does get defensive bonuses (unlike other cavalry). Starts with Mounted Infantry and ends with Mechanized Infantry. It's going to need about 4 more units to fully flesh it out.
• Elephants: extending this line all the way to the Early Tank. There is enough artwork out there that we can do a couple new elephants with various guns.

Artwork is a bit of a problem for new units. If there is no artwork, we can't do the unit. I've experimented with this in the past and it's gone halfway well; I can recolor, but not much more.

I also agree that the Light Cavalry and Heavy Cavalry don't make much sense. I think they were imported near-directly from the Charlemagne mod, although they've been modified. Heavy Cavalry is funny, because I think it's an elephant unit in horse's clothing, as it's only speed-1. I think all horse units should be speed 2, and possibly speed 3 on some late-game light cavalry. The names need changing, as Light Cavalry and Heavy Cavalry don't have much connection to actual Cavalry. I'd like to make Light Cavalry into Heavy Horseman, and have it be the second unit in the heavy mounted line, and then ditch the Heavy Cavalry completely, or leave the artwork but make them the third unit in the light mounted line.

I can handle Knight vs. Mailed Knight. I see the Knight as a medium cavalry unit. If you get rid of the Mailed Knight, you leave Chivalry as a one-trick tech with just the Standing Army civic (and I think that belongs at Leadership, not Chivalry).

Vokarya said:

There are a couple of things from a first glance that I'm not sure are workable. Armed Helicopter is not a good idea, I think - Vertical Flight is the helicopter technology, and that's exactly where the Gunship appears. Vertical Flight will be pretty early in the Modern Era; it comes earlier than I think you are thinking it will be. I could be wrong.

Early Marines seems to be more of a troop-vs.-ship unit than an amphibious unit, and so I don't think those will work either, as there isn't a mechanic for troops vs. ships (at least that I'm aware of). I'd also be really against making them the only upgrade for Heavy Swordsmen. I'd prefer leaving Heavy Swordsmen allowable to upgrade to Musketman and then allow Musketman to upgrade to Grenadier, so you can keep your specialized city-attack units instead of having to disband and retrain them.

Also, you really can't have any non-National unit upgrading to a National Unit (like Infantry - Special Forces). It will totally mess up auto-upgrade; people who use auto-upgrade will be cut off from ever building the National Unit because auto-upgraders will use up all the slots. I think that is why the direct Agent - Special Agent/Top Secret Agent upgrade path had to be turned off. I also want Modern Infantry to upgrade to Special Infantry, as I don't care for Mechanized Infantry without City Garrison (Mech Inf can get City Garrison if upgraded, but not when freshly trained) and Walker Mech with its extra maintenance. I think Special Infantry needs a rename, but I'm not sure what.

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Didn't consider auto upgrades never use it myself.

As for justification for the Early Marine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Barbary_War

"The turning point in the war came with the Battle of Derna (April–May 1805). Ex-consul William Eaton, who went by the rank of general, and US Marine First Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon led a mixed force of eight United States Marines,[26] 500 mercenaries--Greeks from Crete, Arabs, and Berbers—on a march across the desert from Alexandria, Egypt to assault and to capture the Tripolitan city of Derna. This was the first time in history that the United States flag was raised in victory on foreign soil. This action was memorialized in a line from the Marines' Hymn—"the shores of Tripoli."[27]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Marines

"The Royal Marines served throughout the Napoleonic Wars in every notable naval battle on board the Royal Navy's ships and participated in multiple amphibious actions."

"In 1855 they were newly designated as the Royal Marines Light Infantry, serving in the Crimean war in numerous amphibious raids on Russian forces."

"During the rest of the 18th century, they served in numerous landings all over the world, the most famous being the landing at Bellisle on the Brittany coast in 1761."

As for Armed Helicopter. Vertical Flight was arguable achieved as early as 1906. The first mass produced helicopter was put into production in 1942 so that is a good place to start. They saw extensive use in Korea. They were first armed by 1955 by the French. I think adding another tech requirement to gunship and having the weaker Armed Helicopter from Vertical Flight would be much more historically accurate.

Combat Wombat said:

Didn't consider auto upgrades never use it myself.

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I don't use it either, but I know the option is there, and it has caused problems in the past, so we need to consider it.

Combat Wombat said:

As for justification for the Early Marine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Barbary_War

"The turning point in the war came with the Battle of Derna (April–May 1805). Ex-consul William Eaton, who went by the rank of general, and US Marine First Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon led a mixed force of eight United States Marines,[26] 500 mercenaries--Greeks from Crete, Arabs, and Berbers—on a march across the desert from Alexandria, Egypt to assault and to capture the Tripolitan city of Derna. This was the first time in history that the United States flag was raised in victory on foreign soil. This action was memorialized in a line from the Marines' Hymn—"the shores of Tripoli."[27]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Marines

"The Royal Marines served throughout the Napoleonic Wars in every notable naval battle on board the Royal Navy's ships and participated in multiple amphibious actions."

"In 1855 they were newly designated as the Royal Marines Light Infantry, serving in the Crimean war in numerous amphibious raids on Russian forces."

"During the rest of the 18th century, they served in numerous landings all over the world, the most famous being the landing at Bellisle on the Brittany coast in 1761."

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I'm warming to the idea, but I don't think having them upgrade from Heavy Swordsmen is a good thing. I usually have many Heavy Swordsmen left from medieval wars and I don't want to straitjacket them into the Marine line if possible. It also leaves Heavy Swordsmen on the build list until you can get to the Early Marines, and I think that leads to clutter; Melee units stop being valuable after gunpowder comes along.

Could we put Early Marines at Grand War? The other option would be Naval Tactics, but I think that's too early. I'd like to give Grand War a bonus (right now, it just has Ship of the Line). Also, if you have them at Naval Tactics, that means they have to be balanced against the other units available at that time, and that leads to them being weak for a long time until they can upgrade to regular Marines.

Combat Wombat said:

As for Armed Helicopter. Vertical Flight was arguable achieved as early as 1906. The first mass produced helicopter was put into production in 1942 so that is a good place to start. They saw extensive use in Korea. They were first armed by 1955 by the French. I think adding another tech requirement to gunship and having the weaker Armed Helicopter from Vertical Flight would be much more historically accurate.

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I don't think we need a new unit - I think we just need a rename. Rename the current Gunship to Helicopter (no need to use the word Armed, as there aren't any other helicopters to compare it to -- I believe in pruning adjectives as much as possible) and then rename the AH64 Gunship to just Gunship. Would that work?

The gunship idea is fair.

As for Heavy Swordsman -> Early Marine being to spread out I agree. I think adding a new unit called "Ranger" after Heavy Swordsman would be good. Strength somewhat less than a arquebusier with an offensive bonus of some kind. A take on colonial units that went around in the early gun powder years whooping on natives. Whereas Arquebusier and Musketmen are more based on continental european wars.

Also a successor unit to Mounted Infantry would be Dragoon.

Combat Wombat said:

As for Heavy Swordsman -> Early Marine being to spread out I agree. I think adding a new unit called "Ranger" after Heavy Swordsman would be good. Strength somewhat less than a arquebusier with an offensive bonus of some kind. A take on colonial units that went around in the early gun powder years whooping on natives. Whereas Arquebusier and Musketmen are more based on continental european wars.

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I'd like to use Ranger for an early Medieval recon unit, the successor to the Explorer. This is my idea for the Recon line:

• Scout [Hunting]
• Explorer [Writing]
• Ranger [Feudalism]
• Adventurer [Compass]
• Motorcycle [Motorized Transportation]
• Jeep [Mechanized Warfare]
• Humvee [Modern Warfare]

and then we can maybe have a Scout Helicopter as well.

I can see the idea for the irregular infantry, but I'm not sure what to call them. Maybe call them Skirmishers and give Mali's UU a new name? And actually, we cannot do a straight offensive bonus, believe it or not. We can do bonuses on particular terrains, features, or against unit classes, but not a straight attack bonus.

Combat Wombat said:

Also a successor unit to Mounted Infantry would be Dragoon.

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That's in the pipeline. The Mounted Defense line that I am envisioning goes like this right now:

• Mounted Infantry [Horse Breeding]
• Man-At-Arms [Armor Crafting]
• Dragoon [Cavalry Tactics]
• Mounted Rifleman [Rifling]
• Motorized Infantry [Motorized Transportation]
• Mechanized Infantry [Robotics]

before finally merging into the Walker Mech and Special Infantry which are eligible for City Garrison promotions. The key points of the mounted defense line are:

• Their unit class, by convention, normally gets "Doesn't Receive Defensive Bonuses", but these units are allowed to get DB.
• Their unit class disallows City Garrison promotions.

This makes them good at field defense and emergency city defense, but not as good as archery/gunpowder units that can get both defense/fortification bonuses and City Garrison promotions.

Thank you for this thread CombatWombat. Military units will definetly be reworked in the future but for the moment tech-tree-reworking is enough. When we're done with that, we'll look at the units. Of course talking about it right now is a very welcomed idea as I think it will also need some time. You and Vokarya are suggesting very good changes; there are some things that I'm not sure I like but we're here to discuss and enhance AND.
Regarding scouting units, there's something I had in mind but I need other opinions: it's true that when you reach modern era there's not anything left to explore on the map (usually), but I've never liked the idea of scouting units replaced by fighting units. My idea was to introduce a new "modern scouting unit", something like a diplomat, that can explore rival territories. Right now if you want to scout rival territories in modern era (and you don't have open borders), just to keep an eye on them and to see what your opponents are about, either you have to use your old and not upgraded explorers or you have to use missionaries/corporation units which simply doesn't sound right. Or you can use spies, sure, but they can get caught. So what about having a "diplomat" unit that can cross borders with Right of Passage just to explore your opponents territory? I remember I saw somewhere on the forum a mod with a Great Diplomat which was near enough to what I was thinking of. I remember it also had a feature which allowed it to be used to improve relations between nations, which is an idea that I personally like. So, any comments about it?

I don't see there being a point in extending the scout line as is. Doing something like the following makes much more sense to me.

Scout
Explorer
Adventurer
Observation Balloon
Scout Aircraft (some kind of ww2 era fighter for model)
Spy Plane (U-2 Model)
Drone (Global Hawk model)

I did leave the SR-71 out for a reason. While it was an immensely great achievement that paved the way for many other modern aircraft. It was itself a failure. Quickly replaced by satellites and outlived by the U-2 and the US was the only country to use such an aircraft. I think for a game like civ4 it is a forgettable aircraft.

I think I have a much different use for Scout units than everyone else. When you get to the Adventurer, it starts with a free Sentry I promotion, giving it +1 sight range. I mix one of these in every offensive stack to give the stack the benefit of the sight range (and possibly Medic I as well). You only need one of them per stack, and they're much cheaper than mounted units, and then if they are your stack medic, they're very unlikely to be picked as the defending unit in the event of an enemy counterattack. That's why I want to keep them to be upgradeable to more modern recon units - the Sentry promotion is incredibly useful.

Vokarya said:

I think I have a much different use for Scout units than everyone else. When you get to the Adventurer, it starts with a free Sentry I promotion, giving it +1 sight range. I mix one of these in every offensive stack to give the stack the benefit of the sight range (and possibly Medic I as well). You only need one of them per stack, and they're much cheaper than mounted units, and then if they are your stack medic, they're very unlikely to be picked as the defending unit in the event of an enemy counterattack. That's why I want to keep them to be upgradeable to more modern recon units - the Sentry promotion is incredibly useful.

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Developing the line into more of a logistics/support unit makes sense. I think it would need to get that focus quickly though.

Combat Wombat said:

I don't see there being a point in extending the scout line as is. Doing something like the following makes much more sense to me.

Scout
Explorer
Adventurer
Observation Balloon
Scout Aircraft (some kind of ww2 era fighter for model)
Spy Plane (U-2 Model)
Drone (Global Hawk model)

I did leave the SR-71 out for a reason. While it was an immensely great achievement that paved the way for many other modern aircraft. It was itself a failure. Quickly replaced by satellites and outlived by the U-2 and the US was the only country to use such an aircraft. I think for a game like civ4 it is a forgettable aircraft.

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That makes sense and looks even better to me.

Is it possible for a Ship to have 2 completely separate units it can hold. Like say 3 missiles and 1 plane. Or would those interfere with each other? My civ4 mod-fu is weak.

Edit:

Next Part

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqiOjOqgZ9qJdFdlYWZwVFRhVDl1RVh3dEduQlZkcVE&usp=sharing

Removed the pointless cruiser line and merged part of it into the battleship line so it makes historical sense again

Extended the galley line and let it split into the carrier line

Started the submarine line in the american revolutionary war era with the Turtle which would only have one base movement and be limited to coastal waters. The Early Submarine of the civil war era would also be limited to coastal waters.

Added Cog before workboat since I felt the line was a bit short no real other reason...

Littoral Combat Ship made no sense in the cruiser line to begin with and since I killed the cruiser line I brought the name over to the destroyer line.

Some stuff may will need to be renamed. Ship types and classes have always been so variable and transient over the centuries.

I don't think there should be any ship that is allowed to explore rival territory (save the privateer) until submarines and there should be some kind of caught spy mechanic associated with that. It is a broken mechanic that doesn't fit with the rest of the game.

Combat Wombat said:

Is it possible for a Ship to have 2 completely separate units it can hold. Like say 3 missiles and 1 plane. Or would those interfere with each other? My civ4 mod-fu is weak.

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I've never tried it but I suppose it's possible with some xml work; I'll make some tests.