Civ 3 Mechanics Ideas

Ok this is it!!! I dont wanna flood this forum with so many posts, but there are not many people on civ 3 forums any more, so it looks like I am flooding it lol.

I made this post so from now on whenever I need to post something regarding ideas, or questions I just use the same thread.

Ok, so the first thing I wanna do on this thread is share an idea with you modders:

USING A UNIT TO BOOSt PRODUCTIVITY

Since I made a crate for each ore available on civ3, and assigned a building to auto-produce them, also requiring the ore to be within the city's workable tiles, I was exploring the idea about giving them each a unique usefulness.

Some ores crates turn to units, and currently I am exploring the viability of making coal crates be useful in a different way.

I just came up with the wonderful idea about giving auto-produced coal crates only a single 'Standard order' and that is DISBAND.

Doing this will force you to disband the ore crate to be able to end your turn as it is the only available order for the unit. Actually giving them the 'WAIT' order might be a little convenient too.

All you have to do is adjust the shield value of the coal crate and you effectively give this unit the capability to interact with the production mechanics inside a city, and it can only be used for that purpose. I'm sure you all knew that disbanding inside a city gives shields, but what I am proposing is just a way to control it effectively.

The only question is will the AI disband if given the only choice to disband, or will it cheat and fortify inside the city?

I'm about to go find out. If it works oh man oh man I got plans. Controlling multiple coal resources will have a benefit other than standard tile shield bonus.

Next I will find out if using Quint's editor I can manipulate the AI to only use the 'create army' option or 'Finish improvements' option. The 'Create army' option could be used for a resource like coal lets say, then it creates carbon, and if you have iron available in your empire, then you can upgrade that carbon+iron to steel.

I know I just hit a dead end right there, but it was just an example. I've been trying to do this for ages. Lets see

USING A UNIT TO BOOSt PRODUCTIVITY

UPDATE:

Stupid AI... ignores the commands. I will keep this for the human player, but a workaround for the AI.

Plan B:

Giving a special tech that cannot be researched to players 2-31 will allow every AI player to upgrade that coal crate to a special worker which I will attempt to manipulate with Quint's editor to only be a miner, but a good one at it, that way they can still in a way get the productivity bonuses of owning coal.

I'll have to test this now...

ANOTHER UPDATE:

I thought of another idea. Since the point is for coal to yield production bonus I could make the AI upgrade it's coal to another coal ready for use, but with the 'Leader' flag on. They will always hit 'finish improvements' It might be a little overpowered, but I was wondering if there was a setting to adjust how much power the 'Finish improvements' option gets? I saw Civinator adjusting the culture gains of 'sacrificing' even though there is not a visible option for it.

Is there a way to adjust how many shields 'Finish Improvements' grants? This could be a life saver.

LAST UPDATE BEFORE BED TIME:

I figured it out and I'm gonna write it for reference tomorrow, so I can make it in the mod and not forget. I'm gonna make the AI 'coal crate' a leader unit. ONLY the AI will use them as leaders. Even though they will instantly rush a project, since the AI is not very intelligent they will waste their productivity resources a lot of the time. Once in a while they will rush something very expensive such as a nuke and its ok as this will not be 100% all of the time. I will also increase the time required to be auto-produced.

Now on the human side we will get the standard auto-production time. Due to our ability to save resources and use them strategically, our resource crates will yield less shields than those of the AIs in comparison when disbanded. I'm planning as a result to give us humans the Fortify order as well for these resources. Another thing we will enjoy as the AI is too dumb to get is that humans will get other ores which yield even more shields when disbanded such as Uranium.

Now I will make this strategically and make nuclear plants auto-produce uranium. They will be immobile, so they can only be used in that city to power nuclear plants for that turn. after all whats the fun in moving your uranium+coal to a coastal city to rush a 1000 shield battleship? This is actually how much they cost in my game.

I got other ideas such as creating new elements that upgrade to new units, or yield massive amounts of shields. This would happen in the rare occasion you find lets say uranium, and aluminum within reach of a city's workable tiles. It could allow for the auto-production of an exotic material which can be upgraded to lets say a an advanced armor of depleted uranium for a main battle tank such as the real life Abrams MBT?

Oh I'm gonna have fun tomorrow! In the end whatever I do I will make sure both sides have the equivalent. The AI will get it the easy way they can understand while humans will have to use their brains. I think this is the best way to approach the AI on civ 3. Keep it simple, by the rules, but do w/e you want with the humans.

You think of some interesting ideas Zerg.

If only the AI didn't hate me Nathiri, if only...

Giving a special tech that cannot be researched to players 2-31 will allow every AI player to upgrade that coal crate to a special worker which I will attempt to manipulate with Quint's editor to only be a miner, but a good one at it, that way they can still in a way get the productivity bonuses of owning coal.

Click to expand...

The main problem is, that the KI is consequently ignoring limited orders.

I have added road building and colony founding at half speed to Scout and Explorer. Despite that, the KI chops forest and jungles with them...

Kirejara said:

The main problem is, that the KI is consequently ignoring limited orders.

I have added road building and colony founding at half speed to Scout and Explorer. Despite that, the KI chops forest and jungles with them...

Click to expand...

It also ignores the resultant yield. I have clearing forests set to only one shield, and the AI chops them down anyway. The standard yield in my mod for forest is two shields if roaded. Very strange.

In that case I'll focus on limiting the human player then. I'll give the AI a resource crate which in essence is a leader and can rush works. I'll use the editor to take off the 'Finish Improvements' order from the unit.

The AI ignores the limitations and still rushes any project. The human player cannot rush, and instead uses the unit how it was intended to 'DISBAND' and get the shields. The AI will not always use their overpowered unit efficiently rushing even workers sometimes, so its ok. This way both parties have a similar use for this unit.

I think its even. The AI lacks the brains to use that very strong resource unit efficiently, but the human player can use them strategically, even save them to use at a later time.

There is no reason why this shouldnt work. I've taken artillery units and clicked off their bombardment ability by mistake. The result is the AI is still able to bombard, but the human player ended up with a useless unit that cannot bombard.

I think by using this philosophy we could always achieve better things. Limit the human, not the AI, and give both sides something equivalent to the intended goal.

It might not apply to everything, but it could work for a lot of things. Oh yea I'm using cracked editors to make this work, and not the standard editor.

USING A UNIT TO BOOST SCIENCE

Ok so my shield method works for me. Moving on...

I now wanna use one of those auto-produced resources to increase science, but I want them to do it for a single turn. I will be using Antal's patch which fixed the science age. This way you can save reseach points to use at a strategic time.

Lets say gold allows the construction of a structure called 'Research funding'. Of course its not a building, but a way for your government to focus its finances on specific techs. I've edited my governments to have research caps, and this will be useful. This 'Research funding' would auto-produce 1 research credit every 10 turns. Gold becomes useful, and a very valuable resource to fight for, as each 'Research funding' structure requires that gold is within the city's consumption tiles.

When used in theory it would give you a scientific age for 1 turn. Save them and increase the scientific age funding as long as you can afford to.

Now the only problem I'm facing which is a major one is whether you can change the duration of the scientific age or not. I have not seen a way to do this through the normal editor. I need to lower the scientific age duration down to 1 turn. Has anyone ever done this? Is it linked to the golden age duration? if it is, I rather sacrifice the golden age for this better functionality that could be used many times.

Thanks

UPDATE:

I've read a post from Antal and its hardcoded so nvm that.

EYE CANDY TOPIC #1

I'm trying to give my mod a lot of eye appeal. What I mean is good looking terrain, cities, units, and good looking mechanics.

I will talk about this mechanic I'm trying to implement. On civ 5 when a unit pillages you see fire and smoke. I'm trying to implement something similar on civ 3 with:

1- http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=379929&highlight=Fire
Using the attack 2 FLC as the fortify graphic.

One way I'm thinking of implementing this is using my A-10 air support unit. My A-10 is designed for destroying ground units, and improvements within the vicinity (6 squares). What I'm doing is giving the A-10 the enslave ability and airdrop ability. Every kill possibly gets me a fire charge which I would then drop on a resource. The fire consumes the resource (Pillage) and makes sure no workers get close to it to repair it. I havent worked out all the problems yet (would fire have a/d/m?). It would be silly for fire to kill a tank for example.

Sure it might seem a bit unnecessary, but its eye candy to see fire burning. I could also leave it as 0/0/0 that way if you step on it you can put it out.

I'm making this post because I dont know if anyone has been successful at doing such thing. Can you make an enslaved unit appear on the deceased unit's tile? Have you done similar thing any other way? I couldtn find any on the forum, so I'm asking here.

Artillery Attack Idea

I just thought of an interesting idea to instruct the AI to use artillery. This one specially for civinator since hes in the middle of an upgrade for CCM.

Have you thought about adding a new type of naval unit role? This one is naval artillery specially for industrial and modern eras. I've tested this and this is how it works:

-Make a naval unit with 1 attack and normal defense, but with high bombard and rof. The AI will 99% of the time use these to bombard hard, and not engage 1v1. I give them blitz also. Since the AI only builds what it considers stronger, then make it auto-produced. Now if you really want a competent AI with destructive artillery, then switch the roles! Make the naval artillery units build-able, and the regular offensive naval ships auto-produced. This way there will be many more bombardments than engagements on a 1v1 basis kinda like how it would happen in real life, and you still have your ships designed for 1v1 and so does the AI. This will give the AI an amazing artillery capability. Of course lethal sea bombard. Lethal land at your own discretion, and be careful lol. This works by tricking the AI to use what essentially is an artillery, flagged as an offensive unit, and it will act as an artillery. If the range is long enough they will penetrate land with bombardments. The second part is not tested.

On a side note:

I'm currently working to use this same setup on a hacked editor to try and trick a ground unit into thinking it is a naval unit with 1 attack and high bombard, so that it MUST bombard as its offensive strategy, instead of a 1v1 confrontation in an aggressive manner such as the naval units. This essentially could turn that ground unit into the artillery firaxis was supposed to make. Still testing...

Diplomacy Idea

I've been reading about the strategies people here use to play and win a game. I noticed most have one thing in common. They are all warmongers! I think I'm gonna device a way to penalize people who just wanna conquer conquer conquer without really any downside.

The most obvious thing I thought of was to make a city cost gold. Each time you capture a city it should cost you gold. I don't wanna mess with the minus unit support. What I would do is create a 'useful' improvement that would be required to build a bunch of improvements in the city, and have that 'useful' improvement have a higher than normal maintenance.

I mean this:

-To build an ancient era building you need to build a 'Town center' 5 gold maintenance.
-To build a middle age era building you need to build a 'Castle' 10 gold maintenance.
-To build an industrial era building you need to build an 'Industrial center' 15 gold maintenance.
-To build a modern era building you need to build a 'City hall' 20 gold maintenance.

Of course add or adjust economy buildings, so that in the end after you've developed the city enough, then you can finally start making money off of it.

I never liked how easy you can just capture and use a city in civ3 without developing it. Might not sound so bad, but try conquering the world without building anything on a city to save you the initial 5g penalty and you will quickly see them flipping from you and revolting.

Now finally to the diplomacy stuff. This will affect diplomacy because you will have to consider what you are about to do due to the cost of war.

I would also increase the difficulty to crush resistors to resemble the war on Iraq. It took about a decade to crush all resistance.

One last thing there should be an incentive to being at peace like some extra gold or something. I'm still thinking how I'm gonna implement this. Maybe through national unique resources I dont know. Still working on it.

This might be added in my mod for those of you who might think just killing everyone in your planet is the best idea, rather than dominating or enslaving them, so that you can use them to your advantage at a later age. I will instruct the AI to help you research the super expensive technologies required to finally leave orbit into space. Kill them all and its all up to you to research those techs and will surely fall behind, and probably become someone else's slave.

Note:

For those of you thinking of selling the building requirement after you've built what you needed, I'm gonna make sure you cant

You may want to look at governments too. Not just modifying the unit support, but also look at free units.

You can also create a costless small wonder, that places such buildings automatically in every city. Every new city will start to consume gold as soon as built, and there wouldn't be tricks with building some cities only for unit spam.

Ah yes good idea about the wonder! It didnt sound right for a second, but then I realized lol.

I like that idea about making cities cost. I'm like you I don't like too much war.

Land transport AI routine

Based on newly acquired knowledge maybe it could finally be possible to create land transports for infantry that the AI can use.

The idea is to tag a ground unit with 'naval transport' strategy in an editor such as Quintillus, and give it transport space. Could it be possible for the AI to think it can load units in it and use it effectively?

Something interesting to try indeed.

Naval Missile AI routine

Using similar technique could it be possible to tag cruise missiles as 'tactical nuke' strategy in an editor such as Quintillus, and have the AI load them into AEGIS cruisers? Observe how the AI successfully loads nukes into submarines in a normal un-modded game.

Could it be due to the tactical nuke flag even though it might not necessarily be a nuclear weapon? Would it affect nuke output construction? Would the AI use them because it will not cause war, or will it not use them thinking it might cause a worldwar such as the case of nukes?

Another interesting thing to look into.

New naval roles

Using similar techniques could it be possible to tag naval units as either 'offensive or defensive' units using the ground unit strategies, and make the AI understand that some ships are meant for defense while others are meant to be on the offense.

Would it take away their ability to use their bombard ability? Would the AI build them over actual off/def ground units? Would they be able to directly attack cities such as the case in civ2? Would they be able to pillage roads in the water?

Civ2 style air attacks

Using similar techniques could it be possible to trick an AI, A-10 warthog (air) into thinking it is a ground unit, removing 'immobile', giving it collateral, and giving it movement points?

Could this tank killer come out of a city, destroy it's target, and run back home civ 2 style air raids?

Lets face it the AI sucks at using their air-force. They won't attack at all with their air-force if you have a competent defense. This could up the difficulty of a game by a lot.

The day might come in which warlord difficulty is all we need to face a strong AI without the AI having to cheat.

Have fun with this one guys. I can't test it at the moment as I am working on my mod.

I dont usually try such weird settings because I am afraid it will mess up the game quite a lot maybe even make it crash. But perhaps these settings could improve the AI quite a bit.

Land transport AI routine

Based on newly acquired knowledge maybe it could finally be possible to create land transports for infantry that the AI can use.

The idea is to tag a ground unit with 'naval transport' strategy in an editor such as Quintillus, and give it transport space. Could it be possible for the AI to think it can load units in it and use it effectively?

Something interesting to try indeed.

Click to expand...

I've seen a thread about it, but cannot recall it's name. About a truck/apc unit, I think, but I'm not sure. It stated that ai DOES use land transport with naval transport strategy cheked on, but only for intercity transportation. So we should definitly try something like that to find out new capabilities. New discoveries about artillery is truly inspirinig!

Wow Fortis1 thats a good one! I could use such set up for my transportation system in my planets. Having highways but not instant transportation as I plan turning railroads off. Very interesting. I will try it.

ZergMazter said:

Land transport AI routine

Based on newly acquired knowledge maybe it could finally be possible to create land transports for infantry that the AI can use.

The idea is to tag a ground unit with 'naval transport' strategy in an editor such as Quintillus, and give it transport space. Could it be possible for the AI to think it can load units in it and use it effectively?

Something interesting to try indeed.

Click to expand...

Discussions are HERE (Jorsalfare's posts starting at #6)

I don't just archive units