Brainstorming: How To Use Drones and Mercenaries

Situation:
Mercenaries and Military Contractors have been and still are active in modern conflicts, often operating in the shadows and above international law. Drones are silent killers, hovering over enemy territory and taking out targets without declaration of war.

The Task:
How could these rather unconventional unit types best be included in Civ 3 mods?
- What stats would be appropriate?
- How could we make them different from common soldiers and jets?
- How could we make them fit into our build list rather than use auto production or wonders?

The following traits should be kept in mind:

Drones:
Unmanned / Cheap / Targeted Killings without declaration of war / Stealthy, but vulnerable to AA and Aerial Combat

Mercenaries:
Bring their own Equipment / Expensive to hire, but no further cost / May not follow Rules of Engagement / May not be part of the Chain of Command



I'm looking forward to your ideas!

Suitable units

Military Contractors / Mercenaries

PMC (by Wyrmshadow)
Military Contractor (by ShiroKobbure)


Drones

Several Drones and military UAVs (by Wyrmshadow)
Searcher II Recon UAV (by Boulboulgadol)
X-47 (by Bjornlo)
Attack / Bombing animations (not only) for UAVs (by Wyrmshadow)

Drones could be with hidden nationality, so that they can attack without causing a war.

I have currently a copy of the normal Cruise Missile as "Unmarked" Cruise Missile. It cost twice the shields than a normal CM. Both are also marked as "tactical missile" so they could be stored on Nuclear Submarines.

The KI builds it very rarely and they are very random with its use. They just fire it on anything with an different color within range.

I tried adding a drone to my games once. I did not like how with hidden nationality the AI attacks you even if you are their ally. Does not compute and its a little silly. If the purpose is to play a conquest game, then I guess it works.

I propose a new level of stealth for drone planes. I've tested in my games planes with different levels of stealth:

-Gen 1 =(ww2) is standard.
-Gen 2 =(cold war) is standard but now faster due to jet turbines.

*Stealth levels begin*

-Gen 3 =stealth ability active in planes.
-Gen 4 =stealth + invisible active in planes. (Drones fit here)

I gave my drones invisibility to simulate stealthiness, but not 'stealth' to simulate a lesser stealth than real 'stealth' planes. No hidden nationality as a personal preference as it looks sillier to attack an ally, than to silently attack an enemy with invisibility.

Also I gave the more advanced AA, and gen 4 jets the 'can detect invisible' ability.

Now here comes the interesting part:

The AI will not build them as they will be inferior units to the 4th generation jets, BUT I think I have a system depending on what you wanna do.

-If drones are acquired through auto-production only, then they can work as I mentioned. Fair for both AI and humans.

-If drones are acquired through the build-que only, then they will still function as I proposed, but the AI will not build. Unfair to the AI.

-If drones are acquired as an extra strike due to 'intelligence' (enslaving from lethal bombard), then it works a little different:

A: You could set the drone as 'cruise missile' for it to have a single strike, and it will no longer be able to be intercepted, which will also render the 4th generation invisibility ability useless.

B: You could alternatively leave them as the original idea I described (weak invis flying unit), but the drone count might go nuts due to enslaving. Also unfair to the AI, since the AI will not bombard you if you have a decent anti air defense.

Personally what I would do since I dont mind just for the sake of the AI is to make drones auto-produce, and able to capture as well. Give them strong lethal bombard, so maybe the AI can keep up as well, but that's just me.


As far as mercenaries go I barely have a clue. In my mod this is how I get mercenaries:

-Only police officers are draft-able
-If I ever draft so that I can use my military while leaving behind someone to take care of my cities, after the conflict is over the left over police officers I would dump and upgrade to mercenaries with the ability to enslave oil, which can upgrade to mediocre tanks.

I basically use them as a way to steal resources to build up your tanks if you lack the right resources, or as a way of having a different type of tank if you do have the resources, but these tanks are a little different from the normal tanks just for fun sakes. Yes the military contractors have hidden nationality.

Very interesting thoughts, gentlemen!

@ZM: Does "detect invisible" work with planes? I think I've heard it won't, but I might be wrong on this one.

Yes Detect invisible works on planes. I've tested it and implemented it as a result. It just looks a bit funky.

You can see the window center the city as if there was bombarding coming from somewhere. Suddenly the planes appears as soon as it flies over the detector, and as soon as it steps 1 tile away it vanishes.

It is not interceptable while invisible, but it is while detected!

My tests was a city full of about 10 defenders, and the difference was pretty obvious. They either got shut down in the first turn or not.

Another drone, this time - intelligence:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=709

few notes about mercenaries/contractors. I hope this helps but remember that most of things below may or may not be relevant just depending from type of mod/scenario you have in mind

a. General stats should be lower than comparable "regular" military units, especially in defense as you can assume military units are better equipped to withstand and repeal attacks.

b. You should assume that mercenaries/contractors are a bit less motivated than "regular" military. Further to this, in modern times, they tend to operate in small formations (unlikely to see "company" or "battalion" of contractors). Hence mercenaries/contractors might tend to give up earlier than regular soldiers when engaged in combat. Model this by using lower HP rate (HP bonus in editor) than comparable "regular" unit. Add higher movement too if you want to combine this with ability to disengage from combat.

c. should have "foot only" flag to allow specific movement bonus of light infantry

d. should have "pillage" special action. In my mods, regular military units normally do not have this, with exception of engineers to represent their specific breach/demolition ability

e. should have "enslave" special action to generate slaves/POW

f. should have "capture" special action

g. may or may not have "stealth attack" special action e.g. ability to pick a specific target in a stack. I usually keep this one for elite units only or units with good access to ISTAR data. However you may want to use this to give mercenary additional chance to harm escorted units.

h. might have "build fort" action (such as crusader in epic game) and maybe "build road" too.

i. "hidden nationality" flag is a tricky one. Depending on mod/scenario scope you might want it to avoid triggering war when using these units but the way AI uses HN units it is quite annoying. Even your ally will attack you without warning.

l. not sure "stealth" flag works for land units

m. I do not recommend "invisible" flag. Keep it for spies or elite long range recon units/special forces.

n. quite important is production of mercenaries/contractors. I usually set them unbuildable and auto-produced by improvement (not wonder so you can have this in multiple locations). Improvement that produces these unit should be relatively cheap to build ("cost" field in editor) but expensive to maintain once built ("maintenance" field in editor). With this setting, you can build and disband improvement(s) when you cannot afford mercenary cost any longer. Also AI should disband it sooner than other improvements if it runs out of money... Another advantage to have mercenaries produced by improvements only is that you can allow production in some locations only by setting a specific required resource and flagging "required goods must be within city radius"

o. should have no population cost and low shield value (so you do not get build boost by disbanding them within a city)

p. do not forget giving them "explore" AI strategy if you want mercenaries/contractors spread all over map

cheers

on drones - there are spy/scout units in some of the scenario/mods. I want to say MEM but I'm not sure on that. They have the ability to target a square & remove the fog of war for quite an area around it - for that turn. A good way to simulate the surveillance function of drones.

ZergMazter said:

I tried adding a drone to my games once. I did not like how with hidden nationality the AI attacks you even if you are their ally. Does not compute and its a little silly.

Click to expand...

I think it's a matter of what you're trying to simulate, e.g. (1) Pakistan is officially an ally of the USA, but there was that OBL "snatch-kill-and-grab" thing, and (2) (IMHO) most Americans have yet to realize that we are now living in "post-bi-polar" world: the "Us" vs. "Them" realities of WW2, the Cold War, and much Middle East insanity, are behind us. The USA is allied with Iran against ISIS/ISIL in Iraq yet fighting them in Yemen.

I suggest that we have entered a much more "Machiavellian" era than we're accustomed to; an Arab proverb sums it up well: "I against my brother. I and my brother against our cousin. I, my brother, and my cousin against the stranger."

Welcome to the real "New World Order."

-z

Thank you for all the input.

@Kirejara: The "unmarked" missile is something I haven't thought about. Nice idea!
@ZM: Thanks for the clarification, I might try it.
@Node60: Thank you, I've added it.
@Wolf66: Wow, lots of input about mercenaries. Yes, HN or no HN is always a tricky question. I like your approach with the production buildings although I'm not sure how much effect the maintenance has... can you put in any number?
@BM: Yes, that works - I'm using that feature with spy planes.
@Oz: Yes, "the Chinese curse" has never been more true, hasn't it?

Wolf66 I like your support Idea for mercenaries. I also didn't know the AI was capable of handling a unit with Offense, and explore flags on. I will implement the support trick in my game for some units.

By the way, the Soviet Union in the 1980s had to operate reconnaissance drone Tu-141:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-141

Unfortunately, such a unit in the game has not yet been created, however, it may be useful in scenarios dedicated to the Cold War.