What do you want to see in a UnitBuilder?

A friend and I are coding a civ-type game, and as part of this it has a unit builder. It is ~75% infrastructure done to handle it (no gui yet).

Note: To those who don't want a unit builder, you can disable the option for the game, and there will be a full suite of units available (so no need to build any if you want).

It is hoped that with a wide range of components that can be added to the unit it will come for some great variety in gameplay and strategy. (e.g. you could opt for blitzkrieg type units).

A unit speed is based on its base-type (e.g. man, horse etc) + any engine/propulsion components - the weight of all fitted components (and then depending on terrain).

A base will have a certain number of "fitting points" where components can be added. Components will have a weight, and the base-type has a maximum weight that cannot be exceeded. Additionally, certain components can only go onto certain bases. (No spears on Jet planes).

Components will have production costs, and may also produce and consume items (e.g. electricity). Note that this electricity does not effect actual game play, but must balance at unit-design stage so that production >= consumption. e.g. you have to have a power supply to run a "radio" component.

Weapons will have a max and min range, and offensive and defensive value.

I envision that components will primarily be discoveries thru tech/trade/capture, and will be constructed at certain buildings (though this will be handled in such a way as to not be too laborious). e.g. a "blacksmith" building produces a given number of smithPoints, which are then spent at unit design time on lances, swords, armour etc (which assumes that all along your blacksmith has been making the right items).

You could take a battle ship hull, and load it full of AA guns and have yourself a floating 4th of July special. Or take a cruiser, strip it of weapons and give it awesome speed/distance per turn.

Components will cost different resources too. For example using a base of "human" will cost 1 person. A spear might cost 1 wood, while a bow will cost 0.5 wood. You design the unit configuration, and then say how many men you want in the unit.

What components would you like to see in a unit builder?
What mechanics would you like for a unit builder?

Extremely interesting. Ever since playing Galactic Civilizations I knew that Civilization direly needed a unit builder. I actually made a post about this exact thing being included in Civ 5 a long time ago.

Since I can't find my original post I'll have to rehash it a bit here.

I envisioned that all units would be created from a base of soldiers, hulls or airframes. You could then spend Customize Points (for lack of better term) to equip your unit and give it unique properties. New technologies would unlock new equipment and new properties, as well as add to your base CP pool allowing you to create and update to more modern and deadlier units.

Here's a brief and simplistic example:

I am in the stone age but have discovered how to smelt copper, so I pop into create unit screen and make the following from a base pool of 10 Customize Points.

Warrior A:
2 movement speed (2 cp for original movement speed, 4 cp for additional for a total of 6 cp)
2 strength (1 cp per point for a total of 2)
Copper Axe for 15% bonus vs melee units (2 cp for specialized weapon)

So Warrior A is a unit with 2 movement speed, 2 strength and a 15% bonus vs melee units because he is equipped with a Copper Axe.

Warrior B:
1 movement speed (2 CP)
2 strength (2 cp)
Stone spear 10% bonus vs mounted (stone being lower tier than copper has less CP cost and less bonus, 1 cp)
Heavy Hide Armor for 15% damage reduction (heavy hide being considered the top quality of the Hide tier of armors, 3 cp)
+5% combat strength (2 cp)

Warrior B is a 1 movement speed unit with 2 strength that enjoys a 10% bonus vs mounted units, an overall 5% combat strength bonus and 15% damage mitigation.

Granted these are very rough examples but they showcase what I had in mind. As you gain more techs new equipment and new tactics could be purchased to give units unique properties. Also your Customize Points pool would increase allowing you to create better units.

This is a gold idea. I've always wanted to build a flat-out missile boat with no combat values but a payload of 20 cruise missiles.

You can simply mod in a vast variety of characteristics. Make an "Axeman with an Small Axe in Each Hand" unit and an "Axeman with a Small Axe and a Shield" and an "Axeman with a Big Two Handed Axe" etc...Maybe the proper (in line with the way the game currently works) way to do a unit builder for Civ would be to make Promotions change the unit graphic rather than just add a little icon. Thus if you want to add a shield, you select the Shield promotion and this adds it graphically as well as in game effects.

Trickofthehand: What I had intended was for the basics like weapons etc to only be limited by what resources you have available (and what you are willing to spend).

In addition to components, you can also do training will be available (techable) that will give you additional bonuses vs unit combinations etc (e.g. tortoise maneover is possible when you have large rectangle shields). You could potentially choose to train your worker units in a discipline which gives them a slight action point bonus (getting a little more done per turn).

Obviously in later game, you can increase a units movement through either more powerful engines, or bigger fuel tanks. However, I did plan on adding some "civ customisation" (to your entire civ) at different stages of the game. For example once you learn the "Oral Tradition" tech you get to choose whether to give your entire civilisation a bonus in movement speeds, or crafts, religion, combat, farming etc (the theory being that through stories and legends you shape what your people think of different pursuits; making them more naturally likely to do it).

Tholish, we plan on using 3d models to go into our 3d world -- so these will all look different based on how you equip them. It would be as designed though; not as a promotion. It will be extensible, so people will certainly be able to add in their own models etc. + the game will always remember units you have made in the past, and offer to resurrect them for the current game. (So you don't have to always redesign them).

Another feature will be, after a battle there is x% chance that you could spend a turn/part turn scavenging from the battlefield -- which may yield an item you don't have yet, which can then be reverse-engineered.

Have any of you played Galactic Civilizations? I think the Shipyard feature of that game would give you some great insights, and a perfect example of why it's needed in Civilization.

There are two large problems with having a 'turn it off if you don't want it' system (and I, BTW, would turn this system off). Firstly, it hogs game resources. There is finite space in the game. I don't want the developers to be spending time making something that I'm not gonna use. And secondly, for a unit builder to be at all useful, or not redundant, it would have to provide some perceivable advantage over not using it. So you would be disadvantaged if you didn't use this option (which seems very tactical). So even if it were to come with an option not to use it, I would oppose this being part of the game.

As for the on/off option; I don't understand where you are coming from. If the switch is turned off, then neither you (or the AI or other players) can create anything beyond the standard units. It's a game-wide setting, not player-based. Effectively it cuts out that portion of the game. So you are not disadvantaged at all in the game; all play on the same field.

As for the developers time, we are talking about my own time coding it- and I want it- so it is therefore a good idea, and well worth all time invested in it

The perceivable advantage of using it over not, is that it does allow you to change your focus, whether that be on warfare/peaceful endeavour - defense/offense/intelligence etc. You also choose between short term gain (researching small techs to get new weapons) or long term gain (thru working on larger projects).

Yes, it is mostly tactical, but if you're entire army is focussed on rapid conquering then it becomes your overall strategy.

It also improves replayability as you can change your strategy between games, and you are "required" change your battle tactics against different enemies (who may progress differently).

To me, the important part is that you get to design your units-- you can shape exactly what your military looks like. I dislike the concept that except for a UU or 2, all civs have the exact same forces.

I would assume that under a unit builder system, you could gain a perceivable advantage over the AI, more so than under the unit system currently in place. So in two identical games, with the only difference being the use of this system you are proposing in one game, and not in the other, the player playing the former game will find it easier to win than the player playing the latter game. Given that it is a tactical element, this is taking away from the strategic skill that should be the determinant of how hard an individual game is.

Camikaze said:

I would assume that under a unit builder system, you could gain a perceivable advantage over the AI, more so than under the unit system currently in place. So in two identical games, with the only difference being the use of this system you are proposing in one game, and not in the other, the player playing the former game will find it easier to win than the player playing the latter game. Given that it is a tactical element, this is taking away from the strategic skill that should be the determinant of how hard an individual game is.

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And so the puritan can play it with unit builder disabled (and the score will reflect it). I'm OK with that.

I don't see that as any different to the player being able to switch up the hardness settings. (In fact in my mind, if there are more variations of hardness-to-beat that is better as you can gradually increase to suit your skill level).

But don't you think that the mere chance of the AI throwing an unexpected "unit design" into the mixer could potentially make the game more challenging? (Even if they can't overall design units well, they could still have preset combinations). The point is, you wont know what the AI is going to throw at you (whereas atm you know exactly what its options are).

Sure, their are negatives - but there are also positives (customisation, flexibility).

imho a unit-builder is too tactical. going to it every time something new is researched to create stronger unit types distracts from the grand scheme of world domination. the same goes for random events. they distract instead of enhancing gameplay

on a side note: when you guys intend to get to the alpha-stage of the game with all this unit-builder and 3d stuff? imho you should concentrate on the big stuff and get up and running an tile-based alpha with an ai. then you can concentrate on the details and exceptions.

The AI will never be able to customise as well as a human. The problem is that whilst those that choose to use this system and those that don't should be on a level playing field, as it should be their strategic skill that is being measured (if you will) by the game, this feature will make that playing field uneven, unless it were to be implemented as a redundant feature.

The developers could construct a large number of pre-made units that the player could use in some games and not in others. That way each game has It's own set of units and the player could borrow those traits. Am I mistaken??

I also think that resources should play. for a real life example. If the Incas Discovered that they could ride their llamas. Shoud we be able to make a llama rider??

techathon said:

The developers could construct a large number of pre-made units that the player could use in some games and not in others. That way each game has It's own set of units and the player could borrow those traits. Am I mistaken??

I also think that resources should play. for a real life example. If the Incas Discovered that they could ride their llamas. Shoud we be able to make a llama rider??

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Well I hadn't thought of Llama's, but I was planning on making bases for horses, camels, elephants and bullocks (the latter more useful to a worker than an army).

Along the same vein, I am also trying to work out how building materials (wood, stone, clay - which are all collectable resources [and ice, non-collectable] could be substituted as a "construction material". A city wall could then be built out of either wood, stone or clay (each with unique properties). The trick is to do this though without too much micromanagement required. Of course much simpler if they don't have unique properties... so might go down that track.

Camikaze, I am less worried about people "measuring themselves" against each other, than developing a game that is enjoyable to play. Realistically, you can never measure two players anyway unless they play in direct competition; because there are always the random parts like map generation, and decisions the ai makes is in both games.

Well in a game, difficulty is kind of an important thing. If the game is made more difficult for some people than others, for the sheer reason of the inclusion of a feature that shouldn't be part of the game anyway, due to its tactical nature in a strategic game, then there is a problem.

Camikaze makes a good point, the human may be able to build customized units that are more powerful than the standard units. This is sometimes an issue in Galactic Civilizations, this simply means that the AI will have to be improved. Just because it's a challenge doesn't mean that it's not a goal worth tackling. I am a firm supporter of the unit customizer.

I don't agree with Camikaze though that it shouldn't be included. I don't see what the problem is with offering the option for players who enjoy the more tactical aspect this presents, and turning it off for those that don't?

Civilization shouldn't be dumbed down just because some people think it's going to get too hard, that's ludicrous. The series has progressively gotten more in-depth and it will hopefully only continue to do so. Thats why there will always be lower difficulty levels, but if we cater to the 'it's too hard' or 'its too in-depth' crowd then what are we going to be left with? We might as well go back to Civ 1.

I believe the majority of players WANT a more in-depth experience with civilization. These forums are proof of that. There are literally thousands of pages dedicated to mods and suggestions that increase the game's depth. If Civ 5 becomes too hard or too detailed for you, stick with Civ4, but a franchise shouldn't be kept 'dumb' just because it adds difficulty. And lets face it, Civ 4 is very dumb.

I'm pretty sure my logic is correct in my opposition to a unit customisation feature (which, BTW, is not such much opposition directly to the feature itself, but to the type of feature it is). I'll put it in step form to make it easier to point out my logical fallacies.

1. Civ is a strategy game focused on empire building and management.
2. Therefore, any great focus on war in particular without focus on other aspects of empire building and management obscures, or moves away from, the focus of the game.
3. Additionally, this idea is a tactical one, in that it involves the management of individual units to obtain improved results in individual combat encounters, as opposed to a strategic idea, which would involve obtaining improved results in a war as a whole, rather than in individual battles specifically.
4. For a feature to be useful in the game, it must be able to be utilised so as to gain improved results compared to not using the feature.
5. If this tactical element of the game gives an advantage (so it will not be redundant, as per the above point), then those that are good at tactics will be advantaged over those that are good at strategy.
6. The best players in a strategy game should be those that are best at strategy, not those that are best at tactics.
7. So this feature, if it is not redundant, will mean that the above will not be the case in the game.
8. This is not a good thing.

It isn't catering to the 'its too in-depth' crowd, it's catering to the strategy loving crowd.

As for your comments in the other thread about allowing more customisation of your civilization, well, yes, that is good, but your individual units are not your civilization. Customising your military in the terms applicable to Civ would be determining the general composition of your forces, not the individual skills of individual units.

I agree on many points, however I still feel that you should experience an 'empire strategy' game with a unit customizer before you make up your mind about perceived pros and cons. It's very biased to trash a system you haven't actually experienced. As I've mentioned, Gal Civ II would be my best suggestion.

Bullet points are an excellent idea btw, much simpler than walls of texts, so I'll reply in kind.

1. I agree, civ is an empire building game

2. Also agree that a strict focus on war is not healthy for the rest of the game. However this is where you assume that this is the ONLY feature I want implemented in the game. You're wrong. I want a bevy of features that improve other aspects of the game. This is simply a unique feature tailored to warfare that I would like to see added. My 'fix' priority for Civ is actually:
a) Diplomacy
b) 3d free-flowing environment
c) greater and more realistic empire management
d) re-tooling of various combat mechanics and concepts

3. I'm sick of Civ's out-dated and generalized approach to war. Civ's concept of war is as old and nearly as complicated as Risk's, if it's going to strive to be better and more realistic in the future it's going to have to re-tool it's combat mechanics. It may be fun to you to build 1 or 2 unit types and be capable of winning any war, but it's not for me. Judging by the amount of content in the mod forums, it's also not fun for the majority of us. Civ has completely lacked any competition in it's genre. It's this reason alone that has allowed Civ to put out successive titles that barely change game mechanics. In the future, when Civ clones currently in the works start creating competition for Civ's dollars, we'll begin to see some fundamental and much-needed changes.

You claim that this idea is a tactical one as opposed to a strategic one. Yet you miss the fact that you can currently accomplish a smaller version of what you can achieve with a full unit customizer. If your enemy is attacking with mass horsemen, you build spearmen. If you have a stack of Axemen and come across archers you promote to Cover. This is a tactical decision. When you apply it to the majority of your army however it becomes a strategic decision. It is IMPOSSIBLE to separate the two.

So why include a customizer at all? First off, in human warfare the equipment, training and composition of opposing forces has been the deciding factor in majority of conflicts. Each culture has generally had it's own approach or 'flavor' to the basic military templates. In many cases these were greatly deciding factors. Secondly the technological level of opposing forces has given units of the same 'type' a decisive advantage over their adversaries. For example; Greek infantry versus Persian infantry; British Challengers versus Russian T-72s in the first Gulf War.

A unit customizer would seek to emulate the technological advantages one civilization has over certain areas of war versus another (though this requires major rework of the tech tree, and yes I have ideas on this) in a more detailed way than merely "I have longbows and he has muskets". Also a unit customizer allows you to tailor your units for roles you feel need to be fulfilled depending on the strategic situation. For example lets say your enemy is building massive sub fleets and you feel that you need fast, cheap, lightly armed destroyers that can screen your fleet and spot subs for your slow, expensive heavy hitters and then get out of harm's way.

4. Improved results utilizing a unit customizer is not guaranteed. That's part of being human. However it allows further depth and control over your military and makes war more dynamic. Wars will no longer be decided by who researches the next step up first, and will be much more realistically won by the small changes, upgrades and adaptations that happen gradually over the course of a conflict. War is pathetic in civilization. Your entire goal is to get Macemen over Axemen, Riflemen over Macemen, Infantry over Riflemen and Tanks over Infantry. Its very dumb and absolutely no challenge.

5. The unit customizer can always be turned off, if you don't like it. However I fail to see how being good at tactics is different from being good at strategy. Here's a fact: there is virtually NO tactical element to civilization, and unless you can control individual soldiers or small units in a battle there will NEVER be a tactical element. The depth of tactics in civilization is choosing Cover over Strength 2. A unit customizer offers the exact same element. Therefore saying that I can customize a unit to be cheaper, lightly armed and faster or building a unit that is expensive, slow but heavily armed makes me a tactical player is saying that promoting my Axemen to Cover also makes me a tactical player.

You fail to realize that you have been a tactical player countless times by your definition. If an enemy has a large force of cavalry do you not choose to build Pikemen over Macemen? The only difference is that a unit customizer would allow you to change the properties of your pikemen should you choose to.



As I've previously stated, the Unit Customizer could very well be an optional element. Base units such as are currently present in the game would still be available and indeed form the 'hub' for what you customize. You're not going to literally build a digital tank from the ground up. I strongly feel that you are unqualified to give an unbiased opinion on this feature until you experience how it affects other empire building strat games.

I believe that your inexperience coupled with your knowledge of current Civilization mechanics are part of what is making you have such a negative opinion of this concept. I'll also admit that it's my experience to other title's concepts that make me see how this could be a positive addition to the game if Civ's current mechanics were up-dated. This may be why it's so hard for me to convey the pros of this feature.

Space Empires 5 has one of these. So here's some input:

1. On the On/Off issue, you could just have some base units (as now) that could be selected by players who don't care or are in Multiplayer.

2. There should be a complexity cap based on era, and the gear you pick would determine your production cost.

3. The hard part is how to manage caps on certain aspects. We don't want someone making a unit with 4 Move and 1 Str, for just rushing in on workers.

4. I think a simpler way of doing this, would just have generic unit types and have the promotion system have more influence on how the unit develops. So for Classic era your units would be: Melee Guy, Archer Guy (debatable), Horse Guy, and Siege. And then promotion influences how these interact (the axemen is now obsolete).

5. In all the games I've seen this used, it leads to much more time as you have to develop each unit before unleashing it, and you have to make sure to update your current unit every time you get a new tech upgrade (bad for quick tech games).

Overall View: I don't think civ needs this. Let civ focus on other area's or just expand the promotion system.