all unique units

I'd like to see each civ being completely unique, with very few unit types shared between civs. That would make playing a new civ like playing a completely new game. Civs could be set for a certain style, etc

Would this work against the idea of re-writing history? If all civs are thoroughly unique, this is a real problem.

im not sure i follow...

I would love the idea for at least ancient and medieval flavour units, like african style Zulu Spearmen, Chinese Swordsmen, Arabian Swordsmen, etc.

Rather than have all unique units, I would like to have all civs pick from the same stock units, but with the ability to customize those units to their needs. Amount of resources, technology, etc. will determine how much customization is possible.

ex) there is a basic infantry unit, like the one in Civ3. I have a small, peaceful empire, and don't want to pay for a regular infantry. I can customize the stock infantry to have less attack, same defense, maybe fewer troops (fewer hitpoints), because i don't think i will need to fight a real war with him. Now he will cost less to build, and less to maintain, but will still give my people a feeling of security.

Or I am planning a war, and need more highly trained troops. I will create some divisions of infantry with higher attack, defense, etc., but they will cost more to build, maintain, and will take a longer time to train. The rest of my divisions will be regular infantry, and I can have some cheap infantry for garrisoning captured cities, etc. As my troops win battles, they will become veterens, elite, and will have their attack/defense stats increased to reflect this status.

This will help make each civ's army unique, without tying it to their real historical forces. You would still be able to rewrite history, if you wanted, or you could base your army on history. You could name your elite infantry the SS, for example, if you play as Germany. You could also build the Bismark, and set it apart from other battleships by making it bigger, faster, and more powerful than the average battleship.

In my opinion, Civ4 should offer more options to the player to play as he wants, and should not bind him so tightly to real history.

I agree with Capslock on the general sentiments.

As for the notion of having all unique units, well, the whole point of civilization is to rewrite history. Say I am playing as the Mayans and (in my game) I start the game on wide plains with plenty of horse ressources nearby - would it make ANY sense whatsoever at that point for me to start building javelin thrower and have little or no cavalry units to build?

Of course not. If I start on a wide plain with plenty of horses - then I should have a large cavalry army and relatively minor infantry forces, which a set of "Mayan units" probably wouldn't be able to afford well.

So the notion of having "mostly unique units", while it works mostly fine for a real world map or scenarios , wouldn't really be fitting for random maps.

Originally posted by Oda Nobunaga
As for the notion of having all unique units, well, the whole point of civilization is to rewrite history. Say I am playing as the Mayans and (in my game) I start the game on wide plains with plenty of horse ressources nearby - would it make ANY sense whatsoever at that point for me to start building javelin thrower and have little or no cavalry units to build?

Of course not. If I start on a wide plain with plenty of horses - then I should have a large cavalry army and relatively minor infantry forces, which a set of "Mayan units" probably wouldn't be able to afford well.

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Yes, this is another reason why I don't like the idea of unique units. Your military should reflect your style of play, your nation's geography/resources and technology, and the sort of wars you will be fighting, not the civs historical military.

@starrider: I ment something like Oda Nobunaga here. Civ is not supposed to be a game that follows history as it was, but a game that allows you to make your own history. Having all unique units that are linked to the civ you choose would work against this. I agree with Capslock, though. The environment should affect your civ. MOO2-styled unit design would allow you to design your own units within certain limits. We don't have to use that to achieve the goal Capslock suggested, but it would work.

I really like the idea of customizing your units, but I don't like it to be done via forcing you along different kind of units for different civs. The UU is enough - or too much - already.

I had an idea, have all Civs have at least 1 UU per age.

(EX: England- Ancient- Briton Barbarian; Medieval- Longbowmen; Enlightment- British Regular, Industrial- Tommy Infantry; Modern- ?)

King Aldous XI, alot of civs weren't around in the ancient ages, or aren't around now. It would be too impractical, but for England in the Modern ages it could be an SAS dude

As for the original idea, i'm completely against it.

but it makes no sense to invent a unit that gets +50% in jungle if you have no jungle on your continent.

ideal would be a combination of the unit design workshop in SMAC
and a skill type system, with each of the unit abilities and general unit types as a skill on the civ level, so if you make/use a lot of horse artchers you'll get better at using them, and you'll make better ones fight in jungle a lot you'll get better at that, same for artic or mountians, or even on defensive developing tactics to counter certian units,

simple example: only allow pikemen, which should have that +100% against mounted, if you've had X battles with foot units defending aginst mounted units..

i disagree,i dont think every civ should have all unique units

take a look at modern tankis from diffrent countries,very similar in design and appearance

maybe there should be 2 UUs per civ,that would be nice but no more

Originally posted by Suki
but it makes no sense to invent a unit that gets +50% in jungle if you have no jungle on your continent.
...
simple example: only allow pikemen, which should have that +100% against mounted, if you've had X battles with foot units defending aginst mounted units..

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I just made a post in the other Unique Units thread with a similar idea. It works fine for certain situations, like the one you describe, in which any unit can defend against mounted units, and the unique version gets a bonus. But what about some of the special abilities that UUs have that the corresponding regular units don't. For instance, Berserk has amphibious assault: what would you have to do in order to get to be able to build Berserks? It would only make sense if there was a generic unit with amphibious assault and you got Berserks is you had X successful amphibious assaults with that generic unit. But making generic units to cover all such special abilities would result in an awful lot of units, not to mention the fact that then those abilities wouldn't be really unique anymore, since generic units would have them, and the UUs would simply have improved stats.

I do sympathize with the sentiment expressed in your statement about jungles, but on the other hand, its fun have a unit with an ability that no one else has. That's the point of the other Unique Units thread: Warlord Sam started it by saying that UUs should be more about unique abilities and less about simply improved A/D/M statistics. How to rectify the two different thoughts, I don't know.

I think on the pikemen notion (for example), it would be simpler, and more in keeping with the civilization spirit, to have a special tech you do not need to research (ie, it'S a prerequisite to nothing, not need for age advancement if that concept is kept) called polearms.

So, if you are facing horses (or think you might be facing them soon), you can (and are able to) research polearms. If you have no reason to be concerned about horses, then you have no need to research polearms, and can focus on other, better things.

Originally posted by Oda Nobunaga
I think on the pikemen notion (for example), it would be simpler, and more in keeping with the civilization spirit, to have a special tech you do not need to research (ie, it'S a prerequisite to nothing, not need for age advancement if that concept is kept) called polearms.

So, if you are facing horses (or think you might be facing them soon), you can (and are able to) research polearms. If you have no reason to be concerned about horses, then you have no need to research polearms, and can focus on other, better things.

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I agree. If I ever find the free time to make a mod, one of my ideas is a mod where every UU is buildable by every civ, but each one requires its own optional tech. For example, "Legions" would be an optional tech, branching off from Iron Working, that would allow building of Legionaries. I'm sure rebalancing of unit costs and stats would be required, but it'd be neat to be able to research "Coastal Raids" and then build Atzec Berserks if you were Montenzuma and happened to find yourself with enemies with lots of coastal cities ripe for plunder. It would free you up to rewrite history a little bit more.

One of the reasons why I bought "Rise of Nations" is that it had so many UUs. It would influence me even more on Civ IV

I think starrider meant chinnese style spearmen, greek style knights.

That would be very cool.

My idea was/is to expand on the unique units, and mebbe have a couple per era for each civ. But increasing it even more so would certainally spice up the game

Originally posted by judgement
I just made a post in the other Unique Units thread with a similar idea. It works fine for certain situations, like the one you describe, in which any unit can defend against mounted units, and the unique version gets a bonus. But what about some of the special abilities that UUs have that the corresponding regular units don't. For instance, Berserk has amphibious assault: what would you have to do in order to get to be able to build Berserks? It would only make sense if there was a generic unit with amphibious assault and you got Berserks is you had X successful amphibious assaults with that generic unit. But making generic units to cover all such special abilities would result in an awful lot of units, not to mention the fact that then those abilities wouldn't be really unique anymore, since generic units would have them, and the UUs would simply have improved stats.

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well that's why i suggested bringing back SMAC's unit design workshop.
good idea you have of making them tradable like techs and researchable... but if it was based on concentration and accomplishments as well, civs would end up with unique sets iof abilities they could design units with.
you could also set it up that if you developed it through practice, it would have a slight advantage over the researched & traded versions.

isn't the soloution there something like: any unit can get off a boat and attack someone, so you can't just put one unit on each square of beach to stop anyone but the vikings, it's just a question of how well,

you could also have wonders, of either type, enable certian abilities...

@judgement & Oda Nobunaga:
This is a good idea. The rebalancing should be made with care, though. I thought it was one of the best ideas ever to separate ironclads (I was happy that they even noted the problem of the late medieval ships and ironclads), but then I never researched ironclads. It simply isn't worth it, as the destroyers and such are just around the corner and the other contemporary techs are probably the most important in the game. Others disagree with me on this, but there is a whole thread full of people fighting about the usefullness of ironclads, so the problem is real anyhow.

The stats of the unique units should be tuned up a bit or the techs should be a bit cheaper than other contemporary techs. I am sure this could be done quite satisfactorily, though.

Another problem I see in this is that this would allow multiple immortals and other UUs. I am not sure if this was such a bad thing, but a thing worth noting, anyhow.