actual post-apocalyptic tech development

[Refar]

Realism consideration aside - who would actually use the Car Bomb unit in the game ? Compare base game cruise missile - it can reduce defenses, it can do collateral - it can even kill - it's basicly what you will get with the car bomb.

The cruise missiles are dirt cheap for the era they come into play, they can be built at a 1 per turn in a mediocre city (often with overflow)... So what ? Do they get used a lot ?

Add in fury roads economic (and productivity) constrains, and these suicide units become even less attractive (which put's us back on the realism track btw.)

 

[Jabie]

So the idea is a car bomb, basically. I would like to find a name which doesn't get anti-terrorism people mad at me.

Boom Buggy.

 

[arkham4269]

Realism consideration aside - who would actually use the Car Bomb unit in the game ? Compare base game cruise missile - it can reduce defenses, it can do collateral - it can even kill - it's basicly what you will get with the car bomb.

The cruise missiles are dirt cheap for the era they come into play, they can be built at a 1 per turn in a mediocre city (often with overflow)... So what ? Do they get used a lot ?

Add in fury roads economic (and productivity) constrains, and these suicide units become even less attractive (which put's us back on the realism track btw.)

Well I would think they'd wouldn't be cheap, but on the other hand they wouldn't always have to be mobile; you could tow it behind another vehicle and push it into position so they might not be too expensive when you consider they are one shot weapons.

Plus as I said, you drive up, back in, the driver runs out, maybe picked up by a guy on a dirt bike and then they detonate it by remote or maybe there is a small fuse lit before the driver leaves. Doesn't have to be a suicide bomber.

 

[Refar]

Again - realism discussion aside

Would you actually build and use the unit in the game ?
How many hammers would you be willing to spend on it ?

 

[arkham4269]

Again - realism discussion aside

Would you actually build and use the unit in the game ?
How many hammers would you be willing to spend on it ?

Certainly, as both you and I mentioned, they are merely a land version of cruise missiles.

Realism or not, I could see them being used against troops in the field a lot more than catapults. You drive up, abandon the vehicle and the detonate it remotely. Or if there was a way that they could be used remotely, to say if a stack with one of these bomb cars is attacked, you'd get a pop-up asking if you want to use your car defensively. If so, you lose the unit, but you get a BIG defensive hit on the attackers.

Plus, here's a bit of post-apocalyptic realism for you. You and your family are refugees and you finally get to a town. They look you up and say, "Well things are tight and you'll be expected to work. However, it also takes money to get you folks started. Here's the deal, one of you needs to volunteer for a certain duty that's pretty much certain death. It's that or we turn you away." So you'd have a pool of people 'willing' to be a bomber if only to keep their family safe. Al Qaeda and the Taliban do this all the time. They find young adults or teens whose families are in a bad way and say, "You go blow yourself up, not only will you be a martyr, but will take care of your family." And they do, so for many people it's not a bad 'deal'.

Plus, realism aside, catapults were almost never used in direct, land combat. they were siege weapons and navy weapons. Having them used against land units, many on horses or trucks is just down right ludicrous.

 

[Refar]

Certainly, as both you and I mentioned, they are merely a land version of cruise missiles.

Which is concidered largely useless by many people. Of course there are different oppinions, as usual, i built a few myself on occasion, when i really did not know where to put the , but i know no one who uses them a lot.

Plus, realism aside, catapults were almost never used in direct, land combat. they were siege weapons and navy weapons. Having them used against land units, many on horses or trucks is just down right ludicrous.

Here i have to agree. I just don't think single use units can be a solution.

 

[Avahz Darkwood]

These would tend to be fear weapons more than anything IMO. To use them I would suggest they act in a way that would lower the safety level some. They would be cheep ways of hindering a safety victory. Hit a city with high safety during war and drop it say 1% per car. That way the more safety you have the bigger the hit without ever loosing all safety. And as an additional effect it would/could also force all units to become un trenched loosing some type defense bonuses.

Plus doing it this way adds some strategic elements not currently in the game. Everything doesn't have to be about how much damage it can do...

 

[Refar]

Hmmm... I don't feel a brocken car pushed by a couple of homeless dudes, because they can't afford a engine, like suggested here, causing fear in me... Not even if it is loaded by explosives...

[Edit]
The suggestion of a unit or mission taking safety from a enemy city sounds interesting tho. Perhaps a spy mission ?
Shouldnt be too cheap however.

On the military side there is already a strategy to fight Safety victory - just burn the city to the ground - you would end up doing that anyway, after you hit it with a few bomb cars...

 

[Avahz Darkwood]

HAHA funny mental picture there Refar . I recon safety would already be compromised in that case... Osama has been doing it wrong the whole time...

 

[davidlallen]

Hey, popular topic. I guess some people feel post-apocalyptic catapults are not the right thing for breaching city defenses, some people feel post-apocalyptic car bombs are not the right thing.

How about something like "sappers"? In the middle ages this was a specific technique of tunneling under enemy walls to collapse them. But in modern usage it might apply to anybody trained in explosives.

So, if I can get minefields to work, maybe the sapper is a general demolitions unit, who can lay mines, remove mines, or damage enemy walls. What do you think?

 

[arkham4269]

How about something like "sappers"? In the middle ages this was a specific technique of tunneling under enemy walls to collapse them. But in modern usage it might apply to anybody trained in explosives.

So, if I can get minefields to work, maybe the sapper is a general demolitions unit, who can lay mines, remove mines, or damage enemy walls. What do you think?

Speaking for someone who spent quite a long time with Engineer units (I was a "Ironhorse Sapper for 2 years) the whole point of 'sapping' was to get create a breach. In the old days this was done by tunneling under a wall (not something really applicable in Fury Road) or by using different methods to cause a explosion or failure of the wall.

As I've said, the best method is with explosive put in such a way as to channel the explosion in one direction. The best method would be to take a vehicle like a van and have the explosives put in near the back of the door. Then you'd back things like sandbags to shunt that explosion toward the back doors. You could put lots of shards of metal in and on the vehicle to create shrapnel affects due to the explosion. It would be better to drive the vehicle up and position it, but you could just push it if you had to.

Otherwise, all a sapper unit would be is a group of trained engineers who would move explosives up to the barricade in such a way as to do the same effect as above. Yet doing that on foot is slow and allows the defenders plenty of time to A) attack you, B) potentially detonate the explosives before they are set with enough blast to be a danger or C) realize they can't stop the blast so they move their troops back so they can be ready to sally into the breach after the blast.

So again, a VBIED would the most effective way to get the amount of explosive necessary to weaken or destroy a barricade into position in one quick stroke. However, as mentioned, these are one shot weapons designed to weaken walls. If you truly want a unit that would attack walls, you'd want a Big steam Mega-Dozer. The 'problem' with such a unit is that it would only be useful against cities. I'm not sure if there is a way to code for that. I mean besides going through barricades, it's not going to be useful in any sort of combat where people are going to be able to get out of the way of it.

 

[El_Duderino]

couldnt you just make the mega-dozer an average strength unit with a large bonus against cities

 

[Refar]

Sappers (special forces units i.g.) sound interesting - if these can be amde work and be indeed "special"

 

[arkham4269]

couldnt you just make the mega-dozer an average strength unit with a large bonus against cities

On second thought about a vehicle like this, I'm sure they could be used two ways as infantry support: one just early tanks did, they could clear a path through other infantry. Besides that, I'm sure they could tow a large built up trailer that could be built up like a modern day howdah.

If you remember the movie "Tremors" with Kevin Bacon, you could see this in action as they had a big dozer (which could be further up-armored) pulling along what looked like a reinforced trailer built to carry stuff like gravel or coal. I'm sure you could rig a roof, "battlements" on the side and the like and then you'd have some form of combat power.

So yes, I could see this type of vehicle having a average combat power, but with a small plus versus infantry and a very large plus versus cities along with the ability to 'bombard' the walls.

Actually in a way, this "Mega-Dozer" is like a war elephant which brings to mind a terrible geek pun. In the Lord of the Rings, the mûmakil elephants are referred to by Sam as "Oliphants" so I guess in Fury Road a mega-dozer would be a Oilaphant! Ha Ha! I kill myself!

 

[davidlallen]

Har har, oilaphant. The idea of a mega-dozer is a good one. We can set the combat strength to anything, independently of the city wall damage percentage. Actually we "could" use the current catapult stats, which is strength 8, move 1, -16% damage to walls. But now we have a concept for the unit art.

Alternatively, we could do a "two unit solution". Sappers, available at machinery, which are like infantry but can also bombard for say -8%. This assumes they are carrying explosives but either throw, or find junk on site, to carry the explosives against the wall. Then the dozer would be a gas powered unit with move 2, maybe similar stats. The sapper allows you to do some attack against cities without gas units.

There are a ton of variant grenadier unit arts around, I could probably find one appropriate. Maybe there is a combat engineer unit art for one of the WWII mods. But, I seem to recall the flamethrower unit started out life as a WWII combat engineer, so that isn't it.

The dozer would definitely call for unique art. I can certainly make a dozer button myself.

 

[arkham4269]

Alternatively, we could do a "two unit solution". Sappers, available at machinery, which are like infantry but can also bombard for say -8%. This assumes they are carrying explosives but either throw, or find junk on site, to carry the explosives against the wall. Then the dozer would be a gas powered unit with move 2, maybe similar stats. The sapper allows you to do some attack against cities without gas units.

Another idea, if for some reason you didn't want another unit, would be to have a sapper promotion. As one who was in engineer units for 4 years, learning how to place demo isn't all that hard. In fact, the Army has been toying with the idea of getting rid of the 12B MOS and just giving certain 11B infantry guys some extra training so that every platoon would have some guys with 12B training.

I don't know what the status is of what you get in the way of 'stuff' when killing a unit, but killing a sapper unit would yield lots of neat stuff. One thing about sappers, though, is historically they also could build defensive works. Perhaps in ruins or in forests, they could spend a turn and thus create a immobile abatis unit that would give a decent defensive bonus. If possible you could also have them able to create an abatis in the open, but would have to return to a city to before they could do it again to simulate restocking their supplies.

 

[El_Duderino]

tremors, haha it been too long since ive seen that; but it does give me some ideas
would it be possible to make a dozer unit thats sort of modular (like the ship's crew promotions in FFH, they can be changed while in port), that changes a trailor the dozer is carrying, a transport trailor so it protects the units inside from attacks and from "graboids" (see idea 2), or have an artillary trailor with a bonus against cities, or a flamethrower one that is good against animals and melee, ect...
also i think a tremor unit would be awsome, realy high strength and movement, invisible to ground units, but can only move in desert areas and cant attack heavy units like tanks or dozers.

 

[arkham4269]

I was thinking the other day about the concept of the 1-ring, minor city-states and why they might stay that way and it got me thinking about insular communities and why they are like that.

Has there been any discussion on disease in Fury Road? I would think that obviously exploring the world, search for Goody Huts and the like is important, but it should also carry some risks beyond that of getting killed by barbarians or eaten by critters. There are a lot of diseases that we can deal with today but traditionally where big killers back in the day.

From a game point of view, I don't like plagues in the game unless they move from city to city, irregardless of the owning Civ: I mean nothing kills a game more than your cities are hit by a plague and your neighbors don't. Plus, I don't think that you should totally lose your combat units: the people may die but the equipment (so vital and hard to come by in Fury Road) would remain.

I'm thinking the best mechanic would be the "diseased" promotion from FfH in that once infected, a unit will either constantly take a bit of damage each turn or takes a lot longer to heal as per the normal diseased promotion. If possible, I'd think that you'd have a chance to unleash the plague into a city if you enter one. Perhaps that plague would stay local and maybe it might spread.

Units could become diseased due to entering goody huts or through an event. It's too bad there isn't a way to have it where units in foreign territory during war to have a small chance of becoming diseased to show they're living off the land or coming into contact with lots of dead bodies and the like.

This is probably way to much realism for many, but it would have the effect of making it hard for players in building lots of cities, which is sort of against the point of the mod as well as simulating how hard it is to have long campaigns in enemy territory w/o a clear supply line. (Of course if you had the medic unit that many mods have, you could help cure diseased units in the field) Plus, if possible to code, for every turn a city is under attack, they might have a chance on getting the plague due to all the people from the surrounding areas crammed in with all the defending troops; never a good thing, sanitation wise.

 

[Refar]

I think if on top of the economic pressure, low food map (And the sacary animals), we also put in the disease, further hampering growth, the gameplay will become extremely not fun.

The idea of disease as such is interesting tho.

 

[arkham4269]

I think if on top of the economic pressure, low food map (And the sacary animals), we also put in the disease, further hampering growth, the gameplay will become extremely not fun.

Well for those who have read, "Guns, Germs & Steel", disease doesn't really start to be a problem until you start having lots of people. Small populations die out too quickly from nasty diseases before they can spread.

However, regardless of how bad things are, the survivors do still know things like germ theory and the importance of sanitation so I would think having diseases come in and perhaps only take out one population unit and just give the units in the city a 'diseased' promotion would work. That way, it would definitely make it worth your while to build things like clinics or the medic unit to combat this.

Some mods have a civic that deals with health care like Rise of Mankind and FfH. Perhaps that might be an avenue to look into, especially if the "Culture Counter" idea is used since if you have the civic that is sort of "Let them Eat Cake!" that wouldn't bode well for your culture and/or safety.

Plus, since there is a code for unhappiness due to wanting certain civics (we want Republic!) it would make sense that if your Civ is doing better, the masses might get a bit volatile if you as the leader seem more interested in cranking out military units instead of building them hospitals. I can tell you from first hand experience in Afghanistan that building clinics and providing good health care is probably one of the best ways to spread culture and safety. We would do humanitarian missions to provide dental, medical and OB/GYN care for expectant women and it would cause almost a 180 degree shift in attitudes toward us. I remember the Governor of Paktya province (before he was blown up by a suicide bomber) responded to our pushing to have the Afghan National Army (ANA) take over more of these missions to show the people that their government can help them by saying, "Yes, that is good, but you really don't want to lose all the tremendous good will you garner by doing these missions yourself."