Another idea: Great Generals

[TheFourGuardian]

I came up with this concept one day while pondering over a scenario.

The great general would be the military equivalent of the other great people.

Abilities:

Create military academy: Increase amount of experience points of units, and reduce production by half for military units.

Recruit: Creates ten(twenty?) units immediately in the city corresponding to what would be obtained in a draft at no cost.

Start golden age: Self Explantory

Discover Military tech: Same

Join city: +2 shields, one happiness, and -10% war weariness in city.

Wonders that help it:

Pentagon
West Point
etc.

Specialist: Guardr +1 shields and happiness.

 

[Red Door]

Sounds like a good idea.

 

[donquixote235]

I was surprised they didn't include this in Civ 4... after all, it was the ONLY Great Unit in vanilla Civ 3; I wonder why it didn't make the cut.

 

[Enigma]

Abilities:

Create military academy: Increase amount of experience points of units, and reduce production by half for military units.

Uhh... that's a bit overpowered don't you think? I mean, currently the only building that cuts production costs in half for military units is the Heroic Epic, and that is a national wonder. Kinda kills the significance if you can plop four or five such academies down in a game...

 

[cckerberos]

Uhh... that's a bit overpowered don't you think? I mean, currently the only building that cuts production costs in half for military units is the Heroic Epic, and that is a national wonder. Kinda kills the significance if you can plop four or five such academies down in a game...

I agree. Granting +2 (+3?) experience points for newly created units would be a sufficient bonus for the military academy.

Another possibility that just occured to me would be a reduction in upgrade costs? Though that might be difficult to implement.

 

[jbfballrb]

maybe allow the city to make an expensive super-unit (changing age to age, sorta like armies)(or armies, if youre willing to invest time and skills into it)

 

[Spatzimaus]

It's not a bad idea, but I'd have a few comments/modifications:

1> The specialist you suggested (+1 production, +1 happiness) just doesn't fit with what I'd associate with miltary specialists, besides overlapping a bit too much with the others. Go with something a bit more unusual. For instance, what if the "Soldier" specialist added 10% to the defense of units in the city (making it something you'd want to use when the city was under attack), and -10% war weariness? Maybe also make it reduce bombardment damage by 10%.

2> As for the Great General himself, the two standard abilities stay, of course (Golden Age, get technology). If you've added a new specialist, it needs a Super version, of course. You don't really need an Academy; just make the Super Specialist provide the bonus you want. For instance, the Super Specialist could provide +3 XP to all units made in the city, in addition to the other stuff; since the Super isn't like a normal specialist (you couldn't shift all your specs to one to get a huge XP bonus on the turn the unit's created and then shift back), this isn't abuseable.

3a> If you want it to spawn units, I'd suggest a flat amount. Like, say that it provides 1000 shields (scale this number with era) for unit production, and that overflow transfers to the next military unit to be produced. So, it's not an instant stack-o-units, since you'd still only build one per turn, and you won't be stuck paying maintenance on weak units you don't really want.
Of course, this assumes you CAN program that sort of overflow.

3b> An alternative to the create-a-stack is to allow the Leader to combine with a single existing unit in his square for, say, a +20 XP boost. So, you combine General Patton with a Tank unit to get an instant ultra-elite unit with even more abilities. It's still killable, but is more capable than the original unit, and so plays more like the Army of Civ3.