capturing units with zero defense

Units with zero defense can be captured, right? Like artillery units? Does the civ doing the capturing have to be able to build the unit to capture it? Could this be used for a kind of weapons trading?

If the civ doing the capturing doesn't have the tech to build that unit, it will be disbanded. (e.g. if a civ that tries to capture a cannon without artillery, the cannon will be destroyed). This does not apply to resources, though.

So, for instance, let's say that "Magic Cannon" is available with the tech "Magic" and can only be built if one has the resource "Mana". Let's say that both Civ A and Civ B have the necessary tech, but only the former has access to Mana (perhaps, Mama is unlocked with a tech that only Civ A has access to). If Civ B attacks Civ A's defenseless magic cannon, they will be able to capture it and use it... but they won't be able to built any more.

I'm 95% sure this is the way it works.
 
Yeah, as Lord Malbeth said.

The civs need to be able to "build" the unit - i.e. they need to be selected as civs the unit is available to, and they need to have the required tech to build it. They do not need the required resource(s) however, which is useful.
 
Ah I see thanks guys! That is useful! So in multiplayer you could trade weapons by allowing other players to capture a zero defense unit hat could be upgraded to something else although you'd have to be at war with them I guess. If the zero defense unit is hidden nationality then the unit isn't captured if I remember correctly.

Is there anyway to let civs capture such units without being at war?
 
Capture, no. As you said, 0-def hidden nationality units would not be captured. However remember you can trade certain units (workers) in diplomacy. For a long time we thought it was limited to the second unit in the file but apparently it's... something else. @Bluemofia should know.

I suppose in a fixed scenario you may be able to rig up something with the AI to "launder" captured units through a barbarian. Once recaptured the unit would still retain its original nationality if that matters.
 
@WildWeazel It's whatever is set in "Captured Unit" box the General Tab (see: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/da-rules-explained.210035/#post-5161431). These units are what units with population cost turn into when they are captured (1 per pop, so workers turn into 1 worker, and settlers turn into 2 workers). By default, Workers are the unit, but if you change it to Artillery for example, they turn into Artillery. These units are also what become tradable in the diplomacy screen.

I'll need to run some tests later on to see what the results are when you do weird things like set it to Warriors or something.
 
Thanks @WildWeazel and @Bluemofia. I was already aware of the default capture unit being tradable, which is great, but I was hoping for a way to trade multiple types of unit. Oh well. It's still useful for certain things. In my fantasy mode I think I will have capturable (zero def) units that are hidden on the map. If the player captures them they can be upgraded to a powerful unit. I was hoping to use it for player to player trading of units too but nevermind.
 
Unit 1 (Proto Unit)– no stats (just cost)
Unit 2 (1st type of the unit class) – apply required stats, king unit
Unit 3 – apply required stats, king unit
Unit 4 –

Each unit has to be accessed by all civs. You can make multiple chains of unit types.
I have 4 of 5 classes of combat unit I can exchange with other players.
Only the Proto Unit can be traded.
 
Unit 1 (Proto Unit)– no stats (just cost)
Unit 2 (1st type of the unit class) – apply required stats, king unit
Unit 3 – apply required stats, king unit
Unit 4 –

Each unit has to be accessed by all civs. You can make multiple chains of unit types.
I have 4 of 5 classes of combat unit I can exchange with other players.
Only the Proto Unit can be traded.

This sounds very exciting though I'm not sure I understand correctly. How is the proto unit traded? Is the proto unit the default capture unit? And does it then upgrade to different units depending on the techs/civilization of the player being traded to?

Or is the trading by some other method?

EDIT:

Ah I just checked your tradable goods thread. I presume this is the method:

"The recipient player can take the unit with a standard offensive unit but that will result in war. You need to make an offensive Hidden Nationality unit so it can capture the goods without a declaration of war.
The “freight unit” can be unloaded onto an allies beach or transported by land."

That's very cunning. I didn't think of using a hidden nationality unit to capture the zero def unit and thereby avoid war. That's a near perfect solution for something I want to do!!! THANKS!!!
 
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So would this work?

Scenario context:

A Multiplayer RPG. Players control a single hero. Armour and Weapons simulated. Weapons can be found in dungeon areas of the map or built by the player. Mage characters have a special resource that allows them to 'Enchant' other characters weapons and then give it back to them with increased stats.

Armour: This is a unit with transport capacity and a high HP and defense but zero attack. This is in effect represents hero itself as well as it's armour. It also represents the heroes weapons for the purposes of defending. It can transport other items (units) used by the hero such as a weapon (see below) or a spell (cruise missile) or an ability of some kind.

Weapon: This is essentially an artillery unit with range 1 or greater than uses the same animation as the Amour (hero) unit. So when the hero attacks with it's weapon it is actually waking a transported artillery unit that attacks another unit, meaning no chance of the hero taking damage while attacking. Defending is based on the armour's defensive value as described above.

Now comes the trading part:

- Weapons are always capture-able (zero defense artillery type units) by other players heroes (they are hidden nationality - thanks @Oni Ryuu !!!).

- If the weapon is traded to the Mage hero it can be enchanted and then traded back (recaptured) by the hero that owns it. This should work like this: All players have the tech for the original weapon but not the resource it requires. Therefore if they find the unit in a dungeon they can capture it. The mage character has a special resource that enables that player to upgrade the weapon to an Enchanted version of the weapon with better attack value. The enchanted version is a King unit though so it can't be built by the mage only upgraded to. All players have the required tech and are allowed to build the enchanted weapon.

The weapon still can be traded back to another player but that player can't build or upgrade to the enchanted version because the resource required is only available to mage hero players.

Will this work?

Something I haven't quite figured out is I want the weapon to have different variants depending on who is using it because it has to use the same animations of the armour unit. Eg an orc with a sword or a dwarf with the same sword. This might be hard or impossible to do at the same time as the above trading?

In which case I will probably have weapons be specific to a race/hero class and therefore not need different versions of the weapon in the upgrade path.
 
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You could show the sword being used by a semi-transparent silhouette to avoid the graphics conflict with the weapons units. It wouldn’t matter which unit was using it if you only saw the weapon and a shadow puppet.

The AI’s mobile/roaming units won’t be able to carry equipment like the player can; they’ll need to be basic combat units (with various abilities) or they won’t perform well.

Your guy will need a minimum of 10 HP or he’ll be slaughtered in the first outing.

Your main characters need an unarmed attack value so they can capture equipment.

If you don’t want your main characters to be able to capture other cities, set them to Hidden Nationality. The Hidden Nationality feature will only attract trouble if your character is unarmed. All equipment units have national markings visible to the AI so it will prevent an attack as logn as you're carrying something.
If you do want your guy to be able to capture cities you’re going to need a Hidden Nationality sidekick or some expendable minions.

I had some thoughts that might be useful to you.
Spoiler :
Each character can have its own class of equipment so you can have different character types..

Equipment Units
Foot + T-missile (Light) = melee, bow
T-missile (Heavy) = heavy melee
Aircraft (Dark Magic) = summon demon, spell, poor melee
Foot (Basic) = light melee
Mech (Magic) = staff, strong spell

Characters
Ranger (loads foot + T-missile) can use Light weapons. Fast, medium combat stats
Soldier (loads T-missile) can use Light & Heavy weapons. Slow, good combat stats, high capacity
Summoner (loads aircraft) can use Dark Magic weapons. Poor combat stats, good magic defence
Minion (loads foot) can use Basic weapons. Bad all-round, Hidden Nationality, low capacity
Mage (loads mech) can use Basic & Magical weapons. Poor combat stats, good magic defence, high capacity

Air defence is replaced by Dark Magic Defence. Dark Magic Defence can be added to some of your equipment units.
Dark Magic Defence only applies if a Summon attacks (performs a bombing run). Dark Magic class equipment doesn’t all need to be vulnerable to Dark Magic Defence; some could just bombard (like a sword, bow or spell) or work as support equipment (like a talisman).
You can still have disposable weapons like throwing knives (Foot + T-missile + C-missile) for the Ranger and Soldier or single purpose spells (C-missile) for the Mage..
You could have an amulet with zone-of-control, Radar, Recon or other abilities.

Each player could offer their craft skill (unique resource) to improve weapons of the separate classes instead of limiting it to just Mages. It could improve multiplayer cooperation

New Longsword(Proto unit for Scout & Soldier units)
  • Longsword (no resource required)
  • Swift Longsword (Improved by Ranger)
  • Fine Longsword (Improved by Soldier)
  • Enchanted Longsword (Improved by Mage)
  • Unholy Longsword (Improved by Summoner)
One type of proto unit could upgrade to suit 4 of the classes. (Summoners excluded)

New Amethyst (Proto unit)
  • Amethyst Pendant (for Ranger & Soldier)
  • Amethyst Necklace (for Minion & Mage)
If you don’t need minions for their Hidden Nationality you could swap them for a pack mule unit or a lesser magic class.

If you chose the pack mule, all proto units could be foot units making it easier to lug new equipment back to your main city.
 
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First of all, thanks for all the great suggestions and taking an interest!

I'll try and answer your questions or address all your comments below.


Sorry, I should have explained better. I'm glad you figured it out.

The AI's units won’t be able to properly use your weapons system so I’m assuming that they work as normal. It should be fine for your main cast.

Yes AI units will be normal.

You could show the sword being used by a semi-transparent silhouette to avoid the graphics conflict with the weapons units. It wouldn’t matter which unit was using it.

I've thought about using unit animations that are just the weapon, but what you suggest would look better perhaps. I'll definitely consider that because it would make things a look simpler and mean adding far less variant units to the game. Although, using existing animations means not having to create any new units animations.

You could make the weapons allocation more complicated if you’re not already using the features.
Foot + T-missile (Light) = light melee
T-missile (Heavy) = heavy melee
Aircraft (Dark Magic) = summon demon, raise the dead
Foot (Ranged) = Bow, dagger, light spell
mech (Magic)= staff, strong spell

I've thought about this too, but also an easier solution might be just to have house rules stating some units can only be used by some classes and expect the players to follow those rules.

(loads foot + T-missile) can use Light weapons
Soldier (loads T-missile) can use Light & Heavy weapons
Summoner (loads aircraft) can use Dark Magic weapons
Archer (loads foot) can use Ranged weapons
Mage (loads mech) can use Ranged & Magical weapons

I have a set of classes. The are based on a certain roles. This whole mod idea is based very loosely on World of Warcraft. The main roles I envision for the classes are:

- Tank (high HP, defense)
- Damage (high Ranged or melee attack)
- Weakening (Charm attack)
- Protection (Summon (enslave) guardian creatures/spells to help protect heroes, including high def/HP capturable units that can sit on the same tile as a hero and defend it light a protective force field type thing. Would be healing if this existed in Civ three)

Warrior (Melee damage / Tank)
Paladin (Tank / Prottection)
Rogue (Weakening / Melee damage)
Ranger (Ranged Damage / ?)
Mage (Ranged Damage / ?)
Priest (Protection / Weakening)
Shaman/Druid (Jack of all trades like Druid in WoW, see explanation below)
Necromancer (Weakening / Ranged/Melee Damage / Protection - Summon Skeletons)
Death Knight (Tank / Weakening)

Rogues are invisible but can be detected by higher level bad guys and by other heroes.

The shaman/druid character will have different animal forms depending on its armour class being worn (planning cloth / leather / mail). If the shaman/druid is wearing leather it will appear as a large cat (tiger or something) and it will have invisible and weakening abilities like a rogue. If it wears mail it will appear as a bear and will have Tanking and Melee stats like a Warrior. Cloth will give weakening and protection abilities like a Priest. It will need to have a range of ability units to fit whatever form it is in. Eg if in in Priest forn can only carry the abilities/spells related to that form.


Air defence is substituted for Dark Magic defence. Dark Magic defence can be added to your weapons units.
DMD only applies if the weapon performs a bombing run. Dark Magic weapons don’t all need to be vulnerable to DMD; some could just bombard or something equally safe.

I've considered using this quite a lot. Tom's mod used this set up. It doesn't fit very well with the model I have though. While I really like the idea of having a separate magic defense, I don't like the idea of the spell being destroyed so much. It just doesn't make much sense that a spell can be used again and again until bam someone's magic defense destroys it then you have to go back and get it again from your home city. I'm thinking more of permanent abilities (artillery units) and one off spells (cruise missiles). Still it does add another strategic element to the game some maybe I should reconsider having some types of spell that are air units and can be destroyed by air defense.

You can still have disposable weapons like throwing knives (Foot + T-missile + C-missile) for the Scout and Soldier.
The Archer and the Mage could share a “Ranged” class of daggers and similar secondary weapons.
The Mage could have an amulet with zone-of-control, Radar or Recon abilities.

Like! I'm planning items like amulets and rings which can attack.

If you vary some stats like HP, defence or transport capacity of the five classes; you could have all the variety you’d want.
e.g. a dwarf and an orc can both use heavy weapons but the dwarf can carry more equipment and the orc has higher defence.

I was thinking that the weapons etc available to a hero would be based more on their class than their race but that would also work well.

How do you plan to use the cities? Are they going to be populated settlements, single buildings or something unusual?

So I was planning that the hero(es) just have a single city that is their home. I'm also planning three AI controlled civs. Nature, that has cities that produce whiled animals and other random bad guys. Additionally, I was thinking of having two grand alliances like in WoW and similar games/worlds. There would be a 'good/order' type alliance and a 'bad/chaos' type alliance. Different races make up the two alliances. Heroes from a given race are locked allies the corresponding alliance that that race is part of. One of the hero's jobs is to help it's alliance control more of the map their by gaining greater access to resources for their alliance. They can trade for these resources with the AI controlled alliance and use the resources to craft better items. The nature civ would also produce 'resource' units (eg, iron) that need to be captured and upgraded to produce weapons etc. Another thing the nature civ cities would do is produce baby animals that can be captured and upgraded to pets that can be taken with the hero and used as an offensive minion. Pet's could be only for the ranger but probably for all heroes to be more fun.

Your main characters need an unarmed attack value so they can capture stuff.

Yes I just discovered this in testing. Since the hero/amour isn't supposed to be able to attack I was thinking of giving all hero/armour units 1 attack. These heroes are only controlled by human players and you would have to be careful not to accidentally attack with it.

Any unit with Hidden Nationality will attract AI units in their line of sight so your main characters can't have HN.
If you had expendable minions with the HN attribute, they would be protected as long as they stayed on your main character’s tile. They can also be used as an intermediary for exchanging weapons/equipment.

Oh yes this would be a big problem in light of the allied AI civs discussed above. I guess minions will have to be used. Perhaps their will be a unit that IS the hero. This unit would not do any really attacking but would live inside the armour units and it's main purpose would be to capture zero defense units. It would be HN.

If you employ the class system I mentioned in the previous post, each Player could offer their craft skill (unique resource) to improve weapons of the separate classes instead of limiting it to just Mages.
New Rapier (Proto unit for Scout & Soldier units)
Rapier (no resource required)
Fine Rapier (Improved by Soldier)
Enchanted Rapier (Improved by Mage)
Unholy Rapier (Improved by Summoner)

This would be good. It could be based on professions too (see below).

The proto unit could upgrade to 4/5 of the classes. (Summons would need to be found separately like the Final Fantasy 7 summon materia).
New Amethyst (Proto unit for 4 classes)
Amethyst Necklace (for Scout & Soldier)
Amethyst Necklace (for Archer & Mage)

I have a lot of questions and I’m sure it’s obvious that I’m interested. Do you have a full proposal I can read?

I don't really have anything except a head full of ideas. I've been planning this in my head for 5 plus years. All I have really mapped out is what units to use for what kind of hero, which is in an excel spreadsheet currently. I could share that. I'm terrible at follow through. I have many Civ projects all in the early stages of development. Nothing is even close to finished or even testable.

I would like to develop a very basic test mod to see if all the ideas actually work and to see if it is actually fun to play.

Other ideas I want to implement:

Professions:
- Blacksmith (create metal armour and weapons)
- Tailor (create cloth armour)
- Leather-working (create leather armour)
- Woodworking (create bows and magic staves)
- Jeweler (rings and amulets)

Dungeons. Special ares of the map the hero can access and kill bosses and capture rewards like, high level weapons or resource units, treasure units etc.

Constant war regions (this is a cut off region that only the hero can go in and out of (impassible to wheeled terrain and only heroes are not wheeled) with permanent AI alliance cities facing off against each other. The idea would be that the AI's both have a permanent unconquerable city in this region. They produce evenly matched forces so they would control half the region each by building cities in certain areas they allow a city. These regions would have resources in them. The hero could travel to the region and tip the balance in favour of his own alliance letting it gain full control of the region. Then the hero can trade with his alliance for those resources that they now control. If a human controlled hero existed on the apposing side (multiplayer) they could travel to the region to tip the balance back to normal or towards their own alliance.

The AI wouldn't be to conquer the whole map. It might be just to complete all the dungeons and get right through the tech tree or something like that.

 
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I think I just replied to old version of your post that you just edited :D

This is getting a bit off topic I wonder if I should start a new thread or get a mod to copy across some of this discussion to a new thread.

EDIT: Have started a new thread to discuss the mod idea.
 
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It got a little messy so I wanted to tidy things up and make some corrections.

I've considered using this quite a lot. Tom's mod used this set up. It doesn't fit very well with the model I have though. While I really like the idea of having a separate magic defense, I don't like the idea of the spell being destroyed so much. It just doesn't make much sense that a spell can be used again and again until bam someone's magic defense destroys it then you have to go back and get it again from your home city. I'm thinking more of permanent abilities (artillery units) and one off spells (cruise missiles). Still it does add another strategic element to the game some maybe I should reconsider having some types of spell that are air units and can be destroyed by air defense.
If you give the summons (air units) a high HP they won’t be killed outright, they’ll just be damaged.
EDIT: AA fire does kill the aircraft. An aircraft can receive damage from a dogfight without being destroyed. So maybe only Summoners that have creatures with an attack value can have a defence against other summons.
So I was planning that the hero(es) just have a single city that is their home.
That would seriously reduce complications.
Another thing the nature civ cities would do is produce baby animals that can be captured and upgraded to pets that can be taken with the hero and used as an offensive minion. Pet's could be only for the ranger but probably for all heroes to be more fun.
I was thinking of a similar system for early mounts in a scenario.

I don't really have anything except a head full of ideas. I've been planning this in my head for 5 plus years. All I have really mapped out is what units to use for what kind of hero, which is in an excel spreadsheet currently. I could share that. I'm terrible at follow through. I have many Civ projects all in the early stages of development. Nothing is even close to finished or even testable.

I would like to develop a very basic test mod to see if all the ideas actually work and to see if it is actually fun to play.
You can make a much better mod if you accept early on that you’re not going to be able to make the game you want. Go with the fantasy WoW theme but don’t get stuck trying to make it fit your original idea; see where the compromises take you.
 
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