[Civ 5] Rise of Mankind design discussion

[os79]

About 1UPT problem with archers and their later contemporaries:

Why not have upgrade chain of melee and archer in earliest stages of a game be separate group of armies (in one tile), then in Classical era or so, melee and archer-types become one "unit" (need new unit art and its corresponding animation). Then like someone said above, have archers-types in that combo unit change bombard method or even just simulate it within the combat itself.

Yeah that would require whole new level of promotions and other considerations. However, I agree to recoiling from the concept of archer-types being able to range bombard like siege weapons.

Sadly I doubt anyone is knowledgeable or even willing to make a new level of combat level, where you can stack units in civ5 but the fight don't take place on world tiles but instead in secondary plane.

 

[strategyonly]

Sadly I doubt anyone is knowledgeable or even willing to make a new level of combat level, where you can stack units in civ5 .

I believe Kael has already done that with Legions.

 

[os79]

I believe Kael has already done that with Legions.

No, just stacking. Not creating a new plane for fighting... If no new plane for fighting, then 1UPT is next best thing.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

After finding out that Civ V is just a war game, like Civ Fuehrer says. All my ideas are currently on how to fix the trade screen.

I would like to see vicinity buildings if possible and buildings that convert resources from one thing into others. Yes they remove one or more the original resource from your nation and provide others in return. For example if we had copper and tin them a bronze smith would remove four copper and one tin to produce 5 bronze.

You can put me down for code (XML and other), design and testing if you like. Oh wait you don't have a special testing group

 

[Afforess]

Deleted sry wrong thread

 

[Hydromancerx]

Spoiler :

I have been thinking about unique techs and hidden techs. Perhaps you should have era specific techs that will disappear if you go to the next era. Thus players who streamline to the next era will not get all the benefits of that era.

As for hidden or civ specific I have some ideas for those such as ...


(Concept Drawing by Hydromancerx)

This would be an alternative timeline where the South American mega-fauna never went extinct and Inca and other South American civs domesticated ground sloths and terror birds to be their mounts since they don't have horses in South America.

Other ideas would be "Steam Punk" tech, "Da Vinci" tech, no dark ages tech and other alternative timeline situations where existing history takes a slightly diffrent path. For instance in the no dark ages tech you would jump right to the Renaissance and not loose old ancient techs that say the Romans once had. Or "Steam Punk" tech expands upon industrial age technology without going into the modern age yet.

It would also be neat if you could have even diffrent era trees where your not always going down the same linage era path. This could be more interesting for future eras too since history for that is not written yet.

Here is a chart i quickly drew up to show what I mean.



As you can see with the blue that's our normal timeline. The green ones are like the Aztecs where they went into an Obsidian Age and then were conquered and hurled forward to the Imperial Age. Likewise I have ones that go backwards such as Atomic Age to Post-Apocalyptic and then back to like Dark Ages. I think it would be really cool if you not only could take a diffrent era path but possibly have to redo eras because of apocalypses.

Ok revisiting the era ideas ...



Using the Ages from Civ4 RoM and then adding the much needed "Prehistoric Age" at the beginning and "Galactic Age" at the end. Note that the "Galactic Age" is more or less Civ Fuehrer's "accent of Mankind" project.

Anyways this takes the idea of the "Golden Ages" and "Dark Ages" a step further. If you get a "Golden Age" you unlock even more techs for the age your in. For instance if your in the Renaissance you would unlock "Da Vinci Age" themed techs like this "cog tanks" or "Ornithopter" as a pre-flight aircraft. Likewise if you get a golden age during the Industrial Age you get "Steam Punk" themed techs like "Steam Robots".

On the flip side if you hit a "Dark Age" you go to the dark age of that era and not only can loose techs from that era but not be able to research some techs normally available.

Also if you get a 2nd "Dark Age" during a "Dark Age" you will go back to a previous era Dark Age. And if you have a 2nd "Golden Age" during a "Golden Age" you get to go the the next era's "Golden Age". Once you finish a "Dark Age" you will go back to your current era. And if you finish your "Golden Age" you will advanced to the next Era.

Note that some techs will not be research-able once you have past an era. So it is important to research all of the techs in your era before advancing to the next era. Not doing so could result in not being able to have the prerequisites for the next era's techs.

 

[Malchar]

Not sure if anyone mentioned this, but I'd love to see tradeable map tiles. Maybe you could even trade them with city-states.

Also, Hydromancerx's idea about golden ages unlocking new techs is great. You could implement some of the ancient "out of place" technologies that were discussed earlier, like Damascus steel or Egyptian Leyden jars.

It would also be kind of cool to have spies back. At least with the current AI, open borders seem a little bit more fickle, not to mention that they automatically cancel every so often. It would be nice to have a unit that could secretly explore enemy lands. Also, I always thought it would be awesome if you could have spies steal nukes from cities or from nuclear power plants.

Finally, I like the idea of making more tile improvements. Since cities can work three rings of tiles, and with 1upt, terrain is more important, it makes sense to expand the variety of tile improvements. For example, you could have external buildings like the windmill power plants that someone mentioned. Things might get interesting when enemy units come knocking.

 

[zappara]

Perhaps it's time for me to say few things about unit ideas - I had this idea for months, but haven't said anything about since I didn't know how far unit modding can go: What if we build armies instead of single unit types? One ancient era army would consists warriors, archers, war chariots etc, medieval army knights, swordsman, crossbowman, siege engines etc... Armies would be a dynamic feature ie. as you unlock new technologies, you would get access to armies which have more features (new unit types). Since we have this 1upt system, one unit could represent a whole army. This also ensures that we don't end up with huge amount of different units on the field (there's just x number of plots available).

At this point, I want to discuss new ideas and not limit myself to the system Firaxis has given us in the game. We need to explore our options!

So few possibilities with units:
a) Normal unit system as in previous RoM
b) New army system that upgrades army units as you advance in techs
c) New army system where you give new abilities to armies through promotions (f.ex. Siege Warfare promotion would add Catapults to army)
d) something else

 

[Afforess]

Please - Expand on the army system. How exactly do you build and create armies? How do they work in combat? I like it so far.

And yes, I think we need to explore other options than Civ5's system. A lot of them are broken. I've posted a (harsh) review of Civ5 (see my sig).

 

[sresk]

One thing that definately could do with some improvement is the different upgrade chains for units.

As it is, there is the general melee infantry unit:
Warrior - Swordsman - Longswordsman - Riflemen - Infantry - Mechanized Infantry

Ranged infantry are atm:
Archer - Crossbowmen - Riflemen

You totally lose the ability to have infantry units bombard stuff, which makes the crossbowmen very powerful if not upgraded. There needs to be a range of non-siege bombard units, both to keep balance, and not make archer promotions useless. My suggestion is something along these lines:

Archer - Crossbowmen - Grenadier - Modern Grenadier

Perhaps sniper or special forces would be more appropriate. Or is there a way to give a unit both a bombard attack and a melee attack?

I'm thinking pre-world war I a lot of infantry battles started at as neet lines of infantry firing muskets and devolved into bayonet charges. So perhaps early gun powder units should receive a lower damage bombard at range 1.

Also I'm still working my way through this thread and there have been a number of posts worth quoting and commenting on. But someone else mentioned a 2upt where you could mix 1 range + 1 melee, but again reducing range bombard to 1. Those two Ideas might work well together. Turn 1 unit, one unit fires the other charges, turn 2 they swap. But both are attacking at range 1 and both from the same tile. You could decrees the combat values of of early gunpowder units but give them this sort of ability and they;d be far stronger than other mid evil units just because of the tactical uses.

Also someone mentioned using gold to "buy" or unlock government regulations. How about using experience to unlock military tradition. So just like culture allows you to progress down the different social policy branches. Acquired experience would allow you to advance down 2-4 military tradition paths unlocking features like:
2upt as described above, faster travel, faster healing time, decreased maintenance, lower thresholds for promotions etc.

Just thinking that there have been a lot of different philosophies when it comes to armies over the years and this might be a good way to express those difference while adding more strategic flavor and control to tailor your empire.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Perhaps it's time for me to say few things about unit ideas - I had this idea for months, but haven't said anything about since I didn't know how far unit modding can go: What if we build armies instead of single unit types? One ancient era army would consists warriors, archers, war chariots etc, medieval army knights, swordsman, crossbowman, siege engines etc... Armies would be a dynamic feature ie. as you unlock new technologies, you would get access to armies which have more features (new unit types). Since we have this 1upt system, one unit could represent a whole army. This also ensures that we don't end up with huge amount of different units on the field (there's just x number of plots available).

At this point, I want to discuss new ideas and not limit myself to the system Firaxis has given us in the game. We need to explore our options!

So few possibilities with units:
a) Normal unit system as in previous RoM
b) New army system that upgrades army units as you advance in techs
c) New army system where you give new abilities to armies through promotions (f.ex. Siege Warfare promotion would add Catapults to army)
d) something else

This would solve all my problems with the current system which was mostly about the logistics of getting all the units into place at the same time to form an attacking army.

Has potential to allow tactics to be inbuilt as you go and maybe give the GG something to do other than make a golden age. In the beginning there are warriors slugging it out then you get ranged units to provide support (tech provided). Then a GG gets the idea of formations (phalanx and legions). Then another the art or warfare, then Claswich(sp?) on war and so on. This means that you may have "old" unit but better tactics and so have a better chance of winning.

The number of "units" in an army could also vary based on the tactics known...

- I'll get back to you it needs some fleshing out and considered thought.

Oh what about the leaders fight and whoever wins wins the war.

 

[sresk]

Perhaps it's time for me to say few things about unit ideas - I had this idea for months, but haven't said anything about since I didn't know how far unit modding can go: What if we build armies instead of single unit types? One ancient era army would consists warriors, archers, war chariots etc, medieval army knights, swordsman, crossbowman, siege engines etc... Armies would be a dynamic feature ie. as you unlock new technologies, you would get access to armies which have more features (new unit types). Since we have this 1upt system, one unit could represent a whole army. This also ensures that we don't end up with huge amount of different units on the field (there's just x number of plots available).

At this point, I want to discuss new ideas and not limit myself to the system Firaxis has given us in the game. We need to explore our options!

So few possibilities with units:
a) Normal unit system as in previous RoM
b) New army system that upgrades army units as you advance in techs
c) New army system where you give new abilities to armies through promotions (f.ex. Siege Warfare promotion would add Catapults to army)
d) something else

I knew I should have read through the whole thread before posting... thats a great idea. So can you give an army multiple abilities based on the unit composition. IE both a bombard and a melee attack? Also what about flanking would you express this in having a reduced melee attack at range 2? or how about the zone of control an army influences expanding beyond 1 hex.

Pure brainstorming: in no particular order
-sappers that degrade fortification and city defense passively within their ZOC
-outriders, scouts, harassers - passively damage nearby enemy units
-frontline units that don't add to damage out put but do decrease damage received during melee attacks
-medic units allow units to heal same turn attacked but at the cost of a unit slot (I'm assuming armies would still have a maximum unit composition
-maximum army size determined by army tradition paths (see my post above) or perhaps supply trains
-supply units with a clean "path" back to a friendly city (not broken by enemy ZOC) that increase effectiveness or allow healing or allow larger army unit composition
-peasants or conscripts that increase army HP's but not attack value
-engineers that allow a larger fortification bonus but perhaps take more turns to achieve it - also perhaps give roman legions the ability to fortify on the move, they did set up camps with embankments and built forts along with the roads

Anywho I really love the army idea as it allows you to tune your units on the fly by building new units not just relying on experience, but still preserves the 1upt which is one of civ v's greatest strengths.

Also to some of you guys complaining about balance have you played with any of the production mods floating around? I mostly play marathon and bumped research to 400% and everything else down to 225% MUCH better game

 

[Hydromancerx]

-sappers that degrade fortification and city defense passively within their ZOC

Yeah sappers would be good along with trench warfare stuff of say WWI to protect your troops.

I also think there needs to be way more types of siege weapons simple catapults and trebuchets are boring. It would be nice to have ones like Rams (Hand Ram, Battering Ram, Capped Ram , etc), Balistas (Scopions, Balistas, etc), Catapults (Mangonels, Onagers, etc), Trebuchets, Siege Towers and Testudos. Then when you get to gunpowder rather than just a cannon you can have Bombards, Field Cannons, Falconets, Mortars, Howizers, Culveins, etc.

 

[Malchar]

Please - Expand on the army system. How exactly do you build and create armies? How do they work in combat? I like it so far.

And yes, I think we need to explore other options than Civ5's system. A lot of them are broken. I've posted a (harsh) review of Civ5 (see my sig).

You could try to make an army system similar to what they have in Civ Rev. Which is, if you have three of the same unit, you can combine them into an army, which is a stronger unit. You could expand the idea to allow any three units to be combined, or perhaps any three different units. The resulting unit would have all the abilities of the previous units and ideally all the combined promotions as well. An example combination might be something like a trebuchet, pikeman, and heavy swordsman. Basically a super mini stack of doom.

 

[zappara]

Please - Expand on the army system. How exactly do you build and create armies? How do they work in combat? I like it so far.

I was thinking to build them in cities like normal units and use the pool of resources available - though resource system needs new resources. This is a bit blurry for me still too, as it's just an idea and there's no clear plan yet how to deliver those army units... There's open questions like should be combine melee and mounted into single army unit or just melee, archer and siege in one army unit and mounted could have their own army unit (for flanking) due to being faster units... army would have the combined features of the merged units so if it has archers and swordsmen, it can do both melee and bombard attack (single attack per turn or one for each feature?)

Then there's the question how to make industrial/modern day armies: Tank Battalions vs. Infantry + AT-tank + AA gun + Artillery/Mortar army? How to merge Helicopters to those? Ships could form Fleets that consist destroyers, cruisers and battleships and later destroyers + carriers, submarines could go solo as that fits their role.

Something to consider too are specialized army units like marines and special forces...

Anyway, this needs lot of thinking during the dark winter months

This would solve all my problems with the current system which was mostly about the logistics of getting all the units into place at the same time to form an attacking army.

Has potential to allow tactics to be inbuilt as you go and maybe give the GG something to do other than make a golden age. In the beginning there are warriors slugging it out then you get ranged units to provide support (tech provided). Then a GG gets the idea of formations (phalanx and legions). Then another the art or warfare, then Claswich(sp?) on war and so on. This means that you may have "old" unit but better tactics and so have a better chance of winning.

You do know that GG adds +15% strength bonus on 2 plot radius to all your units? But yeah, this would solve at least part of the logistics problem during bigger wars.

I knew I should have read through the whole thread before posting... thats a great idea. So can you give an army multiple abilities based on the unit composition. IE both a bombard and a melee attack? Also what about flanking would you express this in having a reduced melee attack at range 2? or how about the zone of control an army influences expanding beyond 1 hex.

...

Anywho I really love the army idea as it allows you to tune your units on the fly by building new units not just relying on experience, but still preserves the 1upt which is one of civ v's greatest strengths.

Yes, multiple abilities would be key feature as well as 1upt.

I haven't dug through yet all xml files so don't know what's exactly possible with just basic Civ 5 and what features would require coding new modifiers.

@Hydromancerx

There's at least Scorpio unit model in-game when playing on Romans, might be other Roman era models too.

 

[JanK]

Just a request; if you will not be changing the 1upt rule, at least make it so that military units can escort workers and settlers
I wish you all the best with the chalenge, cheers

 

[Civ Fuehrer]

About the Army idea:

If it were up to me I would - like you said - have a completely different unit for the army. There would be two ways to go about this the way I'm thinking about it however; a promotion system - also like Zap said - but instead of a simple promo system that adds the different abilities that can be produced by the city, make units join into an army. For example, when you move an archer on top of a great general or separate general unit - this will be possible since generals are part of the citizen unit stack section - it will have the option to join the general and make an army - similar to Civ III - but you get to have one of each type: Melee, ranged, siege, and possibly mounted too. The second way of going about it would to exclude the promotions and just replace the unit with an army unit that has a promo labeling it what type of army it is, problem with this is that we'd need to show unit graphics for every single possible combination. Of course too we'd need a system of preserving the promotions on the units that join the army if they were to disperse. For the army unit, I bet it wouldn't be too difficult to create a different type of stacking section - an army in progress. Of course we'd also need to make the specific promotions that label it what it is unable to stack with units that are incapable of joining the army.

EDIT: also if we get to find out how to make different stack types through promos, we can get embarked units to be better protected by naval units (unless you want to use this same system for a transport boat.)

 

[generalstaff]

Well, I just hope the next army system will have WWI-era units. RoM jumped from Riflemen (American Civil War) to Infantry (WWII); I do have to credit Zulu with ROME for adding them.

I see gunpowder infantry going like this (keeping an expanded tech tree in mind, which is one of the things that attracted me to RoM in the first place):
Arquebus (30 Years War era; vulnerable to Mounted Units) -> Musketman (7 Years War era; no more need for Pikemen protection) -> Rifleman (American Civil War era; Mounted Units loosing usefulness) -> Trench Infantry (WWI era) -> Infantry (WWII era) -> Modern Infantry (Vietnam War era) -> Mechanized Infantry (Current Era)
Of course, there has to incorporate for Marines, Grenadiers, AT Infantry, AA Infantry, maybe the best way would be done through promotions (especially through dynamic graphics/names); the 1UPT system makes specialized Unit Types difficult to add in compared to a 5UPT system.

I am fine with Armored Units and Artillery being their own unit, but Gunships taking up an entire tile does not fit well, however, that can be solved through a merging mechanic (Gunship Support, mission to strike a nearby unit with a gunship, increases maintenance uses resources). The whole question about modern navies also is a headache with 1UPT, but 1UPT should be preserved; forming fleets is a good idea to skirt it though.

After reading Afforess review, it is likely that I will be getting Civ5 when there this a concrete ROM-AND style mod out, which will likely to be solid after an expansion pack is out. I will be looking forward to the future, but for now, I will be living in the past.

 

[DrwHem]

Just a request; if you will not be changing the 1upt rule, at least make it so that military units can escort workers and settlers
I wish you all the best with the chalenge, cheers

military units can escort a settler or worker or great person. just not all at once.

also i think you could have crosbow units go from grenadier to anti-tank riflemen (world war 1) to bazookas or mortars to modern mortars or javalin or TOW missiles.

as for armies it would take away the advantage of fielding different unit types. if i have an enemy army with cavalry,melee, and ranged units then i cant hit their ranged units with cavalry, i cant hit their mounted units with spearmen, and it would just be all armies against armies.

 

[generalstaff]

also i think you could have crosbow units go from grenadier to anti-tank riflemen (world war 1) to bazookas or mortars to modern mortars or javalin or TOW missiles.

Javelin Infantry could be a good way to combine AT Infantry and AA Infantry paths, or maybe I have been playing too much MW2.