Feedback: Units

[lindsay40k]

Okay, so I've been giving some thought to the Polynesian Waka. As I understand it, it gains the ability to move into Ocean with Navigation? So it's kind of similar to how Polynesia works in Civ V, but I've never been all that happy with that depiction. It seems like it's taking the way the game is built to depict the square-rigged Age of Sail, and forcing a medium-distance island-hopping migratory culture to fit into that long-distance cargo-trading & conquering culture's space.

I'm also ruminating on how Earth maps drop Polynesia on an island in the middle of nowhere (how did they get there?), and how when a generated map does not do so then HR still has a coastline full of goody huts. Now... what if the Waka were in fact a Scout UU, available from the start, that is a weak naval unit capable of carrying one land unit, and can enter oceanic tiles that are next to coastal water tiles? That would give them a very different but still viable opening game and an early naval game that does not simply replicate renaissance period European colonialism, notwithstanding extreme outlier maps with no water or only tiny puddles.

 

[Xyth]

Wrong thread, but no worries.

I'm also ruminating on how Earth maps drop Polynesia on an island in the middle of nowhere (how did they get there?

Their ancestors came from Taiwan and spread slowly eastward through the Pacific, becoming over time the Micronesian, Melanesian, and Polynesian peoples. Polynesian culture first emerged in central Polynesia (Samoa, Tonga, etc) so it wouldn't be appropriate to start them in Taiwan or the Western Pacific.

and can enter oceanic tiles that are next to coastal water tiles?

I can't implement movement restrictions like this because they are very taxing on performance. Besides, Polynesian voyages to Hawaii, New Zealand, and South America were definitely long distance open ocean voyages, not just island hopping. Likewise Malay voyages to Madagascar.

 

[lindsay40k]

Oh, yes, I know how the migration happened - I'm talking in terms of being a player sitting down to a game and finding yourself in the middle of an ocean with no means of having got there

And yeah, they were long distance journeys, but in the context of a Civ IV map, the number of actual ocean tiles involved is likely to be pretty low. If you take a standard Huge map and populate the Pacific with most of the populated islands, it gets pretty tricky to have any of them surrounded by more than four tiles of water in all directions. Point taken about the performance, though. Ah, for a 64 bit BTS HD remake

 

[lindsay40k]

(Also, no idea how I ended up posting here - I still have the units feedback thread open in another tab)

Moderator Action: I moved the posts into (what I assume is) the intended thread -- Leoreth

 

[dretnoth]

I dint know if this has been discus but is there any unit between Caravel and Submarine that can transfer spies into not-border open territory?
I was thinking that privater can have ability to transport spies, missioners, scout and explorers but that will ruin position of privater. (And losing GP for friendly fire is stupidity.)
So the caravel... hmm... can it last longer? Or can it have successor? Like Caravel mk.II?

 

[Xyth]

I dint know if this has been discus but is there any unit between Caravel and Submarine that can transfer spies into not-border open territory?
I was thinking that privater can have ability to transport spies, missioners, scout and explorers but that will ruin position of privater. (And losing GP for friendly fire is stupidity.)
So the caravel... hmm... can it last longer? Or can it have successor? Like Caravel mk.II?

I agree there needs to be an upgrade to the Caravel. Finding decent art for each of the cultural artstyles is the challenge. It's on my todo list.

 

[AvRand]

On mac i'm getting a bug where custom unit textures are only working when the unit is selected.

It will than revert to a vanilla texture, sometimes at an irregular pace.

 

[Xyth]

On mac i'm getting a bug where custom unit textures are only working when the unit is selected.

It will than revert to a vanilla texture, sometimes at an irregular pace.

View attachment 493535

Disable 'Animations Frozen' in Graphics Options. It doesn't work in mods with custom unit art.

 

[Simon_Jester]

A few Civilopedia entries, because I'm back.

AAIVU- no can do. [I'm honestly struggling to find what the word 'aaivu' means or where you found it. ]


BANDEIRANTE

The Bandeirantes were frontiersmen associated with the Portuguese colonization and penetration of inland areas of Brazil in the 1600s and 1700s. Striking far inland, they eventually began to focus on locating valuable mineral resources. However, prior to that time they were very aggressive slave-catchers, routinely striking native villages, including those already under the protection of Jesuit missionaries.

Accustomed both to living off the land, and to striking down lightly defended villages and enslaving their populations, the Bandeirante formed a formidable force of outriders and explorers for the Brazilian colonies around Sao Paulo.

BUFFALO DANCER

Prior to the introduction of horses on the Great Plains of North America, the Plains tribes fought, hunted, and traveled entirely on foot. As a result, while the Plains Indians are stereotypically (with reason) viewed as great cavalrymen, they were also proficient as infantry, given the limits of the available weaponry.

The Plains tribes, with vast amounts of space and limited resources, developed a swirling, mobile style of warfare even when fighting on foot. Warriors often sought battle as much for reputation as for the physical rewards of victory or for revenge against enemies. One of the hallmarks of a Plains warrior's reputation was "counting coup," the practice of striking humiliating blows against the enemy. A warrior could "count coup" against the foe by stealing his horses, physically touching him, touching the defensive fortifications of an enemy tribe, or in many other ways. It was considered especially prestigious to "count coup" without being injured; the ability to strike and escape unharmed was highly prized and respected.

CAMEL ARCHER

The camel is a highly suitable mount for the Arabian deserts, as it is well adapted to long journeys without water. The Arab tribes made good use of camelry in wars ranging from ancient times up through the World Wars. Camels are particularly unusual in that their presence tends to frighten horses, making them more effective against enemy cavalry than their numbers would support.

CACADOR

The Portuguese fielded an army much like most other Western militaries during the 18th and 19th centuries, but they were well known for their 'cazadors' or 'hunters.' Much like other skirmishers of the era, the cazadors would carry relatively accurate long-range rifles and fight in an open order instead of the large blocks of other armies. Perhaps coincidentally- or perhaps not- the cazadors favored brown uniformed that provided limited camouflage against enemy detection. This made them very able at skirmishing and hit-and-run tactics, while also being able to fight effectively against formed enemy infantry by sniping at them.

 

[Xyth]

A few Civilopedia entries, because I'm back.

Welcome back! And thank you!

AAIVU- no can do. [I'm honestly struggling to find what the word 'aaivu' means or where you found it. ]

It's from the wikipedia page on the Chola Navy.

 

[bartdanr]

I just completed my first complete game in this scenario--and man, was I impressed!

I played as the Arabs on a big earth map (not sure if it was Carter's or the other one) at Chieftain level (yes, I suck...even though I've been playing Civ since Civ I for DOS days...or maybe I just wanted it easy).

I really loved it--it was immersive and fun in a way I hadn't experienced with Civ for ages (probably not since Civ II MPG days). I won a cultural victory and--maybe because of my Chieftain setting--I was able to win without a single war (except fighting barbarians). That said, I loved the military units, which were very well done.

Anyway, the reason I am posting here is just a minor question about the modern units: the most advanced fighter I found was the Jet Fighter. Is that correct? I would love to see a bit more modern age development--something like 1st-2nd Gen Jet fighter (basic jet--say F-84, Mig 15 or 17), 3rd-4th Gen Jet Fighter (F-4, Mig 21-ish), 5th-6th Gen Jet Fighter (F-15, Mig 29), and 21st century Jet (like F-22 or J-20).

Another thing would be more development on Armored units--early tanks (WW I), more advanced tanks (WW II), Cold War era tanks, and modern tanks.

But even without this "tweaking", awesome scenario. I plan to start another campaign, probably at a higher difficulty setting and a different civ (maybe the Anasazi because of their awesome (New Mexico!) flag!

 

[Simon_Jester]

The main reason that extra unit subtypes haven't already been done is to avoid flooding the map with different unit textures in the modern era when the game is close to overloading its memory capacity, especially on higher map sizes.

Also, the problem with having several generations of 'jet fighter' is that the tech tree doesn't really support more than about 1-2 upgrades of a given unit type per age. You don't want a situation where you have to upgrade units every time you discover a new tech along the aerospace line, because if each upgrade is big enough to matter that makes it too overpowered to just beeline your way up the aerospace line. It would be like having a situation where you could upgrade from Axemen/Swordsmen to Macemen/Heavy Footmen to Musketeers to Riflemen in the space of about four techs, instead of all that improvement being spread out over a larger number of techs.

 

[Xyth]

Anyway, the reason I am posting here is just a minor question about the modern units: the most advanced fighter I found was the Jet Fighter. Is that correct? I would love to see a bit more modern age development--something like 1st-2nd Gen Jet fighter (basic jet--say F-84, Mig 15 or 17), 3rd-4th Gen Jet Fighter (F-4, Mig 21-ish), 5th-6th Gen Jet Fighter (F-15, Mig 29), and 21st century Jet (like F-22 or J-20).

Another thing would be more development on Armored units--early tanks (WW I), more advanced tanks (WW II), Cold War era tanks, and modern tanks.

There's just not enough room in the tech tree for this amount of detail in unit upgrades. In the course of a single era we're already going from Biplanes to Fighters to Jet Fighters.

 

[dretnoth]

Hi how it will sound a little changes on build requirements for
-torpedo board from: Iron + ( Coal or Oil ) To: ( Iron or Copper [ +tin = bronze ]) + ( Coal or Oil )
-Ironclad from: Iron + Coal To: ( Iron or Copper ) + Coal
[Or just give it Iron or Coppers as a base need, but increase cost by 25%, and then +25%production speed whit iron]
-Airship: +25% production whit Gas resource
-Biplane: +25% production whit Bitumen
-Destroyer from: Iron + ( Oil or Uranium) to: ( Iron or Aluminium) + (Gas Or Oil or Uranium)
-Submarine from Iron + Oil to: Iron + ( Oil or Aluminium [Batteries])
-Transport from: Iron + ( Oil or Uranium) to: ( Iron or Aluminium) + (Gas Or Oil ) [there's is ships that use gas turbine for engines]
-Long bowman: not upgradable to Musket-man or Rifleman but to Grenadier

 

[Simon_Jester]

Hi how it will sound a little changes on build requirements for
-torpedo board from: Iron + ( Coal or Oil ) To: ( Iron or Copper [ +tin = bronze ]) + ( Coal or Oil )
-Ironclad from: Iron + Coal To: ( Iron or Copper ) + Coal
[Or just give it Iron or Coppers as a base need, but increase cost by 25%, and then +25%production speed whit iron]

Bronze armor plate isn't actually viable for building 19th century warships out of the way iron and steel are; there's a reason that historically they weren't used that way industrially.

-Airship: +25% production whit Gas resource
-Biplane: +25% production whit Bitumen

Airships aren't inflated using natural gas, but helium availability is often associated with large natural gas deposits, so that works.

But biplanes really don't have much to do with natural surface petroleum/tar deposits, so, uh... no?

-Destroyer from: Iron + ( Oil or Uranium) to: ( Iron or Aluminium) + (Gas Or Oil or Uranium)
-Submarine from Iron + Oil to: Iron + ( Oil or Aluminium [Batteries])

Aluminum isn't a substitute for having fossil fuels to power a ship. Submarines represent World War era submarines that required a gasoline or diesel engine to power them on the surface and used batteries only underwater. Also, you can't make a submarine hull out of aluminum.

Having gas-powered warships isn't a bad idea.

-Long bowman: not upgradable to Musket-man or Rifleman but to Grenadier

This really only makes sense if Grenadiers are re-imagined to play the same 'skirmisher' role the Longbowmen do. Which is actually kind of the opposite of how Grenadiers were used historically, as elite assault troops. If we wanted a gunpowder era unit comparable to the Longbowman...

I could see an upgrade tree that runs something like
Skirmisher -> Longbowmen -> Sharpshooter -> Commando,

with Sharpshooter and Commando being the gunpowder age and modern-ish versions of the unit.

 

[dretnoth]

I could see an upgrade tree that runs something like
Skirmisher -> Longbowmen -> Sharpshooter -> Commando,

with Sharpshooter and Commando being the gunpowder age and modern-ish versions of the unit.

If you idea yes, then I will not call it Commando but something like Rangers. To not get confused whit that promotion. (Or maybe you want to have that promotion as start. Hidden nationality will probably be a game breaker.)
But then maybe tanks and Mechanic infantry have offence advantage against sharpshooter and Rangers. Well mostly tactic against snipers is taking down the entire building whit shot from tank smooth barrel canon. So the game mechanic will actually try to hide those unit from them.

For biplanes the idea was they hulls are from wood +(cloths) and Bittumen are something like super effective glue for wood parts.
Normal planes i count it as they can be already from metals already.
(WW2 = (American) Mustang of (German) Meshersmit from metals. (British) Spitfire from wood and his secret was Bittumen glue or jantar something if i pronouncing it correctly)