General thread : Unit & Unit combat

Jaca said:
I find this very interesting! My suggestion to overcome this problem was to work with 5S costs as a base instead of 10S. I saw in Conquest (haven't bought it yet!?) that the Curragh is priced 15S! Very good! Is this in Conquest now, I mean the 5S base?
I think the editor is conquest uses a 1S base. The default curragh price is 15S, but I believe its possible to mod them to 14S or 16S or whatever you want, and same for other units. I agree, this is a very good thing, that allows the relative power vs. cost of units to be balanced better. Hopefully Civ 4 will keep this!
 
judgment, I guess you're right. Besides, the bigger the numbers, the more difficult in general to make a comparison, but I guess it's a matter of playing a couple of games to get used to it. Double stats and maybe a 5S base cost instead of a 10S base, are two minor changes that could give plenty of room in fine tuning universal units and UU's, and so make us reach our goal.

Anyone a suggestion for the basic 1-1-1 stat unit then? I kind of feel a slightly irritating gap there? Maybe give a scout a basic defense point (0-1-2)?

Regards,
Jaca
 
Jaca said:
Anyone a suggestion for the basic 1-1-1 stat unit then? I kind of feel a slightly irritating gap there? Maybe give a scout a basic defense point (0-1-2)?
Sure, and why not give them 1 attach point as well? It would give them the ability to capture foreign workers (not sure if this would be good or not).

I can't really say why, but I do agree, it would be slightly irritating to have no unit at 1-1-1.
 
judgement said:
Sure, and why not give them 1 attach point as well? It would give them the ability to capture foreign workers (not sure if this would be good or not).

I can't really say why, but I do agree, it would be slightly irritating to have no unit at 1-1-1.

The ability to capture workers then, was indeed my first reason to object against this. My first thought was giving workers the 1-1-1 stat then and a single HP before being captured, so to be able to defend themselves a little bit. But maybe this might be (slightly) over the hill. :D Anyway, I wonder what the others think of how the ideas in this thread evolve.

Jaca
 
OK, I do agree with much higher A/D values for all units and, by the same token, I feel that hp should be on a larger scale also. I'm thinking 1-50 for conscripts, 1-100 for regular units, 1-150 for experienced units etc. i.e. each level grants a starting hp value of 50. So, in the current system, an elite unit might have as much as 200 or 250hp! This would help to further differentiate between the same units of different xp levels. In addition, a units Attack value-as well as its morale and FP, should be adjusted according to the % of full hp they have. For instance, a conscript unit on 25 hp would suffer a 50% reduction to its Attack, morale and firepower! This would make healing a unit before sending it back into battle VERY important!
On a final note, I definitely believe that terrain needs a 'stack limit'. That is, a max. no. of units that any one tile can support. As far as I see it, these limits would only be a factor when dealing with VERY large numbers of units sitting in one place, or for attacking over terrain that doesn't allow for large numbers of units to operate effectively-such as mountain passes, valleys (between hills) and fords/bridges across rivers. I was giving thought to this last point when I was considering the famous 'Battle of Thermopylae', where only a few hundred Spartans were able to hold off the bulk of the Persian army-i.e. one unit verses a veritable Stack o' Death ;)!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
 
Much higher hps is a bad idea, IMO, because it would:
- Eliminate much of the randomness of battle. Every game should see some odd results. Strategy and tactics of gameplay almost demand some randomness to be fun. Also, from our world history, there are many examples of strange things happening in battles and that should be reflected in the game. Increasing hps willy-nilly insanely flattens results and makes things far too predictable to be fun. For many of us, it would turn the game into a calculator exercise.
- Also, lots of hps makes it impossible to tell a unit's complete status from a glance. You can't show the difference between 97 and 96 hps clearly at a glance. That knowledge should be obviously visible, I have argued.
- Thirdly, combat would either not resolve quickly or would not resolve completely in view. If everything is shown, then combat would take a LONG time to visually display. If you speed up combat, you're eliminating the player option to see what's happening. Either is a very bad option, IMO.

Massive increases in hps violates at least three of my precepts. I'm obviously completely against it.

====

I think a one-shield base is a great move. My guess is that the original resistance was in displaying the build shields on the city picture. As long as they've got that resolved, I see no reason to not allow everything to be built in multiples of one shield. I would expect that most baseline units in the included game would be multiples of 5 (and most of them multiples of 10) simply for ease of remembering and gameplay selling. But options for modders are always good....

I personally like the idea of 0/1/1 (or 1/1/1) workers. Nearly every time they'll die/be captured (which reminds me, I think it would be cool for "capturable" to be a flag and not a property of 0 defense -- opens up all kinds of fun gameplay options), but once in a while.... Of course, the complaints about "I lost a tank to a worker" or whatnot would probably be loud and long. More importantly to me, it would require some fundamental thinking changes about blitz and worker capture.... Maybe not a bad thing but a step that shouldn't be taken lightly.

Why not still have the basic warrior 10/10/1 for 10 shields? Scouts could be 1/3/2 for 10 shields (or something like that). Combined with workers who can defend (and maybe attack), it could lead to new skirmish types. I'm probably not the best to judge this, though, as comparing 227 to 17 for me isn't much harder than 27 to 2.... Some reasonable bounds of number size are still necessary.

Arathorn
 
Arathorn said:
Much higher hps is a bad idea, IMO, because it would:
- Eliminate much of the randomness of battle. Every game should see some odd results. Strategy and tactics of gameplay almost demand some randomness to be fun. Also, from our world history, there are many examples of strange things happening in battles and that should be reflected in the game. Increasing hps willy-nilly insanely flattens results and makes things far too predictable to be fun. For many of us, it would turn the game into a calculator exercise.

Agreed !

Arathorn said:
I personally like the idea of 0/1/1 (or 1/1/1) workers. Nearly every time they'll die/be captured (which reminds me, I think it would be cool for "capturable" to be a flag and not a property of 0 defense -- opens up all kinds of fun gameplay options), but once in a while.... Of course, the complaints about "I lost a tank to a worker" or whatnot would probably be loud and long. More importantly to me, it would require some fundamental thinking changes about blitz and worker capture.... Maybe not a bad thing but a step that shouldn't be taken lightly.

Agreed again. My biggest problem is when workers run into a city under attack. They shouldn't be counted as defenders then, unnecessarly complicating city warfare. Besides, if the idea would survive: give them only 1HP (one chance) before being captured.

Jaca
 
Here is a problem I have noticed. This has occurred especially since I am playing a PBEM Conquests WWII Pacific game. Later units are too strong against civilians and earlier units are too weak. In the game I am playing, Honolulu is down to a 3 Population (from 12). This is due to the bombing of the place by Japanese ships and air (or so I assume).

This is probably not very realistic. The Allies bombed the hell out of Berlin and still it had millions (yes millions) of residents before the Red army invaded it.

I believe that future eras should double attack and defense values against past eras. This allows the unit values to remain manageable yet also allow the differences that more advanced military techs should provide. Thus, if a spearman is 1/2/1 and a horseman is 2/1/2, when you get to chivalry (in the next age) the knight 4/3/2 would act as 8/6/2 against its earlier-age foes. This would also allow for increases in artillery and air power without destroying city populations.

The catapult could (and I believe often did) kill civilians. The howitzer has killed civillians also, but not usually to the point of 90% + casualties!
 
Another point: When I have a sub and a BB comes to my invisible unit it attacks and most probably sinks my sub although it is invisible. That´s why in civ 4 units which "attack" invisible others shall be attacked. I mean in reality it is rather more propable that my sub sinks the BB when it crosses his lines than the other way. The same with mines, partisans. So only special units shall cope with them.

Adler
 
rcoutme said:
Here is a problem I have noticed...Honolulu is down to a 3 Population (from 12)...due to the bombing...

The catapult could (and I believe often did) kill civilians. The howitzer has killed civillians also, but not usually to the point of 90% + casualties!
I've felt the same way about this. One aspect that's hard to work around is that single population point is way too many people to be killed by a single bombardment. It takes mulitple artillery hits to redline a veteran defensive unit, but a single hit can wipe out half the population of a size-2 town.

I wonder if artillery or aerial bombardment has ever directly killed such huge percentages of a city's population. Even a size 20 city loses 5% of its population when a bombardment hits population: if that "20" is supposed to indicate 100s of thousands or even millions of people in the metropolis, then 5% means a single bombardment could be killing 10s of thousands of people!!!
My guess (and its admittedly only a guess) is that, in real life, the number of civilians killed by bombardment, while high enough to be quite tragic, is never high enough to represent any significant fraction of the total population.

I think a better mechanism for population loss in a bombarded city would be refugees fleeing the area. Its much more realistic that 10s of thousands would flee than that 10s of thousands would be killed directly. And the chances of refugess fleeing when there was bombardment could be independant of the technology involved: people would be just as likely to flee catapult bombardment as radar artillery, so that refugees would be an issue in all ages of the game.

By the way, here's a thread I started a while back on a related issue: not only does the population shrink too much due to bombardment, but it looks silly when the graphic of a city switches back to that of a town, etc.
 
Adler17 said:
Another point: When I have a sub and a BB comes to my invisible unit it attacks and most probably sinks my sub although it is invisible. That´s why in civ 4 units which "attack" invisible others shall be attacked. I mean in reality it is rather more propable that my sub sinks the BB when it crosses his lines than the other way.
Adler
I would rather see submarines get to "bombard" any enemy ship that blunders into it. After it gets that shot, it would be visible for attack, however, if there were another submarine hiding in the same square, the hidden one would "bombard" and the enemy unit would still not enter (i.e. make it that multiple submarines could wipe out a fleet if the opposing civ kept on trying to send ships into a SoD submarine wolfpack).

The other way, which I suggested in a different thread, would be to allow submarines to have the "bombard" and then have the sub jump one square (to simulate its retreat). If the opposing ship followed into the square (i.e. no more subs in the square) and then picked the correct square that the sub "ran" to, then the sub would be shown (simulating the ship figuring out where the sub went). The ships that might be capable of following the sub could be limited to those that would likely have sonar (i.e. wooden frigates would never find subs, they would just keep on getting bombarded by them).

Either of these methods would make the submarine the weapon that it really is (and simulate the tactics used by submarine commanders). One of the caveats of these systems is that destroyers (or any other unit for that matter) would not get to 'see' submarines. Destroyers could not see subs, they would try to figure out where they were based on where the submarine went down.
 
Hi Arathorn,

I confess that I should have made things a little clearer. Though I'm advocating more hp, if you look at one of my earlier posts, I'm also advocating more damage per 'hit' and, more to the point, more random damage outcomes.
The formula I advocated was based on the difference between your 'hit chance-as calculated by (Attack Strength-Defense Strength/(AS+DS))-and the 'hit number' generated by the rng. This 'damage factor' as I'm calling it, is then multiplied by the units Firepower rating, and is reduced by the armour factor of the defender, to get the damage inflicted. Under my system, a unit could score as little as 10 points damage to as much as 60 or 70 hp damage, in a single blow, depending on a number of factors! Please also note that everything I've explained above would be calculated by the computer!
Hope this explains things a little better!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
 
The only thing I have to add to Arathorn's initial post, besides a hearty, "Hear, Hear!" :), is that I think movement should be expanded as well.

The simple way my recommended change would be explained in the user guide is: "A unit's movement points shows how many squares a unit can move on a road in a single turn. Other terrain cost multiple movement points." (Does that meet your standard, Arathorn? :lol: ) This would offer a few advantages over the current system:

  • The movement costs of the terrain could be tweaked slightly to give more flavor. Perhaps grasslands only cost 2 movement instead of 3. Perhaps deserts cost 4.
  • Units could be likewise tweaked to distinguish between light and heavy infantry (2 and 4 movement respectively), and maybe even light and heavy artillery or cavalry. (Probably, archers could get a better bombard, less attack, and light infantry movement to serve as "light artillery"--while the current artillery filled the heavy role.) Certainly, a Greek phalanx with better attack and heavy infantry movement better represents that unit.
  • The current road multiplier effect going away makes scouting/explorer units more fine-grained.
  • There may be some road enhancement possibilities with this scheme. I haven't thought this one completely through, but a "+1 movement while staying on roads" road type after engineering might be neat. Or start roads at 1.5 MP and lower to 1 with Construction.
  • Some similar and related changes to river movement and ship movement could make ships more flexible without making their movement rates totally out of sync with the land units.
  • Losing road movement in enemy territory now makes more sense (in results, since lighter units can still move multiple squares). Also, it could be changed to be, say, 2 or 3 MP per road in enemy territory instead of a flat loss.
  • And of course modders have far more options than before, including the ability to fiddle with road movement without breaking the end game.

A possible drawback is that we lose the very obvious early game concept that 1 MP equal 1 square of movement. I think if A/D rates are multiplied, this is a rather narrow issue, however. It's futher reduced if we actually have some 1 MP units in this system. For example, trebuchets could better be represented by 1 MP units that did some serious bombard. (I know, they are really constructed at the site. But this could represent long time to get the supplies there.)
 
OK, first up I feel that if supply and operational ranges were introduced into the game, then movement rates for units could be significantly INCREASED.
In addition, it would allow for enemy roads and RR's to provide some movement bonus-though not as much as if they were friendly!
As C_J has indicated, this would allow much more fine tuning of terrain movement rates AND better differentiation between heavy and light units. It also would lessen the discrepancy of units taking 50 years to move 1 HEX!!!- especially within your own territory! Lastly, this would make it easier for players to bring units up into defensive positions, quicker, within their own territory, whilst still leaving foreign invasions a more difficult undertaking!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
 
Actually, Aussie Lurker, the way I proposed it, it wouldn't increase the total movement of units very much, except for the marginal increase for "light" units. Grasslands and plains would still work as well as roads in enemy territory, though certainly holding a forest or hill road would help somewhat. It would be easier for light units to rush to the front, which I think is fair. The heavy units would be even slower, however, since they'd have one less square of movement on roads.

I don't like the idea of signficantly increasing effective movement rates, at least for land units. If that's all we wanted, we could do that in the editor with the current system. Actually, I've experimented with that in mods. It's the road being a multiplier instead of roads being the basis for movement that makes tweaking movement so hard. (One mod I tried doubled all movement rates of 1 or 2, increased 3 move unit rates somewhat short of doubling, doubled all terrain costs, and changed roads to 1/2 MP instead of 1/3. Then I tweaked individual units and terrain from there. It wasn't awful, but it was inferior to the standard game, IMO.)

That said, I did consider that such a system would dovetail very nicely with other proposals here. Certainly, operational range would be slightly easier to implement and a bit easier to tweak in a mod. (For example, if roads started with 1.5 or even 2 MP but got better with tech, the operational range could be partially based on the road movement. Thus nothing extra would be required to make construction and engineering increase range.)
 
Crazy Jerome said:
Actually, I've experimented with that in mods. It's the road being a multiplier instead of roads being the basis for movement that makes tweaking movement so hard. (One mod I tried doubled all movement rates of 1 or 2, increased 3 move unit rates somewhat short of doubling, doubled all terrain costs, and changed roads to 1/2 MP instead of 1/3. Then I tweaked individual units and terrain from there. It wasn't awful, but it was inferior to the standard game, IMO.)
One of the problems that you would encounter with this system is that worker rate is dependent on movement costs. You would need to tweak the worker rates for this system not to virtually stymie your workers. If you make all movement costs double then you need to double the worker rates as well.
 
My main concern with Crazy Jerome's systems is with people new to the system. One MP = one square movement is so natural and easy, people pick it up rapidly. Sure, grognards who have playing for a while will grok the new system really easily, but we want to also be at least aware of people who have never played the game before. And if that's the worst that can be said, it's probably a pretty good idea. :)

That said, having one movement point left is a lot clearer and easier than having one-third of a movement point left and still being able to move.

Scrambling up a 9 movement mountain with your remaining movement point might be kind of odd, but it's really no different from using your last one-third of a movement in the current system to get up a mountain.... Units with ATAR (all terrains as road) would probably need some tweaking, but it could be done.

Overall, I like it. Here's why:
- It's generally simple to understand -- my concerns about newbies notwithstanding
- It adds to the gameplay options
- It gives modders something more to tweak
- It maintains balance nicely, if done as CJ suggests

====
Aussie_Lurker: I doubt we'll ever agree. I see cultural borders and lack of healing/no use of roads/railroads as a great abstraction of Operational Range and the difficulties associated with that. I like it as a clear, abstract system that people can generally understand and see, while requiring minimal detailed explanations. Sure, it's not perfect, but it works pretty well.

Moving through a square isn't just moving -- it's exploring the area, finding defensive positions, rooting out possible problems/danger areas, reporting back, some "living off the land", etc. Honestly, though, I rarely think about that. It's a game and for me, at least, gameplay takes so much precendence over realism that the latter is barely a consideration (for me -- other opinions are, of course, equally valid).

As for your hp idea, I understand. It still violates a lot of my basic precepts in what I want in the game -- one of the most important is full unit information from a glance. If I were to play a game that was just a tactical wargame, your idea might be much more appealing, but one of the beauties of Civ, IMO, is the breadth of options and decisions, while not getting overly bogged down in any one of them.

=======

On artillery destroying population points.... I *love* the way bombard works in Civ3 -- I think it's very cool, offers good gameplay with pros/cons. However, I agree it needs a fair bit of work for Civ4. Population/city devastation is one area that needs work, I think we agree. No, I don't really have any concrete suggestions on what, exactly, it should look like, but it probably should/will tie into overall changes in the city structure (if there are any).

Arathorn
 
An idea that I kicked around in my head for a while was that of a non-structured combat system, something like the Age of Empires series. In that system, each unit could move freely around the map, attacking and defending based on the zone-of-control concept. The units functioned in a more realistic fashion (more effective in higher numbers, range issues taken care of automatically, tactical maneuvering, etc.) I don't know if it could be integrated into the existing Civ structure since that's based on the grid map and turns, but I found it to have a much better flow and less confusing. Then again, AOE was mainly a combat-centered game, and that's not the primary focus of Civ, so I don't know how well it would work. Just thought I'd throw the idea out there to see what people think.
 
One way that could be integrated into the existing combat system could be to have the units' A/D/M values remain the same, and have them move around the map in the same way, but when units of opposing sides met, a separate combat screen could appear in which the units would be able to maneuver and battle on an open battlefield much like AOE. The screen could reflect whichever terrain the units met on (forest, hills, plains) and the defense and attack bonuses could remain the same according to the terrain type (units being attacked on a mountain by units on a plain would have an inherent defense bonus). The player could be given options to retreat, attack, defend, and then the combat could progress from there.

I realize that the amount of time this system would add to the game makes it a bit impractical, and also places more emphasis on combat than is necessary, but it would still be pretty fun to outflank a company of swordsmen with a bunch of cavalry : D
 
BassDude726 said:
One way that could be integrated into the existing combat system could be to have the units' A/D/M values remain the same, and have them move around the map in the same way, but when units of opposing sides met, a separate combat screen could appear in which the units would be able to maneuver and battle on an open battlefield much like AOE. The screen could reflect whichever terrain the units met on (forest, hills, plains) and the defense and attack bonuses could remain the same according to the terrain type (units being attacked on a mountain by units on a plain would have an inherent defense bonus). The player could be given options to retreat, attack, defend, and then the combat could progress from there.

I realize that the amount of time this system would add to the game makes it a bit impractical, and also places more emphasis on combat than is necessary, but it would still be pretty fun to outflank a company of swordsmen with a bunch of cavalry : D
Sorry, but this idea was proposed and the computer systems and programming make it all but unfeasable.
 
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