Below are some of my notes on various aspects of the Civ 5 game cobbled together over a few weeks.
While I like the new units for Civ 5 GK, I am willing to bet that the same problem exists as it did in Civ 5, that by the time your in Industrial era, technology is flying at you so fast that units become obsolete before you can build up a force of them and use them.
One option sadly missing unless someone can assist me, is a way to drastically increase the technology costs and decrease the dates between turns in the early game. This would give people a much longer game experience with historic units in their proper time period.
Enough of that, on to my notes, which are extensive
Please note these are written from the perspective of these changes having been made in the game and how that would work (so instead of constantly saying 'game SHOULD HAVE' I frequently say 'game NOW has...')
Unit Flesh Out
-----------------
The Civ game is plagued by too few Industrial era, Modern era, and Future era units. I have added historic unit trees for various key types below.
fighter planes
----------------
The development of the aircraft has been rapid and nextreme, covering a broad range of types and platforms equivalent to the ground unit change in the game. The following types are proposed to more fully flesh out the detail and provide more variety in air power:
biplane (french model)
triplane (fokker dr 1)
monoplane fighter (hurricane model)
advanced fighter (mustang model)
early jet (262 model)
jet (F86 model)
large jet (F-4 model)
air superiority jet (F-15 model)
stealth jet (F-117 model)
advanced jet (F-22 raptor model)
super jet (futuristic model)
Bombers
----------
early bomber (ww I model)
bomber (ww II B17 model)
jet bomber (b52 model)
advanced bomber (b1 model)
stealth bomber (B-2 model) (in game.)
super bomber (futuristic model)
Ground Attack
------------------
Specialized ground attack aircraft were a critical component of the 'blitzkrieg' style of modern warfare, first optimized by the Germans in WW2 with the 'Stuka' aircraft
dive bomber (stuka model)
ground attack (B26 marauder model)
jet ground attack (thunderchief model)
helicoper gunship (cobra model)
air cav (huey model) can land and transform into an infantry unit. Can land on cities and immediately attack them and capture.
heavy gunship (Hind model, can carry 1 troop, Russian unique)
advanced gunship (Apache model)
advanced ground attack (A-10 model)
super ground attack (futuristic model)
kamikaze - suicide plane, Zero model, for use against ships only. Japanese unique.
Ship Attack
-------------
torpedo bomber (ww2 Japanese B5N Kate) range 1 ranged attack unit, may attack ships in port.
Aircraft range, movement and fuel
------------------------------------
All aircraft now have the concept of 'fuel' meaning they can spend a turn or two in the 'air' between cities or targets. Although unrealistic from the actual 'year clock' view that the turns represent, everything else is unrealistic in this sense as well so all is equal (it does not take 50 years to construct a farm, for example)
The fuel is distinct from movement, as movement is more like the aircraft's 'speed'. Each point of movement uses up a fuel point. Aircraft draw down oil resource as fuel when they refuel, and when first constructed.
A note on bomber graphics - ground attack aircraft will now swoop and do multiple passes in an attack, while bombers will do a single pass on target (as per the B29 atomic bomber run sequence). This is more historically accurate (the multiple pass swooping lancaster bomber was ridiculous)
Helicopters now behave much more like aircraft. They are aircraft, just aircraft that can loiter over the battlefield and hover longer than traditional fixed wing aircraft. They have lower movement values than fixed wing but much more fuel.
There is now an 'air cavalry' unit, represented by vietnam style huey choppers, that can land and become an infantry unit.
All other helicopter units may not capture cities.
Tanks
---------
Note: 'Panzer' means 'Tank' in German...
Germans did not produce a unique tank different from other nations in WW2, they did produce some of the first successful heavy tanks though. By end of the war the other leading nations had also produced very effective and even better heavy tank models.
Introduce light, medium, heavy and hunting tanks. If you want to give the Germans something unique, give them the JagdTiger (super heavy hunting tank), or the JagdPanther (best tank hunter of the war)
light tanks have scout abilities and scout skills. Models: M3 Stuart and French
medium are standard tanks in game models: T34-85 and T-72
Variant medium tanks: amphibious (may cross large river hex or leave troop ship and cross 1 ocean hex)
minesweeper: sweeps mines, may not also attack in same turn
anti-aircraft: has anti-aircraft guns, models US half-track .50cal and zsu-23-4. Lethal also against infantry.
heavy and heavier, slower versions, bigger attack. Models
hunting are like mobile heavy anti-tank guns (severe penalty if flanked)
Artillery
-----------
Additional unit (Russian unique) - katushya rocket truck. Similar to modern MLRS but not as powerful.
Rockets
---------
V-1 buzz bomb. Shorter ranged than missile, get it earlier, can be intercepted by fighter.
V-2 ballistic missile. Longer ranged, destroys 1 building improvement per hit, rather than city damage.
Submarines
-----------
Submarine history is now fleshed out more completely. Note nuclear powered ships and submarines now consume 1 nuclear resource.
Submarines now have ability to have 'modes' of surfaced or submerged. Now player is responsible for making call which is more appropriate. For example, early diesel-electric boats like the German U-boat were much faster surfaced, and had access to a deck gun they would use. They only submerged when threatened or to use the element of surprise, usually at night, for a torpedo attack. Later nuclear submarines are now faster submerged than surfaced, but will surface to get increased radar range, for example.
(uboat)diesel-electric (mode switch, surfaced or submerged. Surface speed 7, sight 6, greatly reduced defense). Submerged speed 3, site 3, range 3 ranged, greatly increased defense. sw: 4-1-1
(golf class) d-e cruise - (surf: speed 8, sight 8, ranged 8. subm: 5, site 4, ranged 4. sw: 3-1-1
(oscar class) nuclear - cruise missile (mode switch, surfaced: surface speed 10, sight 12, ranged attack 12. Submerged speed 8, site 6, ranged 6. leaf. sw: 2-1-10
(688 class) nuclear - attack (ss: 11, sight 14, ranged same. submerged speed 12, site 5, ranged 5. sw: 1-1-1
(ohio class) nuclear - missile (ss: 10, sight 12, ranged 20. submerged speed 10, site 20, ranged 20. leaf sw: 1-1-10
(seawolf class) nuclear - advanced (ss: 12, sight 15, ranged 24. submerged 16, site 8, ranged 8. 100 safe.
Troop changes
------------------
Cannot embark anywhere except from town with port. This was a silly addition that makes no sense historically and greatly tips the balance of power in favour of marines/navy players.
Marines can land on non rough hexes on shore. No other units may land unless landing craft used (troopship special ability)
large rivers present, small boats can navigate. Viking troops have longboat special ability.
Troops must now board troop ships at the 'Large Port' structure in coastal cities. Some races, such as Vikings, have unique abilities that override this restriction, which becomes less valuable as the ages progress (no loading tanks on Viking longboats, for example)
Ships
-------
Ships should have transport capacity, this is brought back.
Troopships
-------------- (cavalry units, lancers, tanks, take up 2 'troop' value. Workers = 1 troop)
Viking longboat - Danish unique. 1 troop. small attack (boarding) value. Can travel up large rivers (new hex type).sw: 15-1-10
Standard Trireme - 1 troop, small attack (boarding) value. sw: 30-1-10
Caravel - 2 troop. (boarding) sw: 5-1-2
Steamtroop - speed 4, 3 troops, no attack value. sw: 5-1-5
Early troopship - speed 5, 4 troops sw: 3-1-3
Troopship - speed 6, 6 troops sw: 2-1-2
Replenishment Ship - Allows ships to repair at sea without special ability (acts as 'home waters' in 1 hex range) sw: 2-1-3
Fighting Ships
----------------
As exists, plus:
heavy frigate sailing ship (US Constitution class, US unique) 1 wood
Ship of the line sailing ship (74 gunner class) 2 wood
Battleship sailing ship (120 gun class), originally british unique, now avail. all players 4 wood
Steam destroyer iron+coal
Steam cruiser iron+coal
Steam battleship iron+coal
early destroyer oil+iron
early cruiser oil+iron
early battleship oil+iron
early carrier 93 plane slots) oil+iron
destroyer oil+iron
cruiser oil+ 2 iron
battleship 2 oil+ 3 iron
carrier 2 oil+2 iron
dreadnought (british unique unit, heavy oil era battleship) 2 oil slots+2 iron
heavy cruiser 2 oil + 2 iron
heavy carrier (5 plane slots) 2 oil slots + 3 iron
super battleship (Yamato class, Japanese unique) 3 oil + 4 iron
missile destroyer oil+iron+copper
missile battlecruiser (Kirov class, Russian unique) consumes nuclear resource, iron+nuke
AEGIS destroyer (huge anti-air, anti-missile) iron+nuke
AEGIS cruiser (huge anti-air, anti-missile) consumes nuclear resource 2 iron+nuke
super carrier (US unique) 8 plane slots, consumes nuclear resource not oil 3 iron+nuke
Stealth Destroyer (much harder to see at range) consumes nuclear resource 1 iron+nuke
Wear and Tear
--------------
To remove the ridiculous notion of a wooden sailing ship remaining in your navy for say, 500 years, the concept of 'wear and tear' is introduced, the common and known attribute that all things have a service life, beyond which they deteriorate and eventually fall apart.
Each unit and building in the game now has a service life attribute. Buildings can be refurbished, when warnings are received as they approach 80% and go beyond their service life. Units cannot be refurbished, they must be recycled. For example, a wooden class sail frigate will have a service life of 50 turns. At 40 turns it will begin to permanently lose damage points, 1 per turn. When it reaches 0 it sinks into the sea. Deterioration points cannot be repaired.
Due to this restriction, construction costs for units now considerably reduced.
Storms and Weather
-----------------------
Storms and weather played a significant part in history and their lack of presence in Civ is troubling. Who can forget the famous kamikaze storm that destroyed a Chinese invasion fleet before it landed in Japan, or the effect of storms on the Spanish Armada (which inflicted up to 75% of the fleet damage, with the English fleet only applying 25% of that damage)
Storms on land effect units to a lesser extent, but there is no denying the effects of winter. Due to the huge scale of jumps in time the game makes at the beginning and middle phases, obviously this is strange to grasp, but the construction times and the task effort times also are similarly skewed without comment (at the start of the game it can take 50 years to build a farm, a ridiculous number)
Sea storms will now roam the planet's seas, occassionally hitting your ships and causing damage. Storms can be of different levels of intensity, right up to cat 5 hurricanes.
Allow scale of game to be adjusted and played accordingly. If a player really wants to start in 4000 bc and play a game that has 1 month turn frequency, then allow that.
Games at this scale will have storms and seasons.
Games at turn frequency of 1 year will have storms at sea only.
Games beyond this scale may optionally have random storm activity per turn but no permanent storms.
Deep Water Skirting
------------------------
There is evidence that primitive ships did reach the Americas in the ancient past. Researchers such as Thor Heyerdal have uncovered evidence of tobacco, for example, in the lungs of egyptian pharoahs (tobacco only grows, and has ONLY grown, in the Americas).
It is also extremely frustrating in the early game to be limited to coastal hexes when exploring. You should have the option of setting sail into the deep blue, with little chance of survival if you push it too far.
To make this fun, I have introduced the concept of a 'seaworthy' rating for ships. This value is not used when the ship is in coastal hexes, unless it encounters a storm.
In deep water, each deep water hex traversed will have a percentage chance of damaging the ship based on the ship's seaworthiness rating.
For example, a trireme, which were never intended for deep water operations, attempts to enter a deep water ocean hex, it will have a 30% chance of taking 5-10 points damage.
A caravel, much more suited for long ocean voyages, will have a 10% chance of taking 1-2 points damage.
Seaworthiness will be a value that can be upgraded with experience (2% reduction per level)
Damage reduces attack and movement values
----------------------------------------------
Always find it amusing to see critically damaged ships flying across the map at full movement value. Damaged ships typically had to limp home under escort, and had almost no offensive capability.
Now damage effects both movement and attack values, to a minimum of 1 movement point and 5 points attack value.
Copper and Wood Resources
-----------------------------
Important resources in early history are wood and copper. The need for copper to make armour and weapons by the ancient Greeks is well known, as is the modern requirement for use in electrical wiring. Most students of history are aware as well that the English empire cut down most of the trees in Great Britain to build their huge navy. Cutting down forests now yields wood resources instead of production. Wood resources can be harvested from lumber camps in small amounts (forest is preserved) or collected en masse by cutting down the entire forest. You can regrow the forest with tree planting ability now of workers, but it takes 10 turns.
Copper is now an important resource throughout the game, both for early weapons and armour and late game batteries and electrical wiring. Mineral resources are now more plentiful and there are multiple types per hex potentially when found.
New Hex Type: Large River
-----------------------------
Large river mouths are now represented on the map, as uncrossable rivers that can be navigated by small boats upstream. The Viking longboat was a shallow draft warship that greatly benefitted from this special ability historically and can travel further up river hexes than other craft. River hexes are now impassable by normal units until a bridge of some type is built.
Special construction project - bridge. Bridges are much more difficult to construct than roads. This is now a special project requiring more time.
New terrain mod - Canal.
---------------------------
Possible now for workers to construct the 'Canal' terrain mod. The restrictions on the mod are, it must be adjacent to a water tile or other completed canal tile, it must be built on flat open terrain tiles, and a Great Engineer must be within 2 hexes during construction.
Takes huge amount of prod to complete, and when complete, allows ships to enter.
This allows civs to connect world oceans across thin parts of continents, much as done in reality. Canals are also considered 'mini wonders' and provide additional bonuses to the constructing empire once complete (if they DO link oceans)
New terrain mod - Airfield
-----------------------------
Combat Engineers can construct temporary airfields that can be used by planes to land on. They replace existing terrain improvements, including roads, but have the same movement cost through them as roads.
New terrain mod - Radar
--------------------------
Radar installations may now be built which greatly improve detection range. Future advancements in technology further increase radar sight range.
New Building Type - Port
----------------------------
Ports now come in small medium and large. Small ports allow 2 ships to be stacked in a coastal city. Mediums 4, and Large 8.
Ships may be attacked in port by aircraft. When an aircraft attacks a city with a port containing ships, it must choose between attacking the city or attacking the ships. Attacks against ships in port provide a 30% bonus to damage.
New Unit - Combat Engineer
------------------------------
There is also a new unit available, combat engineers, who are able to:
- lay mines
- clear mines
- dig fortifications
- build airfields
- build radar
- build roads
- remove fortifications
- build fast combat bridges (which only last 1 turn, unit becomes bridge for turn)
- build fast forest/jungle roads (which only last 1 turn, unit becomes road for turn)
- undermine castle walls, causing collapse
- have limited combat ability
- have limited and experience upgraded 'heal' abilities on surrounding units
Attacking Cities
-------------------
Damage which hits below the minimum threshold of a city now does damage to the city defense value (reducing it by the exceeded damage done each attack) and 50% of the damage hits each unit in the city as a separate attack.
Scout - Experience from Scouting
------------------------------------
Scouts now gain experience from scouting (1 point per hex revealed).
Scouts gain combat ability experience from combat, as per a melee unit.
Scouts that gain enough experience become Great Explorers, with increased benefits and bonuses.
Selling Uniques
----------------
Ability now given for countries to purchase other countries unique units, if the unique country is in a friendship treaty with them. This is common in alliance wars, such as the Lend-Lease program between the US, Great Britain, and Russia during WW II.
Great Persons - More abilities
--------------------------------
Great Generals and Admirals now have combat abilities and special unit type based on main player country and based on Age of civilization. They appear as specific unit types specific to country.
For example, after tank research complete for Germany, General Guderian may appear as a tank unit. For the US, Admiral Halsey may appear as a carrier.
Generals now accumulate experience points, as per units, with some special bonuses specific to general or even country.
Great Scientists accumulate experience points, and science points for country, by exploring revealing unmapped hex. (1 science point per hex)
Great Artists accumulate experience points, and culture points for travelling to great wonders (natural or otherwise). The further away from the capital they travel, the more points they receive for this.
Great Engineers may construct bridges and roads (even before this tech is known) as per workers. They may construct great bridge projects and canals as well (special ability after learned tech, see canal project)
Great Merchants accumulate experience points travelling to each trading post, the further from the capital the more points. Great Merchants generate increased gold for civ when doing this.
No more 50 Denounces a Day
-----------------------------
The AI in Civ 5 left much to be desired, with very little in the way of diplomatic complexity. Denouncing is silly, it does nothing and should be removed from the game. What are the two silly options? Am I going to be penalized for telling a nation to BITE ME after they denounce? I certainly hope not!
No more severe troop penalties from unhappy populations
---------------------------------------------------------
Now different cultural policies affect troops and happiness differently.
Playing as the Mongol civ for example, and using warrior style cutural advancements, your people will generate happiness when you capture and annex enemy cities, vastly outweighing the local unhappiness in that one city from being occupied. Unhappiness will now also have a variable effect on your military units based on culture type.
More Extreme Changes
----------------------
There are many directions to take the Civ model. One of the most interesting from my perspective was the work done by Microprose on 'Masters of Magic'. What they did was essentially copy Civ at the time (2?) and greatly enhance the game from a detail level. Some changes made were:
Unique Units and Races
- Changed setting to a Fantasy model. Instead of civilizations, players played fantasy themed 'races', such as dwarves, humans, wood elves, dark elves, and trolls, to name a few. This permitted a much broader range of specialized units, something lacking in Civ. Each unique race was composed of mostly unique units, and all units even if common (such as spearman) had their own custom look and feel.
Playable Roleplaying Heroes
-----------------------------
Heroes in MOM were now combat capable, of various types (melee, ranged, or magic), accumulated experience points, and were able to wield special unique equipment. Heroes accumulated experience points and leveled up as standard Dungeons and Dragons type characters, with new skills points to distribute at each level. During a battle, they also could cast spells instead of directly fighing, leading to the next element:
Zoom-In Detail battles
--------------------------
When hostile unit stacks encountered each other on the World View, the battle would zoom down into the hex and play out on a fun table-top minatures type battle. Player could move his units around and the units would have the same type of bonuses and penalties as the higher level units have in Civ. The units would show the damage (for example, 10 spearmen would whittle down to 1 as they took 1-9 points damage) units and heroes also had the option of retreating from a losing battle, with loses taken.
Dungeons to Explore
----------------------
When exploring the world, the player would find old graveyards, tombs, caves and temples they could explore for unique items and gold. These would always be guarded by various creatures that would have to be fought.
Etheral Plane
---------------
When the player encountered a dimensional wizard's tower (think Sauroman's tower in LOTR) they could defeat the guardians and them portal to the etheral plane, an alternate dimension with a second full world map to explore. This map would have different things in it, for example much richer metals content, but would have very nasty hostile races there not present in the material plane, such as a dragon race, the trolls race mentioned (very nasty, regenerating troops) and the infamous dark elves, to name a few. Rules worked differently on this plane in some ways. Magic was much more powerful, and roads built were 'magic' roads, which provided zero movement cost and became essentially teleporter routes to the various other wizard towers once unlocked. Of course, breaching the dimension also allows the evil up there to descend down to the material plane as well....
All in all Masters of Magic demonstrated a bold new direction that Civ could take, dramatically enhancing the game.
Civ in Space
-----------------
It's a small leap to convert a Civ game to a space themed map. Essentially planets are just round 'islands' in a sea of black stars, and ships become spaceships. All sorts of new ideas are possible in this type of map system. Barabarians obviously become space pirates, and wandering monsters are also possible.
While I like the new units for Civ 5 GK, I am willing to bet that the same problem exists as it did in Civ 5, that by the time your in Industrial era, technology is flying at you so fast that units become obsolete before you can build up a force of them and use them.
One option sadly missing unless someone can assist me, is a way to drastically increase the technology costs and decrease the dates between turns in the early game. This would give people a much longer game experience with historic units in their proper time period.
Enough of that, on to my notes, which are extensive
Please note these are written from the perspective of these changes having been made in the game and how that would work (so instead of constantly saying 'game SHOULD HAVE' I frequently say 'game NOW has...')Unit Flesh Out
-----------------
The Civ game is plagued by too few Industrial era, Modern era, and Future era units. I have added historic unit trees for various key types below.
fighter planes
----------------
The development of the aircraft has been rapid and nextreme, covering a broad range of types and platforms equivalent to the ground unit change in the game. The following types are proposed to more fully flesh out the detail and provide more variety in air power:
biplane (french model)
triplane (fokker dr 1)
monoplane fighter (hurricane model)
advanced fighter (mustang model)
early jet (262 model)
jet (F86 model)
large jet (F-4 model)
air superiority jet (F-15 model)
stealth jet (F-117 model)
advanced jet (F-22 raptor model)
super jet (futuristic model)
Bombers
----------
early bomber (ww I model)
bomber (ww II B17 model)
jet bomber (b52 model)
advanced bomber (b1 model)
stealth bomber (B-2 model) (in game.)
super bomber (futuristic model)
Ground Attack
------------------
Specialized ground attack aircraft were a critical component of the 'blitzkrieg' style of modern warfare, first optimized by the Germans in WW2 with the 'Stuka' aircraft
dive bomber (stuka model)
ground attack (B26 marauder model)
jet ground attack (thunderchief model)
helicoper gunship (cobra model)
air cav (huey model) can land and transform into an infantry unit. Can land on cities and immediately attack them and capture.
heavy gunship (Hind model, can carry 1 troop, Russian unique)
advanced gunship (Apache model)
advanced ground attack (A-10 model)
super ground attack (futuristic model)
kamikaze - suicide plane, Zero model, for use against ships only. Japanese unique.
Ship Attack
-------------
torpedo bomber (ww2 Japanese B5N Kate) range 1 ranged attack unit, may attack ships in port.
Aircraft range, movement and fuel
------------------------------------
All aircraft now have the concept of 'fuel' meaning they can spend a turn or two in the 'air' between cities or targets. Although unrealistic from the actual 'year clock' view that the turns represent, everything else is unrealistic in this sense as well so all is equal (it does not take 50 years to construct a farm, for example)
The fuel is distinct from movement, as movement is more like the aircraft's 'speed'. Each point of movement uses up a fuel point. Aircraft draw down oil resource as fuel when they refuel, and when first constructed.
A note on bomber graphics - ground attack aircraft will now swoop and do multiple passes in an attack, while bombers will do a single pass on target (as per the B29 atomic bomber run sequence). This is more historically accurate (the multiple pass swooping lancaster bomber was ridiculous)
Helicopters now behave much more like aircraft. They are aircraft, just aircraft that can loiter over the battlefield and hover longer than traditional fixed wing aircraft. They have lower movement values than fixed wing but much more fuel.
There is now an 'air cavalry' unit, represented by vietnam style huey choppers, that can land and become an infantry unit.
All other helicopter units may not capture cities.
Tanks
---------
Note: 'Panzer' means 'Tank' in German...
Germans did not produce a unique tank different from other nations in WW2, they did produce some of the first successful heavy tanks though. By end of the war the other leading nations had also produced very effective and even better heavy tank models.
Introduce light, medium, heavy and hunting tanks. If you want to give the Germans something unique, give them the JagdTiger (super heavy hunting tank), or the JagdPanther (best tank hunter of the war)
light tanks have scout abilities and scout skills. Models: M3 Stuart and French
medium are standard tanks in game models: T34-85 and T-72
Variant medium tanks: amphibious (may cross large river hex or leave troop ship and cross 1 ocean hex)
minesweeper: sweeps mines, may not also attack in same turn
anti-aircraft: has anti-aircraft guns, models US half-track .50cal and zsu-23-4. Lethal also against infantry.
heavy and heavier, slower versions, bigger attack. Models
hunting are like mobile heavy anti-tank guns (severe penalty if flanked)
Artillery
-----------
Additional unit (Russian unique) - katushya rocket truck. Similar to modern MLRS but not as powerful.
Rockets
---------
V-1 buzz bomb. Shorter ranged than missile, get it earlier, can be intercepted by fighter.
V-2 ballistic missile. Longer ranged, destroys 1 building improvement per hit, rather than city damage.
Submarines
-----------
Submarine history is now fleshed out more completely. Note nuclear powered ships and submarines now consume 1 nuclear resource.
Submarines now have ability to have 'modes' of surfaced or submerged. Now player is responsible for making call which is more appropriate. For example, early diesel-electric boats like the German U-boat were much faster surfaced, and had access to a deck gun they would use. They only submerged when threatened or to use the element of surprise, usually at night, for a torpedo attack. Later nuclear submarines are now faster submerged than surfaced, but will surface to get increased radar range, for example.
(uboat)diesel-electric (mode switch, surfaced or submerged. Surface speed 7, sight 6, greatly reduced defense). Submerged speed 3, site 3, range 3 ranged, greatly increased defense. sw: 4-1-1
(golf class) d-e cruise - (surf: speed 8, sight 8, ranged 8. subm: 5, site 4, ranged 4. sw: 3-1-1
(oscar class) nuclear - cruise missile (mode switch, surfaced: surface speed 10, sight 12, ranged attack 12. Submerged speed 8, site 6, ranged 6. leaf. sw: 2-1-10
(688 class) nuclear - attack (ss: 11, sight 14, ranged same. submerged speed 12, site 5, ranged 5. sw: 1-1-1
(ohio class) nuclear - missile (ss: 10, sight 12, ranged 20. submerged speed 10, site 20, ranged 20. leaf sw: 1-1-10
(seawolf class) nuclear - advanced (ss: 12, sight 15, ranged 24. submerged 16, site 8, ranged 8. 100 safe.
Troop changes
------------------
Cannot embark anywhere except from town with port. This was a silly addition that makes no sense historically and greatly tips the balance of power in favour of marines/navy players.
Marines can land on non rough hexes on shore. No other units may land unless landing craft used (troopship special ability)
large rivers present, small boats can navigate. Viking troops have longboat special ability.
Troops must now board troop ships at the 'Large Port' structure in coastal cities. Some races, such as Vikings, have unique abilities that override this restriction, which becomes less valuable as the ages progress (no loading tanks on Viking longboats, for example)
Ships
-------
Ships should have transport capacity, this is brought back.
Troopships
-------------- (cavalry units, lancers, tanks, take up 2 'troop' value. Workers = 1 troop)
Viking longboat - Danish unique. 1 troop. small attack (boarding) value. Can travel up large rivers (new hex type).sw: 15-1-10
Standard Trireme - 1 troop, small attack (boarding) value. sw: 30-1-10
Caravel - 2 troop. (boarding) sw: 5-1-2
Steamtroop - speed 4, 3 troops, no attack value. sw: 5-1-5
Early troopship - speed 5, 4 troops sw: 3-1-3
Troopship - speed 6, 6 troops sw: 2-1-2
Replenishment Ship - Allows ships to repair at sea without special ability (acts as 'home waters' in 1 hex range) sw: 2-1-3
Fighting Ships
----------------
As exists, plus:
heavy frigate sailing ship (US Constitution class, US unique) 1 wood
Ship of the line sailing ship (74 gunner class) 2 wood
Battleship sailing ship (120 gun class), originally british unique, now avail. all players 4 wood
Steam destroyer iron+coal
Steam cruiser iron+coal
Steam battleship iron+coal
early destroyer oil+iron
early cruiser oil+iron
early battleship oil+iron
early carrier 93 plane slots) oil+iron
destroyer oil+iron
cruiser oil+ 2 iron
battleship 2 oil+ 3 iron
carrier 2 oil+2 iron
dreadnought (british unique unit, heavy oil era battleship) 2 oil slots+2 iron
heavy cruiser 2 oil + 2 iron
heavy carrier (5 plane slots) 2 oil slots + 3 iron
super battleship (Yamato class, Japanese unique) 3 oil + 4 iron
missile destroyer oil+iron+copper
missile battlecruiser (Kirov class, Russian unique) consumes nuclear resource, iron+nuke
AEGIS destroyer (huge anti-air, anti-missile) iron+nuke
AEGIS cruiser (huge anti-air, anti-missile) consumes nuclear resource 2 iron+nuke
super carrier (US unique) 8 plane slots, consumes nuclear resource not oil 3 iron+nuke
Stealth Destroyer (much harder to see at range) consumes nuclear resource 1 iron+nuke
Wear and Tear
--------------
To remove the ridiculous notion of a wooden sailing ship remaining in your navy for say, 500 years, the concept of 'wear and tear' is introduced, the common and known attribute that all things have a service life, beyond which they deteriorate and eventually fall apart.
Each unit and building in the game now has a service life attribute. Buildings can be refurbished, when warnings are received as they approach 80% and go beyond their service life. Units cannot be refurbished, they must be recycled. For example, a wooden class sail frigate will have a service life of 50 turns. At 40 turns it will begin to permanently lose damage points, 1 per turn. When it reaches 0 it sinks into the sea. Deterioration points cannot be repaired.
Due to this restriction, construction costs for units now considerably reduced.
Storms and Weather
-----------------------
Storms and weather played a significant part in history and their lack of presence in Civ is troubling. Who can forget the famous kamikaze storm that destroyed a Chinese invasion fleet before it landed in Japan, or the effect of storms on the Spanish Armada (which inflicted up to 75% of the fleet damage, with the English fleet only applying 25% of that damage)
Storms on land effect units to a lesser extent, but there is no denying the effects of winter. Due to the huge scale of jumps in time the game makes at the beginning and middle phases, obviously this is strange to grasp, but the construction times and the task effort times also are similarly skewed without comment (at the start of the game it can take 50 years to build a farm, a ridiculous number)
Sea storms will now roam the planet's seas, occassionally hitting your ships and causing damage. Storms can be of different levels of intensity, right up to cat 5 hurricanes.
Allow scale of game to be adjusted and played accordingly. If a player really wants to start in 4000 bc and play a game that has 1 month turn frequency, then allow that.
Games at this scale will have storms and seasons.
Games at turn frequency of 1 year will have storms at sea only.
Games beyond this scale may optionally have random storm activity per turn but no permanent storms.
Deep Water Skirting
------------------------
There is evidence that primitive ships did reach the Americas in the ancient past. Researchers such as Thor Heyerdal have uncovered evidence of tobacco, for example, in the lungs of egyptian pharoahs (tobacco only grows, and has ONLY grown, in the Americas).
It is also extremely frustrating in the early game to be limited to coastal hexes when exploring. You should have the option of setting sail into the deep blue, with little chance of survival if you push it too far.
To make this fun, I have introduced the concept of a 'seaworthy' rating for ships. This value is not used when the ship is in coastal hexes, unless it encounters a storm.
In deep water, each deep water hex traversed will have a percentage chance of damaging the ship based on the ship's seaworthiness rating.
For example, a trireme, which were never intended for deep water operations, attempts to enter a deep water ocean hex, it will have a 30% chance of taking 5-10 points damage.
A caravel, much more suited for long ocean voyages, will have a 10% chance of taking 1-2 points damage.
Seaworthiness will be a value that can be upgraded with experience (2% reduction per level)
Damage reduces attack and movement values
----------------------------------------------
Always find it amusing to see critically damaged ships flying across the map at full movement value. Damaged ships typically had to limp home under escort, and had almost no offensive capability.
Now damage effects both movement and attack values, to a minimum of 1 movement point and 5 points attack value.
Copper and Wood Resources
-----------------------------
Important resources in early history are wood and copper. The need for copper to make armour and weapons by the ancient Greeks is well known, as is the modern requirement for use in electrical wiring. Most students of history are aware as well that the English empire cut down most of the trees in Great Britain to build their huge navy. Cutting down forests now yields wood resources instead of production. Wood resources can be harvested from lumber camps in small amounts (forest is preserved) or collected en masse by cutting down the entire forest. You can regrow the forest with tree planting ability now of workers, but it takes 10 turns.
Copper is now an important resource throughout the game, both for early weapons and armour and late game batteries and electrical wiring. Mineral resources are now more plentiful and there are multiple types per hex potentially when found.
New Hex Type: Large River
-----------------------------
Large river mouths are now represented on the map, as uncrossable rivers that can be navigated by small boats upstream. The Viking longboat was a shallow draft warship that greatly benefitted from this special ability historically and can travel further up river hexes than other craft. River hexes are now impassable by normal units until a bridge of some type is built.
Special construction project - bridge. Bridges are much more difficult to construct than roads. This is now a special project requiring more time.
New terrain mod - Canal.
---------------------------
Possible now for workers to construct the 'Canal' terrain mod. The restrictions on the mod are, it must be adjacent to a water tile or other completed canal tile, it must be built on flat open terrain tiles, and a Great Engineer must be within 2 hexes during construction.
Takes huge amount of prod to complete, and when complete, allows ships to enter.
This allows civs to connect world oceans across thin parts of continents, much as done in reality. Canals are also considered 'mini wonders' and provide additional bonuses to the constructing empire once complete (if they DO link oceans)
New terrain mod - Airfield
-----------------------------
Combat Engineers can construct temporary airfields that can be used by planes to land on. They replace existing terrain improvements, including roads, but have the same movement cost through them as roads.
New terrain mod - Radar
--------------------------
Radar installations may now be built which greatly improve detection range. Future advancements in technology further increase radar sight range.
New Building Type - Port
----------------------------
Ports now come in small medium and large. Small ports allow 2 ships to be stacked in a coastal city. Mediums 4, and Large 8.
Ships may be attacked in port by aircraft. When an aircraft attacks a city with a port containing ships, it must choose between attacking the city or attacking the ships. Attacks against ships in port provide a 30% bonus to damage.
New Unit - Combat Engineer
------------------------------
There is also a new unit available, combat engineers, who are able to:
- lay mines
- clear mines
- dig fortifications
- build airfields
- build radar
- build roads
- remove fortifications
- build fast combat bridges (which only last 1 turn, unit becomes bridge for turn)
- build fast forest/jungle roads (which only last 1 turn, unit becomes road for turn)
- undermine castle walls, causing collapse
- have limited combat ability
- have limited and experience upgraded 'heal' abilities on surrounding units
Attacking Cities
-------------------
Damage which hits below the minimum threshold of a city now does damage to the city defense value (reducing it by the exceeded damage done each attack) and 50% of the damage hits each unit in the city as a separate attack.
Scout - Experience from Scouting
------------------------------------
Scouts now gain experience from scouting (1 point per hex revealed).
Scouts gain combat ability experience from combat, as per a melee unit.
Scouts that gain enough experience become Great Explorers, with increased benefits and bonuses.
Selling Uniques
----------------
Ability now given for countries to purchase other countries unique units, if the unique country is in a friendship treaty with them. This is common in alliance wars, such as the Lend-Lease program between the US, Great Britain, and Russia during WW II.
Great Persons - More abilities
--------------------------------
Great Generals and Admirals now have combat abilities and special unit type based on main player country and based on Age of civilization. They appear as specific unit types specific to country.
For example, after tank research complete for Germany, General Guderian may appear as a tank unit. For the US, Admiral Halsey may appear as a carrier.
Generals now accumulate experience points, as per units, with some special bonuses specific to general or even country.
Great Scientists accumulate experience points, and science points for country, by exploring revealing unmapped hex. (1 science point per hex)
Great Artists accumulate experience points, and culture points for travelling to great wonders (natural or otherwise). The further away from the capital they travel, the more points they receive for this.
Great Engineers may construct bridges and roads (even before this tech is known) as per workers. They may construct great bridge projects and canals as well (special ability after learned tech, see canal project)
Great Merchants accumulate experience points travelling to each trading post, the further from the capital the more points. Great Merchants generate increased gold for civ when doing this.
No more 50 Denounces a Day
-----------------------------
The AI in Civ 5 left much to be desired, with very little in the way of diplomatic complexity. Denouncing is silly, it does nothing and should be removed from the game. What are the two silly options? Am I going to be penalized for telling a nation to BITE ME after they denounce? I certainly hope not!
No more severe troop penalties from unhappy populations
---------------------------------------------------------
Now different cultural policies affect troops and happiness differently.
Playing as the Mongol civ for example, and using warrior style cutural advancements, your people will generate happiness when you capture and annex enemy cities, vastly outweighing the local unhappiness in that one city from being occupied. Unhappiness will now also have a variable effect on your military units based on culture type.
More Extreme Changes
----------------------
There are many directions to take the Civ model. One of the most interesting from my perspective was the work done by Microprose on 'Masters of Magic'. What they did was essentially copy Civ at the time (2?) and greatly enhance the game from a detail level. Some changes made were:
Unique Units and Races
- Changed setting to a Fantasy model. Instead of civilizations, players played fantasy themed 'races', such as dwarves, humans, wood elves, dark elves, and trolls, to name a few. This permitted a much broader range of specialized units, something lacking in Civ. Each unique race was composed of mostly unique units, and all units even if common (such as spearman) had their own custom look and feel.
Playable Roleplaying Heroes
-----------------------------
Heroes in MOM were now combat capable, of various types (melee, ranged, or magic), accumulated experience points, and were able to wield special unique equipment. Heroes accumulated experience points and leveled up as standard Dungeons and Dragons type characters, with new skills points to distribute at each level. During a battle, they also could cast spells instead of directly fighing, leading to the next element:
Zoom-In Detail battles
--------------------------
When hostile unit stacks encountered each other on the World View, the battle would zoom down into the hex and play out on a fun table-top minatures type battle. Player could move his units around and the units would have the same type of bonuses and penalties as the higher level units have in Civ. The units would show the damage (for example, 10 spearmen would whittle down to 1 as they took 1-9 points damage) units and heroes also had the option of retreating from a losing battle, with loses taken.
Dungeons to Explore
----------------------
When exploring the world, the player would find old graveyards, tombs, caves and temples they could explore for unique items and gold. These would always be guarded by various creatures that would have to be fought.
Etheral Plane
---------------
When the player encountered a dimensional wizard's tower (think Sauroman's tower in LOTR) they could defeat the guardians and them portal to the etheral plane, an alternate dimension with a second full world map to explore. This map would have different things in it, for example much richer metals content, but would have very nasty hostile races there not present in the material plane, such as a dragon race, the trolls race mentioned (very nasty, regenerating troops) and the infamous dark elves, to name a few. Rules worked differently on this plane in some ways. Magic was much more powerful, and roads built were 'magic' roads, which provided zero movement cost and became essentially teleporter routes to the various other wizard towers once unlocked. Of course, breaching the dimension also allows the evil up there to descend down to the material plane as well....
All in all Masters of Magic demonstrated a bold new direction that Civ could take, dramatically enhancing the game.
Civ in Space
-----------------
It's a small leap to convert a Civ game to a space themed map. Essentially planets are just round 'islands' in a sea of black stars, and ships become spaceships. All sorts of new ideas are possible in this type of map system. Barabarians obviously become space pirates, and wandering monsters are also possible.
