How do you get to Carnage Hall? Practice! (Unit promotions should be earned through practice)

[smvalentine]

It seems strange to me that the experience a unit has earned is simply generic XP
and that when it reaches a threshold, you can choose from among any available promotions. Even in the field.
Even if your unit has done nothing of the sort.
Your Scout hikes over flat bare land and discovers some villagers, wonders and a continent?
Congratulations! You're now better at moving over hills!
Wait, what?!?

I would prefer the promotions to be tied more closely to the things the unit has actually done.
E.g. If your Scout moves through say 20 Woods, it should earn the promotion to move faster through Woods.
If your Warrior gets attacked by ranged units often enough, it should get the promotion for defense vs Ranged attacks.

Perhaps some abilities should only be earned by training at a suitable Encampment.
e.g. Train at an Encampment with a Barracks next to a Cliff and get the promotion for scaling cliff walls

On a similar note, it seems to me that moving units through Woods and Jungle should form footpaths, or more.
If a Scout hikes back and forth through the same Woods tile, don't you think it would know its way and be able to get through faster?
If a Warrior (which is really what, 20-100 men?) tromps through woods, shouldn't they leave a path?
Maybe a path though Rainforest should become overgrown if more units don't follow within X turns.
Maybe these paths should be formed between the side of the hex the unit enters and the side it exits, rather than forming a generic path allowing any travel through the tile.

Maybe units on "home" territory should be able to move faster than enemy units of the same type.
Maybe a Tank unit should have more trouble moving through Woods than Knights, at least until someone builds them a road.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Wow, very good ideas so far !

I do think though that a track should go colder with time even in normal woods or basically anywhere.

I myself imagined we could train units with hammers (or whatever they are called) in my new vision of Civ. First we would have peasants or miners (that have a low combat value still ? Hmmm, could be interesting), or basically population points ("citizens" that can move across the map like regular units and can form camps instantaneously and so dispatch within three tiles for the purpose of production or agriculture, and can stack up to 5 units in the same tile in antiquity without city buildings, so same for military units) that you should train in order to make them actual warriors or archers, or both in the same time. You could re-train them in order to improve them, aka giving them promotions. While I'm thinking about it, maybe the range ability would be a promotion ? We can imagine what we like. Because I can't imagine there are full armies (aka even only one unit, representing around 100 people as you said we can assume) of only "stick guys that don't know how to use a bow" or either "100 guys that know how to use a bow but cannot handle a stick". That works for middle ages and modern armies also, a field pack or military men and machines weren't the only of a type on the field... although nowadays "regiments" can lead to a confusion. The training is specialized, or at least it seems so (in France there are barracks for each type of "units"), but not the final deployment. I think it's useless to represent both, so I would prefer to represent the mixity on the field rather than the non nmixity of training, although it can still be done by building barracks or stables for example, but could be extended to ranged, and all other types of units, but maybe not in Antiquity or at least pre-Antiquity where using a bow can be done anywhere and IS done anywhere. (for basically every man except slaves) Or, the ability to build specialized training grounds comes with techs or dogmas, and gives indead a subtantial improvement to final military units.

But yes i do think that your units could train indefinitely when they are not at war, and maybe there could be two types of promotions, those which are 'theorical', and the ones which are 'practical'. Maybe the first could be obtained only when second is obtained first.

Don't get me wrong, Archers in Civ have a melee value, so they can obviously use sticks, but they cannot melee attack, which is wrong. And by the way, it all depends on the composition of the unit, there could be 40 archers and 60 stickmen, and again, what about of 100 archers that can use sticks ? In pre-ages that doesn't matter, bacause people are basically naked, except for their weapon. So give them the weapons they need should only rely on production. If there are not enough sticks, and there is a war, fine, send those 40 archers without sticks still, they could for sure show some usefulness. That is if you don't have enough archers+warriors, because they would be sure weaker and suceptible to die more quickly. (and/or have to be protected, what would be a cripple for other units) They could be useful still in a safe position though.

I know this separation of abilities are ruled by how wars happened in classical era, with their detachments and flanking / firing abilities, but that's not how it happened in the early times if you ask me, although I wasn't there. It's a way to see things, but bows and sticks are not that a big deal, except most probably for massive production, what we are talking about in Civ. Basically : your units shouldn't have any hinders that production cannot fullfil. And, if your 100 archers-warriors are killed, it's a deeper loss for you. Some may say that we don't need bows to melee, therefore there is no need of melee having bows, but don't you remember the ability of Zulu Impies in Civ5 ? They could have a shot before going melee. That's exactly how most badly an archer-warrior could work in Civ7. Because ranged weren't much more efficient in battle rows. But still, remember how English pushed back the French knights at Azincourt ? If you have a safe place, transfoming warriors into archers (with proper promotion, it is to say actually having bows, which shouldn't be now THAT a big deal for great empires such as France or England) can be cruel. And there's more. You can use the ranged ability of a unit to fire into another unit that fight in melee. *If* you feel you are losing, you can totally reverse the flow of happenings by shooting your own soldiers, but enemy ones also, depending on which ones are the more numerous or are *winning*. That can even be done automatically provided there's another units in the parage.

Of course artillery do not work the same way, although they have still their escorts in normal times. (even if Civ consider "escorts" as entire other units)

Oh well, I guess my post was only about bows/sticks/swords...

 

[9gkj548hkm20vk79dj689bnj4]

I never really liked the concept of promotions at all. The idea that you get stronger after each battle sounds a bit silly; if anything you unit should be more exhausted and need even more and more maintenance, reinforcements, and or healing in order to sustain itself.

Once a unit learns some new ability, you should "retire" it like you do a great person, and any subsequent units can have that ability but they have to be "built" multiple times in order to achieve it (let's just call that "training". the more abilities the longer the production time)