Marsden said:
I think you might be drifting from Civ to a strategic war game. Not that it sounds bad, just not what Civ is.
I doubt anyone remembers this but about 20 years ago I used to love a game called Colonial Conquest. It had 2 scenarios, one starting 1880 and one starting 1914. There was 6 playable empires: USA, France, UK, Russia,Germany, and Japan. The reason I'm mentioning all of this is there were only 2 units, troops and ships, but each empire paid a different price for each and they were not all equal in strength. Russia had the worst troops, but they were cheapest. The English had the best troops and ships, but their troops were the most expensive, but their ships were relatively cheap. Others were somewhere between. What your proposing reminded me about this.
It was purely a war game. Civ is a lot more than a war game.
umm...no.
adding in infantry-type units for each civ does not constitute a switch over to a war mongering game. i don't buy this argument.
i do agree, however, that civ3 isn't a pure war game. although the point i'm trying to make is that adding in these extra infantry units simply adds historical values into the equation. why on earth should a Rifleman unit built by the Dutch have the same A/D values as one that was built by Germany? it just isn't historically correct imo.
sure, it adds some layers of depth into the mod/scenario. however, if i want a dumbed down civ expericnce, i'll fire up civ4.
someone else posted that the civ3 game mechanics aren't set up to handle this type of arrangment. again, this is completely false. there are a wide array of features that can be differentiated such as Attack values, Defense values, HP bonuses, movement points, shield costs, and terrain movement bonuses to name a few.
trust me on this...i've spent more time in front of xl spreadsheets w/ unit stats and the editor opened up than i'd like to admit. and honestly, the bottom line w/ this is how the AI handles it all and how it affects game-play.
i think what isn't fully understood w/ this method is that fact just b/c there's extra units added in that it's automatically assumed that a scenario/mod w/ these settings would be geared exclusively towards warfare. this just isn't true. this is only scratching the surface...i mean, what of govt types, city improvements and wonders, other combat units, specific UUs that can triger a golden age, etc, etc?
don't get me wrong - i'm not trying to pimp this method or even say that it is better than the stripped down/bare bones format of the default civ3/ptw/conquests unit lines. after all, this method works for a lot of people (not me though). what i'm getting at is that it is indeed possible to add in extra layers to the civ3 model and i will bet the ranch that it'll work and that the AI will handle it and use it properly.
to each their own i say...but don't try telling me that it won't work or that it'll slant the game towards war mongering b/c it simply isn't true.