Military Engineers

[criZp]

I don't see a reason why not. City defenses are built internal to the city. Forts are improvements.

my point was really that they don't allow you to buy city defense with gold so that you actually have to prepare for an attack, being able to instabuilt forts runs contrary to this idea regardless of it being a city improvement or tile improvement

 

[SJSerio]

my point was really that they don't allow you to buy city defense with gold so that you actually have to prepare for an attack, being able to instabuilt forts runs contrary to this idea regardless of it being a city improvement or tile improvement

I haven't seen that is the case.

In any case, the trade of would be that you would have to have a unit that you send out. They would be at great risk trying to send them out to build a fort in the middle of an invasion. Especially if the enemy has sent a lot of units. Even protecting the unit with a melee unit would be risky because the enemy could unload in the protector, then take the ME. Now you're down the cost of an ME and need to build a new one or try to "liberate" the unit (assuming that MEs are captured and not outright killed when attacked).

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[Dunkah]

Perhaps one charge per turn, as far as your unit can move is how much road you build?

So if built in hills or rough terrain you may only get one hex, but on flat ground several.

Rechargeable if unit makes it back to a city?

All speculation of course.

 

[stiiknafuulia]

Like most of you, i definitely see military engineers have a charge system just like builders.

It wouldnt make any sense to have a unit function like an old worker taking x turn to build a road\fort etc.. And on the other hand it wouldnt make sense to have one military engineer being able to build roads every turn with no limit. Especially as it seems that now, there aint no maintenance for roads. There would be no downpoint to just spam roads all over your territory, civ 3\4 style..

Wasn't it stated somewhere that enemy units can now use your roads when they're in your territory? That's one deterrent to excessive road spam, although perhaps a weak one. Personally, I wouldn't mind a road on every tile being the standard -- assuming we only get to that point in the late game, when we can spare the builder charges.

The road graphics would also need to change from the 'spaghetti plate' model of every Civ since Civ II, and adopt again the clear design where every road 'starts' from the center of the tile and radiates outward in as many 'spokes' as there are connections to neighboring tiles. Like this. Simple and elegant, instantly clear... And not used for 20 years! *sigh*

 

[Siptah]

I guess that Military Engineers instantly build forts and airstrips with their charges.
They build roads 1 tile per round without using charges, but roads will cost maintenance when they don't belong to a trade route. It's just a guess, mind you. Maybe they also need charges to build a railroad from city A to city B: one charge for the whole thing but it only builds 1 tile per turn and the Military Engineer moves along automatically and can be killed in the process.

 

[joncnunn]

Maybe 0.25. With 3 charges, that allows 12 segments to be built per ME. That seems the likely case to me. I imagine that they will be able to build forts as well, which would be a full charge.
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It's more likely it would be coded as 12 charges with a road taking a full charge rather than introducing fractional charges.
On the user side, integers are more intuitive.
On the machine side, it's still a faster operation to decrease an integer by one than decrease a floating point number by .25.

 

[Magil]

For the record, the tooltip for Builders specifically mentions them having charges, but the tooltip for Military Engineers makes no mention of charges. This is of course subject to change, but it's a semi-reasonable assumption to make that Military Engineers do not use a charge-based system for their build actions. Either they build instantly, or function similar to old workers.

It would actually make sense if they functioned more similarly to old workers, because if I remember the logic for switching to builders with charges that instabuild, the argument was that it was too meticulous to need to plan tile improvements several turns in advance using the build times of workers, because of all the adjacency bonuses involved with improvements and districts. But if roads and forts are not involved in adjacency bonuses (which seems to be the case, haven't seen them utilize this mechanic for them), then it's okay for them to have a build time.

That doesn't necessarily mean they will, of course, and honestly there's probably nothing wrong with military engineers building a road in 1 turn (forts are a different matter, unless there's some kind of upgrade path for forts like in Fall from Heaven 2--build a fort, it starts off weak, but then you can build on it turn after turn to make it progressively stronger).

 

[Lucius_]

It would be cool if Military Engineers were support units that can be linked to military units (as mentioned upthread.) I could see them building roads, one tile per turn, no charges. As a support unit attached to military unit, I could see them giving the ability to cross rough terrain as flat ground.

 

[cazaderonus]

For the record, the tooltip for Builders specifically mentions them having charges, but the tooltip for Military Engineers makes no mention of charges. This is of course subject to change, but it's a semi-reasonable assumption to make that Military Engineers do not use a charge-based system for their build actions. Either they build instantly, or function similar to old workers.

It would actually make sense if they functioned more similarly to old workers, because if I remember the logic for switching to builders with charges that instabuild, the argument was that it was too meticulous to need to plan tile improvements several turns in advance using the build times of workers, because of all the adjacency bonuses involved with improvements and districts. But if roads and forts are not involved in adjacency bonuses (which seems to be the case, haven't seen them utilize this mechanic for them), then it's okay for them to have a build time.

That doesn't necessarily mean they will, of course, and honestly there's probably nothing wrong with military engineers building a road in 1 turn (forts are a different matter, unless there's some kind of upgrade path for forts like in Fall from Heaven 2--build a fort, it starts off weak, but then you can build on it turn after turn to make it progressively stronger).

Didnt catch military engineer tooltip tbh.

Well, i guess having ME function like old workers wouldnt be a problem. But then i "hope" their roads will have maintenance. Otherwise, hello road spam.

Not that i have a massive grief against road spam per se. But considering movement rule, it would become a usual thing to do and become a rather dull gameplay layer. Builders were picked over workers for that main reason.

This might be a good question to ask during tonight s LP.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Didnt catch military engineer tooltip tbh.

Well, i guess having ME function like old workers wouldnt be a problem. But then i "hope" their roads will have maintenance. Otherwise, hello road spam.

Not that i have a massive grief against road spam per se. But considering movement rule, it would become a usual thing to do and become a rather dull gameplay layer. Builders were picked over workers for that main reason.

This might be a good question to ask during tonight s LP.

I don't think having military engineers work like old workers would fit all the announcements why builders are better. The more I think about it, the more convincing is the idea what military engineers damage the unit they're attached to by building things. It looks like reasonable mechanics.

I'll not be awake during LP, so really hope someone will ask this.

 

[Deggial]

My guess:

- Air fields and fortresses are instantly built and consume the engineer (= one charge only, just like Grand Generals in Civ5).
- Roads and railroads don't use any charges. One tile per turn.
- Roads add movement, but don't do anything else. No upkeep costs. (Consistency and comprehensibility!)
- Railroads add movement to units and production to the linked city. They cost upkeep.

Roads needing no upkeep if "worked" by a trade route doesn't make sense, imo. Traders are deliberately used in the early game in order to create road connections between cities and then re-arranged to other targets. There always will be more road connections than trade routes, hence the statement of "roads don't cost upkeep in Civ6." wouldn't be true most of the times. A split between roads with and without trade routes would also defy the basic design idea of keeping things simple and comprehensible.

 

[bookman_]

forts surely aren't gonna instabuild, just like the city defensive buildings can't be instabuilt with gold

As long as your amy isn't called the Roman Legion, that's true.

Spoiler Siege of Alesia :

Link to video.

 

[Dunkah]

It could be that you need to have a viable starting hex and a viable ending hex in order to launch the road building in the first place.

So city A is starting location, city B is ending location. After that it just works like any other trade unit as far as actually moving and creating the road as it goes.

This eliminates the need for charges and actually addresses the road spam issue.

(yes I know I am brilliant)

 

[Mort_Q]

I seem to recall the ability to put pins in the map in one of the German playthroughs, so maybe a military engineer can route a road from pin-to-pin?

 

[SJSerio]

I seem to recall the ability to put pins in the map in one of the German playthroughs, so maybe a military engineer can route a road from pin-to-pin?

They did briefly talk about putting pins in the map during today's stream.

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[Lucius_]

I think the idea Dunkah was getting at was roads can only be built from city to city, not by tile, which would eliminate road spam to some extent. Being able to build from pin to pin doesn't help with the road spam. However, Dunkah's thought would mean no strategic roads to a border or to a chokepoint or to nowhere in particular, which seems counter to the idea of the military engineer.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I think the idea Dunkah was getting at was roads can only be built from city to city, not by tile, which would eliminate road spam to some extent. Being able to build from pin to pin doesn't help with the road spam. However, Dunkah's thought would mean no strategic roads to a border or to a chokepoint or to nowhere in particular, which seems counter to the idea of the military engineer.

Well they could also be from anywhere to anywhere (within range) but consume the Military engineer when it finished.

 

[Lucius_]

Yep, that would mean you would need to build a lot of ME's to cover every tile of your territory in roads.

 

[joncnunn]

I think the idea Dunkah was getting at was roads can only be built from city to city, not by tile, which would eliminate road spam to some extent. Being able to build from pin to pin doesn't help with the road spam. However, Dunkah's thought would mean no strategic roads to a border or to a chokepoint or to nowhere in particular, which seems counter to the idea of the military engineer.

Indeed, one of Roman Military Engineer's main accomplishments was building a Platoon bridge over the Rhine. (Which they dissembled just as quickly; it was only a demonstration that the Roman Legions aren't stopped by any barrier, including the Rhine.)

 

[SJSerio]

Well, I certainly hope that this info is very close. One thing that I was a bit disappointed with about the last livestream was boo mention of this mechanic at all. Hopefully they will fill is in soon.

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