Minefields

[yoshi]

I'm trying to decide on what kind of system to use for Minefields in a scen.

The following are some systems I have contemplated:


Using MGE:

- 'Minefield' terrain type slows movement, provides no defence bonus, can be placed/removed by Engineer unit from Plains, Grassland, Desert.

- Random ChangeTerrain event places 'Minefield' terrain (only on sqaures that already have Minefield). Any unit there is deleted.

- Invisible (no image; always invisible--to the human player) 'Minefield' unit that is immobile and has a high defence factor.

- Invisible ('submarine' flag; i.e. can be revealed by units and seen by units with 'see sub' flag--Engineer?) 'Minefield' unit that is immobile and has a high defence factor.

- Invisible (no image) 'Minefield' sea unit in lone Ocean square (place RR tile improvement--altered to resemble surrounding terrain--on that square to cover water) with the 'destroyed' flag, a high attack factor and a movement factor of 1. New 'Minefield' unit is spawned every few turns.

- Random spawning of invisible (no image) air unit (over Minefield terrain?) with 'destroyed' flag, a movement factor of 1, fuel factor of 1 (unit either attacks in that turn or is lost--to prevent it roaming the map).


Using ToT:

- 'Minefield' terrain type is impassable to tanks, can be placed/removed by Engineer unit from Plains, Grassland, Desert.



The immobile 'Minefield' unit has an advantage in that you can specify the owner, thus that civ can enter those squares without suffering damage--unlike the enemy.

The terrain has the advantage that it slows progress without having to respawn any unit. Of course, unless you're using ToT, all it can do is hinder movement and lower defence.

The random spawning of deadly air units is also interesting as it keeps the human player on his toes since he does't know where the units are going to appear. It also has the immobile unit's advantage of doing damage only to enemy civs.

The disadvantage of using air units is that it becomes tedious for the human player to give orders to the units whenever they spawn (unless there are AI allies that can do the job for you).

(Setting the Barbabrian civ as the owner means that everyone gets attacked--not realistic since the defender (i.e. the civ whose territory is being encroached upon) will obviously know where he placed his own Minefileds.)

Tell me which one you think is most appropriate. And if you can think of anything that isn't listed or a way of making what is better, please post it.

 

[yoshi]

...I think I should have posted this in the form of a question.

 

[kobayashi]

1 Minefield' terrain type slows movement, provides no defence bonus, can be placed/removed by Engineer unit from Plains, Grassland, Desert.

this was used quite effectively in Red Front

2 Random ChangeTerrain event places 'Minefield' terrain (only on sqaures that already have Minefield). Any unit there is deleted.

works well with 1

3 Invisible (no image; always invisible--to the human player) 'Minefield' unit that is immobile and has a high defence factor.

there is no way to hide the shield

Invisible ('submarine' flag; i.e. can be revealed by units and seen by units with 'see sub' flag--Engineer?) 'Minefield' unit that is immobile and has a high defence factor.

As it imposes ZOC, not very practical either unless you give ignore ZOC to every unit

- Invisible (no image) 'Minefield' sea unit in lone Ocean square (place RR tile improvement--altered to resemble surrounding terrain--on that square to cover water) with the 'destroyed' flag, a high attack factor and a movement factor of 1. New 'Minefield' unit is spawned every few turns.

Very clever. I once tried to do this using ships on land only to find out that the AI will not use them to attack. Putting them in ocean squares would definitely solve the problem. Should have a low attack factor I think.

- Random spawning of invisible (no image) air unit (over Minefield terrain?) with 'destroyed' flag, a movement factor of 1, fuel factor of 1 (unit either attacks in that turn or is lost--to prevent it roaming the map).

You should check. I think AI aircraft that are spawned outside of a city never run out of fuel.

 

[Yuri2356]

What are you using these minefields for?
If it's a WW1 Scenario with ToT, you could create an underground layer where workers can dig out tunnels under the battlefied, then create an underground units called "Mine" or "explosive charge" that could pop up (native teleport) and attack units that are over it. The first "land mines" were actually mines that were dug out under the battlefied and filled with explosives, this could be an interesting way to include that.

 

[yoshi]

@kobayashi:

this was used quite effectively in Red Front

Yes, I remember; the recommended strategy was: pull youR forces back betond the line (i.e. mines/tank obstacles) and wait for the Germans to enter those squares where event the fastest unit will lose all its MPs and be an easy target for your artillery waiting in the adjacent square. Quite a helpful strategy in that scen.

works well with 1

Yes, although I'm not really keen on this one as it eliminates units from both sides.

there is no way to hide the shield

You're half right. The shield can be eliminated in Units.gif by changing the colour from red to pink--that's assuming you don't mind all of the other units not having shields (not a problem for me as I usually do this becasue the shield just gets in the way; in ToT there is not shield so I don't have to bother).
Unfortunately, the health bar can't be removed thus must be covered up. This is a pain as it can only work with one terrain type (i.e. copy and past enough of the terrain image to cover up the area of the unit box where the health bar will be) but it's not really a problem if it's placed on Minefield terrain squares.

As it imposes ZOC, not very practical either unless you give ignore ZOC to every unit

It would probably involve giving 'Ignore ZOC' ability to every unit.

Very clever. I once tried to do this using ships on land only to find out that the AI will not use them to attack. Putting them in ocean squares would definitely solve the problem. Should have a low attack factor I think.

I tried that at some point too; it just sentries them and they do nothing after that...stupid AI. You're right, low attack factor is how it should be (I was confusing it with a similar idea involving immobile Heavy Artillery units with a high attack factor and no 'destroyed' flag); the idea is to weaken the attacker's units, not destroy them outright.
The downside to this is that you can't put it next to another Ocean square as the unit will then sail away, which looks rather ******** as I may imagine.

You should check. I think AI aircraft that are spawned outside of a city never run out of fuel.

Aw crap! You may be right about that...and that was my favourite of all of them dammit.
Thanks for the reminder though--you may have saved me a good deal of trouble.

@Yuri2356:

What are you using these minefields for?If it's a WW1 Scenario with ToT, you could create an underground layer where workers can dig out tunnels under the battlefied, then create an underground units called "Mine" or "explosive charge" that could pop up (native teleport) and attack units that are over it. The first "land mines" were actually mines that were dug out under the battlefied and filled with explosives, this could be an interesting way to include that.

As a way of slowing an attacker's momentum--much in the way that Red Front did. I wasn't referring to specific scen as this serves all scens but now pthat you mention it, I'm presently working on a scenario called 'Battle of Gazala' that's basically a recreation of Rommel's African campaign. Land mines played a big role in determining how the battle played itself out.
The WW1 idea is interesting and could serve as a potential solution if the air unit thing doesn't work. Thanks.


[One thing I didn't mention was that since I tend to place Fortresses (e.g. Stackable) on every square, I could leave Minefiled squares without thus stacked units would be at a disadvantage. (Of course, so would the defending civ.)]

 

[Mercator]

How about using impassable terrain (ToT) to delineate minefields? That is, put a border of impassable terrain around a minefield. Allow all units except "mines" to enter it.

It's kind of like the invisible air unit, except it doesn't have the problem kobayashi mentioned.

Unfortunately, the health bar can't be removed thus must be covered up. This is a pain as it can only work with one terrain type (i.e. copy and past enough of the terrain image to cover up the area of the unit box where the health bar will be) but it's not really a problem if it's placed on Minefield terrain squares.

You DO know SpriteGen, don't you? You can use it to hide the shield...
Heck, I don't think you even need that. You can use the "invisible until attack" flag in the @UNITS_ADVANCED section.

 

[yoshi]

You DO know SpriteGen, don't you? You can use it to hide the shield...

That's only if I use ToT. I was referring to MGE.

How about using impassable terrain (ToT) to delineate minefields? That is, put a border of impassable terrain around a minefield. Allow all units except "mines" to enter it.

Not sure I understood correctly but if I did, wouldn't it be easier to make all terrain impassable to Mines (ground unit) except Minefiled terrain? Then it could only attack units entering those squares.

 

[Mercator]

That's only if I use ToT. I was referring to MGE.

But you can simply position the shield out of view then, can't you?

Not sure I understood correctly but if I did, wouldn't it be easier to make all terrain impassable to Mines (ground unit) except Minefiled terrain? Then it could only attack units entering those squares.

Ahem, yes... I was kind of mixing up a few ideas. I was thinking of what FavouredFlight did in his FotR scenario. That used units to limit movement. But you can't simply make any individual square impassible terrain, so you'd have to use a separate terrain type for the minefield border. And then what you're saying is obviously much better...

But I wasn't sure about how big your minefields are gonna be either. Are they just a few squares, or whole swaths of terrain?

 

[yoshi]

But you can simply position the shield out of view then, can't you?

Nope. All you can do is cover them with something.

Ahem, yes... I was kind of mixing up a few ideas. I was thinking of what FavouredFlight did in his FotR scenario. That used units to limit movement. But you can't simply make any individual square impassible terrain, so you'd have to use a separate terrain type for the minefield border. And then what you're saying is obviously much better...

But I wasn't sure about how big your minefields are gonna be either. Are they just a few squares, or whole swaths of terrain?

I've also though of using immobile neutral (allied/no negotiation) units to block off areas of the map. That would be used extensively in a WW2 Europe scen that I'm very slowly working on but in this scen, the whole map is game.

Map size: 143x118 squares; minefields are all over the place (so lines about 80 squares in length and 3-4 squares thick). So I guess that would count as whole swaths of terrain.

BTW, I tried out the suicide air 'Mines' unit and K was right, the AI refuses to do anything with it; it doesn't disband, it just sits there and desn't move even when enemy unit are adjacent. Grrr.

Thee of course, is the sea unit in a single Ocean square, but the Ocean square blocks just as much as an immobile Mine would so it seems somewhat redundant. That's about all the ideas I have for MGE.

M's idea of using impassable terrian to keep the Mines unit inside the Minefield is probably the best application of the 'Mines' unit where ToT is concerned.

I was just thinking over the versin where CT event deletes units on certain Minefield sqaures: the one thing I like about this is that air units can't destroy the Mines. At the same time, it also means that air units with 2+ fuel can also be destoryed if they end their turn on one of those squares--not sure which is more stupid: aircraft being destroyed by defending Mines units or being destroyed by entering Minefields.
See, this is why I liked the suicide air unit idea: the unit only appears for 1 turn thus it most likely won't be attacked by another air unit and can't be attacked by most ground units.

Basically what I'm looking for is a solution that reduces health without getting iun the way (obviously this last part is inapplicable if using the immobile Mines unit idea).

I tend to do all the testing with MGE but I would also like to make an MGE version as many players don't have ToT (and seem to refuse to upgrade using Cedrick patch). But, ToT just has SO many advantages over MGE, it seems somewhat counter-productive to waste time with MGE. (The only exception being that I made the MGE combat explosions extra bright so that you can clearly see where combat is taking place when zoomed out on a large map--this can't be done in ToT unless you include exposions into the attack animation of unit sprites...but I'm using REALLY simple-looking units, like those you'd see in a military map showing force locations, so it would be a lot of trouble to go through the animation process uisng CivSprite just to add combat explosions for each of these units.)

 

[Mercator]

You're obviously missing something. You can quite easily change the position of the shield:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=28510

 

[yoshi]

Yes, you can position the shield anywhere within the unit square but what you can't do is make it disappear--or rather make the health bar dissapear, since you can eliminate the shield (in MGE; ToT has no shield, just health bar with a small circualr icon next to it indicating unit status--maybe the ball can be gotten rid of the same way, never tried it) by colouring it in magenta from the default red, thus it it won't be visible in the game.

Anyway, I was thinking over the MGE solution and I'm torn between the sea unit in the lone Ocean square (which works as it should--unit attacks when enemy is adjacent) and an immobile unit.
I know I previously said the sea unit idea wouldn't work out but I can't think of any other way of getting a Mines unit to reduce health whether the player likes it or not (i.e. when your unit is adjacent rather than running into it).

Giving all units the 'Ignore ZOC' ability seems a given in this case. Not a problem since the map is so massive (proportional to the number of units and cities--remember it's the desert) that ZOC would have little effect anyway.

I am also toying with the idea of using the Engineers unit to place and possibly remove Minefield terrain. Any thoughts on how terraforming applications like this would play?

Something else that I haven't given much thought to but I might as well post since this could be helpful to someone else is using the discovery of tech to trigger the placement of Minefields (e.g. discover Minefield tech and Minefield terrain appears within a certain preset area at a cost of gold or something).

 

[Lozzy_Ozzy]

If you have a trench warfare scenario you could have an extra player for the mines.
The mines would be immobile, high defence+hp and sub rule.
You could also have barbed wire:
Terrain-High defence, slow to cross.
Unit-same as mine except not invisible

 

[yoshi]

Actually, I like using a secondary civ (considered to bepart of the human civ only uncontrollable) in scens because it lets you force the player to do certain things like attack at a certain time with the other civs unit or suffer by their defeat. It also lets you divide up forces (e.g. in a WW2 scen divide Germany into different Wehrmact departments: Heer civ, Kriegsmarine civ and Luftwaffe civ).

The thing with mines is, I want the defending civ to actually be able to enter those squares. Your idea, although it has interesting applicatins in other ways, would prevent both sides from entering the squares. The only reason I to use the extra civ would be to handle the job of attacking with air unit Mines with 'destroyed' ability but we've established that the AI doesn't accept that combination...much to my unhappiness.

 

[Lozzy_Ozzy]

Yoshi i do see your point but in real conflicts you don't see people wsalking over their own mines. They know they're there but it doesn't stop you triggering them!
What scenario do you need mines for anyway? Or is it non-specific?

 

[yoshi]

Don't be too literal. Mines are in certain places within the 'square' (i.e. they are in places where the enemy will probably pass but the defending side is well aware of the location of mined areas).
But, sometimes information gets mixed up in war so you have a point.

There is of course another reason and that is that the AI, unlike the human player, will attack ALL the 'Mines' units it sees. The human will only destroy enough Mines to allow him to get by. In addition to that, the human player will have trouble remembering where all the Mines units are and if he is defending, it means they will give him more trouble than they will the AI as the human will be accidentally runing into them all the time.

In the scen I'm working on, the human only plays the attacker so having the AI play properly without interference is essential to gameplayI don't want the AI to be going off wiping the map clear of Mines when it should be attacking me.

 

[Lozzy_Ozzy]

I see your point there yoshi but perhaps you could have the mine player allied to the defender?

 

[yoshi]

Could do that. Would also serve to keep the AI on its side of the lines.

 

[Lozzy_Ozzy]

Exactly my point!
Good luck on the mine idea, i'll try to keep posting

 

[Mercator]

Yes, you can position the shield anywhere within the unit square but what you can't do is make it disappear (...)

Are you using the in-game editor or something? With that the shield position is indeed limited. If you edit the bitmap itself you can position the shield at the right-bottom pixel, effectively removing it from view.

 

[yoshi]

I can't believe I forgot you could do that...and I NEVER use the in-game editor!

You'll have to pardon me M, but I suffer from...how shall I say...retardation.