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Missing Units in BTS

there are way too many units in the modern era already. i used to love the modern era, but im finding it more of a chore rather than fun these days. ancient to industrial eras have a good balance of units already. dont add more. it become ridiculous. paratroopers, airships, anit-tank... are all cool, but they add NOTHING to the overall gameplay. if u want a counter unit to tanks, why not give some sort of bonus to marines or infantry instead, maybe +50% vs tanks/mech inf/modern armour, or something. we dont need another unit. or just start them with the vs armoured unit promotion.

i always thought that one of the main concepts of Civ IV was to have fewer units to streamline gameplay. it seems with BTS they have created a few to many units to counter other units to try and balance the game. it was fine before. maybe few tweaks, no more units!!!

sorry, just my little rant!
 
I have one word for you, just one word....

DOGS! :D

Yes dogs - they were used for warfare by so many nations for such a long time... where are they in the game?

My scouts are usually passing through their digestive systems by 2000BC.
 
My scouts are usually passing through their digestive systems by 2000BC.

That is just too funny!! lol

Personally I think promotions take care of the any new specialty unit possibilities. Perhaps some new promotion lines could do some good. Some combat types are actually a PART of a functioning division (or unit). Like mechanics and armor units, radio and artillary, FO and artillary or airstrikes, etc... same as wardogs would be dispersed among ground unit, modern mortar as support attached to an infantry battalion and such.
The promotions represent this fairly well. That little infantry fella you have that runs around the map with two city attack promotions is probably well armed with mortor units and has strong door to door training, while the one that guards your lumbermills with 3 woodland promotions is equipped with FO, mortars, MG support for digging in and heavy com skills for communication.
Marines or paradrops would go SF by recieving the promotions to make them a special forces unit. Ive had marines in the past who have promoted to the point of crossing the line of decency in modern civilized warfare. (heh) I had to rename that one.

One thing I would like to see is a general modernizing of everyones military at a certain point past the modern age. As when a majority percent of civs have entered the modern age, then the third worlders could auto upgrade to rifleman, as all the old units are obsolete, and noone in their right mind would arm a city militia with crossbows when they can go to the sporting goods store and buy an older version hunting rifle.
Perhaps this could be a free (or very cheap) upgrade for the AI and it take some tediousness away from any player who finds himself in that unfortunate predicament. It would cut down on the work of upgrading all those outdated units for those who HAVE entered the modern age as well.
Kinda like in civ 3 with the guerilla.
 
Some ideas….


Naval / land mines (naval and land unit to counter them)

Long range attacks

Sentry balloons / planes

Workers being able to alter the terrain further (I always thought it was a little off that when a unit fortifies a spot, those fortifications cease to be after the defeat of that unit. I would like to see some type of remnant of that fortification. Trenches etc did not just evaporate with the destruction of the creators. At the current stage of BTS I still think that unit numbers far outweighs unit placement, the latter should be true)

Coastal fortifications

Some type of guerrilla unit would be a nice addition as well


Type of radar unit

Propaganda spreaders, ex. Diplomats, beyond what spies do, or addition to spy abilities.
Or a type of spy unit that can effect military units. I would personally like to see more religious, diplomatic and espionage units add into the game. I have some decent ideas on that topic. But I have not messed around with mod’n at all.

That’s all I could think of off the top of my head.

On a side note weather systems would be a nice addition in a future expansion.
 
One thing I think is very unrealistic is the fact that walls and castles are so irrelevant to self-defense. I almost never build them. In ancient times, walls were absolutely critical to cities protection. To think that "culture" provides this in pre-AD civ is very unrealistic. I think culture shouldn't give so much defensive protection to cities at least in the early ages. One reason the Spartans were reknown in the Greek world was that Sparta didn't have walls. It's soldiers were it's walls. I wish walls played a more important role in civ too.
 
Well, there are three main holes, in the units upgrade paths that have old an modern units on the battlefield at the same time which just does'nt look right

Pikemen an longbowmen running around in the cannon, grenadier, currisars & cavalry era, it just does'nt look right, when things like pikes are fighting modern cavarly or you are bombarding longbows with cannons, it just goes against what people expect the look of combat in that period to be, units that have there basis in the napolonic era are engaged with ones that have there roots back in medieval times, while i know that early gunpowder units existed side by side with these units before eventually replacing them, in game terms longbows an pikes last to long and extend to far forward into the gunpowder age and the gunpowder era just does'nt look quite right as a result.

Solution, Musketmen the current no role, an forgotten unit of the period should replace these units, and have a 25% bonus vs mounted like riflemen, so, longbows, crossbows an pikemen should all upgrade to the early musketmen unit, the result is the unit now has a clear upgrade path from previous units, which in itself will help to bring the poor old forgotten musketmen into the game far more, and the late gunpowder era will be more characterised by cannons, currisars, grenadiers, & musketmen all doing battle, rather than longbows an pikemen, it will give the era a feel more authentic and real to that timeperiod. cavalry with rifles being fighting men with pikes looks a bit naff.

Mounted unit upgrade path, Mounted units have no proper upgrade path past cavalry, the gunship is miles away, the modern day equivalents of cavalry are helicopters which now fill the role of old light cavalry an tanks which are the modern versions of heavy cavalry, in terms of gameplay it would be much better if cavalry could be upgraded to either tanks or gunships, since these are the modern day equivalents of the unit an this would solve the huge gap between cavs an gunships, it's like a riflemen upgrading straight to a mech inf with nothing slotted in between, they need a more viable and shorter upgrade path an allowing them to upgrade to tanks or gunships would solve that.

Last one has already been mentioned a few times, an thats catapults an trebuchets, something like a mortar or early cannon unit should arrive, before cannon proper, or simply move cannons to a earlier teck with an inherant combat penalty which is only removed once steel is discovered, but again trebuchets an catapults running around with grenadiers, etc does not look right for this era.

BTS took a big step from warlords in terms of enhancing the various unit upgrade paths, era's, sailing ship combat which was a weak area before has been done very nicely in BTS, late modern versions of arty an sam infantry have also given the late modern era a proper feel and that era is now fully done justice too, the only thing they really need to sort out now is the gunpowder era, and not so much in terms of big gameplay changes but, bringing the musketmen more into play, so that he bridges the gap between medieval an late gunpowder, he does'nt bridge this gap at the moment since he has no upgrade path from prev units, and this results in to many old style units getting into the later gunpoweder era, which just does'nt look right at all, the trebuchet/cannon issue is also one that needs addressing but these are'nt big things so i dont see why firaxis cant just tweak this in a future patch
 
Steel was certainly not a prerequisite in human history for the development the cannon.
 
But all of NATO has modern armor IRL, but not stealths.

That doesn't necessarily mean they can't build them. They probably choose not to as they are very expensive and don't fit in with the overall role of NATO, which is primarily geared towards defense. Stealth Bombers are principally an offensive weapon.
 
On a side note weather systems would be a nice addition in a future expansion.

I've been hoping for that as well. It wouldn't be that hard to do either. You have two sine waves in the north and south representing the jet streams. All weather systems would be concentrated along those two waves and the amplitudes would randomly change as they moved from west to east. White clouds would be beneficial to farmlands and have little effect on land units, and grey clouds would harm crops and halt movement of land units for one turn. At sea, white clouds would force sailing ships off course and grey ones have the possibility of sinking all ships. That possibility is reduced with oil/coal/nuclear powered ships
 
I've been hoping for that as well. It wouldn't be that hard to do either. You have two sine waves in the north and south representing the jet streams. All weather systems would be concentrated along those two waves and the amplitudes would randomly change as they moved from west to east. White clouds would be beneficial to farmlands and have little effect on land units, and grey clouds would harm crops and halt movement of land units for one turn. At sea, white clouds would force sailing ships off course and grey ones have the possibility of sinking all ships. That possibility is reduced with oil/coal/nuclear powered ships

yes, I was thinking the exact same thing. Wind speed altering naval movement, weather patterns altering the global terrain, global warming, glaciers receding/moving, water levels rising and lowering, even thought of altering animal migration if not domesticated, fish migrating with weather patterns, stuff like this, I have a bunch of ideas on this topic.
 
That doesn't necessarily mean they can't build them. They probably choose not to as they are very expensive and don't fit in with the overall role of NATO, which is primarily geared towards defense. Stealth Bombers are principally an offensive weapon.

The US is the only nation currently capable of stealth technology, though the Russians are testing some stuff. And NATO was geared towards defense, but have gotten more aggresive the fall of the Iron Curtain, Kosovo for instance.
 
I like the idea of a mortar/bombard . It looks really weird now attacking a city with trebs and gunpowder units.

I'd like a special forces unit to which marines and paratroopers could upgrade, possibly with the abillity to go on mountain peaks.

To me there's a glaring hole between galleons and transports, Ships of the Line and Battleships. I'd like to see steamship transports and coal-fired pre-dreadnought battleships bridge that gap.

Long range jet bombers.

OH ! I often wish that the existing musketman would be designated " matchlock", that would upgrade to "flintlocks" , making bowmen and pikemen obsolete, but I realize it would detract, rather than add to standard speed games.
 
Just some corrections, Destroyers were the backbone of EVERY navy in the second world war, not Cruisers etc so destroyers are an excellent choice for sea unit. I see cruisers and heavy cruisers coming under the catch all of Battleships in civ. Most nations had their own designation for battleships anyway and didnt agree. A battleship is just a big ship (eg heavy cruiser also)

Also Kosovo had UN involvement not Nato. Nato nations were involved but it was a UN Resolution and im pretty certain most units had UN Peacekeeping markers.
 
Also Kosovo had UN involvement not Nato. Nato nations were involved but it was a UN Resolution and im pretty certain most units had UN Peacekeeping markers.

Not quite. The NATO nations voted and decided that Kosovo needed to be bombed. It was NATO's first time of using the alliance for an operation outside of a member country. But you are right that the UN was involved.
 
Here's a missing weapon:

Greek fire.

Make it a special event that allows an upgrade to ships.

I also think there's an argument for making cannons available earlier. As it is, you get a gunpowder unit as soon as you discover gunpowder, but didn't historically the large gunpowder preceed the smaller? Don't cannons predate the use of gunpowder by infantry by a couple of centuries? I know Civ doesn't -have- to be historically accurate but cannons seem to come way too late to me. Steel?

Maybe an early weak cannon, or another gap-filler. Perhaps a siege tower that allows you to load a unit of troops into it, and when they attack they can bypass city walls? Or a battering room that can break down walls or castles? Or just make them plain ol' siege units. Perhaps the ballista, onager/mangonel? Or maybe I just need to upgrade my trebs properly :)
 
My ideas

Skirmishers -2st 150% vs melle 50% retreat causes coll
missile infantry -4st 100%vs swordsmen
heavy cavalry -6st 50% archers (makes castles more important)

Bill men -6st 50% denfence +10% vs pikemen
Bombard -7st same as cannons effects
Skirmish muskets -6st 75% retreat causes coll
lancers -6st 150% vs knights & elephants

Dragoons -13st 75% retreat causes coll
Ambisquers -8st 75%vs grenadier
longrange cannon -12 st less bombard picks out cannons in enmy stack
bayoneted muskets-12st recieves no coll damage

mark 4 -20st 25%vs gunpowder
howizer - 18st, less bombard picks out artillery in enmy stack

motarmen -18st 75% retreat ,coll damage
 
The US is the only nation currently capable of stealth technology, though the Russians are testing some stuff. And NATO was geared towards defense, but have gotten more aggresive the fall of the Iron Curtain, Kosovo for instance.

There are many nations that could develop a stealth aircraft, or any other stealth technology. Finland for example has the first active stealth frigates in its navy, with more under construction. Most countries simply dont see it as being worth the cash. With NATO and the UN most countries wouldn't have to undertake a large scale air campaign on their own, and since the US has stealths, no one else in NATO (or to a lesser degree the UN) needs them to be able to undertake offensive operations.
 
The Wolfshanze Mod does a lot of this. (though it does it by moving Cannon back)

Not the Biplane though.
 
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