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[Chaos Blade]

Hi all, name's Chaos Blade been a fan of this series of games back since the very first one.

I've purchased Civ V not too long ago and after trying some of the available mods I was left unsatisfied (the vanilla game is not even worth mentioning)


And, assuming I an get some time/will I'll try creating my own
So far I want to use this thread to put in place some of the issues I want to address.
Honestly this thread was born out of insomnia and the idea of "I can do better" not leaving me alone last night. So I thought I'll post it here, see if I can get some feedback and start working on this.

Strategic resources: this goes for the non mineral ones, like wheat, spices and even dyes. while they do need some circumstances for ideal growth, I really dislike the found it in the map approach. yeah early ages? more or less ok, except witth Wheat.
My conceptual idea would be to have tiles where they can be planted (special resource tiles) assuming you have access to one such resource (it should be time intensive, at least with say dyes and spices) and this is without the exploration building (and probably to a lower yield than naturally found ones)

Unique units: after some time thinking about this I loathe them. they provide some advantage but they are too narrow and not really worth it. Worse, most of the time these units were the result of circumstantial growth and were extensively copied.
Case and point? the Phalanx. go back enough and Mediterranean conflict was based all about phalanxes going at it.
So how would I tackle it? refinement in techs. the thing is that the Phalanx or the Legion or even the Tercio are the result of tactics and battlefield doctrines, additional research.
So they would be open to everybody assuming you are willing to invest the added time.
I have in mind something for the particular mechanics, although much of it would be dependent on weather exclusive research is possible.

Additionally in an effort to be more historically accurate, I'll probably get rid of the swordsman altogether.

More latter.

Continued:

Bronze and Iron working are too important techs and should influence pretty much everything. honestly it should be interesting to divide the "Ancient" or Classical ages to Bronze and Iron resp.

Conceptually the tech line would be like this (do keep in mind this is very incomplete and very much a beta)

Bronze working---Bronze tools-----Early Mining.....................]
....................................................................................]---Iron Working---Iron Tools
Bronze working---Bronze tools -----Advanced Bronze Working..].....................]
...........................................................................................................]---Iron Weapons
Bronze working---Bronze weapons--------------------------------------------]
...............................]
...............................]---Phalanx
...............................]
..........Military tactics-]

Tool Research should impact both worker and improvement efficiency, Say a +1 and +2 respectively
Same thing would be for Bronze and Iron Weapons to existing units, if possible, this bonuses should be minute and far less than a dedicated Bronze or Iron unit, but should represent the implementation of these new technologies (or rather would represent the soldiers buying their new weapons)
And the Phalanx, for instance, would be a further development of Bronze weapons and some Doctrinal tech,

So it would be a choice of going full steam to iron or to develop the weapons and tactics to its fullest. Both would offer risks, both would offer benefits.

Of course, this would mean production times of units would have to go down, research time, specially of these key techs, would go up (or a mixture of both)

And this leads me to one of the biggest issue of the game the one unit per tile limit.
I am not as opposed to it as I thought I'd be. Honestly the stacks of doom made combat, in one word, tedious. in two? ad very.
But going to 1 UPT is a bit too much, I think. To the point maneuvering armies is one big headache (workers too). Yes, it can be said that managing armies is a headache, but at the level this game is played it should be some virtual clerk's headache.
If possible this would have to be relaxed somewhat, perhaps up to 4 UPT, 2 at the very least.

Naval wise there are many things to be done, applying a similar refinement techs and changing a questionable chooses (honestly, the early warships were more of a ramming/boarding thing all the way till Drake.

Like I said this is very much a work in progress at the conceptual level, there is a lot I need to know if it is actually doable, if it is doable and the AI can be enticed to use it and let's not forget balance and fine tuning.
But at this stage I'd like feedback and a bit of direction or advice.

 

[Chaos Blade]

Well, had hoped to receive some sort of feedback, but understand that so far these are ramblings, just words. I will probably add some more to this both to drop the ideas in the forum and to see if I can turn this into a project.

Units:
The way I see the breakdown of units is in four main land classes

Line- your offensive troop, Bonus on open ground, probably will have some rough terrain minuses in the earlier eras.

Garrison - cheaper, weaker, more defensive minded

Ranged - like it says in the tin, main weapon is ranged, might or might not be able to engage in melee and might be mounted (chariots, mounted archers, 'flying' artillery, etc)

Mounted - again very descriptive, might have a ranged attack (but weaker than its melee, otherwise it would fall into Ranged)


Each of these categories would have some lateral upgrades, of course this is the point I am unsure about, since upgrade seems very lineal so it might need a workaround, from what I've read, so far, doesn't seem likely one exists. Alternatively, given the specialist nature of most of these "upgrades" would be available only though raising new units.
If that's the case, the bonuses or advantages should be good enough to offset the possible 'handicap' of using a green unit instead of promoting a veteran (might use the quick learning option on some of the elites as an offset, if needed)

Anyway a few examples

The Spearman is your basic bronze age line unit, would have a slight defensive bonus against mounted and a negative in rough terrain

the Phalanx (one of the potential spearman upgrades) would have a slightly higher strength, no bonus against mounted (this would be offset by weaker mounted unit in the early eras) an offensive bonus (in open terrain) a bonus for friendly adjacent and a negative bonus in rough terrain
The reasons: The phalanx is a very aggressive formation, it is also somewhat brittle, hence the penalties for rough terrain and the no bonus against mounted.
Yes, a cav charge against a formed phalanx has better than average chances of ending like a brochette, however if you are charging against any of the other three sides, well...
ideally the unit should have a minus if more than one enemy is adjacent, not sure if it can be coded or if it can be made to stack (that is if there are 2 enemies adjacent you get a -10, if 3 are adjacent a -20 and so on) and a bonus for each adjacent friendly. that would be a better representation of the combat of the era (and would let me add in the a cav defense bonus)

 

[kwenkun]

This is some big ideas you are suggesting. It maybe viable to do a total revamp of tech trees and unit data to match it (extensive work require commitment), but the difficulty is always "Will the AI know about it?". Given the broken AI (especially combat) and inability to change it as of right now I don't see a clear way to proceed upon this.

Also I myself believe in bigger is not better, given more selections of route, making less interesting choices could become boring and bad mechanics.

As for your formation ideas, it can be easily achieved under the xml entry right now, in fact that i think that is the default setting for all unit in civ 5.