Naval mines: seeking suggestions

[Herostratus]

I want to try to add a naval mine unit to my basegame mod (i.e., this isn't a scenario). I probably would not make it a missile unit, as my plan is to make it zero-movement and therefore incapable of attacking.

The tricky part is deployment. Since it appears that no unit can be paradropped into the ocean, I'm exploring other options. The Scenario League page on unit flags says:

Sea-carriers need to be mentioned here because there is a special case for the sea-carrier. There are regular sea-carriers and then there are sea-carriers with holds. Generally, the carrier ability takes precedence. A ground unit can move onto a carrier-transport by the shore but when the carrier-transport moves off, the ground unit is left sleeping the sea. The only limited way this quirk might be useful is perhaps as a mine-layer. The mines would be submarine land units with a big defense value and no attack. Moving the mines further away from the home port would require a step by step process. The mine is automatically dropped as the mine-layer moves off. Then the mine can be moved back onto the mine-layer under its own power. When the mine-layer moves off again, the mine would be two spaces away from the home city and so on.

My first question is: am I right in suspecting that a minelayer unit of this sort would be used only as a standard aircraft carrier by the AI?

Secondly, am I right in suspecting that making the mine a zero-movement air unit would also not work, as it would lose fuel each turn?

And finally, has anybody made naval mines function well?

 

[Catfish]

My first question is: am I right in suspecting that a minelayer unit of this sort would be used only as a standard aircraft carrier by the AI?

Dunno, you'll have to test. My guess is yes. It certainly wouldn't get used as an effective mine layer. IIRC, the AI doesn't even make good use of regular carriers. Kobayashi could give you an answer on that; he's got plenty of them in his DST scenario. The mine unit itself would probably get used as a regular land unit.

Secondly, am I right in suspecting that making the mine a zero-movement air unit would also not work, as it would lose fuel each turn?

I don't believe so. I think they only run out of fuel when they're selected for movement (flashing) - and you can't select a 0-movement unit - although in my WotR scenario I gave a 0-movement air unit maximum range (127) just to be sure (the scenario is 99 turns). If you gave it 0 range (helicopter), it could be attacked by any sea/air unit, not just those with the Fighter flag. That's preferable really, otherwise units without the Fighter flag would effectively be immune to those static mines. How would you deploy a 0-movement unit in your mod?

And finally, has anybody made naval mines function well?

In scenarios (not mods), yeah, but they're either deployed by events or they're in place at the start of the game. Examples include Red Front and The Cruel Sea. The mines in these scenarios are static, but I seem to recall being 'attacked' by drifters in some scenario. Some mines are hidden.

 

[kobayashi]

Dunno, you'll have to test. My guess is yes. It certainly wouldn't get used as an effective mine layer. IIRC, the AI doesn't even make good use of regular carriers. Kobayashi could give you an answer on that; he's got plenty of them in his DST scenario. The mine unit itself would probably get used as a regular land unit.

The funny thing is that the original quote from the Scenario League is actually written by none other than kobayashi in his article Mixing and Matching Land, Sea and Air Unit Abilities.

Sea-carriers need to be mentioned here because there is a special case for the sea-carrier. There are regular sea-carriers and then there are sea-carriers with holds. Generally, the carrier ability takes precedence. A ground unit can move onto a carrier-transport by the shore but when the carrier-transport moves off, the ground unit is left sleeping the sea. The only limited way this quirk might be useful is perhaps as a mine-layer. The mines would be submarine land units with a big defense value and no attack. Moving the mines further away from the home port would require a step by step process. The mine is automatically dropped as the mine-layer moves off. Then the mine can be moved back onto the mine-layer under its own power. When the mine-layer moves off again, the mine would be two spaces away from the home city and so on.

and the answer to the first question is, AI is dumb. It will actually drag out normal land units to sea and let them sleep all around the port.

 

[Rommel1942]

i just made my naval mine movement 1, made them cheap and not much on the defense so it really just slows up the enemy, instead of sinking everything. Unless you're ahead in tech, that is....

i have another odd sea unit i'm trying to create.... is there any way to make a unit specific to the barbarians, so no one else can build it? (mod, not scenario)

I'm trying to make a giant squid unit that would only be able to heavily damage ships up to the age of magnetism, but I don't want any of the civilizations to build it. If i make it come with map making, and expire with it, will the barbarians still have them?

If this is possible, i'd like make other barbarian units that are really "mother nature"... the kraken, or maybe weather patterns? typhoons? hurricanes? could be interesting.

 

[Catfish]

i have another odd sea unit i'm trying to create.... is there any way to make a unit specific to the barbarians, so no one else can build it? (mod, not scenario)

I'm trying to make a giant squid unit that would only be able to heavily damage ships up to the age of magnetism, but I don't want any of the civilizations to build it. If i make it come with map making, and expire with it, will the barbarians still have them?

What version of Civ2 are you running? Things are so much easier in ToT. To prevent unit production you can make unit prerequisite techs unavailable (a few options there), or if you're using ToT, restrict specific units to the barbarian tribe using the Advanced Units section in Rules.txt. As to the appearance/expiry issue, my method would also depend on the version. I'd use events (ReceivedTechnology, Flag, CheckFlag, CreateUnit) for ToT; for earlier versions I'd be forced to work with the hard-coded barbarian activity (see William Keenan's Barbarian Paper).

What do you mean by 'If i make it come with map making, and expire with it, will the barbarians still have them?' Do you mean: will these barbarian units disappear the instant someone researches Magnetism?

 

[Souron]

I should really read the post above before posting

 

[yoshi]

I want to try to add a naval mine unit to my basegame mod (i.e., this isn't a scenario). I probably would not make it a missile unit, as my plan is to make it zero-movement and therefore incapable of attacking.

The tricky part is deployment. Since it appears that no unit can be paradropped into the ocean, I'm exploring other options. The Scenario League page on unit flags says:

If you were designing a scenario (i.e. on a pre-made map with pre-placed cities), I'd suggest just using events to spawn in the static Naval Mines for the AI. Since you're talking about a mod of vCiv2, then your decision to go with a slow sea unit is probably the best.

Just note that if you give the unit the 'Coastal' attribute to keep it in coastal waters for example, it will only apply to the human player (i.e. AI units with 'coastal' flag don't sink in open water).