New unit ability/wonder ability request thread

[cracker]

I have posted this here in the improved traits thread, but if anyone feels it ought to be moved to a separate thread of its own please let me know by Private Message (PM)

---

The current game only has six possible basic traits for civilizations to be assigned and each civ gets two traits at a time. This makes for a maximum of 5+4+3+2+1= 15 possible trait combinations. Each additional trait that could be added to the games would add n-1 possible combinations where n is the number of the trait being added. So adding a seventh trait would increase the possible unique civ profiles to 21 and adding an 8th trait would increase the possible unique civ profiles to 29.

Here are basic suggestions for Four new civ trait sets that should be considered and added to the editor. This suggestion is not meant to infer that any of the existing civs should be changed nor is it intended to imply that Firaxis should develop any new civs to use the traits, it would just be nice to add the traits into the option list to support scenarios and development.

The basic concepts driving these suggestions are:

1. There is currently no civ trait that confers water specific advantages
2. There is currently no civ trait that enhances happiness and peaceful paths to winning outside of culture and science.
3. There is currently no civ trait that specifically enhances agriculture
4. There is currently no trait that effectively creates some effects that mimic a hunter-gatherer society
   [/list=1]
   
   So here are the suggestions:
   
   Self-Actualized (extra happy peacful civ) civilization trait
   • Gets extra numbers of content citizens above the difficulty setting level (1 per town, 2 per city, 4 per metro)
   • Doubles the effects of specialist citizens without increasing their food costs.
   • The cost of selected improvements that are tied to the trait are reduced by 50%
   • Can produce great leaders without combat by using the method shown below.
   
   The ability to produce great leaders peacefully must be severely controlled or it could be unbalancing in a big way. Civs that have this trait could produce great leaders peacefully by using the "wealth" setting in the production queue to engage a probability of producing a great leader. The wealth setting would still produce wealth but the additional probability of producing a leader would be calculated based on the total number of shields of production that are assigned to wealth in all the cities of the empire. A base factor for this probability needs to be set in the editor in the general game settings. I would initially set the base factor for a peaceful leader to be 100 and then us it in the following formula:
   
   GL(%) = $Shields / (IF( $Shields < (base) ) then ( ( $Shields / ($Shields + 15*base) ) else (0.0625 + (0.2 * ($shields - base) / $shields + 15*base))
   
   This equations should have the probability rise to a level of 1 in 16 per turn and then continue going up but with only a 20% increase of the prior rate. The 20% multiplier is set here in this example but should be included in the general settings of the editor.
   
   Producing a peaceful leader would also drain a percentage of the civ's treasury because the peaceful leader would use that cash to fund some project or build an army. The cash used up by the peaceful leader should also be set in the general settings of the editor.
   
   ----
   
   Maritime civilization trait
   • Begins the game with the ability to BUILD a simple an inexpensive naval unit without a pre-requisite tech.
   • Gains the ability to build naval type units on any body of water.
   • The cost of coastal installations would be reduced by 50%
   • The movement value of all naval units with more than one move point would be increased by 1.
   • Gains the ability to cross rivers without a movement penalty even before the prerequisite tech is discovered.
   • Gains the ability for any naval unit with an attack value of 1 or less (A<=1) to harvest the benefit of bonus squares in water just by sitting on that square without expending any movement points for an entire turn.
   
   Food and production benefits from maritime resource benefit would accrue to the nearest and/or largest town/ city in the civ regardless of wether that town or city had a harbor. The maritime resource benefit could not be used on resources within the cultural boundaries of another civ.
   
   
   Agricultural civilization trait
   • Workers can irrigate squares in 1/2 the time
   • Workers can plant Forest in 1/2 the time after the prereq tech is discovered
   • Reduces the cost of selected improvements by 50%
   • Removes the despot food production penalty in towns of pop 6 or less.
   
   Hunter-Gatherer civilization trait
   • Doubles the value of resources worked by citizens within the boundaries of a town or city.
   • Increases the food production value of jungles, tundra, and mountains by 1 food unit (subject to despot penalties)
   • INCREASES the cost of selected improvements until a prerequisite tech is researched.
   • Activates the worker ability to gather the benefits from resources that are not being worked by civilians. (see below)
   • The ability to set a prerequisite tech that eliminates the special traits of this civ trait.
   
   The hunter/gather worker ability would be an automatic function whenever the worker occupied a terrain square with a resource and expended no movement points for that turn. The trait would function on any tile connected to the civ by roads. Food and production benefits from hunter gatherer workers would accrue to the nearest and/or largest town/ city in the civ. The hunter/gather resource benefit could not be used on resources within the cultural boundaries of another civ even if a ROP was in place.
   
   Note that the hunter gatherer trait would be intended to create civs that could do better in marginal terrain areas early in the game while potentially limiting their access to technology and culture through the increased improvement costs. The intent would be to have these civs be able to gain enlightenment at some point later in the game even if this enlightenment forced them to give up the continued benefit of their "wild ways"
   
   
   An added final note: The combinations of special abilities shown with the suggested civ traits above are just suggestions floated in an attempt to create a package of special advantages that would make the traits very valuable to certain strategies and under certain specific terrain conditions. The abilities listed are also intended to fill gaps and provide traits that would be significantly different from the exist 6 traits that are already included in the game.

 

[KrakHed]

An "ESCORT" ability should be added so that military units who share a
position with another unit can attach to and protect that unit. This option would save many players a great deal of time and unit coordination. This new option would work best if set as an On/Off button.
The escort ability, which would prove invaluable during times of war, is a historically accurate function of armies throughout civilization in all cultures.

EXAMPLES:

Pikeman occupies square with Worker. Pikeman duty is set to "escort".
("escort" button set to on)
When Worker moves, Pikeman follows. Worker is now protected by Pikeman.
Setting Pikeman's "escort" button to "off" position would detach him from Worker.

Transport unit is loaded with invasion forces. Cruiser, Battleship, or Destroyer attaches and escorts transport across ocean, protecting the invading forces from annihilation before reaching land.

Of course, certain requirements would have to met;
Escorting unit should have at least as much movement as defended unit.
Land units should only be able to have 1 escort. Air/Sea units could have 2.
Land units should have a defense of Zero in order to be escorted. (There are only 5, Settler, Worker, Scout, Explorer, Leader)

 

[cracker]

krakhead, I have not successfully searched back through all the threads on this site and Poly yet, but I am reasonably certain that some form of the excort function is already being tested for the XP and perhaps an upcoming patch. I remember this discussion from one of the chat logs or threads with a Firaxis participant where it talked about a function to match the movement of groups of diverse units into a cohesive movement block that would keep the units together even when movement capabilities would normally be different.

I cannot remember if this was called convoy or escort, but I think it was a command function.

Perhaps Firaxis will confirm this info.

What closely to read the Readme file on the next patch.

 

[bd2000]

I would like to have for units :
- a free support flag,
- a needed government type,
- an obsolesence flag (in a way you can no longer build it, not an upgrade path),
- a unhappy flag (if the unit is in a city, a citizen is unhappy),
- a unique instance flag.

The last one means you can build only one unit of this type but you can (or cannot depending on a second flag) build a new one once it is destroyed.

I know the unhappy flag is coded for nuclear devices so il should not be too much of a trouble to extend it.

Most of these things were existing in Civ2 and were very useful in scenarii creation.

I see a few concepts (slavery, guerilla style troops...) that cannot get the needed depth until these few tools are available.

 

[Quentin]

Let workers have the ability to stay in a city and help out in construction of an improvement/unit/small wonder/great wonder(?). Maybe have each worker contribute a base of 2 shields of production to the city they are in during each turn that they are doing this. This would give them something more to do.

 

[cracker]

It would be nice to have a simple check box that lets the edtor select "Obsolete on Upgrade" to determine if the existing unit should no longer be available when an upgrade unit is enabled.

This flag being set to "On" (or checked) would be just like the current game play condition that is hardcoded for every upgrade.

If the flag was "off" (or unchecked) the old units would still be available in the build queues even when the upgrade unit becomes available.

----

The upgrade cost multiplier would be based on 100 being the the same a 1 times the current upgrade cost scheme. Choosing a value of 90 would reduce the unit upgrade cost to 90% of what the game would normally calculate based on the shield cost differential. Choosing and upgrade cost multiplier of 200 would make the cost of upgrading the unit be double what the standard game algorithm would calculate for the upgrade.

----

Putting both these features in place would let scenario developers (and Firaxis) define units that could be built in one city and then be upgraded in another city under different conditions.
An easy exampl would be to build educated citizen units that would have a high school education and then let them travel to cities or towns with a uiniversity and get upgraded to college graduates that have better skills and abilities. The key point is to have an upgrade sequence that does not obsolete the lower level units that might need to be built in less productive cities to fulfill a role in the civilaization at some lower or less productive level.

Note that some of the upgrade sequence logic could make use of the discussion that allows units to be limited to being built only in cities with certain prerequiste wonders or improvements, but that is a separate discussion topic.

The upgrade cost multiplier could be used to tilt the various strategies in favor of waiting to build certain units or in favor of building extra units that could later be upgraded. The limitation in the current game is entirely set by the shield cost differential, so if a unit is cheap to build and not much more expensive than its predecessor then it is cheap to upgrade.

An application of the upgrade cost multiplier combined with the obsolete on upgrade flag might be to allow cavalry to be upgraded to tanks, but to set the obsolete on upgrade flag to keep cavalry from going away, and to make the upgrade cost for upgrading cavalry units to tanks be somewhere higher than the caost the game would typically calculate. In reality, almost all of the Tank unit commanders were actually "upgraded from former cavalry officers and if you look at the insignia for military armored units you see the crossed cavalry sabres in a lasting memorial to this colorful history.

 

[Smoking mirror]

I want to have a Military supply unit for that can be dispanded in cities where it is needed, an essential process for building improvements in high coruption cities.
It would also be good for having a set of liquid resources for warfare, so you could build a fleet of suply vehicles to dispand in newly captured cities to produce walls/barracks/happiness.

 

[Smoking mirror]

An improvement, similar to the capitalisation improvement that converts shields into luxuries, for custom governments that feature a democratic type government (high war weariness) but with a socialist (comunal) economy can atempt to fight a war with out suffering a total breakdown of the economy.

 

[cracker]

Smoking Mirror,

Have you put a little more detailed thought into what you are asking above?

Could you either edit the post to clarify what you mean or add another post that gives a better description of how this might work (even if this is highly speculative stuff)?

From first glance it sounds like you are asking for an ability flag to add to an improvement, that would let you build the improvement for example for 120 shields and then after the improvement is built the city would have an option in the queue sort of like wealth that would let you convert shields into luxuries in that city for the next turn at some sort of ratio.

Since you are typically having to pay 40 or 50 gold per turn for 20 turns in order to buy a luxury for the your whole empire, That would mean that an equvalent number of shields to build a new luxury item would be at least on the order of 160 to 200 shields per turn. If luxuries are being created in cities on a per turn basis using an improvement that is built in individual cities, which cities will you be using to generate this 160 to 200 shields per turn.

I cannot even begin to fathom what the appropriate and proportionate cost of building a new luxury from scratch might be. Since buying a luxury for 20 turns might cost 800 to 1000 gold then a 4 to 1 ratio of shields would require you to spend 3200 to 4000 shields to just build a luxury that would evaporate after 20 turns.

Not a critique, just trying to grasp what you mean here.

 

[Smoking mirror]

The wealth improvement allows shields to be directly converted in to coins at a percentage rate (I think to start with its 4 or 5 shields make one coin, later when you have economics this increases to 2 or 3 shields makes one coin, so a city with production of 20, produces 10 extra coins, I don't remember the exact figures). Any way if this could be done with luxuries at a reduced rate, you could quell individual cities, without having to lower your overall luxury rate.

Say you are in a war and st. pertersburg is suffering heavily from war weariness, it is not a major production city ( no factory, and around 50% coruption) and its cathedral has just been destroyed in a bombing raid. It would take too long to rebuild the cathedral and the only alternatives are to end your war (not always possible), increase the luxury rate for the whole empire, or draft in some entertainers (you could just leave them in disorder, but that is lunacy). But what if the harbour has also been destroyed, or the irrigation has been pillaged? all you can do then is watch you people starve.

If you could build luxuries, the cities production could be turned in to happiness at a reduced rate (say 25%). An alternative would be to be able to set the luxury/science/tax rate individualy for each city ( how good would that be!) but I think that would unballance the game.

 

[Frog Propaganda]

First off, great thread. All the ideas here would make life for modders bliss. I've been thinking about futuristic super-weapons, and these abilities would be really cool to implement. Anyway, here is a few ideas off the top of my head.

"Atomic Cannon"- What about a trigger that makes a bombard unit launch nuclear shells, with the same damage as a ICBM or Tac Nuke? While something you would never use in the main game, it make for a intresting player-made scenario set in the future.

Expand the max. range for bombard and air units. Also, would it be possible to give a minimum range for bombard? That would be really helpful. 8 spaces for max range is just far too small.

Manhattan Project/Wonder as a unit prequisite: I was thinking about the MP wonder and came up with an intresting idea. Instead of hardcoding only one option(every civ builds nukes) what if you could make a wonder and use a trigger to toggle what buildings/units you can make with it. This way, things like the Apollo Program and Manhattan Project can be changed to build other superunits/structures or the player can have the option to add a whole different wonder. Let this be a great and small wonder option please.

Nuke Blast Area: I think for most purposes, blasts should be in the 9-tile standard format. But a slider/box to change the area to 2, 3 or even something more extreme would be really cool. Superweapon scenarios would be hillarious to make, if a little hard to balance.

Global Warming Modifier: This would be sooooo cool. Just a simple slider that adjusts how quickly/slowly tiles change from pollution. Man, this would be helpful.

I second culture, country, and/or government specific buildings/wonders. Making scenarios that the civs are truly a different experience to play would add tremendous depth to a game.

All of these I posted at Apolyton, but you guys have a far more organized system going here. Kudos to cracker and the rest of you, lets help in making the editor as in-depth as Firaxis can code it.

 

[candidgamera]

We already have variable pop costs for units - using that regularly now. And we already have variable costs on buildings - let's add this to units. Tanks cost more to maintain than infantry, likewise subs verses battleships, carriers.


Cracker: well done thread, very much with you on the buildings for units idea.

 

[gutiejr]

Some things that I would like to see are for archer units a bombard capability with a defence rating so they are not like normal combat units and they are not like artillery. For the Mongols and Huns the units could have 3 movement points and a bombard capability, which would accurately portray the ability for horse archers in that century to control warfare by keeping their armies at a distance while firing upon the enemy.

Also in any game I play now I make the sea going vessels and the air weaponry able to bombard and destroy. I reality air power is most important as was proven in WW2, seconded by sea superiority, which has been proven since the persian defeat at Salamis nearly 500BC, as well as the defeat of the Spanish armada in the late 1500. So adding the ability for the units to kill while keeping their distance.

I also believe that the trading of units is a must, like in CIV2 you were able to trade units, that would make it possible for Allies to use each others UUs.

Another Idea that would be good, is to add more hit points to Elite units, I have many a times that my Elite units have gotten destroyed by conscript units, and that is way stupid.

I would also hope for a sniper unit, sniper where used big time in WW1 and WW2, and made a major diffrence in a lot of battles. A sniper could take out a opposing general, and have 2 movement point, also hidden nationality and zones of control.

Another thing that I would like to see is a UU for the Barbarian civ. One could be the Viking, Al Quida fighter, and I believe they should be able to make amphibious attacks. All these would add even more depth to the game.

 

[gutiejr]

I think more depth could be added with more great wonders. I mean that there could be wonders that increase trade by creating special products. TV could be added as well as a Hollywood. NFL, NBA, Baseball and other entertainment services. TVs could produce trade, like maybe the first city to produce a industrial plant, could produce cars. And other cities could have specific things that they are good at building. Like Detroit with cars, or even early in history Athens with its great writings. Even military units like Roman legions from Rome as opposed to the Roman legions created at a satellite city-state.

 

[Japher]

I'm with gutiejr that there should be more wonders in general. TV, Pro Sports, etc... Some ideas I have, some of which cross with others ideas:

USO (or equivalent) - Maybe a small wonder. As per Smoking Mirror's suggestions could be built to help reduce war weariness. How, I don't know? Maybe, acts like an additional lux, maybe on a per town or per lux or entertainer.

The Golden Spike - A wonder that could increase movement on rails only.

Transatlantic Telegraph - Acts as a harbor in every town.
______

Another tid bit I would like to see in maybe not in CIVIII or in any expansion for it, but for CIVIV or something is the instigation of royal decrees, laws, amendmends, ect. depending on what government your in. A list of select "rights" or lack there of bestow upon the nation by the leader (would require a seperate screen and stuff, but takes the game to a whole new level, where it is actually more how you run your kingdom and not just what you can get in it). All of these are what made or broke a civilization. Some of which were made into wonders in CIVII, but should be set more as a right, then if kept in place long enough, could amount to a wonder.

I.e. You elect to inact Woman's Rights... After say fifty years or so, the option to build a wonder for Woman's Sufferage will become available allowing some sort of benefit.

This could work all the way down the line, and could even cause diplomatic arguments problems, like what if a country won't trade with you because you have a Communist government?

I think there would be a lot of sourcing to do here, but could really increase the breadth of the game. Lots of room for expansion...

Rights of Emancipation, Sufferage, Land Ownership, Medi Care, Unemployment, Social Survices, Professional Sports, Teriffs, Environmental laws, Prohibition, and Curfews are just few ideas that would help personalize a government and open new doors to new wonders, improvements, and advancements.

Just on a thought; how long could a civilization last when they sacrifice all their virgins to their gods? Or how powerful did Germany come when they decided to instigate genocide? Or how about how powerful the US became when they decided to ban alcohol? Or Japan opening trade to the Western world (China on the flip side)? Can someone say crusades? Oh, also bring back Feudalism...

Sorry got carried away, I don't mean to spam

 

[skywalker]

We need a flag and a value for AA. This would be the units defense value against air (if it had one; that's what the flag is for), so that we can creat AA guns, SAM's, and make the AEGIS Cruiser realistic. This would also really help for Star Wars mods.

Also, please give a flag similar to the Nuke flag that makes a unit bombard/bomb nukes. This would be good for nuclear bombers and such.

 

[W.i.n.t.e.r]

I have been wondering (I do not know if this is feasible at all, as I haven't even changed the buildings in my mods- so far):

Is it possible to make a Great Wonder civ-specific like unique units being made buildable by only one or selected civs ?? This way one could limit i.e. the Pyramids to Egyptians (or any civs close to them culturally or those that have a history of building similar structures- I know that most civilisations have at some time built them but none in such tremendous size and with such impact on their present culture)! This should prevent some strange happenings like The Oracle of Delphi being built in Moskow- while it should in reality give the Greeks a slight advantage in the early times. Perhaps there is an unfound tweak somewhere ???

We have UUs- why not make UWs (Unique Wonders) ???

 

[Polaris]

Cracker, I don't know if this suggestion fullly complys with the criteria for this thread, since my suggestion is not an ability that could be flagged or unflagged. I would very much like to have the workers coded so that they are aware of their own culture border. I hate having to round up workers who start a cross continent migration to get to another city. I realize that it is possible to tie workers to a given city, but I believe it would be a real asset to allow workers free range over an entire civ without the constant worry that they will go straying outside of one's borders.

 

[realn]

I have no idea what to call this but this is what I got. I am guessing someone has thought of it but I haven’t seen it at this thread. This is from Civ2 where Merchant units could be created by one city then moved and disbanded in another to give it a festival. Giving it 30 food sluts filled making the city not starve. Good for if you have a city in the mountains or hills that is getting a lot of production and you want it bigger to make more but it doesn’t have enough food you can have a unit to "create festival" where it gives food and disbands the unit. Another thing similar to this is “Unload supplies” which give 30 shields but then the unit would cost much more for something like this. What you think?

 

[OmniMower]

Oil and Gas.

In most of the Civ3 games the globe is filled with 60-80 % watermass. 90 % of these will be unused but we all know that there is a large portion of resources hiding in the deepsea waiting to be gathered. Several countries in the world is depending on the resources they gather from the oceans, Norway is a good exampel on that.
So I would like to be able to build Oil/gas rigs in a ocean square (in the same way we build colonies?) and deploy fishing fleets to gather food to a nerby or linked city. Perhaps even build pipelines to the rigs so in a war situation be able to cut off oilsupplies.

How about that?

Thanks cracker for a jolly good thread!!!!