New Unit: Settler Wagon

[Kryten]

Here is a unit that some of you may find a use for.
(I know that Lab Monkey made a wagon unit some time ago, but I wanted something that was a little bit more ‘Ancient looking’)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/settler_wagon.zip

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Later Edit:
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My great thanks to Vuldacon, who has supplied some civiliopeadia pictures, as well as a single units_32 icon which you can paste on to your own units_32 file.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Wagon_civilopeadia_picts.zip

 

[Kryten]

Impassable Terrain
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I’m sure that many of you have tried this, but if you haven’t, then I strongly urge those of you with PTW to make forests impassable to ‘wheeled’ units, give ALL mounted & siege units the ‘wheeled’ ability (that’s all horsed units/Elephants/Tanks/siege and settlers, but not Mech Infantry, as I assume they would dismount to fight), and last of all make mountains impassable to ALL units.

This has a wonderful effect on the game, by making it much more of a challenge.
Here are some of the effects :-

* Provinces = mountains now become a major barrier, as they are in reality, and cause some areas of the map to become semi-isolated ‘provinces’ with only the odd mountain pass (two mountains meeting diagonally) connecting it with the rest of the continent....'The Portugal Effect'.
(And no, Hannibal did NOT take Elephants over the top of mountains….he went through mountain passes, such as the Brenner Pass)

* Restrictive Terrain = Horsemen and Tanks will only be able to enter forests and jungles if there is a road (Battle of the Bulge anyone?), which is historically correct.
Ever tried galloping a horse through a wood off a path? I have. It still hurts!
(BTW, contrary to popular belief, Elephants don’t live in jungles. They live on plains, and actually damage trees, thus stopping them from spreading)

* Roads/Railways = it helps to stop the entire map from being totally covered with these eyesores.

* Barbarians = sometimes a Barbarian Encampment will appear on a mountain tile, and you cannot storm it as mountains are impassable!
The only way to get rid of them is to build a city nearby and wait for your borders to expand and eventually engulf the encampment.
(This can keep barbarians in the game for far longer, making them much more of a threat).

* Sea Power = this also becomes much more important, as the only way around these ‘terrain barriers’ will be by sea….and if you are sending vulnerable settlers by sea, then you will want to protect them….and intercept other peoples transport ships in order to stop them from colonising this virgin land....
(Some people like to make settlers & workers transportable by air. This is a mistake, as it makes sea power….already weak in Civ3….even more redundant.
Make the buggers travel by sea, and give Privateers and Submarines something to attack! )

Of course, if no unit can enter mountains, then no roads can be connected to mountain resources. So you will have to move the mountain strategic and luxury resources to other terrain (I would leave bonus resources such as gold in the mountains, as they don’t need roads).
This also means that mines cannot be built on mountains, so I like to make mountains give 2 shields instead of one (this is less than the 3 that a mine would give, but hey, you won’t have to wait for the mine to be built).

Anyway, if you haven’t already tried this, give it a go.
I think that like myself, you will be suitably impressed with the outcome.
(“I very much doubt that you will persuade anyone to make all these changes Kryten, but keep trying anyway!”)

 

[Bobisback]

Awsome just what I need.

 

[Thrawn]

You know Kryten, those changes actually sound interesting. You might pursade me to do that.

And the unit looks good to of course.

 

[Kinboat]

They do sound good... And probably a welcome change from the original game. Maybe you could do me a favor then... Since I'm getting an error with my editor I don't suppose someone could make a mod with these changes?

 

[pdescobar]

Neat wagon.

Regarding the rant, I am intrigued by the idea of making mountains completely impassable, but the inability to hook up resources from them kills that for me; I pretty much only play DyP at this point and with so many possible resources, I don't think I can redistribute away from mountains without royally screwing up resource balance. I might try it anyhow, but I have my doubts. Neat idea for modifying the standard rules, though.

 

[Nick014]

Cool, but shouldn't there be some luggage in the back? Otherwise, he could just ride the horse to wherever he was going

 

[Steph]

Your ideas are interesting, but I don't think I will make moutains impassable. wha't the point of adding alpine troops in the tech tree then?

 

[Kryten]

To Steph,

Well, what has been the effect of alpine troops on the history of warfare? Very little.
Yes, several nations had them and used them....but I can't think of a single engagement where they proved decisive.
(And we are talking about a game where the cavalry do ALL the attacking, and are the best troops to use for storming cities, while infantry are too weak to even be able to attack other infantry! )
Some troop types, such as mortars/machineguns/bazooka teams/anti-tank guns, and perhaps alpine troops, just cannot be represented by the Civ3 combat system.

To Nick014,

Yes....well....er....he likes to travel light.
In fact, he seems to have also forgotten to pack his wife and children!
(All right, I'll admit it, I was too lazy to add baggage. )

To Kinboat,

Here is my "Impassable Terrain Mod".
When I get a chance, I'll present this in the correct forum, along with loading instructions and all the changes, as well as the new effects this has on the game.

Basically, I have altered the following:-
* moved all the mountain strategic & luxury resources to other terrain.
* mountains are now impassable to all units, and forests/jungles to 'wheeled' units.
* mountains now give 2 shields, and gold gives 5 commerce (as if it had a road)
* no cities can be built on deserts & tundra, and tundra costs 2 move points (snow).
* only foot troops & Mech Inf can enter forests/jungles (all the rest are 'wheeled').
(I have not changed anything else. Not even increasing Radar Artillery to 2 move points, which I'm sure everybody normally does)

Give this a try....you will be suprised by how realistic, challenging, and visually appealing this makes the game.

 

[Yoda Power]

nice, but havent i seen the wagon before?

 

[Kinboat]

Thanks... I'll try it out as soon as I can.
Maybe he's single and hoping to find a nice woman already waiting

 

[TVA22]

If you all are interested, I have a suggestion that I've already playtested months ago. Make mountains impassible without roads, and make workers wheeled. Then whenever in the tech tree you want to have those mountain resources become available (mine is in the industrial age) have a new worker come out, call it worker. or engineer or something, have the worker upgrade to it, and have the engineer not be wheeled. The AI will recognize the difference, and starts to exploit previously unavailable land, and it keeps certain terrains from being overrun with AI roads in the ancient age. I have mountains, tundra, desert, and jungle tagged impassible without roads. Makes for some really interesting natural barriers!

 

[Oruc]

Nope!

 

[Steph]

Here are some of my thoughts.

First, I've double the cost of all terrain, so the minimum is 2, and double the MP. This way, I can have camel ignore the cost of desert, or alpine troops the cost of mountains are whatever. Moutains, forest and jungle are impassable to wheel units. All artillery units, heavy cavalry, elephants, tanks, and mech infantry are wheeled. Mortar and light cavalry are not. So Mortar is the only artillery support available in Jungle.

My original idea was to make the following class of units:
- Offensive infantry , with offense slightly better than defense (ex: 6/5/2 for Swordman)
- Defensice infantry, with very low offense, but good defense, and slower (ex: 1/4/1 for phalanx).. They also have a small defensive bombardment of 0 to simulate the lenght of the pikes.
- Support infantry, with low stats but ROF and defensive bombardments (ex: 2/2/2, bombard 3/2 for archer).
- "Firing cavalry", high speed, medium stats, but ZOC and defensive bombardment (ex: 3/2/4 for horse archer)
- "Melee cavalry" high attack, medium defense, slower, no ZOC (ex: 6/3/3 for cataphract).

Later, everything upgrade to infantry (20/24/2, with a defensive bombardment of 12) or Armor(40/20/4, defensive bombardment of 20, ZOC). Machine gun are support units with high ROF, but medium attack, while AT are support units with high attack, but low ROF. Combat engineer have a very strong attack, low defense.

Now, I think to change it.

- Defensive infantry will remain the same.
- Offensive infantry will have a sligthly reduce defense (6/4/2 for Swordman).
- Support infantry will remain the same
- "Firing cavalry" will remain roughly the same
- "Melee cavalry" will have a better defense (7/5/3 for cataphract), because they have armor, and have other disadvantages (cost, wheeled unit, etc).

So later, the infantry will be 20/16/2, still with defensive bombardment, and armor will be 40/30/4. Machine gun and AT will remain. So MG can fire at infantry (lower defensive), and are good counter infantry, while AT can fire at Tanks (their higher attack can damage the tank armor, but with a low ROF they are not as good as MG against infantry).

The basic idea is to reduce the defense of infantry, but to compensate with defensive bombardment.

What do you think of this?

 

[Kal-el]

the problem with completely impassable mountains is that you can't access any resources that might appear in them. And if you push all the mountain resources into the hills you could end up losing some of the resources at the bottom of the list.

 

[pdescobar]

No, emu. The only difference between snow-capped mountains and regular mountains is the graphic; as far as gameplay is concerned, it's the same terrain.

 

[Kryten]

Originally posted by Yoda Power
nice, but haven’t I seen the wagon before?

Yes, you have. In the "Riderless Horse" thread I dangled some static pictures as bait.
Unfortunately, only BAP took a bite with that rather nice "Napoleonic Horse Artillery" unit.
So I decided that I'd have to make the other buggers myself.

Originally posted by TVA22
If you all are interested, I have a suggestion that I've already playtested months ago....

Excellent ideas TVA22! Have you posted these as a mod? I'm sure that many people would be interested.
Of course, using your method, foot troops will still be able to cross mountains. But then some people might prefer this.
It all really boils down to what a Civ3 mountain tile actually represents.
If it represents a 'mountain chain', then there would be hidden valleys and mountain passes in each tile, so troops COULD cross them.
If, on the other hand, they represent a dirty great big grey lump, with slopes of 45 degrees that no wheeled or tracked vehicle can climb (or anyone can climb except for Edmund Hillary, Sylvester Stallone, and the yeti!), then they would be impassable to ALL units, even in Modern times.
So, like many things in this game, it is all up to each person's individual perception.

Originally posted by Steph
....The basic idea is to reduce the defence of infantry, but to compensate with defensive bombardment.
What do you think of this?

I like it. I like it a lot!
Just a couple of observations:-
* if Cataphracts have such a large defence factor, won't people and the AI end up using these mounted units to defend cities? (cavalry, as you well know, were not the best troops to use when defending behind city walls).
* if you double the move points of all units, then won't they all be classed a 'fast' units, so nobody would be able to retreat from battle? (and running away was the only defence that skirmishers of all ages had!)
With PTW, you can make deserts & tundra cost 2 move points, then make certain units (such as camels & ski troops) 'ignore move cost' in that terrain.
This would give you roughly the effect you want, without taking away the ability of 'fast' troops to retreat from 'slow' troops.

Originally posted by Kal-el
the problem with completely impassable mountains is that you can't access any resources that might appear in them. And if you push all the mountain resources into the hills you could end up losing some of the resources at the bottom of the list.

Good point! So don't push all the old mountain resources into hills.
What I did was the following:-
* mountain Iron becomes grassland Iron (i.e. quarries, of which there a lot where I live)
* mountain Saltpetre becomes plains Saltpetre (did you know that "Saltpetre occurs as a component of surface soil in Spain, Iran, Egypt, and India" Microsoft® Encarta® Reference Library 2002. Sounds like plains to me).
* mountain Coal becomes forest Coal (if there was a forest there a few million years ago, then maybe there is still a forest there today)
* mountain Uranium becomes tundra Uranium (with little vegetation, and lots of erosion, the bare rock will be visible).
* mountain Gems becomes hill's Gems (all right, so I put one of them in hills!)
If anyone finds any of the above illogical, then before they reply can they please tell me why Civ3 has Uranium in forests!?
Do trees have a natural preference for heavy radioactive isotopes?

Originally posted by Kinboat
Maybe he's single and hoping to find a nice woman already waiting

....or maybe he has done a runner and left the wife and kids....
(NOT anecdotal I hasten to add!)

 

[Kal-el]

of course my concerns are stemming from DyP which has 20 more resources than the original game so its not as easy to redistribute all the mountain ones without causing problems for some of the other resources.

 

[mrtn]

I like this mountain idea. I just looked at a map of the Pyrennees, and saw that there are only three roads across them, one at Andorra, and one at each coast.
This will also imply that a city situated as Andorra, i e in the middle of some big mountains, actually gets protected by them, as they only have to defend the passes. In ordinary civ terms this is just an invitation for attack, as the attackers get a defensive bonus in the mountains.

 

[folketsfiende]

I think your idea is good Kryten! I've tried making all units wheeled in order to create these barriers, but bearing in mind the possibilities that the editor in ptw offers, your suggestion definitely would make the game more fun!