Placeable Tower unit

[Arius]

For my modpack I have made a Tower unit, that is supposed to be placeable.

The way I have done it so far, is to give the unit paradrop-ability (range is set to 5), and two-square sight range. It has an attack factor of 0 (it's not supposed to attack anything) and high defense and hit point values. It has a movement factor of 1, or else I couldn't paradrop it. Remember, you are supposed to be able to BUILD and PLACE these towers.

Now, the original bit is that it is a SEA unit, with the trireme flag. This means that you can paradrop the Tower, but when it is placed, it is immobile (since sea units can't move to a land square). This actually works very well indeed. I got the idea from SLeague btw (was it Kobayashi?).

Now, the problems are:
A) Only coastal cities can build the Tower, as it is a naval unit. This is kind of illogical. Still, most of the cities are coastal cities anyway. The only way around this is to make it a land unit, but then there's the paradrop vs movement problem again...

B) If the tower is placed on a square that borders water, the Tower can move into the water, but not back onto the shore. This means the Tower can be trapped in lakes etc. (If the tower slips into the sea, it can slowly make its way back to a coastal city, and then paradrop again.)

C) In its first turn, the Tower can sail into the sea, instead of paradropping. It can't cross oceans, as it has the trireme (dis-)ability (and only 1 move point), but it can drift along the coast. This is not a big problem, but it is not ideal either. To make this look better I have edited the graphic so that it appears the tower is placed on a small island. (But since when could islands move?)

None of the above mentioned problems are big issues, and I can live with them all. The way I see it, this is a better solution than having a Tower that can move along the battlefield (land unit with 1 move point), and it is closer to what I want than having a 0-movement unit that is trapped within the city. Those options are ok, but give a different type of unit IMO.

So, the question is, how do you make a PLACEABLE (by the player) Tower unit, that is immobile once placed, but which is not a sea unit? How do you make a land unit with 0 movement able to paradrop?

Arius

[This message has been edited by Arius (edited April 02, 2001).]

 

[Circee]

What? a unit with a movement range of 0 can't been paradropped? so we,ll going to be two to have this bug... I've exactly the same type of unit (called Baobab) except mine is going to have the sub capacities....



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Here's I am...
Circee@bigfoot.com

 

[willemvanoranje]

You kinda have to make it a 'House rule':

Do not use Towers as sea units.

Kobayashi uses that as well (the house rules)

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Concordia res parvae cres****.

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

If you want to toggle city flags, so inland cities "can build coastal", or "can build ships", you can use Carl Fritz' excellent util "CIVCITY" -for easy access to all those parameters in your saved game. Maybe this can help solve the problem of "can only be bought in coastal cities"...

CIVCITY can be found here :
http://users.sgi.net/~harden/

Regards,
Morten Blaabjerg

PS?
Does anyone know a way around the strange bug in the original CIV, where some tribes' cities doesn't match the style you chose for them in the "rules.txt"?

I have read somewhere that it can be overcome, but I don't remember where!

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"A handful of might, works better than a bag full of right!"
Max Stirner (1806-56)

 

[Circee]

The bug you describe is the bronze age city style bug: each civ, except the one you played for build the scen have the bronze age city style, it can be overcome by the CivTweak utility, in the download section, where you'll be able to find CivCity as well.

Arius? I've discovered that some High movement rate can became fractionnal ones, what do you think of that? also, what about the use AI will make of your unit? even if you put a house rule, you can't control that...




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Here's I am...
Circee@bigfoot.com

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

Thanks Circee!

I came across the same tip in Leon Marricks article (I posted it to the forum right now). But with CivTweak it sounds even easier. I haven't gotten into Civtweak yet, but it seems like Carl Fritz have done some quite helpful utils there!

Yours Truly,
Morten

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"A handful of might, works better than a bag full of right!"
Max Stirner (1806-56)

 

[CivPartisan]

I'm not trying to burst anyone's bubble but CivTweak has a limitation in changing that city style...I find it makes no difference in the Originial CivII when there are close to 100 cities. That puts quite a damper on 5-7 civ scenarios where you have more than 10 cities for each civ...also, this is true whenever Barbarians have cities...

Another way to get around it is to decide if you really need the stone/bronze age cities or just kill the cities, duplicate the graphics for classical in stone/bronze or start new cities in the city style of the civ you want anyway...(not easy if you have a lot of cities but it can be done).

However, do try civtweak because can do it in most cases!

John

 

[kobayashi]

The paradropping sea unit is typically used where there are no bodies of water on the map. You case is rather unique.

Sometimes the simplest solution is the best to use. Have you thought of putting a pond (one square ocean) next to all your inland cities. If the tower goes into the pond and fills it up, it just means you filled in the pond.

Another thing you can experiment on is to use the cruise missile, paratrooper and submarine flag simultaneously on the unit. I think that will solve all your problems.

 

[Circee]

Please help me someone!!! In planty's the baobab is a paradropping grood unit that can't move!!!!!!!!!!!

aaaaaarrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhh!!!!

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Here's I am...
Circee@bigfoot.com

 

[Arius]

Thanks for the response guys! I'll check out CivCity, and experiment a little with some flags.

The map is basically most of Eurasia + North Africa btw. Rather large continents, and a couple of big seas (Black Sea, Mediterranean, Red Sea).

If I come up with something else I'll let you guys know.

-Arius

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

I have solved some of my problems with city styles. There seems, maybe, perhaps, to be some limitations to CivTweak in combination with the original CIV2, as JValdez says, but they can be overcome, via the back door. I am working on a Viking scenario with 7 civs and a good amount of cities with differing styles etc, as well as a good portion of barbarian cities to simulate the rich and rogue east.

Norsemen : 10-12 cities
Danes : 10 citites
Germans/Holy Romans : 20-25 cities
Franks : 15 cities
Frisians : 10 cities
Celts : 10 cities
Anglo-Saxons : 15-20 cities

Well about 100 cities. I found that it is extremely important that the settings for city styles (In the RULES.TXT, that is) corresponds to the selected settings in CivTweak. This seems to solve the problem with players getting the correct style when selecting a different civ to play with.

But the back door I was talking about -is using the "industrial" and "modern" slots in a different way. It uses up min. 2 tech slots, but that seems no greater sacrifice. In combination with giving the tech prereq's "Ind", and "Aut"/"E2" to the respective civ's, and giving the corresponding settings (Industrial/Modern) in CivTweak (a nice little feature), you can assign exclusive styles, as long as your scenario doesn't involve using these techs otherwise (or can be made civ-specific -not a great problem in most cases?).

This can be used effectively to give the barbarian cities a certain city style, by building the cities with that specific civ, which style will be "industrial"/"modern" (because of the respective "Ind"/"Aut/E2" advances). It got a little more technical, than intended. Sorry about that. But anyway. This seems to solve all my problems for now.

-When I get to deeper playtesting and making sure other civs don't get these advances, I will tell you if it works out, or ends in total confusion. But I think it can work out right.

Yours Truly,
Morten


PS. Does any of you have some good tips on how to make the AI make use of nukes? -especially unusual ones -like nukes disguised as ships?

[This message has been edited by Morten Blaabjerg (edited April 12, 2001).]

 

[Field Marshal Klesh]

I didn't read the advices mentioned in the links above, but he is a solution to the inland issue:

Cities are determined 'inland' or not when they are built, so (depending on how far along you are) go back and rebuild the cities, but first give them the lake nearby as mentioned above. Once built, you can then remove the water, but the city will still be 'costal' ie: able to build ships.