Rhye's of Civilization - the fastest loading mod Expanded

[Rhye]

I don't think any tank before WWII was ever used to real effect, it would be better to have the first tank be the regular current tank (with slightly lowered stats perhaps), then have it upgrade to a cold war tank, and then to MBT if you have the aluminum and the cash...

Remember that the early tank will require rubber.
And no armies required rubber by WWII.

So, if you don't want the WWI tank, instead of putting there a WWII tank (causing problems to the panzer, too) I'll choose the alternative solution:
-addition of the machinegunner together with the infantry (and they will require rubber)
-addition of a sort of a jeep (upgrade of the explorer) with motor.transp.
-no tanks added.

 

[Asclepius]

Rhye, having the MKIV in as the first tank is almost like having one of the Wright brothers' later models as the first airplane... The WWI tanks were used for a VERY short while (one game turn), they were ineffective, and had altogether little impact on the great war. Machineguns and artillery made much more of a difference.

Asclepius, are you sure about that? Was there never large-scale use of big artillery?
I think that even if the big guns aren't in, there should be WWII artillery with a range of 2 since with the invention of radio and telephone artillery batteries could accurately and quickly shoot to great distances.

I meant that super heavy artillery wasn't used much, certainly not after WWI. Anything above 40cm calibre and took a couple of days to set up I would leave out. The shelling of Paris with the "Paris Gun" was psycologically important but militarily insignificant. Each shell fired did barely any significant damage and its best strike was a lucky shot into a church. The huge siege guns used by England and Germany were only "useful" in static situations and in game terms couldn't move at all.

Ordinary artillery pieces up to 15cm are very important and when used "en masse" have made a HUGE impact on modern warfare. Some sort of artillery and mobile artillery has to be kept in the game.

 

[Asclepius]

Remember that the early tank will require rubber.
And no armies required rubber by WWII.

So, if you don't want the WWI tank, instead of putting there a WWII tank (causing problems to the panzer, too) I'll choose the alternative solution:
-addition of the machinegunner together with the infantry (and they will require rubber)
-addition of a sort of a jeep (upgrade of the explorer) with motor.transp.
-no tanks added.

This is beginning to lose my vote.

Jeeps shouldn't be an individual unit, motorization should be represented by increasing the movement of Infantry units.

 

[Rhye]

Then I won't add anything for now.

I need something (not necessairly a unit) to justify the presence of motorized tranportation.

Now that tanks are at the beginning of the new age, there's a need for a unit that requires rubber.
The standing machinegunner is a possibility. They could have very high defense and be immobile, and they could upgrade to TOW infantry. That could cause a stats adjustment for the regular infantry.

 

[Blasphemous]

Why should machinegunners be immobile? oO
I propose instead that you have motorized transport add Motorized Infantry (or Mobile Infantry) which is simply infantry in APCs/Jeeps with slightly better attack (due to maneuverability) and slightly lowered defense (for balance and so machinegunners and regular infantry are still useful) with 2 movement points rather than 1, and then you can have machinegunners with a very high defensive bombard and good defense and moderate attack with only 1 movement. Regular infantry and machinegunners will be used for defense, mobile infantry will be used for attack.
Mobile infantry will upgrade to mechanized infantry, machinegunner will upgrade to TOW, and regular infantry will upgrade to Modern Infantry (or something of the sort).

Also Mortar Infantry should be added with a moderate bombard, range 1, high ROF, and basic combat capabilities (and 1 movement.) Don't know if they should upgrade to a modern version fo the same unit or to something different that replaces it, but mortars should be in.

 

[Rhye]

too much! too much! 6 or 8 infantry units are too much.
remember how few turns there are in modern age. It already is very crowded.

Currently there are 3 infantries:

infantry
mech.inf
TOW Inf (as it is no longer a guerrilla)

The machinegunner seems the best complement. They could upgrade to TOW.
And they could be the unit that requires rubber (instead of tanks)



p.s. just checked TGW, machinegunner is not immobile. I didn't recall correctly

 

[Blasphemous]

Then just add machinegunners that upgrade to TOW and Mobile Infantry that upgrades to Mech Inf... You can have normal infantry upgrade to TOW as well and make TOW the modern defense unit with Mech Inf being tagged as offensive as well a defensive and so you hae a bit of diversity in modern war.

 

[Rhye]

I've just sent the new alpha (0.21).

In the mail I wrote:

"There are no unit animations, no civilopedia, no arrows in the tech tree (but you can guess the path clicking on the tech)
No additional warrior for the romans (will be added together with the flavour units).
French UU is temporary Grand Battery, American is A-Bomb. This may change.
No decision taken about modern units additions. "


Probably now (after taken a look at the new trees) you'll understand my point of view.
In the standard game you have 100 turns (of 540) dedicated to the 50s to nowadays, and it has more variety than ancient and medieval.
In the basic mod the last age is about 76 turns.
In the add-on it will be 86 turns comprehensive of the 30s and 40s (there's been a shift to right of the techs).
This is the reason for I pay much attention to what I add.

 

[Blasphemous]

But still, you have to remember that these turns are longer and much mroe is done in every turn. In the middle ages you simply wouldn't have the capacity to mass produce combined arms beyond the basic lines now included.
In the modern age you can usually afford to build a varied army with specialized units meant for specific jobs as long as you have good infrastructure (something I'm struggling with in my current game as Persia where my empire outgrew itself and so half my cities are still building infrastructure after the space race has started.)
I think it would be worth a try to add Mobile Infantry and Machinegunner. If we see it doesn't work out well we can remove one of them or even both.
Waht exactly changed in the new alpha? (New tech tree? ) What specifically should we test?

 

[Khift]

I would agree with the addition of a Mobile Infantry unit, but not with the Machine Gunner.

In my mind, the standard infantry unit represents three technically different things converging into one combined tactic. First, you've got trench warfare - dudes with rifles sitting in trenches. Second, you've got machine gun nests dotted along the trenches. And thirdly, you've got mortar pipes sitting behind the trench lines firing. All it is is one organized fighting unit, not three different unit - the Civ3 battle engine wouldn't handle different units well enough to split them up.

The Mobile Infantry, though, is necessary. Maybe 9/8/2, available with Motorized Transportation. It'd create a much needed mid step between Cavalry and whatever is decided to be the first tank.

Speaking of tanks: I agree with Blasphemous there. The line should start with a WWII tank, go to the Chieftan, and end with the Main Battle Tank. The WWI tanks weren't useful enough to include in the mod, and there seems to be too much space and innovation between the WWII tank and the Main Battle Tank to leave it as is.

 

[Horton]

I just started a new test game with 0.21 and noticed that workers can build radar towers from 4000 BC. I assume this isn't by design.

The new tech tree looks interesting.

 

[Rhye]

I just started a new test game with 0.21 and noticed that workers can build radar towers from 4000 BC. I assume this isn't by design.

The new tech tree looks interesting.

of course it isn't. If this causes problems in your game, restart moving it to advanced flight (in the editor, go to "worker jobs")

 

[Rhye]

The Mobile Infantry, though, is necessary. Maybe 9/8/2, available with Motorized Transportation. It'd create a much needed mid step between Cavalry and whatever is decided to be the first tank.

very ugly stats, they seem a super-cavalry. A unit that never existed.

And BTW doesn't railroads make the infantry "mobile"?


I had the idea of the machine gun watching how The Great War scenario works: I tried to attack many times, and often my units died by enemy machinegun (it's 1/12/1 there). Very realistic bloodbath, typical of WWI.

 

[Rhye]

another thing:

you'll notice that there's an empty tech called "ritual sacrifice".

I'd like to set it to allow sacrifices of units enslaved by native american civs.
The mechanism is the same: make their enslave result in a different worker.
In this way only units captured by mesoamericans will have the sacrifice "ability".

To make the tech (not required for era) not useless to most of the civs, I'll add something else. It seems a good place to put a mesoamerican wonder in.

 

[Blasphemous]

very ugly stats, they seem a super-cavalry. A unit that never existed.

Okay, then make it 9/7/2 and wheeled (and maybe make regular infantry unwheeled.) And their price will balance it anyway. And this unit definately DID exist, starting WWII infantry has always been transported with motorized vehicles from place to place.

 

[Rhye]

Okay, then make it 9/7/2 and wheeled (and maybe make regular infantry unwheeled.)

Being non-wheeled is a guerrilla peculiarity

And this unit definately DID exist, starting WWII infantry has always been transported with motorized vehicles from place to place.

there are railroads

 

[Blasphemous]

1) Being non-wheeled is a guerrilla peculiarity
2) there are railroads

1. Bleh.
2. I'm not talking about trains, I'm talking about APCs, trucks, and Jeeps that carried troops from place to place.
Log onto ICQ, I sent you a message.

 

[Jaguar]

My thoughts on adding modern units:


A mobile infantry unit is reasonable. Partly because it could upgrade to Mech Infantry, and that would avoid the somewhat awkward Infantry to Mech Infantry upgrade. However, it's not necessary.

I think the unit that really needs to be added is a modern infantry. Stock Civ3 would have it so that all modern wars between powers with proper resources are fought with armored vehicles. This is very unrealistic. Even countries like America don't put all their troops in Bradleys and M1 Abrams. It's also unrealistic for Infantry to upgrade to Mech Infantry. It is also good to have a regular foot unit to replace the World War I style Infantry unit in the Modern Age.

A machine gunner unit would also be a good idea. Then regular Infantry could be more balanced between attack and defense, and machine gunners would briefly be very useful until tanks came along.

I don't think that a third tank unit is necessary. The first Civ3 tank is representative of a WWII tank, which is a reasonable place for the tank line to start. Let's say that the Civ3 Tank comes in 1940. Let's say that the Modern Armor comes in 1980. It's not necessary to add a tank in between. Civ3 units should be useful for more than 20 turns.

 

[Damnyankee]

great mod, my first game was as the arabs and it is hard with the arabs, you really only have room for four cities on the pennuslia. But i battle and annexed Israel, choped a chunk of persia, ate babylon, a took a city from the ottomans. Gets a bit slow by 1200 ad with 31 civs thou. But before it got slow with 15 civs at 800ad!!!!!! with normal game

 

[Rhye]

IMO modern infantry is already represented by diversification: marines+paratroopers+mech.inf+TOW inf.