Small Observations General Thread (things not worth separate threads)

[Krikkit1]

You can see in The Fanatical's screenshot that he has promoted it to a city.

Missed that…well nice to know you can lose you capital and still be strong enough to get it back.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Oh, I have no doubt that it was meant to be a Hummel: all the artillery they have shown so far in late Modern Age are 150mm or heavier pieces in both towed and self-propelled configurations, and the only other self-propelled piece similar in open-topped configuration to this one would be the German 'Wespe' 10.5 cm piece with a very distinctive and obvious muzzle brake that this graphic is missing.

What will be interesting is to see which Modern Age Civs get to use it as a 'cultural/geographical' type graphic: IRL only Bulgaria and Rumania actually got any besides Germany, and then not until after 1945 and in tiny numbers.

I don't know why 'Siege' unit gets smaller gun? and called it 'Assault Gun' rather than 'Self Propelled Artillery'?
To me. 'Assault Gun' means StuG. and several times are one and same as self propelled Antitank Gun

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I don't know why 'Siege' unit gets smaller gun? and called it 'Assault Gun' rather than 'Self Propelled Artillery'?
To me. 'Assault Gun' means StuG. and several times are one and same as self propelled Antitank Gun
View attachment 718104

I think it is a design decision. Real assault guns are not easily distinguishable from tanks. So Firaxis decided to base the appearance of of mobile artillery instead. They probably should have just called it that.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I think it is a design decision. Real assault guns are not easily distinguishable from tanks. So Firaxis decided to base the appearance of of mobile artillery instead. They probably should have just called it that.

Yeah, IRL Assault Guns were really just the Poor Man's Tank. On the other hand, every 'assault gun' they've shown so far is really self-propelled (indirect fire) artillery not designed to 'assault' anything except with long range firepower. Definitely could have used better nomenclature.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

I think it is a design decision. Real assault guns are not easily distinguishable from tanks. So Firaxis decided to base the appearance of of mobile artillery instead. They probably should have just called it that.

and there's even a Self Propelled Artillery with a bore diameter of 8 inches (smallest caliber of BB main guns, or the largest that cruisers carry).

M43 Howitzer Motor Carriage - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Yeah, IRL Assault Guns were really just the Poor Man's Tank. On the other hand, every 'assault gun' they've shown so far is really self-propelled (indirect fire) artillery not designed to 'assault' anything except with long range firepower. Definitely could have used better nomenclature.

And it is already there!
'Self Propelled Artillery'. and nothing else. and even large bore like M43 is a fine example. having an intimidating barrel diameter of 20.3 centimeters of battleships!

 

[AriochIV]

The name choices for units are pretty bad. It's clearly meant to be self-propelled artillery and not an assault gun. They used "Mobile Artillery" in past games but apparently that just makes too much sense.

I mean... WTH is a "trench fighter"

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

The name choices for units are pretty bad. It's clearly meant to be self-propelled artillery and not an assault gun. They used "Mobile Artillery" in past games but apparently that just makes too much sense.

I mean... WTH is a "trench fighter"

A trench fighter is a thing that never existed. The French came the closest to using effective ground attack aircraft in ww1 with the Breguet XIV. It was still pretty much a level bomber though.

The main way that aircraft affected the ground war was by using radios to direct artillery fire.

 

[Krikkit1]

A trench fighter is a thing that never existed. The French came the closest to using effective ground attack aircraft in ww1 with the Breguet XIV. It was still pretty much a level bomber though.

The main way that aircraft affected the ground war was by using radios to direct artillery fire.

Which is why they should have devised a proper 3rd age (1750-2050)
where the infantry and artillery upgrades are WWI
and air units and tanks(cav upgrade) are WW2
and merged “ranged” and “siege” units in Modern

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

A trench fighter is a thing that never existed. The French came the closest to using effective ground attack aircraft in ww1 with the Breguet XIV. It was still pretty much a level bomber though.

The main way that aircraft affected the ground war was by using radios to direct artillery fire.

The German air force did have a number of specific 'ground attack' aircraft by the end of the war, organized into Schlachtstaffeln ("Battle Squadrons") Most common aircraft type was the Halberstadt CL.IV, a 2-seater which was used during the 1918 offensives to fly ahead of advancing German infantry and suppress enemy infantry and artillery with machinegun fire and light bombs. On the defensive, they were used to hit enemy concentration areas to disrupt attacking forces before they got started. A further development, the Halberstadt CLS.1, was to have a 35mm cannon mounted for ground attack, but only reached the prototype stage before the armistice.

The term Schlachtflugzeug or 'Battle Aircraft" was used in WWII NOT for the dive bombers, but for specific ground attack aircraft like the Hs-123, HS-129 or Fw-190F, which attacked enemy front-line units with machineguns, cannon, light bombs and rockets. The Hs-129, carrying a 30mm cannon, was especially designed as an 'antitank' aircraft.

However, in game terms we don't need two aircraft types, dive bombers and ground attack, doing essentially the same job.

Would have been nice to have graphic variations, though: especially the Soviet IL-2 Sturmovik, WWII's quintessential ground attack aircraft, or the American P-47 Thunderbolt that could carry almost as heavy a bomb load as a medium bomber!

 

[Haig]

Just to clarify, is it correct that units now have a single strength attribute, meaning no more difference in attack and defense (I know the rock scissor paper concept is gone). If so, that's another major bummer

@ThERat some units have special abilities like Skirmish (more combat strenght from attacking)

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

@ThERat some units have special abilities like Skirmish (more combat strenght from attacking)

Once I have the game in my hot little hands, (7 hours, 15 minutes to go!) I plan to go through all these 'special abilities' for Units, because they look suspiciously to me like Humankind's 'Unit Abilities' - one of the few completely positive ideas in that game.

They provided a simple way to specify the difference between units without lumbering them into 'classes' of units with identical characteristics. Checking this system out is high on my list of Things To Do in Civ VII.

 

[Psychotronics]

Oh god, the map doesn't move when you place your mouse on the edge of the screen. I'm going to be annoyed by this the entire time I'm playing the game.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

The German air force did have a number of specific 'ground attack' aircraft by the end of the war, organized into Schlachtstaffeln ("Battle Squadrons") Most common aircraft type was the Halberstadt CL.IV, a 2-seater which was used during the 1918 offensives to fly ahead of advancing German infantry and suppress enemy infantry and artillery with machinegun fire and light bombs. On the defensive, they were used to hit enemy concentration areas to disrupt attacking forces before they got started. A further development, the Halberstadt CLS.1, was to have a 35mm cannon mounted for ground attack, but only reached the prototype stage before the armistice.

The term Schlachtflugzeug or 'Battle Aircraft" was used in WWII NOT for the dive bombers, but for specific ground attack aircraft like the Hs-123, HS-129 or Fw-190F, which attacked enemy front-line units with machineguns, cannon, light bombs and rockets. The Hs-129, carrying a 30mm cannon, was especially designed as an 'antitank' aircraft.

However, in game terms we don't need two aircraft types, dive bombers and ground attack, doing essentially the same job.

Would have been nice to have graphic variations, though: especially the Soviet IL-2 Sturmovik, WWII's quintessential ground attack aircraft, or the American P-47 Thunderbolt that could carry almost as heavy a bomb load as a medium bomber!

So far. Helicopters didn't return.
Should choppers belong to Ground Attack or Dive Bomber class?

 

[Krikkit1]

So far. Helicopters didn't return.
Should choppers belong to Ground Attack or Dive Bomber class?

Choppers should be a 4th age Ranged unit (fitting with the antitank role) with Amphibious

 

[AriochIV]

Each Age can add its own unit types, so helicopters might possibly be something quite different.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Choppers should be a 4th age Ranged unit (fitting with the antitank role) with Amphibious

No. it should be an evolution path of Attack Aircraft line.

 

[8housesofelixir]

I noticed that, in Rosencreutz's video, he opens up the Civilopedia page of Han, which shows the icon of the Shidafu UU:

View attachment 716029

FYI, this icon is based on the Black Gauze Cap 乌纱帽, a government official's hat that took this exact shape only in the Ming dynasty.

Spoiler A Ming painting showing three officials wearing the black cap :

View attachment 716031

It is also worth noting that the word Shidafu 士大夫 or "scholar-official" is not a Han dynasty vocabulary. The very concept of scholar-official only developed after the Civil Service Examination became prevalent, which only happened in the Song dynasty, and reached its peak in the Ming dynasty.

Then, in the Han Great Person list, among the many early Chinese scholars and officials, is Wang Yangming (1472-1529 CE), a famous Ming scholar-official known for his philosophical advancements. It is also worth noting that the ability of Wang Yangming is "Activated on an Army Commander to grant it a free Promotion"; historically, Wang Yangming was also an able commander who defeated a contender to the Ming throne. Therefore, this Wang Yangming design is undoubtedly based on the Ming official Wang Yangming, rather than some random Han official who was mistakenly named after a Ming person.



Initially, I thought Wang Yangming was a lone case of anachronism, as everyone else on the Great Person list roughly fits into the Early Imperial China period (ca. 221 BCE - 266 CE), while the wording of Shidafu might be simply an overlooked term.

However, the icon of Shidafu is undoubtedly based on the official cap from the Ming times. With that in mind, the Han Great Person list now has three instances of Ming elements, from naming to art design. And these are carefully designed Ming elements - both the icon design and the Wang Yangming design accurately reflect Ming customs and historical events, indicating that the designers involved as a good understanding of Ming history. But now, these assets have become part of the Han design.

In conclusion, I strongly suspect that the Han Unique Unit, "Shidafu," was initially designed as the Unique Unit for Ming. For reasons unknown, FXS devs eventually decided to shift these unique units to Han, which resulted in the current design. This change was done somewhat hurriedly, in that the name and the icon for these UU remained as a Ming name and a Ming icon, as well as an anachronistic Wang Yangming. The current UU also has a bunch of figures who were clearly not from the Han era (in fact, the majority of them were not from the Han era), suggesting poor research caused by a hurried design change.

---

I don't have any feelings about this design change personally - I would still happily play Han and Ming.

On the other hand, I would like to point out that the three cases of anachronism will be very, very visible to anyone who are relatively familiar with Chinese history, especially to Chinese players (who all learned about the Ming scholar Wang Yangming in their high school textbooks). It would be a very jarring playing experience for the Chinese player community when they see an accurately portrayed Ming figure showing up in the Han civ, and I can certainly imagine Chinese players complaining about how FXS handled it (if not already).

I would suggest that FXS devs at least do something about Wang Yangming, which should fix the most apparent issue (redesigning the icon and the rest of the Great Person would be too much work before release).

• Perhaps renaming Wang Yangming to Ban Chao, who was a scholar and an actual army commander in the Eastern Han dynasty, so only a rename is enough, and his ability won't require a redesign. In addition, he is also related to Ban Zhao (Chao is the big brother of Zhao), who is already a Great Person on the list, so the overall theme of early Chinese scholars and officials is still retained.

(In a perfect world, I might suggest redesigning the entire Han UU list from the ground up, as there were plenty of interesting figures in Han times - I am a historian focusing on early China, and my job is to deal with these interesting figures every day. Of course, this will be plenty of work, and I won't expect such a relatively large redesign on a released product to be realistically on the developing schedule.)

In any case, I hope that such a small rename could patch this issue of unthematic anachronism, and bring about a better playing experience.

Follow up: It seems that in the release version of Civ, the unique great person name "Wang Yangming" had been changed to Huo Qubing, a famous Han-era general. I appreciate that the devs reconsidered the anachronism and made the change!

 

[AriochIV]

Okay... the deal with units and the Age transition is actually clearer than I thought, and not entirely arbitrary.

At Age transition, you get to keep 6 units plus however many additional units can fit in your Commanders (normally 4 each in Antiquity). The rest disappear.

That seems relatively straightforward, and not too burdensome, as Commanders aren't that expensive.

(post won't accept image attachments at the moment)

https://well-of-souls.com/civ/images/7_age_unit_limit.jpg

 

[DogeEnricoDandolo]

Anyone knows if I can get back my highly promoted Commander after it dies? I am playing Trung Trac of Rome and my Commander with 6 promotions died I built it once again and all I got was a brand new Commander with no promotion.