sniper units?

[dylanhatesyou]

I think there should be sniper units made available, with appropriate techs.

A sniper unit would get:

- Hide function in forest/jungle/marsh
- Ability to retreat from battle
- All terrain as roads
- Bombard range of one
- Very weak attack and defense, unless in city, jungle, marsh, or forest
- Strong defense in city, a bit weaker in jungle/forest/marsh
- Very weak defense/attack if not in jungle/marsh/city/forest
- Weak attack overall


Ideas?

 

[Dell19]

Anyone thinking about another post that related to sniper units?

Interesting idea of having vastly different defensive and attacking values in a city or particular terrain although with a bombard ability it might be too powerful as essentially it could become artillary that can move quickly and can be used to actually attack if its on the right terrain.

 

[LOVE_Magiska]

I think that snipers are already represented in the game, though not as their own unit. I mean, that Infantry unit of yours doesn't just consist of regular, rifle-tooting infantry, y'know

 

[WS78]

I think he means scenario type units, though I could be mistaken.

 

[searcheagle]

If snipers are that weak both in attacking, defending and bombardment, what's the use of having them?

 

[ybbor]

see when i think about snipers i think of them as a 0-range bombardment unit

 

[Dell19]

If snipers are that weak both in attacking, defending and bombardment, what's the use of having them?

That they are a three movement unit and that in certain terrain they gain bonuses...

 

[Garbarsardar.jr]

Anyone thinking about another post that related to sniper units?

One here. still I don't get it. We can modd a similar unit with regard to graphic stats and movement.The extra abilities would require what IMHO is too much in order to sneak in a single unit. I admit that sometimes it is my wet dream to play Stalingrad or hunt down cocaine barons in the colombian jungle, but I dont see the fun of doing that with CIV when there are so many FPS around...

 

[maddman75]

I think Civ functions perfectly well without ninjas, thank you.

 

[BassDude726]

I think snipers could have their uses if they could be integrated into the game. It would be cool if they could attack without revealing their nationalities, like a privateer on land. Imagine how useful it would be to take out those annoying settlers or random units straying into your territory without declaring war!

 

[Garbarsardar.jr]

It would be cool if they could attack without revealing their nationalities, like a privateer on land

exactly! and why wait? check the flag "invisible" and modd it today!

 

[lonestar007]

But snipers are traditionally 1-3 man independant units, where the rest of my units I see as regiment size units. Snipers were used to take out high ranking officials, but a few losses doesn't kill off an infantry regiment.

Maybe a sniper would be used to lower the attack/defense of a particular unit for one or more turns representing a loss in leadership.

 

[Dell19]

Would it then just become a fast moving artillary unit that hurts units before the main attack?

 

[~Corsair#01~]

Well, that's what they ARE in real life.

EDIT- Just had a thought- what if, when they assassinate the enemy king, their Civ goes into Anarchy for a turn (then the King would mysteriously return, since, well it would suck if they didn't)

 

[BassDude726]

I think snipers as artillery doesn't sound all that logical... snipers don't injure people, they put bullets between their eyes. Giving them a nice high attack value and a really really low defense value (like maybe 0, if a sniper gets discovered, he's pretty much screwed) might be able to make them a unit that can only be used for specific roles, like city defense (in conjunction with defensive units), or ambushes in rough terrain.

Also, it would be interesting if a sniper unit didn't have a movement associated with attacking. Like if you tell a cavalry to attack, they occupy the square that the target unit used to occupy when it's defeated. For a sniper, you could tell it to attack, but it would just fire off a couple shots and remain in its location, maybe not even giving away its position depending on its experience level?

 

[BassDude726]

And to solve the problem of killing off an entire infantry unit with a sniper, maybe it could only attack once, and then wait a few turns before attacking again, and be very expensive to produce to prevent stacks of snipers from devastating enemy stacks (in reality, snipers are pretty valuable units due to their extensive training.) Sure, that one infantry unit would die, but you never just send one unit into battle alone, do you?

OR: a sniper could be a special unit that could have the ability to take out a MGL and dissolve an army, thus simulating the breakdown of organization caused by the elimination of leadership?

 

[~Corsair#01~]

The problem with snipers is, that since most troops represent generally 100+ people, snipers would represent about 2 or 3, and 2 or 3 people couldn't do more than injure an army of 100000 men, could they? What you could do, however, is have snipers very cheap to build, representing the fact that they're, er... cheap to build, thus you could have tons of snipers accompanying your main task force (although they would probably have movement 1, cos of all the equipment they'd need and they're only foot soldiers).

EDIT-@BD729-I think what you're suggesting would make snipers FAR too powerful.

I've just had another idea- maybe they could be just like normal troops only they're able to choose out of an entire stack which unit to attack (though not non-combatants, cos that would let them destroy armies/ leaders etc.).

 

[BassDude726]

I think making snipers that powerful would accurately represent their impact on combat. They're not just foot soldiers that take out other privates and sargeants, they go after the colonels and the generals, and political leaders. While there is no representation of rank in the game, having the sniper take out an infantry could represent the loss of leadership, morale, and unit cohesion.

The idea of choosing which unit in a stack to attack is great though

 

[~Corsair#01~]

Well, how many great leaders/generals in the past have snipers killed? Not many.
When you think about how cheap snipers are to build (they're actually given only slightly more training than ordinary footsoldiers, and only a small number would be needed to form a unit, so I reckon they'd be about... 1/10 the price of a tank unit), they would be FAR too good.

I have though, had some more ideas:
Since, when you think about it, 1 tile is about 150KM, at least, snipers would not really be able to strike adequately, and I disagree with the whole Assasination thing, cos this would mean sub-dividing individual units into officers etc., I think the advantage a sniper would have would be that they, if on a mountain could attack units 3 tiles away (combat would be same as normal, with the defenders firing back), on a hill they could strike 2 tiles away, and they had a special assasination order, where, if succesful (about 30% probability), they could do one (or more?) hitpoint of damage, AND stop that unit from moving (or fighting back if attacked, so basically it would be like a worker, and it could be captured), which would represent a lack of leadership.

 

[BassDude726]

Actually snipers do take their toll on high ranks: American Revolution, American Civil War, WWI, WWII, Vietnam, all have very well documented cases in which generals were killed by sharpshooters. Probably many other wars too, but I don't know for sure and I don't want to talk out my rear.
Keeping the other unit from moving is a good idea, since snipers have pinned down entire units by making them think they were confronted by a much larger force.

And I think that making them prohibitively expensive (although maybe not realistic) is pretty much the only effective way of making people not build dozens of them.

And I thought tile size was relative, depending on the size of the map?