Suggestions

Jagordon · Sep 4, 2007

I just wanting to make some more suggestions:

Ships anti-air capabilities seems a little weak considering that in like one turn a sizable fleet can be crushed by a couple of bombers with like 1 being intercepted and losing half its health then have a few enemy ships come in and kill my bigger ships. Is there someway to be able to stack the anti-air capabilities of your destroyer and cruisers (reduce interception chance individually, but have like a 15% chance increase exponentially so each ship does less to increase the interception chance. 1st would be 15% chance then the next would be 15% of the remaining chance and so on) or at least make them immune to collateral damage so bombers would be less effective against ships. It would give fleets a little more of the ability to cruise without having to flee to heal.

Jagordon · Sep 5, 2007

Another suggestion would be to give countries who lack oil to be able to produce a limited number of that certain unit instead none.

LingLinsRevenge · Sep 5, 2007

Dale:

I posted this else where, but not sure if you saw it -- If you did, but did not think worthy of reply -- then sorry --

I have played two games so far as the Brits 1939 start the first game was historical variable entry times, the second game was historical fixed entry times

I am having a great time and I would like to offered some game play suggestions (not just complain about missing leaders, leader heads, units or countries (Upper Volta, you are missing Upper Volta :crazyeye:

)

After writing up my ideas, I saw that there was a lot of text so I split it up, hopefully it is understandable please take these comments not as complaints, but as enthusiasm for your modsclearly you have thought of many ideas and rejected many more If this is true with any of my suggestions, please do not take offense --

As I have read your posts about your design efforts, I particularly liked your citation of Hearts of Iron II I hated that game completely boring a game that may have all of the finicky little details, but the interface was awful and the design intent was obscure.

CIV 4 is fun and the simplifications that it makes are acceptable to me so I try to suggest ideas with in the larger CIV 4 design intent for example, rather than creating 40 different bomber type lets create three promotions that can unlock a useful game element (killing ships).

Some background As noted above, I have played two games so far so there is a lot I do not know but I have developed some overpowering tactics that exploit weakness in the game system so I have thought about some possible fixes.

<continued next post>

LingLinsRevenge · Sep 5, 2007

My strategy as the British has been very aggressive on the ocean, I put 6 subs into the Skaggerack, and reinforce with a large stack of cruisers (all of the Scapa Flow Cruiser fleet). I put the cruisers in the Jutland area, where they are out of range of most mainland European based bombers. But they are safe there because the planes cannot sink them. They promote, and I can heal with a medic cruiser. This means that I have been able to bottle up the Germany Navy fairly well – with the subs there, I can crush any German capital ships with a bombardment –

Bug Number 1: With a large enough capital fleet, I can bombard a single German ship to death – there is no message in the message line (it would be nice to see a note, like when you kill something during normal attack).

Enhancement 1: Ships are too overpowered against Air – I know you know the arguments – but bombers need to be able to kill ships – maybe a promotion?
Within your concept of separate missions for bombers – and the requirement that you use generic plane types – maybe the following mechanism – three promotions – naval attack, unit attack, city attack (which would permit factory and defense attack). A bomber unit could only have two of these types -- And only bombers with Unit and Ship Attack could kill ships. This would permit the development of anti ship bombers and fighters –

Enhancement 2: Ships in cities must be much more vulnerable. Right now, they can never be killed – they take collateral damage from planes, but cannot be killed, and cannot be killed by ship attack (maybe ship bombard – must test). In real life, if a bomber raids a city, the ships are at severe disadvantage. Currently, I can sit with a huge fleet of ships in London – protected from others ships while the bombs rain down.

There are a number of ways to fix – 1. Ships in a city attacked by bombers must leave city -- they are immediately placed on coast squares.
2. Just double or triple the damage against ships in port – (and all planes can attack and kill).

Another issue – In my second game, I put some English units into Europe, attacking the Germans – even retaking Amsterdam (those overpowered Fleets) – (Tactics: Take the Scapa Flow stack, base in London – move to Amsterdam coast – Bombard Amsterdam all at once -- Will certainly remove defense, most likely will collateral damage all units to 50%. Move home – next turn repeat – and on this turn directly invade – Attack at 99% success chance – move transport into city and unload units –THEN – air transport six to nine units from Canada into Amsterdam –

Yikes – a little over powered – got to put some limits on the Air transport –

I thought of an easy way to do it: How about only mature cities getting air shipments -- so – you must have either 50% cultural defense or have an Airport in receiving city to Air transport. Even this will be over powered – as you will be able to air transport from Canada or USA to England – but it is better than directly into a captured city. Another thought, maybe prevent air transport into a city in revolt.

The reason this is important is that once you build two air bases in Canada, the Battle for the Atlantic is over!!! There is no need to run any ships across the Atlantic at all. Then I can use my over powered fleets to bombard to my heart’s content – you can move 6 ground units across the Atlantic per turn – more than the likely capacity of the cities. (All Air units just rebase)

So Enhancement 3: Restrict Air transport as noted above. Either way works for me.

LingLinsRevenge · Sep 5, 2007

Here is another enhancement element. This is a little chrome, rather than a design element: Air unit training – we all know about the major effort of the allies to create well trained air units -- So here is a proposal – a new building called the Air training base – is built by moving an air unit with 10 XP to a city with an Air base – if you leave an air unit on an air training base for a turn, and NO attacks are made against the city, the air unit earns a 1 XP The Air training base only lasts for six months, after which another air unit with 10 XP must be expended.

This would simulate the USA’s air training policy very nicely – and pose the strategic dilemma that existed at the time. It works within the promotion system, and only introduces the concept of stationary units earning the promotions.

However, this maybe difficult to code -- I am not familiar with the SDK well enough to know, so I thought of another way to implement – have three different bomber and fighter types for each unit, that take different amounts of time to build – for example – right now I can built a Spitfire in three turns – for another 10% hammers – I get 3 XP, for another 25% hammers I get 6 XP. So I have a choice to build trained, or advance trained air units, IF I have the Air Training base in the city

Or to avoid any SDK changes at all – Air Training Base gives 3 XP – That is the simplest –

But it is important for the strategic dynamic is to have them expire after X number of turns (veteran pilots are needed to keep the Training base going. and to create the Base with the Veteran unit) which I suppose will require an SDK change...

Yes – it is a little bit of chrome – but I think it adds some flavor –

LingLinsRevenge · Sep 5, 2007

A final question – Is there a trigger in the game for the Germans to send troops to N Africa? As the British, I move all of my ships to Malta and defeat the Italian Navy in detail –
I use subs in the Gibraltar straits, and about 10 cruisers in Gibraltar, plus the Alexandria fleet at Malta controls the sea lanes around Italy easily. Even with out air cover.

This strategy would become impossible is bombers could sink ships in port, or the ships would be forced out of port – then the Italian Navy could get them – (see above)

My strategy is overpowered – and I kill any landing craft I see – and I see all of them – So the North African campaign is easy for the British – Cruiser and battleship sorties to bombard – and attack with three infantry (and one tank flown in from Canada) – So I was wondering, do the Germans ever land in N Africa?

So – again the British Navy is very much overpowered in enemy air covered areas – and mass bombardment attack will kill most of the Italian Navy fairly quickly –
The tactics are – move the Alexandria fleet to Malta. As the Italian Navy comes out, count the number of ships in the target square. Bombard with all units minus the number of battleships equal to number of ships in target. Use remaining battleships to kill remaining targets –

While it is true that I could play at higher difficulty levels – I think that having many more units to kill with these tactics do not increase the fun of the game –

Again, I am sure that you have heard these requests before – many times I expect, but I hope that I have suggested something of merit.

As things stand now, against the AI – my tactics are overpowering –

I can destroy the Italian Navy easily, and keep the German fleet in home ports easily (see above) – as you know this was not the strategic situation in WWII for the British --

again thanks for this mod -- my comments should not in any way suggest disappointment or complaint -- I am very happy with your efforts, and hope that you will take these comments in the spirit they are offered.

And I agree with some of your comments up thread -- there is a level of detail that we do not want -- I do not think a CIV WWII scenario is improved by labor camps or the like -- the slavery concept in CIV is there -- as is the emancipation concept (although I read a thread that advocated removing it)

These concepts (in my opinion) represent some of the best and worse of the human experience -- and yes, it is true that slavery has been used for most of human history and is still prevelant today --
Thus, I applaud the designers of the central game and you, Dale, for your efforts to thread this needle

And that is why my modest suggestions are designed to represent some of the strategic aspects of the conflict

cheers --

Dale · Sep 5, 2007

LingLin:

An massive set of observations. Thanks.

I'd like to hear your view on all the above after you've played a game or two of beta 3. I think with the better war AI some of your points will now be redundant.

LingLinsRevenge · Sep 5, 2007

Will do -- but I think the Air Training concept models a real strategic consideration / choice

?? Take my good air unit out of service -- to create better? or use it to fight today??

LingLinsRevenge · Sep 5, 2007

And with respect to the air transport issue -- unless unit being transported can be attacked as they arrive -- the ability to take six units from Canada to France is very over powered --

Dale · Sep 5, 2007

I agree in principle on the air transport numbers. 3 from the origin just doesn't limit enough. Also, I raised the air cap to 10 in a city with an airport. Maybe reducing this again will help.

Air training is definitely an alternate solution to having many types of aircraft. Whilst in reality you need many types of aircraft, the AI would just be more confused.

I do still think beta 3's AI will modify some of your ideas though, surrounding naval combat mostly.

VeteranLurker · Sep 6, 2007

Am now trying the latest download as Italy with historic settings, but haven't played long enough to see how the new AI plays it yet. But after reading the suggestions about regional 'events', here is my suggestion: I forget the terminology, but I think it was in a Civ III Mediterranean scenario where there were specific goal-points/markers/locations/obelisks that you had to control to earn points or somesuch. Could something like that be useful here, if the region/zone solution (from Rhyes?) cannot be implemented for 'convincing' the Allies to invade North Africa or Normandy to take the pressure off Russia? If there is some sort of marker in western North Africa that Germany/Italy controls, then the Allies would be inclined to attack it.

Also, I have played long enough to be seeing the random BTS-style events. It wants me to build forges as a quest (most of my cities had just completed factories), which seems kind of odd! Sweden had a hurricane -- a simple word change to 'gale' or 'storm' would suffice there. I like the earlier suggestion for espionage types of events, in addition to the production/science ones.

VeteranLurker · Sep 6, 2007

While I'm at it, one thing that stood out as missing in a historical sense is the Murmansk convoys. I don't recall the history in great detail, but the Allies had to ship supplies to Russia across the north, and also of course had to supply England as well. Could the addition of a naval-unit equivalent of a great merchant, which has to go to a city in an allies' control (i.e., cannot just be cashed-in within your own borders or added as a specialist) to get the bonus simulate this? The allie should also get some benefit (perhaps resources, see below). Otherwise, even though it was an earlier version, I had no incentive at all to send my German navy out into the Atlantic and could just concentrate on using them for shore bombardment or to keep things under control in the Baltic.

Similarly, the resources issue keeps crossing my mind. I've played as four different countries now, and all of them have oil and no real threat of losing it except through the occasional act of sabotage. Perhaps this isn't true at a higher difficulty, but I recall that oil supply was critical for Germany and Japan, and led to some of their decisions for where to attack. I don't know the modding details, but I have wondered if there is a way to put a 'limit' on the number of units a particular resource-source can supply? E.g., Italy has an oil field in Albania and it will supply say 100 units -- if you want to build that 101st unit, you need additional oil (or disband an old unit, etc.). The same could be done for coal -- each coal source supplies say 100 squares worth of railroads, or some number of railroad-space movements per turn. Of course, the tricky part is what happens if you lose a source -- on the next turn do units disband, or are just unable to move, or move/fight at half strength? It would have to balanced somehow though, or the 'solution' would be to load up on cavalry (no oil required) and to add zeppelins to the mod.

Chip56 · Sep 6, 2007

Maybe you could get some kind of currency for example:
10 units of oil for every oil ressource you control.
Every tank substracts one unit each turn.
That way you could store it just in case one well gets sabotaged
If you have 0 and a negative income units get disbanded.

Dale · Sep 6, 2007

This is add-on pack 2 talk here.

I am in favour of implementing some form of oil economy, with oil units requiring an oil supply.

I'm also considering implementing a form of my combined stack combat for add-on pack 2 as well (combat similar to CTP2 as opposed to 1-on-1 Civ style combat).

vidimce · Sep 7, 2007

The oil thing would be really good.

What is CTP2 ?

Chip56 · Sep 7, 2007

Civ call to power2.
In ctp2 you fought with stacks of up to 8 units in battles instead of 1vs1.

LingLinsRevenge · Sep 10, 2007

Dale,
I played the beta 3 pack this weekend -- Great Britain -- Historical, 1939
While it is better -- still I could use the British fleet to my advantage

I decided to limit my self -- air transport great people, spies ONLY -- no unit transfer (actually -- I think I was too harsh, should be able to move Paratroopers as well)

I still had NO problem with movement of unit across Atlantic because of following moves --
6 CA and 6 BB moved to Gibralter from Scapa Flow
All subs to Skagerrak
remainder of Scapa Flow fleet lurks in Jutland Area -- blocking Germans moving out of Baltic

Move Suez fleet to Malta Fight Italian navy to standstill -

in 1940 -- Italian fleet tries to break out of Med -- crushed it
London ships with some of the Scapa Flow fleet provide French and Dutch coast line support -- bombing anything in range --
Amsterdam is not taken until late 1941
Caldis taken in 1942 -- but Paris never falls --
English counter attack out of Normandy turns into major campaign --
in 1943 --English takes Caldis France never fails --

Also -- in 1943 -- northern fleet supports attack on Copenhagen English takes it, but German counterattack drives out English (works as diversion)
In Med -- West balkins have taken all of Yugoslavia
English have taken all of N Africa -- Russia has Sardinia -- English have Sicily,
Naples, Brindisi and driving on Rome --

All due to aggressive naval tactics that are completely unhistorical
The Germans never capture Norway, France, or breakout of Med -- Thus, transport ships move back and forth without escort --

The only time I have lost transports in in Med -- when Italians suprised me with a CA or 2.

By the way, AI uses transports in attack mode -- transports should never attack (like scouts)

My main tactic is harbor lurking (or harbour) -- make sure that ships send turn in harboor -- when under enemy aircover -- easy to do in English Channel and Sicily / Malta / Sardinia / Tunis area
Since France never went Vichy, I can move a transport from Gibralter to Malta (UN ESCORTED) without any risk --

I risk battleships by coasts -- operate under German air cover without fear, etc Currently, it seems to me that AI does not attack ships with planes.

The Italian Navy is using harbor lurking, and will stay in harbor until a weak unit is sighted and pounce on it --

a fighter promotion (anti ship) that grant 200% bonus to ship attack, and permit ship kills would work very well to insure that British fleet would stay away from coast -- while it would be strange to see the fighter planes currently in the game used in attack role, this would be much better than current situation -- where fleets can travel without air superiority and attack

Also permit Ship attack in harbor at 300 or 400% bonus with ship sink to all planes -- that will reduce harbor lurking

Of course -- Trick is to get AI to use it properly --

Also -- Great Spy does not work as in regular game -- while it is invisable -- counter esp still kills them -- in core game -- they are invulerable --

VeteranLurker · Sep 11, 2007

Hopefully there would be some way to 1) attack ships in port from the air, as described above; and 2) attack ships in neutral territory via air and bombardment. I can understand the game compromise to allow ships to move through neutral territory, but currently it can be used to distinct advantage.

Not sure if this one can be done, but: neutral territory should be a no-fly zone, right? Currently planes fly back and forth across Turkey in the historical mode, which doesn't seem realistic to their sovereignty.

Dale · Sep 11, 2007

Coming up in the next version: port airbombing!

LingLinsRevenge · Sep 11, 2007

Excellent!!

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