Supplying units to allies

[nick0515]

I've always wanted to supply military units to allied civs.

I've thought of two ways to do it but haven't tested them.

Method One: Trading the Default Capture Unit

Make the default capture unit (by default a worker) something like "small arms" or "weapons". The default capture unit is the only unit that can be traded as long as it is in your capital city. This unit would upgrade to a basic military unit.


Method Two: Letting Other Civs Capture Hidden Nationality Units

You could build or auto-produce a hidden nationality unit with zero attack/defense called something like "export tank" that upgrades to a normal tank. Then you move/paradrop the unit somewhere were another civ can capture it and move it to a city to upgrade it. This method if it works would allow you to give any number of different types of military units to allies. The downside would be that you couldn't trade them with the AI for money/resource etc, although you could with human players.


Has anyone ever tested these ideas before? I'm pretty sure both would work but haven't had a chance to test them yet.

 

[timerover51]

I've always wanted to supply military units to allied civs.

I've thought of two ways to do it but haven't tested them.

Method One: Trading the Default Capture Unit

Make the default capture unit (by default a worker) something like "small arms" or "weapons". The default capture unit is the only unit that can be traded as long as it is in your capital city. This unit would upgrade to a basic military unit.


Method Two: Letting Other Civs Capture Hidden Nationality Units

You could build or auto-produce a hidden nationality unit with zero attack/defense called something like "export tank" that upgrades to a normal tank. Then you move/paradrop the unit somewhere were another civ can capture it and move it to a city to upgrade it. This method if it works would allow you to give any number of different types of military units to allies. The downside would be that you couldn't trade them with the AI for money/resource etc, although you could with human players.


Has anyone ever tested these ideas before? I'm pretty sure both would work but haven't had a chance to test them yet.

Somewhat like the World War 2 Lend-Lease Program. I have not tried it in a computer game, but I have used it in a board game. It can be make things quite interesting.

 

[Nathiri]

There is a tutorial in the tutorials section about making military units tradable. This involves putting the military unit in the position slot of the worker in I think the editor or another area.

This would be similar to your first method, but you have added in a bit more.

 

[nick0515]

There is a tutorial in the tutorials section about making military units tradable. This involves putting the military unit in the position slot of the worker in I think the editor or another area.

This would be similar to your first method, but you have added in a bit more.

Pretty sure that one is a myth. The worker is tradeable because it is the default capture unit in the general settings tab not because it is in slot 2 on the units_32.

Timerover, yes I think it would be very interesting. I always try to cultivate client states in Civ but it never works very well. I give them money and station troops in their territory but they are never very grateful and in fact usually turn on me at some point for no good reason.

 

[Nathiri]

Alright I never tested it, just looked at it. I like having worker units tradable and to get rid of that for military units I would not really want to do.

 

[nick0515]

Alright I never tested it, just looked at it. I like having worker units tradable and to get rid of that for military units I would not really want to do.

Yeh it's a big sacrifice. Also means if workers or settlers are captured you get a "weapos" unit not a worker.

 

[Lord AJ]

Method Two: Letting Other Civs Capture Hidden Nationality Units

You could build or auto-produce a hidden nationality unit with zero attack/defense called something like "export tank" that upgrades to a normal tank. Then you move/paradrop the unit somewhere were another civ can capture it and move it to a city to upgrade it. This method if it works would allow you to give any number of different types of military units to allies. The downside would be that you couldn't trade them with the AI for money/resource etc, although you could with human players.

But to capture the units the allies will need to be at war with us which won't be possible in case of locked alliances.

 

[Nathiri]

It could be workable if you make the weapons unit upgrade to a specific worker unit and the worker unit then upgrades into a specific settler unit and the settler then upgrades into the military unit. Although I'm not sure if when making these units with 'king' ability if it would jump to the last unit in the upgraded line. It would be workable if it continued to upgrade to each unit each time. I dont remember if it goes from one unit to the next when having the king ability, or if it jumps to the last unit in the upgraded line if that last unit in the line is available to be upgraded to.

Method two: is interesting but would only really be of use with human players as has already been said. The AI would be able to capture those units (without war, at least I think so, just applying the normal use of hidden nationality by the AI.), how they would use them would probably be quite poor as you have no idea how the AI would perform, while the human players would communicate with you more and you have more of an idea of how they would probably use them. It would not be entirely useless as it could help a dying AI to survive for whatever reason you might want them to (if the conquering AI is winning and you dont want him to have extra territory too quickly for economical purposes or domination victory, locked alliance, etc, until you can deal with it).

Probably better to not have it auto-produced, but built. There are reasons I think that would be better (if of course the method does actually work). The main reason being.... the AI. If a certain way of auto-producing was done, perhaps auto-producing would be fine.

 

[tjs282]

Method Two: Letting Other Civs Capture Hidden Nationality Units

You could build or auto-produce a hidden nationality unit with zero attack/defense called something like "export tank" that upgrades to a normal tank. Then you move/paradrop the unit somewhere were another civ can capture it and move it to a city to upgrade it. This method if it works would allow you to give any number of different types of military units to allies. The downside would be that you couldn't trade them with the AI for money/resource etc, although you could with human players.

I think this is your best option. But I also think your airdropped unit(s) should be defensive, rather than offensive, so as to avoid strengthening your client(s) too much. I mean, the intent is simply to help him/them to survive -- not to give him/them the ability to steamroll all the neighbours, right? The only questions then are:

1. Should you use the standard (defensive) upgrade-paths in the epic game (Rifle...MecInf, or Rambo->TOW; incidentally, has anyone ever tried integrating those?), or design a custom upgrade-path (which could simply be a duplicate of one of the standard paths, with the units renamed and new unit-icons textfile entries created accordingly)
2. How much should the supply-crate unit cost?

If you use one of the standard paths, your client-state would need the necessary tech and/or resources and/or gold to do the upgrade(s); if you use a custom path, then all the units in that path would probably have to be unbuildable (i.e. only available via upgrades from the supply-crate) -- but you'd probably still want to put some kind of tech-restriction on those custom-units as well, to stop your client from getting too big for his boots.

Regarding upgrade-costs: if you're using a standard upgrade-path, in order for a beleaguered AICiv to be able to upgrade the supply-crate, the unit would ideally need to have a high enough shield-cost that your client could upgrade it for free as far as the last unit in the path (because if you're having to arm them, they're most likely going to be short of gold!). If you're building the supply-crate from scratch, that means you'll have to spend those shields yourself. That said, if you're that much more powerful than your client by that point, then you've probably got productivity to spare...

Alternatively, the supply-crate could be auto-produced (e.g. by an 'Armoury' improvement), but with a high enough 'hidden' shield-cost that your client-state AI could still then upgrade them cost-free to whatever unit in the upgrade-path (whether standard or customised) they're capable of producing at the time. The disadvantage to auto-production is that, once they've built the improvement (and they will, eventually), the supply-crate -- and any upgrade-path it unlocks -- will become available to the strong AICivs as well.

And you do not want the AICivs to be building (or auto-producing) the supply-crate units themselves: weak AICivs shouldn't be wasting their own shields (because every one of those is going to be vital!), and strong AICivs shouldn't be able to take advantage of the free-upgrades. So the supply crate should be buildable, but disfavoured by the AI, and that shouldn't be too much of a problem to achieve in this case. According to what I've read on here, although the AI loooves building HN units in general (which is bad), a high cost combined with the zero-A/D (and maybe no AIStrat-flags checked?) should effectively discourage them from doing so.

But to capture the units the allies will need to be at war with us which won't be possible in case of locked alliances.

Don't think so. The AI quite happily hunts down and sinks Hidden-Nationality Privateers even when it's at peace with the owner(s) of those Privateers. If setting A/D=0/0 is sufficient to allow capture of the 'supply crate' unit rather than killing it (as for bombardment-units), then this idea should work without too much fiddling required. Although there is of course the risk that the 'wrong' AICiv will capture the crate, but that happens in the real world as well...

 

[Wolfhart]

... If setting A/D=0/0 is sufficient to allow capture of the 'supply crate' unit rather than killing it (as for bombardment-units), then this idea should work without too much fiddling required. ...

To allow capture the unit must also be or have been buildable by the capturer.