Unit flags (for SSS)

[Mithadan]

Hi Steph,

Just to be clear, the concept of logistical range will be implemented in SSS, but not as a unit flag-type deal, but rather as part of the "supply and maintenance" system? Would that perhaps address LouLong's idea of "support"?

Cheers,

Amandil Mithadan

 

[Steph]

To make things clear about support:
First, as seen in the cost page, units will actually use resources every turn for support. For instance, a Armor division may need 1 oil, 1 iron every turn (for ammunition / repair). And in strategical page, you have the supply range (let say 3).
It means that a unit that is farther than 3 tiles from a piece of your territory connected to a source of oil and iron is normally not in supply. So it cannot heal, and even has a chance of losing HP.
Not that if you produce 6 oil / turn, you cannot supply more than 6 armor divisions at the same time.

Now, about sea supply: if you have a ship that is providing sea supply mission, then you can supply a unit which is near the coast, if the ship can trace a non blockaded lane between one of your harbor and the coast.
Exemple : your armor division can be up to 3 tiles of a coast that is connected to an harbour by a supply ship, and the harbour is connected to oil and iron.

Air supply : a tile is connected if an aircraft succeed in air supply mission (the aircraft must start in a base which is in supply, and be in range of the tile).

Last, some units will extend the supply range, and serve as supply depot. So if you have a link of supply depot, you could theoretically supply a unit quite far away. However, long supply line are vulnerables...

One more little thing : some techs / wonder / improvment will extend the range of units (exemple : Military logistics will increase by one the supply range, "Air refueling" can extend the range of aircraft)

 

[zulu9812]

As things stand in Civ3, a blitz unit can attack/bombard as many times as it has move points remaining. For SSS, I'd like to see that changed, so that the modder can specify if the blitz ability gives either either multiple attacks or bombards, or both.

I would plan on having horse-drawn artillery, that could move 2 or 3 tiles in a turn, but only bombard once. I would also use helicopter gunships as mobile artillery platforms that could bombard as many times as they had move points left (in this case, 4).

 

[Steph]

Damn! I forgot the Rate of Fire!

Anyway, Blitz is not a flag, as the game system doesn't work in the same way at all. The tactical battle will be played very differently

 

[Steph]

I have updated the strategical and tactical with a few more options:
- Dread, healer, modified the range of support effect
- In tactical, rework a bit to make it clearer, added the number of attacks

 

[subbss]

What do you mean by "Dread"? I don't understand.

 

[Steph]

The fear the unit can put in the soul of the units who need to face it. Like an SS division, or the Huns, or a Balrog in a fantasy scenario, or the American UU Mickey Mouse to the Indian UU War Elephant.
Compared to the ennemy unit morale, gives a changes that the unit flee the battle.

 

[Mithadan]

I like the idea of Dread vs. Morale. Reminds me of that "Warlords" game, some units would have "Fear" that needed to be counteracted by "Morale," and there was another pair like that too -- I think "Chaos" vs. "Strategy" or something...

 

[Steph]

A question to all of you about movement.
Initial idea was to include the movement cost for every unit.
The coast is a cumulative multiplier.
Example : Hill = 2, Mountain = 3, Hiigh mountain = 4, grassland = 1, forest = 2, tundra = 2. Major road = 1/4.
So a forested hill will cost 4, a jungle mountain in grassland 9 (3x3), a tundra high mountain 8 (2x4), etc. Or a forested hill with a major road = 1 ( 4 / 4).

Pb1: this could give some very high value (with cost ranging from 1/4 to 9 MP).
Solution 1: allow decimal values (1 decimale). Exemple Hill = 1.5, Mountains = 2, High Mountains = 2.5, Forest= 1.5, jungle = 2.
So : Forest hill -> 1.75, jungle mountain = 4.
Solution 2 : turn into inton a bonus / malus, but with addition, not x.
So : Hill = +1, Mountains = +2, High mountains = +3, forest = +1, Jungle = +2.
Forest hill --> 3 MP, Mountain jungle = 5 MP.

Pb2 : It will make editing all the units quite hard (many many parameters!). And imagine what happens if you want to change the base cost of let say forest.
So the idea would be to give basic cost to every type of terrain, and then to give only a bonus / malus to specific terrain in the unit editor.
Example : hill = 2, mountain = 3, high mountain =4.
But Mountain troop : mountain and high mountain : -1.
So for them : hill = 2, mountain = 2, high mountain = 3.
If we increase cost of high mountain to 5 in the terrain editor, then in the unit editor the bonus remains -1 -> cost for moutain troop becomes 4, without the need to check all the units one by one.

What do you think of these pb?

 

[Bobisback]

Awsome

 

[Lachlan]

J'hésite entre les deux

 

[Steph]

you all are of a great help

 

[Mithadan]

I think the most efficient thing to do would be your bonus/minus idea at the end, Steph. It would be fun to have all that leeway in your original plan, but it would probably be a gigantic pain in the backside if things got changed afterward.

 

[Steph]

After some thinking, here is what I will probably do.
I cannot simply use tha malus system (or I may get a negative value?)
So:
- Every terrain will have a basic cost, with one decimal value.
- Every unit will have a multiplier for basic terrain cost. Most of the time this multiplier will be one, but it can be changed. Multipler will be from 0.0 to 2.0

Total cost of a tile = sum of ( cost x mutliplier).

Example :
Base for grassland = 1, desert = 1.5, tundra = 1.5, hill = 0.5, mountain = 1.0, forest = 1.0, jungle = 1.5.

So normally, going into a desert hill will cost 2 (1.5+0.5), or a jungle moutain 3.5 (1 for grassland + 1.0 for mountain +1.5 for jugle). In a tundra forested hill, 3 (1.5 + 0.5 hill + 1.0 forest), over a mountain = 2.0

Now, alpine troop will have 0.5 multiplier for hill and mountain, and 0.2 for tundra (ski troops).
So : desert hill =1.5 + 0.5x0.5 = 1.75
jungle mountain = 1+1.0x0.5+1.5 = 3
Tundra forest hill = 1.5x0.2 +0.5x0.5+1 = 1.55.
Mountain = 1.5

Well, the exact value will need some works of course, but it is the main idea.

 

[Steph]

Small update. Still working on the move tab (left part almost done)

Line in Rosy Brown are forbidden to the unit, lines in yellow can be entered / exited only through a road, and in white it can always be entered.

The T column is for Tactical move (ie : during battles), the S is for Strategical move (ie the World map), and A is for attrition

Here, we see that horsemen have a higher risk of attrition in Desert than normal (need to find water for the horses).
They are slower in Desert or Tundra, but faster in Grassland.

 

[Mithadan]

Steph, looks very cool.

Forgive me for asking (especially if you've explained this already), but how is this tactical battle vs. strategic move going to work? I've been playing that Spartans demo; would it be similar, with strategic moving taking place on the "campaign map," and moving your units "strategically" into a square occupied by an enemy force triggering either a "resolve battle automatically" or a zoomed-in real-time battle screen, something like Cossacks? Sounds insanely complex to code from scratch (to me, I'm an idiot with that sort of thing), so I guess it's something else. Just curious.

Mithadan

 

[Steph]

It is not that complicated to code, because it will use very similar ways to work.

The strategical map is a big map (I've tested it with up to 1000x1000 tiles), with all the possible terrains (at least in the epic game). City building, roads, mines, exploration, etc are done on this map, as in Civ. You can also move your units here, and make strategical bombardments. When you move an unit into an ennemy square, you can then plan a battle. You can decide to add several units, even from different squares, into the battle, included airplanes, ships or artillery.
Once every player has moved, come the battle resolution phase. If you decide to play the battle in details, a new map is opened. It will be much smaller (20x20 I think), the terrain will be the one from the strategical map, with some random variation.
The battle will start by placing your units. The available tiles will depends on the attacker position : if you attack from only S side, then the attacker will be able to place units in the 3 Southmost lines, and the defender in the 12 northmost lines. If attacked from S and N at the same time, attacker will get the 3 lines S and 3 North (of course, he can place only the units coming from this direction), and the defender will get the 6 lines in the middle, etc.
Then, you can move, attack, as in CivIII, except:
- There is no building / discovery / diplomacy during the battle, only move / attack / die.
- The range of units will be greatly increased. On the strategical map (for epic game, can be different for scenario), only a few units will have a range of 1, and very few a range of 2 (exemple : catapult, archer, riflemen = range 0, artillery, battleships = range 1). On a tactical map: archer : range 2, rifleman = range 4, catapult = range 4, artillery = range 10, battleship = unlimited...
- The units will be able to fire, or melee, with different stats, and different attack / defense against different ennemies.

Regarding the move, first the units will move faster on the tactical map than on the strategical, there is no supply issue on the tactical map (so no "don't go to far from your territory"), and the cost / bonus may be different.
Because on the strategical map, the units go relatively slowly (they need to get supply). So in desert, you can decide cavalry goes only 50% than infantry on the strategical map, but 150% faster in the tactical map, because there they can simply charge without resting horses, or spare water.

 

[Steph]

Save and load done for movement costs. Next step is the load / unload flags

 

[Mithadan]

It is not that complicated to code, because it will use very similar ways to work....

This is extremely cool, man! And the whole point is to have this set up as multiplayer, right? Really cool...

 

[Steph]

Yes, but to start with multiplayer will be limited to hot seat: every player plays on the same computer, turn by turn.