Urgent fixes that need to be in the next patch

[cracker]

We know Firaxis is planning a patch in the next 3 to 4 weeks, so this posting is to emphasize several URGENT fixes that have to be included in the patch to support some reasonable unit activity.

A number of these fixes are very simple changes to give us access around hardcoded limitations that severely incapacitate game play and game development in many areas:

1) Currently the game is hard coded to prevent any naval unit from being loaded onto any transport. ELIMINATE this hardcoded prohibition that prevents naval units from being transported by other units. This will allow us to define things like: immobile mine and buoy units that can be transported into place by minelaying craft, trucks that can carry things like rubber boats or assault craft, pontoon bridge sections that can be deployed to span narrow water gaps.

3) Currently the game is hardcoded to prevent an unit with transport capability from being loaded on any other unit with transport capability. ELIMINATE this hardcoded prohibition that prevents using larger craft to transport smaller transport capable units. This will allow us to define things like: Trucks and transports that can carry foot soldiers but that could still be loaded on an ocean going transport for delivery to another landmass; helicopters that can deliver soldiers from a carrier, assault vessels that can carry landcraft and troops to a location near a beach. (note that if Firaxis is concerned about the potential "telescoping antenna exploit" then hard code in a level limit that prevents more than one level of transport nesting.

4) Fix the ".... ONLY" Tranport unit abilities in the special unit ability options to work better. Currently the options like "Can Transport Aircraft Only" or "Can Transport Tactical Missiles Only" have the effect of being exclusive absolutely and allow a unit to only be able to transport one thing ever. These options should read "Can Transport Aircraft" and "Can Transport Tactical Missiles" and should function to allow multiple choices. When any of these choices is (or multiple choices are) selected then only the options that are selcted would be allowed. So, as an example, a unit that currently has "Missile Transport Only" ability would now have only "Missile Transport" ability and would be functionally identical for human and AI game play. The difference would be that we could now add the ability to transport "Foot soldiers" and the unit would have the ability to do both. NOTE: this is a really important fix for a game design logic cramp.

5) Expand the list of special unit abilities to include at least a couple of generic transport class groupings and then include the ability to "Transport Class A" and/or "Transport Class B".

6) Eliminate the hardcoding restrictions that prevent "Amphibious" from working like amphibious. Currently amphibious units cannot go into the water and can only stand on naval transports and attack into a land square. This is a valuable feature, but we need the ability to define amphibious units that can go from land into the coastal waters. Examples of the impact of this fix combined with the other fixes would be defining a large troop transport ship to carry landing craft and marines. The marines would be "amphibious" with "sinks in sea" and "sinks in ocean" and this would let them wade into the coastal waters but would cause them probably to drown in deeper water. Landing craft would be "amphibious" with "sinks in ocean" and that way they could drive right up on the beach (Their movement range would need to be limited to only 2 or 3). Amphious woul also allow thing like rubber boats and landing craft to be built in inland cities and then transported to the coastal cities for use.

A number of these features will have no impact on standard "out of the can" game play but will open up significant flexibility for multiplayer and scenario play. We need the hard coded restrictions to be fixed in the short term in order to allow us to develop the tools to integrate the units into the advanced game play.

Even if the choices are "a little buggy" it would be better to have the hard coded restrictions lifted because they would not impact standard game play and otherwise would continue to stifle development.

 

[Black Waltz]

Would these not be included in the June patch?

 

[Maple]

Originally posted by cracker
6) Eliminate the hardcoding restrictions that prevent "Amphibious" from working like amphibious. Currently amphibious units cannot go into the water and can only stand on naval transports and attack into a land square. This is a valuable feature, but we need the ability to define amphibious units that can go from land into the coastal waters. Examples of the impact of this fix combined with the other fixes would be defining a large troop transport ship to carry landing craft and marines. The marines would be "amphibious" with "sinks in sea" and "sinks in ocean" and this would let them wade into the coastal waters but would cause them probably to drown in deeper water. Landing craft would be "amphibious" with "sinks in ocean" and that way they could drive right up on the beach (Their movement range would need to be limited to only 2 or 3). Amphious woul also allow thing like rubber boats and landing craft to be built in inland cities and then transported to the coastal cities for use.

Now that's an idea! We could make some pretty cool D-Day scenarios...

 

[Random Passerby]

Er... correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the AI be woefully inadequate for using most or all of these new unit ideas?

Also, your "amphibious" idea needs a few more improvements to be functional; I thought the "sinks in sea/ocean" flags didn't do anything once you discovered the techs needed to use those water types.

 

[Graeme the mad]

Apart from your amphibious one the ideas are great but that one pure sucks. WE do have amphibious units - they have to win their position though like any amphibious unit. Shoudl you be able to attack them with ships therefore - could a load of marines beat a ship. We arleady can do some pretty impressive amphibious assaults for your d-day scen (when we get the scen editor - cant wait ) as I have found out in a recent game.

 

[Shadrak]

forget the amphibious stuff......fix the far away civs so that they can make shields and build stuff!

 

[Zouave]

I assume everyone is aware that those American troops who made the amphibious assault on D-Day WERE ALL U.S. ARMY, not marines.

I can think of scores of things for the next patch, but how about allowing us to use new maps without having to Edit the mod for everyone one? I have heavily edited the goofy values in the original game, but I can't use those values if I want to try out a new map, I suppose that will apply to new scenarios, also. Not good.

 

[warpstorm]

Originally posted by Zouave
I can think of scores of things for the next patch, but how about allowing us to use new maps without having to Edit the mod for everyone one?

This is the best suggestion than any of the ones on this thread so far.

 

[cracker]

Graeme and Randomness,

I think you missed the major point in the urgency of the request. None of these features will effect any of the current standard units and in the big picture it does not matter if the AI can function with the features in the first pass. The future of Multiplayer scenarios makes the AI competency issue much less of an issue.

These items need to be available to be turned on selectively in order to facilitate development now that will effect game play out in the 3rd and 4th quarter '02 and beyond.

Hardcoding things to make it impossible to move on to the next level just because the current level of sophistication may be limited is almost always a bad idea.

Also to the issue of amphibious units, I would venture to say that the only current semi working example of an amphibious unit is the "Marine" in the standard release. This unit can't get it's feet wet even though it can fire its weapon from on board a transport and then stumble ashore. Effectively the current unit uses the transports as portable islands to keep their feet high and dry.

My definition of amphibious seems to be a bit closer to Webster's and that implies a unit that can travel on land or on water. Firaxis clearly has made some software moves in this area by implementing variables in the code that you may not have seen yet. Things like differential movement costs for coast, sea, and ocean squares as well as the naval equivalent of "treat all terrain as roads". Amphibious units should be able to move on land or water even though it might be more appropriate to provide them with carriers such as flatbed trucks (lowboys) as in the case of amphibious tanks or landing craft as in the case of marines.

I need a marine that can swim (even though he will be a slow swimmer and usually in a boat, ship, helicopter, or on land) and I need a landing craft that can come ashore and move inland all on its own power.

Trust me on this one, Amphibious needs to mean "can move on land or water" and not just be a limited case of can attack from an ocean going transport.

This has broader impacts beyond the limited real world examples that you may be currently thinking of. Think outside of the limits of your past examples and look for a unit that can move on both land and sea (or in fantasy mods "above ground and below ground" or in space mods "in outer space and on planets".

A bigger impact of the amphibious trait when properly implemented will be to allow you to build amphibious units in any of your cities and then "transport" them to be used in or near the ocean or in lakes and inland seas.

Think big picture here, and lets get the hard coded limits focused to support standard gameplay AND the full future potential of the game engine that is CIV3.

 

[Traquenard-fx]

Excuse me but marines are supposed to land on a coast not swim on sea or if you prefer in water during some days LOL

 

[cracker]

Zouave,

I respect your opinions, but wish you would respect my hopes that you would not continue disrupting and hijacking my message threads.

Some your inputs are insightful and very valid but your bitterness often just detracts from the overall communication process.

Please post your own comments as independent threads of your own making if you cannot do me the minimum respect of keeping the discussion on the topic I have chosen to focus on in the initial message.

When you derail the discussion at every opportunity then we all come up empty handed, IS this what you really intend to be happening

or do you really want to help promote a better gaming solution?

You make the call. I still respect your opinion. Just wish the behavior had a more thoughtful method of implementation.

 

[Random Passerby]

If this stuff is intended for multiplayer, then I certainly fail to see it as being urgent. Consideration could be urgent, sure, but if it's basically not going to be any use except pure curiosity in the next patch, why so urgent?

I also think you're emphasizing your particular definition of amphibious a bit too much. If France and the United Kingdom were to declare war upon each other tomorrow, I don't think many British marines would be diving in the channel and swimming across. Given Civ3's broad scope and high abstraction, it's not at all hard to imagine a unit of marines including basic transport craft, but "swimming"? Mister, I don't care how tough your marines are, they aren't treading water for one-year intervals, and even if the new editor allows you to change the time scale and get down to 1-day turns, that's still pushing it too much for it to be an improvement over the current system.

Though you claim that these changes would be strictly for expansion purposes and wouldn't affect existing units, the whole "changing the definition of amphibious" kind of negates that. "Amphibious" as it stands means "land units specialized for amphibious assaults", which I have no objection to. I would like to see them break down some of the rigid land/water/air unit designations to allow for units that can freely move over land or water, or better yet, specific types of either, but I don't see any reason to shuffle around existing flags for this--or indeed why it should necessarily use flags at all, given that it does seem to be a fairly hefty change. One possibility would to simply provide another list field for specifying what terrain types a unit can enter, which would also get around the problem that "sinks in sea" and "sinks in ocean" would do nothing for an industrial/modern-era marine unit. For that matter, a similar list for transportable units would also be useful; a very minor incovenience to go through and select each individual unit for every transport, sure, but it would be a much more powerful and flexible system than just about anything that could be implemented with the current flags box.

Lastly, as to Zouave: I'm not a huge fan of him either, but he's not exactly what I'd call troll material and in this case I don't see him doing anything wrong. Your topic is "Urgent fixes that need to be in the next patch", and Zouave posted an urgent fix that is probably definitely overdue (I haven't even bothered with any maps up until this point, so I wasn't even aware of the problem) and thus should definitely be implemented ASAP.

 

[Traquenard-fx]

The only thing for me about maps that need to be change is having more islands when we choose a map with continents

 

[sumthinelse]

Originally posted by cracker
Zouave,

I respect your opinions, but wish you would respect my hopes that you would not continue disrupting and hijacking my message threads.

Now wait a minute. The title of this thread is "Urgent fixes that need to be in the next patch," and Zoave's post fits the title, as a suggestion for an urgent fix.

And your ideas are excellent and well stated also. I thought that Zoave's suggestions and yours both corresponded well to the title.

 

[Zouave]

Cracker, aren't these "fixes"?? I thought they were. Maybe it's a problem in definitions of the term.


Needed:

Stack bombardment.

Automated NAVAL bombardment - you choose between improvements, resources with roads, or cities.

Workers CAN build airbases, as in Civ 2. They CAN be built on foreign terrain in ALLIED civs.

Bombers and naval units CAN enter the towns/cities of ALLIED civs as bases and to heal.

Once the alliance ends, your military has to leave, or renogiate (pay) to stay.

Naval patrol function.

Quick Response to nuclear First Strike.



Don't hold your breath Firaxis will do any of the above.

 

[Alphidius]

cracker: Whoa, chill out buddy! Zouave is just voicing his concerns on the fixes and has his fair share of saying what needs to be fixed.

Anyway, your ideas are interesting and I agree to most of them. There're things I'd like to add:

1) 'Amphibious' ability should be moves on both land and coasts be allowed to the unit. Perhaps the sea too.

2) Marines should have the ability 'Attack From Craft', retaining their current abilities with just a change of name.

3) Allow 'Land Transport' for AI Strategies that allows the land unit to carry NON-TRANSPORT LAND UNITS. Very important otherwise there will be some really awful errors that we'll be seeing after using the patch.

4) Allow Naval Transport units to carry these Land Transport units that take up two slots in their Transport capacity perhaps?

Well that's all I can think of for now. Nice ideas cracker


Now what I really really like to see is for us to be able to edit detailed information on the Government types. I may be asking too much or PTW may already have these changes but hope they'll be made soon. They are:

1) The 'Standard Tile Penalty' and 'Standard Trade Bonus'. Allow us to define the Penalties and Bonuses, like Mines: +1 Irrigation: +1 Road: +1.

2) War Weariness options. None, Low, High? Wha.. wha..? What's low and high? How high is high? Give me a number, number of unhappy people generated after x number of turns at war, percent of unhappiness each unit creates if it's behind enemies' lines something, anything. Just show me some numbers and hopefully we can edit them. That'll put away all the war weariness.

3) The one major super problem, Corruption. Sure, the patch fixed the corruption madness and increasing the optimal number of cities before corruption will reduce it but it still won't solve the issue completely if playing on a huge map. Minimal, yeah right how much corruption does that generate?
Total cities/Optimal cities X 100%? What? How much does minimal generate, again, give me a number or formula or something.

Well Civ3 did take the Civ series to a new height and these are just minor issues which we hope would make Civ3 a better, new height-breaking game.

 

[TheDS]

Uncouple game settings from maps from scenarios (kinda what Z already mentioned)

Why two missile flags? Just have one flag that says "Missile". Then subs can carry cruise missiles. Or add a flag that allows carrying of cruise missiles.

Add a goat-getter unit, so Zouave can use it as his avatar.

Allow multiple resolution settings: I'm dying to properly use this 21 inch, 2048x1536 monitor in something besides Winblows. And more zoom levels would be nice.

Marines don't need swimming lessons, but I agree that we do need something that can function as a hovercraft, and something that restricts units from entering Ocean or Sea squares, regardless of Astronomy/Navigation. Monitors weren't ocean capable, despite Harry Harrison's assertion in a semi-cool but semi-lame book. (not Turtledove; he's still cool.)

 

[sumthinelse]

Originally posted by Alphidius


2) War Weariness options. None, Low, High? Wha.. wha..? What's low and high? How high is high? Give me a number, number of unhappy people generated after x number of turns at war, percent of unhappiness each unit creates if it's behind enemies' lines something, anything. Just show me some numbers and hopefully we can edit them. That'll put away all the war weariness.

amen. I would add the option to have no war weariness for wars declared by other civ.

 

[Selous]

actually the amphibious idea is a excellent one, while i dont think that marines should have that kind of ability, special forces such as the SBS SAS and the navy seals can attack in the water also (laying mines on ships and the like) the rodeisian SAS once used a lake as their base of operations in enemy teritory

excellent post cracker

more options for the modders out there, more fun had by us mere players (and by the modders themselves off corse) ... and more copys of civ sold and civ xp .... and even more copys of civ4 presold (that is one that most game developers leave out of the equasion)

 

[Duke Peter]

I find the army unit a bit lacking. I love waging wars, but I never convert a great leader to an army. I find that 3 units and 3 attacks are more effective than 1 attack with an army. Therefore I only build wonders with my great leaders.

I would like to see the following change in the next version:

An army can attack twice.

If the army is full of swordsmen it can still only move 1. This would realy give it an edge and make it harder to chose the use of a great leader. 2 attacks would not make it all to powerfull anyway.

I have just installed version 1.21f. It is mentioned in the textfile that an army kan blitz. What does that mean in gameterms? My army can still only move/attack one...