version 9 playtest feedback

[jefmart1]

I imagine that machining cartridges for automatic weapons would be a pretty high priority, especially if it gave you tactical superiority.

I agree that its easier to police brass on a range rather then in combat, BUT you make the point that all of the existing ammo would be used up already. If thats the case then there would literally be used brass everywhere.

Also, I know a number of people who have the gear at home to reload and/or make their own ammo. The gear is out there and other tools like those in a high school metal shop could be adapted for it pretty easily.

Why use "old" tech if you don't have too? Afghanistan is a fairly backward country to begin with. Its not like 1st World countries who would have advanced machinery and equipment lying around to be rediscovered or scavenged.

 

[arkham4269]

Why use "old" tech if you don't have too? Afghanistan is a fairly backward country to begin with. Its not like 1st World countries who would have advanced machinery and equipment lying around to be rediscovered or scavenged.

After a cataclysmic war, 20 years of anarchy, the entire world is now backward.

In regards to stuff being all over the place, remember that a lot of weather effects, scavaging and the like can happen in the 20 years that take place prior to the start of the game. You're going to have refuges streaming out of what's left of the cities, all hungry all desperate. You have weather in monumental change due to the nukes thrown around. Things in the outlying rural areas will last for a bit but after the first winter, you're going to have starvation, disease and worse, roving groups of people intent on taking instead of asking.

Turn 1 represents the groups who survived this process through having Vision that attracted enough followers to survive past a base subsistence level and now are ready to reclaim their world via their Vision.

 

[Refar]

There should be very low populations in the first 20 years after the apocalypse - most survivors probably hiding in some bunkers / occupieng very small areas. The industry af a metropole like Sydney with millions of peoples (now) is a whooole lot to scavenge for like 20.000 surviros... It could hold for centuries.

Also from experience of past world wars, disaters and hiroshima - stuff is much more resistant to destruction than you would think. Sure the chance to scavenge a working PC or something might not be too good after 20 years. But cars, bulldozers, heavy machines are known to work after a lot more than just 20 years - even when beeing exposed to nature. Not to mention scrap metal, pipes, engine and supension parts.... there will be planty of all of this.

 

[arkham4269]

Also from experience of past world wars, disaters and hiroshima - stuff is much more resistant to destruction than you would think. Sure the chance to scavenge a working PC or something might not be too good after 20 years. But cars, bulldozers, heavy machines are known to work after a lot more than just 20 years - even when being exposed to nature. Not to mention scrap metal, pipes, engine and suspension parts.... there will be planty of all of this.

Which is why I've advocated that while there wouldn't be much in the way of fixing a lot of pre-modern stuff unless it had been maintained during the Pre-Game period, there is lots of stuff to use for a lower tech level. The point I've been making about steam engines is that a car left out for twenty years won't be too usable in the sense of just putting in a new battery and gas (the seals and gaskets will be toast) the basic frame of the vehicle should be fine, especially if it was in a garage. So you pull out the engine, refurbish it a bit with new tires, thrown in a steam engine to get use out of the vehicle while you send the old engine off for either parts or refurbishing if possible.

Plus, as an ex-military mechanic and logistics clerk (for about 5 years) I can tell you that it's the seals and gaskets & tires that rot with time, especially if the vehicle isn't moving. We would blow wheel seals almost every time we'd drive to our big annual training event in Germany while I was there simply because our officers couldn't understand that vehicles need to be 'exercised' and if you just leave them immobile for months at a time, the seals become brittle and they rupture with amazing ease. Not to mention even if you find a car in a garage buried by rubble, the tires will be warped from the years of supporting the weight of the car. Replacing car wheels is another nightmare for a Civ. I mean galvanized rubber isn't the easiest thing to make, but at least tires are almost impossible to destroy and if you have the right equipment are almost 100% recyclable.

 

[Refar]

It would be easier to fix the original engine - provided there is fuel available.

I have seen a car rot in our courtyard for 18 years without even a garage - when my grand father finally decided to put it in the grage to fix it - he put in a new battery, and it worked. It wasnt pretty, the tires were bad indeed and it made noise a car usually shouldn't, but you could drive it.

 

[jefmart1]

After a cataclysmic war, 20 years of anarchy, the entire world is now backward.

In regards to stuff being all over the place, remember that a lot of weather effects, scavaging and the like can happen in the 20 years that take place prior to the start of the game. You're going to have refuges streaming out of what's left of the cities, all hungry all desperate. You have weather in monumental change due to the nukes thrown around. Things in the outlying rural areas will last for a bit but after the first winter, you're going to have starvation, disease and worse, roving groups of people intent on taking instead of asking.

Turn 1 represents the groups who survived this process through having Vision that attracted enough followers to survive past a base subsistence level and now are ready to reclaim their world via their Vision.

You actually are making my point for me. If the survivors are only interested in "surviving", ie food and shelter, then they are ignoring machine shops, garages, tools, etc; because they are not of immediate use. I would argue that Turn 1, the start of "vision", or looking beyond survival; is when people would start trying to find those kinds of things.

You could find tools in peoples houses, garages, schools, Home Depot (not sure if they have those in Australia), etc. Some would still be packed in their original packaging or in sealed rooms, ready to be used. You don't need alot of them, there aren't that many people left.

 

[arkham4269]

You actually are making my point for me. If the survivors are only interested in "surviving", ie food and shelter, then they are ignoring machine shops, garages, tools, etc; because they are not of immediate use. I would argue that Turn 1, the start of "vision", or looking beyond survival; is when people would start trying to find those kinds of things.

You could find tools in peoples houses, garages, schools, Home Depot (not sure if they have those in Australia), etc. Some would still be packed in their original packaging or in sealed rooms, ready to be used. You don't need a lot of them, there aren't that many people left.

I'm not doing anything of the sort. The point you are missing is that 20 years has gone before the game has even started. No factories are churning out replacement parts or new products. Mechanized farms aren't churning out food and there is no chemical plants producing rubber tires, gaskets or even seals for Mason Jars to store food in.

20 years is a long time when you can't replace stuff. In fact, if anything, Turn 1 could easily represent that enough time has passed where the different groups of survivors have gotten to the point where they know what they have (knowledge wise) and what they need. At a certain point, things are going to break down and can't be replaced. People are going to have to stop living on scraps and start making 'new' things even if those new things are of a older tech.

Which goes back to our discussion over modern guns to older guns. Can I fix a modern gun? Is it worth the time and tools to machine out the parts to replace and fix modern stuff? Or maybe I start making my own guns that not only can I make at will, but since they're of an easier tech, they can be repaired in the field since the soldier can carry spare parts. Sure an M-16 is great versus a bunch of guys with Springfield knock-offs, but what happens if the guy with that M-16 falls of his horse and bends his barrel? He can't fix it unless he can find a replacement and as I've said, 20 years before the start of the game is a long time and things like this happen all the time.

Plus, when it comes to stuff to loot, a lot of that is/has been looted by the barbarians which represent people living a nomadic life, living off the carcass of the old world. By the time of turn 80 (40 years after the War) or so, these pickings would be mighty slim which is why they'd have to start attacking the main Civ's since they're the only ones with stuff.

 

[demon59]

If you police your brass and were able to manufacture gunpowder (sulfur, charcoal, and nitrates) you could reload your rounds. Most hunters, gun enthusiasts, etc; possess the necessary equipment and know how to do so. I agree that making "new" ammo would be difficult, but if you already have the gun, wouldn't you try making the ammo for that rather then making new guns?

The mechanics of most modern assault rifles (gas operated) would make them poor candidates for use with black powder ammunition. Black powder is much more corrosive and "dirty" than modern smokeless powders, and would probably destroy or quickly render unreliable an assault rifle, IMHO.
Both submachineguns (the easiest automatic weapons to build low-tech) or heavy machineguns, use much simpler actions (blow-back or recoil operated) that would adapt better to black powder.
Perhaps Guardians should be armed with muzzle-loaders (rifles or double-barrelled shotguns), with a somewhat more powerful, submachinegun armed assault unit for offensive use.

 

[Refar]

Sure an M-16 is great versus a bunch of guys with Springfield knock-offs, but what happens if the guy with that M-16 falls of his horse and bends his barrel?

This is a problem of making your guns out of plastics... There are plenty of good "old shcool" guns which are reliable, durable and simple to handle and operate.

At some point the survivors certainly will start to re-manufacture the stuff, which will elad to further development. But i dont really see a way - nor the need - to model the development. Down the line a gun is a gun.

Black powder is much more corrosive and "dirty" than modern smokeless powders, and would probably destroy or quickly render unreliable an assault rifle, IMHO.

Yes, it leaves significant residue wich can make the gun jam or become unsafe to operate. I am quite certain no one is coing to use the simple Sulfur/Charcoal gunpowder ever again.
But i think with some knowledge of chemistry, it should be possible to recreate the more advanced mixtures.

 

[arkham4269]

This is a problem of making your guns out of plastics... There are plenty of good "old school" guns which are reliable, durable and simple to handle and operate.

At some point the survivors certainly will start to re-manufacture the stuff, which will lead to further development. But i dont really see a way - nor the need - to model the development.

In real terms, the big difference between the firearms of the pre-ACW era as that you pretty much had to be standing up to fire them since you had to use the ram (and cleaning) rod to load the weapons. The advent of things like the Spencer rifle allowed people to be able to be more flexible in using the terrain. Not that you couldn't do it before, not very feasible if you have to get up every time to reload.

The second big advance didn't come to about the time of the Boar War when the introduction of 'smokeless' powder was introduced. You can always tell people who have no concept of early firearms when they smugly think the British were 'so stupid for wearing those bright red coats' when the fact of the matter is EVERYONE back then had uniforms that had some form of bright color in them because after the battle got going, you needed that color to tell who was who. Anyway, so in an ambush, you'd get one volley and then the smoke would give your position away as telling as waving a flag. The 'smokeless' power gave the defenders a big boost since now, unless you saw the muzzle flash, it was much harder to tell where an attack is coming from.

Now, a typical ACW rifle could still out fire a crossbow, had more stopping power and those wounds were hard to cure back then. Plus, their rate of fire was still pretty impressive and as I've posted before, they would not be hard to make.

Considering the firearms that would be made, the big question is when can they make a reliable cartridge? Because in many respects it is not the soldier level weapon that is important, but the belt-fed squad automatic weapon that is going to be the big one, especially since they would be much more effective on the more modern vehicles then they were originally when they were first lugged around like artillery.

So in game terms, getting the resources to make gunpowder, building the facilities to do so (especially since making it is VERY dangerous) is the big stumbling block of firearms. Once that happens, it's just a matter of being able to reach a machining tech of around 1900 or so when you can build the cartridges for machine guns.

As I've also said before, I believe ammunition production would be the biggest and most continuing problem for the survivors. Even when you get your gunpowder going, it'll take a bit to build enough ammo plants to field a lot of units. Then when you get to the next step, you'd need an 'advance ammo' plant to crank out even more ammo, even more so because the belt fed/magazine fed weapons shoot more ammo and their would be more soldiers by the time the tech is online so you'd need even more.

In game terms, it's too bad there probably isn't a way to track units with a certain promotion, since it would be nice to be able to limit the number of units with a certain promotion to the number of something like amount of ammo plants built.

Last thought guys (sorry for long post) Unlike vanilla Civ where it's common (and stupid) to see spearmen long into the gunpowder age, the scale of this mod and the scarcity of resources might be that you'd still see lot of the early tech units simply because there are not enough resources around to field everyone. We must not forget there is a big difference between a modern nation (even small ones like Portugal or Holland) could produce from 1812 thru 1917 compared to an area wracked with climate change, constant warfare and the like. Not everyone can have the good toys.

 

[jefmart1]

I like the idea of limited ammo. I think that anyone who has owned a gun and knows how to take care of it would rather use that then make a new older version of it. Working assault rifles would be like treasured heirlooms. And I would think the guy who figures out that he can make ammo, would realize he is "rich" off of it. The ammo would be in high demand, and economics being what it is, he would make more. People wpuld try to learn that tech to make "money" and gain an advantage. There should be (in the US at least, I believe private gun ownership is illegal in Australia though) lots of guns lying around after the ammo runs out. An AK-47 can be buried in the muck for twenty years, pulled out, the bolt kicked open , and still fired. M-16s or clones would be still stored some places. You wouldn't need alot to arm small bands of survivors.

If you had a choice between an M-16 and an M1 rifle, which would you pick? Yes, its easier, apparently, to make a bunch of M1 rifles; but in a battle for supremacy/survival I'm going to spend the extra effort to make my M-16 work.

So I propose creating a building before Ammo Factory that allows shotguns & ammo to be repaired/manufactured since shotgun shells are easier to manufacture and could use black powder. Then move Ammo Factory later into the game. Put an intermediate unit between crossbow and Guardian. And add in a limited ammo function to the mod. Maybe add a Gunsmith building that needs to be built before you can produce gun units?

 

[arkham4269]

If you had a choice between an M-16 and an M1 rifle, which would you pick? Yes, its easier, apparently, to make a bunch of M1 rifles; but in a battle for supremacy/survival I'm going to spend the extra effort to make my M-16 work.

The point is never which gun is better, the point is that if your Civ insists on trying to rebuild the capacity to field M-16's, the chances are you're going to get over-run by my Civ who didn't. The Tech tree is built like that. You're Civ would spend way to much time trying to get advanced techs, techs that would also require some hefty buildings. In the mean time, I've built up my early ammo plants and started cranking out units with the 'early firearms' production as well as things like canons. Sure a 1812 field piece might seem corny...until you have to attack into them while their firing canister or grape-shot.

Plus, a multi-magazine weapon isn't a wonder weapon. On more political blogs, I've argued that if your are paranoid about the "Guvmint" taking over, the last thing you probably want is an assault rifle. No, you'd probably want a good bolt-action rifle with a scope. Most sniper rifles were all built from these. In a fight with a better armed enemy, don't play their game, make them play theirs. That's why 'low intensity conflicts' with insurgents like Iraq and Afghanistan suck so bad. The bad guys play to their strength an not ours.

Personally, I think most of the modern weapons would be kept for the "Presidential" Guard or other very elite units that stay back and protect the leader, especially if that Leader is more of a warlord and enforces his/her Vision by force.

 

[Refar]

^^ Here i have to agree with arkham.

You can see it in modern worls as well - the 3 most widespread assault rifles - AK47, FN-Fal and HK G3 - these are by far not "the best" in the sense people would expect (like precision, handling) - but they are durable, easy to manufacture and reliable in almost any environment.

 

[jefmart1]

I'm not arguing about making assault rifles, I arguing that the survivors would have either kept or gain access to guns and that its about making ammo. I would think that anyone with a gun after the apocalypse would keep it as their most treasured possession and pass it down to their kids. They would hoard ammo and spare parts. Probably the people who do survive would be those with guns.

I do support the limited ammo concept. Ammo would be precious until more could be made, which I would think would be a primary goal. However, in the meantime crossbows and melee weapons would be used to avoid wasting precious ammo, especially if your enemy can be killed without using a gun.

 

[arkham4269]

I'm not arguing about making assault rifles, I arguing that the survivors would have either kept or gain access to guns and that its about making ammo. I would think that anyone with a gun after the apocalypse would keep it as their most treasured possession and pass it down to their kids. They would hoard ammo and spare parts. Probably the people who do survive would be those with guns.

I have no problem with this idea either. However, in game terms, this would mean that the benefit of being a defender in a city would be higher since if things were really getting out of hand, the defenders would be breaking into their "Break Glass in Case of Emergency" ammo and so would be able to potentially make it that much tougher on the attacker.

The point I've been making is that for new units, fielded during the course of the game, the bulk of their items would either be things like crossbows or firearms made afterwords to a lower tech level. If the insurgents in Afghanistan are any historical indicator, your weapon would be a sign of your status; the higher up the food chain, they better your weapon. I had a Special Ops sniper say that's how they would pick their targets; find the guy with the most modern gun and take him out first. Again, I'd bet that a lot of officers and the like would have things like a 9mm modern pistol, but in terms of game mechanics, it wouldn't have much effect. On his ability to lead (and keep order) in the context of the Fury Road theme, that's a different story.

 

[Refar]

Beeing the defender is allways beneficial - and a part of it is having supplies at hand.

 

[arkham4269]

Beeing the defender is allways beneficial - and a part of it is having supplies at hand.

Well like I said, perhaps the bonus for defending in a city should be raised by 5-10% more than in vanilla BTS to reflect this.

Plus another problem is while defenses may not be up to medieval standards, you can do a lot with ditches, wire and bulk anti-vehicle obstacles like the 'hedgehog' which is just some I-Beams welded together. While these are primarily anti-ship weapons (you see them in the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan) they are also effective against vehicles. Anyway, the point is that taking a city should really be hard in the early part of the game simply because of the 3-1 rule. In warfare, it is almost a rule of thumb that you need a 3-1 advantage to carry a fortified position. You need enough troops to pin the defenders with fire, you need enough troops to be able to attack at multiple points so that the defenders cannot mass their troops only at one point...and you need more troops because you're going to loose lots of them.

I don't think early in the game, you'll really have the mass of troops to do this. Plus, I think that every Capitol at the beginning of the game should get a some sort of 'Capitol Defense' for free. This is the city that withstood the 20 years prior to the beginning of the game and I don't think it's right that you end up with one Survivor that can get taken out be a Deathclaw if you're unlucky enough to have one spawn early next to you.

If that idea doesn't work, you could have a "presidential guard" unit that you start the game with and it cannot move. Or maybe (if game mechanics allow it) it only can be in the capitol so if you move your capitol, the Guard moves with you. This way, you have a game feature that shows the capitol isn't something easily taken out.

 

[jefmart1]

In addition to limited ammo, what about limiting the number of gun units as National units? Maybe by number of cities? 3 per city?

Because the main problem with my argument is that you can produce limitless gun units given time. My argument was that there would be some guns left over, but not an unlimited amount.

OR, make them items that are carried like in FFH, and they are dropped when the unit dies. They could be found in ruins or goody huts, or produced/repaired in limited amounts in a city. Change the graphic when a unit activates the item to reflect that they now have guns. This way there are limited guns and they are valuable assets.

Crossbows = +2 Strength, +1 1st Strike Chance
Shotguns = +4 Str, +1 1st Strike Chance, +25% vs Melee
Rifles = +4 Str, +1 1st Strike, +10% With
Automatic Weapons = +6 Str, +2 1st Strike Chances, +5% Collateral Damage

 

[Refar]

This is a idea i like - i had suggested it some earlier. However there are a few technical issues - most notable - the number of possible national units does not depend on nothing - it's fix, so you cant make it "Number of cities" or something.

 

[jefmart1]

The North American mod for Vanilla I think, had a fixed number of units based on the # of cities you controlled. Would it be possible to recreate that and also make it by unit type?