Vokarya's Workshop: Units

[Vokarya]

Helos on carriers? Cool

Question: does the Cargo line of promotions affect the number of fighters or helos? Or both?

I did some testing. Transport promotions on carriers allow you to add 1 extra Air unit regardless of type. A carrier with Transport I can carry a Bomber. The "cargo space" indicator does act a little weird -- a Supercarrier with Transport I and a full load of 6 fighters, 2 helicopters, and 1 extra air unit has a cargo space reading of 10/1.

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[rtt4a]

Vokarya, suggestion

How about 1 heli with missilecruiser/late destroyer? Even with missile cargo heli would be realistic.

Also almost all larger ships could have specialist/spy cargo?

Is there still sea_plane cargo in AND? Maybe it could develop heli cargo..some older capital ships use to have sea plane cargo so maybe those ships later versions could have heli cargo?

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Seaplanes are still being carried by cruisers in AND.

 

[Noyyau]

I did some testing. Transport promotions on carriers allow you to add 1 extra Air unit regardless of type. A carrier with Transport I can carry a Bomber. The "cargo space" indicator does act a little weird -- a Supercarrier with Transport I and a full load of 6 fighters, 2 helicopters, and 1 extra air unit has a cargo space reading of 10/1.

Weird... I suppose Bombers are not intended to fit on Carriers.

Seaplanes are still being carried by cruisers in AND.

On a side note, I love the Cruiser/seaplane combo.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Weird... I suppose Bombers are not intended to fit on Carriers.

Tell it to Col. Doolittle

Edit: anyway I concur that carriers shouldn't be able to carry bombers.

 

[Vokarya]

Fusion Destroyers can't carry missiles anymore, while earlier destroyers can. I suppose we should give this ability to Fusion Destroyers too, right Vokarya?

OK, I have no problem giving missiles to Fusion Destroyers. The only problem I see is that Stealth Destroyers are between Missile Destroyers and Fusion Destroyers. Do we want to give Stealth Destroyers missiles? Or is that making them too much like Missile Submarines? We could make Stealth Destroyer a separate upgrade of the Destroyer.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

OK, I have no problem giving missiles to Fusion Destroyers. The only problem I see is that Stealth Destroyers are between Missile Destroyers and Fusion Destroyers. Do we want to give Stealth Destroyers missiles? Or is that making them too much like Missile Submarines? We could make Stealth Destroyer a separate upgrade of the Destroyer.

Both solutions are ok to me.

 

[Vokarya]

When I was looking at trick counts for all the technologies in AND, I noticed that the Offshore Platform seems to be a "double-dip" for Plastics: it's both a Unit and an Improvement. I am of the opinion that we don't need both, and that assigning the Offshore Platform ability to the Modern Workboat would be sufficient.

The only differences that I can see between building a Modern Workboat to create an Offshore Platform and building an Offshore Platform unit to create an Offshore Platform are the decreased speed of the OP unit (1 vs. 4, but that is before factoring in all of the +1 Water Speed bonuses from various techs) and that the OP unit has a Steel requirement that the Modern WB doesn't, but that seems trivial. If it really offends anyone, we can put a Steel or Aluminum requirement on the Modern WB.

What do you think?

 

[JosEPh_II]

Is the Culture border requirement still required for the Platform? I thought in the "olden" days of Rom-AND the platform could go anywhere on the water portion of the map to make an oil resource usable. As long as an enemy AI didn't destroy it on the way there.

JosEPh

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

When I was looking at trick counts for all the technologies in AND, I noticed that the Offshore Platform seems to be a "double-dip" for Plastics: it's both a Unit and an Improvement. I am of the opinion that we don't need both, and that assigning the Offshore Platform ability to the Modern Workboat would be sufficient.

The only differences that I can see between building a Modern Workboat to create an Offshore Platform and building an Offshore Platform unit to create an Offshore Platform are the decreased speed of the OP unit (1 vs. 4, but that is before factoring in all of the +1 Water Speed bonuses from various techs) and that the OP unit has a Steel requirement that the Modern WB doesn't, but that seems trivial. If it really offends anyone, we can put a Steel or Aluminum requirement on the Modern WB.

What do you think?

I don't know, I liked the oil platform unit, but it's ok with me if other people also want to change it. Also, now that you mention it, has anybody ever seen an AI oil platform? I think I haven't. I wonder if making it dependant on workboat would make AI use sea based oil resources.

 

[Vokarya]

Is the Culture border requirement still required for the Platform? I thought in the "olden" days of Rom-AND the platform could go anywhere on the water portion of the map to make an oil resource usable. As long as an enemy AI didn't destroy it on the way there.

JosEPh

As far as I can tell, there are no limits on where a Platform unit can go, but a Platform improvement can only be built within cultural borders. This is part of the code for the improvement, not the unit. It is controlled by the <bOutsideBorders> tag, and it's set to 0 for Offshore Platforms. But even if we allow building Platforms outside cultural borders, I believe the resource still has to be within cultural borders to count. Civ4 doesn't have anything like Civ3's Colonies to tap resources outside cultural borders.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

I think I spent way too much time on that art reworking project (and it still might be bugged -- ) because I'm firing on all cylinders right about now with ideas.

One of the reasons I acquiesced to the Advanced Combat Mod was to put helicopters on carriers. I still don't think we should put missiles on Attack Subs, because that's what Missile Subs are for and I don't want to blur the lines between units too much. However, I definitely think that carriers should be able to handle copters. I'm taking away a little bit of the fighter capability to allow a small number of helicopters. Helicopter in this case is defined as SPECIALUNIT_HELICOPTER (which I just created), not necessarily UNITCOMBAT_HELICOPTER, so we can define other units as eligible helicopters.

View attachment 374441

The Early Carrier will not be able to handle helicopters, but the later ones will. Carrier gets 4 Fighters + 2 Helicopters, Supercarrier gets 6 Fighters + 2 Helicopters, and Fusion Carrier gets 8 Fighters + 3 Helicopters.
View attachment 374442View attachment 374443View attachment 374444

One drawback is that you cannot use helicopters that cannot enter ocean (the basic Helicopter and the Gunship) to attack enemy naval units on the ocean. I'd rather keep it this way to prevent ocean-going helicopters until the Transhuman Era.
View attachment 374445View attachment 374446
However, you can use them to attack coastal squares or land squares.
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Just an idea: usually helicopters are used to detect submarines; what about giving it "see submarines" ability?

 

[Noyyau]

[...]Civ4 doesn't have anything like Civ3's Colonies to tap resources outside cultural borders.

We can build a Fort nearby to extend our borders. Though I doubt the AI has any concept of that for the purpose of obtaining a resource.

 

[Vokarya]

Just an idea: usually helicopters are used to detect submarines; what about giving it "see submarines" ability?

I thought about it, but I'm not sure how effective it would be since helicopters can't attack units on ocean squares. The helicopter would have to be more like an escort than anything else.

 

[Combat Wombat]

With the exception of some anti-submarine warfare helicopters are traditionally used to support amphibious assaults anyways. I don't think anyone has ever used them as a platform for anti-ship warfare.

 

[Arkatakor]

With regard to new units recently added, I am very grateful to Vokarya's contributions. I do however feel that for game play and even historical reasons, the Elephant Bombardier / Cavalry units should be removed from the game.

Gameplay reasons:

Their sheer strength not to mention advantage against other mounted units negates the need to build any other unit, despite their cost.

Historical reasons:

If this unit was as powerful and useful as depicted in the game, there would never have been a need for horsebased cavalry from the middle ages and beyond; all cavalry existing worldwide since that point would just be based on elephants. Its borderline ridiculous when you think about it (pardon my bluntness). An alternative to removing them would be to dramatically reduce their strength and find a niche for these units (perhaps collateral damage for bombardier, elephant cavalry should definitely be removed imo).

These are my thoughts on the matter; would be interested to hear feedback from the wider community on this.

 

[Rezca]

With regard to new units recently added, I am very grateful to Vokarya's contributions. I do however feel that for game play and even historical reasons, the Elephant Bombardier / Cavalry units should be removed from the game.

Gameplay reasons:

Their sheer strength not to mention advantage against other mounted units negates the need to build any other unit, despite their cost.

Historical reasons:

If this unit was as powerful and useful as depicted in the game, there would never have been a need for horsebased cavalry from the middle ages and beyond; all cavalry existing worldwide since that point would just be based on elephants. Its borderline ridiculous when you think about it (pardon my bluntness). An alternative to removing them would be to dramatically reduce their strength and find a niche for these units (perhaps collateral damage for bombardier, elephant cavalry should definitely be removed imo).

These are my thoughts on the matter; would be interested to hear feedback from the wider community on this.

The Elephant Cavs and Bombardiers I wouldn't have a problem with (Superior strength aside) if AND had an 'Alternate Timelines' component like C2C has, what with the stronger but limited units like Deer Riders, Mammoth Riders, etc.

Which could be a solution - keep them as is but limit how many you can build.

 

[oldnooob]

Hovercar. I looked back a few pages and did not see any reference to this new introduction neither is there any useful description in the 'pedia. So my question is;
1. what is the purpose of this hovercar?
2. Is this the way endless new features will be introduced to the game, just magically appearing without consideration as to function or immersion?
3. Why should I use resources to build this "blue Volkswagen" (that is how it appears in my game)

Sorry to be so blunt but I am very concerned because I have seen many times that modders can become so infatuated with features that they lose sight of things like immersion, storytelling, replayability, bugfixing, all such things that prompted them to create the mod in the first place.
I am not being critical I am just concerned as to the current direction.

 

[Rezca]

Hovercar. I looked back a few pages and did not see any reference to this new introduction neither is there any useful description in the 'pedia. So my question is;
1. what is the purpose of this hovercar?
2. Is this the way endless new features will be introduced to the game, just magically appearing without consideration as to function or immersion?
3. Why should I use resources to build this "blue Volkswagen" (that is how it appears in my game)

Sorry to be so blunt but I am very concerned because I have seen many times that modders can become so infatuated with features that they lose sight of things like immersion, storytelling, replayability, bugfixing, all such things that prompted them to create the mod in the first place.
I am not being critical I am just concerned as to the current direction.

The model is absolutely atrocious I agree, especially after all the cool models like the Rocket Artillery, Stealth Bomber, Littoral Combat Ship, and so on...

But it's purpose is plain and simple: Transhuman-Era Scout. That's all it is meant to be.

Scout -> Explorer -> Adventurer -> Motorcycle -> Jeep(?) -> Hovercar


It could definitely use a better model, since other than the hovering bit there's nothing "Transhuman" looking about it, but it's not out of place much nor is it (In my humble opinion) pushing the mod towards being bloated with units or features. In fact, lately we've been pruning away unneeded techs buildings and units. The Hovercar was added in for two reasons if I recall.

*To continue the Scout line of units and have one for each Era other than Future-Era

*To give Skyroads tech more value to it (I believe that's where the Hovercar was placed) [Edit] Looks like it was Automated Traffic it was applied to, but that got removed?
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=517610 & http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=513098&page=12

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

I agree that the Hovercar model should be changed.