06-02-2004 02:57									#181
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

quote: One, and a form I will only mention slightly as it is really not related to this thread. That is the idea they used in SMAC with weather effects on terrain and terraforming.

This isn't really weather so much as disasters and random events. A lot of people are against random events (either good or bad) unless the probabilities can be controlled by player decisions somehow. Nothing is less fun than losing the game because of the random number generator.

quote: The second is something that has been mentioned in relation to naval travel. Ocean winds and currents. Have lines of wind flow and current, that mostly stay the same from turn to turn. Maybe the occasional shift in the strength or position of a wind/water current. And its one that could make the naval part of the game more interesting and realistic. The trade winds and doldrums were very important to sailors for centuries. Even the name trade winds tells you how important those flows were. Everyone knew that to ply the triangle trade route with any speed, you had to catch the trade winds. Indeed the winds themselves probably shaped the triangle trade as much as the commodities traded.

This could be more easily implemented as a terrain feature. Over the game timescale, ocean currents and trade winds don't change. And the amount of human intervention needed to make a lasting change is ridiculous - we are talking filling in the gap betwen south america and antartica, or dredging out the whole of central america.

There could be a number of ocean tiles; doldrums, normal, wind (direction). These can affect sail power ships appropriately.

	06-02-2004 22:05									#182
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quote: Originally posted by keybounce [Incidently, while reading more topics/threads, and a lot more pages, I've seen a few posts from Wrylachlan that I really like. Are you an SPI board game vet?]

erm... what's SPI? Sorry but I generally don't have enough patience for board games that require the kind of micro of civ. Even a simplistic game like Risk gets kind of long when you're moving all those pieces manually and rolling dice.

quote: The current system doesn't have enough retreating, nor anyway to say "Don't retreat".

I agree that the addition of "standoff" to the two current possible battle outcomes "he dies" and "I die" would be welcome.

quote: A unit that has taken damage still has full offensive and defensive ability, just less duration. How about some sort of "This unit is damaged, and fights weaker"?

This is the way it is currently. The chance of a 2hp unit winning a battle vs a 4hp unit is less than half the chance of a 4 hp unit winning the same battle.

quote: Years ago, in the days of the Atari 800, there was a war game with an interesting twist. You gave your units orders -- they did not move during the order phase. You took as much time as you needed; the AI plotted its movement orders at the same time that you were ordering your units. Eventually, you said "Go", and your units did your orders.

While interesting, I have a feeling this wouldn't be particularly fun.

	06-02-2004 23:28									#183
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

quote: Originally posted by wrylachlan quote: You gave your units orders -- they did not move during the order phase. You took as much time as you needed; the AI plotted its movement orders at the same time that you were ordering your units. Eventually, you said "Go", and your units did your orders. While interesting, I have a feeling this wouldn't be particularly fun.

I'd have to say that this idea alone would make Civ 4 the best we've ever seen. Simultaneous movement, like what's described here, has two fantastic advantages, and many smaller ones as well.

Firstly, strategic considerations become much more important. In the current turn model, when you're up to go the enemy is frozen and completely unable to respond to your unit movements. Unrealistic and kind of boring. Workable, yes. Horrible, no. But unrealistic and kind of boring.

With simultaneous moves you have to react to what you think your opponant will do in the next turn. You can move to head off an advance, guess which way his defenders are going to zig so you can zag around to their backsides, etc. You'll never be able to have an encounter be exactly the way you want it (i.e. your troops on mountains every time, with theirs on grass) every time.


The next big thing... a huge boon to multiplayer. Now I usually don't argue for including something simply for the sake of multiplayer, since I still think those are the minority of players. But this makes such a change to that realm (while also having huge benefits for SP) that this cannot be ignored. In network or internet games, everyone can take their turns at the same time, without any sort of rushed feeling that comes with "turnless" or RTS games. You simply issue your orders, tend to your empire, and then click "End turn." When all turns have ended, the computer runs the moves, checks for combats, and sends the results to all of the players. This means a lot less downtime.

Everyone in a PBEM could take their turns [i]at the same time!![/b] As long as one computer runs the movement phase before sending the next orders phase out to everyone.


You've brought up the fun factor though. Would simultaneous be fun? I think so, but that's why I'm arguing for it. Was this Atari wargame any fun? What, wrylachlan, doesn't sound appealing about it to you from this perspective?

The current Demo of Clash of Civilizations has this kind of movement implemented. Right now the scenarios are small and the feedback you get is pretty unintuitive, but I think the system shows itself as having lots of potential for fun.


The system would be more like calling a football play and then cheering from the sidelines as the team carries it out. Instead of now, where you have to manually control every single player from snap to tackle.

	06-02-2004 23:51									#184
	Got spare money?

There are a couple of reasons I don't really like this.
1) In order to see the results of your actions you are doubling the number of times you zoom around the map. If I have 20 units in different places, I have to zoom to each of them to give them orders of where I want them to go. Then, when they move, I have to zoom back to them to see all the results.

2) How do you determine when there is a battle? When they move onto the same tile? That could lead to units circling each other which could become monstorously tedious. If they get into battle when in adjacent tiles, who is the attacker, and who the defender? And what if I don't want to attack, I just want to walk on by on my way to a different target? If you allow the player the choice of, "attack" or "don't", then you have to add another step to combat resolution. If you make it automatic then there will be cases where your units do things you don't want.

3) multi-movement point units are stuck to a set pattern for all their movement points. Currently if you have a three movement point unit, and it moves one tile, if you see something in a different direction from the one you were going in, you can changer direction, veering off to the new target. This becomes impossible if you have to specify your full movement before-hand.

There are other arguments against this style of play, but I think those are three strong ones.

	07-02-2004 05:17									#185
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

Probably belongs in the list of bad ideas, but here goes:

When you want to give a unit an order, you plan it out in detail, then a messenger unit is generated, who finds a path to the last known location of that unit. If the messenger is killed or the unit can't be found, the orders are lost. If events make the orders irrelevant, the orders are still carried out, but might appear crazy. The player could allow the ai to control the unit (odering the commander to use his initiative).

I think this would be not fun.

	07-02-2004 05:49									#186
	Support Apolyton

To compensate for little piece of overwhelming stupidity above, a modest proposal concerning transport tile improvements:

Have the following:

Tracks - 2/3 movement. Reflects dirt tracks basically. Available at start. Can only be built next to a city or an existing track.

Road - 1/3 movement. Reflects roman roads, requires a late classical era tech. Note that roads are available much later in this model.

Highways - 1/5 movement. Reflects 1950s tech. Can only be built over an existing road.

Undersea tunnels - 1/5 move cost. Allows land units to enter sea tiles. All land units in connected sea tiles are destroyed if a connecting tunnel tile is pillaged. That should discourage paving the oceans too much. Can only be built on shallow tiles.

Canal - Allows ships to enter land tiles. Can only be built on grass/plains/desert next to a sea tile. Ships in tile defend as if in a harbour, due to lack of maneouver space. If this connects a city to the ea, that city can now build ships. The largest ships (ie battleships, dreadnoughts, carriers) canot use a canal.

Railway depot - A city improvement. For a small fee, allows a unit to instantly jump to any city that is connected by the road network and has a railway depot. This uses all the unit's movement for the turn.

Maglev depot - As per rail. Cheaper move cost, but higher maintenance. Requires a near-future tech and highway connections.

Airport - A city improvement. For a small fee, allows a unit to instantly jump to any city that has an airport. This uses all the unit's movement for the turn.

Note that rails and airports are not limited by number of units per turn, but by cost. This cost should be relate to the weight of the unit - diplomats should cost less to transport than armoured battalions.

	09-04-2004 12:02									#187
	Ship Movement Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

I posted an idea back in December in another thread. The idea is an alternative 'fix' for naval movement in Civ. The idea attempts to solve the problem that increasing movement rates allows one civ to easily bypass another civ's naval defenses. Anyway, here it is:

quote: Originally posted by ME There's an idea that I got from a crappy strategy boardgame called "Onslaught - D-Day to the Rhine". In that game, you can move units in one of two ways: either by normal movement, or by strategic movement. Normal movement is similar to Civ movement in that each unit has its own movement rate (in hexes) and can go their movement rate or less each round. Strategic movement gives a 3x multiplier to a unit's normal movement rate. However there are restrictions as to when you can use strategic movement. Basically, the restrictions are that your unit has to start-off being a minimum distance from any enemy units, and the unit cannot come within another given distance of an enemy unit at any time while moving. This was to allow far-away units to catch-up to the frontline units. I think a similar ability could be given to Civ sea-based units. The multiplier could depend on map size (eg. from x2 for tiny maps to x6 for huge maps). First, for a unit to use strategic movement, it would have to be put in "Stategic Move Mode" (SMM) (there would be restrictions as to when you could go into SMM). Further, there would be restrictions on where you could move the unit while it is in SMM. Restrictions could include: a) the unit can't have already performed an action (including moving, attacking, etc.) during the same turn before being put in SMM (to keep the unit from hitting-and-running); b) the unit is restricted in what actions it can perform while in SMM (eg. no attacking, bombarding, unloading troops, etc.); c) units being carried by ships in SMM are unable to perform any actions (other than rebase - for air units); d) you can't start-off or move to be adjacent to another non-allied civ's unit*; e) you can't start-off or move through another civ's territory unless you have a ROP with that civ; f) the unit can not move into a tile that would cause a previously unexplored (i.e. blackened-out) tile to become 'explored' (to keep units from exploring the world using Strategic Movement); and g) galleys and caravels (and other units with sea/ocean movement restrictions) aren't able to travel across terrains in which they have a chance of sinking (i.e. seas or oceans). *not including unseen subs Ships in SMM are still be able to move (of course), disband, and upgrade. Units can load onto transport ships in SMM (but can't unload from them).

	09-04-2004 23:47									#188
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I don't currently have the energy to read the whole thread (got to page 2, after going through a bunch of other threads, and have given up for now), but I wanted to add a to this:

quote: I had a thought about a way to make scout/explorer units more useful and desirable in the early game. Have a movement penelty for moving into unexplored squares for regular units. So a civ would have the following mapsquare statuses. Unknown: Completely black. Here be dragons. No clue at all. Unexplored: Squares that have come into the LOS of a unit, but your people have never travelled into the square. You can see something of what's there, but it's not mapped and the first unit to move through there is gonna go slow cause they don't know the best routes, watering holes, etc. Explored: Been there, done that, got the tshirt and the stupid bumper sticker. Of course, Fog of War would also be overlayed on this too. And any territory inside a civ's cultural borders would be automatically explored.

Blyen

-Arrian

	10-04-2004 02:07									#189
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Arrian: Yeah, I spent several hours last night going through this thread. A lot of it seems to be a debate CtP-style combat mini-maps and 'flanking', both of which would fit better in the 'combat' thread, IMO.

Anyway, someone mentioned the idea of adding 'cliffs' as a terrain-type which would prevent beach-landings. I think that's a neat idea. The way I'd implement it would be to have cliffs as a tile "boundary-type", like the way rivers are done in Civ3. The cliff boundary-type would be impassable (except for units flagged to ignore cliffs). Cliffs could be found inland as well as on the coastlines.

Of course, the map generator would have to be designed so that 'cliff-encased islands' wouldn't happen.

	11-04-2004 01:27									#190
	Securing Land Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

OK, here's one more idea that relates to movement.

The idea is based on the fact that, in Civ3, you can't use enemy roads/rails. My idea is to introduce a new unit command called "secure" (or something similar). Units with this ability would be able to use 'secure' when occupying an enemy tile. A player who 'secures' a tile in this way would be able to use the enemy road/rail in that tile. Securing a tile would use up a units remaining movement, and would put that unit into "secure mode". The player would have to keep the unit in 'secure mode' in order to keep using the tile's roads/rails. Having multiple units in 'secure mode' in the same tile has no cumulative effect. A unit in 'secure mode' will defend last if it's in a stack.

Units with the secure ability would include most 1-move units from the gunpowder age on. Musketmen, riflemen, infantry, guerillas, marines, paratroops, and TOW infantry would all have this ability. Because they are 1-move units, they would have to move onto the tile on one turn, and secure the tile on the next. Paratroops would be quite useful since they can drop several tiles into enemy territory.

Securing land in someone's territory would be an act of war (if you weren't already at war with that civ).

Optionally, securing could be required in order to be able to get the defensive bonus from fortresses in enemy territory. Airfields could also be 'securable' in a similar way (instead of being destroyed by moving onto them).

	11-04-2004 13:20									#191
	Got spare money?

Supply!!!

Units should have to be supported via resources. On top of the operating cost in gold (which should btw be a editable field, why does a destroyer and an aircraft carrier cost the same?), it should have a cost in strategic resources.

I always get tired of bieng the guy with 8 oil sources and having nothing to use them for becuase that 100 city 400 unit civ across the way happens to have one.

I say each resource should support 30 units using that resource. Not hard for the game to keep track of, just count the units with that resource requirement and the number of that resource available in the trade screen (obviously if your exporting it you can't use it yourself). This would make trade MUCH more integral as the superpowers fight or wheel and deal to secure their piece of the pie. Small nations with an abundance of a resource could build rich trade empires. Could have OPEC style oil wars. There would be an actual incentive to colonize actively, and then have 7 Year War style colonial wars.

The curently building units count against your resouce stockpile, and if you lose a resource and now have more units than you can support, it will work like when you go negatice on gold, you lose one random unit using that resource a turn (I would be up for just not letting you build more until the defecit is made good).

	11-04-2004 13:24									#192
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

quote: The idea is based on the fact that, in Civ3, you can't use enemy roads/rails. My idea is to introduce a new unit command called "secure" (or something similar). Units with this ability would be able to use 'secure' when occupying an enemy tile. A player who 'secures' a tile in this way would be able to use the enemy road/rail in that tile. Securing a tile would use up a units remaining movement, and would put that unit into "secure mode". The player would have to keep the unit in 'secure mode' in order to keep using the tile's roads/rails. Having multiple units in 'secure mode' in the same tile has no cumulative effect. A unit in 'secure mode' will defend last if it's in a stack. Units with the secure ability would include most 1-move units from the gunpowder age on. Musketmen, riflemen, infantry, guerillas, marines, paratroops, and TOW infantry would all have this ability. Because they are 1-move units, they would have to move onto the tile on one turn, and secure the tile on the next. Paratroops would be quite useful since they can drop several tiles into enemy territory. Securing land in someone's territory would be an act of war (if you weren't already at war with that civ). Optionally, securing could be required in order to be able to get the defensive bonus from fortresses in enemy territory. Airfields could also be 'securable' in a similar way (instead of being destroyed by moving onto them).

BRILLIANT!!!

	11-04-2004 23:28									#193
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

Patroklos:
Yeah, having a unit upkeep based on resources as well as gold would be a good idea. It would definitely make holding on to resources much more important during a war. There's some discussion on that topic on the {the list} for 'resources' thread.

BTW, thanks for the endorsement on my 'securing land' idea.

	05-06-2004 03:34									#194
	Gathering Units Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

Have a command to automatically send all your fortified offensive units to a particular enemy city or a city of yours on their border. Or the spot on the border each seperately can get to the fastest. Be able to specify to send all but a particular number that you want to keep using for defending the city they are in. Be able to specify to send only those offensive units in cities with a particular number of defensive units. Be able to automatically send extra defensive units to the nearest border city for each.

	05-08-2004 04:39									#195
	Re: {The List-} Movement, supply, etc. Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Big pet peeve: When a unit is on GoTo movement and encounters a unit from another civ blocking the developed road/railroad, it would be helpful for it to stop, center the map, and wait for my decision: to have it move off the road and spend movement points (sometimes critical), or to contact the alien, get it to leave, and then tell my unit to proceed as previously directed. Ideally, once the blockage is gone, the unit should finish its turn as ordered without further action by me.

Akin to that is the need to demand that any foreign unit get out of my way, including non-military units which now seem to be immune. Usually the first diplomatic request to leave is met with, "Okey-dokey," but it takes another turn before anything happens. There are times when this is simply not acceptable.

Let there be a feature that if you contact the same unit (not the civ leader) 3 times in the same turn, it will have to move or declare war. Add the option on Contact Number 2 for the unit to move off the road to an adjacent tile (no problem if the foreign travel rate stays at unimproved terrain rates); then the unit can retreat peacefully on its next turn but still be out of my way. Of course, if the unit is there to start a war, obviously my requests go unheeded until the ultimatum is issued on Contact Number 3.

For foreign units with RoP, we need to have the option to coexist on the same tile. Come on, people pass on roads all the time. And most rail lines have two tracks side by side, so the blockage is unrealistic. Let my unit still stop to ask what I want to do when the way is blocked, but then let me travel through or land on the square without incident.

Please don't tell me just to build more roads. There have been many posts complaining about the "ugly" look of a road-scarred map, while others favor eliminating extra roads built for the sake of higher trade points. Adding my suggestion to the solution would make a lot of folks happy - including me!

	05-08-2004 04:59									#196
	Re: {The List-} Movement, supply, etc. Support Apolyton

Even with roads, mountain movement should take twice longer, unless you Build Tunnel, which will take 100% longer to build than a road but will then reduce movement to any other road capability. Once a tunnel is built, railroads can use it, too.

quote: ... units that have the 'all terrain as roads' feature should move slightly further when moving on roads.

- Yes, and railroads. It doesn't make sense that my explorer can't use the same railroad MP benefit as other units.


As much as I love it, it's really unrealistic to let a unit travel all the way across a continent with no movement points just because there's a railroad. Trains do take some time to move, after all. Far better would be to give 9 or 10 MP to every unit on the rail.

Similarly, in the early years of flight, planes flew slower, so just because you have an airport in Siberia and one on the Cape of Good Hope doesn't mean you can send a unit all the way on a single turn. Just like military planes, airlifted units should have to land every 20 or 30 tiles' distance, even if it's handled by AI behind the scenes, GoTo style.

In the earlier years of slower flight, landing on a strip of grass was commonplace, so airports shouldn't be required until Advanced Flight. Add a cheap Airstrip City Imp, maybe 50 shields, to enable boxwing plane puddle-jumping with a maximum range of 10 tiles.
.. No planes are built but are an automatic adjunct of the Airstrip, and only one unit can be flown at a time, and no other can be dispatched from an Airstrip until the previous unit has reached its destination. While en route, the icon would be a boxwing plane, with a unit panel to the side (like ships) showing the unit on board. A boxwing can't cross mountains, and there must be unoccupied (but improved is okay) Plains/Grassland for the plane to land. Whether programmers want AI or the player to handle this doesn't matter, but you can cross the continent in two or three turns by choosing the landing points and a safe route. You can also click on the plane after landing to Unload the unit at that location if you change your mind. The boxwing would then return to its home Airstrip without further command.
.. Only cities with an Airstrip can initiate unit moves this way, but units can land anywhere, including taking off from a city without an Airstrip while en route to its destination. The more Airstrips you have, however, the more probability the unit will arrive safely, based on the logic of having fuel and replacement parts for the planes.

What Airports are built, allow at least 3 units to be flown from and/or to land in a single airport per turn. The current limitation is unreasonable.

Only a new Tech Teleportation would restore instantaneous transport across the globe, very late in the tech tree. Each use of the technology would cost something in shields or gold. Building Telepads would radically reduce the cost, though zapping from any tile to any other would be possible (Rt-Click or Order Bar item) as in StarTrek.

If the above suggestion about finite MP for rail is implemented, then when the Tech including oil is completed, rail MP should increase (from 3X road rate to 4X, e.g.), since diesels are faster than steam engines. If the Bullet Train (magnetic-hover technology, whatever that's called officially) would increase the MP by another 2X road rate (6X in this hypothesis). It's still not infinite MP, but it's getting close.

	05-08-2004 05:17									#197
	Re: {The List-} Movement, supply, etc. Increase Your PM Length

Regarding Water

I've always thought it odd that smaller ships can't go a tile or two up a coastline river to reach an inland city. They might need a reduced MP against the current but then get an extra MP as they head back toward the sea.

~+~+~+~

quote: ... higher movement [ocean] bonuses to certain routes (for instance ... the currents Columbus used to get to America)

This would be great if once an ocean current has been found, it remains marked on the map, maybe in a darker blue or add a hit of green, so we don't have to remember or have to find it over and over.

But then again, if Civ4 adds this kind of benefit, then it needs to add the negative influences, like storms and windless periods when the sailing ships can't move at all. No, it's all too much headache, if you ask me.

~+~+~+~

River transportation, suggested by wrylachlan (sorry I can't remember which thread):

This idea I LOVE. Very elegant and a real boon to playability. That said, MP should vary depending on whether you're moving upstream or downstream, so there would have to be a way to indicate direction if you can't see the headwaters or the mouth of the river. I can see either a small cursor hover pop-up or an arrow on the unit panel that appears when a unit next to a river has Focus.

	05-08-2004 05:24									#198
	Re: {The List-} Movement, supply, etc. Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

Civ3's unit MP in another civ's (enemy) territory is too simplistic. Moving through another civ's lands doesn't have to indicate hostile intent. I still made use of the roads and rails of several European countries when I was there.

Reduce the MP, say 2 road tiles versus the usual 3. I support finite rail movement with a large number, say 9; so alien units would be able to move 6. When you're at war with the civ, then take MP down to inimproved tile factors. Since you have to move stealthily, the incursion should take longer.

In one game I tried bringing my workers into my enemy's territory to build my own rail system - AI wouldn't let them work. If the Supply Route idea is added, then I vote to let workers build the route to at least double the unimproved MP rate.

~+~+~+~

Not exactly a Movement issue, but related to not moving:

Bring back the Sentry command!

I loved posting units that would wake up when foreign units were nearby, thereby getting Focus to await new orders during my next turn. It was a real time saver to let them sleep most of the time but bring my attention to potential enemy plans when troops neared my border.

=====

Edit thought: MP limitations should depend on your diplomacy relationship. If they're polite or adoring, MP should be cut by only 1/3, as proposed above. If they're cautious or angry with you, you won't be able to move around as easily, so your MP is cut by another 1/3.

This would also mean that we human players need to be able to declare our attitude about the other civs, which will determine how easily they can encroach onto our territory.

Our attitude factor would be a good addition to AI's calculations. For a change, make the other civs have to earn my favor, instead of the other way around.

Last edited by La Diva on 08-08-2004 at 21:38

	13-08-2004 00:20									#199
	Increase the size of your Attachments

Okay, since I'm new to the thread:

1. Flanking on the main map: Too much work
Just give a bounse for every attack that outnumbers the number of defenders or something

2. Stacks: CTP is fine

3. Sea movement:

Two+ tile ZOC for some ships. Only work against hostile units or non-allied units within city limits.

Air Units that auto attack hostile units (the player can choose what type) that move into range. This makes Carriers dangerous and important

Landing costs all movement points except in friendly cities. Marines can still attack on landing however.

Large but limited range for fast industial era coal/oil powered ships. (to prevent a navy popping up across the globe in no time) Some sort of harbor tile improvement on land that can resupply ships and maybe some sort of supply ship that has its own range limit.

Direction Wind tiles Iceburg tiles

4. Supply

Supply unit: So I bring another unit with my army. So what, everything is the same.

Abstract Supply Route: messy computationally, both for the computer and the player trying to cut the route.

I'm thinking that supply range should be at say X tiles from a city or a supplied unit. A clear (not though enemy ZOC) road link to a supplied unit addes X tiles to that range. A supplied airbase or airport addes X supply range. Ground units can not use naval ship supply unless they are on a harbor tile improvement. (making beach assaults out of supply unit engineers make a harbor tile/cap a city)

So a player can relay supply from other supplied units and there is a visible target that one can hit to cut supply.

The effects of supply should be different for different units. A tank, mech infantry or artillery should suffer huge combat and movement penalities, while a alp inf should suffer only a little and a explorer should not need supply at all.

The problem with this is that this means more units.... I guess the only way to solve this is by limited supply rather than demand. (aka more expensive units)

5. Railroad

Attack use railroads. Add a "pilliage rail/road on destroyed" command to units, so that when destroyed they blow up all the road/rail on their tile.


6. Other
Ground/sea should be able to move under air units and air units over land/sea units, if we go by Civ2 air model.

Neutal powers moving military (ZOC excerting units) units into boarders should be an war declarable offense. (as in no diplomantic/reputation penalities) Explorer/carvan-type units should be able to move into non-hostile enemy units (and stack with them) and vice versa. One can not use opponent railroads (they won't let out) unless one declares war or have a treaty that allows them.

(I'm just pissed at those annoying computer freight blocking my railroads....grrrr)

	30-09-2004 18:28									#200
	Inflate your Upload Space

I guess this comes under movement/supply.

I'd like to do away with infinite rail movement. In order to do that, and still defend a continent from naval invasions, we need a coast line that where modern units cannot just land anywhere.

Therefore I propose a new terrain type "unpassable coast" that prevents the unloading of modern army units from transports. In addition, I propose a new function for an engineer unit (or worker) "build port" that would allow unloading at that location once the port is built.

Not only is this historically accurate, but as importantly, it would allow us to get rid of the infinite rail move and fundamentally change how we fight wars.

	30-09-2004 19:39									#201
	Got spare money?

Whew...that was a lot to read through....

I like the idea Xorbon forwards regarding "tactical" and "strategic" movement for naval units. That seems to be an idea that holds a lot of promise.

Regarding supply, any solution requiring supply has the potential to complicate or alienate a casual player. I'm for some implementation of supply (many of the ideas forwarded in this tread were good) since I'm used to this concept in board wargames.

Which brings me to my question. As we debate and brainstorm ideas for cIV, are we totally in the blind regarding Firaxis' current thinking/development for cIV???

	01-10-2004 21:01									#202
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

quote: Originally posted by Shogun Gunner Whew...that was a lot to read through....

I'll have even more to read

Don't worry, don't worry... I'm gonna resume all this. I just finally settled down after a summer without computer

	02-10-2004 15:06									#203
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I haven't read the whole thread yet but I'll post some of my ideas regarding movement, supplies etc.

I think that all units should have higher movement but they should also have increased ZOC. For example if a unit with one movement point doesn't move one turn then this unit gets 1 square radius ZOC or if a unit with 3 movement points uses all of them then that unit would have no ZOC. Also the way ZOC works should be expanded from the Civ2 model. Units with ZOC should be able to intercept/attack units within thir ZOC.

With regards to supply, I think that it would be best if it is calculated on the basis of distance from borders. So if your units are within your borders they cost you 1 gold per turn if you move them into enemy teritory 10 squares away from your borders then they would cost 2 golt per turn to support, if you move them even furver it would cost even more. The supply cost and range is going to be modified by advances and leaders. For example discovering the wheel would double the range for supply or a military great leader would eliminate supply costs for the stack that the leader is part of (eg Alexander the Great). If you don't have enough gold to support your units that have ventured into enemy territory then they should start losing strengh/hitpoints untill they are reduced to minimum strengh/hitpoints (eg Napoleon in Russia).

	02-10-2004 16:13									#204
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The "speed of units" problem:

It is not the modern units that do not move fast enough (such as naval units), it is the ancient units that still move as fast when the game has 1 year turns. their speed should correspond to how much time a turn is.

This is the true cause of the problem, and the logical way of solving this is to stop making nutshells navigate as speedboats and legions go in 100km/h running as in cartoons. Each unit should go at its normal "distance / year" speed for example, a modern infantry going obviously faster than a legion.

	09-10-2004 05:08									#205
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Inspired by wrylachlan's idea of support units (but adding simply a route to supply these supply units...):


A "supply unit" could exist, with a certain radius. If its radius reaches the next supply unit, then they are connected. If one of your supply units is connected like this up to a "supply source", then all inter-connected supply units do have supplies and can support nearby military units. A supply source could be a city, a fortress... Also, the radius from a supply unit to another may be different than supply unit-military unit. A possibility comes though: if a enemy unit is between a military unit and its supplier, it may or may not be supported.

Having supply would have the effects described in wrylachlan's idea above.

	09-10-2004 07:37									#206
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Um, why should modern infantry go faster that Roman legions? They are both relying on legwork to get anyway, and I don't belive human legs have changed all that much in 2000 years.

	09-10-2004 16:12									#207
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What we call infantry is now supported on the field by mecanized units for transport, have some optimized gear, have some team work that may be organized differently, and so on. Except for mecanized transport, it may not change the world but one would need to check the km/day in Roman and modern times.

But my point was that speed may need to be adjusted, correspondingly to how much time "one turn" is. And this is the essence of the problem of these units not moving to normal speeds.


PS: If you want example of modern units, go at http://www.supremeruler2010.com/srmil_equipment.htm and give a look at infantry, then mecanized units (tanks...).

	10-10-2004 00:38									#208
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quote: Originally posted by Sir Og With regards to supply, I think that it would be best if it is calculated on the basis of distance from borders. So if your units are within your borders they cost you 1 gold per turn if you move them into enemy teritory 10 squares away from your borders then they would cost 2 golt per turn to support, if you move them even furver it would cost even more. The supply cost and range is going to be modified by advances and leaders. For example discovering the wheel would double the range for supply or a military great leader would eliminate supply costs for the stack that the leader is part of (eg Alexander the Great). If you don't have enough gold to support your units that have ventured into enemy territory then they should start losing strengh/hitpoints untill they are reduced to minimum strengh/hitpoints (eg Napoleon in Russia).

quote: Originally posted by TrifnaInspired by wrylachlan's idea of support units (but adding simply a route to supply these supply units...): A "supply unit" could exist, with a certain radius. If its radius reaches the next supply unit, then they are connected. If one of your supply units is connected like this up to a "supply source", then all inter-connected supply units do have supplies and can support nearby military units. A supply source could be a city, a fortress... Also, the radius from a supply unit to another may be different than supply unit-military unit. A possibility comes though: if a enemy unit is between a military unit and its supplier, it may or may not be supported. Having supply would have the effects described in wrylachlan's idea above.

To make my case for why I think my idea is better than the two above:

I think the reason you would add any feature is to cause the player to make interesting decisions. To me, the interesting decisions around the issue of supply are "How do I keep my supply lines defended?" and "how do I attack the enemy supply lines?"

As such, I think that a base supply cost of moving into enemy territory is a lot of agrivating number cruntching without it changing any of the tactics on the battlefield except to make lightning strikes even more cost effective than prolonged war. But war weariness already models the cost of prolonged war, so you would be creating a double whammy, which is a design decision I'm not sure I would want to make.

As for adding supply sources, and a "chain of supply", I think this adds more complexity without really changing the core interesting decision making. Having a single supply unit gives the enemy incentive to attack behind the lines, and the defender an incentive to protect behind its lines, which is, IMHO, all you're really looking for with a supply system.

	10-10-2004 04:45									#209
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wrylachlan, I like the supply chain model, but I don't like the supply units. Forcing players to make an extra unit simply to use their soldiers isn't fun.

However, looking back on most games I've played, I have noticed that once cavalry and especially armour are available, I almost never build infantry units again. But even today infantry are the backbone of every army.

How about making infantry the "supply node" unit? They are generally weaker in defence, making them something to be protected, move slowly, acting as a brake on deep strikes, and now have a real incentive to be built.

	10-10-2004 17:44									#210
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quote: Originally posted by lajzar wrylachlan, I like the supply chain model, but I don't like the supply units. Forcing players to make an extra unit simply to use their soldiers isn't fun. However, looking back on most games I've played, I have noticed that once cavalry and especially armour are available, I almost never build infantry units again. But even today infantry are the backbone of every army. How about making infantry the "supply node" unit? They are generally weaker in defence, making them something to be protected, move slowly, acting as a brake on deep strikes, and now have a real incentive to be built.

Infantry as the supply unit wouldn't work. If infantry was the supply unit, you would have your supply unit in the same stack as your main attack/defense force, which would totally negate the "sneak behind the lines and attack their supply" factor. Whatever creates supply must have a reason to NOT be part of the main attack stack.

To go over my earlier suggestion, "supply" would be a simple % bonus that radiates from a supply unit. Units are still effective without supply, but they are better with it. The supply unit is also the 1st defender, and the 1st receiver of artillery bombard. This causes the player to always try to keep his supply unit 2 tiles behind his main stack.

Its simple. It creates the tactical dynamic of trying to attack supply lines. It doesn't require you to pay attention to long chains of supply.