03-04-2004 21:23									#1
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my biggest gripe with CIV3 is the vast quanity of units in the endgame, stacks & stacks of infantry, masses of bombers and waves of artiliary

this quanity of units really bogs down the gameplay, especialy on larger worlds and makes the endgame a real drag

one solution that has occured to me is to edit modern units so that building them causes the city to reduce in population

any thoughts?

	03-04-2004 22:44									#2
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Why not raise the cost of support after a certain level. Once you get to 100 or some base level, unit support cost doubles or what ever it takes to get the numbers in line.

This allows the AI to keep it extra support when the game is developing, but offsets it for the late stages. It is not the human that will have a drag on the game with its troops.

	03-04-2004 22:49									#3
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Good point Vmxa.

	04-04-2004 04:40									#4
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I've always wanted variable support costs. The nice toys should cost more to maintain than the grunts.

	04-04-2004 05:07									#5
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Play CtP2.

	04-04-2004 05:12									#6
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But it is not any fun.

	04-04-2004 06:59									#7
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Lots of fun in pushing 200 units a turn.

	04-04-2004 21:28									#8
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quote: Originally posted by vmxa1 But it is not any fun.

Why?

quote: Originally posted by Maquiladora Lots of fun in pushing 200 units a turn.

You forgot to add the battles: or you can't see them (not fun), or you have to watch them all the way. (not fun)

	04-04-2004 21:53									#9
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I could not bring myself to play either CTP or CTP2 after one or two games. They just did not grab me. What can I say, I did not hate or anything.

	04-04-2004 23:20									#10
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Well thats fine, its a preferance. If civ3 had stacked combat and public works id play it just as much as CtP2. I prefer to spend the majority of my time planning strategy, rather than waiting and clicking.

	05-04-2004 04:33									#11
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quote: Originally posted by vmxa1 But it is not any fun.

He didn't say he wants fun. He said he wants variable support costs. CtP2 can provide both features, "not fun" and "variable support costs".

	05-04-2004 16:08									#12
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'Lots of fun in pushing 200 units a turn.'

if this floats your boat then great, but having 90% of the playing time occupied by endgane grinding is like something one is sentenced to

were it not for the fact that the pre-endgame is marvelous i would uninstall CIV3

	05-04-2004 19:10									#13
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quote: Originally posted by Sir Ralph He didn't say he wants fun. He said he wants variable support costs. CtP2 can provide both features, "not fun" and "variable support costs".

..whereas civ3 can only provide the 'not fun' feature

	05-04-2004 19:12									#14
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Argh, its a CTP invasion!

It is a problem with these sorts of games though. How exactly does CTP handle it, and does it have much effect on a players style?

	05-04-2004 20:55									#15
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The ability to lock-stack units and resolve battles involving multiple units with one push of a button in CTP greatly reduces end game tedium because each locked stack (up to 12 units) acts as a single entity...

So if you have 120 single units (entities) in civ3, that can be reduced to 10 stacks (entities) in CTP.

The group movement button helps to some degree, but it does not help once you have to send 60+ units into battle, each one at a time or if you want to subdivide a large stack to send in several directions.

It is probably my main gripe with civ3 (OK, infinite rails is my main gripe, but I can mod rails out of the game)

CTP is set up with a maintenance cost based on shields, and this cost is a percentage of the total cost of a unit. So the more expensive the unit is to build, the higher the upkeep. (and this can be further adjusted via modding)

Last edited by hexagonian on 08-04-2004 at 21:15

	05-04-2004 23:02									#16
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I agree completely. One thing Firaxis didn't consider when making this game is how bogged down the game gets at the end. I don't finish many games because of that simple fact.

	06-04-2004 00:51									#17
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quote: Originally posted by vmxa1 Why not raise the cost of support after a certain level. Once you get to 100 or some base level, unit support cost doubles or what ever it takes to get the numbers in line. This allows the AI to keep it extra support when the game is developing, but offsets it for the late stages. It is not the human that will have a drag on the game with its troops.

The problem with that idea is that unit suppport is tied to government type, not game time.

	06-04-2004 01:01									#18
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Nasty web server. Deleted post.

Last edited by vmxa1 on 06-04-2004 at 01:25

	06-04-2004 01:06									#19
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I fail to see how that matters. The distinction will be eliminated after x number of units. Or conversely you could just add an extra fee for all units above a certain level, regardless of government.

So you make a calc as normal and check to see if the trigger level was reached and recalc if it has. I mean there must be many ways to implement such a structure.

	06-04-2004 20:00									#20
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I have no patience for certain types of micromanagement. That said, I enjoy the number of units available in the late game (in both variety and raw number) and the ability it gives me to launch complex attacks on a large map.

	06-04-2004 22:33									#21
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quote: Originally posted by Sava I agree completely. One thing Firaxis didn't consider when making this game is how bogged down the game gets at the end. I don't finish many games because of that simple fact.

Me too

	06-04-2004 23:47									#22
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quote: Originally posted by vmxa1 I fail to see how that matters. The distinction will be eliminated after x number of units. Or conversely you could just add an extra fee for all units above a certain level, regardless of government.

It matters because as the game is now, there's no way to increase unit costs outside of government type. The original post was looking for ways to reduce the number of units with the editor as is. Your idea would require a rewrite of the code.

Personally, I'd like to see the unit cost moved over to the the unit screen so they can be adjusted individually. After all, it costs a lot more to maintain a Tank or a Stealth Fighter than it does a Spearman, or even an Infantry. The game should reflect that IMO.

	07-04-2004 01:09									#23
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In terms of cost differential form say a tank to an infrantry unit, the representation can be said to handle that by ratio. That is, if a tank cost 100 times as much as an infantry unit, the icon can be said to represent 100 times as many infantrymen as the tank does tanks.

I for one do not want to get down to cost per unit types. Leave that for accounting civ.

	07-04-2004 10:10									#24
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If you want to speed up the end-game "grind", get a faster PC like I did.

There's no such thing as the grind when you have an A64 and the enemy battle animations turned off. This is even with my 700+ unit army (Russia has a 1,250+ unit army).

	08-04-2004 15:41									#25
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Midget*Toilet?

	08-04-2004 17:10									#26
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With a name like that, you better don't be bored.

700+ units? The most I've ever had was ~550, and that was during a gargantuan war on a 140x140 map w/ extra land. Went pretty slow despite carrying out stack attacks with ~100 units a time. Then my comp is a mere 2GHz Celeron.

Firing 120 artillery pieces after one another sucks. Why is there no Stack Bombard?

	08-04-2004 18:17									#27
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I find myself staying in peace a lot near the endgame, just so I dont have to mess with moving my 2837681235 units around all the time. I leave everything fortified in cities unless I absolutely HAVE to go to war.

	08-04-2004 18:31									#28
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'I find myself staying in peace a lot near the endgame, just so I dont have to mess with moving my 2837681235 units around all the time. I leave everything fortified in cities unless I absolutely HAVE to go to war.'

which is just a response to the tedium of the grind rather than any strategic decision on your part

also if you are aiming for a conquest or domination victory having the panzers parked in cities isn't an option

the best method of reducing endgame grind, IMHO, would be to adopt a stack battle system (maybe using something similar to the battle res of spartan)

other methods would be:

1. crank up war weriness for units lost
2. impose a stacking limit
3. increase unit cost / maintenence
4. limit number of moves per turn (1 stack is one move)
5. building unit costs population

	09-04-2004 05:12									#29
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quote: Originally posted by Midget*Toilet If you want to speed up the end-game "grind", get a faster PC like I did. There's no such thing as the grind when you have an A64 and the enemy battle animations turned off. This is even with my 700+ unit army (Russia has a 1,250+ unit army).

I don't think the grind they are talking about is addressed by a faster PC. Anyway I already have a 3GH + system. Moving units rquires the same amount of manual clicking regardless of processor. The units move faster to the next point, but that rarely is the issue.

	09-04-2004 06:24									#30
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quote: Originally posted by Last Conformist Firing 120 artillery pieces after one another sucks. Why is there no Stack Bombard?

There is auto bombard, though it doesn't work unless you have Artillery or turn off Cancel Unit Orders in preferences.

I sure wish they'd fix that. Better yet, give us true stack bombard.