07-04-2004 01:54									#1
	Terra Incognita in non modern eras Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

This topic touches several aspects but mostly units & terrain. As the unit threads kind of starved some weeks ago and my idea combines several elements of the game, I start a new thread here.

This proposal adresses the typical Civ3 standard game, where most of the area is discovered by scouts and roaming units long before the AD portion of the game. Sometimes this area is even completely settled by then.
Of course not every civ has the total knowledge unless it traded in all maps, but nevertheless during the non modern eras there is not a sufficient amount of 'terra incognita' where no man ..um.. unit has gone before (where did I catch that phrase? ).
This is IMHO totally unrealistic. So I basically have two proposals to amend that situation.

First of all units should have the additional (editable) feature of 'range'. This would be the maximum distance from it's supporting point (usually its supporting city) it is allowed to move. If you choose a border city for that purpose your unit should be able to set out beyond your border in unknown or foreign territory but not further than its range. The range would increase with every more modern unit and at some point (of time) would be virtually infinite for many of the units.
To allow for warfare on foreign grounds, as well as discovery missions by sea, the supporting points as the origin for unit range measurement could be transferred to mobile facilities (units, essentially).
A supply unit that does not fight but allows for penetrating deep into enemy terrain would allow for more realistic tactical problems during war situations, for you will lose all units tied to the supply unit(s) if the enemy succeeds in destroying or interrupting your supply line (that would be represented by a chain of supply units from your homeland to the battlefield to increase range in large area warfare).
As far as sea exploration is concerned the transporting ship would be the supply point from which the range of transported units is measured. That means unless you don't found cities on newly discovered continents you'll not get much knowledge of the interior, only of the near costal area. In the ancient era the range should be so small that settlements naturally concentrate along the coast and the easily accessible parts of the map. Rough terrain would be unveiled at much slower rate.

To really ensure that, my idea no. 2 concerns the feature of terrain passabilty, which is now only represented by the movement points you need to expend in order to cross it. Every terrain should have an (editable) base chance of losing a unit due to its natural hostility just like triremes in ocean tiles. This base number could be combined with the unit range in a formula that returns the definite chance of losing the unit if it ends movement in that terrain (which is likely if it has a high movement cost) . So older units that have lower range would also have higher chances of getting lost. This would ensure very cautious expansion into hostile terrain in early eras. Roads should improve passability a lot, and there could be pioneer units that have the intrinsic ability of being considerably less prone to getting lost if still within the civs border or adjacent to a road improved tile, so they could drive roads into heavy terrain to improve expansion into it, but such road construction would take considerably longer than normal road building. At some era the units would have such big range values that the chance of getting lost in heavy terain would fall to zero. Also the
'treats x as roads' ability would diminish that risk as the tiles would be treated as if they had roads on them, which by the above mentioned formula (yet to be set) provides a much reduced risk of losing the crossing unit, not to mention that because of the road it might not have to stop on dangerous grounds at all.

So far my suggestions for more realistic amounts of 'terra incognita'. They also provide some clues for
improving tactical options in other areas of the game, too.

Last edited by Superstring on 07-04-2004 at 19:49

	07-04-2004 02:00									#2
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

There is an important erratum for my post before.
In line 11 (not counting the headline ) you should read:
but NOT further than its range.

I changed that already with the kind help of DarkCloud (see below), so feel free to ignore this post.

I however failed to delete this now unnecessary post.

Last edited by Superstring on 07-04-2004 at 19:57

	07-04-2004 11:58									#3
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

This suggestion is actually very similar to one which I have been suggestion for many months-and that is 'Operational Range'. Basically the idea, much like yours, is that ALL units have a given range-though instead of a supporting city, the range was from 'friendly' territory. Settlers, scouts and other 'Spec-op' units would always have the highest range in any given era, with other, general foot units following close behind. Mounted and Motorized units would have the lowest range-in a given age-due to their higher maintainence requirements.
If a unit ends its turn OUTSIDE of this range, then it begins to lose hp's every turn until its back within its safe range. Under this system, forts connected, by roads or rail, to friendly territory, would act as a 'Supply Point' from which your units range would be recalculated-as would a recently captured and secured city. Hostile terrain would also reduce the effective range of a unit!
Not only would this have the benefit that is mentioned above, but it would also add a new, tactical element to the combat-side of the game! It was this side of range which I have previously discussed! After all, if you're faced with a Stack 'O Death bearing down on you-why attack it when you can slip behind their lines and savage their supply points and supply lines!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

	07-04-2004 13:28									#4
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

The influence of this concept on warfare didn't come to my mind before posting. I realized it, while I thought about possible consequences of the range feature to present a more elaborated concept than a mere proposal of a unit feature.
Although my central concern is to provide players with a greater challenge in the expansion process of their civs, there is seemingly nothing wrong with introducing a 'builder's attitude' to the business of warmongers also.
With the necessity for supply logistics (by whatever facilities you would have for this: cities, borders, forts, units..) even the conquering process would demand thoroughly prepared infrastructure to back up the campaign (unless it's obviously going to be an easily won Blitzkrieg against a much weaker enemy).

=====================================
But besides that all, the true importance of the unit range concept (in whatever implementation and naming) is, that IMHO it's one of the few awfullly missing BASIC STRUCTURES in this otherwise (and above all in his basic rules and concepts layout) great(est) game.
=====================================

Unit range is not a sophisticated polishing to perfection of already working game details, or some far-fetched or extravagant addition to the game to satisfy very special playing styles. It is a basic concept that EMPOWERS basic AND sophisticated new dimensions to gameplay in a variety of game aspects: how you expand your civ, how you cultivate the less accessible regions in your civ or at the rim, and of course how you organize warfare or conquering exploration of far away areas across the ocean(s). This concept would give you a whole bunch of important decisions at every time and most of all in the early eras with your fledling civ, and would improve the depth of the game in the beginning, when otherwise your starting procedure would become quite a default process after a while (for experienced gamers at least).

And besides: As the basic elements of this feature are already in the game, it should not be that hard to implement.

	07-04-2004 18:38									#5
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Oh, superstring, good ideas, but for a forum information- you can edit your old posts by looking in the top right hand corner of your post and clicking the EDIT button

	07-04-2004 19:48									#6
	Increase Your PM Length

Thanks DarkCloud for helping out a newbie.
Is it also possible to delete my erratum post after I have corrected my old post? Otherwise that second post would be misleading.
I tried it with the deleting option of the editing screen, but I was not allowed to although I was correctly logged in.

Last edited by Superstring on 07-04-2004 at 19:53

	08-04-2004 02:03									#7
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

I don't think that would work well in the current unit system of civ. For example, the possibility of loosing a valued army crossing a mountain wouold turn of gamers and most would turn it off.

as for range-well, in theory a unit could move massive distances-mongols units traveled the lenght of Asia without having had settlements on any of it. And it did not take them 1000 years to do it.

	10-04-2004 02:02									#8
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

@GePap

You definitely have a point with your argument (many)players might dislike losing valuable units by bad luck to some "random roll" system when they move in rough terrain. So there needs to be a possibiltiy to turn that off in the editor, or even to be off by default but non zero values for losing units could be set (by mods).

Concerning the concept of unit range, however, I think it to be a very useful enhancement of unit properties. Again, in the editor you would be able to set all unit's ranges to 'unlimited' to get the default game we know.

The pro of both above changes is IMO that they are (only) specific cases that could be reverted to the old standard by default settings easily, or be the default that could be changed by editing for mods.
Thus, they enhance the game without the need for structural changes ... and ... the components for these new features are in the game already, so not to much new coding necessary I think. There would be balancing problems as usual, though.