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joncnunn
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Maryland Heights, MO
Sep 2002
time: 23:34
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I'd rename Sidearms to "fists" because "sidearms" is also another term for certain types of guns in the US.
I'd drop the "Laser" from weapons, that's still sci-fi in the context of primary weapon. It is used to guide bombs by planes.
On types of boats, it seems to be missing the standard oil-based naval units of the 20th century.
Where this really breaks down though is that each air unit chasim & sea unit chasis would need thier own seperate lists of allowed weapons and shields.
There would even need to be speed limits based on techs. Motorized chasis travel much faster today than in WW II. And tanks in WW I weren't much faster than troops could march.
I think a unit list would be shorter than a realistic rules list ...
quote:
Originally posted by Ijuin
Some simple possibilities:
Weapons:
Sidearms (basic, attack 1, no extra cost)
Bronze spear (Bronze Working, attack 2, cost +10 shields)
Bronze sword (Weaponsmithing--requires Bronze Working and Warrior Code, attack 3, cost +20 shields)
Iron polearm (Iron Working, attack 4, cost +30 shields)
Iron sword (Feudalism, attack 5, cost +40 shields)
Musket (Gunpowder, attack 8, cost +50 shields)
Rifle (Military Tradition, attack 12, cost +60 shields)
Machinegun (Replacable Parts, attack 16, cost +70 shields)
Rocket Launcher (Rocketry, attack 20, cost +80 shields)
Laser (Lasers, attack 24, cost +90 shields)
Armor:
No armor (basic, def 1, no extra cost)
Wood/Leather armor (Warrior Code, def 2, cost +10 shields)
Bronze armor (Weaponsmithing, def 3, cost +20 shields)
Chain mail armor (feudalism, def 4, cost +30 shields)
Iron plate armor (metallurgy, def 6, cost +40 shields
Steel plate armor (Steel, def 9, cost +50 shields)
Titanium plate armor (Electronics, def 12, cost +60 shields)
Composite armor (Synthetic Fibers, def 16, cost +70 shields)
Armor can be boosted 50% in protection for a 100% increase in cost plus a -1 movement penalty for non-infantry units.
Chassis:
foot (basic, land, 1 move)
Horseback (Horseback Riding, land, 3 move for unarmored units but 2 move for armored units, cannot carry armor heavier than Iron plate)
Motorized (Motorized transport, land, 4 move for unarmored units but 3 move for armored units)
Clinker boat (Map Making, sea--sinks in ocean, 3 move)
Carvel boat (Navigation, sea, 4 move)
Steamboat (Steam Power, sea, 6 move)
Nuclear (Fission, sea, 8 move)
Prop plane (Flight, air, 6 operating range)
Jet plane (Rocketry, air, 12 operating range)
Cruise missile (rocketry, air, 6 range missile)
ICBM (satellites, air, unlimited range missile) |
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GePap
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of the Big Apple
Nov 2001
time: 23:34
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a much simpler and realistic weapons design worksho would be using tactics
example:
Heavy infantry (lots of equipment, expensive, slow, powerful) vs Light infantry (light equipment, fast, more fragile)- offensive minded, defensive minded, all around.
So you could always decide to make lots of light offensively minded infantry for quick attacks- cheap to raise, cheap to keep, easy to train. Or you can base your army around heavy infantry trained to both attack and defend (legions essentially) which takes time to create, train, is expensive, but can beat back hordes of cheaper guys.
Possible choices:
For infantry for example:
Heavy (lots of the latest equipment)
Light (cheaply and simply equiped)
Attack
Defend
Attack/defend
Trained
Ranged attack light
Ranged attack heavy
What each meant for example based on tech level:
So light bronze age infantry is weaker that light steel equiped infantry and so forth.
We could make civ type copunt more by giving bonuses to certain types of units depending on the civ.
Example- Romans get heavy infantry cheaper than others
Militaristic civs get trained infantry cheaper or faster, so forth.
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Tall_Walt
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California
Dec 2001
time: 21:34
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I see some good suggestions on representing real life systems in SMAC style. Remember that one of the elements in the SMAC unit design was power plant. For Civ4, this could be Man-Powered, Wind, Horse-Powered, Steam, Internal Combustion (or Oil), Gas Turbine, Nuclear.
Also SMAC had special features. This is where I would see navigation coming in for ships: Coastal Navigation, Astrolabe, Sextant, Chronometer, Loran, GPS. (I probably give more options than are useful, unless Civ4 decided to simulate the inaccuracies of pre-Chronometer navigation.
Instead of UUs one could have unique technology like Persian elephants, Polynesian navigation (imagine navigating from Hawaii to Tahiti without any conventional navigation tech), American supercarrier "chassis", etc.
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Tall_Walt
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California
Dec 2001
time: 21:34
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I don't think steam tanks can be dismissed as just nuts. Civ is about alternate history. Different geography, different cultures besides each other, different orders of scientific advancements.
Tanks got invented in WWI. They were huge beasts, roughly 10m long and 3m tall. This is considerably larger than the steam locomotives of 100 years before. If the idea of the tank had appeared with the appearance of the steam locomotive--certainly a possible thought--then 50 years of development would have preceded the US Civil War.
It just takes a different emphasis in development to have steam tanks fielded in 1865 and turret warships not appearing until 1915 instead of the reverse.
A steam tank is essentially a steam locomotive that runs on spiked wheels instead of rails, and carries armor and weapons instead of pulling. It *could* have been attempted as early as 1805. The technology was there, it was the idea that was missing.
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GePap
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of the Big Apple
Nov 2001
time: 23:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Tall_Walt
I don't think steam tanks can be dismissed as just nuts. Civ is about alternate history. Different geography, different cultures besides each other, different orders of scientific advancements.
Tanks got invented in WWI. They were huge beasts, roughly 10m long and 3m tall. This is considerably larger than the steam locomotives of 100 years before. If the idea of the tank had appeared with the appearance of the steam locomotive--certainly a possible thought--then 50 years of development would have preceded the US Civil War.
It just takes a different emphasis in development to have steam tanks fielded in 1865 and turret warships not appearing until 1915 instead of the reverse.
A steam tank is essentially a steam locomotive that runs on spiked wheels instead of rails, and carries armor and weapons instead of pulling. It *could* have been attempted as early as 1805. The technology was there, it was the idea that was missing. |
I am sorry, but I seriously doubt that early 19th century metalurgy and early steam engines would have lead to a land battlehip in 1805- just syaing steam engines and steel are around, so you can make a steam tank is not sufficient.
Such a device, besides being horrifically slow, probalby inmovable due to the immense wieght and poor roads, plus with a small range given the problem of carrying its own fuel (which would have been coal- you were going to have men shoveling coal in the belly of this beast?) again if it could move at all would most liekly have blown up. Of, and you wonder what they would fire- since it would seem dangerous to keep gunpowder near the fires of the engine, less you have a catastrophic explosion..... so forth and so on, the list of reasons why it would be utterly implausible continues.
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Tall_Walt
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California
Dec 2001
time: 21:34
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quote:
Originally posted by GePap
I am sorry, but I seriously doubt that early 19th century metalurgy and early steam engines would have lead to a land battlehip in 1805- just syaing steam engines and steel are around, so you can make a steam tank is not sufficient.
Such a device, besides being horrifically slow, probalby inmovable due to the immense wieght and poor roads, plus with a small range given the problem of carrying its own fuel (which would have been coal- you were going to have men shoveling coal in the belly of this beast?) again if it could move at all would most liekly have blown up. Of, and you wonder what they would fire- since it would seem dangerous to keep gunpowder near the fires of the engine, less you have a catastrophic explosion..... so forth and so on, the list of reasons why it would be utterly implausible continues. |
I didn't propose that a fully functional tank was likely in the *early* 19th century, only that it could have been conceptualized or prototyped then. And after 50 years of development, it could show up when ironclads showed up c. 1865.
Early locomotives (c. 1805) *were* hideously slow, about 5 mph. IIRC, they first ran without tracks: the problems with this were solved with tracks since they were intended for commerce; an intention to use them for warfighting would have resulted in a different solution.
Men shovelling coal in the beast is just the case with the ironclads: indeed since the discovering of gunpowder, rigorous separation between magazines and guns, cooking, and armories has been necessary--and have sometimes failed, notably at Jutland.
I should note that originally a tank was a mobile infantry support pillbox. It was not in an anti-armor role, because no armor was around. An steam tank needs only walking speed, armor enough for infantry weapons, and gunports, though Gatling guns are an obvious weapon for them.
Another point is Hero's steam turbine. Nothing except lack of interest in technology prevented the steam turbine from being developed in Grecian times. An opposite example is that the concrete formula used by the Romans was only rediscovered in the last ten years: by using volcanic ash instead of sand, concrete becomes much stronger. Viewing scientific progress as an immutable sequence is quite mistaken, though it's often taught that way to emphasize the connections across technical fields. The connections are there, but other connections are usually possible.
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Ijuin
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Tokyo, Japan
May 2002
time: 14:34
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quote:
Originally posted by joncnunn
I'd rename Sidearms to "fists" because "sidearms" is also another term for certain types of guns in the US. |
All right. I was going by analogy to SMAC, in which the default was called "hand weapons".
quote:
I'd drop the "Laser" from weapons, that's still sci-fi in the context of primary weapon. It is used to guide bombs by planes. |
What would you suggest for a late-Modern Age weapon to follow rocket launchers?
quote:
On types of boats, it seems to be missing the standard oil-based naval units of the 20th century. |
Mabe so. The steamboat entry in this case was meant to cover all combustion-powered sea vehicles, since non-steam combustion driven large ships (i.e. thousands of tons) did not appear until WWI and nuclear vessels appeared right after WWII.
quote:
There would even need to be speed limits based on techs. Motorized chasis travel much faster today than in WW II. And tanks in WW I weren't much faster than troops could march. |
Again, this was an analogy to SMAC, where the "rover" chassis representing all motorized wheeled vehicles had a movment of 2, to later be replaced by the futuristic hover chassis.
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Ijuin
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Tokyo, Japan
May 2002
time: 14:34
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That's an idea--have a list of "enhancements" that you can choose when you build a unit (or you can add an enhancement to a unit at a cost of, say, one gold per each shield the unit originally cost). Units would be allowed one enhancement at the start, while units built at a Barracks would be allowed two, and you would get one more after building the Military Academy.
Possible enhancements:
Frontline Defender--gets chosen as first defender against enemy attack no matter what, even if enemy attempts to assassinate a specific unit in the stack (Warrior Code)
Double police power--unit pacifies twice as many citizens (Code of Laws)
+50% defense (Feudalism)
+50% attack (Iron Working)
+1 movement land (Horseback Riding)
+1 movement sea (Astronomy)
Double cargo capacity--transport units only (Navigation)
Amphibious--infantry units only (Navigation)
Blitz (Military Tradition)
Invisible/detect invisible (Espionage)
Assassinate--gets to select which unit in a stack to attack (Espionage)
"Colorless"--no national identification (Nationalism)
+1 vision radius (Radio)
+1 bombard radius--vision radius will increase to match (Radio)
Double Operational Range--air/missile units only (Adv. Flight)
Double rate of fire--any bombard unit (Mass Production)
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Tall_Walt
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California
Dec 2001
time: 21:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Epistax
I really do love SMAC for everything it tries to do (get some balls, Civ!). I can understand what you mean though. I'd always have (what's the max, 50?) different units available, maybe 10 useful. Marking things as obsolete was quite tedius.
That's why I propose something inbetween the two. You have all the default units, but you have options to make little tweaks. Maybe some units can get a speed boost, others can heal at unusual times, another gets a bonus when in a friendly city under we love the king day, etc. etc. Just little tweaks you can buy on a unit by unit basis, or set as the default increasing production costs by some %. |
It's just my guess, but playing SMACX recently, I think the reason they don't do SMAC2 or have Wonder movies in Civ3 is SMAC spent huge amounts of money on the movies. Some of those movies are pretty amazing. Though I'm sure it's a lot CGI and file footage, the cost to produce it into all those movies must have been horrendous.
To the point, I like the idea of small increments if a full workshop isn't available, but I like the full workshop: I love the ship building in MOO2: it's a major plus for the game.
However, the upgrade process can be tedious. Even in MOO2, where upgrading is cheap and ships are few, it takes some time to move all the ships back to bases. Fortunately, you only do a few refits per game.
In the case of Civ, though, I think you could look at things differently. Consider upgrading knights (say 9th century) to Cavalry (19th century). You're talking about an upgrade that took 1000 years. Historically, what happened is little changes in technology and tactics added up to that change: No knight went back to his barracks and traded in his plate armor for a Winchester! That suggests to me that at the Civ time scale, the change should just happen, without the tedium of moving units to barracks to upgrade them.
Even late in the game, with WWII airplanes changing to late 20th century versions, you're talking about two generation of people and many generations of weapons. And automatic upgrade would avoid the silly situation where you find that backup for your mechanized infantry is guys with pointy sticks--as if that could really happen.
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20-08-2004 22:36
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