12-01-2002 23:18									#151
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Sorry if I repeat things here, I didn't read all of the above.

Personally I think the musketman-cavalry-rifleman-infantry combination quite balanced, and I wouldn't touch it much. Maybe a little tweaking with a decreased chance of retreating whether a city is walled, or when defensive artillery is available could help, but do not change the mobility advantage, nor the upgrade-to-tank some want! Cavalry has its use in modern times, costs much in resources in industrial times, and can be countered using lots of strategies (catapults and cannons). And the mounted UUs are also fine (Samurai are indeed not very helpfull, but you have to see all advantages of the Japanese)

I totally agree that the French musketeer is useless, and although the French combine very powerfull specific attributes, a 4-4-1 version would be better. Or perhaps let them be built without salpeter, that would also be good.

Also, I too think the ironclad comes too early, and the wooden ships are gone too easily. I love those frigate - man-of-war - caravel battles, and this is completely destroyed by the ironclad. But instead of delaying it, maybe you could change the movement rate of ironclads, or confine them to coastal, or sea (so not ocean) squares. After all, historically ironclads never crossed the pacific, and IIRC they weren't terribly fast either. Maybe a movement of 2 would severely limit there uses. (I know they're allready slower than frigates, but not overly so)

Regarding upgrade cycles, I like the idea of having to use a unit in it's proper time frame, or better not build it. But, OTOH I also hate it when I have to disband valued swordsmen, and if not desperate I never build anything with a
bow. Maybe it would be an idea to let these units upgrade to infrantry once that is available, it is sufficiently far up the tech tree so you won't be able to upgrade your former attack force in a defensive force at once, but as there is no other one-movement attacker in industrial times, it kind of makes sense. Plus, the upgrade would be costly, the difference in build cost is high.
But, cavalry has horses, and thus do not upgrade to anything without horses, certainly not to tanks or MAs. That would totally unbalance their use, they are powerfull units, do not exagerate it.

DeepO

	14-01-2002 02:09									#152
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quote: Originally posted by DeepO I totally agree that the French musketeer is useless, and although the French combine very powerfull specific attributes, a 4-4-1 version would be better. Or perhaps let them be built without salpeter, that would also be good.

That would be useless too, no better attack than the knight and costs more, musketeer would be good if they had made it 2/5/1 and the same cost and resource req as musketman. It would make the french the one civ whose musketmen were possibly worth the cost over pikemen to build or upgrade all.

This wouldn't be at all unbalancing, at least less than the greek hoplites, hmmm, which should I build? 1 musketman or 3 hoplites? let me see here...

and the cossack, as someone said earlier, ouch! no upgrades to or above them, and their only bonus is 1 on defense . . . on an ATTACKING unit. Haven't played the russians yet, but against them I find my calvary have no trouble, because they are never fortified or anything like that when coming at me. actually that extra defense point could be put to good use, by stacking a few of them to defend a hill or mountain or something with a fortress so that they can retreat and wear out attackers, but the ai has no concept of how to use this.

	15-01-2002 02:12									#153
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I think maybe the best way to deal with the overpowered cavalry issue is to reduce the cavalry stats. Also, to balance out, the defense strength of Infantry and Riflemen should come down somewhat, so that once infantry is reached, it doesn't totally remove the prospect of attacking until tanks arrive, however the big battles of the era would be infantry vs. infantry, with cavalry used mainly to wear down the main forces. I'd also bump up the attacking ability of some of the early rifle units as well.

Here's what I'd change:

Knights - reduce to 3.2.2
Cavalry - reduce to 4.3.3
Cossack - make them 5.3.3
Riflemen - make them 5.5.1
Infantry - make them 7.7.1
Tank - change to 12.5.2

The result - longbows actually become useful (first 4 point attack until cavalry) when combined with pikemen, and musketmen can provide useful defense (and French musketeers reasonable offense) in the early game. Early offensive wars will likely be slower in progressing without a massive numerical advantage, but in terms of game balance, it makes sense.

	15-01-2002 03:40									#154
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This is really the first time I have had what I might thin is a constructive critiscisim, so pardon if it seems obvious to everyone. I would say that the two UU that seem to have the least reason to use them are the always hated Musketers' for the french. That extra point of attack is utterly useless. It is esentialy a less than 50% chance at winning in an attack against the comparable defending musket man.
The other one that really kind of annoys me is the War elephant. I think the graphic and the idea is really cool but the supposed bonus, ie not needing horses is really over rated. You will not really be able to trade the extra horse resource to anyone if you have them in your borders, Which in my experience is always, because every one else will have them by then as well.
It would be better if they had an extra attack or deffense, I would lean to the defense but then maybe they are two simmilar to the samurai then I don't know.

They would be the units that I would seriously want to see changed in some way.

	15-01-2002 04:05									#155
	Put an end to popups!

One more problem with the War Elephant is that once you get Calv, you can not make them anymore? I played a few days ago and only made one. I then upgraded it and later thought why not make one to trigger a GA, no can do. I lost my UU all together. This may be a patch isue as I had done that type of thing before with Samauri and was able to make new ones.

	15-01-2002 08:11									#156
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quote: Originally posted by dconner In particular, I think smaller ships should be able to do something that Battleships can't - faster movement, the traditional anti-submarine role, or something. Some sort of anti-aircraft specialized sea unit would be nice, too (this might be an AEGIS cruiser, available with an earlier tech.)

Actually, I think it should be the reverse. Battleships really aren't worth building except that they have are more powerful vs the maintance costs (these do add up.)

The big advantage of major capital ships has always been that they are way faster then the other ships of the fleet (and better armored). A cruising battleship was one of the fastest ships of its day, and this should be one of the major reasons for owning it (plus, its armor should be upgraded a bit.) A destroyer, on the other hand, shouldn't be as powerful (but cheaper). They are designed for sub-removal and don't stand a prayer against a battleship. In Civ-III they have a 50/50 shot... way too high. Civ-III's destroyers are really cruisers, not destroyers, so I guess its ok.

	15-01-2002 08:14									#157
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quote: Originally posted by DeepO Sorry if I repeat things here, I didn't read all of the above. Also, I too think the ironclad comes too early, and the wooden ships are gone too easily. I love those frigate - man-of-war - caravel battles, and this is completely destroyed by the ironclad. But instead of delaying it, maybe you could change the movement rate of ironclads, or confine them to coastal, or sea (so not ocean) squares. After all, historically ironclads never crossed the pacific, and IIRC they weren't terribly fast either. Maybe a movement of 2 would severely limit there uses. (I know they're allready slower than frigates, but not overly so) DeepO

Historically, Ironclads were not that sea-worthy. I think they should be available, but not able to saftly travel ocean squares, and slow as dirt. That would even things out.

	15-01-2002 09:45									#158
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quote: Originally posted by Dan Baker Historically, Ironclads were not that sea-worthy. I think they should be available, but not able to saftly travel ocean squares, and slow as dirt. That would even things out.

I believe that Ironclads also represent iron-clad ships of the post Monitor/Merrimac era. Post American Civil War many steam-powered ocean-capable ships also were "iron-clads" on both sides of the Atlantic.

	15-01-2002 10:55									#159
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If anyone at firaxis is still reading this, i'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this, but because of the retreat function armies are even further handicapped.

I did some testing and it with Armies and it appears that each time a single unit in the army retreats it subtracts a movement point from the entire army. So if a player has four modern armor units in an army, they start off the turn beside two enemy mech infantry and then attack, if the first unit has to withdraw from the attack then the entire army lost a movement point. If worse comes to worse and a second unit has to break off the attack but the army still wins then unfortunantly the army won't have any movement points left.

A fix would be if at most even if multiple units broke off the attack the army would only lose one movement point. Another fix which would also make armies more powerful (as it is armies are weak because a player loses major flexability when using armies, and armies are VERY expensive for what they do) would be that units could break off the attack without causing the army to lose any movement points. Only if the army retreated as a whole would it lose any movement points.

Armies need all of the help they can get, plus with fast attackers like cavalry and modern armor the player can achieve the same results of weakening a defender while keeping their troops alive if they make sure their units have at least one extra movement point to retreat with when they start the attack. Although armies are hard to kill, the overall loss of multiple attacks negates much of the armies ability on offense. Couple that with modern armor apparently lose their blitz ability when stacked in an army, and the fact that armies can't even pillage armies have very limited roles which in almost all cases could be better handled without going to the expense of building an army.

Thanks

	15-01-2002 15:09									#160
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The following are the changes I made to my own games.

Musketman, shields 50, att 3

Seemed appropiate.

Musketeer, shields 50, move 2

To simulate their ability to dash around France on missions for the king.

Explorer, tech req Map Making

Someone earlier mentioned that by the time explorers are available, most of the map is explored. Not quite correct IMHO, by the time I usually get Navigation, most of the map has cities on it.

Radar Artillery, move 2

So they can keep up with the mech infantry.

Carrier, move 5

Purly to eliminate the annoyance factor of having to count out the escort's movement so it doesn't leave the carriers behind.

Destroyer, move 6

So destroyers can be slightly more than just a cheap and inferior version of a battleship.

Aegis cruiser, move 7, att 14, def 12, bomb 8

The standard version seemed to me to be little more than a marginally better destroyer that could see submarines and cost more to build, yet it's supposed to be 'the' modern era warship.

	15-01-2002 21:28									#161
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quote: Originally posted by barefootbadass and the cossack, as someone said earlier, ouch! no upgrades to or above them, and their only bonus is 1 on defense . . . on an ATTACKING unit. Haven't played the russians yet, but against them I find my calvary have no trouble, because they are never fortified or anything like that when coming at me. actually that extra defense point could be put to good use, by stacking a few of them to defend a hill or mountain or something with a fortress so that they can retreat and wear out attackers, but the ai has no concept of how to use this.

I always wondered what would happen if the Russians or Japanese fortified their UU's in cities w/walls and waited for my Cav to roll on in. That 4 defense is still lower than my 6 attack, but oh my, I'd definitely lose some Cavalry. As it stands now, getting one of my units killed is a rarity. Samurai and Cossacks have the potential to do bad things to attacking Cav, particularly if they are in big cities, or in cities on hills, or up on a mountain... etc.

-Arrian

	15-01-2002 23:13									#162
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quote: Originally posted by Arrian I always wondered what would happen if the Russians or Japanese fortified their UU's in cities w/walls and waited for my Cav to roll on in. That 4 defense is still lower than my 6 attack, but oh my, I'd definitely lose some Cavalry. As it stands now, getting one of my units killed is a rarity. Samurai and Cossacks have the potential to do bad things to attacking Cav, particularly if they are in big cities, or in cities on hills, or up on a mountain... etc.

Heh, I bet if you changed those units to defensive in the ai strategy box you'd find those civs much tougher to wipe out. They'd probably still attack too because the units have good attacking odds. Would be interesting to try that out and see how it works.

	18-01-2002 03:53									#163
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I took a suggestion from a Reader Reviewer at Gamespot, who said he modded the rules to multiply by 1, 2, 3, 4, the different eras.
I have not fully tried this yet, but I modded the rules, by factor of 0, 1, 2, 3 for the different eras.
The rest will be up to players who have more time to play the game more than I do at the current time.

But this gives defense of modern units like 54, 24 for destroyer and the such by multiplying by 3 in the modern era.
Well, besides really trying it and changing the availability of resources to more like something like 400 for iron instead of 800 and up to 200 and the others so their is more length to the resources and more probability that resources will be there for every civ, which I think the patch did also something about, I have not fully tried it out.

	18-01-2002 03:55									#164
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Bombard was also changed and as such I have not tested anything yet, got sidetracked into trying the Apolyton Tournament 4 file, and well, had to go back to the original civ3mod.bic file.

	18-01-2002 03:58									#165
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Of course, that may make the game over quicker also if one can not keep up with the techs.
Still at Warlord, and really do not know if that will work at all.
i.e. multiplying the attack and defense of units by that much.

	18-01-2002 04:05									#166
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

I think I will scrap that all and try multiplying factors of 1, 1.25, 1.5, and 1.75 perhaps, on that order for the different units of different eras.
Thus units in the modern age would have a defense of 11 or 12 instead of 8 or attack of 13 or 14 or something like that.
Maybe 1, 1, 1.25, and 1.5 for multiplying factor of units in the different eras.

	20-01-2002 22:05									#167
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I have no beef with any Ancient and Medieval units (keep the units as they are in these eras IMHO).

However, there are two units I do have a problem with.

Industrial
Marine: I just think that these guys are a little weak, considering I could just boat over 8 tanks or even modern armors, since they're about the same price to make. I would make them 11.9.1 .

Modern
Stealth Fighter: When I look at the stats for Stealth Fighter (SF) and Stealth Bomber (SB), I find that the SB is far better at its job, and no real reason to even build the SF.

	20-01-2002 22:59									#168
	Increase the size of your Attachments

As marines are configured now, they are not worth making and I never do. Stealth unit, I do not make either.

	21-01-2002 20:43									#169
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quote: Originally posted by Dan Baker Historically, Ironclads were not that sea-worthy. I think they should be available, but not able to saftly travel ocean squares, and slow as dirt. That would even things out.

Presumably you are talking about the Monitor-class ironclads.

Taking a less american-centric view, consider the HMS Warrior. This was an iron-clad frigate which came into service in 1861. It was considerably faster than the ships-of-the-lines that she obsoleted.

Quote from http://www.wtj.com/articles/warrior/

"Her ability to sail in the open ocean at speeds up to 14 knots was incomparable to the Union and Confederate ironclads built during the American Civil War. "

	21-01-2002 23:30									#170
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TacticalGrace - A fair point, and one someone was sure to bring up. I think the reason most people connect the Civ III ironclads with the U.S. Civil War variants is that the Civ III unit icon looks like the monitor, not the Warrior. *shrug*

-Arrian

	22-01-2002 05:17									#171
	Increase the size of your Attachments

quote: Originally posted by pcasey Archers ... if you want to rush, use horsesmen. Too slow and too vulnerable. Longbowmen ... I have to escort them with a pikemen anyway, so why not just make a knight that'll move twice as fast, cost the same as the two unit stack and have retreat options?

Archers and Longbowmen can be given Bombard ability, range 0. That gives them a "free shot" and more of a role as defensive support.

	23-01-2002 18:12									#172
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Right from finally reading all this here are my thoughts on units...

1. Musketmen should be 3/4/1 and Musketeers 3/5/1.

2. Cavalry should be 6/3/2 and Cossacks 6/3/3, similar to CHinese Riders and Knights.

3. All ships past Galley should have their movement increased by 1, possibly 2 points. They are too slow!

4. Frigates should by 3/2 with bombard 3 (MOW upgraded proportionately), and Privateers 3/1 to make them useful compared to the quickly appearing Ironclad. Caravels are better at 2/1 as opposed to 1/2. Allowing Frigates to carry 1 unit similar to their Civ2 counterparts would also be advantageous.

5. AEGIS should be able to carry 2 Cruise missiles to make them a worthy addition as well as doing better against aircraft bombing. Possibly having them arriving with Rocketry would also be better. Aircraft should have a chance of completely destroying ships.

6. Destroyers and Transports would be better with Steel with Submarines arriving with Combustion.

7. F15 needs reworking as increasing bombard ability is a pointless advantage especially for the AI which uses them for Air Defence only. All Fighters could do with better bombardment ability, especially Jet Fighters. SHould be an option to route-out defending fighters with fighters, so as to aid the bombers. Possibly an increase in defence of 2 for both Fighters and Jet Fighters would help here. Remember Battle of Britain? Jet and Stealth Fighters should have Radar for their recon ability to be effective (all Fighters' only real active ability is recon atm).

8. Bombard ability. All metal ships, Fighters, Bombers and Land artillery should have their bombard value increased by 1. Just to make them more valuable in wars and wars less boring once the opposition navy or air force is destroyed. These guys should be able to tear into cities and improvements in far less time than they do. Can take 5+ years to have an impact with bombarding units in the modern era...DAFT.

9. AI should use Land artillery OFFENSIVELY!

10. Cruise missiles should have range 4 and rate of fire 4 and be loadable onto Nuclear Subs and AEGIS.

11. Helicopter and Stealth Fighter should have a recon range of 8, and possibly allow helicopters to airdrop two units. Stealth Fighter could do with Radar to make recon worthwhile. Not sure as to purpose of SF?!

12. Settlers and Workers should be airliftable.

13. Marines should be 9/6/1 and Paratroopers 7/8/1 with airdrop range of 8.

14. Explorers should arrive with Map Making, arriving with Navigation is pointless as map is already explored.

15. Would be nice to see the AI use Privateers.

16. ZOC could and should be more damaging, esp when defending on a fortress.

17. Should Metal ships have Blitz ability?

18. Should space ship take longer to build?!

My thoughts so far...

	24-01-2002 01:28									#173
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Sorry if someone said this before, I dont wanna read trough the whole six pages of posts.

I believe the reason some units dont get obsolete if because they donīt need any resources

I mean, you need oil and i think rubber to build a battleship, so if when you get mass production you could no longer build frigates, where you lacking any of the resources above mentioned, you could build no ships! (the same goes for galleons/transports)

Maybe it could be made for the build queue to check wether you have the apropiate resources, and then decide to allow you to build either frigates/galleons or battleships/transports

	24-01-2002 02:13									#174
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quote: Originally posted by Tincho Sorry if someone said this before, I dont wanna read trough the whole six pages of posts. I believe the reason some units dont get obsolete if because they donīt need any resources I mean, you need oil and i think rubber to build a battleship, so if when you get mass production you could no longer build frigates, where you lacking any of the resources above mentioned, you could build no ships! (the same goes for galleons/transports) Maybe it could be made for the build queue to check wether you have the apropiate resources, and then decide to allow you to build either frigates/galleons or battleships/transports

No, no, no!

If you have Computer, some cities (with appropriate resources) can build Mech. Inf. On the other hand, newly founded city without resourses can build Riflemen (althougt it is "obsolete" with Infantry).

Check yourself.
For, ex. if you make Frigates & Ironclads upgradeable to Destoyers.
After you lose oil you could buil those units again.

	24-01-2002 04:45									#175
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It was said here that retreating ability is the diminating factor. I disagree. I've playe every dificulty level, and I can tell you that from Regeant to Deity the swordman is far better than horseman. In Chieftain and Warlord, 2 attack against 2 defense is quite easy to win; in the others, you need 3 to 1 to win (more or less), while one 3 against 2 may be enough. Besides, against Impis, mech inf, other mobile units and units with only one hitpoint left, retreat doesn't exist. The advantage of a horsman compared to an archer is mobility, wich increase its efficiency when attacking (you can find it in the handbook). Something like 2+ against 2.
Appart from that:
Useless units: marines (you have at least tanks and infantry, and about its special ability, who wants to attack 8 against 10 from the sea, or land, or whatever?). Also Samurai and Elephant (I can accept the no-resource part as an advantage, but it doesn't compare with mounted warriors, hoplite, immortals)

One thing that I consider a sorious BUG even when it was intentionally made: Cavalry moves 3 and tank only 2. It's just a concept mistake. The whole thing of the tanks was the mobile warfare, there resided all their power. In WW2, the armies that didn't use the tanks in this way were anihilated. So how can a mechanized army be less mobile than a horse-powered one? Is unbelievable. If you want to keep speed 3 a special ability of the panzer, it's OK, but make the cavalry 6-4-2. I don't agree about cavalry being overpowered. A combination of musketmen and cannons can perfectly well defend a city against Cavalries (I've done it), and 5-2-2 would make it too weak. And think about riflemen against cavalry: you can win a 6 vs 6 without bombard, imagine a 5 vs 6. The path from cavalry to riflemen might be long (actually, it depends of the order in wich you research. You may even discover Nationalism before Military tradition), but the path between riflemen and tanks is long too (and here it doesn't depend so much of the order)

About the most powerfull unit, it could be the Army. Because, if it is not made out of obsolete units, the computer fears attacking it, so an army of cavalries can stand beside a city full of cavalries and infantries as long as he wants. And, for retreating fans, an army almost gives it to any unit you load into it as long as the last unit of the army wins.

At industrial age you can homogenize all your army by building only infantry. With the same attack than a cavalry (but remember, without the mobility factor) it is the perfect companion to artillery. Infantry will protect it and give the final punch, and therefore secure your gains with its defense strenght (any comparison with WW1...). Besides, cavalry is not upgradeable to tank, so you will have to build more units after Motorized Transportation anyway, so there's no use to storing cavalries. It is true that this combo won't let you advance fast, but neither does a cavalry that runs far to get killed by other cavalries. In addition, since the use of rifleman by AI forces you to bring cannons, artillery, or whatever you have (or build a really HUGE army of cavalries, but this posibility disappears when infantry comes to life), your avance will be slow anyway, no matter if Cavalry has a movement of 414234, it has to wait for the artillery to come.

	24-01-2002 23:40									#176
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quote: Originally posted by Thrawn05 Industrial Marine: I just think that these guys are a little weak, considering I could just boat over 8 tanks or even modern armors, since they're about the same price to make. I would make them 11.9.1 .

Marines speed up your invasion but you only need about one transport of them(assuming the ai doesn't have too many defenders) for the coastal city. Their sole value is in providing an assault from a transport to establish a beachhead. You MUST provide very heavy bombardment or they will get slaughtered, but if you are in democracy and need to get in and out of a war quickly, or need to deny some aluminum from the civ so you don't lose the space race, they are invaluable.

	25-01-2002 05:45									#177
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

I've used marines in my last few games and while their Att is a little low, they do the job damn well.

Invading from the sea, I've discovered two problems. If you land a small force so as not to 'show your hand', they get exterminated on the beach. If you land an overwhelming forse, the AI just boosts the defences in the closest city. In either case, you will take heavy losses among your main land army.

With marines, you can attack from the transport and capture the city almost intact (the AI does sell off improvements if it thinks it will lose the city), then bring the main army in on the transports, unload and they are ready to move and attack on the same turn. Granted, you do suffer losses among the marines, but it's almost a supprise attack and you don't have to delay the invasion while your main army repairs after capturing the city.

Before:

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	25-01-2002 05:56									#178
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In these two examples, the two cities were captured by marines straight off the transport allowing me to land, tanks, infantry and artillery. Two other cities were razed the following turn eliminating any possibility of culture flip. Tokugawa sued for peace the turn after that.

After :

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	25-01-2002 06:39									#179
	Remove this text

Interesting discussion on this thread.

I don't have too much of a problem w/ things as they stand today. My complaints relate more to game mechanics & what I perceive as missing features, not actual problems w/ the 'strengths' of units. But, fwiw I have some observations.

I don't think marines are as bad as some are making them out to be. Having trialed out a couple of invasions of cities using them they seem to work out about right. After softening up a city w/ bombers & battleships they were able to successfully defeat the two mech infantries that were guarding the city and take it. Three of them died in the process. They are a task specific unit, designed to do one thing well in the game. (Given the abstraction that has been carried out in the rest of the unit design you could make the case that they shouldn't even be in the game.) They seem to do that thing - amphibious assault - in a pretty realistic manner. Marines (paratroopers too for that matter) are built around the combined arms concept. If you don't bombard the target first and don't have any follow on forces to offload into the newly captured city, your invasion will fail, as it rightly should. (I originally thought the Marine def value was too low, & you can make a case for that, but if you look at them as pure amphibious assault troops then the lower def value forces you to provide those follow on forces with their higher def ratings) Having said all that, what would be nice is if Marines actually had two sets of off/def numbers. One set to use while actually executing an amphibious invasion, and a different set to use when conducting normal ground operations. This would map a little better to reality, but the game engine would have to be reworked fairly significantly to make this happen. And since this is the only unit that I can think of off the top of my head that you might want to do this with (ok, maybe w/ paratroopers too on the turn after they land to model the disorganization they experience after drop) it probably isn't worth trying to implement.

Paratroopers are also task specific. Their job is to drop in ahead of an advancing force to secure critical areas like crossroads and bridges to ensure that the enemy doesn't blow them up or set up ambushes in the (ideally) 4 to 8 hours it will take the main advance to reach them. They aren't meant to land in an area and hold it for days, only hours. And because they have no heavy guns or tanks, they're not really an offensive unit. Their forte is surprise & defense. I haven't yet had a chance to try them out in the game as I have marines, but I think that I'll have a chance to find out soon. The ai seems to build them for the wrong reasons, as I have rarely seen it actually conduct drop operations, rather it uses them as assault troops when it has the capability to build tanks & mech infantry. That should be addressed imo.

The only real gripe I have about unit values are nuclear subs & aircraft carriers movement rates. Whoever decided to make them slower than battleships doesn't understand the concept of fast attack carriers or modern attack/boomer sub transit times. Although I can accept the value for the carriers because they travel as part of a group & must conduct air operations, which does have an impact on speed of travel. Subs on the other hand... In general, modern naval units should probably be a little faster. And destroyers should be able to 'see' subs, at least after they fire, but since subs seem a little underpowered as far as offense goes, perhaps this balances out. So far the current level of abstraction for the naval units hasn't been too bothersome for me. Part of me wants more detail & realism, but another part of me appreciates the fact that the current level of abstraction will let me start & finish the game in the same year because I don't have to move the tens of thousands of units that would be demanded by modeling reality too closely.


Another gripe I have. There isn't an army field manual in the world that teaches its officers that it's ok to attack a prepared enemy unit (company, regiment, whatever) with another unit of the same size. Not any one that I've ever read or heard about anyway. Except maybe for the Palestinian Army field manual. Minimum would be a strike force three times the size of the target unit. That's minimum. More than that is strongly recommended. With all the artillery & air force bombardment that money can buy to soften the target before assaulting. Civ is already too forgiving in this area imo, but since it's not supposed to be a combat sim I can overlook that.

General - "Field Marshall, our tank company has been defeated by that company of spearmen in the hills!"

FM - "Well, soften them up with more artillery & bombers and then send one of the other tank companies against them!"

G - "Uh, well, I didn't bother to bring any more tank companies or artillery or bombers sir, after all, it's only one company of spearmen & our tanks are so much more *****in' than spearmen that I figured one company would be more than enough."



And, I have to add, I've never lost a tank to spearmen in the game anyway. But I do hear that it happens.

There are other gripes I have about combat, like modern ground units should be able to fire back at planes & why doesn't the ai use its artillery better (among other things), but that's not the topic of the thread. & I've gone pretty far off topic anyway.

Enuff 4 now,

	25-01-2002 07:19									#180
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Maybe it's becuase I'm playing an Expansionist civ, but I think Chariots are useless in the game. Before I can even start building one, I've already picked up Horseback Riding.