18-12-2001 03:13									#1
	A little somethin' for expantionist civs... Got spare money?

Ok, I've been thinking about the wounded expantionist civs...

How about a "scout" ship...

It's only possible if one can specify in a unit's attributes what type of civ can build it. If not, the maybe ?two? special units for each expantionist civ?

Ok here's what I'm thinkin':
1) a ship available with, say, pottery that has three movement, is cheap to build (20 shields?), but has 0/1 A/D and can't carry units.
2) a ship available concurrently with a galley, but has an extra movement or that can hold more troops.
3) a ship available at start of game that costs 10 shields, but carries no units and only moves one or two spaces...

Any modders out there wanna take up this challenge?
ALL comments welcome, but I'm not gonna make the unit. I just wanna see it get made.

PS, is there a way to adjust a unit's range of vision???


it's my new smiley!

	19-12-2001 02:49									#2
	Got spare money?

I've thought of something like that, too. Overall, I would like to favour sailing.

My suggestion is to make Rafts (0/0/3, coast only, carries 1) available from the start, make Galleys cheaper and a bit faster, and add another ship (0/0/4, coast+sea) available with Mapmaking (or equivalent), but from the beginning to Expansionist.

However, Expansionists could use some advantages in the late game.

	19-12-2001 08:55									#3
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

I dunno, I'm kinda steering towards a 0/0/2 ship that only visits coastal squares, carries nothing, and costs 20 shields.

This would allow it ONLY for exploration, make it so it was cheap, but not too cheap, and available and useful only in the early game.

This way, if you play an expantionist civ, regardless of the map type, you know you're gonna get to explore faster than everyone else. That doesn't necessarily translate to faster expansion, just smarter and more efficient expansion.

My $.02

PS, you wouldn't happen to know how to simply "add" a unit to certain civs, would you?

	19-12-2001 09:03									#4
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Well now that I think about it, I like the "raft" idea...

Maybe a 0/0/1 unit, costing 20 shields, visits coastal only, and carries one unit? This GUARANTEES that it can't be used for rapid expantion into enemy controlled islands, just undeveloped ones. Ones without barbarian villages at that.

The only problem is that I don't think the AI could efficiently use them... A human would obviously transport settlers only (if they only had one raft) to strategic small close islands (without goodie/ barbarian huts), where as the AI might try so send solo warriors to sit on their behinds to the same island...

I guess if they can use galleys well (and we all know they can), they might be able to use this {Dr. Evil voice} "raft."

	19-12-2001 18:18									#5
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

The raft should only be able to carry foot units - that is no settlers.

	20-12-2001 09:31									#6
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

Is that possible?

	20-12-2001 18:38									#7
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Actually, I think that a small, slow boat unit should be available to *all* civs at the same time as the warrior (that is, with no prereqs). Expansionist civs start the game with a pretty good advantage as it is, especially if you're playing continents or pangea. The real problem for expansionist civs is that they have no *late* game advantage. This could be viewed as balanced: after all, the "commercial" CSA is slanted towards the late game, but not as helpful early. In the later eras expansionist civs have no advantage because most of the land area has already been claimed. There's really not much that can be done about this other than recoding the AI.

If you feel a real urge to give the Expansionist civs a hand, you can make the scout a better unit by cutting its movement to 1 point, and giving it the "Treats All Terrain as Roads" feature. This also gives a reasonable chance to avoid the annoyance of barbarians slaughtering your helpless scouts.

	21-12-2001 04:03									#8
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

I dunno... I'm working on creating a mod that makes the game more beautiful... See: "The more beautiful roads" thread that I'm just about to start.

	21-12-2001 08:08									#9
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

Does giving an Improvement the 'Expansionist' flag make it half-price for expansionist civilizations, like 'Commercial', 'Religious', and 'Military' improvements are for the relative civilizations? I've flagged a few of the improvements as Expansionist but I keep forgetting to see if it makes a difference as I've been playing non-expansionist civs mostly since making my changes.

If it does, I'd suggest making the Granary, Harbor, Airport, and possibly the Courthouse and Police Station Expansionist, since those are all useful to someone with a far-flung empire.