16-01-2002 21:32									#1
	Thinking of adding landmines, but how exactly does ZOC work? Support Apolyton

there has been compliants that forts in civ3 are worthless because they give free shots and don't actually stop a unit

but i had an idea, if you created a 0.0.1 land unit that was immoble but had zoc, would it actually stop an enemy unit or would it just add to the free shot ability?

what i am unsure of right now is, has free shots replaced civ2/smac ZOCs where the unit had to stop?

if it has, then would a 0.X.1 unit (set to act as a cruise missile and given immobile, but either load or airdrop, and possibly hidden nationality) actually defend but die automatically? unfortunantly i am almost positive that the AI couldn't handle this unit (because if set as a defensive unit it would stack them in its cities, and if set as anything else it wouldn't do anything)

what would be really cool is if a land unit had the submarine ability then you wouldn't be able to see it, so you could plant a few of these and actually be able to defend your boders

anyone have any thoughts on the subject?

	16-01-2002 22:49									#2
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The AI wont be able to handle it.

If they're immobile, how will they get out of the city?

The human will vastly over-exploit them, because you have no way of limiting their use, and wars will be too easy to win.

	16-01-2002 23:15									#3
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Make them no movement at all, but allow them to airdrop. Would that work to place them?

	16-01-2002 23:24									#4
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Grampos if they didn't have any movement points would they be able to airdrop then? i thought they needed at least one movement point to air drop, and immortal wombat is right, i seriously doubt that the AI will know how to use them

but does anyone know if zoc for units is like in civ/smac or is it just the free shot?

	16-01-2002 23:42									#5
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It's a free shot and usually only does 1 point of damage and doesn't always happen.

	17-01-2002 00:38									#6
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Don't know if they would airdrop without movement poits. Infact I don't know how the game would handle any unit without movement. Can't test anything right now as my brother is home for Christmas and has occupied the computer with Civ3 on, and leaves me for programming (and school work)

(Worst is that I can't chagk my ISP mail until this weekend)

	17-01-2002 01:12									#7
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The land mines that I'm developing for the Mod With No Name are:

1.1.1 (20).0.1

With the following flags selected:
Submarine
Immobile

And allowed only two commands
Airdrop
Fortify

ZOC is unchecked.

The idea here is that the land mine can use its movement point to do one thing - airdrop. After that, you might as well fortify it since it can't do anything else (the Immobile flag works to prevent mines chasing people). It's triggered when it is attacked in a STACK - then, one of them will get a defensive artillery free shot representing the land mine.

Might rework the stats, but the basic idea of the Immobile airdropper should work for mine placement.

-Sev

	17-01-2002 01:36									#8
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Sev

so when an artillary unit is in a stack one artillary unit gets a free shot?

also i gave the artillary in my mod a defensive value as well, so have you tested this out any, because i haven't yet

additionally i tried giving land units the submarine special ability but it didn't seem to do anything

and which AI did u select for your landmine? offense, defense, or bombard? because i found the AI to be especially passive when bombard was selected for their AI

	17-01-2002 01:53									#9
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You are right...
...that would work.

However, is there any way to make a unit that onlu can carry landmines, and use it as a mine placer?

What would happen if it gets Stealth ability?

Is there any way to remove th sight of that unit? (I guess not)

	17-01-2002 02:00									#10
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korn,

Yeah, I think that's how it worked, though I haven't tested artillery with defensive values yet. Let me know how that goes.

I picked Bombard. The AI won't use them right otherwise. It won't use them right at all, but if you select Offense or Defense it won't build them ever, preferring Spearmen or Swordsmen or something like that.
Gramphos,

I don't think we can do the mine layer unless we flag the mine as a foot unit and let a new unit be both an APC and a mine layer.

Stealth only deals with air missions AFAIK. I could be wrong.

-Sev

	17-01-2002 02:12									#11
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so as far as i know there is no way to hide a land unit from site, and Sev is right about the mine layer unit except you could tactical missile to the landmine, and then give tactical missile carrier to the mine layer, and even if the mine disappear you could make it really cheap

from my testing stealth only appears to work with air units carrying out air missions and it does effect land combat at all

so landmine can't be invisable unless firaxis changes the flags around

	17-01-2002 02:19									#12
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So, the cost of a mine layer should b high, and the cost of a mine low?

I need to mess around with things like this as soon as I get access to the computer with Civ3 again. (1 day left and counting)

	17-01-2002 02:22									#13
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Would it be possible to place mines (other type) in water?

	17-01-2002 02:41									#14
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I just did a quick test myself, making catapult immobile, boosting its bombard to 10, and flagging immobile, submarine, and airlift.

Interesting. I dropped the price of airport to 0 and no required tech so I could test it at 3000 bc, and did the same with catapult.

It worked as expected. I could airlift it, but not move it. I'm not sure that the submarine trait did anything, especially since its invisble inside a city, anyways. I didn't go so far as to mess with helicopters or anything.

The AI didn't build a single one. I don't know why, with 10 bombard, it was an imbalanced unit.

The bombard ability is also wrong, as it allows it to bombard approaching units.

Does it really need to be invisible? I don't know a whole lot about mine fields, but, even if you don't know they're there initially, you would find out after your first troop walked in. That's practically nothing in game terms. They'd mostly be used to either force people through them or around them, not to take them by surprise, right?

	17-01-2002 03:19									#15
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SlightlyMadman

as long as they have airdrop they should be able to get out into the field

however unless the AI can handle this, then the argument for actually including them is very small

so there are two ways of making these units, as immobile bombard units, or as immobile defense units with a low defensive value and either 0 or 1 offensive value

the AI might airdrop them around cities, but i can almost guarantee it wouldn't fortify chokepoints with it

hehe what we need is for soren to make a mine ai

or for them to change zoc back to the civ2/smac rules

	17-01-2002 05:45									#16
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How about two types of mines, one that's really effective, brutal (bombard 60? use once and destroy?) and costly, and one that's really cheap and that's used as a "decoy" (bombard 8).

The graphic for them would be just a little dot, so all you'd see is a flag. In a human to human environment this could be very intimidating: is that a real mine or a fake one?

$.02

	17-01-2002 07:37									#17
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Actually, I put forward the idea of a sea mine that was immobile, could airdrop 2 squares, had a sub flag (to make it invisible)-unfortunately, I've just discovered that I've got the AI strategy set to "Naval Power", will the AI use the unit correctly under these circumstances (or even use it at all)? The other thing is that, as Korn can attest to, I don't REALLY know what the editor is capable of! Like, can a naval unit be given an airdrop flag?
Anyway, I'd be interested to know if it can be done.

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

	18-01-2002 21:05									#18
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cassembler:

All you'd have to do is right-click the mine, and you'd know it's stats and what exactly it is.



Now, I've just done some testing and figured I'd share what I found. In short, the way defensive bombardment is handled in Civ3 is really, really crappy.

Here's what I found:

1- If a unit with bombard is attacked, the fact that it has bombard power/ability makes absolutely no difference.

2- If a unit with bombard is in a stack, it will perform a pre-emptive attack, regardless of whether it has Zone of Control or it's bombard range. Now, I figured that this strike would somehow be based in Rate of Fire - it isn't.

No matter how high the rate of fire, only 1 point of damage will be done to the attacker. It also does not matter how many artillery units are in a city, because each attacker will only get attacked by 1, and the most damage it can possibly take is 1 point of damage.

The same goes for Zone of Control.

3- Whether or not the attacking unit takes this 1 point of damage seems not to even be related to any value I know of. A 20 bombard strength with a 10 rate of fire unit (with 3 attack and 1 defense, while fortified in a jungle) against an attacking unit of 3/1, didn't do any damage to the attacking unit (even if the bombard unit has the maximum 10 rate of fire, only 1 point of damage can be done; I checked to make sure).

4- The "Bombard" ability relates only to whether or not you have the "bombard" button show up and whether or not you can give the unit the "Artillery" AI strategy. It seems to effect nothing else in the game.


So mines will not work properly unless they are just given a reasonably large defensive number, and their bombard rating will probably have no effect.


*sigh* Annoying. Very annoying.

	19-01-2002 03:12									#19
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I tried immobile unit with airdrop (tower). AI build them, but not airdrop them. They just sit in the city. (I added airport property to the palace, so AI _could_ airdrop them, it just dont want .And it was not hauling them by land transport (also available) either...

	19-01-2002 04:51									#20
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Unfortunatly, the way the AI works is about as transparent as tank armour. Does the AI *know* how to use modded buildings and units, or does it merely select from the list of "best" available units/buildings? Or does it only use default ones? Will it be able to airdrop anything other than paras from anywhere other than (whatever the default building is)?

	22-01-2002 06:39									#21
	Re: Thinking of adding landmines, but how exactly does ZOC work? Suffering from ads?

quote: Originally posted by korn469 there has been compliants that forts in civ3 are worthless because they give free shots and don't actually stop a unit but i had an idea, if you created a 0.0.1 land unit that was immoble but had zoc, would it actually stop an enemy unit or would it just add to the free shot ability? what i am unsure of right now is, has free shots replaced civ2/smac ZOCs where the unit had to stop? if it has, then would a 0.X.1 unit (set to act as a cruise missile and given immobile, but either load or airdrop, and possibly hidden nationality) actually defend but die automatically? unfortunantly i am almost positive that the AI couldn't handle this unit (because if set as a defensive unit it would stack them in its cities, and if set as anything else it wouldn't do anything) what would be really cool is if a land unit had the submarine ability then you wouldn't be able to see it, so you could plant a few of these and actually be able to defend your boders anyone have any thoughts on the subject?

Don't bother with ZoC, give them a Bombard Strength, Range 0. This will give them a "free shot" if an enemy unit enters the square. This works well with Archers/Longbowmen also.

	22-01-2002 06:45									#22
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quote: Originally posted by SlightlyMadman The bombard ability is also wrong, as it allows it to bombard approaching units.

Not if the range is 0. Then it only gets the free shot.

	22-01-2002 06:47									#23
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quote: Originally posted by Immortal Wombat Unfortunatly, the way the AI works is about as transparent as tank armour. Does the AI *know* how to use modded buildings and units, or does it merely select from the list of "best" available units/buildings? Or does it only use default ones? Will it be able to airdrop anything other than paras from anywhere other than (whatever the default building is)?

It does build modded improvements. I've created a number and I can see that it is indeed building them. It seems to help if you give it a cultural value, or some other incentive. Though I'm not sure about the last part. It does like cultural incentives though.

	22-01-2002 06:50									#24
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quote: Originally posted by SlightlyMadman Does it really need to be invisible? I don't know a whole lot about mine fields, but, even if you don't know they're there initially, you would find out after your first troop walked in. That's practically nothing in game terms. They'd mostly be used to either force people through them or around them, not to take them by surprise, right?

What about making them colourless?

	06-02-2002 05:12									#25
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my thoughts:

Mines - making mines work accurately is hard. Instead, I think they should work like this.

Booby trap
immobile
bombard, range = 0
hidden nationality
Invisible if possible

Trap layer
move 1
transport capacity 2
can transport booby traps
Wheeled

	07-02-2002 00:27									#26
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Yeap. I think is this way too.