03-02-2001 17:08									#1
	POLL: No Unit Workshop in Civ3 Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

results here http://apolyton.net/cgi-bin/ubb-pol...owResults&id=18

and at the second page
[This message has been edited by MarkG (edited March 06, 2001).]

	03-02-2001 17:19									#2
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Good, I am happy Unit Workshop did not make it into Civ 3.

	03-02-2001 23:17									#3
	Increase Your PM Length

Probably the smartest thing as it would be hard to balance a Unit Workshop when you have advances varying from Bronze Working to Advance Flight.

I did however like the Unit Workshop in SMAC and hope for some type of varying units in Civ III.

	03-02-2001 23:22									#4
	Got spare money?

so am I, first of all, as Dan too has pointed out, Civ covers too long a period for the workshop to make sense. If it was in the game, it'd be inconvenience to the nth degree, and I wouldn't spend that much time with units. I'm sure the new combat model won't make anyone regret the decision.

	04-02-2001 05:41									#5
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

Whew...

That was close. One tragedy avoided.

	04-02-2001 06:16									#6
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

There should have been a unit workshop...

	04-02-2001 14:38									#7
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Yes, it should,DarkCloud, it should.....

	04-02-2001 15:21									#8
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

When it comes to units; I like being forced to choose between stand-alone take-it-or-leave-it choices. Less micro-managing. Also; creating new units in scenarios becomes much easier.

	05-02-2001 14:34									#9
	Get a bigger avatar today!

What a pity, they missed the opportunity to improve the Unit workshop concept.

Staying with defined units is only a shortcut for some design and development trouble.
Yes, we can have personal unit added tweaking txt and gif, but how many players will bother to use this feature? Only a regular flow of units, coming for free from the Firaxis Download site, will make this useful to a large number of players.

BTW, in real life military units are usually "upgrade" of previus existing units, and often mix&match of previus shields, weapons, etc. just adding something new (and a new tactic to better use it).

We should need some program limit to avoid silly mix (eg. longbow on a tank) but we would have more flexibility and a more interesting unit development.
To avoid much micromgmt we can still have predefined "key units" as legion, dragoon, paratrooper, etc. so uninterested players can live with them without much hassle.
Never mind, this has been discarded (and of course the first bunch of unit displayed was already an hint of "no workshop" feature) and we must live with it.
Making a poll about it is a bit "nonsense", IMHO, given the only answer pro workshop is "I want it": it's only a "make a rant" engine

------------------
Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

	05-02-2001 20:05									#10
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

I'm in favour of the unit workshop, but only because I can't see any other way they can easily include enough different units to give different people tactical approaches that suit their style. Every player in a 8 sided game fighting with identical armies gets very boring. Now if they manage to produce lots of troop types for every historical period I'll take it all back and admit the workshop was superfluous.
[This message has been edited by Grumbold (edited February 05, 2001).]

	06-02-2001 03:52									#11
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Thank god, no unit workshop! I hated it in SMAC and i'd have hated it in civ3... probably

	06-02-2001 03:56									#12
	Suffering from ads?

I'm glad with their choice.

The problem with "Unit Workshops" are that every unit feels inherently the same to each other. They look the same (save a few features) and aren't unique.

To try and have a system that would allow for unique graphics for every tech. advance in the workshop would be quite a task.

Lets just hope they do the units well.




Spelt "inherently" wrong
[This message has been edited by vonManstein (edited February 05, 2001).]

	06-02-2001 07:48									#13
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

The new Unit Workshop should have placed more empathis on formations such as "Phalanx" etc and shied away from making them units per se.

	07-02-2001 10:24									#14
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

I'm glad there is no unit workshop, but I am intrigued by the idea of combining a unit with a formation. Perhaps certain formations could be researched as well as units, some only available to veteran units. That way you could increase unit diversity without the confusing unit workshop.

	07-02-2001 08:53									#15
	Got spare money?

I think this is good news, particularly concerning solo play. One of the major problems with SMAC AI was its almost total inability to use the unit workshop to its advantage. With fixed units, the AI is more on the same footing with human players.
It would have been nice for MP, though...

	07-02-2001 21:12									#16
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

While I absolutely loved the workshop in SMAC, I'm not sure it would be a good thing to have in Civ. I think we're better off without it.

Aredhran

	08-02-2001 16:36									#17
	Support Apolyton

I don't think that the unit workshop added enough to the game. The only thing I ever used it for was to make water probe teams and to upgrade my units. If anyone can come up with uses for the UW I would reconsider my position but it will just be annoying unless it is actually useful.

	09-02-2001 03:51									#18
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

I agree that the Unit Workshop in SMAC was flawed... the main reason was that all componets were linear, one being obviously superior to the other. Thus it was only used to upgrade to the "latest and greatest".

Despite that, I feel that CIV3 should of used the unit workshop... not as it was in SMAC, but an improved version that gives you true choices, not simply a way to upgrade. If the "componets" in SMAC actually did diffrent things, as well as give disadvantages not just clear improvements, it would of been much better.

For example, in CIV3 your ancient infantry units could of had the choice of weapons:

Mace: High CRUSHING Damage, poor armor penetration, cheap, slow "rate of fire", poor defense

Sword: Good Damage, Fair armor penetration, Expensive, moderate "rate of fire", moderate defense

Polearm: Excelent Damage, Good armor penetration, Moderate cost, very slow "rate of fire", good defense, reduces unit's movement

Compound Bow: Good PIERCING Damage, Fair armor penetration, moderate expense, Ranged Attack, Slow rate of fire

etc.

For armors:

Leathers: no speed reduction, low cost, low protection
Scale: some speed reduction, moderate cost, moderate protection
Chain: some speed reduction, High cost, low protection vs. PIERCING damage, Moderate protection vs. Crush, High protection vs. others
Plate: Major speed reduction, Very High Cost, High Protection but reduces defense! (vision is restricted)
etc.

Plus: Shields/Mounts/Barding/back-up weapons (not all archers were wimps in melee, and knights carried a lance & a sword)/Special Trainging (formations/sappers/etc.)

See, if CIV3 used a workshop similar to this, you would have real choices and then could customize troops to fit your play style/vision of your nation (plus you would get a lot more than cookie cutter)

and ofcourse tech would be restricted on certain chassis, so there wouldn't be pikes on F-15's!

But in the end, I guess we'll never know... I just hope CIV3 has enough units in it to allow for diversity... (and looking at pics for Migs and F-15's, plus 2 diffrent tanks gives me some hope on this)

	09-02-2001 04:16									#19
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Ummm... what you just said sounds like an RPG. I'm not sure if I would EVER play a game that complicated, especially not a Civ game. The amount of time all that would take would be colossal, and hugely slow the game down.

	09-02-2001 20:28									#20
	Suffering from ads?

We don't need to add so many detail as Trachmir suggested in enthusiastic example

Still we should have, for every "chassis", a mix of available armour/weapon/special skill or tactic, each with strong points and weakness.

At the change of era some combo will become obsolete - e.g no chain armour available for marine -

I don't think we need ten armour each era; we should have (I don't care for proper name, I'm letting room for historic expert here):
no or light armour,
medium armour,
heavy armour

short weapon (dagger, sword)
long weapon (pike)
long range weapon (bow)

and so on.

On modern time you can have available armour changed in
flak jacket
kevlar/compound jacket

The difference with CIV II defined unit type are:
- that you can have more smooth transition, making components available step by step on the whole tech tree
- that you must balance more carefully enhancement over limits (e.g. heavy armour will better protect but slow your troop, too), while in CIV II (and in SMAC II, building cost apart) the last discovered is probably the best of all existing units.
If you look carefully at SMAC manual you can see Firaxis tried to add different effects to every armour/weapon (some are effective against some kind of weapons only), but they discarded the whole thing during beta test (too complex? too buggy? only heaven knows).

Unit workshop should be replaced by "Formation (stack) order" as someone suggested, but I'm not sure to like taking care of that tactical detail before every battle: I mean, is more like football (soccer) tactics, you must change them according to enemy you are facing.

Well, I suppose this let us with the only hope Firaxis will give us enough different Units effective in the same time period, i.e. not only one defense and one attacker unit good for every age.

------------------
Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

	09-02-2001 21:55									#21
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

I like the idea of formations but really most troops only have one sensible formation. If we have no unit workshop it is really up to Firaxis to produce units that have different effects rather than just being better all round. Light infantry skirmishers for scouting and rough terrain. Heavy infantry and cavalry for open terrain. Phalanx slow but superior against cavalry etc. Armies are made up of different units of specialists for a reason.

	10-02-2001 05:54									#22
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

I envision combat with a few simple formations. ie:
Ancient combat with cavalry (something should be in between knights and horsmen), archers and phalanx on each side, both equal. these three units would use formations with each other and rely on the others support o defeat the enemy. here's a typical battle:
you army marches up to the battlefield, with the phalanx defending the archers and the cavalry ready to charge. The enemy seems to have taken an all offensive approach, with its swordsmen breaking from phalanx and going offensive. The battle begins!
Your cavalry charges as does the enemies, with the swordsmen lagging behind. Your archers take advantage and pound the swordsmen. Swordsmen take 50% damage. Enemy cavalry takes 5% damage. Friendly cavalry takes 10% damage (friendly fire). the swordsmen retreat, panicking and deserting the enemy (there is a 10% chance this happens if enemy is heavily damaged in one hit). Your cavalry is fighting a gradually losing battle and is being pushed back. your phalanx takes position for any attack. your archers are near useless, and any attack against the enemy may hurt you more than them. You decide to attack anyway. Luck is with you, and you only take 5% ff (friendly fire) while you damage the enemy by 20%. However, enemy cavalry had seriously degrade your cavalry before that.
Round summary:
Your cavalry take 30% damage, is now on 60%
Their cavalry takes 30% (equalised by the archer attack) and is now on 65%. You decide to fire with our archers again and are heavily succesful! the enemy cavalry takes 50% damage and is retreating at full pace, as is the enemy archers. your swordsmen begin to attack the damaged enemy cavalry while your cavalry destroys the enemy archers.
Battle summary. Your archers: 100% Your swordsmen: 95% Your cavalry: 45%
Their archers 5% (retreated succesfully). All other units destroyed. Any good?

	10-02-2001 12:46									#23
	Get a bigger avatar today!

With a unit workshop maybe we could have done the same thing that the USA has done over the years. Take the M-4 Sherman Tank. It came out with a 75mm gun, was later given a 76mm and then even later given a 90mm gun. Also the chassie was used for lot of other vehicles. The same with M-46 which became the M-47 (new turret), the M-48 which became the M-60 and eventually the M-60A3 with the 105mm gun, which btw the U.S. Marines slaughtered the Iraqs Republican Guard T-72 and T-80s at the Kuwaitie airport in the gulf war. And now the M-1A1 with a 120mm gun. We did not loose a single one to action in the gulf war. Some say the best tank in the world.
when someone walks into a store and puts his/her money down on the counter and buys the game, goes home and wants to build a M-1 chassis with a bowman standing in it, who should care, it is their game and they're not harming anyone else.


------------------

	11-02-2001 07:18									#24
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

But is the unit workshop going to add to the game? That is the $64m question. People who don't want to use the workshop are going to demand that firaxis include prefab units, firaxis will comply, and we will all end up playing with the prefab units (except for our diplomats that have iron armour and the special ability of non-lethal methods) because we will realise that although the broadsword and the steel plate are te best offensive and defensive weapons to date, it isn't worth the cost of putting them into one unit (SMAC behemoths, good, but you pay through the nose for something that isn't really that neccesary).

	11-02-2001 20:00									#25
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

Part of my reply posted on another thread.

quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger on 02-05-2001 12:07 PM One of the best features of SMAC is the unit workshop. It allows you to build customised units to tackle a situation. I don't see why that would cause such a problem in Civ 3. For example, maybe I want to build some defensive units with pikes and heavy armor at the expense of their speed. Why can't I? Right now in Civ 2 an English Phalanx unit is exactly the same as a Chinese one. Why is that the case? That's more unrealistic than having each civ design their own units according to their situations. For example, Okay, we have a bunch of iron mines around here, but we don't have many horses. Why don't we make armor for the horses so they get protection? It just makes sense.

	11-02-2001 20:10									#26
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

Part of my message on yet another thread.

quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger on 01-15-2001 11:46 PM I think the unit workshop in SMAC has almost the perfect combination. What I think would be the best is for a unit to have, on top of the basic "frame" type: one armor slot, one movement slot, two weapons slot, two special slot, and a doctine slot. For example: Ancient Skimisher Basic Frame - infantry Movement - foot Weapon 1 - short sword (bronze) Weapon 2 - short bow Armor - leather Special 1 - wilderness survival Special 2 - none Doctrine - skimisher Modern Special Force Unit Basic Frame - infantry Movement - foot Weapon 1 - light arms Weapon 2 - espionage kit Armor - bulletproof vest Special 1 - wilderness survival Special 2 - combat insertion/extraction Doctrine - special forces

	13-02-2001 01:44									#27
	Got spare money?

Okay, that may be interesting (ooh! My marines have wilderness survival training!) but what use is it? How will all this junk and doctrine and stuff affect the game at all? This sounds like an RPG, not Civ! If it has no use, there is no reason to tack additional meaningless details onto CivIII.

Face it guys: Firaxis made the decision (right decision, IMO) to go against unit workshps, and that's it. Live with it.

	13-02-2001 04:27									#29
	Put an end to popups!

By all means, do. Who am I to stand in the way of free speech?

	13-02-2001 05:33									#30
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Actually I agree with you, so I will leave that to "the others".

PS.
If they check out the response from Firaxis (Dan Magaha) on the thread dealing with flexible units, they might sto complaining too.