24-04-2002 01:21									#1
	How To Make Modern Warfare Realistic Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

It have come to realize that as far as the modern units are concerned there is much to be desired. This is both in the ability of current units as well as units that don't appear in the game but should. I have developed several concepts that I have tested in a few games that have provided very agreeable results, and produced some of the best games I have played thus far. All these suggestions use the built in editor, no mods or changes in the game itself.

1. Cruise Missiles - Who hasen't seen the rapidly appoaching targets from the cams of cruise missles before they slam into their targets? A truely awesome and characteristic weapon of modern times. However, the unit in Civ3 is not so awesome. It's limited range and dimunitive bombardment value leaves much to be desired. Also, while in reality the cruise missle is primarily (there are exceptions I know) a naval weapon in Civ3 it is a land based unit. I have changed the bombard value to 25 to give it a devestating effect, as few targets survive a cruise missle attack. Also, while I maintained the unit ability of "cruise missle" because that is indeed what it is, I have added the ability of "tactical missle" so that it may be loaded onto naval units. I decided to increase the missiles range to five to reflect the range of actual missles. This allows them to be used more as offensive weapons, which is their purpose, as opossed to primarily city based defesive artillery. I have thought about adding the precision strike capabilty, but have not tested the effects of this. I have been told it would make them like bombers, but I think that if the ability "cruise missile" is still used the missle will still destroy itself when used If anyone knows tell me.

2. Nuclear Submarine - In the modern world, during the Cold War and even more so after it, Nuclear Submarines were sinister threats to world peace. Civ3 allows the carrying of a single Tactical Nuke, however in view of the capacity of actual submarines I have increased this load to four. Also, as you may have noticed, since cruise missles are now tactical missles thay can be loaded and fired from submarines, which is indeed a significant ability of modern submarines. this gives them a land based strike capability and a significant ranged naval attack weapon also. Decide between nukes and missles as you please. In addition, in an effort to reduce the power of the Battleship in modern warfare (bieng in the Navy, I know how harsh this is but in reality the battleship is not a viable modern weapon in the nuclear portion of the age) and reflect the awesome power of the modern sub forces in current navies the attack value is 12 and the defence value 8.

3. AEGIS Cruiser - The ultimate surface combatant in the modern age, it's stats should reflect that. It's primary weapons platform is the cruise missle (capable of carrying nuclear tipped ones if it is so desired) so I gave the ship the ability to carry four tactical missles. Again, reflecting the nonentity of battleships as nuclear era weapons, the attack value has been changed to 14 and defence to 10. bombard remains the same, no matter how modern it's 3" gun is if won't beat the effect of nine 16" guns on land targets. Combined with it's unchanged characteristics this is by far the premier naval unit.

4. Marine - The marine is a very versitile unit in Civ3 as it is in real life. However, it lacks survivability so I have inreased it's stats to 8 attack and 8 defence. Due to the need or superior training, however, the production cost has been raised.

5. Paratrooper - One of my favorite units, I had grown sick and tired of droping them behind enemy lines just to see them immedietly rolled over. With this in mind, like the marine, I have raised the attack and defence values to 10 and 12 respectfully, and also increased production cost for the same reasons. This gives the unit the ability to defeat enemy infintry, which airborne soldiers are by default superior too, while also leaving them vulnerable to armor which is their natural achilles heel. Drop range increased to 6.

6. Ranged Artillery - Mechanized Artillery is the King of the modern battlefield. The advanttage of bieng mechanized is you can keep up with the rest of the army, so movemnet is now 2 so it can pace Mech Infantry. Also, superior technology should lead to better range, so it is now 3.

7. Combat Engineer - The forgotten heroes of the battlefield, here I had to do a little more work. I didn't want to modify the game, so I changed an existing unit that is rarely used, the Explorer, and made him into the Combat Engineer (the truth is I don't know how to add units ). In my games I was tired of fleets of AI bombers destrying all the roads and rails so that my supply line back to my homeland was tenuous at best. Also, when I brought up workers to repair and rebuild these lifelines fast moving AI units (that leftover knights, there is always one) would capture or chase them away. To deal with this in the real world we have engineering units, and why not in Civ3. Take a unit you don't want the game to use and change its name. I gave it an attack of 2 but a defence of 10, since I want it to be able to fend off lighter attacks but be defensive in nature. There is no population cost because it is a normal military unit. So what keeps you from using it as a worker and saving the citizens you ask? because it is a military unit it builds military improvements; ie roads, railroads, and fortresses only. Also, since I don't have an icon for it and the Explorer icon is not appropriate, I use the Infantry unit icon. The Tech to get the Combat Engineer is Computers, and by that time most regular infanty should be killed or upgraded.

There you have it. All these things can be done using the default editor. There could be bugs or unexpected results, but I have yet to see any. Let me know if you find any or have any ideas for other edits.

Patroklos

	24-04-2002 02:12									#2
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Good ideas, especially about the cruise missiles. However, I think you are being a little too harsh on the battlewagons. They were Queens of the Sea for almost 50 years, and are still a very potent force. And as much as I hate to say this, having served on the USS Antietam, you made AEGIS too powerful in comparision.

Steele

	24-04-2002 02:25									#3
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These are well thought out ideas, and i commend them even if i dont agree with them. Good work!

Cruise Missile changes are good. I like them, i agree with your theories on them.

Same with your Nuke Sub and other ships carrying capacities.

I disagree with your changes to Marine and Paratrooper -- their implementation in Civ3 is unfortunately very limited, and while i agree with trying to tweak them, im not sure your tweaks are "correct"

I feel you have been harsh on the Battleship, especially given the odd implementation of the Carrier in Civ3 (the supposed real king of the ocean these days) -- though, with patch 1.21 FINALLY the carrier will be a REAL threat on the oceans...i can't wait to try them.

And finally, your combat engineer idea is frankly, IMO, brilliant. I love it. I will be adding it to my personal mod. Bravo!

	24-04-2002 04:03									#4
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I first mentioned engineers months ago in reference to the ancient Romans who were masters at it.

Unfortunately, if I seriously Edit and mod Civ 3, IT CRASHES.

	24-04-2002 04:31									#5
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Patroklos, you a boomer?

Great ideas, especially the Combat Engineer.

I agree w/ steelehc, tho. While Battleships may be somewhat weakened in RL, they were awesome powers for a long time. Your solution, improving Subs, is elegant.

Shouldn't Aegis-class cruisers really be much more powerful defensive units? I thought their primary role was / is long-range threat deterrence.

	24-04-2002 05:10									#6
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I'm fairly certain that they are meant for deterence as well, and why not add something about them being able to shoot down nukes and cruise missles??? Red that in a Tom Clancy book

	24-04-2002 05:40									#7
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Great ideas! I've added all of them to my custom BIC except the Combat Engineer. (I don't want to remove any units to add a new one ATM..)

These are the changes in mine, other than the ones you've said:

1) Communism has Vet diplomats, Elite spies. This reflects the fact that KGB was the absolute best in spying in the world. IMHO, Veteran simply isn't good enough. Of course, I don't know whether this actually has any effect since espionage doesn't use units. :-/

2) Changed Propaganda success chance to:
in awe of (3x culture) : 80%
admirers of (2x culture): 60%
impressed with (1x culture): 30%

3) Radar artillery has lethal sea bombardment, reflecting it's ability to basically smash whatever it can detect.
Bombers and stealth bombers have lethal sea bombardment.
Cruise missles have lethal land and sea bombardment.

4) AI to AI trade rates have been reduced to 100 (they charge the same for other AIs as for human players) for Chieftan, Warlord, and Regent, and to 110 for Monarch, 120 for Emperor, and 130 for Diety.

5) "Steal technology" costs have been reduced to 2, from 10. (This is the modifier which is used to calculate the actual cost. Effectively, I have cut tech-stealing costs to 1/5 of their normal 1.21f levels.)

Last edited by Shadowlord on 24-04-2002 at 05:50

	24-04-2002 05:42									#8
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quote: Originally posted by PhoenixPhlame73 I'm fairly certain that they are meant for deterence as well, and why not add something about them being able to shoot down nukes and cruise missles??? Red that in a Tom Clancy book

Unfortunately, it is impossible in Civ to give a unit nuke-blocking abilities - you have to build the Strategic Missle Defense Small Wonder.

	24-04-2002 05:55									#9
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With the combat engineer, keep in mind that the ai can't use it unless you give it all the terraforming options and click on the terraforming ai strategy. Other than that, it sounds good.

	24-04-2002 05:57									#10
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Shadowlord, excellent additions.

I didn't really participate in the Civ mod community before this... with Civ2, did a sort of standard mod develop that most people played?

In fact, on 'poly, until now I've mostly not paid attention to this other than in regard to how Firaxis might take some suggestions for patches.

I thinnk that there are 14-15 really great ideas on this thread, in terms of unit changes (I also really like some of the interface ideas), which will probably never make it into the official game... it'd be great to have one mod that most people play.

	24-04-2002 19:07									#11
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Next idea would be the Guerilla warfare, which would set to make guerillas appear whenever an ennemy would enter resisting cities. The partizans should be units with terrible retreat bonus, low defence and high offence, but no ability to take or to attack cities.

	24-04-2002 20:21									#12
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The mod ideas are intriguing and will need to try them out in an actual game soon to comment further.

The real problem I see with modern warfare in Civ3 is that it (modern warfare) is a one man show. That is that if one attains a large number of Modern Armor (MA), then one can basically use it as a steam roller. I have played many games where it took me 5-6 turns to basically "sanitize" entire continents of enemy cities with MA. That just simply doesn't reflect or even hint at the reality.

What is reality with respect to modern (land) warfare? The reality is JOINTNESS! Even in the most lopsided military victory in history, the Gulf War, the US needed many elements of the army and not just the Abrams.

I am not a great writer and have trouble explaining my thinking so I will use an analogy. My analogy is basketball, rather Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls. True, MJ was/is the greatest and had the most ability of anyone on the court but that didn't mean that he would be able to win if he didn't have the rest of his team.

What I am trying to get at is this: True the MA is the main weapon of modern land warfare but it absolutely NEEDS support elements. What are these main support elements that are so glaringly missing in Civ3? They are the self propelled artillery (SPA), the armored personelle carrier (APC), attack helos, towed artillery, air defence guns, and armored fighting vehicles (AFV).

The only ones that Civ3 has are the modern armor, the APC (mech. inf.), and the towed artillery (artillery).

I think most people who played Civ3 agrees that the modern age is a thin when it comes to things that one can build so, why not add these units? I will try to mod myself but first I am still trying to familiarize myself with the editor.

So a brief scenario, if one wants to stop a steam rolling by modern armor in Civ3, one should have the ability to make attack helos. Therefore, if one wants to protect one's MA from attack helos, one would have to build mobile air defense guns. Also, how would one slow down a mass of MA with air defense guns? Use AFVs fortified at critical areas. AFVs would have a higher defense than mech inf but cost more than a mech. inf (Bradleys are hideously expensive). Therefore, for the attacking force to make a successful ingress into a well defended enemy territory, it would need SPAs to soften up the fortified AFVs. Also, the attacking force would need mech inf and/or AFVs to protect the rear (the SPAs & air defense guns).

Therefore the attacking force would require:
Mech inf/AFVs
mobile air defense guns
SPA/towed artillery
MA
Optional would be the helos if airfields/cities are nearby where they can be based.

The defending force can put up a sustained defence WITHOUT matching the attacking force unit for unit with respect to MA with:
Helos
SPA/artillery
Mech inf/AFVs
and a sprinkling of MA to mop up any weakened MA or counter attacking.

That depicts modern land warfare more accurately than the MA steam roller strat.

When I get the time and if there is interest, I will try to share my ideas regarding Civ3 modern naval warfare.

Last edited by Navyman on 24-04-2002 at 20:26

	24-04-2002 20:39									#13
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Some good ideas here.

I'll definately be adding some of these mods to my game. Warfare in the modern era really needs to be able to move beyond running around with tanks and bombers and add a bit more depth to the whole experience.

	24-04-2002 21:01									#14
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Interesting theories, I have a few comments if you don't mind....

Cruise missiles - I agree here. The strength of CM in the game is understated and your modifications make it a more viable attack weapon. What I'd like to see is different attack options for Units and for Cities. A cruise missile would devastate an armoured unit or 2 but I think an element of targetting could be inclued when used to attack a city, ie destroy improvement X. Would be nice.....

Submarines - Fully agree. I'm not sure I entirely agree about the Battleship, but of course times change and a nuclear era Battleship would differ from a WW2 Battleship. There are very few ships around today that qualify for this class. The USS New Jersey was refitted to carry cruise missiles, but it remains a Warship from a time past. The best example today would be the Russian Kirov class. A heavily armoured/armed naval machine of death. Officially classed as a Battlecruiser it still proves there is a place for Capital ships.

Aegis Cruiser - Underrated in the game in my opinion. I think these are most useful when defending a carrier at sea. I'd like to see the ability to (Carrier) group naval units.

Marine/Paratrooper - Spot on.


Lots of good ideas but I think the limitations on waging a modern war in Civ3 lie mainly within the game itself. I'd be interested to see what differences your changes have made to the overall game balance.

	24-04-2002 21:46									#15
	Re: How To Make Modern Warfare Realistic Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

quote: Originally posted by Patroklos 5. Paratrooper - One of my favorite units, I had grown sick and tired of droping them behind enemy lines just to see them immedietly rolled over. With this in mind, like the marine, I have raised the attack and defence values to 10 and 12 respectfully, and also increased production cost for the same reasons. This gives the unit the ability to defeat enemy infintry, which airborne soldiers are by default superior too, while also leaving them vulnerable to armor which is their natural achilles heel. Drop range increased to 6.

Overall, an excellent post. However, paratroopers are notoriously weak. They are generally only used for disruption. They just need to be able to survive long enough to accomplish their mission, such as taking out a road, or holding a bridge. Once their job is done, they usually can only hope to be rescued by the real infantry.

	24-04-2002 23:02									#16
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Regarding the cruise missile attack mod, I respectfully disagree.

The effectiveness of the modern cruise missile (Tomahawk) is not derived from a large warhead (which is what you are implying by giving a large attack value). The effectiveness of the Tomahawk comes from its range and precision!

Here is a quote from the US Navy site:
"Tomahawk® Block II uses a Terrain Contour Matching (TERCOM) and Digital Scene Matching Area Correlation (DSMAC) missile guidance system. Block III adds a Global Positioning Satellite guidance capability to TERCOM and DSMAC. Radar detection of the missile is extremely difficult because of the small radar cross-section and low altitude. Tomahawk® has two warhead configurations: a 1,000-lb. blast/fragmentary unitary warhead and a general-purpose submunition dispenser with combined effect bomblets. Because of its long range, lethality, and extreme accuracy Tomahawk® has become the weapon of choice for the U.S. Department of Defense."

http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib...s/wep-toma.html

The warhead is just 1,000 lb! 1,000 lb of TNT sounds like it's a lot but in the grand scheme of things in war, it really isn't. An F-15E can carry around 6 2,000 lb and that isn't enough to level even one city block let alone destroy an entire division of infantry or tanks or whatever. I guess one can assume that the infantry or the tanks or mech. inf are standing right next to each other in nice tight formations over level ground but that is not the case in war. Usually several hundred tons of ammunition is used to even get the enemy just to scatter!

Assigning a cruise missile with an attack of 25 does not accurately model the role the cruise missile is meant to play on the battlefield. But on the other hand, giving the cruise missile the "precision attack" capability does sound like a more appropriate change to make.

	27-09-2002 06:52									#17
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Hey all,

I apologize for having neglected this post, but after I made it life sort of seperated me from the gaming community for awhile. I was curious if any of you who respoded had made any progress with the mods discussed in this thread.

I myself am just getting back into the Civ3 arena, and a few of you may have read my latest musings on the game in my Bio/Chem weapons thread. But still, these mods on conventional units in the modern age are needed.

As far as Navyman is concerned, I agree with you. Cruise missiles are not devestating because of warhead, but because of precision. Finess many times wins agains brute strenght. Unfortunetly there is no wat to "increase" precision in the game. However, iincreasing the bombardment value does make sure that whatever it hits is destroyed, as in real life, so it has the same effect as improving precision.

This thread is very old so I doubt anyone of you will read this, but I hope I can find a way to revitalize it since I missed out on the first discusion of my ideas.

Hope to hear from you

	27-09-2002 08:39									#18
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It's been a long time since your first post - how has the mod played out in gameplay? I spent some time modding a while ago, but didn't have a whole lot of success at stimulating effective AI use of modded units. Yes, the AI would use them, but the human (me) could always use them more effectively. Have your mods made the AI more formidable or less? I came away from my modding experience believing the true test of any mod was to create a more challenging AI opponent, but haven't yet seen a mod do this well (even if it produces a more realistic unit functionality).

Catt

	27-09-2002 09:37									#19
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Like I had said earlier, the real world (aka military) took me away from the world of gaming just after I made this thread, so I've not had much of a chance to play since then. That is basically why I ressurected the thread, so I could see how otheres made out in my absence.

As far as my experiance with the changes goes, they have been varied. A human player can take into account all the stategic advantages of the new units we mod. The AI however, is not actually "intelligent," and will attempt to use these new units in the context of its old stategy instead of adapting like a human. Changes like those made to the cruise missle such as bombardmnet values and range the AI can appreciate and make use of. However, in all the trials I never saw the AI make use of the expanded capability of the missile to be loaded onto naval vessels. This is because normally the computer can't, and in my experiance the computer doesn't learn new tricks, only increases it's grasp on the old ones.

As far as changes in my personal game play I have made since modifying the units there are many. Navies are now much more dynamic. Alowing the Aegis and Submarines to use cruise missiles gives a ranged aspect to naval combat consistant with reality. Also due to the new range of the naval weapons, recon is now very important because the weapons range is further than the line of sight of the unit firing. Unforunatley the AI does not use the new ranged weapons for naval warfare so it is like a modern navy fighting a WWII navy. I also need to explore the effects of giving a cruise missle a tactical flag. The fact is I haven't had a game in the modern era where there was a robust enemy navy to tackle in the modern age.

As far as the changes to the land units, they were mostly in range and strength stats more than functional. It is nice to have powerful marines. In fact marines become an alternative to regular infanty (this was before I raised the production costs to account for increased training). Paratroopers also became survivable, which was the point of the modification. These increases were basic enough for the AI to grasp. It was not hard for them to figure out that their artillery could move faster and fire further.

The combat engineer, well that a wholly new and unique unit. This bieng so, the computer has no idea what to do with it, and in fact I have not even seen an AI build one. There is a problem though. While I had originally decided to allow the unit to build roads, railroads, and fortresses only so that workers would not be replaced by a cheaper population free military unit, this is not quite so. The fact is the only thing an engineer can't do is irrigate and build mines. Well, by the modern age you normally have already irrigated and mined everything you could and all you need your workers to build is roads and railroads. Hence all you need is combat engineers. I will way the pros and cons of this, and see if I can solve it. That is of course, if you all don't solve it for me first.

	27-09-2002 23:01									#20
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I added all of your changes(except the Combat Engineer) into my own mod which already had some dynamic yet realistic changes taken from other mods around the Civ world.

Between your changes and my own, this game has gotten 150% better in the Modern Ages, whenever I reach it that is LOL

	27-09-2002 23:52									#21
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The problem with accurately depicting modern warfare in a game such as Civ 3 is the diversity of modern military forces. Its far easier in the ancient ages when a guy with a big stick was the apex of military technology.
Navyman suggested adding a few units to reflect the incredible diversity of the modern armed forces. IMO they would all make nice additions, especially the more defense-specific units, giving a Civ the ability to counter a stack of MA with something more than a bigger stack of MA.
However, I'd venture to ask, where does it all end? Someone will want to add a 'wild-weasel' unit to attack air defence guns, and so on. There is an almost endless chain of units/counter units/counter counter units that one could add. At some point we have to be happy with what we've got, an amazing civ building game not a modern combat simulation.
As a final comment, I really love the idea of a combat engineer unit. In addition to building roads/rr/forts, IMO a lay minefield/clear minefield ability would add a twist to ground warefare. A minefielded square would damage one or more units moving into it. This could be regardless of who put the minefield down. To avoid rampant mining, a minefielded square would act like pollution to any city nearby (hard to farm in a minefield).

P.s. PTW is going to add a huge depth of stratagy that SP cant ever hope to match. Cant wait to see just how sneaky people will get

	28-09-2002 03:33									#22
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I like the idea of making the combat engineer able to make and clear mine fields. This is very congruent with real life. Also, this would make the combat engineer basically the most diverse unit in the game, with both terraforming, defence, and mine laying abilities. For this I would raise the production cost significantly.

Only problem with the mines is that as far as I know the ones created so far are actually individual units. This means the engineer can not create or "lay" them and would then need an offensive ability to destroy them, which the engineer has almost none off. (the mines I have seen are basically stationary units that have no offence, extreme defense to make sure they destroy whatever runs into them, and are also invisible using the submarine trait. They are "layed" by a truck unit that drops them off). In order to "lay" a unit, the engineer would have to have a transport ability, but then they could transport anything making them an APC sort of unit.

To create the type of mine laying and clearing ability that would be optimal, mines would need to become a terriforming feature. Engineers would in essence "build" mine fields like a road or fortress. The engineer would then be very different from a worker in that it now has a unique terraforming ability. This would mean there couldn't be any other improvement on that tile, but like igloo_boy said, you can't really mine or farm a region coverned in mines effectively (you can argue with that I know, but for simplisity's sake lets just say you can't). Now how you would get a tile improvement to hurt a unit when it goes over it I don't know. Nor do I know how to make a minefield invisible if it is a tile improvement and not a unit. I leave that to public debate