Apolyton Archive  |  Preserved copy of the Apolyton Civilization Site and its forums as they stood in September 2005. Read-only; nothing here can be posted to or replied to.  |  Forum index |  About this archive |  The 1998–2001 UBB forums
Today on Apolyton WARDELL INTERVIEW PROMO A.C.S. HISTORY CHAPTER 4 GET CIV4 /w FREE PLUS! A.C.S. PHOTO GALLERY GET A.O.M. V1.1
Apolyton Civilization Forums
main| civ2| civ3| civ4| smac| ctp2| ron| moo3| galciv| galciv2| alt| about|
ApolytonPLUS | register | search | faq | new posts | pm (-/-) | upload | members
hall of fame new! | civgroups | civgroups news | interviews | the column | radio | chat | directory | news | store | PLUS
Apolyton Civilization Forums : Powered by vBulletin version 2.0.3 Apolyton Civilization Forums > Civilization III > Civ3-Creation > Volunteers for a research team
Show a Printable Version | Email This Page to Someone! | Receive updates to this thread | Report this to Apolyton news!
16.Sep: 7 NEW FILES
15.Sep: TRIAL + NO SLEEP = ONE GAME
13.Sep: PATCH THE PREVIOUSLY UNPATCHABLE

bottom of page
   - CIV3 CONQUESTS $29.99 - CIV3 from $9.99
Author
Thread   
Pages (4): [ 1   2   3   4   ]
< Last Thread     Next Thread > Post New Thread     Post A Reply
Canadian_Patriot is offline Canadian_Patriot
Settler
Toronto, Canada
Aug 1999
time: 05:13
  Old Post 02-05-2002 23:03
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#1 Report this post to a moderator
Volunteers for a research team Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

Hello.

I'm considering putting together a team to try and give each era of the game a closer look, more specifically, the units of the era.

Despite some flaws, I think that this game has a lot of very innovative ideas and concepts that could allow it to be the best of the bunch. Unfortunately, I feel that the selection of units is a little sparse. My own area of greatest knowledge, and also interest, is the modern era. Military matters have always fascinated me, and I've spent a good deal of time studying various units and formations.

What I'm hoping is that I'll get a learned volunteer for each era. Ancient history has never really interested me, but I'm sure some out there study it with a passion equal to my own for the 20th Century and now the early 21st.

If interested and willing to help, please post here or email me at Matt1701_E@hotmail.com, being sure to mention which era you know best. No credentials are required, of course, simply a love for military history and a few useful books at home is all we're going to need.

If all goes well, we might be able to suggest some units that could be added to the various eras, helping to flesh out the game and making it a richer, more enjoyable experience.

Thanks a lot for reading, and I hope we can work together.

Matt

Harlan is offline Harlan
Civ3 Scenario Haven Admin
Berkeley, CA, USA
Aug 2005
time: 21:13
  Old Post 03-05-2002 01:24
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#2 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

I'm willing to throw in my two cents, but my involvement would partly depend on what you're envisioning. Its no good to have units in the game if there's no time to use them before they're obsolete already. I think the game has a good balance now - the problem is the industrial age typically comes hundreds of years too early. Slow the settings so that it comes more in line with real history, and then you have more time for more units.

Even then though, its easy to go overboard on having more units. I would tend to be more conservative and only add units that are absolutely key. One way though to have lots of new units without cluttering things up too much would be give each civ a second unique unit.

You also are limited by what the graphics available are, no?

By the way, my historical interests range mostly from ancient up to start of Renaissance, with an interest in WW2 times as well.

zulu9812 is offline zulu9812
King
of Scotland
Jan 2002
time: 05:13
  Old Post 03-05-2002 02:54
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#3 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Count me in; I know a fair bit (read: a lot) about ancient-age military (chinese, greek, roman). However, I think what the game really needs is a smoother transition from Middle Ages to Modern, particularly the sea and air units. Still, I'd be happy to help - let me know what you need.

Last edited by zulu9812 on 03-05-2002 at 19:44

Colonel Kraken is offline Colonel Kraken
Warlord
Grand Rapids, MI
Nov 2000
time: 00:13
  Old Post 03-05-2002 18:16
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#4 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

I agree with Harlan, and I have geared my own personal mod to that end. I have a great book on the history of warfare which I have used considerably to allow me the understanding of warfare through the ages --where to place military units in history and how strong to have them.

I would love to help, especially Ancient through Middle Ages.

E-mail me at: Work (where I spend most of my time) or at Home.

Lemmy is offline Lemmy
King
Bubblewrap
Dec 2000
time: 06:13
  Old Post 04-05-2002 00:25 Visit Lemmy's homepage!
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#5 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

hmm, if it's ever possible to add future eras, i'm willing to do that one
or you extend the modern era...but that would screw up the advisor screen

Canadian_Patriot is offline Canadian_Patriot
Settler
Toronto, Canada
Aug 1999
time: 05:13
  Old Post 04-05-2002 01:13
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#6 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

Thanks for your replies.

My main concern is the lack of naval units in all eras. I find the concept of your first ship coming with map making fairly silly. I have a hard time envisioning a bunch of ancients standing on a beach, shaking their heads, sighing, and walking away, just because they don't have a map. Any early units, even a raft or a canoe, would speed exploration.

I agree with Harlan that the main area of expansion should be more in the Middle Ages. The modern age is in fairly good shape in terms of ground units, but I feel a few more ships and planes might be in order.

Matt

Harlan is offline Harlan
Civ3 Scenario Haven Admin
Berkeley, CA, USA
Aug 2005
time: 21:13
  Old Post 04-05-2002 03:01
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#7 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

I'm not saying necessarily that Middle Ages is the biggest need (though I could see some must haves there, like Crossbowman and Trebuchet). My point was that if you increase tech costs across the board say 50%, then all ages are gonna come later, and you have room for more units generally. Since everyone seems to finish so many hundreds of years earlier than real history, this is a good thing to do anyways. Of course if you're gonna add more units, you'd probably want to add new techs that go with them in some cases (so maybe some tech increase, plus some new ones).

With ships, the new patch ability to have different movement rates in the different naval terrain types allows lots of neat possibilities. For instance, if you give Sea 2 movement, you could have a very early ship that moves 2 and can only hug the coast. Then a slightly later one that moves 3, and so can move 1 tile into Sea and still come back alive, and so on. Later ships would treat all terrain as roads. Some mod packs are already doing this.

zulu9812 is offline zulu9812
King
of Scotland
Jan 2002
time: 05:13
  Old Post 04-05-2002 03:10
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#8 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

What about giving civs LOTS of unique units which replace the standard ones. That way you get lots of individualistic civs, rather than the somewhat bland ones at the moment. Of course, there need to be graphics to go along with this...lol

ALPHA WOLF 64 is offline ALPHA WOLF 64
Warlord
Illinois USA
Mar 2002
time: 23:13
  Old Post 04-05-2002 14:04 Visit ALPHA WOLF 64's homepage!
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#9 Report this post to a moderator
Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

Harlan,
i think the reason all civ games tend to run too fast is that the games dont force a "dark ages". The amount of technology lost after Rome fell is amazing. I started reading more about Rome and it seems that things the Romans did werent done again for 1000-1300 years later. Imagine where we'd be right now if Rome had had more competent leaders instead of so much corruption.

Bane Star is offline Bane Star
Warlord
Adelaide, Australia
Sep 2000
time: 14:43
  Old Post 05-05-2002 20:34 Visit Bane Star's homepage!
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#10 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

Count Me in, I've researched the Rise of man from Caveman to the Iron ages, including many sub cultures, I love the Middleages and Medi-eval times, but agree that without the scenario of the Darkages and the Gothic Age (not the 1800 gothic age or the goth's of today) its sort of hard to get alot of the timelines following earth correctly/similarly

Maybe with some sort of scenario/event If corruption exisits at a given point at any point in the game, then a dark ages even happens where the palace is destroyed, all cash is lost, all troops in the capital are disbanded and the last 10 inventions are lost.

This would be effective (and pretty harsh ) but would be realistic, and would allow the middle ages to evists as they did on Earth.

Bane Star is offline Bane Star
Warlord
Adelaide, Australia
Sep 2000
time: 14:43
  Old Post 05-05-2002 20:42 Visit Bane Star's homepage!
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#11 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

quote:
Originally posted by Canadian_Patriot
Thanks for your replies.

My main concern is the lack of naval units in all eras. I find the concept of your first ship coming with map making fairly silly. I have a hard time envisioning a bunch of ancients standing on a beach, shaking their heads, sighing, and walking away, just because they don't have a map. Any early units, even a raft or a canoe, would speed exploration.

Matt



I'm pretty sure that the reasoning behind this, Is that while your people may have 'knowledge' of the surrounding area, your player view screen is somewhat of a Map, and therefore you can only start to Map the unknown world (for your eyes) when you have map making, Realistically, you should only ever be able to see what troops are able to see until the invention of map making when the fog of war effect would come into play

Canadian_Patriot is offline Canadian_Patriot
Settler
Toronto, Canada
Aug 1999
time: 05:13
  Old Post 06-05-2002 00:37
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#12 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

^ Interesting thoughts about the map making. That had never crossed my mind.

As for dark ages, I've felt for some time that technology should require some level of research to maintain. If you set your science rate to zero, you should start to LOSE advances, just the way you do if your treasury reaches zero. Bridge building might be a very old concept, but how many of us can build a bridge?

Matt

Harlan is offline Harlan
Civ3 Scenario Haven Admin
Berkeley, CA, USA
Aug 2005
time: 21:13
  Old Post 06-05-2002 02:42
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#13 Report this post to a moderator
Full PM-box? Change here!

I think the idea of losing techs is great, but isn't likely to happen with Firaxis. So the only solution is pretend that tech growth was fairly steady, instead of big classical age surge followed by a loss. Anyways, when it came to military technology, not much was lost, except knowledge of the crossbow and some seige engines in the West.

A long time ago I started planning a general mod for CTP, that would have had some more units. I'll post what my ideas were then here (slightly modified to the Civ3 context), to start discussion on individual units rolling. This ignores unique units, which is a whole different discussion, I think. Ages are broken down in more detail than the Civ3 categories to better show the different waves of upgrades:

Ancient age current (4000 BC to 1000 BC):
Settler
Worker
Scout
Warrior
Spearman
Archer
Chariot

add:
Cargo Ship (defenseless, slow moving ship)

Classical age current (1000 BC to 500 AD):
Horseman
Catapult
Swordsman
Galley (rename to Trireme)

add:
Seige Tower (like Catapult, but more powerful and expensive)
Horse Archer (weak esp. on defense, but faster than Horseman, barbarians would use this alot)
Cataphract (intermediate step between Horseman and Knight)

Medieval age current (500 to 1500):
Explorer (this unit needs to be changed alot to be at all useful)
Pikeman
Longbowman
Knight
Cannon
Caravel

add:
Crossbowman (Archer upgrade, okay at both offense and defense - between Pikeman which is all defense, and Longbowman, which is all offense)
Trebuchet (improved Catapult)
Galley (same move as Trireme, but stronger on offense and defense)

Renaissance age current (1500 - 1800):
Musketman
Cavalry
Galleon
Privateer
Frigate

add:
Dragoons (between Knight and Cavalry)
Artillery (earlier than before)
Field Artillery (weaker than Artillery, but faster moving)
Ship of the Line (late era)

Industrial age current (1800 - 1900):
Rifleman
Cavalry
Howitzer (Artillery renamed)
Ironclad
Infantry (late in the era)

add:
Partisans (nation not showing, but weak)

WW1 age current (1900 - 1930):
Tank
Fighter
Bomber
Battleship
Submarine
Destroyer
Transport

add:
Machine Gunners (intermediate Infantry and Mech Infantry, not really replaced by Mech Infantry, which moves faster and costs more)

WW2 age current (1930 - 1960) current:
Paratrooper
Carrier
Marines
Mech Infantry
Nuke
Jet Fighter

add:
Jet Bomber
Cruiser (stronger Destroyer)
Heavy Tank (intermediate Tank and Modern Armor)

Computer age (1960 - 2000) current:
Helicopter
Radar Artillery (which I'd prefer to call Self Propelled Gun)
Cruise Missile (change to Missile, limited range)
ICBM
Stealth Fighter
Stealth Bomber
Nuclear Sub
AEGIS Cruiser
Modern Armor

add:
Hi-tech Infantry
Attack Helicopter
Cruise Missile (much greater/ unlimited range)

I count 49 standard Civ3 units. This would add 19 more - an increase of 38%. Slow the rate of change down by 50% or more, and there's room for these.

What do people think?

Canadian_Patriot is offline Canadian_Patriot
Settler
Toronto, Canada
Aug 1999
time: 05:13
  Old Post 06-05-2002 06:46
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#14 Report this post to a moderator
Full PM-box? Change here!

Well done, Harlan.

I have a few notes written out on naval warfare, which I'm flipping through now. Below is a possible transition from industrial naval units to modern. Not all are necessary, but this is a logical system.

Battleship -> No modern equivilent
Battle cruiser -> Nuclear powered cruiser
Cruiser -> Missile cruiser
Destroyer -> Missile destroyer
Frigate-> Missile frigate (Perhaps the most dramatic increase)
Corvette-> ASW Escort
U-Boat style sub -> Nuclear powered sub
Carrier - > Super Carrier, Nimitz-Class style, nuclear powered

A lot of ships, obviously, but I feel modern naval combat was abstracted far too much.

Matt

Harlan is offline Harlan
Civ3 Scenario Haven Admin
Berkeley, CA, USA
Aug 2005
time: 21:13
  Old Post 06-05-2002 08:59
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#15 Report this post to a moderator
Inflate your Upload Space

Matt,
Why would someone want to build all those different types of naval units? Meaning, in Civ3 terms, how would a Corvette differ from a Frigate, Destroyer, and so on? Given one only has attack, defense, movement, and a few special abilities to play with, its hard to see why players would want to make all of these different types. Maybe you can explain, cos I don't know much about some of these. What's tougher is that naval warfare and naval stuff isn't so important in Civ3 in the first place. I just played a game to the 1800s without building one ship.

I think you need to cut back, though more upgrades of different types is good.

Canadian_Patriot is offline Canadian_Patriot
Settler
Toronto, Canada
Aug 1999
time: 05:13
  Old Post 06-05-2002 09:59
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#16 Report this post to a moderator
Remove this text

You're quite right, Harlan, I was only naming the major players from the real world. As I said in my previous post, there's no need for that many.

I feel that the Battlecruiser -> Nuclear powered cruiser step is easily cut and not missed. I also feel that the corvette/escorts could easily be merged with the frigates. I do feel that the absence of a cruiser class is unacceptable. Destroyers are light warships, and battleships are enormous platforms for heavy guns. Something is needed to balance that out - the cruiser.

A general rule of thumb is that the bigger the ship, the more capable it is. Here's some quick descriptions.

A corvette or a ASW escort is a small ship, weak and lightly armoured, that can be mass-produced and is good for hunting enemy subs.

A frigate is a light warship, equipped with guns or missiles (Technology permitting), anti-aircraft weapons, torpedoes, and often a helicopter. These ships excel at hunting subs and guarding convoys.

A destroyer is a better warship than a frigate, but still isn't much. Missiles or guns for enemy ships, torpedoes for subs, AA guns for planes and TWO helicopters would be usual armaments. These ships can operate on their own effectively, and also excel at convoy escorts. This would also probably be the weakest unit that could bombard land squares (In real life terms, not game )

The cruiser - a fine vessel. Armed with guns and missiles, torpedoes, and protected by decent armour. Not so good against subs, but great against smaller ships.

The battleship - yee haw! If I could sail on any ship in the world, it would be one of these. Huge floating fortresses, the armour on these babies is often a foot thick or more. The battleship can easily sink any smaller ship and devastate inshore positions. Unfortunately, they're slow and extremely vulnerable to air attack. In today's era of jets and missiles, battleships are obsolete. That is why I don't think they should upgrade to anything. Even though they're obsolete, I'd keep a few kicking about, because nothing can shoot like a BB.

Aircraft carriers are the new queen of the seas. In my personal belief, the reason the United States is a global military power is entirely because of the aircraft carrier. You can drive one of these babies offshore of any nation in the world and bring four full squadrons of jets with you. In the game, early carriers should carry only a few air units, while the nuclear powered ones should be able to carry many more and move faster.

The submarine, obviously, attacks with stealth. The earliest subs were slow and death traps if located. The new ones, mainly nuclear powered, are silent and deadly. Fast attack subs are great on offense and fast. Ballistic missile boats are slower, more expensive, with limited offense, but carry nuclear weapons aboard. That alone makes them a worthwhile buy.

Would it somehow be possible to enable ships, mainly the frigate and destroyers, to carry helicopters but not planes or missiles? If so, that would be...good.

Matt

Rhuarc is offline Rhuarc
Prince
Florida, USA
Mar 2001
time: 00:13
  Old Post 06-05-2002 16:27 Visit Rhuarc's homepage!
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#17 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Is this being done according to what is historically accurate? For the Balancer mod we are looking to go over the tech tree and make sure that things are at least fairly historically accurate and make sure that things match up wtih where they should be, so after you are done with this if it is ok with you perhaps we may use it as a guide for checking our tech tree and balance out.

Rhuarc is offline Rhuarc
Prince
Florida, USA
Mar 2001
time: 00:13
  Old Post 06-05-2002 16:27 Visit Rhuarc's homepage!
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#18 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Oh, also, if anyone here who has some historical knowledge would like to take a look at our tech tree as it now stands and give me some feedback on what is out of place historically please let me know!!

ALPHA WOLF 64 is offline ALPHA WOLF 64
Warlord
Illinois USA
Mar 2002
time: 23:13
  Old Post 06-05-2002 21:25 Visit ALPHA WOLF 64's homepage!
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#19 Report this post to a moderator
Remove this text

For my personal mod, I added Pre-Dreadnaughts, Dreadnaughts, and AEGIS Battleships. I left out cruisers because I wasnt sure what gap they would fill gamewise. Same thinking for attack subs besides the boomer. I'm thinking of adding a light WW2 carrier class with the current carrier moving . I'd like to get an amphibious assault carrier but I dont think game rules will let it work as intended. I've also wondered if ironclads had the historical significance that they get in the game.

For air, I simply added a bi-plane that could do recon only. I cant see the AI using attack helocopters correctly, so I left them out. They'd either get built instead of airplanes or instead of foot soldiers. Either way is bad IMO.

I think the first gunpowder unit should be a bombard cannon, then the musketman, then the field cannon. Because of the lack of game rules, I see no reason to seperate artillery from howitzers. I've been debating whether to add some city artillery which are cheap and cant be moved. (would be great if I could make this unit only buildable if a specific city defensive improvemnt was made, like a deboubt). I renamed radar artillery to rocket artillery. I miss self-propelled guns, but again dont see a niche for it to fill in the game. For armor, I modded 4 classes: WWI, WW2, 70s, modern. I also added a late age rangers unit that combines the marines and paratropers.

Canadian_Patriot is offline Canadian_Patriot
Settler
Toronto, Canada
Aug 1999
time: 05:13
  Old Post 07-05-2002 23:01
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#20 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton

I've been looking at some of the available graphics that could be used, and I've noticed that a lot of them are specific to a certain country. While those are great for scenarios, I don't like that as much. Any nation can build a tank, so I personally feel that the tank unit should be a general tank, not a nation specific one. What does everyone else think?

Matt

ALPHA WOLF 64 is offline ALPHA WOLF 64
Warlord
Illinois USA
Mar 2002
time: 23:13
  Old Post 08-05-2002 00:06 Visit ALPHA WOLF 64's homepage!
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#21 Report this post to a moderator
Suffering from ads?

I totally agree CP. All units should be generic so that they are more versatile. There a nice japanese infantry i'd like to use but i understand it has no color spot so is restricted to the japanese.

zulu9812 is offline zulu9812
King
of Scotland
Jan 2002
time: 05:13
  Old Post 08-05-2002 01:02
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#22 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

Using tanks as an example, i think it'd be cool if every civ had different tank graphics, but with the same stats.

Harlan is offline Harlan
Civ3 Scenario Haven Admin
Berkeley, CA, USA
Aug 2005
time: 21:13
  Old Post 08-05-2002 01:37
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#23 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

I think beggars can't be choosers. If you only have one Dragoons graphic and its a UU, better use that than recycle an already used graphic for the second time (I mention this example cos I haven't seen a Dragoons graphic yet, but there is a German Reiter that looks kind of close). But hopefully, as time goes on and there are more unit graphics out there, this will be less of a problem. Lack of color spots could be a problem though - I would think even UUs would need color spots however. Are there a lot without any color spots? What are the current graphics that would be possibly useable for our purposes?

I think zulu's suggestion is a bit extreme (how are you going to have a Zulu or Iroquois tank for starters), but having some "flavor" graphics would be nice. For instance, someone's made a Junk ship, and an Eastern Pikeman. Both would be nice for Far Eastern civs to use just for the look - stats should be the same.

AlphaWolf,
Where are all these unit graphics you're using? I haven't seen a finished Biplane, for instance. Can you elaborate on your howitzer point? And why not an SPG (which would be faster and more expensive, but not as powerful as slower moving artillery, plus more defense)? Why couldn't the AI use attack helicopters?

Dreadnaughts just don't seem worth it to me because their time in history is so short. That may even be okay for a quickly built unit, but with a big expensive unit like that, by the time you're done you need the Battleship already. On the other end, they would give Ironclads a very short time. I could see them being included though, if you make them complimentary to Ironclads instead of replacing them (make Ironclads cheaper, but coastal only).

Rhuarc,
I checked out the thread you speak of, and I didn't see any debate about techs going on. If you post the tech tree graphics somewhere I think that would help inspire comment. I'm still looking for a great tech tree to use.

ALPHA WOLF 64 is offline ALPHA WOLF 64
Warlord
Illinois USA
Mar 2002
time: 23:13
  Old Post 08-05-2002 03:14 Visit ALPHA WOLF 64's homepage!
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#24 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote:
Originally posted by Harlan
AlphaWolf,
Where are all these unit graphics you're using? I haven't seen a finished Biplane, for instance. Can you elaborate on your howitzer point? And why not an SPG (which would be faster and more expensive, but not as powerful as slower moving artillery, plus more defense)? Why couldn't the AI use attack helicopters?

Dreadnaughts just don't seem worth it to me because their time in history is so short. That may even be okay for a quickly built unit, but with a big expensive unit like that, by the time you're done you need the Battleship already. On the other end, they would give Ironclads a very short time. I could see them being included though, if you make them complimentary to Ironclads instead of replacing them (make Ironclads cheaper, but coastal only).


I don't have any new graphics and haven't found any to use Therefore, I just reuse existing game graphics, so my bi-plane has only one wing Also, all my battleship-types look the same, until I can find some non-civ specific units.

I seem to remember that in one of the civ-type games that howitzers negated walls. I don't see that function in civ3. I could see making artillery range 2 and howitzer range 1, but would the AI be able to distinguish them or just always build the cheaper? I tend to avoid units that I don't think the AI will use unless there's already an equivalent unit (paratrooper -> ranger). Altho I agree that it would be nice to include them. Same argument against SPG, altho if you make them available with tanks, I can see their definite use I agree that pre-dreadnaughts are compliments for ironclads (coal), dreadnaughts are at combustion. (I forgot to mention that I'm totally redoing the tech tree, same number of techs tho) One problem I have with ironclads is that they dont sink in the ocean. It seems that after the ocean trading tech is discovered, all ships can sail anywhere. I especially noticed this with sea trading. I recently found the E(xplore) command. As soon as the sea trading tech is found, the automated ships started exploring and ending in sea tiles without sinking long before the lighthouse was built. Same with ironclads that can go anywhere. I may be mistaken, but I understood the age of ironclads to end in the early 1870s, whereas the pre-dreadnaughts and dreanaughts lasted 1870ish-1941. As far as the Apaches, another unit I'd love to see but havent figured out how the AI will use it. Apaches are air units but without airbases they wont have the range to be useful as forward combat units. You could make them a land unit but i'm afraid the ai might only build those instead of the appropriate land unit (M armor/ offensive, m inf/defensive, r art/artillery) much as it currently builds tons of paratroopers.

Harlan is offline Harlan
Civ3 Scenario Haven Admin
Berkeley, CA, USA
Aug 2005
time: 21:13
  Old Post 08-05-2002 03:58
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#25 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Alpha Wolf,

There are a lot more unit graphics available over at civfanatics. A biplane was just posted there today, in fact.

I'm not thinking about "ignore city walls", now that artillery can use the bombard function. What I am thinking is having two series of artillery - the slower and stronger kind, and the faster and weaker kind. So there's a trade off. If the AI can learn to build both offensive ground and cavalry, then why not two types of artillery? Howitzer is one name floating around for a faster artillery piece. SPG would be part of this same two series logic (though by then pretty much all artillery is fast, no?).

You're right about the Dreadnaught era, however, the Ironclad era started only around 1850, and oil instead of coal battleships started around 1905 I think. That's too bad about Ironclad ocean movement.

Let's hope the limit on max air movement is removed in the next patch. I hate limits like that, esp. one so low.

I would be very interested to see your thoughts on tech tree reworking - what's changed and why. I'm going to rework it too, though I see the need for some additional ones (as opposed to keeping the number the same), esp if 30 or 40% new units are added.

Are we/ should we combine efforts, or are you, me and Matt making separate mods?

Harlan is offline Harlan
Civ3 Scenario Haven Admin
Berkeley, CA, USA
Aug 2005
time: 21:13
  Old Post 08-05-2002 04:33
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#26 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

Here, by the way, are my still nebulous thoughts on a mod pack I might or might not be making. Basically I want to play Civ3 in a certain way, and if I can't find the mod pack that suits my needs I'll have to make one myself, though I'd much rather find one already done, or split the work.

I want to greatly slow down time instead of always being industrialized by 1000 AD, and add more units as I outlined in an earlier post, but only assuming decent graphics can be found for the extra units (I don't want two units with the same graphic).

Add two new strategic resources: Copper (for all kinds of random things through the ages) and Timber (mostly for ships). Add a bunch of Bonus resources too.

Add maybe about 10 new wonders, including small wonders. Also make more prerequisites for building all wonders, new and old. I don't like the way wonder building happens now, which is that as soon as the prerequisite is researched, all the civs race to build the wonder, and one wins and oftentimes others lose all their shields cos there's nothing to switch to. It would be better if you first must be a certain government, resource, or have to build X number of a certain building etc... So the wonders will be more evenly spread around instead of mostly going to the tech leader, and less wonder races. As it is, I think its actually not worth the risk to build a wonder (except for a few of them that are just so good), if you factor in all the lost shields for when you don't come in first.

This may also encourage the AI to build more buildings, which it doesn't seem to do enough of. If for instance, you need to have a bunch of universities before you can build most science wonders, there will be less things in the build queue until the civ builds enough.

Add two new governments: Theocracy and Dictatorship or Fascism. Probably take the settings from other mods that have playtested these concepts. The new gvmts will help assure that not all civs are on the same gvmt at the same time, and thus partly foiling my wonders plan.

I don't really much need for new buildings, though I might add a couple if need arises, esp. government specific ones to differentiate the governments more.

Add a bare minimum - maybe 5 to 10 - new techs to support the above changes.

Lots of other tweaks to the game numbers here and there, but generally avoid change unless there's a good reason. Along the lines of player1's mod, or the Real Deal mod.

That's my vision. In preparation for doing this, I've been making some new resource graphics (see another new thread in this forum) and new wonder graphics. What are other people's visions?

Bane Star is offline Bane Star
Warlord
Adelaide, Australia
Sep 2000
time: 14:43
  Old Post 08-05-2002 04:33 Visit Bane Star's homepage!
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#27 Report this post to a moderator
A few notes Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

I think that For the usage of More Naval Units, there needs to be some sort of (Hmmmm whats it called ) Zone of Control, whereby ships cannot cross an invisible line without initiating combat with other naval units, Effectively a few ships strategically placed block opponents from even making it to your shores, without needing a ship every sqaure, but once every 2 squares in the early years and once every 5-8 squares in later years (for Dreadnaughts and the like) patrolling the oceans from would be invaders, Similar to the Civ2 Zone of Control, but extending a few sqaures as techs improve. This would make the need for upgrading sea units worthwhile, and those pesky sub units worth improving too, since they could effectively sneak past at a given range.
I'm sure that all the coding requirements would be is to allow the zone of control as it stands more powerful per upgraded tech, and somehow (gramphos?) to increase the zone of control range.


Oh and Elucidus, I went to your site to see the Tech tree and give you my input but I cannot find the tree itself.


On a different note, I'm working on a Fantasy Mod, myself, but many of my Human Medieval units would probably be worthwhile for yours, since my brothers making them in 3d studios max. In the works are spearman, phalanx, pikeman, halberdiers, warriors-bronze,legions-iron, soldiers-steel, bowmen, archers, longbowmen, crossbowmen, horsemen then mounted varieties of the soldier varieties, alot of the siege weapons, I'm also adding 6 varities of "walls" for cities, each with an increased % defence bonus and hopefully If I can code it properly a different city screen picture for each. Too much to list here, I'll start a new thread I think

ALPHA WOLF 64 is offline ALPHA WOLF 64
Warlord
Illinois USA
Mar 2002
time: 23:13
  Old Post 08-05-2002 04:35 Visit ALPHA WOLF 64's homepage!
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#28 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Harlan,
I dont think we are too far apart from our ideas so I wouldnt mind combining forces. My issue is real life. Right now work is slow so I've had some time to think about this, but that could easy change in a few days, or maybe not for months, so I'm not guarenteed if I could keep up with you guys.

I see your point about the artillery/howitzer. i havent played to far into industrial yet under 1.21 as I've been tweaking the first 2 eras ( i cant believe they took away change in mid game capabilities) so I didnt realize that the AI was building more diverse units. The reason I've was thnking about the wall issue is that I'm trying to figure out how to make fortified units within cities not so vulnerable to bombardment. It seems that alot of players just pound the AI to death with artillery stacks. I'd like to frustrate that tactic somewhat.

I think your naval years are a little off IMHO. The ironclads were mid civil war (at least thats my understanding). And I thought I remember a tv show that said oil burning ships were in the late 1880s or 1890s.

I totally agree about air ranges. what were they thinking???

I thought there was a bug when the number of techs increased, thats why I've been struggling keeping my tech tree to the existing number of techs. Here's my philosophy on the techs. Make specific paths to go down with crossovers only when they make sense. Things I've hated: riflemen with nationism, frigates w/o metallurgy, elephants with chivalry, etc. I prefer trees that lead logically to each building, wonder and/or unit. In some cases, I simply renamed techs, in other cases, gave them different prereqs.

Some other things I like to do. With 0-99 available for a/d, why is 24 the highest number used? i've started by doubling the values with a +/- 1 tweak here and there to differentiate some units. (may triple this some day). Also, increased water movement. I'd like to increase land movements slightly but first need culture expansion to get faster so that a civ cant be blitzed out of the game in one turn. At least make the attacker halt one turn inside the civ territory near the most influential cities. Culture can expand out 6 tiles but I dont think i've ever seen any over 4. One of the rules I try for is that since Rome existed in real life, I want it to be possible for it to exist in the game during that era.

We'll have to find an easy way for me to send you my alphamod.bic file.

Canadian_Patriot is offline Canadian_Patriot
Settler
Toronto, Canada
Aug 1999
time: 05:13
  Old Post 08-05-2002 04:36
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#29 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

I think we should combine our efforts. That way, every era gets looked at by someone who knows it well.

Harlan is offline Harlan
Civ3 Scenario Haven Admin
Berkeley, CA, USA
Aug 2005
time: 21:13
  Old Post 08-05-2002 05:14
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#30 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Bane Star,
That's cool that you're making a new modpack with so many new graphics. I hope though your brother focuses first on making unit graphics for units not already in the game. Why even make duplicates of ones that already exist? Also, over at civfanatics, some people are working on some really good graphics relating to the Alexander the Great era so you might want to check for such stuff to avoid duplication of effort.

Alpha Wolf,
I see your point about artillery stacks. One related nice thing to do is make each bombard unit more powerful, but also more expensive, so you don't have such a big stack. You don't want to make the artillery stack strategy undoable though. I'd also like to see more done with Walls. I hardly ever build them, and it seems the AI doesn't either.

I think boosting up the city size limits would help, and help make it more likely to have an ancient Rome sized city. I'm also in favor of making each citizen eat 3 food instead of 2, and tweaking other food related numbers so that a) you pretty much need to irrigate grassland and plains (maybe even ban mining grassland), b) irrigation is useful in a Despotism, and c) most cities naturally reach population limits prior to Railroad before reaching city size ceilings. Some mods have already led the way with these changes.

Kind of radical idea off the top of my head: boost level you need Aquaduct for to something really high, like 14, and then what you need Hospital for to something like 18. But give Aquaduct some other really useful features to make it a must build building. Have terrain type and unhapiness usually stop city growth long before those numbers are reached, for all but the best spots. The main reason I throw that out there is cos then Walls would actually be useful (but would the AI realize this?).

Wasn't there an Ironclad or two in Europe before the Civil War ones? And I was thinking specifically of oil powered battleship sized ships. I think that wasn't until post 1900, though I could be wrong.

I don't think there's any tech bug - look at the Double Your Pleasure mod for example. I like what tech ideas you have here - please send me your files at harlant@earthlink.net.

I would actually be wary of boosting the numbers as you plan to do. Why? I think the AI may not understand slight differences in numbers. You have one unit with 26 attack and another with 24, it might just build the 26 all the time. We should ask Firaxis about how the AI decides which units to build. Perhaps experiment with boosting hitpoints from era to era, as the latest patch allows I understand. Perhaps the AI doesn't take hitpoints into account when deciding what to build, in which case we might be able to "trick" the AI into building units it otherwise wouldn't. Firaxis needs to tell us these things!

 
Pages (4): [ 1   2   3   4   ]
< Last Thread     Next Thread > Post New Thread     Post A Reply
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:13.
Apolyton Time is 00:13.
    top of page
Rate This Thread:
Forum Jump:
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
 




Contact Us - Apolyton Civilization Site - Support Us!

Building a better Apolyton through better information. Click here and take our poll!
Non-US visitors, click here!

Powered by: vBulletin Version 2.0.3
Copyright ©2000, 2001, Jelsoft Enterprises Limited.

Page generated in 0.0794 seconds (93.15% PHP - 6.85% MySQL) with 30 queries
Page Loading Time:

Support Apolyton: Amazon USA | Amazon UK | Amazon DE | Amazon FR |
Support Apolyton and get FREE PLUS, Buy from Chips&Bits: Galactic Civilizations | Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition | Call to Power 2 | Civilization: The Boardgame | GURPS/ Alpha Centauri | Alpha Centauri | Civilization IV | Civilization III: Complete |


Front Page | Civilization IV | Civilization III | Civilization II | Call to Power II | Alpha Centauri | Master of Orion III
Rise of Nations | Galactic Civilizations | Galactic Civilizations II | Misc
Alt.Civs | Civ I | C:CtP I | About | News | Directory | Apolyton Store | Forums | Chat | Columns | Interviews | Newsletter
Scenario League | CSC | Clash of Civs | Spanish Site | CtP Maps | Cradle of Civ | WesW's Ctp1/2 Site | Civ3 Haven

apolyton.net | apolyton.com | civilization2.net | civilization3.net | civilization4.net | civilizationiv.info | calltopower.net | galciv.net | galciv2.net | moo3.net