18-05-2001 09:44									#1
	Balancing the military units and options Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

As in any game, balancing the units is key. Civ2 had many imbalances which really took away from gameplay.

1. Infinite movement on RR - Allowed Human Player to defend and attack way too easily. Negated terrain effects. Of course because of trade/production bonuses and ICS, all continents were sprawling with these RRs!

2. Spies - Far too powerful. Have played many "Infinite Spies Strategy" games to realize that!

3. Howitzers - Using 2 MPs and Infinite Speed RRs, one could simply attack with massive numbers of howitzers before the enemy has a chance to counterattack as a full strength howitzer could usually kill 2 units each.

4. Bombers - By themselves they are okay but the imbalance comes from the fact that by hanging a bomber in midair over a land unit, that land unit becomes immune from any land attacks which is stupid.

5. Really poor combat model - self-explanatory

6. Bribing of cities - What an absolutely stupid concept! In real history when has a city of significant size ever been bribed? Probably far less times than can be done in Civ!

7. Airports - Makes transporting of units too easy and too risk free. Pretty much negates naval warfare and the infinite speed and range of air transport is pretty out of sync with movement rates of other units.

8. City Support Model - Take over city, all units are destroyed

Well, these are all the things I can think of for now. I know, however, that there are many many more of these.

Some of these may already be fixed. For example, the kill one in stack kill all is already fixed now that stacked armies attack has been implemented. Also I have been told that support is now using money on a national basis.

Nevertheless, many imbalances probably remain!

It is vitally important that Civ3 achieves a far better balance of military units and options than we have seen in Civ1/Civ2!
[This message has been edited by polymths (edited May 18, 2001).]